Real Estate
This pitch deck helped a startup that decorates on-the-market homes with furniture for sale raise $3 million
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- Home staging and furniture sales startup Guest House announced a $3 million seed round.
- Guest House turns a staged home into a furniture marketplace and also operates an e-commerce site.
- CEO and founder Alex Ryden walked us through the pitch deck that the company used to raise funds.
Guest House, a Denver-based company that combines home staging for real estate agents with both online and in-person retail, announced on Tuesday that it has raised a $3 million seed round.
The round was led by Range Ventures, a newly launched fund that focuses on Colorado-area businesses, and included funding from 87 Capital, Rucker Park Capital, and Ludlow Ventures.
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This is the first venture round for Guest House, which tech-world veteran Alex Ryden founded in 2017. Now a tech-enabled home staging company, it began as a retail experiment launched out of Ryden’s own home
Ryden, at the time, was running a men’s bag and backpack company named Age Carriers, and had just moved into a new home. Frustrated with traditional retail and looking for a different way to sell his bags, Ryden decided to turn the first floor of his home into a weekend storefront, having interested shoppers check out the bags in his home.
Ryden told Insider that the founding of Guest House was a “happy accident.” His weekend customers began to ask whether they could buy the furnishings in the home which prompted Ryden to swap out his own furnishings with things that people could buy from brands like Burrow and Poly and Bark.
Real-estate agent friends encouraged him to consider outfitting the properties they were selling.
“They said ‘Why don’t you do what you’re doing in your home inside of our homes — and we will pay you to do it?’ ” Ryden said.
Home staging is the process of furnishing a home just to sell it, in the hope that real examples of how the home could be furnished will lead to a higher sale value and quicker sale. Research from the National Association of Realtors shows that 44% of buyers’ agents say staging a home increases the size of a prospective offer, and that 53% of sellers’ agents say it leads to a faster sale.
Guest House now offers home staging services, starting at $1,050 a month, in four locales: Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs and San Diego, California. The home is staged by an interior designer, and free professional photography is bundled into the cost of staging. The company offers video tours and 3D Matterport scans for an additional cost.
The homes Guest House furnishes become a retail storefront of sorts: Anyone who tours in person can use a QR code to purchase items they see. The homebuyer can go even one step further, and with a single QR code, decide to purchase all of the furnishings in the home. The furnishings come from big retailers like Crate & Barrel, direct-to-consumer brands like Joybird, and smaller, local artisans and artists.
The company buys in bulk from major retailers at a discount, while smaller artisans are able to showcase their work in Guest House projects on consignment.
“Last year, we staged a few hundred homes, in a way, it’s the same as opening storefronts,” Ryden told Insider. “The business model is that we get paid to open stores.”
The company also has an e-commerce component: reselling the lightly used staged furniture for a discount that’s proportional to how many homes the furniture has been staged in. This marketplace is available across the US.
The company just recently expanded to San Diego, and plans to continue expanding using the funds from this venture round. Ryden said that the bootstrapped company could have continued without raising money, but that Guest House’s growth goals meant that they needed to bring in outside capital.
“In the long term, do we want to be a regional business that’s doing well, or do we want to change an industry?” Ryden told Insider.
See the pitch deck Guest House used to raise its first round below.
The first slide gives a sneak peak into the design aesthetics that Guest House offers.
Guest House
The company, launched with a retail focus, is now focused on bringing new models to the home staging industry.
Guest House
Staging isn’t used to sell all homes, but according to the company’s research, more than 2 million homes are staged a year. That’s a lot of furniture.
Guest House
Staging has been dominated by mom and pop businesses, according to Ryden, leaving a lane for a tech-enabled competitor.
Guest House
Guest House bundles free home photography with online ordering and a selection of furniture that is curated by interior designers.
Guest House
Tech is a major part of the company’s selling point to overworked agents and home sellers, promising some simplicity during a very complicated process.
Guest House
The company sources furniture from long-established brands like Crate & Barrel and more recent direct-to-consumer brands like Joybird.
Guest House
The company assigns an interior designer to each project, and works with the homeowner and real estate owner to match their vision to Guest House’s.
Guest House
The company bundles photos for free with the staging, taking over two different tasks for an agent. Agents and homeowners can spend more for add-ons like a Matterport scan or video tour.
Guest House
The company offers financing with Affirm, a touch that’s straight out of the playbook of other direct-to-consumer companies.
Guest House
Guest House’s retail roots are also highlighted in the deck.
Guest House
A home purchaser can scan a QR code and purchase all of the furnishing in the house, or scan for a particular room or item.
Guest House
Instead of using furniture until it needs to be disposed of or donating, Guest House is reselling the furniture at a discount after it’s been used in a few homes.
Guest House
The company’s revenue model is very interesting to potential investors.
Guest House
The company charges staging fees for the property, where it can also get some revenue from video tours and other add-ons. They also make money from reselling the furniture.
Guest House
Guest House has grown regionally, and until most recently, was only available in a few Colorado cities.
Guest House
The company has grown to 12 full-time employees, plus more than 30 interior designers who are contracted to each project.
Guest House
The company employs a mix of operations, tech, and design workers and executives.
Guest House
The next slide gives an overview of eight Guest House executives and employees.
Guest House
This final slide also includes a photo of a Guest House staged home.
Guest House