Founder Friday: Alex Onsager & Suzanna Schumacher, Co-Founders of Character 🛠
Issue #8
Founder Friday is a content series from SuperAngel.Fund highlighting companies in our portfolio and the inspiring founders behind them.
In our eighth edition, we are featuring Alex Onsager and Suzanna Schumacher, Co-Founders of Character, the modern home improvement brand for the next generation of home dwellers.
Whether you’re a beginner looking for a low-lift and confidence-boosting project in your home or you’re a true DIY veteran and enthusiast, Character is the solution built for you. Simply put, Character is the home improvement brand that’s powering home dwellers to create their own dream spaces - making DIY projects seamless, simple, and most of all FUN!
After diligent research into the market, painstaking product development, and a devotion to user experience, Character launched publicly earlier this week! Alex and Suzanna built the company from a sense of being overwhelmed by the unhelpful existing resources and retailers in the home improvement space. From this shared frustration, the team became inspired by the mission to bring an entire suite of home improvement and DIY tools, supplies, and support to the masses.
It wasn’t just Alex’s and Suzanna’s vision that brought Character to market this week though, but also their impressive past experience. As the former Integrated Marketing Director at Casper and head of Customer/Lifecycle Marketing at Bark before that, Suzanna is pulling from a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the DTC space. Meanwhile, Alex has spent his career working alongside emerging businesses, both as a consultant (Boston Consulting Group) and on the venture side of the table (MATH Venture Partners, BCG Digital Ventures).
Most people are overwhelmed trying to build a wall unit, let alone trying to build an entire company… but Alex and Suzanna seem to have done both with relative ease!
Describe your company in 5 words or less.
Alex & Suzanna: Next-Gen home improvement brand.
What was your primary motivation for starting your business?
Alex: I come from a family of DIYers. My parents are the type of people who do every home improvement project themselves - even to an insane degree at times…When I bought my first home at the start of the pandemic, I started to do the same thing: replacing light fixtures, painting rooms, and making the home my own.
I spent my early career in strategy consulting where on several occasions I got to work with companies selling in places like Home Depot and Lowe’s. One of the things I observed was how these big retailers were rolling out lots of new services for pros and contractors. I started asking who was making new products and services for DIYers like me. Ultimately, I got excited about building a home improvement experience that was designed top to bottom with consumers in mind.
Suzanna: I was motivated by a number of things, but primarily I wanted to make home improvement feel more doable for people like me (I’m the consumer we’re after). I personally started getting really into DIY projects but felt so intimidated and under-informed about the fundamentals of how to do it. Then I bought a house and the learning curve was steep! As someone who felt resourceful and smart in other areas of my life, I was deeply frustrated by how inaccessible and daunting it felt to get smarter and more self-sufficient and didn’t feel at home or particularly supported in existing spaces that are supposed to help you navigate this world. After talking to a ton of people, I realized this is almost a generational frustration and I wanted to build something better than what’s out there.
What piece of advice would you give an entrepreneur starting a business today?
Alex: Keep your eyes open and make time to talk to other founders. There is a lot of cheap learning you can do if you watch and learn from what other businesses, entrepreneurs, designers, etc. are doing and practice asking yourself what you and your business can learn from it.
Suzanna: Start telling people about what you’re building - put it out there and ask for support in areas that are not your expertise. Nobody can build a company alone and you never know who you’ll meet when you start sharing your idea.
What do you love to do in your free time?
Alex: I like to read when I get a chance. Suzanna and I have bonded over our shared love of history books.
Suzanna: DIY projects (naturally). But I also love to read, write, and take long walks. I have a toddler so ‘free time’ is rare, but when I get it, I grab a book or get outside.
What is the most interesting place you’ve visited recently and why?
Alex: We recently set up the Character Workshop in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood. It’s an exciting place in the city where empty parking lots are quickly turning into new buildings and lots of new companies are moving in. It’s easy to feel like you are a part of an exciting new chapter of Chicago.
Suzanna: “Recently” is a stretch (Pandemic!) but probably Chicago last fall (to visit my co-founder). It’s an awesome city.
What is your favorite app or tool in your work life and in your personal life?
Alex: I rely on handwritten notes and to-do lists and I do my best thinking on paper, so a key tool for me is a notebook or some graph paper. Also Giphy. Suzanna will testify to the fact that I never miss a chance to respond in Slack with a SpongeBob GIF : )
Suzanna: For work, it’s gotta be Slack. Great for communication and also reminds me of all my to-do’s! For personal, it’s Zillow for aspirational house hunting.
What do you believe is the most important skill or attribute of a successful founder?
Alex: “Be a DIYer” is Character’s first value and Suzanna and I try to live by that as founders. I manage our financial model but I also design stickers in Illustrator. That’s part of the fun!
Suzanna: Follow-through!
SuperAngel.Fund is an early stage fund that invests in Consumer, PropTech & Future of Work. The fund is led by Ben Zises who was the first investor and founding advisor to quip, Caraway & Arber. You can learn more and apply at SuperAngel.Fund.
