Maryland Dealer Spins Off Decorative Company

When Laurence Streidel got his start in the window film business, he did it in his mother's driveway. But his success was so immediate, and so grand, that he got the boot.

"I knew it was a viable business option the day my mom came up to me and said 'I want all of these 15 cars parked in our street gone. The neighbors are complaining," Streidel says.

Rather than line cars up in the driveway, Steidel began travelling to his customers, working out of a branded vehicle that he had saved up for. But it wasn't long before he and his wife, Charlotte, decided to make the next step by securing a brick and mortar business. The two have seen nothing but success ever since, and now they're adding one more notch to the story.

When Laurence and his wife Charlotte grew their original window film dealership, Winners Window Tint, from a primarily automotive business into a full-fledged flat glass operation, they decided to separate the two by launching Interior Guardz Window Coating and Tinting, a strictly flat glass operation. In recent years, the two discovered an additional opportunity in decorative films and now history has repeated itself with a new business concept.

"We saw an increased interest in decorative films through our installation projects," Charlotte explains. "People expressed an interest in purchasing the film from us, rather than buying it themselves and just having us install it. We decided to have yet another company, in order to keep all of our entities separate."

And so Decorative Film Depot, LLC (DFD) was born.

"We were selling more decorative films than we were solar," Laurence explains. "It was a gradual movement, but, at some point I realized I had more decorative films in stock than solar. Then we realized-we had so many architects and interior designers calling us, saying, 'Hey, we saw that you did [such and such] design on [such and such] commercial building. Could you do [this]? Or do you have additional films that you could use to do a similar pattern?' I came to Charlotte and said, 'This is an opportunity to see if we can be the first to offer, not only decorative films, but our own creations."

So the two got to work, planning a new decorative films business, only this time, they would take a different approach. First, the Streidels realized that they wanted to be a distributor; next they realized that, while solar films can be difficult to promote through images, decorative films were made for it. Lastly, they came to the conclusion that the best vehicle for promoting and selling these visual films was the internet. In October 2007, the two began working with a web developer and designer. The effort resulted in more than just another great website, it produced trademark concepts, including: Reliable Image Comparison System™ (RICS) and Film by the Foot™.

The Streidels realized that decorative films customers are different than solar films customers. For them, aesthetics are specific. And they couldn't afford to deliver a product that didn't look the same in person as it did through the company's website. RICS™ is a new process that standardizes product photos so customers better understand what they are buying over the web by adding common reference points to each product photo and a consistent visual background utilizing the full color spectrum. The Streidels say the system allows their customers to better gauge differences in opacity, translucency, transparency, light refraction, color and pattern size between various products. Film by the Foot™, a very simple concept, allows the company's customers to order decorative films by the linear foot, rather than requiring them to order by the roll or in large square-yard increments.

Since the launch of their third business, the Streidels say the new company's success has been astounding. But it isn't unexpected, based on their research. Before the concept was fully developed, the two tested their theory at a nearby home show where they say DFD's booth was perpetually packed.

"We definitely reacted to a demand," Charlotte says. "We started seeing an increase in questions about it and we looked around and just didn't see what we wanted in terms of product line. Large manufacturers have decorative lines, but they're small-maybe five, six or seven types of film-mostly various types of matte."

Since then, the Streidels have added a large library of films to DFD's offerings-mostly sourced from a number of foreign suppliers. But they've decided that's not good enough, so the Streidels recently spent a large amount of money equipping DFD for its next endeavor. While they won't have to begin a new branch or division for the new effort, it will push the couple into a brand new direction-one they say will offer limitless possibilities.

To find out what the Streidel's next decorative films endeavor will be, watch for a full feature article in the upcoming issue of Window Film magazine.