Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback brought to you by Aflac. Ask about it at work. And for this morning's flashback, we're just gonna roll back to Wednesday of this week when our new cool BusinessMakers Overtime show had as their featured guest, Mr. Phillip Rather, the founder and CEO of HomePros.com. So let's join in and listen to the interview as our own Esther Steinfeld talks to Phillip.

Esther: So the first thing I want you to do is explain to us exactly what HomePros does.

Phillip: Well, HomePros is a social network and marketplace that connects homeowners, contractors, interior designers, architects, retailers, basically anybody involved in a home improvement project, around social networking tools and allows em to communicate and share and really get down to what their project's about.

Esther: Okay cool. So how did you first come up with the idea for this company?

Phillip: I started a company in 2002 called Broadband Locators and it was a kind of Lending-Tree style model where you connected somebody that was looking for business class telecom to providers of that service and what we always really wanted to do was create a functional service based marketplace. We found that that particular market wasn't exactly really, really big, although there was a lot of demand. So what we decided to do was go out and find the most disjointed high demand market out there and what we came up with was home improvement. There's a lot of need for content. There's a lot of need to connect the particular players who would be involved in any project and it just seemed like a real natural fit for what our goal was, which was again, to really create a place where you could get a service, find the people to provide that service and then see that service actually played out.

Esther: So how is homepros.com different from all the other sites that are geared towards the home industry?

Phillip: Well I think the fact that we have many different types of competitors actually shows that no one has solved the real problem within the home improvement space. You've got competitors that are like lead generation companies, you know your classic Lending-Tree model, fill out a form and you get four quotes. You've got content sites like HGTV or DIY sites that kinda tell you hey, this is how you would do it if you wanted to do it on your own. There's also sites that provide software to contractors that allow them to provide quotes and run a little bit better business.

Phillip: And then lastly you've got your classic sort of review sites, yelp, city search and these things. So all of those being in the space in one fashion or another shows that there are people trying to solve the problem but no one has really solved the problem which is homeowners don't have a place to go, find out if they can do the job themselves or if they need some help. If they do need help, be able to find contractors that have been reviewed, see their profiles, work they've done, pictures, get linked-in style recommendations from people who have worked with em before or people that they work with that are also professionals. And actually then select somebody or track a project and then see that through.

So what we wanna do is really just solve the problem in home improvement. We're not trying to be a rating site for all services like medical, legal or anything like that. It's a problem we see in home improvement. It's something that we think we can build a functional marketplace around. When I got together with my team we said, what is it that you need to create a functional marketplace? You basically need a community of interest. You need something that ties it together, one particular market. You need social networking tools that allow people to communicate, create an identity, share that profile with one another. And then you need business process management applications that actually can allow you to take that home improvement project and see it through with all the things you need, paperwork and the fulfillment project management.

Esther: Absolutely. How has the housing bubble burst affected your business?

Phillip: It's actually made it more in demand to be honest with you. I know that there's probably a lot of people that can't get home equity loans and there is a definitely decline in what's been done but the value proposition is there. If you can't sell your home for what it's worth, then make the best out of it and improve it. Also when the housing market does turn around, your house is gonna be up against a lot of competition. You really need to differentiate itself. If that's just staging, that's one thing. If it's fixing faulty, you know problems with the house that's another. We haven't really seen a problem with it. In fact, it's given us sort of a contrarian position to take that says you don't have to sell your house. And in fact with the new administration Obama coming in and basically saying look, we need to be more green. We need to also live better with what we have. The days of spending all your money and living frivolously have to stop and so we've put a lot of focus on a green renovations and helping people not only save the environments but save money along the way.

Esther: So let's talk about going green. So there's a lot of focus on your web site about connecting potential customers with eco-friendly contractors and designers and people that are in that space. You even have this whole community called The Greenhouse, is that correct?

Phillip: Yeah, it's a section of the site for sure.

Esther: So why focus so heavily on that?

Phillip: The green movement was founded in Austin and we really believe in it just from that sort of exposure. But you know it's obviously something that needs to be done. It's become far more economical as well. It's easy to go to somebody and suggest that they do something that's better for the environment when it makes a lot of monetary sense. And with the tax credits that are out there, it's just the way to go. So what we wanted to do was instead of, again just being like the rest of the guys, we wanted to differentiate ourselves completely. The Greenhouse was really part of that to say look, we're putting an entire section of the site devoted toward it.

Esther: At what point did you say you know what; I can really start my own company and be successful?

Esther: Prior to the dot com –

Phillip: Yeah, right before the bubble burst in Austin, I was actually a bartender watching kids who were millionaires on paper come in every day and serving em food. So there was a great allure there and I just happened to get in when it was already done. I did work for two dot com's kinda on their way out. After the second one, mall.com shut its doors; I said you know, I know a lot of things that were done wrong there.

There was a lot of things done right but I think that at that point in time search was really becoming prevalent, the display advertising people, it was too trackable. People realized hey, I'm paying for stuff that's not actually converting to sales. You know I realized search was where it was at and that's when I decided I'm just gonna start generating leads and doing online marketing through search engines and started with a consultancy, started with a telecom agency. I looked around, I had a wonderful group of people, associates, I had software at our disposal, I had just incredible talent around and I said let's quit making everybody else money, pick a wonderful idea and put the team together and go for it. So that's what we did. But again I started because, almost because I had to. It was a really bad time in the market and I didn't wanna go and just grab a job in some cubicle that didn't have that sort of lure of the big idea, the change to make it, that being on a team whose sum is greater than its parts.

Esther: If you had to give some advice to a young guy like yourself who was thinking God, I just wanna start my own company, I wanna get out there, I wanna do it. What would you tell him?

Phillip: I think the first thing obviously is you gotta write a business plan. That business plan is not gonna get your company funded more often than not. It may open some doors, it could be a good or a bad thing but it's an exercise more than anything. I mean we've got 80 page business plan we've probably rewritten 3 or 4 times and it's never the same each time. Make the plan, but at some point you gotta get out and just bite the bullet and start doing it. That's definitely one part. Be agile. Be willing to change. The minute you start getting involved with people and getting feedback you're gonna find that a lot of your ideas you can just throw em out the window. But stick to what you wanna do, believe in the overall goal, but you gotta be adaptive. And the last thing I would say, it's about a team. Find a good team. Find people that you're not gonna be the one that knows everything so find people that can help you. Don't be afraid to admit that you've done something wrong or that you're not experienced in this particular area. Never stop learning. I read every day. I read technology blogs every single morning. It just keeps you from being too close cause you have a tendency to be too close to your business and you need to take a step back and say what's going on in the market. So always learn. Never give up.

Russ: And that concludes Esther's interview with Phillip Rather, Founder and CEO of HomePros.com. And that wraps up this morning's Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback brought to you by Aflac. Ask about it at work. Stay tuned in for our featured guest segment with the company called The Consulting Stance. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com