Staying Focused on the Problem

In my recent 360, I found myself saying something I’ve said before: we don’t really know who our users are. Bomee pushed back on that, and rightly so — she pointed out that this can turn into a bit of a doom loop, where we keep repeating “we don’t know what we’re doing” as if it’s some deep truth, when it’s really just anxiety talking. We have hundreds of active users. We know what market we’re going after. What’s actually true is narrower: we don’t yet know which users are going to be our best inroad — the stickiest on-ramp to win first.

That’s a meaningfully different problem to sit with. What we do know, clearly and consistently, is the problem we’re solving: making this market work better and faster, so that energy efficiency, decarbonization, and climate adaptation work actually gets done in buildings — making housing healthier and safer for the people who live in it, for their communities, and for the world at large. That’s the North Star. It hasn’t moved.

Right now, we’re throwing spaghetti at the wall to get there — more hands-on work in New York, exploring how to automate what Marc’s been doing manually, trying to solve more of what KC3 needs, scoping partnerships with other market “quarterbacks” in places like Chicago, Colorado, or New Orleans, seeing where the DC program with IMT goes. It can feel diffuse, and it’s genuinely hard to know from the product side which bet will have the biggest impact when we don’t yet have clean signal on which group of stakeholders is our best foothold.

That’s okay. It’s part of the process. Some of what we try won’t get the traction we hoped for, and that can sting when we’ve put real effort in. I have felt that. But the answer isn’t to force one solution to be “the” answer just because we’re attached to it — it’s to keep testing, stay honest about what’s working, and stay locked onto the problem underneath it all.

– Jason

Metrics

• Unique Buildings: 24,378 (Real time, via Admin panel!)
• Annual Run Rate: $3.47M

Development

• Bug Count (P-0 and P-1): 1

This Week’s Highs and Lows

• We’re extending the LL97 Agent preview access to everyone at DOB, after positive feedback from the Director of Sustainability Outreach & Assistance (FH)
• We welcomed Turner, our QA intern for the fall. He’ll be working closely with Ana, with some friendly mentoring from Lubna while Jeff is OVD. Welcome, Turner! (BJ)
• Nearly there with the scope-over-time v1 - thanks for laying the foundation, Mike! (BJ)
• Nothing blew up while Erika was OVD! Yay, systems! (BJ)
• NYCA Vendor Matching is ready for lights and camera! This is going to make some of the contractors signed up with NYCA very happy. (BJ)
• Colorado RFP is in! If we win, we’d get to work with Slipstream for the first time, which would be an important partnership for outside NY. Slipstream’s proposal put us right where we deliver value, which is already a good sign. (BJ)
• And in doing the Colorado RFP, we got the first WCAG 2.1 done for the desktop / default theme version. This accessibility self-certification has been in the works for more than a year with some fits and starts, so it’s great to get if off the launch pad! Next up, Ana will be getting us to WCAG 2.2 and hopefully we’ll have some help doing the other themes and viewports. (BJ)
• CalcService: We expanded what the platform can evaluate. The calculation engine picked up new building health risk factors and National Grid rebate support, and we fixed several bugs where contractor bid line items were silently getting dropped or mislabeled when parsed. (Bot)
• Feature: Owners can now request financing quotes directly from lenders, right inside Momentum. This shipped end-to-end this week — an owner sends a request, a lender reviews it and responds with a quote or a decline reason, and the owner can compare offers side by side (with their current lender’s products shown first). It was the single biggest effort of the week, spanning dozens of pull requests. (Bot)

Any missing highlights? Please share in Discord comments.

On Deck for Next Week

• Cyrielle, our intern who will be working primarily with Jon, starts Tuesday! (BJ)
• Marc is meeting w DOB about the (dismal) Decarb Plans. Hopefully we get them to a better standard: a real plan that can be monitored over time, not just a rehash of LL87 audit. LL87 failed us once - no need to relive that saga! (BJ)
• Deprecating CPC, Maks? (BJ)
• Expect some re-engagement from DOB’s outreach team on LL97 bot! (BJ)

Upcoming Releases

• Showing J51 eligibility on landing page
• Lender matching with lender program approval
• Suggested contractors for RFP
• Handling user-customized line items on bid forms
• Scope over time / pro forma
• Integration with NYC DOC BEAM platform

Please Leave Feedback

Please note your reaction to this update in the Discord 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?