| > 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. |
I used to work at a company which makes security and access control systems (swipe cards, electronic locks, etc).
They created a consumer-level system (as opposed to the big Enterprise ones they were known for) and tried to create a distribution model which appears to be how you're thinking about it. The idea was they'd build a network of contractors ("Installers"). Customers would buy direct from the company, who would then forward a request to your local installer (lead gen). The company would cut the installers in for some percentage of the ongoing subscription revenue cost, plus whatever margin they added at install time.
This failed miserably. The company learned within the space of a couple of years, that all the good installers want to build a relationship with (and critically, to bill) the customer, they don't want to be a behind-the-scenes referral on someone else's website. Few signed up, and the ones that did, weren't incentivized to prioritize it highly. They put it lower down on their job lists, which led to customers having to wait a long time and experiencing poor service in some cases. Not great. The company also struggled tremendously to drum up interest. Because security systems (like HVAC) come with maintenance/repairs/etc, the market had evolved into one centered around companies/individuals looking around at their local providers first, picking the "best" one, and then choosing a product based on what the provider was offering or what they recommended, much like you would with a Plumber or Electrician.
Maybe the HVAC industry is sufficiently different from Security and this model might work for you? From what I saw though, there's a lot of overlap there and I'm not optimistic.
After a year or two, the company pivoted to a model where they formed partnerships with contractors/installers and moved away from the direct-to-consumer model. At the time I left, this was proving much more successful of a model. The partnership model involved more revenue share, training, and a bunch of other stuff I wasn't involved in, but critically, it meant that when an end-customer went to their local security system provider and asked them what was good, they'd be highly likely to recommend my ex-company's product. That was the clincher.
I hope that's of some use @cmui