How an Architect Created a Crowdsourcing Platform for Interior Design
Filippo Schiano di Pepe, Architect & Founder of CoContest What made you decide to found CoContest? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you? I have worked many years as an architect in different studios in Italy and in London. This experience made me discover numerous inefficiencies in the market of architecture. A lot of clients were unsatisfied with the architectural services they received. Meanwhile, in Europe, particularly in Italy, young architects had a hard time finding jobs and new clients. As a matter of fact, there’s high percentage of inoccupation for architects. Just imagine: a third of European architects are Italian, and a third of architects in the world are from Europe! That’s how I came up with the idea of creating a website where clients can find the perfect architect and offer up opportunities to designers to find new clients and work online, at home. Could you tell us a little about the business model behind CoContest? The idea of CoContest is inspired by public architectural contests, but it’s created for the individual consumer rather than a public organ. Basically, clients who want to renovate their home can describe what they have in mind, what they’re looking for and their personal tastes and styles, and then launch a competition on CoContest – a Contest, by all means. All registered designers on our website (over 35K to date, and from 90 countries around the world) can participate in the contest. By the time of a contest’s deadline, clients have 20-25 proposals on average; from which they choose the one they like the most. We receive a fee at the launch of each contest. This is our core business but we have other minor business models on the side. How can clients and designers profit from CoContest? Clients can receive dozens of projects for the home in a minimum of 14 days, with no need to spend time on finding one single ‘perfect’ architect and negotiate the price. So clients benefit from multiple design projects in a short time and at a convenient price. A design project for a 100 sq. home costs around $3,000-$4,000. On CoContest, you can get an average 14 projects for the same house at only $700. At the same time, designers earn money when they win contests, so they benefit from CoContest through income and the opportunity to find new clients. There are many designers, many of whom are from Eastern Europe who work full-time and exclusively on CoContest – and earn more money than they would have if they had worked in traditional architecture studios. Did your architectural skills set help you to become a digital media entrepreneur and do you continue to use these skills in your work? Absolutely! I could’ve never come up with idea of CoContest if I was not a professional architect. Actually, I believe architects can be very successful project managers in that they develop an idea and follow it through to its realization. I have tried to apply the same model of designing and building a structure to how I develop my company: research, design, create, test, repeat.
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