Making the Leap: From Hobby to Career, the Story of Leap

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter. 

How the game-changing CRM Leap found its way to the roofing industry and simplified the estimating process. 

The multimillion-dollar idea that Leap would become, oddly enough, started with windows. Leap’s Chief Executive Patrick Fingles was a 24-year-old father of two, separated from his wife making $45,000 a year as a package delivery courier. “It was a straight commission job, without benefits or security, but I needed the work," Patrick told the Washington Post. He decided to try selling vinyl replacement windows. Within his first year, he sold more than $1 million worth of windows and earned $150,000 for himself. He even won a trophy for being the company’s best salesperson. “I outsold everyone by a landslide,” Patrick said. “It changed my life.” After two years of success with selling windows, Patrick struck out on his own. “I woke up one day and said, ‘Man, I could have a million-dollar company.’” 

Patrick enlisted the help of his childhood friend, Tom Bury, and began Nu Look in 2003 with an initial stake of $2,500 each. From their shared desk in a utility room, the two grossed $2 million. Utilizing the door-to-door approach that Patrick had perfected, Nu Look was grossing $8 million a year by 2008. The financial crisis is what switched Patrick’s business model away from window replacement to roofing sales. Once the economy recovered, the company expanded into Northern Virginia and then New Jersey.  

By then, Steve Stencil, 36, was a star salesman at Nu Look and had started to experiment on computers. “I took up computer programming as a hobby,” he told the Washington Post. “I wanted to simplify the job of selling...I started working on an app that would make my life easier as a sales rep at Nu Look.” Steve called the digital platform “EstiMate” and it was a new version of Nu Look that streamlined the repair process and cut the paperwork. Soon, there were calls and emails coming in from other contractors interested in the platform. “In July of 2016, we decide to take EstiMate and start a new company that will sell into the home services sector,” Patrick said. 

Together they named the company Leap to emphasize the transition into running a home improvement company in the digital age. Leap hit the ground running, launching out of a closet sized office. Patrick brought in a sales director and a marketing director, he sent salespeople to trade shows across the country and Leap partnered with other noncompetitive industry software companies to find customers. Six months after their start, Leap had 1,000 users and within the year they would hit $1 million in revenue. 

Leap, as we know it, is a business-to-business app licensed to contractors, used to manage mostly residential projects such as roof replacements. The platform allows contractors to estimate projects remotely, execute work orders, schedule jobs and collect payments on a secure system. 

Leap users pay $78 a month, on average, to use the app, enabling their sales reps to digitally deliver brochures, photos, estimates, proposals, contracts and even financing options to the homeowner without appearing in person. Using aerial photographs, cellphone or satellite technology, Leap users can order real-time 3-D renderings without having to climb onto the roof or pull out a tape measure. 

The subscriber-based business model can create recurring revenue, which is “appealing because everything you did the previous month or year, you take into the next month or year,” Patrick says. “That’s a breath of fresh air after home improvement sales when you start each year with zero and have to build from there.”  

“It also works to the client’s benefit,” said Patrick. “Homeowners are able to visualize the project before the hammer hits the first nail, they can sign all work orders with the swipe of a finger on the contractor’s iPad, so documents can be sent directly to homeowners’ email.”  

The company now has 60 employees and nearly 7,000 licensed users at 1,000 companies in the United States and Canada and expects it will gross $10 million this year. Patrick says the company plans to take on a financial partner to bring in investors and boost growth, meaning the company could be worth anywhere from $50 million to $100 million, making Leap’s three owners’ multimillionaires. 

Learn more about Leap in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.leaptodigital.com.