Sometimes a brilliant idea, but a lot of work to implement it, can reshape an entire industry. If an American who is glimpsed a business opportunity, after having listened to his brother.
The story begins in 2006, the seller of roofing materials, David Carlson, told her about the frustration cumantului to climb on roofs and manually measure the damage, and provide estimates of repair works.



Carslon's brother, Chris Pershing is a professional software engineer. And he did more than listen: to create software that would change the way an industry of 30 billion dollars, "the" American rooftops, CNN Money.



Today, the company's Pershing, EagleView, using aerial photographs and 3D models to produce, on request, for precise reports for almost every roof in the United States of America (USA). Do not use scale or measuring instruments, is less dangerous and saves the time. "Have a report EagleView became an accepted standard in the industry," said Kirk Belz, managing partner in a company dealing with the investigation of claims insurers nationwide.



A report EagleView costs between 20 and 80 dollars and are used by 50,000 workers specialized in covering buildings and nearly all major insurance companies. How well business goes? This year sales will reach U.S. $ 40 million, from $ 1.4 million three years ago. Now the company counts 175 employees, but has plans to employ 40-50 sales agents and software engineers in the next year, writes CNN Money.



In 2006, Pershing's when he got the idea, thought that someone already invented. A web search software that uses images to generate reports such estimates, but found nothing. So he began experimenting with Bing sites and Google Earth in search of satellite images. And what he found surprised: aerial photographs provide details for more precise measurements than satellite images.



"I certainly thought it was an opportunity in this segment," said Pershing, who is 39 years old. He studied one of the boxes for the birds of his wife from the roof from several angles. He remembered images of these angles and began to draw different views of the roof. In coming months, he spent nights and weekends to the computer, developing software that could use algorithms to deduce the size, shape and surface of the roof.



Then applied the algorithms on several addresses, including his home and neighbors. He did an exercise even the pyramids of Egypt and one estiamat height with an accuracy of only a few bricks missing. The same thing happened when his neighbors house.



At the end of 2007, Pershing gave up work, which develops software for ultrasound equipment and switched EagleView rented a small office outside of Seattle. He convinced family and friends to invest $ 200,000 in his new company and bought the rights for aerial photography is normally used by the authorities and the U.S. Geological Survey.



When Pershing began to reveal builders and insurance claims controllers about the technology, they were skeptical. In this industry, measurements were done manually for many decades. "I thought that it is not possible," says Belz. But once several large insurance companies have embraced technology, Belz and others were convinced. Pershing then hired veteran in technology, Chris Barrow for CEO in 2008 and he became head of technology. Barrow then raised 6 million dollars from investors.



Today, customers can order reports online EagleView or using an application on your phone and will receive a report in PDF format in an hour. Even though there are few competitors, and GeoEstimator.com or Roofwalk.com, offering similar services, sales increased by 200% EagleView last year. Belz said that now can process 25% more insurance claims per day without sending a man on the roof and save at least 45 minutes, only for the analysis of a roof of one house.