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I've seen other construction related businesses try to go direct and it is extremely difficult. By going direct to the homeowner you are targeting the venn diag

I've seen other construction related businesses try to go direct and it is extremely difficult. By going direct to the homeowner you are targeting the venn diagram union of "people who are willing & able to do the work themselves" and "people who will pay more" How are you going to build your service network? You say you will "connect them with a contractor to do the actual install." But contractors make their money on equipment sales, not on labor. I bought my residential HVAC system direct from a friend and it took me 3 weeks calling around to find a contractor that would do the install and THAT was only because of the same friend connection. Who are the decision makers in your target market exactly? Wil Joe Homeowner be deciding? Will you pursue developers who install and build? Are you pursuing multi-family complexes and engineers will be specifying the equipment? Each of these will require you to provide value above and beyond what they are receiving now and it's not clear what your value proposition is. >> "contractors struggle with installs because of the difficulty of properly sizing the system, and understanding if your duct work is compatible with a heat pump" What? How could duct work possibly be incompatible with a heat pump? Any forced air system is already ready for hot or cold air. Additionally if you are banking on contractor unfamiliarity or incompetence as part of your business plan, you are in for a rude surprise. One other headwind is that you're VC funded. No one wants to buy a HVAC unit from a company with a 5-7yr liquidation event timeline. If you do go into any other channel than direct to home owner, no one wants to SELL a unit that may not exist in 7 years. How will support work? What about parts? A well built machine could be in working for 15 years (or longer) and the question everyone has is: will you?

cmui 4y ago
> By going direct to the homeowner you are targeting the venn diagram union of "people who are willing & able to do the work themselves" This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. > How are you going to build your service network? Compensate the contractors fairly and act as lead gen. > Who are the decision makers in your target market exactly? Homeowners. Not targeting multiunit residential or new builds, they care less about efficiency because they don't bear the cost of ownership. > What? How could duct work possibly be incompatible with a heat pump? A natural gas furnace requires ~150cfm airflow per 10kbtu heat produced, while a heat pump requires 330cfm per 10kbtu. This large mismatch in required airflow means that if you replace a natural gas furnace with a like sized heat pump, you've likely exceeded the ability of the air handler blower. Luckily most natural gas furnaces are grossly oversized for homes. The way you find the right size unit is with our software.
- chwzr 4y ago
  > This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. But I would want to install that myself. I do everything in my house myself. Could I order a device from you and at the same time save the compensation that otherwise gets the installer?
- judge2020 4y ago
  > This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. This quote was obviously to emphasize that HVAC contractors make money from margin on equipment sales and not labor, which (according to OP) means you end up targeting people who either can do it themselves or purchase this before finding out how hard it is to find a certified technician willing to basically waste their time on installing a HVAC system for little profit. The only way I can see this working is if perhaps Electric Air pays a hefty commission to their HVAC techs as a way to ensure they still profit from their time, which is what I assume OP was trying to find out.
- uoaei 4y ago
  [flagged]
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  > This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. And where are you going to get the contractors? Nobody is going to want to contract with you. HVAC companies go with 1, maybe 2 companies. How are you going to pull them away from Carrier, Lenox, etc who can offer volume discounts or just dump their products into the market and bleed you dry without even noticing the effect on their balance sheet? How are you going to get the plumbing/heating distributors to supply companies to stock your units and parts? You're going to distribute them yourselves? That's going to be very expensive, slow, and unreliable. How are you going to guarantee you'll still be around for the lifespan of the unit, to provide parts and technicians who know how to service the units? Puts envelope with your business plan to forehead You're going to: -lock down the protocol between the components so nobody can use standard thermostats -lock down access to the controller for diagnostics, forcing people to go with you for service -charge a fee for remote "smart" thermostat features -justify all this with some hand-wavy nonsense about using ML/AI to maximize energy efficiency or predict when the unit needs service How close am I?
KennyBlanken 4y ago
[flagged]
avip 4y ago
(intersection)
- quirkot 4y ago
  Doh!
alangibson 4y ago
> But contractors make their money on equipment sales, not on labor. This. No competent contractor will install a unit you bought off some website. That will lead to two possibilities: 1) Homeowners try to install it themselves and screw it up 2) Incompetent contractors install it and screw it up The result of both is bad word of mouth/press and reputational damage to the brand.
- galfarragem 4y ago
  That is exactly what most people fail to acknowledge: (nowadays) every competent contractor in trades has more work than he can handle. You need him more than he needs you.
hef19898 4y ago
Basically the same business model Solar City, and a whole bunch of other PV start-ups, tried and failed with. In this model, you take the capital requiremts, someone has to fund the equipment, and the resource requirements, selling once every twenty year purchases to consumers requires loads of people, combine them together and hope all the hot VC money will allow you to squeeze enough existing companies out to create a comfortable nieche for yourself by the time VC money isn't there anymore...

cmui 4y ago

> By going direct to the homeowner you are targeting the venn diagram union of "people who are willing & able to do the work themselves" This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. > How are you going to build your service network? Compensate the contractors fairly and act as lead gen. > Who are the decision makers in your target market exactly? Homeowners. Not targeting multiunit residential or new builds, they care less about efficiency because they don't bear the cost of ownership. > What? How could duct work possibly be incompatible with a heat pump? A natural gas furnace requires ~150cfm airflow per 10kbtu heat produced, while a heat pump requires 330cfm per 10kbtu. This large mismatch in required airflow means that if you replace a natural gas furnace with a like sized heat pump, you've likely exceeded the ability of the air handler blower. Luckily most natural gas furnaces are grossly oversized for homes. The way you find the right size unit is with our software.

chwzr 4y ago
> This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. But I would want to install that myself. I do everything in my house myself. Could I order a device from you and at the same time save the compensation that otherwise gets the installer?
judge2020 4y ago
> This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. This quote was obviously to emphasize that HVAC contractors make money from margin on equipment sales and not labor, which (according to OP) means you end up targeting people who either can do it themselves or purchase this before finding out how hard it is to find a certified technician willing to basically waste their time on installing a HVAC system for little profit. The only way I can see this working is if perhaps Electric Air pays a hefty commission to their HVAC techs as a way to ensure they still profit from their time, which is what I assume OP was trying to find out.
uoaei 4y ago
[flagged]
KennyBlanken 4y ago
> This is meant to be installed by a professional contractor, not the homeowner. And where are you going to get the contractors? Nobody is going to want to contract with you. HVAC companies go with 1, maybe 2 companies. How are you going to pull them away from Carrier, Lenox, etc who can offer volume discounts or just dump their products into the market and bleed you dry without even noticing the effect on their balance sheet? How are you going to get the plumbing/heating distributors to supply companies to stock your units and parts? You're going to distribute them yourselves? That's going to be very expensive, slow, and unreliable. How are you going to guarantee you'll still be around for the lifespan of the unit, to provide parts and technicians who know how to service the units? Puts envelope with your business plan to forehead You're going to: -lock down the protocol between the components so nobody can use standard thermostats -lock down access to the controller for diagnostics, forcing people to go with you for service -charge a fee for remote "smart" thermostat features -justify all this with some hand-wavy nonsense about using ML/AI to maximize energy efficiency or predict when the unit needs service How close am I?

KennyBlanken 4y ago

[flagged]

avip 4y ago

(intersection)

quirkot 4y ago
Doh!

alangibson 4y ago

> But contractors make their money on equipment sales, not on labor. This. No competent contractor will install a unit you bought off some website. That will lead to two possibilities: 1) Homeowners try to install it themselves and screw it up 2) Incompetent contractors install it and screw it up The result of both is bad word of mouth/press and reputational damage to the brand.

galfarragem 4y ago
That is exactly what most people fail to acknowledge: (nowadays) every competent contractor in trades has more work than he can handle. You need him more than he needs you.

hef19898 4y ago

Basically the same business model Solar City, and a whole bunch of other PV start-ups, tried and failed with. In this model, you take the capital requiremts, someone has to fund the equipment, and the resource requirements, selling once every twenty year purchases to consumers requires loads of people, combine them together and hope all the hot VC money will allow you to squeeze enough existing companies out to create a comfortable nieche for yourself by the time VC money isn't there anymore...