Blueprint Registry

Nevin Shetty had spent about ten years in New York trying to furnish his apartment and found that buying furniture online was a terrible experience. The idea was simple but ambitious: could you build an e-commerce experience based on the blueprint or layout of a home? The concept came together around January 2013, but it took time to figure out where to start.

Shetty found his co-founder, Liz, through networking. A friend who had done design work for other startups connected them, and Liz, a designer, was the first person he met about the idea. They chose to focus on weddings to prove the concept. The platform aggregated gifts from multiple retailers into one registry, so couples no longer had to set up separate registries at three different stores. The visual room layouts were the main differentiator. The company launched in 2014, starting part-time with Shetty and Liz working alongside a development team on nights and weekends.

In its first year the platform generated $225K in gross sales from only 80 people using the website, with an average cart value of a little over $2,000. That was enough signal to raise a little over $700,000 from friends and family. In 2015 gross sales grew to over $4 million, and in 2016 they reached a little over $6 million. Growth came largely from guests buying gifts through the single shared link that couples sent to friends and family. Over time, users also started using the platform for baby registries, housewarmings, and fundraisers.

The business model is commission-based. Retailers pay Blueprint Registry a cut of each sale, typically between 5% and 15% depending on the retailer, and the company earns roughly 5% of volume. Registration is free for couples. The company also charges only 2.5% on cash gifts such as honeymoon and down-payment funds, which it presented as the lowest credit card processing fee on the web. Seasonality was a challenge, because most people register months in advance but purchases cluster in the summer and fall near the wedding. Competitors included Zola, MyRegistry, Honey Fund, and Baby List.

By early 2017 the company had about ten full-time employees, based in Seattle after starting in New York. It had gone through Techstars in Minneapolis in mid-2016 and closed a $1 million seed round, bringing total funding to about $1.7 million. Shetty projected 2017 transaction volume of $10 to $12 million, with potential to reach $15 to $20 million. The company was also exploring ways to monetize its user and retailer data, with retailers showing strong interest in the platform.