Why We Built Inspec: the story behind the duo & the concept
Earlier this year, I gave up on spreadsheets completely. If I had to deal with one more corrupted file or attempt to open up my schedule only to find another colleague had left the file open on their desktop (overnight, in another timezone, 15000km away!) I was going to lose it! And I did.
I have been working as an Interior designer for 6 years now, and for the past 3 of those, at a highly reputable interior design studio in the United Kingdom. I like to consider myself a bit of a wizz with the admin side of the job (which is at least 90% of it might I add), but believe me when I tell you, there is nothing I despise more in my work day than opening up my spreadsheets. They’re clunky, inefficient and quite frankly just ugly, and I spend HOURS working in them!
At the beginning of 2025, I was working remotely from Australia on a huge project in the UK. My work day would begin as the rest of the team in London slept, and that was totally fine, except for one issue that gradually became a nightmare.
Situations like this constantly arose; the contractors would request the latest revision of the finishes schedule to be sent to them immediately (with decorators starting the next day!), and we were multiple revisions into the design evolution.
Since the previous issue, a colleague had re-specified the wall colour in bedroom 2, the clients have rejected the tiles in the master bathroom, the flooring sample for the hallway is not up to scratch, neither are 10 other samples that have all been rejected by the boss and somehow all of this information needed to be clarified to the site team before our issuing. Our schedule was already 70 pages long at this point, and I was always battling how to point out clearly where updates had been made!
Another problem I would face almost daily; opening up the decorative lighting schedule, only to find a colleague in London had left the file open on her desktop overnight, so all I could do was open a read only copy!
This, in typical fashion, would always occur when the contractors need the schedule emailed to them pronto with the latest updates. So my only choice was to save a new copy of the file and make the edits. Of course, all unbeknownst to my colleague, who returns the next day to the office and continues working in the original file, and suddenly we’ve found ourselves in a muddled mess of doubled-up changes, inaccuracy and multiple files that nobody knows which is current. STRESS!
Desperate to make my work-life easier, I suddenly saw the opportunity right before my eyes to develop a purpose-built scheduling software tool for interior designers that would not only help me, but I was almost certain would help interior designers all over the world. I had come across project management programs before, but nothing that specifically focused on the one process causing the most amount of drama. This is when the idea really blossomed!
Luckily for me, my incredible long-term partner, Nick, has been working as a software engineer for the past 7 years (how convenient!) and was immediately summoned to help me get my ideas straight about what I thought could be the next big thing in the A&D industry. He sweetly knew nothing about the design industry, and ”specification schedule” was not at all in his vocabulary, but he listened to all my daily admin struggles and together, fast-forward 10 months, we have built Inspec, a software tool designed specifically for interior designers to manage their product specification sheets, which in the A&D world we would call schedules.
The app is incredibly user-centric and frictionless (if we do say so ourselves). We decided to focus our efforts honing in on the one process that was causing designers constant grief, so that there was no overwhelming software overhaul required for companies. In doing so, it helps to not only attract new, but also highly established studios that have many great software programs already in place. Inspec can be integrated seamlessly, simply just replacing excel.
- Offers real-time collaboration - so you and your colleagues can all work and make changes in the same file at once, with no issues whatsoever.
- Automatic Revision Control - so your team, your trades and most importantly your clients are always kept in the loop with the latest design changes.
- In-app communications - now you can delegate tasks and tag your team members right there in the schedule! No need to take the conversation to email.
- 100% cloud based - work on your schedules anytime, anywhere!
- Time Tracking - so you can charge your clients accordingly without having to retrace the hours you’ve worked for the past month.
Inspec has completely streamlined the process of scheduling and saved me so many hours of administrative burden. We can’t wait to see what other interior designers have to say about the program and how it helps to improve their business.
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