A fast-growing residential architecture disrupter has appointed a COO as it pursues ambitious expansion plans.
London-based Resi, formerly BuildPath, is the brainchild of serial entrepreneurs Alex Depledge MBE and Jules Coleman MBE and helps homeowners complete building projects faster and at lower cost.
In 2015 the duo sold previous tech business Hassle, a cleaner booking service, in a multi-million-pound deal.
鈥淎fter selling Hassle we decided we were never ever going to do it again,鈥� she told 老九品茶Cloud.
鈥淲e were doing two days a week as 鈥榚ntrepreneurs in residence鈥� at Index Ventures, looking at deal flow. There we were getting exposure to new ideas.鈥�
CEO Depledge says her 鈥渓ightbulb moment鈥� came when she was looking to build an extension while Coleman, Resi鈥檚 CTO, was looking to renovate a house she had bought.
鈥淥ne day a company came in from the Nordics and they had this 3D software which took 2D floor plans and popped them into renders. I was sitting there thinking ‘why didn鈥檛 my architect use that kind of functionality to help me doing this 拢50k extension on my home?鈥�
鈥淏efore we knew it, we were working on a business鈥� it wasn鈥檛 a conscious decision.鈥�
By harnessing the power of technology, Resi claims to make the concept and design process of extending or improving a home ten times faster and cheaper than using a traditional architecture practice.
The firm scours government datasets to assess automatically whether a new building design is viable and how much it would cost. It can then provide designs for development options to the customer within 72 hours, while they can manage the whole process online.
Architects Rich Morgan and Nicholas Stockley were brought on board and also have a stake in the business, which Depledge says 鈥渉overs around the break-even mark鈥� and brought in around a million pounds in revenue last year. Yesterday it聽passed the 1,000 customer threshold.
Currently employing 46 staff, the aim is to double the headcount聽this year while Depledge and Coleman have now added a third member to their management team for the first time.
鈥淵ou can pretty much split the company in half: Jules takes anything that’s quite detailed and logical 鈥� such as tech, products and finance 鈥� and I tend to take the people side of stuff such as marketing and sales, operations and financing,鈥� said Depledge.
鈥淚n three weeks鈥� time we’ve got a COO coming on board who is going to take all the operational stuff off us. Now we’re close to 50 people we needed to bring in some more managerial head cover.鈥�
The new arrival is James Wells, a consultant at tech firms including Bulb and HelloSelf.
鈥淲e went through a rigorous process and settled on James 鈥� we think he’s got the right mixture of strategy and ops experience,鈥� said Depledge.
鈥淲e’re excited to have him started. It’s going to be weird to bring in a third leg to the duo, but we’re hoping it’s going to work!
鈥淗e’s got the same outlook on the way you treat people. The business is only as good as the employees and they need to be happy and content.
鈥淲e needed someone who was going to come in and really take care of the people who work with us and nurture and train them as well as have a strategic vision and hit the targets.鈥�
?? We’ve just hit 1000 customers! ??
From the time we opened our doors in 2016, we’ve helped over a thousand people nationwide transform their homes into a happy space. Here’s to a thousand more happy spaces and faces!
鈥� Resi (@resi_uk)
Bradford-born Depledge and Dubliner Coleman have referred to Hassle as their 鈥渂aby鈥�. However they are a little older and wiser when it comes to building up Resi.
鈥淲e don’t see this company as a child. We grew up a lot with Hassle,鈥� explained Depledge. 鈥淭he first one is always a bit like your first love… this is a lot less emotional.
鈥淲e care a lot about it, but we don鈥檛 have same maternal feeling towards it.鈥�
Hassle opened up markets in France and Ireland before it was sold to Europe-wide company Helpling for 拢27.5m. However following the EU referendum result in 2016, a conscious decision was made to keep Resi focused purely on the UK market.
鈥淲e were incredibly lucky. If we hadn鈥檛 sold in 2015, we would’ve been snookered when it came to Brexit. With Resi we’ve built a business that is Brexit-proof. We did that deliberately,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 waiting to see if we ever dig ourselves out of this mess.
鈥淥ur sector of the residential market is worth 拢23 billion a year so we can build a big business in the UK alone. All you get when you internationalise are headaches anyway.
鈥淲e want to exit at some point. Who that is to and how we do it, I don鈥檛 know… it could be a float, it could be a sale. We’re building with an end in mind, but we’re not fixed on what that end is.
鈥淚’m not trying to build a billion-dollar company. We’re just enjoying the ride. You can build a company which on paper is worth a billion dollars, but you’ve got to exit that! Doing that in reality is really hard and brings a great amount of pressure.鈥�
However Depledge plans for Resi to 鈥渋nhabit the whole residential space in the UK鈥� and has already moved into the newbuild market.
鈥淗opefully along the way we’re going to find ways that we can help impact the housing crisis because we believe that everyone deserves not just a house, but a home 鈥� a space in which they’re happy,鈥� she added.
鈥淭hat’s certainly not the case in this country at the moment. There’s an idea of working to a higher purpose: if we can automate things and take out costs, can we start applying some of that thinking and learning into building houses? That’s what gets me out of bed in a morning, apart from business.
鈥淚n every profession they’ve introduced barriers to entry, whether it’s a regulatory body or just the language that they use; they make it inaccessible for the average person, forcing them to pay for services.
鈥淭echnology is tearing down some of those barriers.鈥�