{"id":777,"date":"2019-10-08T13:14:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T17:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.ncsu.edu\/win\/?p=777"},"modified":"2024-01-08T16:14:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T21:14:30","slug":"the-download-thad-tarkington-ceo-second-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.ncsu.edu\/win\/the-download-thad-tarkington-ceo-second-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"The Download: Thad Tarkington, CEO, Second Nature<\/a>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n

Thad Tarkington is the co-founder and CEO of\u00a0Second Nature<\/a>, formerly FilterEasy, a home wellness subscription service for homes and business. Prior to founding Second Nature, Thad spent three years attending NC State University and working in direct sales. He dropped out of NC State during his junior year to focus on building Second Nature full time. Outside of business, Thad can be found enjoying all types of activities, from snowboarding to golf. He loves to travel and have fun with close friends and family.<\/p>\n

1. What is in your pockets?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m very simple: phone, wallet, keys. If I\u2019m out and about, just a credit card and ID. Otherwise, the wallet and the keys if I\u2019m sitting in the office. I don\u2019t like anything in my pockets. I like to keep them empty.<\/p>\n

\"\"2. What exciting thing has happened recently for you or your organization?<\/strong>
\nThe company was founded almost seven years ago to solve a simple problem of people forgetting to change air filters. It was a problem with a large market. Nearly every household and building has heating and cooling systems. We like to say, \u201cBig doors, small hinges.\u201d It\u2019s this little item that you have to do, depending on your climate, usually monthly or quarterly. By changing it, you\u2019re going to save up to 15% off your heating and cooling bill. So it actually pays for itself. You\u2019re also going to save about a hundred dollars a year on your HVAC maintenance and repair bills. Now you\u2019re a 2x ROI. You get the benefit of more efficient heating and cooling, and then in addition to that, better air quality for your home.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a very expensive product; it\u2019s something that\u2019s important. Why are people not doing it? It\u2019s out of sight, it\u2019s out of mind. It\u2019s a chore, right? It\u2019s not enjoyable. No one wakes up Saturday morning and says, \u201cI want to go buy a filter.\u201d So they constantly put it off to the next weekend. That was really that the driving force behind, \u201cHey, we see a market opportunity here where you\u2019ve got something with thousands of sizes, of varying quality.\u201d It\u2019s a product people know about, but they\u2019re not really well-educated on. So we thought that with a little bit of education and convenience, we can build a really strong business. Having proven that out, now it\u2019s really about the next stage.<\/p>\n

\"\"The big news that we have is we just rebranded the company. That was an over-a-year-long project. We put a nice\u00a0blog post<\/a>\u00a0together. Our longer-term goal is that we want to empower people to take better care of their homes and really make the whole idea of home maintenance and management, and everything related to that, part of our new brand name. There\u2019s some other nice meanings to that as well, but ultimately that\u2019s the biggest news we\u2019ve made since launching the company seven years ago. To date we have always done air filters. This really sets the stage to allow us to go into product expansion outside of air filters.<\/p>\n

3. What is your favorite coffee spot?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t drink coffee actually, so I don\u2019t have a local coffee shop kind of place to hang out. I spend most of my time at the office. I travel a decent amount. If I\u2019m not on the road, I\u2019m usually at the office, at my house or with friends.<\/p>\n

4. What keeps you up at night?<\/strong>
\nFortunately, there\u2019s not one big thing that keeps me up at night. I think I\u2019m lucky in that regard. When my head hits the pillow, I\u2019m out. Maybe that\u2019s because I don\u2019t sleep much. We do have some pretty ambitious goals for the business, and thinking about and trying to make sure we can be successful, it\u2019s really following through on the goals that we have for the business. All things considered, I don\u2019t have too many worries.<\/p>\n

5. What is your favorite restaurant or happy hour?<\/strong>
\nOne of my favorite restaurants is\u00a0Stanbury<\/a>\u00a0in Raleigh. My understanding is it\u2019s pretty fresh, the whole farm-to-table thing. It\u2019s delicious. The menu changes every once in a while. Has a good vibe.<\/p>\n

6. What is next for you or your organization?<\/strong>
\nNow that the rebrand is behind us, we\u2019ve got our first initial product launch coming later this year, which will be in the water-filtration space. We\u2019re focused on getting that to market successfully. Then we\u2019ve got some big plans after that for further product expansion. We\u2019re going to be expanding to every area of the home over time.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thad Tarkington is the co-founder and CEO of\u00a0Second Nature, formerly FilterEasy, a home wellness subscription service for homes and business. Prior to founding Second Nature, Thad spent three years attending…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1119,"featured_media":105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[56,39,12,17,42,59,108,47],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-angel-investing","tag-angel-network","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-funding","tag-investing","tag-north-carolina-startups","tag-second-nature","tag-wolfpack-investor-network"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Download: Thad Tarkington, CEO, Second Nature - Wolfpack Investor Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/research.ncsu.edu\/win\/the-download-thad-tarkington-ceo-second-nature\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Download: Thad Tarkington, CEO, Second Nature - Wolfpack Investor Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thad Tarkington is the co-founder and CEO of\u00a0Second Nature, formerly FilterEasy, a home wellness subscription service for homes and business. 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