Who’sAtCooBric: Jesse Engle and Swatchbox

Jesse Engle is a partner at Swatchbox. He recently launched DesignMyRoom.com. It helps people visualize home improvement and decoration projects.

What are some themes in your life?
Aside from having three boys, the kids’ sports, Cub Scouts, being married, and a normal life in what’s kind of rural America, I’m pretty much all-consumed by the business at the moment.

I like learning new things and innovating. I like creative challenges, both business and design. The Web is a perfect playground for me.

What’s a business- and design-creative challenge?
Swatchbox works with Armstrong, DuPont, Alcoa, Benjamin Moore and other building products and manufacturers. We built the product kiosk at Lowe’s, and we work with media companies like Hearst, Time Warner and HGTV. So we’ve been in the business of licensing technology and building tools for other companies.

I came on because I saw the opportunity to aggregate products from lots of those different companies into consumer websites that Swatchbox runs. So we’re going from a technology company to a media company.

And you’re leading that change?
Yes. The challenge was, how to fund the new business. The first new site we’ve been focused on is DesignMyRoom.com. Armstrong, a major building products manufacturer, approached me about wanting to continue to work together in the area of visualization. So we worked out a partnership where they would be a founding sponsor. Then I went on a road show.

We had the vision for what we needed to do. We needed a way to fund the site. We could fund it in part with our earnings from our core business, but that wasn’t enough. You run the gamut: do you try to get angel money, VC money, or do you bootstrap? We figured we’d try to bootstrap if we could, using “customer funding,” meaning we’d get companies to pay to sponsor the site.

The challenge was that all we had was a vision and a PowerPoint presentation. Swatchbox had credibility in visual design tools, and I had credibility from being head of the global e-marketing group at Armstrong, and understanding the challenges those folks face, but still – it was a PowerPoint demo! You know, there was a lot of interest but it wasn’t clear if we’d get enough sponsors to make it happen.

What was the turning point for your success?
Some of these people we knew we had relationships with, and some we didn’t know, so it was a matter of striking up the initial conversation, in most cases going up and having face to face meetings with them and other people at their company, and following up.

Then there was one company I flew out and met with, they liked the concept so much, they called me while I was at the airport, but I had to tell them no! because I had another sponsor for their category.

It was pretty exciting, you know? It was very validating. It’s incredibly fun when you have a vision that people start to get on board with, and not only do they think it’s a good idea but they’re willing to put their money and their reputation behind it.

There was a turning point in early December where it became clear that we were going to get the first couple sponsors, and that would be leverage to get the next couple sponsors. We sold four other founding sponsors: Benjamin Moore, Kohler, Whirlpool, and Smith & Noble.

Those founding sponsors agreed to provide funding in the form of sponsorship dollars, and agreed to link to those sponsored websites through their main websites. It was both our funding strategy and our traffic strategy.

Did you ever need to design a room yourself?
My wife and I both grew up in Hershey, PA. In the late 90’s, during the dot-com boom, I was traveling a lot. We moved our home base to Hershey where we had extended family.

Three years ago, we did a thousand square-foot addition on our home. There were a ton of decisions about design and the materials. There’s one room in particular where we have a kitchen opening up to a family room.

You had to get samples from different shops of different products. At one point we had:

• a 50-pound piece of granite countertop,
• a full cabinet door,
• ceramic tile for the kitchen floor,
• a little piece of carpet for the family room,
• and then paint chips for the walls!

You’re trying to coordinate these things all together, borrowed from retailers, for a week or a couple weeks at a time. There was no easy way to get feedback from friends and family. It was really stressful because they’re very, very expensive decisions. It turned out really well but it was a very stressful process.

What will the design process be like now with DesignMyRoom?
Now, you can explore lots of different design ideas very quickly and easily. You can combine products from lots of different sources and see things in context. Plus, you can easily get feedback from others—family and friends, and even complete strangers in the DesignMyRoom community.

DesignMyRoom not only lets me share my ideas, but other people can come in and create their own design for my rooms, like a virtual “Trading Spaces.”

Now it’s easy and it’s fun.

Tell me about what people are doing with DesignMyRoom.com.
Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz created a room where he took pedestal sinks and made them so large that he turned them into columns in the room. So he’s basically using the site and the products to create an overall mood.

Copyright 2007 DesignMyRoom.com

Some people are going to use the site to help them with the real challenges in decorating their homes. Other people will use the site for play, and creative expression.

We just launched. Already people are calling the site addicting, doing some amazing things with the tool and finding it useful.

You gave a great presentation at the NY Tech MeetUp. Then you were at the cooBric Grand Opening party – how was that?
It was great. People really like the site. Technologists like what we’ve done with the Flash-based Design Board, and business-minded people like the business model. It’s fun, because it’s a site that anyone with a home can relate to.

The first time you walked into cooperBricolage, what was it like for you?
It’s a restaurant. I’ve been to other coworking spaces, like Tara and Chris Messina’s space in San Francisco. cooperBricolage felt a little restauranty at first, but that quickly became okay.

The fact that it’s in a restaurant has some advantages. There’s atmosphere, food, and it’s conducive to having conversations, but if you need to get work done, you can get work done. Plus, the people that run the restaurant, like Rachel and Damaris, are great.

Moving forward, how would you like to see cooBric develop?
For me, it’s pretty much okay as it is right now. I live in Pennsylvania, so I’m here two or three times a month.

It’s really nice to have a space here to call home.