An award winning New Zealand company has launched a major export push into the US, offering consumers sustainable home renovations.
Wanaka based Dream Doors which last year turned over $18m throughout Australasia, says they expect to open 100 US franchises within the next five years, which will lift their annual revenue to over $150 million.
CEO Derek Lilly says they have spent recent years researching the North American market and refining their business model, which allows customers to reuse existing plumbing and joinery infrastructure when renovating.
Lilly says this method of construction offers greater efficiency, significantly reduces waste and cost, and shortens average installation time from around a week to one day.
He says the company’s rapid growth of 1200% in five years has led to the in house development of a cloud based franchise management system.
“The off-the-shelf franchise software we looked at originally did not have the feature set we needed, and was primarily focused on aggregating financials.
“Our ideal system was one that could also integrate continuous feedback from our customers and so we built our own bespoke cloud based system from the ground up.
“This has been a critical part of managing our growth as it allowed us to capture our IP and disseminate knowledge to our extended team, at the same time measuring their business performance in real time,” he says.
Lilly says since entering the Australian market, the company has secured 22 franchises in just 18 months and had recently signed a multi million dollar country master franchise agreement there.
He says the company’s innovative approach and rapid trans-Tasman expansion was recently recognised with the business securing the Export Award at the New Zealand Franchise Awards.
“Understanding the psychology which underpins the connection we have with our homes has been a key part of our success so far.
“While we seeing a global trend towards people eating out of home, a renovation of the kitchen in particular tends to elicit an emotional response and brings them back to cooking for themselves,” he says.
Photo: Derek Lilly
