For some, the work-from-home setup looks much like the ones in their offices before. For others, it looks like the kitchen table or living room sofa. Now a new local company is looking to make the WFH office synonymous with the backyard.
Backyard Workroom, a Richardson-based maker of prefabricated spaces that can be configured as an office or even just an extra room separated from the house, was created out of a pandemic pivot. And as the crisis causes some companies to rethink the need for physical office spaces, Backyard Workroom has begun taking orders in hopes of offering a solution to the remote and hybrid work markets.
“It’s really all the components it offers that makes it really unique,” Eric Benavides, Backyard Workroom founder and CEO, told NTX Inno. “We didn’t want to look at this and go, ‘Well, you’re just building a shed that the lawn mower goes in and trying to work out of it also.’ We wanted it to obviously be better than that.”
Benavides said what sets Backyard Workroom apart from other makers of prefab spaces is its ability to set up a space from start to finish in two hours or less, something aided by a patent-pending design. The company’s spaces have walls made of three interchangeable panels that can contain a wall, door or window. It also sits on an adjustable steel foundation, making it portable and removing the need for a concrete slab. And they come outfitted with electrical fixtures, including an air conditioning unit, that are run through floor panels, so there’s no need for electrical permits since the whole room can be plugged into an electrical cord.
“The cool part is it’s really just a Lego kit. You get over there and you say, ‘You know what, I really want this window over here,’ and you can just swap it,” Benavides said.
Kits for the spaces can be shipped out for a DIY build or you can have Backyard’s builders come set it up for you, which takes about an hour and a half, Benavides said.
Backyard Workroom was created as Benavides saw demand for home offices increasing, while demand for his other construction and manufacturing businesses dramatically decrease. Since the pandemic, across his businesses, Benavides said he has had to lay off about 75 people. The now six-person Backyard Workroom team took their welding and other manufacturing skills and put them to work on home offices.
“We got decimated as a company, so we really just spun around,” Benavides said. “I just pivoted into a completely different product using the same guys. They’re retrained, they’re all welders but now they’re doing woodwork and other things but they’re happy to have a job,” Benavides said.
Currently, the company offers a 10 by 10 square-foot and a 10 by 15 square-foot option. The company already has two order being processed and can produce about 10 per week. Right now, Backyard Workroom is focused on growing largely in the North Texas region.
As it continues to grow, Benavides said they plan to roll out new expansion plans and designs. It also recently landed a financing deal, allowing customers to select from different payment plans. Benavides said it also helps the company during these uncertain times, allowing it to keep its revenue more stable. And as it eyes future expansion, Benavides said the company will likely be looking at franchising into new markets nationwide.
“I think there’s a lot of people out there that need something like this, that could use something like this that would make their life a little bit easier,” Benavides said. “I think that there was never really an opportunity for many businesses to say, ‘Yes, somebody can be productive working from home. It was like a risk. This forced it. I don’t think that now there’s a doubt.”
Go inside one of Backyard Workroom’s spaces and check out some of the work that goes into building one in the gallery below.
