Marc's reflection on early-pipeline channel work — TC's coaching memo, the Emily Paine demo lessons, the Akam/Aurora prioritized building list, and Robin's J-51 segmentation work.
Jon (Customer Success Lead) — 2026-03-24 15:23
@Marc (CRO) sounds good. So to be clear this is different than the case management support training. This is a meeting with Lizzy about using Momentum for targeted marketing to high impact buildings. Something like that?
Robin (BuildSci/Coder) — 2026-03-24 15:26
@Marc (CRO) re EPA PM I am making you a read only user so you can view all the buildings without changing sharing stuff since we use one account for our automated pulls and I fear that getting messed up
Robin (BuildSci/Coder) — 2026-03-24 15:33
Actually that's not possible so I'll need to share our root login with you. I can't find you on dashlane for some reason
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 15:35
will respond to this in the NYCA channel
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 15:54
This was last week... but I vented a little on some channel development issues to TC and this is what he came back with... some of this will get rolled into my new workplan for Q2
https://app.bluedothq.com/preview/69b9bee97cd841116d1f2ec2
Core insight (from TC):
This is normal. Early partners won't "figure it out with you."
→ You must fully package the opportunity.
Right now we're selling a "choose your own adventure" product → too abstract.
Customers/partners don't want flexibility — they want:
→ "Do this specific thing → get this specific financial outcome."
TC's key recommendations:
Productize the pitch (don't co-create it)
Walk in with:
Defined use case
Clear economics
KPIs + timeline
Remove thinking burden from partner
→ make it feel like buying a product, not exploring an idea
Don't rely on partners to sell (yet)
Assume: we do the selling
Partners = distribution + credibility, not sales force (early on)
Maintain control of narrative
Lead with 1–2 killer financial use cases
Not "platform does everything"
Instead:
"Spend $X → get $Y"
Example: J-51, DR + electrification, etc.
Segment market → focus on top ~10–20% where economics are strongest
Use owners as the eventual forcing function
Procore analogy: contractors didn't pull → owners forced adoption
We likely need to push early projects ourselves to build more owner demand, not wait for channels to push something that is not yet baked.
My takeaway / shift:
I have been trying to sell capability → need to sell specific money-making opportunities
I have been hoping for channel pull → need to drive founder-led push + owner demand
I have been offering flexibility → need to lead with opinionated pathways
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 16:08
here is another demo video. Second time I had a convo with her. @Bomee (CEO / Coder) likes to say consultants are in the "feelings management" business. I felt this on the call.
https://app.bluedothq.com/preview/69b827f2bc1417c9f0d88210
What the user actually needed:
She's overwhelmed, lacks trust in her info, and isn't the decision-maker
She doesn't want options → she wants:
→ "What should we do + how do I explain it to the board?"
What worked:
Built strong trust (clear, honest, non-pushy)
Correctly grounded economics (e.g., DHW ↑ cost)
Clarified compliance (they're fine through 2035)
Good technical translation (heat pumps, controls, etc.)
Where it broke:
Stayed in "options mode" instead of collapsing to a decision
Didn't clearly land the obvious pathway:
→ controls + venting now, wait on heat pumps
Didn't give a board-ready narrative
Let convo drift into technical details before locking direction
BUT — important constraint:
We don't want to be consultants or take on liability
→ So the answer is NOT "just recommend harder"
Key insight (important):
We don't need to remove the recommendation —
we need to remove the person delivering it
What we should do instead (product direction):
Don't "advise" → rank pathways
Don't "recommend" → show why one option is clearly best
Don't rely on Marc → system generates decision logic
Example framing:
"Top pathway for your building:
Controls + venting
→ lowest cost
→ positive cash flow
→ meets 2030 target
Why:
already near compliance
electrification not financially favorable today"
Key shift:
From: explaining the landscape
To: collapsing it into a defensible decision
Bottom line:
People don't want advice — they want clarity they can defend in a boardroom
If we:
rank options
show reasoning
reduce cognitive load
→ users will treat it like advice
without us acting like consultants
This is basically the product gap we need to close.
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 16:14
AI didn't pick up on this... but I would also flag that part way through the convo... talking about "window heat pumps" and "PTHPs"... I asked her: "do you know what these systems look like?" And her answer was, "no". This is after I have already spoken to her for 60-90 minutes (between two calls). This is after she had gotten a report from Bright Power, recommending "PTHPs". This is after I had heard her use the acronym "PTHP" herself multiple times.
So I started showing her internet pictures of window vs PTHPs. Picture worth a thousand words. And she got it. And then she started to ask very spot on questions on how it would actually work to go from one boiler to hundreds of small boxes.
Overall takeaway is that part of what we ultimately need to do to support decision making is to better educate decision makers on options.... part of why I believe we can justify transaction fees is that this education is a cost that must be borne by someone.
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-25 18:44
How I used Momentum filtering to prioritize 10 buildings from the 50 buildings Aurora/Akam shared with us. 3 minute video: https://app.bluedothq.com/preview/69c461381bf441312a60cb98
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-27 12:50
Things finally feeling like they are getting real with Aurora...
Aurora is our first scaled channel into AKAM's portfolio, starting with a prioritized set of high-opportunity buildings and a 50/50 rev share to align incentives.
Short term = founder-led (we run meetings, they learn).
Goal = transition to Aurora/AKAM running deals themselves using Momentum outputs -- precedent for this is how Aurora scaled their own services within all these portfolios... initially attending all meetings themselves and then eventually Akam was able to sell on their own.
This is the first prove → systematize → scale loop:
get it working with AKAM → turn into repeatable playbook → expand across ~1500+ buildings including other managers
If successful, this shifts us from founder-led BD to channel-driven, portfolio-scale deployment.
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-29 14:19
OMG... @Robin (BuildSci/Coder) segmentation sheet is awesome. I played around with it to find J-51 eligible coops that also have potential for economically viable high impact decarb scopes based on a few basic filtering criteria. This is basically the buildings that have both big carrots and big sticks
Ends up being a lot of BINs but a relatively small number of ~250 BBLs BBLs... 26M SF which is a funnel of $650M of construction activity at $25 per SF. Now I just gotta get to the buildings... I just sent this list to SiteCompli to see what they can do with their long tail of mid sized managers. A bunch (but not a huge number) of the buildings are in the big portfolios that we are already engaged with through channels (DEPM, Akam, First Service, Century) . My gut feeling to test is that many of these buildings are off the beaten track... they use a lot of gas per SF or oil... and are generally underserved so may be under represented in the portfolios of the bigger guys.
Oh and also... if you check out the histogram tab.... these buildings are super concentrated in like a 15 year period post war which gets very interesting as far as repeatable packages.
We could expand the aperture a little bit to include buildings where we think the boilers are very old -- didn't think about that till now. But this is a great place to start.
Robin (BuildSci/Coder) — 2026-03-30 10:58
Metabase version without MZ add-ons
https://metabase-staging.c15.io/question/83-j51-details-table-for-further-analysis
Disclaimers: the analysis may be a little coarse for opex of heat pumps and ll97 readiness because I did the algebra on the bkb tables and made it into sql. Nuance missed: mixed use properties have fines that don't scale with % over ll97 limit the same way. Also HP opex assumes 70% of primary heating energy type usage is space heating, which is typical but not correct for all buildings. So this is a more preliminary screening than momentum can provide (aka trust momentum outputs over this in most cases).
Strategy Notebook
Marc's reflection on early-pipeline channel work — TC's coaching memo, the Emily Paine demo lessons, the Akam/Aurora prioritized building list, and Robin's J-51 segmentation work.
Pipeline Building Updates — Mar 24–30, 2026 #
Source: #sales-general
Logistics (NYCA / EPA PM access) #
Jon (Customer Success Lead) — 2026-03-24 15:23 @Marc (CRO) sounds good. So to be clear this is different than the case management support training. This is a meeting with Lizzy about using Momentum for targeted marketing to high impact buildings. Something like that?
Robin (BuildSci/Coder) — 2026-03-24 15:26 @Marc (CRO) re EPA PM I am making you a read only user so you can view all the buildings without changing sharing stuff since we use one account for our automated pulls and I fear that getting messed up
Robin (BuildSci/Coder) — 2026-03-24 15:33 Actually that's not possible so I'll need to share our root login with you. I can't find you on dashlane for some reason
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 15:35 will respond to this in the NYCA channel
TC's coaching memo #
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 15:54 This was last week... but I vented a little on some channel development issues to TC and this is what he came back with... some of this will get rolled into my new workplan for Q2 https://app.bluedothq.com/preview/69b9bee97cd841116d1f2ec2
Core insight (from TC): This is normal. Early partners won't "figure it out with you." → You must fully package the opportunity. Right now we're selling a "choose your own adventure" product → too abstract. Customers/partners don't want flexibility — they want: → "Do this specific thing → get this specific financial outcome."
TC's key recommendations:
Productize the pitch (don't co-create it) Walk in with: Defined use case Clear economics KPIs + timeline Remove thinking burden from partner → make it feel like buying a product, not exploring an idea Don't rely on partners to sell (yet) Assume: we do the selling Partners = distribution + credibility, not sales force (early on) Maintain control of narrative Lead with 1–2 killer financial use cases Not "platform does everything" Instead: "Spend $X → get $Y" Example: J-51, DR + electrification, etc. Segment market → focus on top ~10–20% where economics are strongest Use owners as the eventual forcing function Procore analogy: contractors didn't pull → owners forced adoption We likely need to push early projects ourselves to build more owner demand, not wait for channels to push something that is not yet baked.
My takeaway / shift:
I have been trying to sell capability → need to sell specific money-making opportunities I have been hoping for channel pull → need to drive founder-led push + owner demand I have been offering flexibility → need to lead with opinionated pathways
Emily Paine demo (board member co-op call) #
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 16:08 here is another demo video. Second time I had a convo with her. @Bomee (CEO / Coder) likes to say consultants are in the "feelings management" business. I felt this on the call. https://app.bluedothq.com/preview/69b827f2bc1417c9f0d88210
What the user actually needed:
She's overwhelmed, lacks trust in her info, and isn't the decision-maker She doesn't want options → she wants: → "What should we do + how do I explain it to the board?"
What worked:
Built strong trust (clear, honest, non-pushy) Correctly grounded economics (e.g., DHW ↑ cost) Clarified compliance (they're fine through 2035) Good technical translation (heat pumps, controls, etc.)
Where it broke:
Stayed in "options mode" instead of collapsing to a decision Didn't clearly land the obvious pathway: → controls + venting now, wait on heat pumps Didn't give a board-ready narrative Let convo drift into technical details before locking direction
BUT — important constraint: We don't want to be consultants or take on liability → So the answer is NOT "just recommend harder"
Key insight (important):
We don't need to remove the recommendation — we need to remove the person delivering it
What we should do instead (product direction):
Don't "advise" → rank pathways Don't "recommend" → show why one option is clearly best Don't rely on Marc → system generates decision logic
Example framing:
"Top pathway for your building: Controls + venting → lowest cost → positive cash flow → meets 2030 target
Why:
already near compliance electrification not financially favorable today"
Key shift:
From: explaining the landscape To: collapsing it into a defensible decision
Bottom line:
People don't want advice — they want clarity they can defend in a boardroom
If we:
rank options show reasoning reduce cognitive load
→ users will treat it like advice without us acting like consultants
This is basically the product gap we need to close.
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-24 16:14 AI didn't pick up on this... but I would also flag that part way through the convo... talking about "window heat pumps" and "PTHPs"... I asked her: "do you know what these systems look like?" And her answer was, "no". This is after I have already spoken to her for 60-90 minutes (between two calls). This is after she had gotten a report from Bright Power, recommending "PTHPs". This is after I had heard her use the acronym "PTHP" herself multiple times.
So I started showing her internet pictures of window vs PTHPs. Picture worth a thousand words. And she got it. And then she started to ask very spot on questions on how it would actually work to go from one boiler to hundreds of small boxes.
Overall takeaway is that part of what we ultimately need to do to support decision making is to better educate decision makers on options.... part of why I believe we can justify transaction fees is that this education is a cost that must be borne by someone.
Akam top-10 prioritization #
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-25 18:44 How I used Momentum filtering to prioritize 10 buildings from the 50 buildings Aurora/Akam shared with us. 3 minute video: https://app.bluedothq.com/preview/69c461381bf441312a60cb98
Aurora / Akam channel #
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-27 12:50 Things finally feeling like they are getting real with Aurora... Aurora is our first scaled channel into AKAM's portfolio, starting with a prioritized set of high-opportunity buildings and a 50/50 rev share to align incentives.
Short term = founder-led (we run meetings, they learn). Goal = transition to Aurora/AKAM running deals themselves using Momentum outputs -- precedent for this is how Aurora scaled their own services within all these portfolios... initially attending all meetings themselves and then eventually Akam was able to sell on their own.
This is the first prove → systematize → scale loop: get it working with AKAM → turn into repeatable playbook → expand across ~1500+ buildings including other managers
If successful, this shifts us from founder-led BD to channel-driven, portfolio-scale deployment.
https://app.bluedothq.com/preview/69c6889b0744d986bbd19fb7
J-51 segmentation (Robin's sheet) #
Marc (CRO) — 2026-03-29 14:19 OMG... @Robin (BuildSci/Coder) segmentation sheet is awesome. I played around with it to find J-51 eligible coops that also have potential for economically viable high impact decarb scopes based on a few basic filtering criteria. This is basically the buildings that have both big carrots and big sticks
Ends up being a lot of BINs but a relatively small number of ~250 BBLs BBLs... 26M SF which is a funnel of $650M of construction activity at $25 per SF. Now I just gotta get to the buildings... I just sent this list to SiteCompli to see what they can do with their long tail of mid sized managers. A bunch (but not a huge number) of the buildings are in the big portfolios that we are already engaged with through channels (DEPM, Akam, First Service, Century) . My gut feeling to test is that many of these buildings are off the beaten track... they use a lot of gas per SF or oil... and are generally underserved so may be under represented in the portfolios of the bigger guys.
Oh and also... if you check out the histogram tab.... these buildings are super concentrated in like a 15 year period post war which gets very interesting as far as repeatable packages.
We could expand the aperture a little bit to include buildings where we think the boilers are very old -- didn't think about that till now. But this is a great place to start.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-DzX5Le3pR5oubNCYzkoiLv7n9RsLMLYzSpQc9bWf_k/edit?usp=sharing
Robin (BuildSci/Coder) — 2026-03-30 10:58 Metabase version without MZ add-ons https://metabase-staging.c15.io/question/83-j51-details-table-for-further-analysis Disclaimers: the analysis may be a little coarse for opex of heat pumps and ll97 readiness because I did the algebra on the bkb tables and made it into sql. Nuance missed: mixed use properties have fines that don't scale with % over ll97 limit the same way. Also HP opex assumes 70% of primary heating energy type usage is space heating, which is typical but not correct for all buildings. So this is a more preliminary screening than momentum can provide (aka trust momentum outputs over this in most cases).