The Wescover app for the design world at work (it’s similar to Shazam, the app that instantly sources the musician and song title when you hear a song you love).
Ever admire the wallpaper as much as the views at a luxe hotel? Coveted the artisanal ceramic plates at a Michelin-starred restaurant? A new website and soon-to-be app, Wescover is making it easier to connect design-curious people with the furniture, artwork and other interior design fixings they spot around the world. “We’re making it more accessible to find those unique items and creators and basically making the world a showroom,” says Wescover co-founder Rachely Esman.
Wescover (short for We Discover) hosts a community of more than 4,000 international creators. “Unfortunately, they don’t have the marketing budgets, and it’s very hard to come across them unless you know an interior designer,” adds Esman. Users can browse original pieces in the context of real-life spaces (local favorites: Menlo Park’s Rosewood Sand Hill hotel and restaurants Bird Dog and Maum, both in Palo Alto). Wescover also plans to launch a new augmented reality functionality that will allow you to take a shot of any product anywhere around the world, upload it to the app and access the creator behind it.
The idea for Wescover sparked when Esman moved to San Francisco from Israel three years ago and asked for home design shops that she should scout for her new home. “Friends came back to me: ‘Go to Restoration Hardware, CB2’ and I’m like, ‘It must be more than just that.’” As she began discovering artists and furniture-makers in the area, the software engineer/serial tech entrepreneur had her next best idea. She and her business partner, Yoad Snapir, who both founded fintech firm MarketPulse, set out to develop the Wescover network.
Wescover became their answer, Esman says, to mass retail and knockoffs found in “Get the Look” editorials. “The fact that you show me something similar doesn’t really help me to source that product,” she says. “So we are actually connecting inspiration and sourcing together, connecting you with the real creator behind it.” San Francisco and New York are big Wescover communities, but word-of-mouth is spreading to countries like Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines and beyond. “It’s fun to see because you can suddenly jump to Tokyo and see what’s trending there,” says Esman. “Basically, by taking the real world digitally, we also allow you to visit those spaces remotely and learn more about those creators and communities.”
Co-founer Rachely Esman.
Originally published in the June issue of Silicon Valley
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Photography by: Courtesy of Wescover; Portrait by Renee Isabel Utter
