Victor case study

Before

Viewrail manufactures custom floating stairs and railing, sold exclusively online — quoting is where all of its selling happens.

In 2015, quotes were pencil sketches on graph paper, faxed or emailed to customers, redrawn from scratch for every correction, then re-keyed by hand into order entry.

The founders had the idea to replace the paper with software. They hired Andrew off Elance to build it.

What it became

• Railing and stair systems designed in the browser, with live pricing and parts lists
• Generated blueprints and installation directions
• Customer sign-off flowing straight into payment and order management — no re-keying
• Real-time 3D
• From 2017: structural-steel costing for the FLIGHT floating-stair line, directly from the drawing

Eight and a half years. 100+ shipped versions.

The engineering

The engineering he considers his best: a migration chain of paired up/downgraders, eventually 100+ deep, that walked any hibernating estimate forward on load.

Zero stranded estimates in eight and a half years.

The numbers

Over the engagement, Viewrail grew from low single-digit millions to $100M+ and 100+ reps.

Company figures, not Andrew’s output. His claim: he built and ran the quoting system the sales operation ran on.

IEDC, 2019Indianapolis Business Journal, 2019Best of IBS finalist, 2017