ClearVault was born from experience—the good, the bad, and the nearly catastrophic.

Before ClearVault, I built a successful Southern California construction company. We earned million-dollar contracts, delivered beautiful projects, were voted Best Contractor in Newport Beach, and received the BBB Torch Award for Ethics. By every measure, we were thriving. Then one project changed everything. A dispute spiraled out of control, the owners refused to pay for completed work, and they litigated my company into collapse. Despite years of integrity and craftsmanship, my company imploded under circumstances I couldn’t control. For the first time, I struggled to put food on the table for my young daughter, carrying the same fear, stress, and shame that thousands of contractors and homeowners quietly endure every day.

That hardship revealed a painful truth: construction companies often don’t fall apart because people are bad, or because they don’t know how to run a business—they can fall apart because the process is broken. Contracts are unclear, payments are unsecured, inspections are inconsistent, and both homeowners and contractors lack the protections they need. When the system breaks, everyone loses.

My failure became an opportunity.

ClearVault is the platform I wished had existed during that darkest chapter. It was built with a single mission: to fix the systemic flaws in construction that lead to conflict, confusion, and litigation. The goal was to create a process where trust is built into every step—where funds are protected through escrow, work is independently verified, and contracts and changes are tracked with total clarity. ClearVault exists to replace uncertainty with transparency, risk with protection, and frustration with confidence. It isn’t just a product born from failure; it’s a commitment to ensuring construction supports the people who make it possible, not the problems that tear projects apart.

Sincerely,

Zach Stangle