Building future in home improvement

SOLID FOUNDATION: Jim Moon, president of Moonworks, shows off his company’s gutter products. Two decades after its founding, his company ranks as one of the fastest-growing businesses in Rhode Island, according to Inc. Mazagine. / PBN PHOTO/MARTIN GAVIN
SOLID FOUNDATION: Jim Moon, president of Moonworks, shows off his company’s gutter products. Two decades after its founding, his company ranks as one of the fastest-growing businesses in Rhode Island, according to Inc. Mazagine. / PBN PHOTO/MARTIN GAVIN

Moonworks President Jim Moon found business opportunity in the gutter.
The University of Rhode Island business-school graduate had been running a kitchen-remodeling company in Boston for five years when his father in Rhode Island introduced him to a new set of leaf guards he had installed on his house.
They were called Gutter Helmets, a brand of solid-aluminum gutter guards that channel rainwater off a roof while blocking leaves and debris.
A Gutter Helmet salesman had left a 10-minute video about the product that Moon watched and was so impressed with he decided to take his career in a whole new direction.
“It was so short and sweet – I loved the enthusiasm,” Moon said about the Gutter Helmet pitch. “It was 1993. I sold the kitchen business and got straight into the gutter business. I had just one product, Gutter Helmets.”
Two decades later Moonworks, the gutter business Moon launched in response to his father’s home-improvement project, is one of the fastest-growing companies in Rhode Island.
Last year, Moonworks ranked 2,307th on Inc. Magazine’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies list.
According to Inc., Moonworks’ revenue more than doubled from 2007 to 2010, when it made $12.8 million.
Since then the company has continued to grow, expanding from 60 employees in 2010 to 90 this year.
Reflective of that kind of growth, Moonworks is no longer just a one-product enterprise.
From Gutter Helmets, Moonworks has expanded into several home-improvement markets, including roofs, replacement windows and, most recently, energy-efficiency retrofits.
“The idea to branch out really came from our customer base,” Moon said. “We have 50,000 customers and they kept telling us ‘you guys are great, you should do roofs, windows and decks.’ We thought it was silly if we didn’t diversify.”
In all areas, Moonworks does evaluations, product sales and installations.
Workers in the different segments of the company – gutters, roofs, windows and energy efficiency – specialize in their particular area, with only limited crossover to the other segments.
Although gutters still represent Moonworks’ main revenue stream, with roughly half of current sales, Moon said the other segments are catching up quickly. There is a “huge pent-up demand” for new roofs, he said, while window sales are “solid.”
Of Moonworks’ newest product, Dr. Energy Saver efficiency audits, Moon said “the sky is the limit” in terms of future potential.
Moonworks uses infrared cameras to detect where heat is escaping from a house and, instead of just blowing in more insulation, targets all potential trouble spots with a fix from its range of products and services.
If insulation is the problem they can add more of that, but if the problem is a bad door, window, shingles or something else, they can sell and install those as well.
“We make uncomfortable homes comfortable,” Moon said describing the Energy Saver program. “It’s more than an assessment. We want to fix that cold room, damp, musty basement or space over the garage. We diagnose what is wrong.”
Although most forms of construction have still yet to recover from the end of the real estate bubble, Moon said he has been able to grow through the recession because inexpensive ways to maintain old houses have become crucial to homeowners.
“New-home construction is down, but our business has always been remodeling and people are fixing up their investments,” Moon said. “There is not as much trading up as fixing up what you have.”
Starting in the broader realm of kitchen remodeling, Moon’s move to gutters placed him in a very narrow and specialized area of home improvement. While that’s still somewhat the case for Moonworks, moving into roofs and now energy-efficiency projects has broadened that expertise out again.
From its leased base in the Highland Corporate Park, Moonworks draws about equal numbers of customers from Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts. Moon said the strength of the Bay State economy compared to the Ocean State economy was especially evident after the recession, but Rhode Island demand is picking up again.
As the company moves past its 20th anniversary, Moonworks doesn’t have any immediate plans to move into any new products, but it is hiring again, specifically salesmen and installers across all product lines.
“You either keep pedaling or you fall down,” Moon said. •

COMPANY PROFILE
Moonworks
Owner: Jim Moon
Type of Business: home improvement
Location: 1137 Park East Drive, Highland Corporate Park, Woonsocket
Employees: 90
Year Established: 1993
Annual Sales: NA

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