Some outside help

When a customer asks Randy Long for help repainting a house or sprucing up an entrance-way, the owner of tech startup Welcome Home Unique Exterior Design gets pumped up like a teenager set to test-drive a sports car.

Long, who’s 57, started the Liberty Lake design firm earlier this year with the help of his wife, Anne. After leaving Intec, a tech advocacy group, in 2002, Long looked around and decided to start his own company.

A longtime gardener and woodworker, Long considered opening a gardening center. Then he realized the work would be seasonal “and probably not very challenging,” he said.

He spotted a niche in using software tools to help owners modify or redesign their home exteriors.

Long spent several months in 2002 remodeling the exterior of his Liberty Lake home. Afterward, visitors told him they wanted to know which professional designers he’d hired for the project, he said.

“I realized most people have a hard time visualizing how to change or make changes to their homes,” Long said. “I help with that visualizing, using the design of the house and then helping it look new and unique.”

Welcome Home uses home-and-garden software to give customers fast, colorful previews of how their home will look with different options for fixtures, siding, color patterns or entry design.

It’s all done using digital images; after inputting images of a home’s outside features, Long starts moving things around, adjusting fixtures, adding exterior details, changing roof lines, doors and windows, modifying wall colors and revising the landscape.

The software lays out 3D before-and-after views of a building’s exterior.

The design, however, is just half of what the company offers. Long has arrangements with 10 area contractors who’ll install doors, repair roofing, do the remodeling or tackle the landscaping.

“For $7,000 to $10,000, people can dramatically change the way their homes look and improve the value of their property,” Long said.

“But we’ll always adjust to the customer’s budget,” he said. If customers want to take on some of the work themselves, Long charges only for what he contributes, or he’ll split the project into several parts and spread the cost over a few years.

He’s the sole proprietor, software specialist and project scheduler. And he goes out to each customer’s home during the project to ensure the work is done right, he says.

His first projects have been fairly simple redesigns.

Long is projecting first-year revenue of about $60,000. If business grows, he’ll add a business manager later this year, he said.

“We started this all on our own and didn’t need to incur any debt,” he said.

Once Long conceived the idea for the company, he sought help from SIRTI to develop a business plan.

Before renting space in the Meadowwood business incubator building in Liberty Lake, Long also asked Gonzaga University’s Hogan Entrepreneurial Program for help.

The Hogan Program provides companies with student interns who can help start-ups develop business tactics or improve their practices.

Long lucked out when fourth-year engineering student Tyler Jantzen volunteered to work with Welcome Home for several months.

A civil engineering student, Jantzen had experience working with computer-aided design software. He was able to find a reliable, off-the-shelf software package that fit Long’s needs.

“Randy’s a perfect person to help others,” Jantzen said. “He’s very good at listening and has a knack for figuring out what you want. Even when you’re not sure what you want.”

Long’s business focuses on exterior projects. But he wouldn’t turn down requests from customers wanting help redoing home interiors, he said.

“If they want me to find them lights, fixtures or paint, I’d be a fool to not do that.”