← Business of Home Podcast
Business of Home Podcast
The Thursday Show: Why designers are turning to Etsy. Plus: The AI startup making waves in the furniture industry
00:59:45
Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world. Later, Presti cofounder Hamza Bennis joins the show to talk about his AI startup.
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- [00:00]
Dennis Scully
Foreign this is Business of Home. I'm Dennis Scully and welcome to the Thursday Show. Later on I'll be talking to Hamza Bennis, the co founder of an AI tool making waves in the furniture industry. But first we're going to catch up on the news, including a check in on tariffs, how contractors are finding success on TikTok and why designers are turning to Etsy to do all. Joined by Business of Homes executive editor Fred Nicholas. Hi, Fred.
- [00:36]
Fred Nicholas
Hi, Dennis. How's it going?
- [00:37]
Dennis Scully
Trying to hang in there, Fred.
- [00:40]
Fred Nicholas
Dennis Scully once again fighting through illness to host the Thursday show and looking dapper doing it, I might add. Listeners can't see this, but Dennis is in the throes of a flu but he's got a wonderful sport coat on, a nice pocket square. I'm in perfect health and I'm wearing a Zabar's hoodie so.
- [01:00]
Dennis Scully
Well, once again, better to look good than to feel good. Fred, that's always my man trap.
- [01:05]
Fred Nicholas
That's a good one. Well, let's quickly look back on Monday's episode. An interview with lighting designer and artist and architect and all multi hyphenate talent. Allison Berger. Really good conversation. What'd you make of it?
- [01:16]
Dennis Scully
A fun conversation. I'm a huge fan of Allison's work so I was thrilled to get to speak with her. And I'm always struck you and I talk about dupes and copying a lot on the show. I'm always struck when somebody shares such a vivid memory of the first time they saw themselves being knocked off. Alyson knew the day, the time, the exact moment and shared the story and it was years ago, but it had a huge impact on her and it was interesting to hear her talk about it. What did you think?
- [01:57]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, I thought that was really evocative. I also thought the episode begins with a very evocative anecdote, not from Alison, but from you, about burning down some room in your parents house and how that led. Anyway, it starts off with a bang. Yeah, it was a great conversation and Alison is just very wise. I just thought it was her analysis of how to react to rough economic waters I thought was so smart and just sticking to her knitting, keeping her firm small, treating each new chapter of her career as a different set of challenges and kind of riding with the waves. She's just a very wise person who's stuck around in the business and made it work in a bunch of different ways. So I think there's something in it for everyone as well as those who want juicy details on Dennis Gully's woe begotten childhood.
- [02:47]
Dennis Scully
Were my parents glad to get rid of me? I feel like maybe they were after people hear this story. But interesting. I completely agree with you about the sage wisdom that Allison shared. There is a lot to take away from the conversation. I hope people enjoy it. We're going to get into the news in just a minute, but first a quick break.
- [03:11]
Hayley Chouinard
This podcast is sponsored by Jaipur Living. Since 1978, Jaipor Living's mission has been to revolutionize the rug making industry by transforming traditional weaving into a lifeline for women artisans. Each handmade rug is a love story from one of over 40,000 artisans. Weaving rugs at Jaipor Living is not just a craft, it's a lifeline that empowers artisans to unleash their creativity, enabling them to achieve dignity, independence and a purposeful life. Experience this Soulful art@jaipurliving.com Jaipur Living Honoring the makers, Transforming lives.
- [03:59]
Dennis Scully
And we're back. First up, Fred, the Kips Bay show house is postponed.
- [04:04]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, too bad. Earlier this week the news broke that the Upper east side townhouse set to host this year's event fell through. Now the show house will be pushed back to the fall as organizers search for a new space. Really, really too bad as this was Kips Bay's 50th anniversary.
- [04:18]
Dennis Scully
Exactly. There's a lot of exciting momentum at Kips Bay this year. The 50th anniversary, the big iconic rooms book that's coming out to celebrate the 50 year anniversary. So it's a. It, it's a big year for them. I'm sorry for them that it gets delayed. But fall, always such a beautiful season in New York. Exactly. So that'll be a lovely time.
- [04:40]
Fred Nicholas
Love of fall, Kips Bay. Yeah, I feel like the show house has had to roll with so many punches over the past few years. I mean, obviously there was Covid. They had to take a hiatus for a couple years. Then there was this unfortunate thing that happened in Dallas. I mean, one of the things about show houses in general is that these are big, very important events in the design industry, but they're at the mercy of those unscrupulous real estate people who maybe have other things in mind with the townhouse that they're graciously lending. I don't know specifically what happened here, but it's one of the sort of unfortunate realities of these events is that they're somewhat at the mercy of other people. But I have full confidence that we'll be bouncing back and having a great event in the fall.
- [05:21]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely. And the President's Dinner, the big fundraiser on April 3, will carry on and we look forward to seeing everybody there. That's always one of the highlights of the design season and an opportunity for a lot of people in the industry to come together. We're going to be celebrating Ed Hollander with a lifetime achievement award. So I'm very much looking forward to that.
- [05:43]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah. And I'm sure that the designers will be able to figure that out. I know it's something of a bummer to have this canceled at the last minute, but hopefully they weren't too deep into putting their rooms together and they can regroup for the fall. And I will try and squeeze myself into my old wedding suit and make it out to the President's Dinner and we'll see everyone there. But in the meantime, yeah, just too bad for now. But bounce back in the fall.
- [06:09]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely. And I think you've just made even more people want to come to the dinner, Fred, so that they can see you in your in your wedding suit. I among them. All right, next up, we're going to do a tariff check in Plenty has changed since we last talked about tariffs, Fred. Just two days after announcing the sweeping changes, Trump rolled back taxes on certain goods from Mexico and Canada. But for a number of home brands, the tariffs are already affecting business. A lot to get into here. Fred, where do you want to start?
- [06:42]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, well, last week I think we very wisely put a lot of disclaimers on our awareness of what was happening because we were recording on Wednesday and as we sort of lightly predicted, indeed, the Mexico and Canada tariffs were rolled back on Thursday, or at least most of them were. We're recording this on Wednesday, March 12th at 1:50pm kind of exciting to have a timestamp in there. And right now, anyway, the taxes on Mexico and Canada are still off or the tariffs tariffs on Mexico and Canada are still off. The ones that have rolled into effect are on foreign steel and aluminum imports. So those are coming into play now. There was a brief flare up over Canada, but that appears to be off. It is very hard to keep track of everything that's getting turned on and turned off. But I think I've roughly summarized where we stand at the moment. How are you seeing people in the industry reacting to this? Dennis?
- [07:35]
Dennis Scully
Well, I mean, I think there's a wide range of reactions. Some people's hair on fire and trying to figure out how on earth am I going to price things? How am I going to if you're a vendor, how am I going to properly communicate with Designers, you and I have talked about a lot of communications coming out about prices may be impacted or certain people have already announced that they're going to raise prices and here's when. But there's a mix of reactions, just a lot of confusion for the most part. What's your sense?
- [08:08]
Fred Nicholas
Yes, confusion reigns for sure. I think we talked about that last week that designers were going to start seeing notices come out. And I feel like almost immediately there was a flood of them. Not everyone is raising prices necessarily, but everyone is communicating with their clients that they might have to. One of the complicated parts about tariffs is that even American manufacturers are affected. We've talked about this before, but I was looking at a post I saw on Facebook from, I think, a cabinetry company. And they were talking about how even though their product is American made, when you stop importing lumber from Canada because lumber prices are going up, then everybody suddenly wants to buy American lumber, which makes the prices go up. Even though they're an American company, the global supply chain affects them. And they were talking about they might have to raise prices in the second half of the year. That is certainly what's happening domestically. There's a lot going on internationally, too. There's been so much in the headlines about Mexic and Canada because the numbers are bigger. And of course, you get Justin Trudeau on tv. Everyone likes to see what he's going to say. And then it becomes there's a lot of headlines around that. But the numbers have been quietly going up on China as well. I think it's been 20% since Trump took office, and that's on top of the existing, in some cases, 20 to 30% tariffs that were put in place in 2018. So that's in some cases there's a 50% tariff on goods coming out of China. And I've been talking to people who are saying that these Chinese vendors are doing two things. One, they're rapidly trying to move production to Vietnam and Malaysia, other countries in China setting up the same version of their factory in another country in Asia. And they're definitely trying to keep the business that they have. So the tariffs are affecting the way that these vendors in China are talking to US Importers. Have you heard anything on that front?
- [09:54]
Dennis Scully
I agree. And I think that China seems much more on their back heels or feet or what's that expression, Fred? I feel like they're right. They're much more in a little bit of a defense, defensive stance this time around just because they've been having their own struggles with their economy for the past few years and have only recently been trying to get on better footing. So it is challenging. But at the same time, it often leads back to this conversation of for certain kinds of manufacturing, there's just no place else like, like China. What do you hear?
- [10:35]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, it's one of the funny things where I feel like there was this stigma for a long time about, oh, it was made in China. So therefore it's like of a lesser quality. That really hasn't been true, especially in home furnishings, for a long time. I mean, most people will say that some of the best furniture manufacturing comes out of China and a lot of people are just sticking there because it's so specialized and there's certain kinds of equipment that are difficult to manufacture anywhere else. Certainly, even though China is on a defensive posture economically, a lot of people are sticking with their Chinese suppliers simply because they have these long term relationships and the quality is good. There is, as I said, this move to bring Chinese manufacturing elsewhere in Asia. But tariffs, one of the many reasons that Trump has talked about doing tariffs is to bring back American manufacturing. And it's tough because there are some American companies that are definitely going to benefit from this. I don't think there's any question about that. But will there be a big resurgence of American furniture manufacturing? So we're not really seeing many signs of that. In fact, just on Fox Business last week, the president of the hfa, that's the Home Furnishings association, was talking about how none of the CEOs of the largest furniture suppliers are talking about doing production. And even if you shifted 30% of unemployed north Carolinas into manufacturing, that would be less than 0.01% of the workforce needed. The CEO of the HFA said so they're at least I haven't seen any signs that there is some huge groundswell outside of little pockets in terms of American manufacturing.
- [12:05]
Dennis Scully
No, I completely agree and I was so glad to. Not that I was happy to see cold water being thrown on the whole issue of manufacturing coming back to the US But I thought that was some straight talk and some cold reality being brought to the situation because we just don't have the scale of the labor force and it's naive to pretend that we could suddenly ramp that. You know, you do talk to companies that are bringing some of the upholstery work back. But, but, but some of the case goods and again, whether it's China or Canada or other places that we've just found to make these products much more efficiently and on a much more cost effective basis. It's, it's not something that a lot of people are really talking about. So it seems like if that's part of the agenda, you're not going to see the end result there.
- [12:58]
Fred Nicholas
We should say, I'm all for American manufacturing, and I think, ironically enough, a lot of the upholstery companies need more people to fill the jobs that they have. In some regard, we're not even filling the demand that we currently have for a certain kind of specialized labor force here in the US but the mass and scale of every piece of furniture being made in North Carolina, it would take years and years and subsidies and programs. And that, at least right now, is not on the roadmap. So that's just kind of the reality check there. But the other reality check, by the way, we should say is though, there have been a lot of headlines about how this is damaging the US Canada relationships, US Mexico relationships. And I absolutely think that's true. But I also think that the reality is Canadian companies can't just turn around and find a new market to sell their product into, especially at the high end. America really is it, and it is a big market. And the same thing is true for Chinese companies, even though they sell all over the world. Like, I think Trump is right to point out that the American market is very desirable and people are going to find a way to stay in it. Whatever the net effects of all these tariffs are is another question. But I didn't hear anyone saying, oh, we're not going to sell into the US Anymore because of tariffs.
- [14:08]
Dennis Scully
Of course not. And we've talked in previous shows about the fact that 70% of the US economy is consumption and Americans are just darn good consumers. Turns out we're better at that than any country in the world. And so of course they all want to do business with us. Of course. It's also why we have these huge trade imbalances that the administration suggests they are trying to address. But it is challenging for a lot of companies that whether they have big Canadian partners and Mexican partners, as many of them do, but also just really important trade relationships there for a host of products that affect the home world, the relationships are just feeling frayed and the tensions are not really helping anyone. So once again, I'm in the Gosh, I hope this all goes away soon.
- [15:05]
Fred Nicholas
Camp well, we'll check in next week and find out which new tariffs have been turned on and off over the space of the next seven days.
- [15:12]
Dennis Scully
No one knows where this is going and we'll have to stay tuned. Little doubt we'll be talking about this again next week. In the meantime, we're going to move on to talk about Rocket Mortgage buying Redfin. Fred?
- [15:24]
Fred Nicholas
Yes. In a deal valued at $1.75 billion, Rocket Mortgage acquired real estate platform Redfin this week. Big merger in the real estate technology world. What'd you make of this one, Dennis?
- [15:36]
Dennis Scully
Dennis? Big vertical integration move. Yeah, I know. It's fascinating to see. It seems like it's a sign of the times that part of the big announcement in making the deal was that Rocket is also acquiring Redfin's 14 petabytes of data. Right. If that doesn't tell you the age we're living in. I didn't even know what a petabyte was. I had to quickly look that up. But what did you make of that?
- [16:06]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, that was my favorite detail from all the coverage, too. The petabytes. I wonder how many petabytes of data I have in my unopened emails. Yeah, this was kind of an interesting merger here, just to break it down a little bit. So Rocket Mortgage is obviously like a tech company that. That gives Americans mortgages. It's one of the top, I think, five mortgage providers in the country. And Redfin is sort of like a Zillow competitor. They show real estate listings. People look at them and look at all the bland white kitchens out there. The reason why the merger makes sense is that Rocket Mortgage obviously wants to sort of. I mean, Redfin is kind of like in some respects, a marketing channel for them. You got 50 million visitors a month. And if those people are looking at Redfin and then they see a home that they like and they need a mortgage, well, here's Rocket Mortgage there to give you that mortgage. So it's kind of like lead gen on one level, but then there is this. What is it? 14 petabytes of data that Redfin has that Rocket Mortgage can plug into their spiffy AI tools and come up with better data, better targeting, better technology that makes the mortgage application process ideally easier and more smooth and more efficient. There's a lot of that. I also think the other unspoken thing is that Redfin hasn't been doing that well. If you look at the stock price, it had this sort of COVID boom of a lot of home companies. But as the housing market has been frozen, Redfin stock has been going down, down, down. So I think they needed an exit in as much as it was kind of a cool, clever acquisition for Rocket Mortgage. What do you think the sort of effects of this are going to be.
- [17:40]
Dennis Scully
I think that the effects are perhaps going to be more dramatic than even the recent conversations we were having about the outcome of the, the huge lawsuit with the national association of Realtors. I think this is going to have a real impact on day to day brokers, whether they're mortgage brokers, whether they're Realtors. I think they're hoping to automate this process a lot more. Both Zillow and Rocket are trying to develop these super apps where you're online, as you were saying, looking at a banal image of a home, deciding that you want that image and want that home, and then right there on the same site, get pre approved for a mortgage and have a lot of the other paperwork and the particulars taken care of for you in sort of a one stop way with perhaps less human interaction than you might have had a few years ago. That certainly seems to be the direction that it's moving in. And so I think the impact could be quite dramatic. It's also, to your earlier point, it comes at a time where, as we know, the housing market has been very challenging for the last few years, which is why Redfin stock, instead of being $65 a share where it was in 2021, is around $10 a share for this deal because everyone is struggling to get through this time. And so it's an ideal time for an acquisition like this. If you think you can make this super app strategy work.
- [19:22]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a time of consolidation because of market pain. But there could be, this could end up benefiting consumers and potentially designers in kind of a roundabout way too. We talk about how many billions of dollars a year are spent on real estate transactions. And I'm sure all those lawyers and brokers are smart people, but I do think the process could be a little bit more efficient and, and money that is spent buying a home that doesn't go into buying that home can then be spent on buying furniture for that home and designing that home. Ideally, if you end up with solutions that are a little bit more efficient, a little bit more affordable, there'll be more money left over in the pot to spend on making a home more beautiful and ideally getting rid of that white kitchen. I don't know, maybe that's a little bit speculative, but I do think as long as it doesn't, the danger is that it becomes a monopoly and there's only Rocket Mortgage, Redfin. As long as there's competition. There's a couple of the. You got Zillow versus Redfin Rocket Mortgage. Then they compete with each other, they drive down prices. I think that's a good outcome here. I think a bad outcome is if there becomes just one and then they have control over the market and then things get a little bit dicey and maybe prices start to go in the other direction. We'll have to see, but I see this as ideally a welcome thing.
- [20:38]
Dennis Scully
We'll see if the roll up works, but I do think it's going to have far reaching implications in the future. Next up, we're going to talk about etsy. This week BoH managing editor Hayley Chouinard explored how Etsy is becoming a popular platform for designers. They're looking to connect with craftspeople and custom workrooms and they're finding them on Etsy.
- [21:00]
Fred Nicholas
Fred this podcast sponsored by Etsy. Yeah, this was a fun article that Hayley wrote that looked into how designers are using a platform that we don't often often associate with high end design. When Etsy first launched, it was very much kind of like a makers, but more of like a crafty makers type thing. Like if you wanted to buy like a very colorful knitted potholder, I think you would find a lot of them on Etsy early on. But it's become, you know, it's a significant player and it's a big company and there's a lot of different kinds of things on Etsy. I remember a couple months ago I was writing an article around sort of the custom woodworking movement and how a lot of people were getting into that. And, and several people told me that the career path was like first thing you do is well, after you buy the saws and you get your garage set up, then you get an Etsy page going and you get some customers there. And a lot of people launched very successful woodworking shops on Etsy. So it's no surprise to me that designers are taking advantage of it.
- [21:54]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, it really sounds like it's come a long way. I think in the early days when we talked about Etsy, as you say, it seemed like a macrame site, but it's no longer that. I mean, I was amazed. I put up a post on social and quickly designers told me everything from pillows and lighting to vintage. Elizabeth Lawrence wrote in and said that she gets everything from one of a kind textiles to vintage accessories. And Natalie Myers wrote in saying she's getting rugs from Morocco and Turkey. And so many designers wrote in to me saying that you get things from Turkey in just a few days. And so it's a Great resource for, for that. It really sounds like a lot of designers have found any number of things.
- [22:43]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, it's kind of interesting how Etsy has become sort of a repository for stuff like that. It's interesting because there are a lot of platforms out there. Of course, there's First Dibs, there's cherish, there's even ebay. But something about the way that Etsy has set itself up kind of lends itself towards these sort of small makers. I don't know whether it's the commission structure or whether it's the way that you can communicate with the vendors directly, but. But it seems to have become a place where you can get cool stuff at a slightly lower price point than you might find it on say, First Dibs, where they're selling elevated antiques and jewelry and really high end pieces. There's some high end stuff on Etsy too, but it's a little bit of a lower price point. It just seems to make sense. I think it's really cool that designers for a long time were locked into who's my local workroom, who's the local maker. I think a lot of those people are still getting plenty of work. I think in some cases the designers like can't even get into the wait list with the local workroom. So it's opening up geographic opportunity to people in parts of the country that aren't as busy. I think it's all really cool. I think the downside is that of course you're trusting someone who lives far away and you're communicating all the way through a platform. So I don't think designers are speccing entire projects on Etsy start to finish. I think they're kind of tiptoeing into it. But why not tiptoe into it on some smaller items? I think it's all to the good.
- [23:57]
Dennis Scully
No, And I think it's interesting bringing up first dibs. One of the things that a few designers said to me is don't get me wrong, they're, they're not as sophisticated as First Dibs or some others that have figured out the delivery process in a, in a more seamless way. You're still dealing with a lot of smallish vendors, but, but for certain items it just seems like a way to feel like you're working much more closely to your point, with, with a small maker and you can feel like you're making a difference for the, this person's livelihood and also getting to appreciate their work, but also just have this incredible range of resources that as you say, At a time where locally many of these resources might not be as available to you as they once were.
- [24:50]
Fred Nicholas
In as much as there's kind of a danger or risk or a downside to this, I think anytime that all of the commerce is being done on one platform, that's always a little bit risky. I think frankly it's more risky to the the makers and vendors than it is to designers. But if Etsy's investors are annoyed at what it's doing, there's not much stopping it from turning up its commission structure, which can impact a lot of the businesses that are on Etsy. That's always the risk of having there being one central hub where all of your business flows through. Certainly I've talked to a lot of makers who are really happy with it. Hayley, who wrote the piece said that most of them are. I think you hit a limit. But most of them are pretty happy with the way it jump started their career. There's always a risk looming in the background that Etsy is going to change their mind. But they're all pretty happy about what it's done for their career so far.
- [25:38]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. The only other issue and a designer out of Chicago, Jenny Brown, was talking to me about how her client wanted her to go on Etsy and buy a bunch of pillows towards the end of the project where perhaps they were growing tired of continuing to spend money on this project. And please, can you find a way to save some money for us on Etsy, which I thought was really interesting in part because it was a reminder, as you and I have talked about, that this platform is out there to everyone and that it's not a designer exclusive resource. And perhaps that has some issues and challenges. But I was struck by how many designers wrote to me and told me they're getting pillows and fabric and that that's a huge reason that they're coming to Etsy. So it doesn't sound like it's holding people back from that perspective.
- [26:29]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, at least it wasn't. Go to Amazon hall and get a bunch of pillows. Get a bunch of 48 cent pillows. To your point, I do think that the pricing thing is real and I do think that designers rightfully turn to custom because they can make it exactly what the client wants. But it also gives them pricing protection. They're the only ones who have this product and they can control the pricing a little more cleanly than you can with the retail or wholesale goods. And when you go to Etsy and all the pricing is fairly public, there's, I guess a risk in that. Or maybe there's just a risk in that clients are on there all day and night going like, well, you could get it $40 less on Etsy or $140 less on Etsy, but I think that's a little bit of a secondary risk and probably at the end of the day not a big deal. And it's not a reason not to go to the platform to get some cool pillows at the end of the project. Definitely don't go to Amazon Haul. That's my takeaway from this.
- [27:22]
Dennis Scully
Exactly. I've been full support of that. Don't go to Amazon. And honestly to me, this is the Internet delivering on its promise of the early days of it was going to make the whole world accessible to you. And it sounds like it is. So I'm all for it. Let's move on and talk about trades on TikTok.
- [27:43]
Fred Nicholas
Fred in a feature for Dwell this week, Kelly Faircloth wrote about the sudden stardom tradespeople are experiencing on the app as they offer an up close look at tasks like home inspections, plumbing visualization visits, and even roof repair. Dennis, do you follow any? Well, I guess. Should we even say TikTok? Is it legal to follow TikTok right now?
- [28:00]
Hamza Bennis
I don't check in on that.
- [28:01]
Dennis Scully
Should I say that I'm on TikTok because I don't know, it seems like it's an issue that's fraught these days.
- [28:08]
Fred Nicholas
Fred yeah, I mean to be clear, I don't know what's going on with TikTok. It was supposed to be outlawed. I guess it's not for the time being. Tradespeople are on it and using it and finding great success. But this is interesting, you know, cause I don't think this is anything new. There's all kinds of interesting people with small business businesses on TikTok, but it's just fun to see these people who do roof repair or cleaning out gutters and are making cute content around it and having who would have thought that someone who does home inspections would have hundreds of thousands of followers on a social media platform? But the guy who does it is pretty funny.
- [28:41]
Dennis Scully
I agree. And the plumber's plunger, who's got 268,000 followers is showing you all of the these fun plumbing videos, which I did actually watch a bunch of. So I'll have to confess that of course I was on TikTok watching a bunch of plumbing videos, which I think it's so smart because what a great way to show your expertise is just show A bunch of videos showing how easily you correct all of these sort of household problems. And who doesn't want to call this expert and say, yeah, I've seen a bunch of your videos, you obviously know what you're doing and come on over and fix my water closet.
- [29:20]
Fred Nicholas
Exactly. Very nicely saved there. You saved the dignity of the podcast there. Yeah, I mean, I think it just makes, in some ways is the simplest story in the world because it's like a lot of people are looking at TikTok and Instagram Reels of course, like, why not put yourself there? And I think it's like, even if TikTok goes away, this idea of social media being oriented around vertical video I think is at least here to stay for at least a few more years. So I think everyone who's taking advantage of that is smart. Now I do think there's a ceiling on this to some degree because like a lot of platforms, it really rewards big stars. It's kind of like a winner take all environment. Yes, the clever, funny plumber in Milwaukee is going to have a million followers, but it's not like every plumber everywhere in America can benefit from the same kind of marketing because it's about being good at content and being good at plumbing, which is a Venn diagram with not a ton of people in it necessarily. So I think this is fun. I don't think it's necessarily a model for literally everyone on the platform. And as Kelly's piece points out, when you put yourself on TikTok, you put yourself out there. So if you make a mistake, people are going to pile on and you turn into a micro celebrity. And so that can impact your business. I guess if there's some kind of roof repair scandal that pops up. But it's the risk of being in the public eye that tradespeople are not necessarily usually used to.
- [30:44]
Dennis Scully
No, I definitely the sense that the thatched roofed guys liked being in the public eye. They looked like they were enjoying the attention. But you know, this also made me think, Fred, back when we had the conversation about private equity companies showing up and buying your local plumbing supply place and buying some of these trade companies and I thought to your point, what a wonderful way to stand out and have this huge following. And it's another way to attract attention and maybe, maybe it's a way that somebody who might be in a relatively small location can actually scale a business more quickly because they've got this huge following and this huge potential audience. So I don't know. I think it's interesting it is a double edged sword. And again, we don't know what's happening with TikTok. Maybe it's going away, although I feel like that conversation has really died down. So maybe now that the administration has seen that it's supporting small business business in such a big way, they're going to leave it alone. But it is interesting to see how quickly this might be a tool to scale.
- [31:50]
Fred Nicholas
The problem is just simply that it's a tradesperson and they have a limited bandwidth. It was like one of the guys was talking about, I do home inspections. I can only do so many in a day. I have thousands of requests and I'm booked out until November 2027. Maybe he could hire more people.
- [32:05]
Dennis Scully
That's what I'm saying. He hires a team. He's got this huge, huge demand. What do you do with demand? You turn that into a big business. So I think those are good problems to have. What, you got too many appointments? I see a business waiting to grow.
- [32:20]
Fred Nicholas
I guess my question for you, Dennis, is does this also apply to interior designers? We've talked a lot about how over the past few years social media has pivoted very much to vertical video. Designers should take note of that. And I'll say anecdotally, I have seen a lot more designers doing things in my social feeds recently. They're not doing dance trends. They're usually maybe styling a shelf or kind of showing off their skills. I don't know. I do think, I certainly think designers are getting the memo about vertical video, though. I see it more and more every day.
- [32:49]
Dennis Scully
No, I agree. And I think that's happening for a reason. And I'm hard pressed to think of the many downsides of doing this. So I think any way that you are out there demonstrating your skill, perhaps some of your personality as well, I just think there's a lot of different reasons why people are coming to designers. And I certainly, you and I both have spoken with a lot of designers that a lot of their clients just like them. And so the combination of, hey, you seem really fun and I like your work, that just seems like a pretty strong combination. And if you've seen, even if it's just little snippets of what they can do and what they're all about, I just think that's better than going in cold. So I really don't see the downside.
- [33:40]
Fred Nicholas
Well, I don't think there's a downside. And of course, Stephanie Sabi was on the podcast recently talking about how she got more clients because of this Barbie dollhouse that she made, which I think is really more about her personality than her. No offense to the dollhouse, but she talks a lot about how people hire you for your personality and if you demonstrate that on social media and you'll get clients because of it. But I do think this isn't exactly a downside. But with a sort of new set of incentives in social media, different people will rise to the top. I think it's one thing to have a great personality, it's another thing to demonstrate that personality on social media. That's a skill, really. I think the people who are good at that will succeed. Whereas there's going to be a lot of designers who maybe could have crafted the perfect image on Instagram and are really wonderful designers, but maybe aren't as good at getting in front of the camera. So I don't know. Every era has its own variables to consider, but I think we're moving into one where being good on camera and on video is more important than ever.
- [34:37]
Dennis Scully
I agree. And it makes me think back to a conversation we had a while back with Kate Verner where she talked about some of the best product designers had almost no following on social media because they were just so busy actually doing what they were doing. And it turned out that they weren't big personalities, but they were actually really great product designers. So let's not forget to reward the people that are just good at what they do as well. All right, that's it for the news. But there's plenty more to check out on businessofhome.com including advice from Sean Lowe on creating a more profitable design firm and a roundup of the biggest hires in the industry. We'll be back in a minute, but first, a quick break.
- [35:23]
Hayley Chouinard
We're taking a quick break from the show to remind you about jayporly Living. Jaipor Living's curated collection of geometric rugs brings the art of angles and timeless craftsmanship into the home. Inspired by the patterns of faraway places, from Moroccan tiles to Bauhaus lines, these artisan made rugs tell a story of style, movement and a life well traveled. Let a handcrafted geometric rug transform your space. Explore the collection@jaipurliving.com or followporliving on Instagram. And now back to the show.
- [36:07]
Dennis Scully
And we're back. I'm joined now by Hamza Bennis, who is the co founder of an AI company called PressTI Hamza. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [36:17]
Hamza Bennis
Hi Denis, thanks for the invite.
- [36:18]
Dennis Scully
So glad to finally get to talk to you and I want to set this up a little bit for listeners. Give us your quick elevator pitch of what Presti is and what the technology is that's involved.
- [36:30]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah, well, basically, Presti is a software for home furnishing companies to help them stage their products using AI. Basically with just a photo of your product, like for example, a sofa, you can stage it in any kind of setting. For example, like a Victorian house, living room room in a few seconds. So you just upload the photo, you describe the setting and you get the results. And that really sounds like magic sometimes.
- [36:56]
Dennis Scully
Well, it does sound like magic. And we're going to talk about some of what's behind the magic. How did you decide to focus on the home furnishings industry?
- [37:06]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah, actually we started with my co founders. We have deep AI expertise. We started with product staging in general, so any kind of product products. And then we realized the more we were prospecting, discussing with potential customers, we realized that the ones that were the more interested were in the home furnishing industry. And they were sometimes really begging us to find a way to save the products because the products were not manufactured yet. They just had some photos. They needed to ship it, to publish them on some marketplaces. So that's how we got our first customers. And, and then we realized that the pain was big and that's how we decided really to focus on that industry.
- [37:47]
Dennis Scully
Okay, well, and I want to talk about that pain point more, but tell me a little bit about your fellow co founders and your company, how big it is. And you've got a lot of smart people working there, it sounds like.
- [38:00]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah, definitely. So actually we are four co founders. We were friends at the university, so we studied in France in an engineering school in Paris. And then so it's been like more than two years ago now. And then we launched our software. Actually it was beginning of last year and things have been so far going really well. We've done a fundraising last year of $3.5 million and we've been able to have around 250 customers today that are using us. We're still like around like 15 in the company between Europe and in the U.S. but yeah, things have been going pretty well so far and they're happy to continue that way.
- [38:44]
Dennis Scully
So when you reached out to investors, what were you telling them you saw as the big opportunity? And getting back to the pain point issue, which is always the parlance or the framing of. So here's this problem that we're trying to fix. What was compelling about the problem you were trying to solve and the market that you saw.
- [39:05]
Hamza Bennis
The problem that we're trying to solve is that today when you want to stage your products, create like an environmental shot, a lifestyle photo of your product, it costs you a huge amount of money and huge amount of time to be able to create the photo. So either usually people, they either do like some 3D rendering, they do some photo shoots, sometimes they do it manually on Photoshop. So all those way to do it are really time consuming. And with the advent of generative AI, it's now possible to do it in few seconds. So that's how we basically bringing a technology that is solving a big problem that is worldwide.
- [39:44]
Dennis Scully
And what is the difference between what you are doing and what some listeners might have experienced using midjourney or Dall E or even using AI enhanced Photoshop, for example?
- [39:59]
Hamza Bennis
Well, basically we've made the tool very specific to the home finishing industry because it has some requirements. The first one is like you never want the product to be changed, to be modified because you're selling your products. If it's a bit different when you sell it online, you will get a lot of returns, customer complaints, etc. Second, the thing that we've made different is that we've built on building a quality of image that is very high compared to what you can find in some other tools. Because for us what we are targeting are like the big companies with high quality expectations. And so we've really built an AI that is trained on this industry to be able to create images with no hallucinations, with no artifacts, all those kind of things you usually see when you use some kind of AI tools. And the third point also that we've really focused on is building the right features that a furniture company would need. For example, you might want to reuse the setting for various types of products. That's something very important for a lot of them. And that's not the kind of thing you can do with other tools. And I would say then the last one, and it's not negligible, it's like the ui, the user interface and experience. Because we work in an industry where a lot of people don't have a graphic skill. And we've built a very handy UI so that everyone can have the skill to create its own image, whether you're like marketing, e commerce, sales, et cetera.
- [41:32]
Dennis Scully
So picking up on one of the things that you just outlined there, which is this not making a change to the image that's actually uploaded. So this seems so basic. And yet when you go on a Lot of these AI sites, they just came, they can't leave that original image alone. They make some change to it. It becomes something else when they put it into a room setting. What did you have to do to train your model to build on that original image rather than alter it in any way?
- [42:03]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah, well, I think first a lot of companies are not even trying to do it because it's not like their use case, their main use case, like Mid Journey, a lot of people are creating the images for many kind of use cases. And the difference with us is that given that we are tackling one specific problem, that's why it was so important for us, and that's why we've made all the efforts to make sure that this happens. And it's like building our own AI with its data, with its architecture. So basically making the right architecture to ensure that at the end there's no chance that the product will be changed. And of course, when we released the first version, we had some issues where the product was a bit changed and our customers were mentioning that. And that's how, with the feedback that we got, we kept improving things until we didn't face any more that kind of problem.
- [42:56]
Dennis Scully
What's really happening when we upload an image to your site and then you create. I did it this morning, just fooling around with it, uploading a picture of a piece in my living room, and then watching your site just create a whole background based on just some very simple inputs of the rug. I wanted what color I wanted the wall to be, and then literally within seconds, up came a whole array of images. So what's happening there?
- [43:24]
Hamza Bennis
So basically, the AI is built on understanding the product that you upload and the description that you provide so that it's able to create an image with the right lighting, with the right shadow, those and basically the right elements that you've provided so that at the end the image looks realistic. And that's the magic behind it, is that at the end when you see the photo, it looks real. There's no fake effect that potentially you could find if you just apply a photo of your product in an image.
- [43:59]
Dennis Scully
And did it take you a long time to train the model to understand this is what a blue wall looks like, this is what a window? I mean, from other conversations that we've had, that seems to be the most challenging part of the training.
- [44:13]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah, that's one of the challenges, basically, to get the control on the outputs that you get on the elements that you see in the scene. But I would say the first step, and that was also a big challenge was to avoid all those kind of hallucinations artifacts that you tend to find with AI. So that was a big challenge, I would say, first year, to get like images that are usable. So that was the first step. And then the second step was making the AI better and better. So that when you say, I want a blue color wall, that you really get a blue color work, not a white color wall. I would say, like today, especially since the beginning of the year, we reach really high, I would say a higher level of control on the outputs. And I think this will continue to improve. So you'll be able to give even more detailed prompts, basically even more detailed description, and you will get exactly what you want.
- [45:11]
Dennis Scully
And the idea longer term is, what is this going to make possible?
- [45:17]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah. So basically what we want to do is really simplify the way you stage your products. So there's still a lot of improvements that can be done in the way you, you control the output and the quality of the image that you get. It's already pretty good, but there's for sure a huge margin of improvements. So basically getting the perfect shots just in few seconds. But then we're also working on other functionalities that we think are important because that's the feedback that we hear from a lot of our customers. So for example, when you have different silo shots of different products and you want to combine them in the same scene, so that's something for sure that will be possible with AI. So you put like your sofa with your coffee table, for example. We also work on a big feature which is like a fabric texture. So basically when you apply a fabric on a product, that will be also possible with AI. And that's one of the big features we're working on.
- [46:18]
Dennis Scully
So you came to High Point Market, you came to Vegas, right? You started showing this to people in the furniture industry. Were they skeptical? Were they excited? Did they understand the tool and what it was all about? What were some of the reactions and responses?
- [46:35]
Hamza Bennis
Overall, I was really surprised by the low awareness of the industry about such technology. People have never heard about the fact that you can create your images with AI. So that's why when we were going to the different shows rooms, I would say people had never heard about what we were doing, but they were open to hear what the technology was doing. The feedback I got was, whoa. Every time I was showing the way the tool works, it was, whoa, that was possible. That's amazing. We could definitely do something with that. I was pretty happy during the Las Vegas market in January to see that some of the photos that were actually displayed in the showrooms but also at the main entrance were done with AI through our software. So actually, there were some photos already shown, but people didn't even realize that was AI but that's the ambition, of course.
- [47:32]
Dennis Scully
You mentioned the fabric issue. So this has been a big issue to make this look realistic. It sounds like showing textures is hard to do, showing the depth of what a lot of fabrics could look like. Tell me about the challenges there.
- [47:48]
Hamza Bennis
That's a challenge we definitely tackled. So, like, if you have, like, a velvet sofa and you want to make sure that the velvet will be as it is in real life, the good thing with the software is that you're 100% sure that will be the case. And by the way, sometimes that's a challenge you find with some other technologies, like cgi, because you're modeling the product. Sometimes it's very hard to remodel the velvet fabric. Or if you sell, like, a rattan table, it's not easy to remodel the rattan rattan fabric. And that's why I really believe about the potential of AI because you use as an input the real photo of the product. So the rattan will look real, the velvet will look real. But then the other challenge that we are working on is because a lot of companies have, like, hundred fabrics that they want to apply on a given product, and they cannot, like, manufacture all of them. And what we would like to do is, like, give them the possibility to apply those 100 fabric fabrics very easily on their products without having to remodel the product or even manufacture it and photoshoot it.
- [48:51]
Dennis Scully
So the idea would be that I can take a picture of the sofa that I've manufactured, and then I can, through your technology, render all of the different fabric options or render a whole host of different background options and create a whole catalog or a sales tool for this product just from the original image that I took, rather than investing in multiple photo shoots and all the costs involved.
- [49:20]
Hamza Bennis
Yes, exactly.
- [49:21]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah.
- [49:21]
Dennis Scully
Yes. Okay. So the knock on a lot of this or the pushback, especially from designers who, again, have. A lot of them have used it, A lot of the images seem. And what's the right word? They seem very generic. They seem very banal. And so the designers say. But where are all of the images from some of the great design books? Where are all of the images from a Paris 1920s apartment? That is what designers really use as inspiration. How do we train AI on all of Those images as well.
- [50:02]
Hamza Bennis
I would say first, that's the work we've been doing the past few years is pushing the boundaries of the quality of the image generated with AI. And I think today, especially as I told you with our latest version, the quality is really impressive. But then of course there's something that impacts a lot the image. And I think that's one key element to highlight, is that the better the input, the better the outputs. So basically, if you provide a photo of your product that looks real at the end, you might get some very high quality results as an output from the image. Because actually the AI understand that the product being real, will create also a setting that looks real. So that's why also, if you want to reach high quality images, you also need to work on providing high quality inputs. I think AI is really like a third alternative that complements to photoshoot and cgi. And basically based on the use case you need, you will prioritize a solution over the other. Because of course, if you just need to stage one product, yeah, why not doing it through a photo shoot, you will get all the control that you want, all the quality. But our customers, sometimes they have hundreds, thousands of products, even tens of thousand products, that's where they need some possibilities to do it at scale. And we're working on making sure that the quality is the highest possible.
- [51:24]
Dennis Scully
The fear that many have is, is the impact on creativity. The fear that people have and again, designers, creative directors, photographers, many of whom consider themselves to be artists and to be creating inspiring work, they hope. How does that fit into what is happening with AI and the images that, that we're seeing today?
- [51:55]
Hamza Bennis
Well, my opinion is that actually AI brings you the possibility to be very creative because there's no infinite number of settings that you can create. There's really an infinite number because that's the principle of AI, is that every time you create a new image, you'll get a new one that didn't exist anywhere else before. And so basically, if you are very creative in the way you describe, grab the room that you want, you'll be able to create some amazing things. And I think that's a possibility that didn't exist before that. Now basically AI brings. So that's why it opens up a lot of possibilities. And actually I'm a bit surprised because for example, on our platform we've built some templates, some predefined settings, and I'm always surprised by how many are using this predefined settings sets. Whereas now the AI brings you the possibility to be as creative as you want. So I think, yeah, that's why I think there's still a lot to do in terms of creativity. It's just like the way you would do it is different now. You need to iterate in the prompt, you need to describe what you want. And of course also in terms of technologies, a lot of things are coming to also help you being even more creative.
- [53:10]
Dennis Scully
The fear around photography, I mean, this is a big conversation because it does seem, and again, we can't sugarcoat it, it does seem like this is really coming for the photography industry.
- [53:23]
Hamza Bennis
Yes, yeah, I mean, for sure. But like we work with a lot of photo studios that basically decided to use AI because for them, when the CGI AR started like about 10, 15 years ago, they basically added CGI as an alternative to their customers. And I think that's the same. You need to bring the best option for the use case that you're looking for. But it won't replace fully photography, but it will just give another alternative in some cases where it's more relevant. But then also in the past, you couldn't do 10,000 photos photos in two months. So actually it's not even replacing it. It's just like doing something that wasn't possible before. You would do like maybe 100 photos, real photos, and then you can do all the rest with AI. So again, I think like any innovation, it's replace part of the existing solution, but also opens up a lot of possibilities. And there's also one thing about photography that I want to add is, is that now because of AI, it's becoming really important to get good silo shots, good packed shots. And that's where you will need a lot the photographers, because they will need to create like the. They will need. Yeah, create the right pack shots so that at the end when you upload the pack shot on the platform and on the AI, you're able to get good photos. So actually it might even create more work for the photographers, but not for the rooms, for the product shots.
- [54:59]
Dennis Scully
Got it. Okay. So for very different kind of photographs than perhaps they were doing.
- [55:02]
Hamza Bennis
Exactly.
- [55:02]
Dennis Scully
So rather than the big room setting scenes having really tight good product shots that can be siloed.
- [55:09]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [55:10]
Dennis Scully
Okay. So there was a perception with our industry when the Internet came along, Many people in our industry either hoped it would go away, that didn't happen, or they didn't know how to best take advantage of it. That historically the home industry has had a little bit of attention with technology. And so with AI today I think many people sort of act as though maybe it's a fad, maybe it's not really going to have a meaningful impact and that it's not going to be useful to them. Talk to me about that. Tell me how you address that.
- [55:53]
Hamza Bennis
I think it's similar, similar. And the impact also is pretty massive. And people that don't see it yet are just a bit late in the adoption and it will create more work for them. But when you see all the potential that it has on images, on text, on how it can summarize things for you, how it can create things for you, websites, applications, et cetera, you couldn't say that, okay, this will just disappear. I think it's been there for two years now. If we talk about this generative AI era, and in two years we can see, like, to what extent it has changed the processes and the companies that have adopted it. If we had to compare, it's like we are in 2002 and then 2002, nothing existed yet on the Internet aspect. So that means that there are so many things that will continue to come in the next years. Yeah, I don't think it will fade away. It's like just the beginning. It's just the beginning. And, yeah, that's why actually, it's really an exciting, exciting era to live in and so many things that people can build, and that's why I really feel excited about this era. Yeah.
- [57:04]
Dennis Scully
Well, these are exciting times. Hamza, are you coming to High Point in the spring?
- [57:08]
Hamza Bennis
Yes, of course. Yeah.
- [57:09]
Dennis Scully
Okay. All right, well, so I will definitely see you there then. We'll have to have a coffee in High Point, and I'm eager to hear who you're meeting with and what people are saying. But I'm. But I'm delighted that you could make the time, and I so appreciate it.
- [57:24]
Hamza Bennis
Yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot, Dennis.
- [57:31]
Dennis Scully
And we're back. We're getting to the end of the show here, but before we go, we'd like to take a second to highlight anything going on in the industry that might have caught our eye.
- [57:39]
Fred Nicholas
Fred the Inc. Female founders 500 caught my eye, and it's difficult to say, but a very cool list. Inc Magazine put together list of female founders for its March issue. And I was just excited to see a lot of people from our neck of the woods on it. Shay McGee, former podcast guest. Of course, McGee and company was on there, as was Anna Brockway of Cherish and podcaster Debbie Millman. So it was just cool to see design represented on that list. I thought that was fun. What caught you this week, Dennis?
- [58:08]
Dennis Scully
I am actually heading out to Los Angeles next week for you, and I will be doing the Thursday show while, while I'm out in la. What's, what's bringing me out to LA is the big event that we're doing at the Pacific Design center on Wednesday the 19th, which is, for the Love of Home, a fundraiser that's going to be benefiting LA can do and the LA Fire Department foundation and the Pasadena Humane Society. It's going to be a big day of multiple panels that I'll be doing, but also a bunch of events that are happening in various showrooms. There's even a rumor that Charles Cohen might be on hand for the festivities. So. So we'll see. But there's, there's a lot going to be going on in la and I'm hoping that I'm gonna see a lot of listeners at the big event. Uh, I'm hoping that people will get tickets for the March 19 for the Love of Home event. It's going to be a very special day indeed. Everyone is, is turning out their very best.
- [59:09]
Fred Nicholas
Awesome. Well, I'm sad, I'm sad to miss it, but excited to hear about it from you next week.
- [59:14]
Dennis Scully
Well, I'm looking forward to it. All right, that's all the time we have today. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to keep up with the latest news, browse job listings or take a workshop, visit us online@businessofhome.com if you want to get in touch with the show, write to us@podcastusinessofhome.com this episode was produced by Fred Nicholas and Caroline Burke and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Have a great weekend and we'll be back with you on Monday.