

Tastemaker (YC S12) is an online interior decorating service for everyone - jfraiman
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/14/tastemaker-wants-to-make-interior-design-more-affordable-and-accessible/

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webwright
2 years ago I remodeled my house and, for the first time in my life, wanted to
really nail the interior setup. It was pretty surprising to me how bad the
internet was at helping me. Try searching the web for interior design
resources sometime-- it's overloaded with ad-laden SEO'd schlock. And the
furniture buying process is no better. This is a high dollar and high margin
area of e-commerce-- I'm really surprised it hasn't been jumped on sooner.
Related: [http://pandodaily.com/2012/05/16/why-ron-conway-is-jazzed-
on...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/05/16/why-ron-conway-is-jazzed-on-
ecommerce/)

~~~
iamdave
Next time check out apartmenttherapy.com and curbed.com. They both do an
awesome job of showcasing homes with great design, I've used both for ideas in
designing mine.

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salman89
Cool idea, it will be interesting if they can make their process scale while
maintaining quality.

Another route they can go down is making the service very cheap and instead
making money on partnerships with furnishing manufacturers. It would be
awesome to just upload your floor plans and be able to "visualize" how
products will actually look in your living room.

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pyoung
I am surprised IKEA doesn't do this actually. Considering how ubiquitous there
furniture is becoming, and that a significant portion of people pretty much
use them exclusively for their furniture needs, seems like it would be a great
thing for them to do.

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RyanMcGreal
They do it for kitchens:
[http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_CA/rooms_ideas/kitchen_howto/NA/pl...](http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_CA/rooms_ideas/kitchen_howto/NA/plan_your_kitchen_in_3d.html)

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mirsadm
I know nothing about interior design but this seems like an interesting idea.
I could see my friends/family using this service. Does anybody have an idea
how much an average interior designer costs?

The only issue I can think of is that it relies on information supplied by the
customer. This is always tricky since they might not take the best photos and
all that. Also competing only on price might not be the best business
strategy. Are there any other benefits to using this service besides price?

Anyway congrats on the launch. Lots of other launches received negative
comments on HN but personally I think this one has potential :).

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enjo
My step-mom charges about $5000 a room (depending on a few factors) in
Arkansas. I would expect that to be a bit higher elsewhere.

That said, that involves her coming out and taking measurements, looking at
the house, and really spending quite a bit of time with the customer. As stuff
arrives she'll show back up and actually make sure it is installed correctly
and make necessary adjustments.

This process is a bit less hands-on, and as such it can ONLY compete on price.
You're paying less because you're getting less really.

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jfraiman
Hi enjo,

Our decorators typically charge between $600 and $2250 per room, vs $5,000 -
$10,000 for traditional decorators. We do want to offer affordable prices to
our users, but we're not trying to compete only on price. We also give users
the ability to work with top decorators from all over the country (and soon,
the world). We've talked to a lot of users who want to work with great
decorators outside their local area and don't have an easy way to do that. So
while users will get less time with our decorators, they still get fantastic
results.

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septerr
If Tastemaker founders are monitoring this, in your FAQ's the question 'What
if products are back-ordered or sold out?' has a totally unrelated answer.

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jfraiman
Thank you, we'll take a look!

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Johnyma22
Check out the free open source tool called "Sweet Home 3D" to actually mock up
your ideas. Don't be put off by the name, this piece of software is actually
great.

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mbell
This is worth checking out also, a web based app built by Autodesk (warning:
uses flash): <http://www.homestyler.com/>

