Multiline showroom operators rarely moonlight as tech entrepreneurs. Yet that’s precisely what happened when the leaders behind Southeastern stalwarts Jerry Pair and Ainsworth-Noah decided to collaborate. The result was not a capsule fabric collection, a chic sideboard or an artsy chandelier—it was To the TradeTech, a software tool designed to help multiline owners run their businesses.

The venture was born out of necessity. For years, both Jerry Pair (based in Atlanta and Florida) and Ainsworth-Noah (based in Atlanta) had been run on a program called Studio Showroom, made by a company that was slowly winding down operations toward the end of the 2010s. Its closure would leave both of them without a platform to run quotes, track orders and keep up with accounting.

“There were quite a few of us that have been talking about finding a new software package for a long time, and so we finally just decided to build a new one,” says Jerry Pair president Dan Cahoon. “That’s when I called [Ainsworth-Noah president] Dennis [Hunt], as I knew he had been using the same software. The idea [was to create] something that would satisfy our needs and be built on modern technology with email and digital payment systems, robust reports and accounting.”

In 2019, Cahoon and Hunt banded together to share the considerable expense of building a custom program. They hired a software development company, KiwiTech, to code it for them, and in 2023, both Jerry Pair and Ainsworth-Noah began using To the TradeTech to run their showrooms. After testing it for roughly two years, they’re now putting it on the market for other operators to license.

“We’ve already done the hard work—the nitty-gritty details and years of development,” says Hunt. “If we have this powerful tool, why not share it with other people in our industry? We know the problems that they’re all facing.”

Multiline showrooms fall into a no-man’s-land when it comes to software. On one hand, their business operations are typically more intricate than a regular retail store’s, which makes it difficult to operate a showroom on the same software you might use to run, say, a gift shop.

On the other hand, while the challenges are great, the business opportunity for would-be software developers is limited. There simply aren’t enough multiline showrooms in the U.S. to create the kind of TAM (total addressable market) that leads VCs to flood tens of millions into disruptive startups.

Simply put: The business is full of challenges, but solving them won’t make anyone rich. As a result, operators are left with limited options. Cahoon and Hunt say that many of their fellow owners cobble together QuickBooks and off-the-shelf software. A company called PDF Systems offers a targeted tool called Multi-Line Showroom. Many showrooms have customized the open-source ERP (enterprise resource planning) platform Odoo to work for their business. It’s a fragmented market.

To the TradeTech is an attempt to offer a definitive solution. Some of the program’s features are about what you’d expect for robust business software released in 2025: an integration with payment processor Stripe, a full-cycle accounting package, cloud-based storage so users can access it from anywhere. Other perks will resonate most strongly with the niche audience of multiline showroom employees: a module that deals with the complexity of consigned inventory; a tool that allows staff to upload everything from resale forms to customization sketches all in one place; and an importer that helps centralize and streamline vendors’ product data.

Cahoon and Hunt say that some of the reporting functionality—which lets owners see which categories and materials are selling well, and in what region—has helped them make high-level strategic decisions. “Just last week, we were trying to figure out why a company was selling much better four years ago, and we looked at what we had on the sales floor versus what we were selling four years ago, and all the finishes are completely different,” says Cahoon. “That kind of information is very helpful.”

Likewise, giving reps access to information on the go has been beneficial. “They’re seeing eight to 10 clients a day on the road, and they’re going to XYZ client. [To the TradeTech] shows them that the designer’s past order history shows they only want linen, or they only want beige, or a specific color range,” says Hunt, enabling his reps to tailor their presentations with the products they know will resonate. “That’s smart time management, and it only comes from the wealth of information we now have on our hands.”

To the TradeTech is not cheap. Initial costs for setting up the package start at $40,000, with an additional charge if a showroom wants to port over its historical data into the new system. From there, customers pay a monthly licensing fee starting at $2,800. That cost may prove inaccessible for smaller operators. However, Cahoon and Hunt see a market for not only multilines but industry brands that operate corporate showrooms on a national scale.

Their broader goal in offering up To the TradeTech for sale is partially to recoup the cost of its development, partially a pure business opportunity, and partially simply because they see a need. But neither Hunt nor Cahoon has a desire to go into tech full-time. “My business is the multiline showroom business,” says Hunt. “But this is an added thing we can help our industry partners with. If [licensing it out] works [as a business], great. If not, we’re still going to use it as a tool ourselves.”