🦄 Unicorner Startup of the Week: Craftwork

✍️ Notes from the Editors

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For those you well-versed in the teachings of Y Combinator, there’s a well-known saying for new startup founders: do things that don’t scale. Many interpret this as small things that add a personal touch to your process (like a hand-written thank you note). It’s hard to explain why we as humans love it, but at the end of the day, it’s why so many people opt to stay with local, mom-and-pop style businesses over scaling corporations.

And so when “home painting,” “scale,” and “software” started appearing in the same sentences, we just needed to check it out. It’s hard to imagine automation in an industry like this. But Craftwork is building it, and has raised money to make it happen.

Derek Wong is back this week with another hard-hitting analysis. Check out his blog So What Now? for more writing from him (personal anecdotes, musings, and occasional AI philosophy).

- Ethan and Arek 🦄

Digital-native home painting franchise

Craftwork is a full-service home painting company that uses software to dramatically improve the homeowner and painter experience. It starts with the initial estimate and timeline, which can be offered in as little as 30 seconds. Then, it finalizes the project specifications with pictures. As the final step, Craftwork sends its team to your home to paint.

🔗 Check it out: craftwork.com

💰 Business Model

Customers get a project quote based on their estimate, then refine their quote based on their specific project. Customers pay based on their project.

📈 Traction and Fundraising

• Raised $4 million in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator, Four Cities Capital, MPG Fund, and angels including Immad Akhund (Founder & CEO of Mercury)

• Participated in Y Combinator S23 batch

👫 Founders

• Tim Griffin, CEO: 2-time Y Combinator founder, previously the founder/CEO of Cloosiv (YC S19), a company that successfully completed a merger of equals with Odeko and grew annual revenue from $0 to $150M+ in just 18 months. Odeko is currently #115 on YC’s top companies list.

• Suzanne Griffin, COO: Previously an early-stage employee at two YC startups (CareRev S16 and Plato W16).

• Mike Bifulco, CTO: Previously @ Stripe, Google, and Microsoft; was also a co-founder of Smpl coworking software, which was acquired in 2020 by Proximity

• Joey Skavroneck, Chief Growth Officer: Previously scaled Zoomo from a seed stage company to the global leader in its category, leading North American business and largest global partnerships. He was also a management consultant, sold his Out of Home advertising company, and earned his MBA from Stanford GSB.

💼 Opportunities

Make sure to mention you came from Unicorner!

• React Native Engineer

• Full Stack Engineer

• Operations Associate

🔮 Our Analysis

Nassim Taleb coined the term “Black Swan” in the early 2000s. Essentially, it means an event (or in this case, a company) that comes as such a surprise, it was initially thought to be impossible. I think Craftwork is a black swan. Let me explain.

For a tech company, it checks none of the boxes. 

First, its office is located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Few people in Silicon Valley could point to Charlotte, much less start a company there. Second, it’s a painting company. And lastly, all employees, including the painters, are salaried (W-2) and receive equity.

From the outside, it seems like it’s doing everything wrong. Yet, they just might surprise you. 

With a $500 billion home services market, and with an expected compound annual growth rate of ~36%, the problem only seems to grow. As the U.S. demographic continues to age and dual-income households continue to be a more significant part of our economy, more and more households are looking to home service companies. Yet the market remains remarkably antiquated. 

While companies such as Angi (fka Angie’s List) have brought home service businesses online, there isn’t a company that has captured the full service that so many other industries enjoy. Craftwork looks to change that system by providing a full-service process, from providing an instantaneous quote to supplying a detailed outline of the painting process including who and when will show up to paint their house, to transparent and fair pricing, regardless of your zip code. Many of these systems, which buck the industry norm, are meant to make the process easy and simple. 

These odd decisions make Craftwork stick out like a black swan. But with all these peculiar choices, Craftwork is building the foundation to become the largest general contractor in the country.

📚 Further Reading

• Startup Craftwork raises $4M with Y Combinator backing to expand its effort to modernize painting industry [Charlotte Inno]

• Charlotte tech startup at Y Combinator raises $4 million [Axios]

• Introducing Craftwork [Craftwork]

Written by Derek Wong

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