Client Spotlight: Edwin Williams

“I was living in St. Louis when I developed the idea. I had developed the basis of Perserbid for another market. Specifically the prototyping market as I had not found a shop to prototype a device a friend and I had developed. We ended up finding a shop so I never pushed further but when I came home one Christmas, my mom was upset at a contractor she hired and the light bulb clicked. I then started asking my friends in contracting about their experiences and I developed the idea then sat on it. The second frustration is what pushed me to start Perserbid. Things with my previous business had not gone as intended and I ended moving back to Johnson City just over 2 1/2 years ago. In the midst of wondering what to do next, my girlfriend, who’d been present during my development of the idea that would become Perserbid, told me “You have this amazing idea you’ve been sitting on, start that.” Around the same time, another good friend of mine was pushing me not to drop out of the entrepreneur world. I’d had my first loss and now I was “christened”. So I started Perserbid not knowing what I was getting into. Perserbid was formed as a legal entity in February of 2014 and we’ve been primarily in development since then. We had a booth at both the Johnson City and Kingsport Home and Garden shows last year and although we hit some rough patches, the support from the community has been awesome. Owning a business has always been a dream of mine, at least since 8th grade. Looking back, when I told people as a kid that I wanted to own my own business, most of them had no idea what to tell me because most people have never truly gotten into entrepreneurship. It wasn’t until I encountered a group of guys who were entrepreneurs when I realized that to start your own business, you just have to start and learn along the way through the school of hard knocks. At this stage, what Perserbid needs is users. Early adopters who will be fine with a not fully polished site that’s functional and who are willing to give feedback. What did they love? What did they like? What was meh? What didn’t they like? What did they despise? We need that feedback to make Perserbid a great place to for our users. Perserbid needs to get in front of people in the Tri-Cities area. After we are done testing in the Tri-Cities, I see Perserbid going national and even global in the future. We have many features coming, once we hammer down our core model, that will fill a needed niche in the world of residential contracting. We may even get into commercial once we’ve gotten a good understanding on residential but as it stands, we’re in survival mode as a new startup and in 2 years, I’d like Perserbid to be the preferred destination for contractors to find customers and homeowners to find contractors in the state of Tennessee.”

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