Former Vancouver man’s online company has roofing jobs covered

Josh Davis is showing that he’s found a way to reduce the cost of a new roof installation by about 30 percent without sacrificing quality.

Now all he has to do is convince homeowners that his lower-cost option, made possible by shrewd use of new technologies that reduce overhead, isn’t too good to be true.

Former Vancouver resident Davis is founder of Viirt, which he describes as an online roofing broker. The company manages a roofing job from start to finish, providing a homeowner with an estimate based on a satellite view of a home and then brokering with an independent roofing contractor. Viirt collects full payment in advance and holds it until the work is done, eliminating collection costs and assuring that the customer is satisfied before the contractor is paid. Viirt’s handling of the many details surrounding a roofing job allows contractors to focus simply on getting the job done.

“Contractors are sick of sales, marketing, advertising,” says Davis, 30. “They can do what they are best at, and they make money.”

The company’s system cuts costs every step of the way in an industry that Davis, a former roofing contractor, says is bloated with cost inefficiencies

The cost savings are so dramatic that prospective customers, wary of scams in an industry with spotty reputation, wonder whether the offer is legitimate. Clark Ludahl of Vancouver became one of Viirt’s first customers after he met Davis at a home show last spring. “He seems like a sharp young man with a new concept,” Ludahl said.

He said he overcame his skepticism by asking lots of questions and doing some research. Viirt’s bid for a replacement roof was $5,500, well below the second-lowest bit of $7,000. Ludahl said.

With an entrepreneurial spirit and boundless energy, Davis spent some time pitching his concept locally to prospective investors. But he was advised to look to venture funding sources in Omaha, and there he found a receptive ear.

Last spring, Viirt — short for value, innovation, intelligence, responsibility, transparency — secured $20,000 and invaluable business mentorship from Straight Shot, an Omaha business accelerator, Next came $900,000 from Dundee Venture Capital, also of Omaha, and a group of angel investors.

Davis opted to base his business operations in Omaha, with an eye on the Portland-Vancover and Puget Sound regions as his first big market opportunities because most roofs are private pay, while the Midwest has more insurance-funded repairs due to weather damage. Davis hopes to quickly ramp up from about 5,000 roofing jobs this year to ten times that many next year in the Vancouver-Portland, Seattle and Omaha regions.

“This is a huge industry, and it’s ripe for disruption,” he said.

Viirt now has 18 employees, including a former landscape contractor named Joe Vasko who had thought about a similar satellite-based job-estimating tool for the landscaping business. Davis won’t disclose his marketing strategy for targeting prospective customers, calling it is “secret sauce” that guards against would-be competitors.

David Arnold, managing director of Straight Shot, recalled being struck both by Davis’ vision and his expertise in the industry.

“The market he was going after, residential roofing, was one that has been forgotten by the technology advances in so many industries,” Arnold said. “He is using technology to make process more efficient.” He said Davis’ knowledge of the roofing business and his experience as a roofing contractor were major strengths for his new venture. “You don’t always have that level of sophistication” with startups,” he said. He knows the industry front and back.”

Indeed, Davis’ father and grandfather have both in the roofing materials business, and his brother, Jordan, is a Vancouver roofing and construction contractor. Jordan Davis is now doing contract work for Viirt and finds it to be a great supplement to his other jobs. “Homeowners are saving 30, 25 percent,” said Jordan Davis, owner of Columbia Contracting. “They can’t believe they save that much money.”

‘Critical mass’

Arnold said the greatest challenge for Davis is to ramp up the company quickly. “At this point in his company’s life, he doesn’t have a lot that is inherently proprietary,” Arnold said. “The critical factor is getting to a critical mass.”

Davis says the investors are eager to expand his company into hundreds of cities, but he’s interested now in making sure the fundamentals — what he calls the engine of the company — are solidly in place. Davis says he wants to make sure his system works for contractors, and is built around strong customer service.

“I say we don’t need the money right now,” Davis said. “Building and getting the engine right is what we need to be focusing on. “I’m not going to think about raising any money until the fall.”

Part of that process is to build the company’s offerings in Clark County and other parts of the Portland region before expanding by next year to the Seattle region. In Clark County, “we’re ramping up our crews and customer service capabilities right now,” Davis said. “We want as many roofs as possible to come in.”