A Seattle entrepreneur's Lowe's-worthy bet on home improvement (Video)

Laura Baverman, Upstart Business Journal

Contributing Writer

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The UpTake: Young serial entrepreneurs can have a big impact on the startup ecosystem, evidenced by Matt Ehrlichman's fast ramp up of Porch.com.

The frustrations of building his own home was enough inspiration for Matt Ehrlichman to start a new company that made the process simpler, (potentially) cheaper, educational and, he hoped, more fun.

It helped that he had a successful startup under his belt-he sold Thriva to ACTIVE Network for $60 million-and has spent years analyzing and making sense of data at the two companies. That's the secret to Porch.com, after all, and what led to an important partnership it announced yesterday with Lowe's.

We'll get to the details. But first, let's recognize the value of a young serial entrepreneur to the startup ecosystem. Ehrlichman started Thriva while a student at Stanford University 13 years ago, and he sold it at age 28. He spent another several years at ACTIVE Network helping to grow the company to $420 million in revenue and take it public.

So for his next venture, he had plenty of his own funds and the experience and connections to raise more-investors in a $6.25 million seed round included famed Silicon Valley angel Ron Conway, former eBay president Jeff Skoll and Joe Hanauer, the former CEO of Coldwell Banker. The funds afforded Ehrlichman a year of time to prepare for a September 2013 launch. He also was able to hire a staff of 80 to ensure the company could grow as fast as he wanted and right off the bat.

That momentum helps to explain the early partnership with Lowe's, which starts in 139 stores in North and South Carolina and Washington.

Early career successes, along with the experience gained, can lead to bigger and more impactful endeavors in years to come.

'When you start a business out of school, you know next to nothing,' he says. 'You make so many mistakes, and you learn and get better. The thing I'm most focused on with Porch is to do this the right way.'