Homepod

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Homepod: Discover sustainable rated products with an architectural resourcing system

Westminster, United KingdomCity of London, United Kingdom
Year Founded:
2014
Organization type: 
for profit
Project Stage:
Idea
Budget: 
$10,000 - $50,000
Website:
http://www.homepod.eu
Twitter: 
https://www.twitter.com/homepods
Facebook: 
https://www.facebook.com/homepods
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Home is within our heart. Furnishings in our homes makes them places to relax. Some are heirlooms but most often we acquire from variety of sources. 9 in 10 designs are over budget adding 1900kg of waste/capita in EU. Homepod discovers ECO design products & helps to cut waste with 3% or 60kg/capita.

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

What if architectural resources could be cycled and after use up-cycled in a marketplace to help reduce landfill waste?
About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

The Waste Framework Directive 2 (WFD) requires EU Member States to take any necessary measures to achieve a minimum target of 70% (by weight) of C&D waste by 2020 for preparation for re - use, recycling and other material recovery, including backfilling operations using non-hazardous C&D waste to substitute other materials.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

Through our platform we want to reduce the waste generated with at least 3% through the sustainable factor. At the EU level that consists of ~30 million tonnes (wood, ceramic and tiles). Homepod is a real time architectural resourcing system for people which design and manage residential builds. Current BIM (Building information Model) and ERP’s (enterprise resource planning) work on the pre-buy side and aim to reduce life-cycle costs with up to 20%. Over time, Homepod will be integrated as a link between BIM and the supply chain and the life-cycle costs will be reduced to 23%. Sustainable factor is a product-life template which analyses data in the sellers’ product description and sets a benchmark on sustainability for material used

Awards

2014 DataHack from TataCommunications, 2015 -1st Place in CleanTech from ImpactHUB Westminster, Shortlisted for ShellLiveWireUK Smarter Future
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

John is looking to buy a chair in office. [Without Homepod] Asks if anyone knows shops or boutiques. John thinks a brown chair - tries google, Pinterest, Google, Houzz, some other on-line shops. Many options but not really sure which one is within his budget apart from couple on-line shops which he is aware of. Places order. [With Homepod] John goes on Homepod and enters 'office chair'. Sees options and decides to filter the results to brown, price of £70, delivery to London. John is able to browse chairs from Italy, France, Scandinavia, UK, etc - John buys a Chair from UK John moves office and wants to make money. Pressed up-cycle -> courier comes -> new customer gets discount -> SALE Saved 3KG of Landfill waste and gets 3Points

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

By developing a patented algorithm to generate a sustainability factor, we will help users make more informed decisions on the buy side. In the long term it should help develop a recyclability of used product. Using our connection to Building Information Modelling to generate purchase orders, installers and builders will receive the precise amounts required to do the job – further limiting waste. In the EU, we generate 980 million tonnes of waste every year in the construction industry in a market size where the transaction value is €162 billion for 503 million inhabitants which spend on average €1250/square meter. That’s 1.9 tonnes of waste per capita, every year. Homepod mission is to reduce the waste by 60kg waste per capita over a period of 2 years i.e. 29.4 million tonnes. By gamingfing the induced waste savings, we hope to encourage entrepreneurship within the marketplace

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

One study has revealed that a Designer achieved a 16% Increase in product pool options, with 12% less time in the buy process. This is a significant risk mitigation factor by increasing a business bottom line. Series A will raise for expansion -> we want to enter the US market. Series B - 3 years will add African/Asian market. Series C develop BIM large scale engineering platform and commercialize on world-wide property development projects. Series D launch up-cycle button, encourage sales in marketplace. With the success of the B2B Up-cycle button fill for IPO and Exit. Continue lead as CEO.
Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

We plan to operate under a subscription for software of platform and our model is this [#Subscription * 0/£29/£299] * [#product sales per day * 0.4% sales commission] * CPM * 365 = estimated annual revenue. The 0.4% is the standard fee which a customer gets charged for placing an order. In some cases this subscription gets higher and it depends on the deal we make with the producers or distributors. Need 1000 designers placing orders to survive

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

We understand that there are approximately 8000 designers and 33,000 architects in the UK. Alternatively a Google search using ‘buy coffee table’ yields 76.8 million results within 1 second. The first page of these results has paid adverts from 8 suppliers and lists 12 other potential suppliers of a coffee table. This would require a further search of various pages before committing. Clearly this is time consuming and it is difficult to take advantage of a broad range of products. At the moment a user spends somewhere between 5 to 10 minutes on the research and buy side of each product.
Team

Founding Story

As an interior architecture student I was fascinated by space and I've enjoyed researching systems and machines that could help the architect and the urban designer. After graduation I have worked as interior architect and I saw instantly that there is a problem. We used bookmarks, excel spreadsheets and project management tools through BIM models which was time consuming and mistakes happen often. I couldn't sleep nights ..i was thinking I had a plan on my wall trying to understand what I do wrong. White van beside my house was spying what I do and then I've realised that 'this must be of high importance' and I took the research forward into the user interaction & waste reduction platform.

Team

Andrei Toma - Founder. BaHons in Interior architecture - Full-time. Designed high-end properties in London. Will manage the business strategy and will deliver the vision to achieve the targets. Will liaise with the sales and marketing people to ensure targets are met but also to provide creative support and inspire the well being of the team through coaching and mentoring. Has deep understanding of the industry as well as connections from previous employment. Alfredo Violante – Head of brand. Full-time. Well versed brand strategist and manager with a previous Exit into BlueFields/Mitoo will focus on providing brand guidelines for application design, web application, promotion and marketing. Sor far we have a beautiful design and we want to continue this minimalist approach but rich in sustainable design products. Eduard Zakaryan Full-Time- Software Engineer. Develops in Qt the front-end application for Android and Blackberry devices. We need to employ a python developer to develop the web platform. This is security essential and we cannot move forward without this development. We are raising funds in particular for this.
Background
Please confirm how you heard about the Unilever Awards:

From ImpactHUB Westminster

Please confirm your role in the initiative (eg Founder/co-Founder) and your organisational title:

Founder

Which of the 8 UN Global Goals (Sustainable Development Goals) pre-selected for this competition does your solution relate most closely to? [select all that apply]

Decent Work and Economic Growth, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action.

Leadership and the Unilever Awards
Please provide examples of any previous entrepreneurial initiatives you have pioneered.

In 2015 InnovateUK voted us as one of the top 100 most innovative companies in UK. This award I've received for a post and beam technology which I've started to research also in university in the form of a satellite, spatial tool that came to my mind while I was looking into a structure made of Boron-Carbon-Oxygen. Through this structure I've discovered that one of the connections between molecules look like a house, or an igloo and I've took that research forward into a modular building technology which allows one to scale from one house to a whole tower just by adding more modules together. The structure has special angles which makes it strong like a crystal.
In 2014 I've also incorporated websprint.me through which I self-employed people to get better at selling through digital services and social media. Mainly consultancy but I've helped over 34 freelancers with the money that I've earned from developing web applications for bigger clients. I feel happier when I give something back.

Beyond your existing team, who else are you working with to achieve your objectives, eg partners, advisors, mentors?

Advisory team comprised of non-executive directors and the following:
Ami Shpiro – entrepreneur, director of Innovation Warehouse helps us with investors was a coach and mentor
Rick Hartwig - head of Built Environment at the Institute for Technology plans to help us raise European Commission funding

Ian Lucey from Lucey Fund made us a deal for each £1 invested he invests another £2 to a maximum of £100,000.

We also work with Ryan
Maciej van der Steen - formally aerospace engineer helps us with European Commision deliveries such as miss-communications

File attachments: 
PDF icon homepod-global.pdf