When Ty Melton first envisioned the smoothly operating, successful business he runs today, he imagined an aquarium. Fish, plants, crustaceans, all harmoniously living together. “I wanted to build a little ecosystem,” Melton says. He had, when he started his Boulder, Colo., company, recently left a job at a cabinetmaker, where he worked 70-hour weeks for low pay. “It was a great company, and I learned a lot,” Melton says, but he didn't want to keep working there. “The idea was that [my company] would be a more fun place to work if the people working for me thought I was a good guy and liked working for me.”
Traditional showrooms have produced mixed results for remodelers. They're attractive because they provide a controlled environment for product selection. But for some companies, floor displays smack of shopping-center furniture stores. And that retail atmosphere runs counter to the luxury or high-design brand many upscale companies promote.
Whatever your feelings on composite decking, it's here to stay. The category continues to grow, carving out a larger share of the multibillion-dollar decking market every year. But the pace of that growth has slowed: Where the early years of this decade saw annual market-share gains of 30% (in dollar terms), between 2005 and 2006 composites grew just 18% in dollar terms and in single digits in volume terms, according to John Pruett, area leader for building products at Principia Consulting. Pruett says much of the slowdown can be attributed to a rise in manufacturing costs ó Hurricanes Katrina and Rita took out Gulf Coast resin facilities, which led to higher prices. But a rash of product failures and consumer complaints have hurt, too.
Some see specialization as the future of the industry, but plenty of remodelers beg to differ with the notion that a jack-of-all trades is a master of none.
Unlike their single-line counterparts, full-service remodelers have not, historically, had a very easy time duplicating their success by expanding to another location.
