Myreno411

In Canadam the home renovation industry is at least $70 billion in size (in the United States, over $300 billion).[1] Exact numbers for Canada are not certain as some figures suggest that more than 50% of the business is cash based, and hence possibly unreported. As such the industry in Canada is almost as big as the finance and insurance one.

The home renovation industry consists of contractors – firms as well as individuals – along with stores - some big box, others that are speciality. Canada has over 130,000 firms that provide home renovation services. As such it is a cottage industry that also has several large sized firms. About 40% of homeowners do a home renovation every year. According to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation 1 in 5 Canadian households - about 2½ million homeowners – hires a contractor for their home renovation. The other 20% do a home renovation on a DIY basis (Do It Yourself).[2] The average cost of a home renovation is about $20,000.[3] In Ontario, home renovation and repair was the 3rd largest cause of complaints to the Ministry of Consumer Services (Ontario) (after collection agencies and water heater rentals).[4]

Marketing[5] is the number 1 problem for contractors, more so than estimating, administration, accounting, or managing sub trades. Conventional wisdom is that every business – large or small – relies on a web site as it prime marketing strategy.[6]

However while many firms are deploying web sites, their utility is declining as more and more people are using crowdsourcing as the preferred method for finding reliable services.[7]

A home renovation is both an emotional as well as a financial investment.

It is also very stressful: 75% of home renovations caused stress in home life.[8] Mike Holmes states that “20% of contractors are good, 70% are bad and the remaining 10% are ugly”.[9]

A survey showed that:[10]

• 29% don't have pictures for renovation projects
• 35% don't know how to manage the project
• 39% don't know how to manage the contract
• 36% don't know how to manage issues
• 39% don't have list of reliable contractors
• 52% don't know who is good

Alex Beraskow, established MyReno411.com after he built his own home as a General Contractors and found how difficult it was to find reliable tradespeople. As a seasoned executive he had run 5 different professional services companies, established 3 and sold each to a multinational firm over 2 decades. He was recognised as Business Person of the Year in Ottawa,[11] in 2010 by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce.

Alex Beraskow decided to use his IT expertise along with that of managing professional services businesses to help homeowners. The overall goal is to inspire homeowners with pictures, inform them with articles and eBooks and connect them to reliable contractors. Crowdsourcing – having homeowners review contractors – is the prime strategy for ranking the quality of services. MyReno411 was launched in September 2013 at the Ottawa Home and Design show. It lists over 130,000 contractors and stores in Canada, doing home design and renovation. MyReno411 uses inbound marketing techniques: rich content along with social media to spread the message.

MyReno411.com was rated the number 1 site – of 8 – in Canada (September 2014)[12] and has been featured in the Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette.[13] Representatives of the company have also made appearance of Rogers Daytime TV[14] and CTV Morning Live.[15]