This is my first Porch blog and I’m excited to finally let the world know what we have been up to.  I can’t think of a better way to be inaugurated into the community than to announce Porch, our investors, and our consumer offering to the world. There is so much to tell, so stay tuned and keep coming back to Get Advice for the latest. You can keep up with me personally on my blog or at matterhlichman.com.

As co-founder/CEO, I built and sold my first tech start-up out of my Stanford dorm room and then IPO’d the acquirer in 2011. After promising my high school sweetheart and now wife, Alison, a much overdue vacation, we set out to build our dream house, our family home.

In the beginning, I felt uneducated with very little idea as to cost, process, and who the very best professionals were for me to hire. It was comically painful. Homes should be easy to take care of, build, and improve. Instead, the lack of personalized and free recommendations, as well as data transparency often make it a nightmare. It is hard to know what a project will cost and impossible to know who the best professional is for you, your home, and your project. Since the home is our biggest life purchase, I was stunned at the limited number of resources available.  Managing our homes should be easy. And for that purpose, I cut my vacation short to start Porch.

Time to start solving real pain again. There are 120 million households across the United States that face local home improvement and repair problems. Plus, it’s a massive market – over $500 billion spent every year. Fortunately, investors were as attracted to revolutionizing this old industry as me. To date, Porch has raised a $6.25 million seed round from top angel experts across technology, social, marketplaces, and home sectors. Investors include SV Angel/Ron Conway, Chamath Palihapitiya, Javier Olivan, Jeff Skoll, Bill Lee, Geoff Entress, Charles Moldow, and 20 others.

Porch’s mission is to change the world one home at a time by making home improvement and maintenance easy for homeowners. The marketplace allows homeowners to get inspired by viewing neighbors’ home projects, get educated by seeing their actual project costs, and decide on the right professional by reviewing friend endorsements. Today Porch accomplishes this by organizing and connecting exclusive insights from over 1.4 million professionals, across 250 professional types, and 60 million projects. This helps homeowners make an easy and informed decision when it comes to improving their home and selecting the right home professionals. Check out this sneak peak of the launch home page!

We are still pre-launch, testing and iterating the product so it is nationally available in a few months. Today Porch has early, private access available to select individuals that sign up at Porch.com. Please help us tell others by sending them to Porch. The more people you know on Porch, the more confident you’ll be in the professionals you hire. And remember, Porch is and always will be free for homeowners!

Last week, the walls on my new home came down and this week the curtains in front of Porch are lifted.

We have a team who have done this before, leading the charge – world class and truly special – Asha, Eric, Ha, Ronnie and Scott whom are successful marketing, data, design, acquisition, and product visionaries from Google, Microsoft, Expedia, Active Network and Apollo Group. There are 20 of us in total and it’s already a special culture…  we’re on the path to building a truly great company.

Heading into launch, we couldn’t be having more fun – door bells for every home professional we win, transition from working out of my basement to our first new office digs, guerrilla tactics painting America, college and sales recruiting, burning the midnight oil, big mistakes, big wins, and great friendships. We are working day and night to get better and change home ownership by making home improvement and maintenance easy.

Thanks for reading and supporting Porch as we start this incredible journey! I am reachable at matt (at) porch.com. See the full press release from today’s announcement.