Growth & Roofr's Journey - Our 2017 In Review

Looking back on this year as it's coming to a close, we have a lot to be proud of and thankful for. Roofr has had a year of growth and learning as we continue to build upon what was once just an idea in our founder Richard Nelson's mind.

We've become more than one man and his idea: Roofr became a team this year. Kevin Redman, and Zachary Melo joined forces with Richard to bring his revolutionary ideas to life. Building, testing, and improving on the software that was Roofr's first version led to our acceptance into Toronto's Ryerson DMZ.

With support and guidance from the DMZ, we aimed higher still - looking to further accelerate the already rapid growth of Roofr in 2017. While we can illustrate how much our AI models have learned and improved, it's nothing compared to the knowledge we've collectively gained about the joys and hardships of being entrepreneurs along this journey.

Our next signs of promise came in the form of a meeting in Montreal, Quebec - where we were ultimately rejected by the FounderFuel program. There was no way that we were going to be disuaded by rejection. We doubled down and applied to the world renowned Y Combinator. In short, Y Combinator is a community of over 3000 founders and the world's shining example of what it means to be a startup accelerator.

Despite earlier rejection and staggering odds, our acceptance into Y Combinator came as no shock. After all, they are renowned for their ability to choose world-class businesses from the crowd. Some examples? Dropbox, Air BnB, and Reddit to name a few.

When you're accepted into Y Combinator, you're expected to be in Mountainview, California multiple times per week. Queue Roofr's move from Toronto to San Francisco.

After an intensive three months of mentorship, scrutiny, and 24/7 Roofr for us - Richard was thrust on stage to face hundreds of investors in what's known simply as 'Demo Day'.

Richard on stage at YC Demo Day S17  

Y Combinator and Demo Day put us in the eyes of many potential, and actual investors. We can't thank our investors enough for their insights and significant contributions to our surging growth.

As the needs of our customers have grown, so have our capabilities with them. With the addition of new team members; Daniel Tighe, Brendan Hussey and Nicholas Capobianco, our growth continues to outpace headcount in the best of ways. The specialized skills of Daniel, Brendan, and Nicholas have allowed us to expand our operations to better serve residential and commercial roofing clients, as well as homeowners impacted by the damage of natural disasters.  We've expanded geographically as well, into California and Florida in addition to our presence in Ontario.

Our success and growth has not gone unnoticed, with accolades and mentions in popular media outlets including Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Yahoo!, & Digital Trends.

We've helped pair homeowners with the right roofer on over 200 homes in the last 7 months. Looking at those 200 roofs, we helped save homeowners $300,000 - that's an average savings of $1500 for every homeowner we work with!

Richard and Geo together in San Francisco

It isn't just the homeowners that are benefiting though. Our roofers love what we have been able to do for their businesses. Take for example Geo, our first Roofr installer in California. In our first 4 weeks, we've already increased his sales by $160,000!

We're thankful for our partners and our team members, who are working towards the same goal - to build the most trusted roofing company in the world. With them we look forward to 2018 and the challenges it will offer as we conquer yet another year at Roofr.