FOUNDER
22 years in sheet metal preconstruction. Still owns the product direction and answers the email inbox.
ABOUT
Four people. One product. No board.
designwinds is a bootstrapped, profitable company. No outside investors. No board. No growth theater. We sell software to people who use it every day to build real things.
FOUNDER
Twenty-two years estimating sheet metal.
Spent 22 years estimating sheet metal work, the last nine as chief estimator at a $45M sheet metal contractor in the Midwest.
Built the first version of designwinds in 2021 for two contractor friends who were still running bids out of Excel, Bluebeam, and a whiteboard. It spread through the chapter network after that. We didn't run a marketing campaign; we haven't done a booth at a trade show; this website is the first time we've asked anyone we don't know to consider us.
The decision to stay in the Midwest was deliberate. Most of our customers are within a day's drive and it matters that we can go sit in their preconstruction trailer when something isn't working.
THE TEAM
Four people. No hidden resumes.
ENGINEER
Full-stack. Was the first hire in 2022. Shipped the takeoff engine.
ENGINEER
Full-stack. Joined in 2023. Owns bid management and the integration layer.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Former estimator at a $30M sheet metal shop. Runs implementations and answers the phone before we do.
HOW WE WORK
Three years quiet. Ready now.
We spent three years making sure the product worked before we started telling people about it. We're ready now. That's the whole story of this website.
We ship every Wednesday. We don't do growth hacks. We don't run sales quotas. The founder's email is in the footer of every invoice. If the product isn't working for you, we want to know before you cancel.
Profitable since year two. Bootstrapped. Plan to stay that way.
BEFORE THIS SITE
What was here until last week.
For three years our website was one page. It said: “designwinds makes estimating software for sheet metal contractors. If you were sent here by someone who uses it, email hello@designwinds.com and we'll set up a call.” That was the whole site. No product pages, no pricing page, no blog. If you weren't referred in, there was nothing here for you.
We kept it that way on purpose. We didn't want to take on customers faster than we could support them, and we didn't want to write marketing copy about a product we were still figuring out. In March we decided we could handle more shops without dropping the ones we have. This site went live April 2026. If you got here some other way than a referral, you're one of the first.