Haley Weidenbaum, now co-founder along with her husband Adam Weidenbaum of window-covering firm Everhem, bought her begin in inside design again in 2011. She enrolled in a certification program on the subject by way of UCLA’s extension program, and a yr and a half later, she was able to tackle business.
That is when Haley found Homepolish, the home-design startup that related inside designers with shoppers. Haley labored as an inside designer with Homepolish for about six years. The corporate, which raised $20 million in funding in 2016, shuttered in 2019 after revealing it had run out of capital.
Haley’s expertise with Homepolish gave her a firsthand take a look at what might occur when a startup grows too quick. The work additionally helped lay the inspiration for her and Adam to launch an interior-design-related enterprise of their very own — utilizing a slow-and-steady strategy to do it.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Everhem. Adam and Haley Weidenbaum.
“On the time, window therapy was the toughest a part of my job,” Haley tells Entrepreneur. “I could not discover the correct firm to execute the designs I wished. The standard wasn’t nice. The customer support in any respect the businesses I attempted was actually poor. I simply wished to do it higher. Providing distinctive, memorable experiences has all the time been my favourite factor to do as an inside designer.”
Adam, a graphic designer with an expert background in finance, was a really perfect co-founder to assist make the imaginative and prescient a actuality. When Haley approached him about her concept for Everhem, Adam was working at a digital media company the place he centered on branding — and he was prepared for a change.
“I knew sufficient to know to not doubt Haley at that time,” Adam says. “When she comes up with one thing, it is normally going to occur. So I mentioned, ‘Certain, let’s do that.'” Adam realized all he might about window therapies, constructed out the corporate’s financial fashions and started working on brand identity. One of the crucial necessary first steps was arising with their new enterprise’s title.
“We wished to give you a reputation that wasn’t particularly centered on window therapy per se as a result of we did not know what the way forward for the enterprise would possibly maintain,” Adam remembers. “Perhaps we might get into one other vertical or a number of different verticals. After which if we’re pigeonholed into one thing to do with home windows, it is not going to make sense to folks.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Everhem
“It had this double entendre. It is Swedish for residence, and all of our merchandise are going to be hand-sewn.”
The wheels began to show after the couple watched an episode of Summary: The Artwork of Design, a Netflix documentary about creatives, that featured the British inside designer Ilse Crawford. Shortly earlier than they launched the enterprise, the Weidenbaums took a visit to Stockholm, Sweden, the place they stayed at The Ett Hem Lodge, which Crawford designed.
”We had been very impressed by it,” Adam says. “[It was] utterly our vibe. We realized that ‘hem’ is principally the Swedish phrase for ‘residence,’ [and] we have all the time felt a connection to the hygge motion, the coziness. [‘Hem’] made a variety of sense. It had this double entendre. It is Swedish for residence, and all of our merchandise are going to be hand-sewn. Then the ‘ever’ was added as a result of it made sense too: That is to your perpetually residence.”
Everhem’s typeface additionally attracts inspiration from Crawford — it is the identical typeface used for the title of the designer’s e book, A Body for Life. It additionally occurs to be known as “Tarzana,” which is the title of the city the place Haley grew up. It was a “full-circle” second, the co-founders say.
“We wished to deliver the consumer expertise on-line and elevate it.”
The Weidenbaums had been cautious of taking exterior capital from the beginning. In these early days, they used their financial savings to self-fund the enterprise. A lot of the cash went to building a website and buying stock. Embracing the slow-and-steady mentality, the co-founders did not count on a “big growth” on the official August 2019 launch. The primary natural order and month of gross sales had been “exhilarating.”
”We entered an trade that is been round for many years and many years,” Haley says, “so we weren’t actually attempting to reinvent the wheel [in terms of] what everybody else was doing [with] making customized window therapy. However we wished to alter the format of the customer support. We wished to deliver the consumer expertise on-line and elevate it. As a result of that was an enormous situation for lots of people.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Everhem
Nonetheless, the Weidenbaums had been cautious; uncertain precisely how a lot enterprise they’d have on their palms, they did not really feel able to pitch to investors.
Throughout her time at Homepolish, Haley witnessed how an injection of outside capital might basically alter a enterprise’s operations — and never essentially for the higher. Homepolish tried to regulate a variety of the inside designers’ companies with a purpose to become profitable and meet traders’ formidable expectations, the Weidenbaums observe.
“ Our warning with taking a look at traders has all the time been, we do not wish to cede management of the future of the corporate too early and threat ruining it,” Adam explains. “It appeared like a wiser determination, no less than in the beginning, to do it bootstrapped, let it’s gradual and see the place it goes.”
That conservative strategy to progress additionally prolonged to the corporate’s hiring. Initially of 2020, a few months into launch, the co-founders had been nonetheless doing the whole lot themselves. At that time, the Weidenbaums had one youngster and twins on the best way, in order that they knew it was solely a matter of time earlier than they would want to deliver on additional assist. The couple employed their first workforce member a couple of weeks earlier than the pandemic lockdowns.
”After all, for a time frame [during the pandemic], the whole lot basically shut down [and we] could not make something,” Adam says. “[We were] principally bleeding capital. However we supplied 30%-35% reductions throughout the board. Place your order now; we are going to fulfill it after we can. And that basically labored.”
Like many companies associated to the house, Everhem noticed a rise in demand amid the lockdowns, with extra folks caught inside and keen to enhance their dwelling areas. Then got here a spate of natural influencer partnerships, which additionally helped the enterprise stage up. Everhem did not start its paid advertising technique till 2021.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Everhem
At the moment, Everhem is a multimillion-dollar model with a “small however mighty workforce” that helps it maintain its regular progress trajectory. Hiring — and ensuring new workforce members are the correct match — stays one of many firm’s most necessary and difficult goals.
“You by no means actually know whenever you rent somebody if they are going to work out or not,” Adam explains. “We have been extraordinarily lucky with some individuals who have turn into [essential]. I do not assume the enterprise would run with out them. However we have additionally had our share of hiccups.”
“We’re right here to alter the notion of window therapy.”
Transferring additional into 2025, the co-founders are excited for continued progress and Everhem’s upcoming collaborations.
”Collaborating with designers has been an enormous purpose of ours,” Haley explains. “This enables us to remain within the realm of inside design all the time, making it apparent to our shopper base that is on the forefront of each determination we make. We’re right here to alter the notion of window therapy. It may be difficult and complicated, nevertheless it’s such an necessary side of inside design, and lots of people do not realize that.”
Everhem simply launched its Matchstick Shades product with Annie Meyers-Shyer, who runs the Instagram account This Oak House. The corporate additionally not too long ago introduced a partnership with the artist Carly Kuhn to supply unique materials and patterns.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Everhem. From the Carly Kuhn collaboration.
The co-founders have realized lots through the years spent constructing Everhem, and one in every of their high items of recommendation for aspiring entrepreneurs hoping to start businesses of their very own is simple however important: Do not take a look at income day-to-day — and even month by month.
“It may possibly drive you nuts, particularly when the economic system is in flux,” Adam says.
Haley additionally stresses the significance of believing in your imaginative and prescient. “When you’ve got an concept about launching an organization or an concept of a product you wish to launch within the firm you have already based, attempt it out,” Haley says. “Do it in a manner that mitigates the danger as a lot as doable, however go along with your intestine and do not doubt your self.”
