Last fall, we announced the eight winners of the inaugural Render Competition. Each startup received a $100,000 investment to scale their solution within and beyond the Greater Louisville region. Now, we’re catching up with each of the winning founders to hear about their Competition experience, including lessons learned and advice to future applicants, as well as getting an update from the company about what’s ahead.
First up, we’re excited to hear from Matt Langan, CEO and founder of Stuccco.
Stuccco is a virtual staging and online interior design company enabling realtors and homeowners to get any room staged or designed in as little as one day, democratizing the antiquated $6 billion staging and $114 billion interior design industries, while creating an advertising channel for the $45 billion e-commerce home furnishing industry. To learn more, you can check out their video pitch here.
Why did you decide to apply for Render Competition?We applied because we had achieved product-market fit and were ready to scale our offer and improve our technology so we felt like it was a good time to bring in and put capital to use. When we entered the competition, we had just started raising our seed round. We thought that if we could win the Render Competition, it would validate us for other prospective investors doing due diligence and the funding would give us plenty of runway to complete the round. If we didn’t win, we figured that going through the application and interview processes would still be valuable because they would help us get more familiar with our business, the market, how we would use funds and how to pitch. We saw very little risk and lots of potential upside associated with applying so we applied and, thankfully, we won!
What was something you learned from the application process?We learned that the application process gifts you a lot of knowledge and assets that you can use well after submitting the application. Since applying for the Render Competition, we have used knowledge, language, slide decks and data that we gathered for the Render Competition repeatedly, whether that’s when pitching to other investors, communicating with customers and more. If you are an entrepreneur who is considering applying to the competition, I would encourage you to apply because the application process itself is a very valuable experience that births a lot of new knowledge, marketing assets and confidence that you can use long after the competition.
What did you take away from your interactions with the judges?The judges are true pros who come prepared and want to see you succeed. Their questions were thoughtful, relevant, clear and challenging. The questions they asked and the feedback they gave helped me and the business get better. By pitching to them and hearing their questions and concerns, I was able to see what resonated with them and what could be improved upon. I used the experience to improve our pitch deck again and practice my answers to their questions so I’d be better at answering them when speaking with other prospective investors.
What’s your favorite part about Louisville’s startup ecosystem? My favorite part is that other Louisville entrepreneurs and investors want to see you succeed. I think that the Louisville startup ecosystem is very inclusive and encouraging as opposed to hyper-competitive or alienating. Starting and validating an idea in Louisville is fairly affordable relative to other cities, which benefits a bootstrapping entrepreneur.
How are you using the $100k and how will it help you scale your startup?We are using it to scale our virtual staging offer and to further improve our platform’s technology.
What’s next for your company in 2021?We will be closing our seed round, hiring sales and marketing resources, and doubling down on product development, which will enable homeowners to shop any virtually staged photo and enable real estate agents to more effectively drive demand and leads for their listings.
What inspires you to continue to grow and push forward your business every day?We have a lot of fun helping others and designing beautiful spaces and products.
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