Fixing a broken market, pt2

Last week on “Bomee explains her murderboard”:

• The energy efficiency industry believes market transformation requires regulations as forcing functions, dedicated subsidies, and reduced complexity - areas where Momentum plays a role.
• Business of real estate is fundamentally about risk management, so owners choose “tried-and-true” options, rather than unfamiliar solutions.
• Construction suffers from an information deficit that prevents owners from confidently pursuing new approaches, as there’s no effective “information commons” to de-risk unfamiliar options.

Welcome back to the show. Let’s start with Jeff’s questions! Thanks for these, Jeff - they’re good questions! Marc and I discussed these, and here’s what we think:

1. How does Momentum move owners away from their default “de-risked” solutions?

There’s a pecking-order of de-risking. We have a role/relationship with each:

1. I’ve done it before, so I personally know how to mange the risks. This is Related Affordable doing their bids with us: They’ve done it before, but we made it easier for them.
2. Someone I trust has done it before and I can get the 411 from that guy. These clients don’t merely want to know something can be done; they want someone to guide them through the process —they’re actively delegating risk management. This is the typical consulting situation. For customers like Josh at Urban American, they’re calling Marc. Our goal is to build trust in Momentum in a similar way.
3. The government will give me the money to do it, so it’s mostly their risk, not mine. This is the L+M project: They have a specific grant and they’re looking to us to help them do analysis. They don’t really care whether it’s via software or not.
4. Someone who seems to do well for themselves says they’ve done it, and if that guy can, dammit, so can I. This is why we went for Related and L+M as early customers. They are the “tastemakers”
5. I have no choice but to do it, so now I need as much information and I can get my hands on (either to do it or to fight it). This is Aurora and FirstService. They want to be the source of this information for their customers.

2. How do we currently show clients that “Momentum is better than X”?

X, in this case, is probably the vaunted ASHRAE Level 2 Audit.

3. How do we convince building owners that our solution is the best option available?

1. Clients don’t have to wait six months to get the preliminary scope of work
2. Even the best audit gets out of date within months as regulations change, as rebates change, as market pricing changes, as technology availability changes. In contrast, Momentum offers a dynamic smart plan where owners can optimize what they have, establish a new baseline and see what else they should do beyond that.
3. Momentum connects assessment directly to implementation, creating a seamless path from planning to action.
4. In the future, Momentum will provide more precise cost estimates, helping owners budget with greater confidence.
5. In the future, Momentum will track improvement projects over time, connecting real utility data to completed work for clear performance visibility.

4. How do we make Momentum the automatic first choice when owners think about energy efficiency?

To become the automatic first choice, users have to trust that:

• We’re showing them “the right scope at the right price with the right contractors”
• Our recommendations are backed by market-wide insights about who else is implementing similar measures
• We can explain why specific pricing makes sense in today’s market context
• We provide transparency around “market-wide trends” that even “the best auditor” can’t deliver
• We connect assessment directly to implementation, recognizing that “the mystique of this analysis is broken down for 80 to 90% of buildings”
• Our approach is validated by market leaders and integrated with recognized programs

Metrics

Traction

• Unique Buildings: 6,349 (April, +127 MoM)
• Annual Run Rate: $1.46M (+$15K or +11.45% MoM)

Financials

• Monthly net burn (accrual basis): $76,814 (3-month avg, +6.73% MoM)
• Year-to-last-month net burn (cash basis): $82,536 (-41.2% MoM)
• 2025 Transaction fees to date: $9,355
• Outstanding invoices as of today: $124,311 (-$136,757 WoW or -52.38% WoW)

Development

• Bug Count (P-0 and P-1):

Last Week’s Highs and Lows

• After First Service and NPV, there is now great positive energy around getting the $2.5M demo in great shape, making NYSERDA happy with the building data platform, and providing L+M with data. All of these fronts are as many opportunities to build software that will scale. (FH)
• It feels good to see Related payments notifications raining into the #z_inbox-bills channel! (FH)
• The project demo is coming together nicely–almost there! (JB)
• We’re making incremental progress for L+M, both on the new measures and the spreadsheet bulk export. (JB)
• We had a good conversation with a potential power user from Related who is interested in seeing the detailed assumptions for our calculations. We’ll start off showing him the debug notes, and hopefully get some feedback that will help inform how we ultimately transfer that information to the UI properly. (JB)
• Great engagement from First Service Energy (new customer) in their Momentum onboarding. (MZ)
• Constructive feedback from the asset manager decision maker at Related on Momentum outputs and post Momentum output processing spreadsheet. (MZ)
• $2.5M RFP from NYC HPD came out that we are pursuing jointly with KC3 with them acting as an owners rep. RFP asks for scope builder + generic project + program dashboard. (MZ)

Any missing highlights? Please share in Slack comments.

Crow’s Nest

Looking out for icebergs: What are the risks on the horizon that we’re watching for and navigating around?

François’ List

• I’m both really excited and a bit nervous about letting users export Momentum building and scope data in bulk. There is a ton of demand for it, it’s an area where we can flex, but perils are everywhere. First we need to escape the custom report wheel house and invest product and tech to get this right. But we also need to figure out how to avoid turning Excel exports into Momentum escape pods for our users: we need to be the system of record. Can deep links from Excel back to Momentum help?

(Carryovers)

• Shipping small, often, well, and safe: I don’t think anybody feels great yet about where we are right now (at least Momentum side, the hardest side). But there’s real progress on testing speed, coding and PR best practices, involving Jeff early and often, and navigating long-term branches, all while pleasing the SOC-2 gods. Let’s keep at it, we’re almost there!
• Growing the team: the “$2.5M demo” is not only motivating on its own, it also re-opens the door to hiring. Let’s prep for it, so that we can identify the right skills, attract the right candidates, and welcome them efficiently. Ahead of permanent hires, and to flex our onboarding muscles, could it make sense to get help from consultants for Laravel expertise, or interns for testing help?
• Automated Testing: I’m convinced that reliable tests that run quickly and reflect our users’ experience are table stakes to move faster and with more confidence. Are we going to find the bandwidth to get this party going?

Bomee’s List

• Getting Marc a product he can sell Great to see that FSE got what they wanted! Now program-project and developments next!
• Team dynamics We’re still gelling, and we’re having more of the the conversations we need to have.
• Cash. We have a net burn that we need to minimize. If we win these RFPs, we can make strategic investments!
• NYCA – Interview next week! It’s demo time!
• ConEd Recompete – waiting. Willdan is interviewing this week.
• The background hum of uncertainty for the housing/construction industry. Neither the predicted recession, nor the budget reconciliation bill, is great news.

Jason’s List

• Local politics The federal picture certainly isn’t good, but we also have some local political risk on the horizon. There’s a big NYC election coming up this fall (with the primary next month!) There’s a lot of belief that if Cuomo becomes the mayor, Local Law 97 would face some serious setbacks–maybe even go away.
• NYC Accelerator and ConEd Recompete These are both big contracts with outsized impacts on revenue and product roadmap. Interviews are this week and next!
• Balancing new feature development with cleaning up debt We have a lot of new features to build, but also a lot of legacy code debt that can make adding those features take longer than it otherwise should. How much time do we spend pushing new features out to the door to keep current and potential clients happy vs. time spent getting our codebase cleaned up so we can move faster in the future.
• Portfolio/program reporting Users want the ability to look at groups of buildings in our software, whether it’s looking in their own collections for buildings that meet certain criteria or looking at trends across projects in a program. We haven’t done anything in this vein yet, but we’ll need to start. But like François above, we need to figure out how to keep users in Momentum, pulling them out of their spreadsheet comfort zone.

Erika’s List

• Mid-Year Budget Review carryover from last week. We need it for upcoming decisions on hiring, where we want to spend our money, etc. plain and simple.
• Still looking at *healthcare comps - our decision-making window starts to narrow after mid-June, since we need to be 60 days out from renewal to change health plans (our renewal period starts Sep). The comps have taken a long time but we are now able to negotiate with Justworks as well. Updates will be added to the slack thread.

Marc’s List

• AI 2027 – some think this is around the corner – wondering what other folks who understand this stuff better than I do think about this – and what might it mean for us (and the world?)

On Deck for This Week

• Shipping The Big Demo release (+1 JB)

• Horizontal practices monthly on Thurs. What do folks want to focus on?

• Kate’s 360 part 2

• I’m pitching an investor group (for fun?) on Thursday. We were invited to pitch by Becky Craft, the former head of Energy Efficiency and Demand Management at ConEd. (BJ)

• Prep for NYC Accelerator RFP is ramping up - I need to practice doing justice to all the new features in a 5-minute demo slated for Junen 3. (MZ)

• Here’s what’s on the Company Radar

Upcoming Release

Release 95 is mostly about getting the new program-project features released behind a flag so that Marc can demo it for the NYCA interview next week.

User-visible improvements

• More Transparent Cost Information: Construction costs now displayed before rebates, making it easier to see full project investment before incentives are applied

Programs-Projects Demo

Since the last release, we polished up:

• Easier Project Navigation: Visual phase progress tracker shows current project phase and completion status; users can now also mark phases complete or roll them back to prior phase
• Better Document Management: Documents now automatically sorted with newest files appearing first
• Improved Contractor Communication: Bid submission process with clear visual status indicators
• Cleaner Design: Team directory redesigned with visual cards and Updated RFP section navigation with icons and active / hover states

Infra & Performance

• New feature preview environments enable quicker testing of new features

Please Leave Feedback

Please note your reaction to this update in the Slack channel. It helps us to know what is resonating, what is unclear, etc. Thanks!

• What are your highlights / low-lights?
• Did we miss a highlight? Something else you want to react to?