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USA Today named the founder of a home improvement data website its first Entrepreneur of the Year.
Editors from the publication chose to honor Porch.com founder Matt Ehrlichman, who started the website in 2013 as a tool for homeowners to find home improvement research and industry professionals.
When making their decision on who to honor as 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year, the editors considered criteria including whether a company grew significantly this year and if it solved a problem, according to an article from USA Today.
“Ultimately, we selected Porch because they took an existing dilemma and created a custom solution that leveraged a social network in an innovative way,” USA Today Editor-in-Chief David Callaway says in the article.
Ehrlichman’s Seattle company grew rapidly in 2014, jumping from 30 to 300 employees. Lowe’s began using the company’s software this year, causing the rapid growth.
Nearly 3 million contractors have shown off 120 million home remodeling projects on the website, the article adds.
“At its core, Porch connects homeowners with vetted contractors. But beyond that, the site serves as a platform for homeowners to ‘tell the story of their houses,'” the article says.
To read the full USA Today article on Ehrlichman, click here.
To learn more about Porch, click here.
