When you live in a home for years — getting married, raising kids, taking up hobbies — stuff builds up. And once you are emotionally ready to downsize, sorting through all that stuff can seem insurmountable.
All in Order, a new service launched by former Marbles: The Brain Store CEO Lindsay Gaskins, attempts to simplify the process, creating a digital catalog of all your items and recommending whether you should store, sell or donate each piece you own. Gaskins founded the company after wondering why the self-storage industry has ballooned to a $30 billion industry.
“It's because of this indecision and people postponing their decisions about what to do with their stuff,” Gaskins said. “So they end up paying these massive fees to put their stuff in storage as their deciding. If people had those items in a digital catalog, would they make better decisions?”
The processes starts with a visit from an All in Order professional, who will take pictures and notes on every item in a home. After documenting the items, each one is categorized. Recommendations include selling an item through an auction site like eBay, offering them at a garage sale, or donating them. All in Order will even provide an estimate for the tax deduction you would get from the donation.
With a fully digital catalog of everything a mover owns, along with those recommendations, it’s much easier to decide how to downsize. Users can weigh sentimentality against what they want to keep versus the cost of storing it and the potential gains of selling or donating it.
The company even handles taking your stuff away, whether that’s to the storage place, donation facilities or recycling center. For donated items, All in Order provides an itemized receipt so you can easily claim donations on your taxes. They’ll even take your sellable items to places like eBay Valet, which eliminates the need for users to manage auctions and shipping.
“We're trying to capture what you own so the decision making can happen on your couch, at your desk, wherever,” Gaskins said. “And then we're able to come back into the home and execute your decisions.”
Instead of going up against established companies, All in Order aims to fit between the junk collection agencies and the boutique estate sellers, providing everyday people a way to easily downsize. And while All in Order is focused on helping older users downsize for now, Gaskins is open to targeting other demographics without leaving the space between those other competitors.
The company currently has 6 full-time employees and operates out of startup incubator 11 Roniin. The partnership with Roniin allowed All in Order to get up and running quickly, using an internal tool to build the tech that powers the service, she said. Sales and marketing assistance has also helped the company draw in users.
“"Every week, we meet with the fellow CEOs of the ecosystem and talk about their businesses,” Gaskins said. “There's always some similarities and challenges and opportunities that we learn from each other and that helps to move businesses forward. A lot of connections are made that way."
All in Order is currently focused on serving the Chicagoland area before expanding to other markets. It has raised funding from Chicago Ventures and has garnered interest from a few undisclosed sources.
