Since that time, Yu estimates the company has raised about $6.3 million in funding. Six years ago, Yu recalls he and his wife were at a store looking at paint colors and "wondering why people were using cards." In 2013, CNN said the Node was "the coolest gizmo" it came across at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. In 2012, Variable raised about $76,000 in a Kickstarter campaign. In 2008, after graduating from Georgia Tech with a doctorate in electrical engineering, he worked with NASA to develop smartphone-based toxic gas sensors for the Department of Homeland Security.Ībout eight years ago, he followed his wife to Chattanooga, who teaches computer science at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. "We've just started exporting to China," said Yu, who himself was born in China but raised in Houston, Texas. In addition to North America, Yu also is aiming to generate sales in Europe and China. Variable claims that color accuracy is better than the human eye and far superior than a camera. Launched with an app and Bluetooth accessible, Color Muse can create, save and even share project palettes via email or social networks. But, he said, what motivates him more than sales is for people to use Color Muse.Īccording to Variable, Color Muse can find precise color-matched products, including paint, textile, carpet, tile, apparel, accessories and others. Yu said company sales were about $3 million last year and he believes Variable will do "significantly more than that" in 2018. Yu said the company stripped out everything it could from the Node to get the price down and to focus on color scanning. Selling for about $59 each, Color Muse uses technology Variable had earlier developed in a product called the Node, Yu said. "I was not walking away without the beginnings of a deal," he said. The first Sherwin-Williams order for Color Muse was for 18,000 units. Eventually, Variable landed a meeting with a Sherwin-Williams' corporate buyer around the holidays last year, Yu said. It was a BDC employee who took the Color Muse device to the Sherwin-Williams store at nearby Cherokee Boulevard to show it to a manager. "We were packed in the BDC trying to produce this product," he said. The 35-year-old Yu said Variable was located in the Hamilton County Business Development Center for five years as the company matured. headquarters building that Fidelity refurbished in 2015. The company has about 15 people working in the former Krystal Co. Variable also has leased office space off Cherry Street in the city's Innovation District. "I'm glad we added color to the doors," McGauley said. He quipped that all the doors in the production facility are painted a different color. Matt McGauley, Fidelity's CEO, said he bought the building and revamped it to suit Variable's needs. Variable, which now has 45 employees, is ramping up production at a 7,500-square-foot facility off Amnicola Highway leased from Fidelity Trust Co. "I want everyone using this product," he said about the hand-held devise aimed at everyday consumers.Ībout the size of a 35 mm film cartridge, Color Muse lets users scan the color of an object and find matches to specific products in everything from paint to fashion to furniture to makeup, Yu said. Variable expects to have its Color Muse color scanning device in all of Sherwin-Williams' 4,200 stores in the United States and Canada this year, Yu said. George Yu in 2012, the company has inked a big deal with retail paint giant Sherwin-Williams. has emerged from the nest of the city's business incubator, opening a downtown office and a new production site as the company takes flight.
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