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For 2.7 Million Home Designers, Houzz Is A Mighty Door-Opener

This article is more than 9 years old.

When Michael Abrams talks about his 15-year career in residential design, the Chicagoan divides his experiences into two parts: before he started using Houzz, and the way he does business today.

Thanks to Houzz’s vast reach, homeowners around the world are discovering Abrams's work as they surf their phones, tablets and web browsers, looking for appealing remodeling ideas. More than 25 million users a month visit Houzz's site -- an audience far beyond what old-fashioned print advertising ever could have created for designers like Abrams. The payoff: thanks to Houzz, Abrams has signed up clients in New York and Baltimore. He's also chatting with  prospects as far away as Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., and Dubai.

All told, 8,900 people officially follow Abrams on Houzz, so they can systematically take a look at his work. They ping him with questions - and he puts in hours each week addressing their queries. It's time well-spent: email exchanges lead to new contracts. Abrams still reads so-called shelter magazines such as Home & Garden and Interiors that used to be the bibles of his industry. But he says he doesn’t advertise in them anymore. “I get 65% to 70% of my business from Houzz,” he says.

For many of the other 2.7 million designers who are listed on Houzz, the site has become a powerful way to showcase their best work and attract interest from unexpected new customers. “Houzz has become as much of a tool in how architects communicate with clients as a pencil or a T-square,” says Richard Buchanan, a founding partner of the high-end architectural firm of Archer & Buchanan in West Chester, Pa. He took early note when his clients began showing up at his office with tidy digital “IdeaBooks” from Houzz.

As I explain in this new Forbes magazine profile of Houzz founders Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen, their Palo Alto, Calif., company is more than an eye-catching site for homeowners trying to get their remodeling plans sorted out. Houzz also is a game-changer for architects, designers and craftspeople making all varieties of household items. In fact, Houzz is emerging as a powerful market development tool for big sectors of the small-business economy -- almost like eBay, where Cohen worked from 2001 to 2009.

Micah Dennis, a landscaper in Portland, Ore., who runs Paradise Restored, says “Houzz speeds up the process a lot.” Instead of spending several meetings with prospective customers, trying to sort out what they might want, Dennis now can start conversations with people who already have selected a portfolio full of photos of their dream gardens or back yards. “You can’t imagine how awesome it is to go to a client and already have a good idea of what they’re looking for,” he explains.