Today we’d like to introduce you to Haley Weidenbaum.
Hi Haley, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
When I was a child, I would spend countless hours rearranging my bedroom. This creative outlet stuck with me from my childhood bedroom to my college dorm room to my first home; I have always naturally been drawn to making a space feel special. This affinity for design is what inspired my career – I worked as an interior designer for years prior to starting my own design brand, Everhem, to solve for the pain points around custom window treatments. As an interior designer I ran into so many hurdles and missteps when it came to window treatments. My intuition told me I could create a company that did it better than the rest. I partnered up with my husband, Adam, and we launched Everhem in August 2019. Our goal from the start was to offer customers and designers like myself an option for 100% customized, high-quality window treatments paired with exceptional customer experience.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I had never started a company before, so the first few months navigating it all was difficult. Some days, we didn’t know where to begin, and other days, we didn’t know when to stop. As we went along, we learned a lot about what skills each of us had to offer in regards to forming a business strategy and setting up operations. Eventually, Adam and I were able to figure out how to divide and conquer – where my skills as an interior designer stop, Adam’s skills as a graphic designer and finance whiz step in. We are truly an amazing team. In my life as a designer, I have seen firsthand how difficult this process can be, and through those experiences, I became really well-equipped to handle a wide range of client issues. I had a really optimistic vision for how I wanted to raise the bar for exceptional customer service and expert advice – which is one of Everhem’s top value propositions today. The design and branding was something that came naturally to both my husband and me. I had a vision for what I wanted the Everhem to look and feel like, and Adam knew how to make it come to life. Another layer that was helpful in the early days of Everhem was that Adam had a background in finance, so he pulled out his Excel skills and financial knowledge to help launch, and he continues to serve as our CFO today.
As we grow as a company, we keep facing the question: How fast do we want to grow? There is certainly pressure these days to raise capital and involve investors to grow quickly and be successful. To date, we actually have not taken any outside funding and we have purposely decided to grow gradually and thoughtfully. I have seen from the sidelines how a great idea and promising company become thwarted by investor money – and I know that I don’t want that to happen to Everhem. So, while overnight success is a compelling story and fairytale ending, I see Everhem continuing this slow and mighty growth in order to truly define our version of success.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
Everhem is an online window treatment company that allows customers to build high-quality custom drapes, blinds, and shades – guided by my expertise as an interior designer. After a decade in the design industry, I noticed a recurring problem – every project needed custom window treatments, but no one could provide me with a simple way to make that happen. With Everhem, we’re putting window coverings at the forefront of the design process, providing customers the opportunity to work with us every step of the way to design custom drapery, shades, and more that are carefully curated to fit the customer’s unique taste and needs. At Everhem, we often say window treatments are the “forgotten essential,” and we are here to change the perception of window treatments through accessible expertise.
Within the last year, Everhem has had a lot of meaningful customer growth and industry recognition. While the Everhem experience was ultimately designed for everyday consumers, we have become a go-to resource for many top interior designers like Sarah Sherman Samuel, Sally Breer, Maison Trouville, Light & Dwell, & Sarah Lederman. As a small, bootstrapped, and family-run business, it’s pretty incredible to create something that has persuaded some of the biggest designers in the industry to abandon their loyalty to the massive incumbents they’ve worked with for decades and put their faith in us instead. One thing we’re really proud of is that in spite of all of our growth, our mistake rate is still under 1% – which is unheard of in our industry. We take the utmost care and consideration when crafting every single order, and this has resulted in word-of-mouth recommendations being one of the strongest ways of growth.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
The biggest risks for me have always been when to take that next step or big leap to the next level. When is it the right time? As founders, my husband and I did everything the first year and half, but we realized we needed to hire when I became pregnant with twins and was about to give birth. After taking that leap, we realized quickly when you hire the right person in the right seat, it can be life-changing for you as a founder. We have grown our company gradually and now are a team of 7 including ourselves. The process of hiring can be risky and daunting, but it’s the biggest driver in growth for our company because, without my team, Adam and I would still be sending out swatches ourselves, measuring jobs, and packaging products. We clearly see now that we had a vision to start Everhem, but it will be our dedicated and hardworking team that will take Everhem to the next level.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.everhem.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everhem/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/haleyweidenbaum/?img_index=3
Image Credits
Everhem
