Episode 91: Structure Studios with Noah Nehlich: Analyzing the Leading 3D Pool Design Software

Software & Technology
Written By Pool Chasers

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Google Podcasts, Youtube, or on your favorite Podcast platform.

In this episode, we sat down with Structure Studios founder Noah Nehlich. They are the creators of the industry's leading pool design software Pool Studio and landscaping software VizTerra. Noah’s journey is the true definition of what it is like to be an entrepreneur. It all started with a video game project he created when he was young, through this, he learned that when people can visualize something then they are more likely to buy into the project. With the development of Pool Studio, they opened the eyes of homeowners everywhere by allowing them to see a 3D pool design of the concept they were looking to build in their backyard. Until then, most people were using hand drawings and other versions of 2D designs to show their clients. This new program also empowered designers and builders to create an emotional connection with every presentation they performed. 

Structure Studios has since created Vip3D which is a 3D high-end design software and YARD which is an augmented reality app. We had a great conversation about Noah’s incredible journey, the history of Pool Studio, what the software is designed to do, it’s capabilities and features, and how it essentially works. We also discuss the steps to take to get started and what kind of training classes they have available. If you think swimming pool or landscape design is a fit for you, this episode gives you a breakdown of the options that are available starting with a Structure Studios free trial.

Visit Structure Studios:

Book & Podcast Recommendations:

Show Notes:

  • [02:06] Introduction to Noah Nehlich, Structure Studios and dealing with Coronavirus

  • [10:29] From South Dakota to Las Vegas, NV. From teenage gamer to entrepenuer

  • [15:51] Early days building Structure Studios

  • [16:59] Leaving Paddock Pools to design for all builders

  • [22:22] Earning almost 100,000,000 with their MVP software at the International Pool Show

  • [25:02] Getting real world feedback from early adopters

  • [30:32] Building software is more difficult than you think 

  • [34:01] All Software Structure Studios offer

  • [36:44] GIS Aerial Imagery is hands down the most popular feature

  • [41:22] Getting started with Pool Studio

  • [42:30] Live classes by Structure Studios

  • [43:08] Apple computers are not recomended for the software  

  • [44:56] Best computer recommendation 

  • [50:09] Charging for swimming pool designs

  • [54:17] The software is made for profesionals not homeowners

  • [57:04] Turning a design from 2D to 3D

  • [01:02:21] Features in Pool Studio

  • [01:08:31] Free trial and paid membership

  • [01:10:04] Biggest struggles for pool designers and how to overcome

  • [01:12:05] Book recomendations

Resources Mentioned:

Episode 91 Transcription

Tyler Rasmussen (00:00:02):

Hey, Pool Chasers. This episode is brought to you by Merlin Industries. Each Merlin liner is custom designed and manufactured in 100% North American virgin vinyl. That means no offshore material and no reground material. They also offer some of the most impressive lead times in the industry. To check out your special offer on vinyl liners, visit merlinindustries.com/poolchasers.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:00:23):

We want to thank all of you for joining us today on episode 91 of the Pool Chasers Podcast. As always, our mission is to help educate and inspire in the form of a podcast. So today we have somebody on that we have respected for a very long time. His entrepreneurial journey has been a real inspiration for Greg and I and his product definitely revolutionized the industry. We sat down with Noah to discuss the Structure Studio story. From a young age, Noah learned that when people can visualize something then they are much more likely to buy into the project.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:00:54):

He and his team developed Pool Studio which opened the eyes of homeowners everywhere by allowing them to see a 3D version of the pool that they are looking to build. Until then most people were using hand drawings and other versions of 2D designs. This new software empowered builders and designers to create an emotional connection with every presentation. It truly changed the way customers saw pools. We had a great conversation about the software, what it is designed to do, it's capabilities and features and how it essentially works.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:01:24):

This episode is a great one for any entrepreneur who understands fighting for something you believe in and anyone that is designing or building pools. It's also a great episode if you're looking to get into that part of the industry. Please enjoy this episode with Noah Nehlich of Structure Studios.

Intro (00:01:39):

Cannonball.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:01:45):

Welcome to your go-to podcast for the pool and spa industry. My name is Tyler Rasmussen.

Greg Villafana (00:01:50):

And my name is Greg Villafana. And this is the Pool Chasers Podcast.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:01:56):

All right, well thank you for joining us today, Noah. We really appreciate you taking the time to be here.

Noah Nehlich (00:02:01):

Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:02:04):

Yeah. Can you please introduce yourself to listeners?

Noah Nehlich (00:02:06):

Yeah. So I'm Noah from Structure Studios and we help pool designers sell their dreams in 3D.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:02:13):

Awesome. And you're located out in Vegas, right? How are you doing with this whole coronavirus thing?

Noah Nehlich (00:02:19):

Yeah, yeah. We're in Vegas and it's all about mindset when you think about the coronavirus thing. Obviously there's a lot of uncertainty for builders and their clients, everyone. No other event in human history has affected everyone in the world in the exact same way like this. So it's a unique situation, but it's all about mindset. And it's all about how we're going to come out of this stronger than we entered it.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:02:44):

Right. Is your team working remotely?

Noah Nehlich (00:02:46):

Yeah, we moved remotely early last week, just out of precaution. Obviously health to everyone and their families is most important. So we went remote and we're real thankful for this situation that we're in that we can work remote too as a software company.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:03:04):

Yeah, absolutely. We're very blessed too to have a online infrastructure that allows us to keep working through all this.

Greg Villafana (00:03:13):

Yeah. And we saw recently that you had donated some laptops to the school, saw that on your Facebook posts. That was super cool of you guys.

Noah Nehlich (00:03:21):

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. As many do that use our software, we go through a lot of computers here at structure studios. And so there's always a backlog, a shelf somewhere of computers that nobody uses anymore. So a few years ago we looked at things that we could do with that. And traditionally we've sent those into a Burma Camp in Thailand for school children that literally have no supplies because they're refugees.

Noah Nehlich (00:03:51):

But as this unfolded, there's a lot of underprivileged school children in the United States that now literally cannot learn because they're home and they require a computer, or some piece of technology and they don't have it. They don't have the means to buy it. So we've collected up 10 of our old computers and shipped them off, which are still great for schoolwork and things like that. And so we hope to roll that program out to offer that to all of our members soon too as well, so that they can send in computers to an organization that will then distribute those to children in need in the United States.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:04:27):

Oh wow.

Greg Villafana (00:04:28):

That's super cool. Are you guys making sure that Structure Studio is already installed on there in case they want to design some pools?

Noah Nehlich (00:04:37):

Yeah, that's required.

Greg Villafana (00:04:39):

Very good.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:04:41):

So how do you think this compares a little bit to the 2008 recession from your standpoint?

Noah Nehlich (00:04:47):

Yeah, that's a good question. Before the recording started, someone mentioned the word staycation. It's interesting that that word, if you look on Google Trends, which is the history of all search results, nobody searched for the word staycation prior to fall of 2008. And so this is another opportunity to run out of this event, whatever that looks like, with all cylinders running, just like the builders did back in 2008 that really started to capitalize on that word staycation. And it imprinted it in homeowner's minds because as you know from interviewing lots of pool builders. A lot of times the competition isn't the pool builder down the road, which we might view as the competition. It's a timeshare, RV, or extensive family vacation.

Noah Nehlich (00:05:41):

All those options are off the table this year, just like they were for many families in 2008 and so just like in 2008, what went up? It was Lowe's, it was Home Depot because people thought, "I'm going to be in my house for a while, how do I make this more comfortable?" And so what we noticed from pool builders in 2008 there was two types: pool builders that survived, pool builders that didn't survive. And the common trend we saw with pool builders that survived is they took that opportunity of downtime to really strengthen their own business and be ready to run. It was like they're in a race car. Some pool builders were in the car, had their foot on the gas ready to step on it, others got out of the car and walked away.

Noah Nehlich (00:06:28):

And so obviously when everything came back up, some pool builders were ready, some weren't. And the trend that we saw with those that were ready to go spent the time getting all the things done in their business that they'd been putting off. Dialing in their websites, getting their pictures together of their projects, teeing up social media, getting their own skill set, whether it's design, or construction learning, taking that opportunity. And they also adapted and changed their project minimums to adapt to the industry. We also saw a trend in design at that time, where pool builders would design in phases. So they would come to the homeowner's property who only planned on spending 10,000 and said, "Okay here's phase one. It's 10,000 just like you asked for an outdoor kitchen. Also, I went ahead and designed phase two, which is an entertainment area, and phase three, which is an outdoor swimming pool."

Noah Nehlich (00:07:24):

And it gave that homeowner a goal to look forward to if they couldn't afford it. And those that could saw the vision and took it and just did all three phases at the same time. So those pool builders were really adaptable and really focused on coming out of that event strong, even though there was uncertainty at that time too. Sorry to ramble. That's my thought and answer to that.

Greg Villafana (00:07:50):

No, I think that's good. And I think if anybody can get through this and make the very best of it and show how good of a leader you truly are for your team, that man, there's not too much you can't do. You might take your licks right now, but if you just build up that grit and get through it, you're going to be able to take on a lot of challenges that might come your way in the future. Because this is something that we don't really know what's really going to happen and what the future really looks like, but we got to keep moving forward.

Greg Villafana (00:08:23):

I heard something last night and I thought it was really interesting. There's these two guys and one was really going crazy with their advertising right now and the other one was pulling out everything completely. And they're all like, "Why would you keep putting money towards mailers, you're putting all your money into mailers now." It's like, think about it. Everybody's staying home now. They don't have too much to do. They're going to be checking that mail. They're actually going to be going through all of it. They're going to have a little bit more time to do more research. Yeah, they might not be in a to buy, but they're needing something to do.

Greg Villafana (00:08:59):

And from a psychological standpoint, there's only so much you can look at digital devices as a leisure, as a fun thing. So it's like looking at mail is just something tangible and different. And I was like, "Holy crap." I'm like, "That is pretty fricking genius. I never even thought about that." So I think there's a lot of different opportunities out there if you're really staying focused on it.

Noah Nehlich (00:09:25):

Yeah. Thinking of the homeowners' mindset, I've even found myself as I am at home walking around looking at where I can add more bushes and things like that. Just because we're going to be home for a while. [crosstalk 00:09:39] All of us. But we still need to generate family memories. We still want to bond with our family and an outdoor living experience is the ideal way to do that. And so there's going to be a lot of families that are ready to go for that.

Noah Nehlich (00:09:55):

And I'm also proud to see that a lot of our members are taking advantage of this time. Because one of the things we do, we offer free training classes to our members. We have record attendance at all of our training classes this week and last week as there's a lot of mindset to get ready for this season. So, that's exciting to see.

Greg Villafana (00:10:14):

Awesome.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:10:14):

Yeah, absolutely. Well thanks for sharing that with us. Like, we always do, we like to go way back and learn the way you were raised and different things like that. So could you share with us where you grew up and you know how that's shaped who you are today?

Noah Nehlich (00:10:29):

Sure. Yeah. I'm originally from North Dakota.

Greg Villafana (00:10:33):

Oh my God.

Noah Nehlich (00:10:33):

Yeah. But my family wanted to go where it was warmer. So we moved to South Dakota and then that didn't do it. So we ended up in Las Vegas. I was probably around 11 or 12, or so. And so I grew up around here in Las Vegas and I enjoyed everything video games as a teenager would. So I think that was really my main motivation to get my first computer and to learn more about them, because I want to make able to make these games run. It wasn't easy as it is today.

Noah Nehlich (00:11:03):

And so, my mom wanted me to do something that's useful with these computer skills, so she encouraged me to go into computer networking. I was absolutely horrible at computer networking. I didn't have it. I could get the basics, but I just wasn't good at it for whatever reason. But I went through the class. And the final presentation of that class, or the final test was we were to network a three story office building and then present that network to the teacher as if he is the client. And then based on whether he would buy from us, or not is how our grade went in the class.

Noah Nehlich (00:11:45):

And so I was heavily into video games. I was making video games for fun. And so I took that office building, I put it into my video game in 3D and I designed the network map in 3D. And then I presented it to him. But because I wasn't good at networking, my network was broken, it didn't have some key elements in it. But he was so impressed by the 3D presentation that I got the highest grade in the class, even though I was trying to sell him a broken network. And that was the aha moment that if people can really see what they're buying, there's something to this.

Noah Nehlich (00:12:22):

And so my brother-in-law was a swimming pool salesman at Paddock Pools here in Las Vegas. And so I said, "Hey, I could put this 3D swimming pool in my game." And so he drew one out for me on a little napkin. And so I put it in there and it had crude water effects and fire and it was nighttime, and he loved it, really exciting. And so he showed it to the guys at work, at the local Paddock office. They loved it. Few months later I got a call from Buzz Ghiz at Paddock Pools. And he said, "Hey, I hear you have something great. I want to use this in a home builder presentation. Every one of their homes are going to have one of my pools. And I get this, obviously there's some stiff competition, can you design this house and this swimming pool for me?"

Noah Nehlich (00:13:07):

And I said, "Sure." And he said, "How much will it cost you?" I was 19 at the time and I said, "I don't know, like $300." He said, "Okay, done." So I modeled this house, this pool for $300. He flew me out to Phoenix, Arizona. First time at a board room there at the big Paddock complex, if you've ever toured it, it was ginormous. And it had the executives from Paddock there. Buzz Ghiz, is Bill [Bert 00:13:32] and then the homeowners.

Noah Nehlich (00:13:34):

I put the 3D video game with the swimming pool and the house in it on the projector, audible oohs and aahs. No one had seen anything like that at that time. It was like year 2001. After that Buzz said, "Hey, I'll hire you to work for me. You can build these 3D models. I'll pay you $40,000 a year. You can work out of Las Vegas." And I thought, "Sweet, I can afford my first car and this is going to be awesome." Then I thought, "Well, maybe I should try and do this for everyone. Every pool builder. So, let me see if I can find someone to give me some money to hire some people so I can build something." And that's the route that we took.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:14:10):

Yeah that's really-

Greg Villafana (00:14:12):

That's an awesome story. When you got to the office were you're like, "Is it too late to change the price from 300 to..."

Noah Nehlich (00:14:20):

I was just so thrilled to have $300.

Greg Villafana (00:14:23):

No, I'm just kidding.

Noah Nehlich (00:14:24):

I didn't have any money.

Greg Villafana (00:14:25):

I'm curious, when you were really getting into video games, what were some of your favorite video games when you were growing up?

Noah Nehlich (00:14:31):

So back in the day, this is like late nineties early 2000, was obviously the first version of the Unreal game. So Fortnite today is the most popular game. The original people that made Fortnite was Unreal. I also play this online game called Ultima Online. Today World of Warcraft is the most popular one. Ultima Online was the first massively multiplayer. So that was the games I was really into and I was at that time frame.

Greg Villafana (00:15:03):

Right. Is that like Tony Hawk? I didn't do a lot of video games growing up, but I knew the first Tony Hawk, didn't it come out around late nineties?

Noah Nehlich (00:15:10):

Yep.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:15:10):

Yeah.

Greg Villafana (00:15:10):

2001?

Noah Nehlich (00:15:11):

Yep.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:15:12):

Yeah, on the 64.

Greg Villafana (00:15:14):

Oh, that's very cool.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:15:15):

Yeah, pretty fun. You're into some different video games and we were, that's for sure. Some of the computer games are a lot more complicated I think than the video game systems.

Noah Nehlich (00:15:26):

Oh, yeah. And back then took forever to get the things to run. You would get a computer education just trying to get your game to run.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:15:35):

Right.

Noah Nehlich (00:15:35):

And now it's so easy. It's fantastic for the kids today. But that was how I learned about computers. It was just trying to get like the sound to work on the game.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:15:43):

For sure. Cool. So what happened next? What were the first steps of you putting together Structure Studios?

Noah Nehlich (00:15:51):

Early days we didn't have a software, obviously we didn't have a team to build the software. And we were definitely ahead of our time as far as computer hardware. Computers were super expensive to run the software back then, like $3,000 would be the baseline, whereas today an $800 computer would do a great job. Back then, we started with what we called portfolio packages. So Pool Builder would send us six pool designs and we would turn those into, with this video game engine, we would make six options. And each of those different pools would then have three options to each pool.

Noah Nehlich (00:16:33):

So the Pool Builder would say, "Option one", and then they could press a button and the spa would move to a different side of the pool. And we had 3D artists that would make those. And I believe, if I recall correctly, each of those packages cost about $6,000. And so a pool salesman then would have those on his screen. The homeowner would say, "I like this shape", they'd go to that shape, "I like this option." And they'd have the price right there for them. And that was the beginning days.

Greg Villafana (00:16:59):

Right. So based on the timeline that's on your website, which you have an incredible story as being this entrepreneur. Can you walk us through what that journey looked like after you left Paddock Pools?

Noah Nehlich (00:17:14):

Yeah. So after that we found investors, we started this portfolio packages, essentially just to bring some money in the door. And it didn't bring in and enough for the overhead. We did pretty good. We sold probably about 40 or 50 of those, if I recall correctly. But money was a constant issue. I was making at the time, must have been about $12,000 a year is what I was being paid. The investors would obviously always want results, which is what good investors do. They want results. And so it was always a challenge to bring in money and show profitability. Three or four times throughout that period, the investors would meet with me and say, "Well, it's time to shut down." And I'd somehow figured out a way to stall them every time and say, "Okay, well let's just meet Monday and then let's talk through this."

Noah Nehlich (00:18:08):

And so I'd create a presentation with charts that always went in an upward direction and show them what we were going to do. And I remember a pivotal point in that is that probably the second or third meeting, "Okay, this time, we're definitely shutting down." And I said, "Okay, so next week, we're going to get a check for $20,000 from a pool company for one of these portfolio packages." And they said, "Okay, if you can get that, we can do it."

Noah Nehlich (00:18:33):

And so I immediately left the meeting, I Called Viking Pools and said, "Hey, we got to get all your shapes in one of these portfolio packages." And we showed them what other pool company was doing, and they thought it was a great fit for their products. So they said, "Okay, great." I said, "Okay, I'll just need a deposit of $20,000 by Friday to fit you into our calendar."

Tyler Rasmussen (00:18:57):

Oh man that's awesome.

Noah Nehlich (00:18:59):

And sure enough they sent the check and then it saved us again.

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:19:04]

Noah Nehlich (00:19:02):

And then it saved us, it put us off. It saved us again. But yeah, there were several really low, difficult points throughout that period. I remember I didn't make any money, so I ate Taco Bell every day was my main source of nutrients. I'd get three tacos and maybe a drink if I was feeling like I wanted to treat myself. So, one day I went to go to Taco Bell. I didn't have the money for the tacos, I had like... I think I was getting Taco Supremes, so I didn't have $3. They were 99 cents at the time. I had a dollar something. So, I said, "Okay, I'll just go to the ATM and get some money." ATM said, "Insufficient funds." I couldn't pull any more money out of there.

Noah Nehlich (00:19:41):

So, I remember thinking, I was like, what am I going to do? This thing just isn't working. So, I went to Taco Bell. I bought my one taco and I ate it, and then I went home. And then I opened up the newspaper because classifieds were still a thing, and I started looking at all the jobs available. I thought to myself, I cannot work for any of these people. I am not a good employee, I can't do that. I will not be motivated by that, so I only have one option, and that's to make this thing work and figure out a way to deliver a design package so that all the pool builders can use it. Because that's my only option, I'm not going to even look at a job opportunity because they're not opportunities to me. That was really the cement point, the pivotal point in my life where I'm in this all the way no matter what. I think it's good to be at a bottom point like that and be able to look up.

Greg Villafana (00:20:41):

Hell yeah, that's awesome. Now you can buy as many tacos as you want, I'm sure.

Noah Nehlich (00:20:49):

Yes, unlimited 59 cent tacos. It's amazing.

Greg Villafana (00:20:52):

Even though I love that you had that thought at the ATM and you still went back to Taco Bell and said, "I'm still going to get at least one taco."

Greg Villafana (00:21:02):

Get one.

Noah Nehlich (00:21:02):

Yeah, still got to eat one.

Greg Villafana (00:21:02):

We'll go back to the car and figure this out. That's crazy.

Pentair Ad (00:21:09):

We want to thank Pentair for supporting the show. As a podcast for pool professionals, we know that when you sell products, it's your reputation on the line. When they are Pentair products, it's theirs as well. That's why Pentair has got your back with their Trade Grade program which supports your business and reputation by offering exclusive tools and support for lead generation, attractive product rebates and longer warranties, and unmatched expertise when it comes to accurate equipment selection, setup, and service. So, to learn more about how Trade Grade protects, empowers, and helps your business grow, visit Pentair.com/TradeGrade. That's Pentair.com/TradeGrade, or click the link below.

Greg Villafana (00:21:49):

So, what happened after that? I mean, you just had to get in that right mindset that you weren't going to stop.

Greg Villafana (00:21:56):

Yeah.

Greg Villafana (00:21:56):

You weren't going to go work for somebody. I mean, what did you... I feel like that's the point that a lot of great entrepreneurs get to where it's like they are going to go work for somebody, where they just get that crazy thing that good entrepreneurs have. They do whatever the hell it takes. They take it to the next level where they're going to get what they want and they're going to go where they want to go.

Noah Nehlich (00:22:22):

Yeah. So, after that, we really rallied the team together and said, "Here's our runway that we have left before we're really out of all capital options. Let's make this work." So, we had put together... we really pushed, and the developer and the programmers made probably the code that they're the least proud of in their careers to put together an MVP, which is a minimum viable product in the software world, to show the International Pool Show in November. So, we scrabbled together within a few months an early product with our first ever arc tool and line tool. Nobody outside the office had used it, it was real clunky.

Noah Nehlich (00:23:11):

We took it to that first show and I remember the first... You had two polar opposite types of builders that would come by the booth. Some would want to put their hands on it. We wanted to see, how easy is this arc tool for you? How easy is the line tool? Can you go to 3D? There was literally nothing else in the software. You could draw an arc, a line, a pool shape. I don't think you could do a deck, hardscape. Maybe there was like two plants in it, there was nothing.

Noah Nehlich (00:23:45):

Half the people that came to the booth felt like it was the best thing ever. What we did there is we said, "We're going to do a show special and you can pay us $2000 for nothing, just to be the first to have this when it's ready next year." Just as enough to get enough money to last that next year. Out of that first pool show, 450 pool builders gave us $2000 for absolutely nothing because they were so excited by the idea.

Noah Nehlich (00:24:14):

Now, also in that time, you had the other half, who just didn't think we would work and didn't think the industry needed 3D. So, you had two polar opposite reactions. But we're so thankful to those first 450 builders that gave us $ 2000 for literally nothing. That's what got us through to May, when we released the very first version of Pool Studio.

Greg Villafana (00:24:41):

So, I'm kind of curious. In the earlier days, was there anything that you guys had to learn the hard way in terms of what the builders were expecting from the software? You know what I mean? They would do something in the software and it might not have been the same in the field. I'm just kind of curious if there was any kind of weird struggles in the beginning.

Noah Nehlich (00:25:02):

Yeah, we still do that. We still have great ideas here in the office, but they don't work out in the real world. So, we want to get builders' hands on them, some early adopters, to get their hands on it and give us the feedback right away. When we do major changes, we bring builders into our office and we watch them silently. There's a lot of pressure for them, but we watch them silently and just have them try the new feature. We make notes of everywhere they make a mistake so we can fix them by the time they make it out in the real world.

Noah Nehlich (00:25:32):

But one of the things we greatly underestimated in the very beginning was training. We never put any thought into how important training is to a pool builder, to learn a piece of technology like this. In those early days, we taught pool builders not to lift a mouse. Don't rotate the mouse. The buttons go up, they don't come down. They're at your fingers, all those things we went through. But those early mistakes we made in training and not putting a priority on training has made training today one of the most important aspects of our company. Obviously everyone makes mistakes, we all do. We all have decisions we regret, we did something different. But if you look at how all of those decisions stack up, whether good or bad, ultimately we learn from them and we become who we are today, which is important.

Noah Nehlich (00:26:30):

Very important.

Noah Nehlich (00:26:32):

Sorry, I'm not sure if that answered your question.

Greg Villafana (00:26:33):

Yeah, no, it did.

Greg Villafana (00:26:34):

Yeah.

Greg Villafana (00:26:35):

Thank you, just taking this all in.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:26:36):

Yeah. I'm curious, are you still in touch with quite a few of those original adopters?

Noah Nehlich (00:26:43):

Yes, we are. We've done some blogs on some early adopters to interview them, to see how their businesses have matured. We see them at a lot of events. I attend a lot of the Paramount Pools events, and so many of those early adopters are still in that group. We still get the opportunity to travel with them on those company trips and see them at Paramount's P.A.C.E. event. So, that's really exciting, but yeah. We're really thankful for what they did for us back in the beginning.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:27:12):

Yeah, it must be really cool for them to see kind of the evolution of the product from then till now. That's a pretty cool experience.

Noah Nehlich (00:27:19):

Yeah. Not only the product, but also, a lot of them feel like they've seen me grow up along the way. Because I was 20 when this all started, I couldn't even drink yet or rent a car when I traveled. So, obviously as the product matures, I feel like I've grown up with a lot of these pool builders.

Greg Villafana (00:27:42):

Right, and where do you think kind of in this timeline is when things really started changing for the better and you just thought, you know what? I think we're kind of the pioneers in this space and we're in it for the long haul.

Noah Nehlich (00:27:57):

That's hard to say. They say that a company is unprofitable for three years when you start a company. I don't think we were profitable for the first six or seven. It was a really rough road, partially because we were a little bit early to the market, so we always struggled with computers and technology, for what was available. Then there was also a lot of bumps along the way. Obviously we felt like we were just getting our footing under us.

Noah Nehlich (00:28:31):

The first version of Pool Studio was released in 2005. VizTerra, the landscaping site, was 2007. We felt like we were just kind of getting our stride there and then obviously 2008 happened. So, that was a big struggle, but really that was a blessing in disguise for us. Because before that, many builders out there were close minded to changing their workflow and adapting to 3D or even computer design. They just want to stick to hand drawing. But than 2008 event shifted the mindset of the consumer to wanting to see what they're buying for the first time.

Noah Nehlich (00:29:08):

I can go to the car dealership, I can test drive a car. I can go tour a timeshare if that's what I want to do. But when we're talking about a swimming pool or a backyard, which could be the second largest investment someone ever makes, there's no way to see it, touch it, feel it, or even understand what I'm getting. I have to trust this pool builder and this designer based on what he's done in the past, but that he's going to customize it for me. So, that was a jump that a lot of consumers in that timeframe weren't willing to make. Really, it wasn't until probably 2010 or 2011 that we said we really understand what we're doing and how we're doing it. It's not just about the product.

Noah Nehlich (00:29:54):

Our purpose is to improve lives through 3D experiences, whether that's the pool builder and their design process, how much they can charge for their projects, whether they can charge for their designs or not, how much more time they can have with their families. All the way through the clients, are the clients happy with what they purchase because they can see it? Do they make better family memories with their kids? Are they more active in their community by inviting neighbors over? So, that's how we really define our purpose. We're here to improve people's lives through 3D experiences.

Greg Villafana (00:30:32):

Right, and I want to ask this question because I think a lot of people need to know, because they might not understand when technology doesn't work the way that they want it to. But when you say that there's money that goes into building this software, what does it look like? Because you're paying developers and you guys are writing code. What does that look like kind of on the back end? You don't have to be super specific, but just kind of painting a picture of, how do we get to see what we see on your website? And when people are doing all that, what really... what are you and your team going through to make that happen?

Noah Nehlich (00:31:12):

Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of tweaking, a lot of finessing. So, take a tree, for example. We get a request that someone wants a new tree, that's great. Back in the early days, it would take half a day to make a tree. But as technology improves and everyone has a perception of more realism, more time is being invested in every single little asset or feature that we do. So, what would take half a day a few years ago today is two to two and a half days for the same tree, just because we have to spend extra time on it.

Noah Nehlich (00:31:51):

That's full-time, an artist or two artists to work on that tree. If someone says, "I want a chair," a new chair or a new furniture set, that's something that could take a week just to produce that chair or furniture set. There's a lot of work and it's a lot of talent that goes into that. I know that one of the number one challenges in the pool industry is finding great work, great workers and great employees that you can trust to do a good job to build your product. Same challenge for us, it's about finding the right developers with the right skillset that can produce a great looking tree, a great looking art asset, and really make that realistic within a realistic timeframe. Those times go great, or maybe you have a feature. We'll look at a feature we recently did.

Noah Nehlich (00:32:44):

One of the things we did was we made this circle, a new circle in arc tool and the ability to cut out other shapes. Something like that seems pretty easy and straightforward, but when you look at all the team's time to put out one feature like that, the developer might take a week of his time initially, a week of quality assurance, a week of tweaks and revisions to make it feel right, and another week of quality assurance. So, you're at about a month of time between two different teams to make that one feature come out good and feel good.

Greg R Villafana (00:33:20):

Wow, that's awesome. Well, kudos to you and your team because that helped out a lot in understanding it, but still don't fully understand. It's like an airplane. I'm always in awe where it's like, man, we just see them flying around. I know the idea behind it, but I have no idea how that fully works and it's just very impressive. So, great job to you and your team.

Noah Nehlich (00:33:44):

Thank you.

Greg Villafana (00:33:46):

So, a lot of people might not know exactly what the software is and what it's designed to do. Can you just break down maybe the different programs that are under Structure Studios, and what it is that they do exactly?

Noah Nehlich (00:34:01):

Yeah. So, our primary software is Pool Studio. It's built specifically to help pool builders and pool designers to show their ideas in 3D. So, we designed it, and when we first designed the interface and how it worked, we were selling to pool builders that drew by pencil. So, when we designed it, instead of having all the interfaces and all the buttons on the screen at the exact same time like most software packages have, we designed it by stages. So, stage one, you set up your property. That's where you input your GIS survey of the customer's backyard or your site plan.

Noah Nehlich (00:34:42):

Step two, we draw the house. Step three, we draw the pool, etcetera. That really helped break it down. So, what we do is we... our software creates, by drawing in 2D generates the 3D design. Calculates materials, square footage, dirt displacement, rebar, gallonage along the way, because we know the exact 3D shapes of those things. Then we automatically turn those into construction plans with takeoffs and legends and all the stats of course, to build the pool all in one package.

Noah Nehlich (00:35:21):

When you design that initial 2D drawing, you're designing both the 2D, the 3D, and the construction plans all at one time. We also have VizTerra, which is targeted to landscapers primarily. It's empowered with plant legends. It's focused on wooden decks and that industry. Then we have VIP 3D, which is our premier package, I guess you could say. It has everything VizTerra and Pool Studio have, plus some advanced rendering things like virtual reality, augmented reality support, 360 photos and videos, as well as extra realistic rendering effects.

Greg Villafana (00:36:00):

Are the augmented reality and VR, that's only for that part? That's not for Pool Studio, or it is?

Noah Nehlich (00:36:09):

Correct, VR and augmented reality are only for VIP 3D members.

Greg Villafana (00:36:14):

Okay. Will you be making that for Pool Studio any time soon?

Noah Nehlich (00:36:18):

We don't plan on bringing that to Pool Studio members. So, essentially, Pool Studio is great for designers and we built VIP 3D around high end designers. That gives high end pool designers an opportunity to set themselves apart by investing in VR and things like that for their presentations.

Greg Villafana (00:36:44):

Right. I saw recently on your website about the capability of looking at a backyard from Google, and it actually scans sort of the landscape.

Noah Nehlich (00:36:53):

That's hands down our most popular feature in the last couple years. It's probably most important right now when we're supposed to be staying at home.

Greg Villafana (00:37:00):

Right.

Noah Nehlich (00:37:01):

So, how GIS works is, the idea was we wanted to have it so you could bring in a Google map of the customer's backyard and measure it. But the problem is, especially in areas that are outside the city center, is that Google goes down to 16 inches per pixel. Which means for every pixel on your computer monitor, it could be 16 inches off. It's not nearly accurate enough to measure someone's property. So, we went out looking for services and some companies, they literally fly planes over the United States all day, every day. Because they're at such a lower elevation, they can get much higher resolution. So, we've tapped into their database so that just like Google Maps, you type in a customer's address and it could be, it's usually three inches per pixel. The newer ones are down to one inches per pixel. Which means you can, within an inch of variation...

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:38:04]

Noah Nehlich (00:38:03):

Which means you can within an inch of variation, measure out somebody's backyard, check if you have access to get back in the yard and see if there's a big tree that needs to come out or even design the whole project remote because you not only have a top down, you have four isometric or angled views of that customer's property. And so you can design the whole thing remote. It also pulls the last survey date of the area and it will generate your terrain and your slope, not with a 100% accuracy, but it gives a pretty good idea. And that has been such a huge time saver for builders. They can get a really solid idea of what they're going to walk into before they ever access that customer's house.

Greg Villafana (00:38:45):

All right. And I'm sure for homeowners that are extremely busy and don't really have the time to maybe meet with somebody or if you're in a place like here in Scottsdale, we have a lot of people that, we call them snowbirds, but they come here from all over the country, all over the world and they might not be able to be at their vacation home, or whatever it may be, because a lot of pools still get built by them. What a cool way to be able to use that part of the software in designing a pool for them and at least giving them a really good idea of what you could do in their backyard.

Noah Nehlich (00:39:21):

Yeah, it's been a huge benefit to pool builders and some, especially there in the Phoenix area, it's easy to have to drive an hour or an hour and a half to go see a client and go check out their property, only to find out they've got a huge blocker in their property, an easement issue or an access issue, which changes the price tag of that. You should know about that before you spend three hours of driving both ways. Now pool builders, when they go visit, they're walking in with a 3D presentation based on phone conversations and a GIS design. Massive time-saver.

Greg Villafana (00:40:01):

Absolutely. Awesome.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:40:06):

We're proud to announce Lyon Financial as a sponsor. Since 1979, they have helped make backyard dreams come true nationwide. Lyon Financial is a specialist in pool financing solutions, offering low rates, long terms and unmatched customer service. Lyon Financial's experience is unique to pools, not just any type of loan. They are a partner with both the homeowner and the pool builder, until the project is completed, ensuring pool professionals are paid on time and in full.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:40:36):

It is absolutely free for pool contractors to partner with Lyon Financial to grow their business. Lyon Financial is committed to providing an excellent customer service experience. Homeowners will never be charged a consulting fee or prepayment penalties and pool builders will never be charged a swipe fee for accessing their own hard earned money. When it comes to something as important as a pool and all the memories that come with it, work with true professionals who have your best interest in mind. With more than 41 years experience in specializing in pool financing solutions, why trust anyone but the experts?

Tyler Rasmussen (00:41:07):

For more information, contact Lyon at 877-754-5966. Go to lyonfinancial.net/poolchasers or click the link below.

Greg Villafana (00:41:22):

If somebody wants to get into designing pools and use the Pool Studio software, what's the best way to get started?

Noah Nehlich (00:41:32):

Best way to get started is to go to our website structurestudios.com and the top of that is a link to click on a free trial and download that. We always like people to download the free trial to, A, make sure their computer can run it. That's a good indication if the computer's powerful enough.

Noah Nehlich (00:41:50):

And then second, they can go through some of our tutorial videos and follow along and just make sure that the software is easy enough and it's somewhat how they think. That's really important. And then once they're ready, they can activate that to the full version, in which case they get access to our free training classes. We do about 10 training classes per week, as well as our free support.

Noah Nehlich (00:42:14):

And so, they'd first want to enter into our fundamentals training class, which is a all-day class of about six hours. By the end of that, they can design their first client's project. If they get stuck, they can call into our support team for assistance.

Greg Villafana (00:42:30):

Are those presentations given by a person, a live class each time?

Noah Nehlich (00:42:35):

Yep. They are live classes. Our trainers, they have about 20 years of experience between them, training our software. They're highly experienced. They've been doing this for a very long time and they understand all the little workarounds and questions. And so, it's a webinar format. So you watch their screen and then if you have questions, you can ask and it's great to be in there with other pool designers because someone will ask a question that you didn't think of or a scenario that you didn't plan on. And so, it's really good to get in those live classes.

Greg Villafana (00:43:08):

Right. I'm curious, what are the computer requirements, because I know that we use mostly Apple here and that is not a computer that you can use that's on a system that you can use for your software.

Noah Nehlich (00:43:23):

Right. Yeah. We don't recommend Apple. I'd love to be able to support Apple one day because I'm an Apple fan too. They make the best tablets in the world. In my opinion, the most solid, user-friendly phones in the world. However, to get it to work on the Mac computer, we have to rewrite the whole software from scratch. A very extensive undertaking, which is probably why we see a lot of 3D software, except for really big packages like Adobe, not work on Macs just because the undertaking is massive.

Noah Nehlich (00:43:59):

Thankfully, the hardware is there, so we do have some users that use Mac, they use Bootcamp and then they install Windows on the Bootcamp partition. The newer MacBook Pro laptops can run it. We have a few of those, but as far as the ideal computer, we recommend a gaming computer because we want that 3D graphics card in there to handle all the 3D rendering.

Noah Nehlich (00:44:22):

And so, if you're not someone that knows computers really well like we do, we live them and breathe them. We put together a list every Monday on our blog that we update with the best prices on laptops or desktops. The most important piece of that is the 3D video card to render the 3D.

Greg Villafana (00:44:42):

Right now, if you had all the money, what is the best setup you can get right now in your opinion? And maybe, is that a ballpark, how much that's going to cost?

Noah Nehlich (00:44:56):

Yeah, so I just bought my new computer. We recommend just in general, we should get computers every two to three years as technology changes pretty quickly. So I was about two and a half years and I just bought my computer. And so, I'll get the geeky tech specs and so if you know what those are, it'll sound great, but it might sound like Greek otherwise. But the ideal would be a I9 processor, Intel-based. These days you don't want to put a hard drive in your computer, you want an SSD at a minimum and a greatly an M2, which would be the same kind of memory that the iPads there on your desk use. That's for hard to space to make loading the library really fast. And then for video card, NVIDIA RTX 2080 super is the right balance. That's what I have. And then that's pretty much the fundamentals.

Noah Nehlich (00:45:55):

Then of course it's about your monitor preference. Some artists here, they use 4K TVs on their desk. That's what they use. That's fine. Some use monitors. That's fine too. But that's the tech specs and so as price, that system that I just said costs $2,500. It's not crazy expensive like it used to be. If you're going to go on the low end of something that's smooth, great for everyday designing, you can get those right now for about $800 in laptop form, desktop form, probably closer to $500. So the cost of entry on those is not as high as they used to be.

Greg Villafana (00:46:34):

Yeah, and I mean it's going to pay for itself. I mean if you're really serious about it and you can sell a pool or however many you can, it's going to pay for itself pretty quickly.

Noah Nehlich (00:46:45):

Yeah. Pays for itself quick. And so the question of, well how expensive a computer should I buy? It really comes down to how much do you design on it and how fast do you want to design? Because if you're waiting for the computer to load things or to generate 3D and things like that, that's all cutting into your design time, your productivity.

Noah Nehlich (00:47:09):

And what we've noticed is designers with the best computers and the fastest computers, because it's easier and it's faster, they ended up putting more elements in those designs. Which as soon as the homeowner can see those, it's in their mind and they're more likely to buy those upgrades.

Greg Villafana (00:47:25):

Right. And when you're complete in building a pool design, what do you export that? What does that format you're exporting that to to go to the homeowner? Can the homeowner open it from a Mac computer or their phone or different things like that?

Noah Nehlich (00:47:44):

So there's two different schools of thought on this. So just depends on how everyone sells now. So about half of our members, they design on a laptop and they take that and present it live in front of a homeowner. Now that could be in their house, or they might want to bring that home owner into their own environment in their office, but they want an interactive presentation on their computer. Because inevitably what happens is there's going to be some change requests or some ideas. Which in a balanced view, you definitely want to encourage, right?

Noah Nehlich (00:48:23):

So if you can get the wife to pick the color of flowers that goes under the kitchen windows, she's now made an emotional investment in that project and she's more apt to buy it and more apt to remember you when she left because she feels she contributed to it. That's why pool builders often do the interactive presentation.

Noah Nehlich (00:48:44):

On the second side, others will generate a video or generate pictures and send those to the homeowner, which obviously can be viewed on any medium. But the 3D interactive view is just on the computer of the designer at this time.

Greg Villafana (00:49:01):

Okay. So I'm assuming that maybe even the videos that we've seen on social media, I mean they look really good on social media, but they probably look obviously even better on the proper screen, computer screen.

Noah Nehlich (00:49:17):

Yep. Because the magic to that is, this goes back to my idea that as human beings we're not surprised by anything anymore. And the mystery of everything's not even there. Like the ending of movies are ruined just by looking on social media. There's no surprises left. People pay subscription dollars to get a surprise box of junk just because they want to be surprised by what's in this package.

Noah Nehlich (00:49:47):

And so when you can do a real time presentation in front of a homeowner, it brings that element of surprise back where they are exploring. You're helping them explore this future property, their future memories. You put a surprise there they didn't expect. The family dog on the first step of the pool, something like that. It takes it to a whole nother level of the human psychology.

Greg Villafana (00:50:09):

Right. I love that. So how do you feel about designers being able to actually charge for their pool designs? Do you think they should be giving these away for free or should they actually charge for it?

Noah Nehlich (00:50:21):

I believe pool builders should absolutely charge for their designs. They spent time on it. It's their expertise they put on it, they should actually charge for it. If I go to an architect and I say, "Hey, I want to change something about my house," they're going to charge me for that. And so why shouldn't pool designer, an outdoor living designer, be able to charge for their expertise when it's essentially the same thing?

Noah Nehlich (00:50:50):

And I'm thrilled that our software has powered a lot of pool designers to be able to do that because then two things happen. One, if the client ultimately doesn't go for your project, you still made something for your time because our time, your time, the builder's time, it's worth something.

Noah Nehlich (00:51:11):

And so we shouldn't just give that out to free to a tire kicker that might eventually just go try and get that job undercut. So I believe we should all charge for that time and charge for that design. So if the client ultimately doesn't move forward or decides to go with somebody else, we are still compensated for that.

Noah Nehlich (00:51:34):

Secondly, when we charge for those designs, most pool companies have found that those customers, those clients are way more apt to move forward with that project because they've made the commitment and they've weeded out all those tire kickers.

Greg Villafana (00:51:51):

Very good. For anybody that might not know how to come up with that number for what they should charge, is there an equation or a way to figure that out that you can recommend?

Noah Nehlich (00:52:04):

Everyone does it a little... Well not everyone, but there's a lot of variation with how it's done and it highly depends on your local market. So some will just say, "Hey, it's just a percentage of the ultimate project budget." I don't like that way because it puts the dollar budget as the ceiling in the customer's mind, which we often see after they see the 3D design, they want to go past it, but now they don't because they have that dollar number in their mind.

Noah Nehlich (00:52:33):

So I like the idea of a flat fee. And that could be small, it could be 250, sometimes it's 1200, depending on your market, depending on your average project size. And then make sure the homeowner knows that that dollar number is totally refundable if they choose you to build the project.

Noah Nehlich (00:52:53):

And so sometimes how builders will ease into that, the client will come in and say, "I'd like to get a pool. Can you do a 3D design for me?" They say, "Sure, let's just put some ideas." And they simply drop templates out of the library. So here's a template pool, here's a template house, here's a template deck. They won't draw anything.

Noah Nehlich (00:53:12):

And then the homeowner says, "Oh, that's great. Now can you design mine?" And then that's when I say, "Okay, yes I can do a custom design for you. Here's my fee." You don't want to use the word fee. "Here's the cost," whatever that is, "And then that's refundable if you choose to move forward with us to design the project." And that eases into it for someone that's trepidatious about it. And anyway, it's a good segue.

Noah Nehlich (00:53:35):

Now the other thing that some designers do is they'll say, this is more for really high end designers, "Sure. I'll design the project. Here's the cost to design it. Let's say a 100, if you want the complete plans to this project and use another pool builder to build it, it's going to be $5,000." And what that does is it puts a price anchor of the value of this designer's time into it, because ultimately they're going to go with that person.

Noah Nehlich (00:54:05):

But if not, the pool builder just made $6,000 by the end of it. So there's a bunch of different ways that you can approach it, just depending on your project size and of course, how competitive your local market is.

Greg Villafana (00:54:17):

Right. Thank you. I'm curious, do you guys struggle with a lot of homeowners trying to download the software and trying to design their own pool?

Noah Nehlich (00:54:27):

Yeah, we sure do. We don't support them.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:54:29):

Yeah, to put it nicely.

Greg Villafana (00:54:33):

How do you do that? Oh, you designed this by yourself? Get out of here.

Noah Nehlich (00:54:36):

Yeah. We don't support them. Everything, if you look on our website, we use the word professional all over the place so that they're turned off by it a little bit. We don't help them very much at all. We really encourage them not to get the software because what some of these homeowners are trying to do is undercut or go around the pool builder, which is where all the expertise is in.

Noah Nehlich (00:55:02):

It's not with the subcontractors. It's with that designer, the orchestrator of that project. And so to go around that, to me, undercuts the industry and undercuts the professionalism that we bring to it. We steer clear of that.

Noah Nehlich (00:55:16):

Now some homeowners will legitimately not have someone in their area and so they like to get a little idea. But we always try and refer them over to a real professional, otherwise they're probably going to have a bad time.

Greg Villafana (00:55:32):

Right. Well, appreciate you doing that and I'm sure all the designers out there that use your software appreciate that because that's always a bit of a struggle when the homeowner steps in. And I ask that because just doing basic search on Google and stuff, everything that is connected to pool design software or anything like that, the word free is next to it.

Greg Villafana (00:55:54):

So I know that that's being searched an insane amount where people are trying to get free design software. And when I think of free, I'm thinking our next door neighbor, our parents, our cousins, our brothers, sisters, they're all trying to design their own pool.

Noah Nehlich (00:56:09):

A Lego system.

Tyler Rasmussen (00:56:12):

Should've download the Minecraft for them.

Noah Nehlich (00:56:13):

Minecraft, there you go. But yeah, we specifically... We should all be doing keyword optimization on our websites, especially at this time if there's little downtime. I would, if as a pool builder I would try and optimize right now for stay-cation because that keyword is going to go off the charts. But we specifically do not target the word free with our software because we don't want that kind of homeowner, that mentality on our website. If we can help it.

Greg Villafana (00:56:43):

It's not one of your AdWords? Free pool design?

Noah Nehlich (00:56:46):

Absolutely not.

Greg Villafana (00:56:46):

Oh man. So, can you walk us through a pool design in the software? Just maybe the different phases that you're going to go through in, one of the questions is we brought you a 2D design. What are the steps in making that into a 3D?

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:57:04]

Speaker 5 (00:56:46):

Noah Nehlich (00:57:04):

Okay, so a 2D design is something that you would draw on a flat piece of paper top-down. The 2 design has an incredible breakdown with the homeowners buying because as human beings we think in 3 dimensions. And so what translates into something we can understand in 2D, the homeowner's like ... there's no emotional connection with that. It turns into a logical price discussion, not a benefit discussion.

Greg Villafana (00:57:33):

So it's more of like a blueprint?

Noah Nehlich (00:57:35):

Yep. Blueprint. So in a 3D design, not only do you have the blueprint view, but you also have the ability to interact with that and walk through it just like we would in their real life, which is something we can comprehend and understand as human beings.

Greg Villafana (00:57:53):

Very good. And is there any difference in ... Because if you're presenting this to a homeowner, and I know we'll get back to the phases of all this, but you have maybe a video that you would show them and it could be a minute, five minutes long or however long it takes of a video of going through all the ... From the back door to the pool to the landscape, whatever it may be. But where is there a part of the software where you can actually, kind of scroll around the backyard, you know what I mean? Where you're kind of going through different areas that you want to actually go with a cursor?

Noah Nehlich (00:58:30):

Yeah. So you can control the 3D in two ways. One is walking around it like eye level, human being wise. The other is you can click and explore it for our bird's eye view to get an idea of how the backyard, the project's laid out. The secondary option is really great because it shows ... as professional designers, we always make a backyard into zones. So we have a zone for cooking, a zone for relaxing by a fire pit, a swimming zone. And so it really helps highlight how we thought about those different zones and how they apply to the family life.

Noah Nehlich (00:59:05):

But yeah, we can control, we can view that product from any angle, top-down, side, go underwater, any angle that we might think is it exciting to that homeowner.

Greg Villafana (00:59:16):

Very good. So back to the original question and like I normally do, I go off in another way. But yeah, let's talk about how, if we had a 2D design, like a blueprint, how do we get that into a 3D concept rendering design in the software that you guys do?

Noah Nehlich (00:59:39):

Okay, so now there's two types of plans. We might have a digital version of that, like from AutoCAD, maybe an architect gave us that AutoCAD file. I'll go with that one first. That's easy. So we import the AutoCAD file and then we simply tell our software what each shape ... because in AutoCAD it's just lines. We don't know what the lines are. So the pool builder says like, "Hey, this shape is the pool." And then it brings that into our software to the scale and automatically turns it into 3D. Or this shape is the house. Same thing, this shape is the deck, et cetera.

Noah Nehlich (01:00:14):

The more difficult but totally feasible and very common would be a 2D flat paper drawing, maybe even hand drawing. So you can take a picture of that with your iPhone straight down or scanner, if you have a scanner in your office. As long as it's straight level, you bring that into our software and you tell it a measurement on that piece of paper. So maybe they the spa's eight foot across. So you tell it that. It scales the rest of the design to that. And then as you go stage by stage, you simply trace that design and turn it into a 3D model.

Greg Villafana (01:00:50):

Oh, very cool.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:00:51):

It's very cool.

Greg Villafana (01:00:51):

So you're pretty much ... Instead of using CAD, you can just kind of directly go into Pool Studio if you just kind of have kind of a rough drawing and you can plug in all the dimensions and all the numbers?

Noah Nehlich (01:01:06):

Yep, yep. You just drop or type in all the dimensions or numbers. And as you go stage by stage, so you first do the house and then the pool, the hardscape steps of benches. As you work your way through the process, by the end of those stages, you have a complete design and then you go into materials and you assign materials. Okay, this is going to be a paver deck or a travertine deck. The interior of the pool is going to be a pebble finish or it's going to be plaster. And you just put all those options in.

Noah Nehlich (01:01:35):

And then in the last step, you add furniture, plants and trees. Such as chairs, tables, barbecues, and then you can get out your calculations off those and software automatically turns those into construction plans as well.

Greg R Villafana (01:01:53):

Very good. What are all ... And then you just named most of them, but what are all the different features in Pool Studio? Like are those all are actually in Pool Studio? So if we wanted to put the plants here, they're specific furniture. Like we know ledge lounger had all of their furniture in CAD where you could actually kind of drag and drop different pieces in there. Can you discuss all the different things that are on there?

Noah Nehlich (01:02:21):

Yeah, we have thousands of 3D representation of furniture, pots, decorations, around 1,800 3D models of plants and trees, at least a VIP 3 ... I think in Pool Studio. I think that's close to around 7 or 800 but we have thousands and thousand objects and materials and we're always updating and refreshing those libraries so that either we work directly with a manufacturer, like we have a lot of Pavestone materials in there and we do have ledge loungers in there or we put artistic representations of what might be popular out there in the software as well. And so that way you get it looking a lot like how the homeowner would expect or what you're going to sell to the homeowner.

Noah Nehlich (01:03:10):

In the early days, we would get a lot of questions from pool builders. They would call us and say, "Hey, where'd you get this red chair from? The homeowner wants to buy the design exactly as I showed it and I have these red chairs in there. Where do you get those from?"

Noah Nehlich (01:03:23):

So now we model them after ... You know what I'm saying? But I can't say it.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:03:30):

He's using a lot of quotations you can't see.

Noah Nehlich (01:03:32):

That way you go out and buy those products if you, if the homeowner really wants it exactly like you showed it.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:03:38):

So is Pool Studio actually connected to CAD because for a manufacturer, if you make chairs or you make a fire feature or something like that, you have to get your products into CAD and you guys, is that what happens? Is that you are connected to CAD and that's how people are able to actually import stuff?

Noah Nehlich (01:04:00):

Yeah. So there's two types of models we have. We have ones that we make, which we have very, very high requirements for our models. So we can't often let anyone outside do those because there's a lot that goes into making sure they're efficient for 3D and all that. So we have those. And then we also have in VIP 3D, we allow the user to import FBX files, which is a standard 3D format for any kind of 3D CAD and SketchUp models. So if a manufacturer out there has their files in some type of 3D CAD, they'll definitely be able to export those from that in FBX format. And then anyone can import that into our software from FBX and then apply whatever material to make it look really good from our software. That could be fire pots, it could be ladders, it could be furniture. Buddhist statues are really popular to import, could be anything, boats, anything.

Greg Villafana (01:05:01):

Man, that's got to be a great opportunity for ... I don't want to say upsell, but that's pretty much what it is. But you're able to have the capability of showing the bobe fire feature and the different ledge chairs and all the different things to make the backyard pool experience, what it is. Especially with things like house where you can go on there and just kind of click a backyard, click a chair or click whatever you want, a table and it'll pop up and it's like, yeah, you brought this in as inspiration, but now we can actually plug that into the Pool that we would like to design for you and we can make it look exactly the way you want it to look with the furniture that you want it to be back there.

Noah Nehlich (01:05:46):

Yeah, absolutely. The designers that really go that next level and stage their designs with products, that's what I consider a next level designer. It's like, if you as a buyer go through a model house that's empty versus furnished, two totally different experiences. And then by the time you exit, you want that model house with those exact furnishings in it because it was so cool. You could see it. Same thing as these 3D designs, but I can put the furniture in there. I could put bobe fire pots in there, ledge loungers, put wet edge or pebble tech on that interior. Then it staged perfectly for that homeowner and they're going to want all those things their ultimate design.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:06:31):

Yeah, that's awesome.

Greg R Villafana (01:06:31):

So I'm curious, do you get a pretty good idea of what the interior is going to look like from the software? Like if you're looking at the water, depending on what finish you put in the pool, do you get a pretty good idea of what that's going to look like? Like can the hoarder sort of look at the backyard and kind of look at the pool and kind of have a good idea. I know that's probably really difficult to translate that vision like that.

Noah Nehlich (01:07:01):

You can get that dead on. We do trim tiles on steps, we do bullnose on the steps. We have the pool cove at the bottom of the pool, so it looks really good to the end result. And of course as we know, as professionals, depending on the color of pool interior you put on, ultimately determines the color of water that you get. A tan interior doesn't make tan water. It's like a light green water. And so we've spent significant amount of time tuning those different colored interiors to give a pretty good representation what that final water color will look like. So you'll notice in our software, if you apply a black plaster or black pebble material, the surface is going to be a lot more reflective than if you do white or tan.

Greg R Villafana (01:07:50):

And you can put people in these as well, right?

Noah Nehlich (01:07:53):

Yes. We have a lot of different people models. We're adding a lot of more people models and that's to give scale. Sometimes there's too many people models used in these designs. It looks like a pool party out of control. But ...

Greg R Villafana (01:08:06):

A Barbie party.

Noah Nehlich (01:08:07):

Yeah, but just a person is good to give some scale to the homeowner. We also have what we call silhouette people, which are just white glowing outlines of people so that the individual person or person types don't detract from the design, but they can still visualize themselves as that person and get a sense of scale.

Greg Villafana (01:08:31):

Very good.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:08:31):

Right. Yeah. It sounds like you got a lot of freedom, which is awesome. So we'll get closer to getting to the end here. What options are available as far as purchasing options after you go through the free trial and decide you want to buy it?

Noah Nehlich (01:08:48):

Yeah, so our purchasing is membership based, so we charge $95 per month or 995 per year if a designer wants to commit to the whole year. And that of course includes all the training and all the support. So that's for Pool Studio or VizTerra. And then our high end premier package, which is VIP 3D, is either 165 a month or 1695 per year.

Noah Nehlich (01:09:15):

But if someone's starting out, I definitely recommend they start with Pool Studio, get comfortable with that feature set, and then if they feel they're ready to move up, then move up at that point.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:09:25):

Yeah, awesome.

Greg Villafana (01:09:26):

And I heard it was in the millions, but how many pools have been made in Pool Studio at this point? Do you have an idea, the number?

Noah Nehlich (01:09:37):

I have. It's definitely millions. The only number I know for certain is last year, which we had over 1.4 million designs in our software.

Greg R Villafana (01:09:51):

That is insane.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:09:53):

Very cool.

Greg Villafana (01:09:54):

Congratulations.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:09:55):

Yeah. Awesome. It's that a really cool story that you ... From struggling to what it is now, it's really awesome to ... Thanks for sharing that.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:10:04):

Just want to shift gears the little tiny bit on ... I liked your answer for this, so it's one I want to ask it. What do you think some of the biggest struggles are in the design side of the industry and how do we overcome those?

Noah Nehlich (01:10:16):

Well, the biggest challenge on the design side is, of course, people undervaluing their designs, but we covered that. And so secondary to undervaluing their time and their designs is absolutely the fear that's around sharing designs and sharing ideas in the industry.

Noah Nehlich (01:10:36):

Back, I don't know, 10 or 15 years ago, it was even worse than it is today. Where pool designers, we're afraid of even drawing in our software because we might be tracking them so that we could then give their or sell their pool design out to somebody else. We don't do that. We never have, we never will. But that was the fear around it.

Noah Nehlich (01:10:57):

And so today, I am so proud and excited of the designers that are out there, which show every detail of their construction process on social media. They readily share their designs. They readily share this new features that they come up with. They teach them at pool seminars and they're so open with those because if we can't be open with each other and learn off each other, the industry can't progress. It can't move forward. We can't mature.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:11:25):

Absolutely. Yeah. I love that answer. So thank you very much.

Greg R Villafana (01:11:29):

So if people want to reach out to you, how can they find you?

Noah Nehlich (01:11:34):

I guess the best way for me directly would probably be my Twitter. I monitor very closely our company Facebook page and our company Instagram page.

Noah Nehlich (01:11:43):

Probably one of the things that brings me the most joy and excitement is to see all the great designs that are in the software and all the creative uses to the that we put out. So I monitor those very carefully and so that's a great way for direct would probably be Twitter.

Greg Villafana (01:11:58):

Okay, perfect.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:11:59):

And what's the website again?

Noah Nehlich (01:12:00):

Our website structurestudios.com and studios is plural.

Greg R Villafana (01:12:05):

Perfect. And do you have a book that's made any kind of impact on your life in any way?

Noah Nehlich (01:12:13):

There's a number of books that have done that. I would say one of the most recent ones that I really like is Radical Candor by Kim Scott. That book has been a phenomenal tool for managing and I think it'd be great for a pool builder, even how they work with their crews and how they communicate with their crews. That's been super good.

Noah Nehlich (01:12:32):

Another one is ... That's fantastic. I would recommend to any pool builder is How to Never Lose a Customer by Joey Coleman. He breaks through the different customer life cycles and how we can wow them at every moment, which then we can apply to our own businesses. And the ideal is of course to get more referrals out of that and never have anyone unhappy on the backend. Both fantastic books.

Greg R Villafana (01:12:56):

Right. Those are awesome. Never heard of those. So excited to jump into those. Anyway, Noah, thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. We think that this was an amazing conversation. We talked about a lot of things that we had no idea anything about and we think that the listeners will have a lot to benefit from it. So like you just said, it's all about sharing information and that's what you've done today, so really, thank you.

Noah Nehlich (01:13:25):

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been an honor. Huge fan of Pool Chasers and I love what you're doing to help really push the industry forward and to make that communication go both ways and share these stories. It's fantastic.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:13:40):

Yeah. Thank you very much.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:13:42):

Thanks for checking out this episode. If you want to find out more about our guests or the sponsors of the show, you can check them out on the links we have provided in the writeup below.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:13:50):

We have also provided links to our social media platform, so please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Our tag is Pool Chasers. If the podcast has brought you any value, please do what you can to support us through our Patreon page by going to patreon.com/poolchasers. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to be updated each time a new episode is released.

Tyler Rasmussen (01:14:10):

One last thing. If you're not yet in our Facebook group, join it today to be surrounded by like minded individuals who are all trying to better the industry. Thank you all for the support. We appreciate your time and your ear.

Greg & Tyler (01:14:19):

See you out there, Pool Chasers.


Pool Chasers
Previous

Episode 92: COVID-19 Coronavirus: Pool Industry Resources with Sabeena, Janay, and Jennifer of PHTA
Next

Episode 90: 1099 Independent Contractor or W-2 Employee: Breaking Down the Difference with Rich, Javier, and Dustin