In 2009, Dan Louche's mom told him her health was deteriorating due to mold growing in her home following damage caused by a storm.
He knew something had to be done, but they couldn't afford to buy her a new home. While searching for an answer, the 47-year-old saw a PBS show about a woman who had built her own tiny home.
"I saw that and thought it would be an awesome solution," Louche told Insider.
He said that despite growing up in a family of contractors and having a background in engineering, he didn't have the expertise to build one himself.
"So I started researching and just really diving into it," he said. "Then I went out, bought a trailer and I started building that first house. It was never intended to be a business – it was really just trying to solve my mom's problem."
Through his experience he started to pick up skills, and he eventually decided he wanted to help others build their own tiny houses, so in 2010 he founded Tiny Home Builders.