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The cofounder of Casper wants to make home renovations less hellish

Block Renovation won’t just redo your bathroom for you. The new startup will finish it in three weeks, for 25% less than you’d pay a regular contractor.

The cofounder of Casper wants to make home renovations less hellish

BY Elizabeth Segran6 minute read

There is a special circle of hell devoted to home renovation projects. It always seems like such a good idea at first. You flip through Dwell or Architectural Digest and think to yourself, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a trendy, marble-covered bathroom like the one in this photo?”

Then, the nightmare begins: You search for contractors, but they each quote wildly different rates. You go to Home Depot to search for tiles and sink fixtures, but the ones you want are out of stock. The job is supposed to take a month, but it ends up taking three. Random strangers keep showing up at your house to do electrical and plumbing work. The stress of everything sends you and your partner to couples’ counseling. When it’s all said and done, you’ve gone over budget by $5,000. But at this point, you don’t care. You’re just grateful you don’t have to shower in an unfinished construction site.

Before and after. [Photo: Block Renovation]
Block Renovation is here to simplify the process. The startup, which launches today, allows customers to pick a bathroom out of a catalog of options designed by interior designers, receive an instant quote, and have that exact bathroom installed within three weeks. The company’s renovation will cost about 25% less than if you worked with a contractor yourself–and the work will be done up to commercial grade standard. Block even offers a price match guarantee; its website says the average cost of a bathroom renovation is $19,300, while the average New York renovation is $25,900. Right now, the service is only available in New York and New Jersey, but it will soon be available around the country. And the plan is to quickly expand beyond the bathroom to other rooms, like kitchens.

T. Luke Sherwin and Koda M. Wang [Photo: Block Renovation]
Block was founded by two people who know a lot about industries riddled with complex logistics. T. Luke Sherwin, who cofounded the direct-to-consumer mattress company Casper, has spent the last five years simplifying how mattresses are purchased and delivered. His cofounder, Koda M. Wang, was previously the chief customer officer at Rent the Runway, which allows women to rent their entire closet.

Over the last few years, many startups have launched with the goal of simplifying the process of setting up a home. The Inside and Maiden Home are making custom furniture more affordable; Milo and Made In are making high-end cookware easier to decipher; East Fork and Year & Day will deliver handmade ceramic tablewear to your door in days. But home renovation hasn’t seen the same disruption. “The world of renovation is kind of like the Wild West,” says Sherwin. “It involves a lot of moving parts. Most homeowners have no idea what things should cost, or what they should even be asking their contractor for.”

Until now, startups looking to disrupt renovations have generally focused on just one aspect of that complex process. Sweeten, for instance, matches you to pre-screened general contractors and says it checks in during the process. Remodelmate serves as a middleman between you and your contractor, helping to manage pricing and quotes. And Pro.com serves as a digitally forward project manager for your renovation. Block wants to stand out from the pack by being more comprehensive than its competitors. “A lot of startups have approached home renovation by taking a wide, but not deep approach, like, say, pairing you with a contractor,” says Sherwin. “We want to make an end-to-end consumer experience. We take all of the variables in the renovation process, homogenize them, and deliver them to the customer as a package.”

First, customers go to the Block website and fill out a generic questionnaire about their renovation. The customer then gets a video consultation with an expert at Block who will talk them through the process. “We have a sophisticated algorithm that takes into consideration 120 variables that go into bathroom renovations,” says Wang. For instance, you can specify whether you need to knock down a wall, install a bathtub, or include more shelving, all of which will alter the quote you receive. “It’s not the kind of back-of-the-envelope estimate you might get from a contractor,” Wang continues. “It’s a fairly disciplined and precise number that is within 95% of what the ultimate number will be.”

[Image: Block Renovation]
To arrive at this level of accuracy, Block has worked with interior designers to develop several standard looks. Rather than an unlimited number of options, like you might find if you are trying to design a bathroom yourself, Block offers a limited number of bathtub and tiling options. Customers can pick from two aesthetics: a contemporary look and a more classic look. There are customization options, but they’re more expensive.

“This may seem like a funny reference, but I think about it a bit like Chipotle,” says Sherwin. “The menu could lead to millions of different combinations, but the combinations are all pre-vetted to work well together.”

The company buys materials in bulk, which leads to more favorable pricing than you or your contractor might be able to secure by purchasing materials for a single job. Instead, Block is able to negotiate rates that are more similar to large building-scale projects, like apartment complexes.

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[Image: Block Renovation]
But to make this model work, Block has also had to find a team of contractors who can be deployed to these jobs. Wang says the company has worked hard to accommodate the needs of these contractors by promising to send them a regular stream of work. Block has pitched itself as a way for contractors to get jobs without the hassle of marketing themselves to customers, managing the purchase of materials, and providing quotes.

“If you put yourself in the shoes of a typical contractor, these guys are all running small businesses,” says Wang. “They have to bake in a healthy margin for every job because they don’t know whether they are going to get work the following month. For this to work, we need to think of the contractors as our clients, and try to solve problems for them.”

Before and after. [Photo: Block Renovation]
Block is a capital-intensive business, since the company had to purchase the materials necessary for the renovations. Sherwin and Wang landed a seed round of $4.5 million led by the VC firm New Enterprise Associates to initially get the business off the ground. The company has been operating in stealth mode for several months, which has allowed Block to execute several bathrooms throughout the New York area. “We have national ambitions,” says Wang. “The bathroom is our first product, but over time, we hope to expand to other types of renovation.”

For right now, Block’s biggest challenge is creating a brand that customers will trust, since the company will be managing every aspect of the renovation process. For homeowners, this means putting their house–and its future value–into the hands of a yet-untested startup. This may appeal to some customers, but many others may be more inclined to trust a contractor that their neighbor or colleague used.

Still, for anyone who has ever contemplated a lengthy renovation, there’s something irresistible about the prospect of picking out a bathroom from a website, and having it there, in your house, within a month. It might even save you thousands of dollars in couples’ counseling.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Segran, Ph.D., is a senior staff writer at Fast Company. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts More


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