Shorecrest grad honored by national publication

Matt Ehrlichman
Photo courtesy Porch

So you have decided to remodel your home. You have the financing and you are ready to go. Now for the details. What contractors do you need? Who should you hire and where do you find them? You have some general ideas about space and design, but what about the details? What will get the most return on money spent?

Enter new startup company, Porch.com with its home improvement app.

"Imagine Zillow, Angie’s List and Pinterest (because half the fun is posting photos of your completed projects) all wrapped up in one site." says Chief Marketing Officer Asha Sharma in an article by Caroline McMillan Portillo in Upstart Biz Journal.

Here's how the platform works, Sharma says, "After registering, users can see the cost and details of remodels on their own home. They can see photos of neighbors’ recent home improvement projects — including the actual cost — and see which professionals did the work. And they can peruse reviews of the 1.5 million professionals who’ve registered with the site."

With a Stanford degree and a previous, successful startup under his belt, Founder and CEO Matt Ehrlichman knew what he was doing when he started Porch 14 months ago. With 25 employees working in the basement of his home, he was able to secure a $27.6 million Series A round of financing before the end of the first year, and a contract with Lowe's that put Porch in every one of the home improvement chain's 1,720 stores in the United States.

And now Matt Ehrlichman has been honored as the first to be selected as Entrepreneur of the Year by the national publication USA Today. See the video story here where Matt explains and demonstrates the site.

Now out of the basement of the home that Ehrlichman, a 1998 Shorecrest graduate, shares with his wife Alison, a 1999 Shorecrest grad, Porch has 200 employees in 30,000 square feet in a Seattle building. A partnership with Realtor.com allows app users to get the full history of any home they are interested in, including previous remodeling details.

The company is in rapid growth mode and Ehrlichman feels confident his team of professionals can handle it. In an article he wrote for Upstart, he says,

"Looking back on the previous year makes me realize that there is no such thing as “typical year” for a startup and the “right “ strategy lies in building on your strengths and assets and taking full advantage of the opportunities that come your way."

Ehrlichman is the son of Peter and Debi Ehrlichman of Lake Forest Park, where Matt was raised.

Corrected Asha Sharma's title 12-14-2014