Revolutionizing Home Design with Automation: A Case Study on Cottage

Cottage is a startup based in San Francisco that is revolutionizing the process of design, permitting, and construction in residential projects. The company focuses on accessory dwelling units (ADUs), providing homeowners with a way to make extra income or provide family members with a place to live by utilizing underutilized spaces such as garages or backyards. Cottage handles the entire development process, from initial design to acquiring planning permissions, and through to construction. The company coordinates with various stakeholders in their marketplace, including designers and general contractors, and has a team of 30 employees. Cottage aims to be a nimble and lean organization, focusing on efficiency and strategic growth.

Cottage, a San Francisco-based startup, is redefining the process of design, permitting, and construction in residential projects, particularly accessory dwelling units (ADUs). The company's unique approach involves handling the entire development process, from initial design to acquiring planning permissions, and through to construction. However, coordinating this multi-stage process with various stakeholders, including designers and general contractors, posed a significant challenge. The company needed to remain lean and agile, which required efficient tools to manage the process. Additionally, Cottage faced the challenge of integrating various tools used by different teams, such as sales and marketing, with industry-specific software used for site feasibility, design, and construction coordination. The company needed a solution that would allow them to collect and manage data from these disparate tools without overburdening their tech development resources.

Cottage found its solution in Zapier, a tool that enabled them to automate various processes and quickly put together prototypes. Zapier allowed Cottage to handle labor-intensive administrative work and repetitive tasks without adding more staff, freeing up the in-house team to focus on strategic work and future planning. The company used Zapier to work with hundreds of homeowners on their ADU projects while actively optimizing their workflows. They also developed a flexible project management process that was crucial to their growth. For instance, Zapier was used to send data from their CRM (HubSpot) into their primary data management tool (Airtable). Whenever there was a property change in HubSpot, Zapier automatically updated the record in Airtable and notified team members via Slack. Furthermore, Zapier's webhooks feature was used to integrate Autodesk, a document management tool for architects, with other tools, automating the creation of project folders for each ADU and inviting designers to projects based on CRM stages.

• The use of Zapier has significantly improved Cottage's operational efficiency. The automation of labor-intensive administrative tasks and repetitive processes has allowed the in-house team to focus on strategic work and future planning. The integration of various tools used by different teams has streamlined the company's workflows, improving coordination and communication among team members. The automation of data collection and management has also enabled the company to have a clear aggregate view of their pipeline, aiding decision-making and planning. Furthermore, the use of Zapier's webhooks feature has unlocked a wealth of data previously trapped in Autodesk, providing the company with much-needed flexibility. Overall, the use of automation has allowed Cottage to remain a lean and nimble organization, focusing on growth and innovation.

• Cottage has grown from five employees to 30 since 2020, demonstrating successful scaling.

• The company is working with hundreds of homeowners on their ADU projects, showing a wide reach and impact.

• Cottage has managed to integrate multiple tools and software, streamlining their processes and improving efficiency.