Exploring the Future of HVAC: Technology, Innovation, and User-Driven Development with Shelby Breger

Explore the future of HVAC technology with our guest, Shelby Breger, co-founder of Conduit Tech. Shelby, an expert in energy efficiency and residential HVAC, discusses her journey in the HVAC field. The conversation will cover her contributions to energy efficiency, grid stability, and improved homeowner comfort and how these efforts benefit homeowners and contractors.

We will delve into software development for the HVAC industry, focusing on the creation of an interactive 3D model. Shelby will share her experiences in assembling a software development team and the engineering challenges involved. The discussion will include future plans for integrating the product with field service software, emphasizing process efficiency and potential automation using webhooks.

The importance of user feedback in shaping software development will be highlighted, along with the role of communication between users and developers. Shelby will provide insights into the development of a user-friendly and effective software platform for field service professionals, discussing approaches to remote user research and technician support. Features of Phyno Technician and the use of technologies like home energy assessments on iPads and LiDAR will also be discussed.

Join us to understand how Conduit Tech is influencing the HVAC industry and what the future holds in this domain.

https://getconduit.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:57

Welcome to the successful life podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I am here with Shelby Breger.

Speaker 2: 1:03

How's it?

Speaker 1: 1:03

going.

Speaker 2: 1:04

It is going well. Thank you so much for having me, Corey.

Speaker 1: 1:07

You're welcome. I'm super excited to have you on for a couple of reasons. One, I think the technology that you're going to tell us about today is going to be, I would argue. You say it's probably going to be used in most HVAC companies. Before we dive into the technology and how great it is, can you tell everybody a little bit about who you are and the company and all that stuff?

Speaker 2: 1:35

Absolutely. I'm Shelby. I'm one of the co-founders of Conduit Tech. We started the company about two years ago and spent three years in the trades just learning as much as possible and absorbing as much as possible. Prior to all of this, I worked in industrial energy efficiency trying to help pulp and paper mills save energy. I kept thinking about what are ways that I could have a little bit more of a tangible impact sooner and started learning about all the different ecosystems that exist out there and found myself really gravitating toward the world of residential energy use and HVAC and trying to learn about all the challenges that folks encounter and learn as much as possible. I just use the word learn so many times in that sentence, but this has really been a learning journey that's brought me into this space, and have been super privileged to work with a great community of folks to get here, so yeah, so you're a co-founder you said the other co-founder is also a female, correct?

Speaker 1: 2:32

She is, yes. So what I think is really interesting about that and I had mentioned to you before that we I had just interviewed and hasn't come out yet a lady named Sarah Hammond, who is a pretty big part of HVAC are. I believe you're familiar with Sarah. It's really fascinating to me how many well, I know that it's a very small percentage of women that are coming into the trades to actually do the trade. So you're coming in a bit differently than other women, but I love the fact that more females are coming into the trades. And you know, based on my conversation with her and my own personal experience, I think most likely I would just rather have a detail-oriented lady come to my house and do the work anyway. So I think it's really cool that you're bringing a different aspect into the trades, you being a female. So what in the world? I know you mentioned you were working with a paper say again, paper mill.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Oh, paper and pulp mill.

Speaker 1: 3:36

yes, yes, okay. So, which does not sound super exciting, but maybe it's more exciting than it sounds. So, being in that trade and wanting to make a bigger impact, that's what kind of brought you here. So what in the world? How did you come up with this technology? What made you think about this particular thing?

Speaker 2: 3:59

Yeah, so I know I've used the term learning journey for a lot, but what initially stoked my interest in HVAC over three years ago? I was really excited about this opportunity to create a triple win so you could drive energy efficiency and ensure grid stability, while creating a more comfortable experience for homeowners and more revenue for contractors. I just loved this idea and that's what got my co-founder and I really interested in this space, and we spent just a year learning. We went to technician trainings, we went on ride-alongs and spoke to hundreds of people across the ecosystem. But what really kept us excited about this space was just the incredible people we met.

Speaker 2: 4:35

We were constantly in awe of the many different things A comfort advisor and install tech was balancing and, at the same time, everyone was willing to take time out of their busy schedules to just talk to us. And some folks would be like, hey, I'm retiring next year. Whatever you build, I'm not going to use it. But I am just, really, really just in awe of the trades and I really want to give back to this. And so if you're going to build something that's going to help, I want to help you, and that was something that I'd never heard before and never seen before, and that's what kept us going in this industry and we felt extremely welcomed in. It's pretty insane when we think about how many people were willing to just let us come with them on their journey and in the hopes that we might maybe build something useful to them one day.

Speaker 1: 5:20

And my guess is a lot of them would share whatever information that you needed. You know, whatever you ask, and there's a lot of people that would be willing to give you literally anything that you want. There's some people that probably wouldn't right, but I have found my experience in the industry. You know, I came from outside this industry, completely outside, and it was hard to break in because I didn't have the industry experience, I didn't have the knowledge. I didn't know anything about plumbing or HVAC or electrical. I didn't know anything about it and I would argue I still don't know a whole lot. But I bring a little bit different flavor to the industry and that's bringing outside sales experience and now AI, automations and all kinds of cool stuff. Technology and this industry is very, you know, no offense to people that are listening, but like we're far behind in technology we really are, and we shouldn't be, but I believe wholeheartedly that is making a huge turnaround. Did you say?

Speaker 2: 6:32

I think there's a ton of opportunity in this space and we're seeing some really interesting companies not just the work that we're doing, but the work that so many folks are doing to try and support technicians in the field. There's a lot of companies we've been really privileged to learn from and really see the impact that can be made through a lot of different improvements and, of course, the buy-in from the technicians that we get to work with. As long as things are built with the user in mind, they can be really powerful, and we've seen some. Really, we've just had the privilege of learning from a lot of the entrepreneurs who have been able to build products that are sticky and appreciated by technicians, and that's something that we want as we build. Ours is something that people want to use not they're not forced to use, they want to use it on every single job, and it's really exciting when we get that feedback about our platform as well.

Speaker 1: 7:20

So what? Paint a picture of what the software does, what the technology does.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Yeah, absolutely so. Fundamentally, we are building a design and sales tool, and what that means is we want to support contractors in doing load calculations, but also using that as a tool to build value with their homeowners. If you're doing any form of design, often it's something you're doing in the back office. It's something that you might not be getting credit for with the homeowner because they're not seeing you do the work, and ultimately, building value comes down to showing the homeowner everything that's going into that process for them, and there is so much.

Speaker 2: 7:53

When you think about that 90 minute sales visit, there's a lot to squeeze in. There's a lot that you're doing for free on site for that homeowner, and what we see in our software is the opportunity to bring even more of that to the forefront. And so, fundamentally, what we are building so building a software platform that you can use on iPads and you can scan a home, build out a 3D model, a 2D floor plan and a load calculation overlaid on top of all that information all in 15 minutes or less for any given home, and with that you can integrate that into sales materials. And so you're having a conversation that is a little bit more technically oriented but also is using customized visuals and engagement that comes straight from that homeowner's real home, and so you're building value with something that you're already going to deliver for the homeowner anyways, but it's a cool interactive experience at the same time.

Speaker 1: 8:45

And Mike, you know and I know that you showed me how it works and it was really fascinating. You showed me from right here on camera how it scans the room and the images. Afterwards I'll tell you what made me most excited about it is lots of times they're having to draw this stuff out by hand and that is. It's a, really I would say I don't know if the word A is created would be the right word. I feel like it is Way of doing things. When we're used to seeing our iPhone, we're used to seeing visually appealing. Everything's visually appealing at this point, not to mention from a sales standpoint. Not everybody is a visual person, not everybody is an auditory person, not everybody is a kinesthetic person. But if you hit the auditory in the visual and the kinesthetic actually by putting it in their hand, you've upped the amount of sales significantly, because that person's gonna understand what you're talking about right, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:01

That's our goal is part of the sales process is always about I mean, you know this better than I do. It's all about building value, building trust, that, hey, I'm doing this thoughtful analysis of your home, I'm doing this for you because I care and because this is going to be the right thing for you and I hope you go with me. But if you don't, you should at least be checking to make sure that everyone is doing this quality of work for you. And it's setting a standard and setting apart from the competitors in your area, but also really showing the quality work that your firm is committing to. And, by the way, you can then use that information to hand off to your install team and share. Okay, this is the plan, this is what I evaluated when I was on site. Here's more information to support the install planning that goes into this.

Speaker 1: 10:45

Yeah, that's huge because, look, HVAC install technicians, I think is what they're called, or installers. Rather, they're not like a dime, a dozen. Like that's one of the harder things to fulfill at this stage of the game in 2023, because there's just not a lot of them out there. And if you don't have people to install the product, well, it doesn't really matter. If you sell it right, I mean, it makes no difference. So if you can make life easier for the technician, the selling technician or the CA and the install team, the company's gonna run better without a shadow of a doubt. And I'm just curious I probably should know this, but how much time would you have you calculated that this saves on a regular trip to a residential home?

Speaker 2: 12:01

Absolutely well. It's something that really depends on the firm's current process. So if they're running a full load calculation, taking it back to the home office, they're not delivering a quote on site. I mean, that's hours and potentially days between when they will deliver a quote and for us we can enable them to really understand what they should be quoting on site if that was the process they're running. So the time savings in that situation are massive. If you're doing a more straightforward or simple load calculation, it's about the same amount of time. So our objective is to make it a more visual and enhanced experience and more accurate.

Speaker 1: 12:39

That makes sense. Well, and also in terms of cost, in terms of making that sale. If you, when you leave the house without leaving an estimate, there's a statistically proven 60% chance you're not going to complete that sale, I didn't know that number myself, so it's a scary one for sure.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Stick. That's crazy. If you can eliminate that, in itself that's a huge win. Not to mention this is new enough that probably there's not a. I know you've got a lot of people using it, but if you look at the whole country, it's not. The fraction of people is minimal compared to the amount of companies that are out there, and this you talk about. I mean, everybody wants to be different, or you need to. You should want to be different, and if you could show up differently than every other company out there using this software, you have a massive edge.

Speaker 2: 13:44

Absolutely, and that's our goal is for folks who are committed to doing this high quality work every time and really serving their customer in the best way possible. We want to be there for them and we want to support them in that journey as well and help them stand out because they are doing a differentiated service.

Speaker 1: 14:01

It seems like it would be less. I don't think there's as much human error also using this software.

Speaker 2: 14:10

That's correct. Right, when you're scanning, it's a very simple motion. I'm the least technical member of our team and I can pick up an iPad and move the camera around and create a 3D model. I've handed multiple people, many different groups and many different teams just the iPad and said, all right, see what you can do, see what you can scan and see what they scan. And often people's first scan they see, okay, here's exactly the window I have, here's exactly these doors, these walls, and it does take out a lot of that inaccuracy that you can have when you're roughly eyeballing with a tape measure or a laser tape measure by being able to scan correctly and accurately and get all those dimensions. But mostly you're minimizing how many steps there are from having to measure and write it down and then take all those measurements and that written information and hand it off to someone else when, if it were my handwriting, they'd never be able to read it ever again.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Right, mine too, for sure. Okay, so where? All right. So I know that you are sort of new on the block. What have been some of the challenges? You know because I've now I haven't personally built software, but my company other company has built software and there's usually there's unexpected challenges. For somebody that is not a software person, I think that things can just be connected and we could just roll things out quickly, and just not that way. So what are some of the challenges that you guys have found in the software development side of this?

Speaker 2: 15:45

Well, on the software development side, well, I will say that I am constantly blown away by our engineering team. It is absolutely wild the type of talent that we have on our team, and so I would say there haven't been any huge challenges. I would say one thing that is clear, though, is we're building an interactive 3D model with that. That is an extremely complex engineering task and we have the right people to do it, but it is a lot of energy and effort does go into it. Our senior, our product design need. He comes from NASA, so these are the types of people that we're bringing onto our team who are not only just super technically advanced, but also thoughtful, curious, kind people who are really committed to making the best product for the HVAC industry.

Speaker 2: 16:30

And so I would say technical challenges, I'm sure they might have some pushback on this, but I would say they're crushing it and have been making really great progress. But it does require a lot of engineering effort, and we think about some of the algorithms they had to build. There were over 230 algorithms that had to be built into our initial just into one piece of our initial load calculation tooling. So there is a lot that goes into it, and I think, as the least technical member of our team, I constantly think about oh my God, I would have never guessed that this is the volume of effort that goes into each one of these. But I get to see the progress and I get so excited every time we have a new release of new features that we can deliver to our customers.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Yeah, I can tell you a lot like me, because I am to blown away at the amount of work that goes into, you know, lots of times building the smallest thing or the smallest trigger or the smallest. It just seems like in my head it should just be click of a few buttons, but I'm so far off most of the time.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Yeah, I've learned it definitely never is. It's yeah, it's the funniest things. That and that's what blows my mind about our team is that there are things that I think should take forever to build, and then I next week I see it pop up in the newest version of the app and I was like, oh OK, either we are phenomenal which we are or like this is, this is just the level of talent that we have on our team that's able to deliver this, and I think that's that's been. A huge privilege of this entire journey is being able to work with super technically advanced people, but also ones who I get to work with every day and are amazing human beings.

Speaker 1: 18:13

For sure, for sure. Well, I love that you know. I love that you're, you're bringing a new technology into the industry. There's several new technologies not not like yours that I'm aware of but there are several new technologies that have come out that people are slowly adapting to. But I think the, I think the Adaptation is becoming more mainstream. I think people are really open to a newer solution, a different solution, a faster solution, and up until really this past year, I don't know how open they were to those things.

Speaker 2: 18:53

Yeah, for us. We have seen just such a high level of interest in what we're building, both from contractors directly as well as partners, and it's been it's. It's funny that we hear that this might not be the most savvy technologically industry ever and we haven't actually experienced that. Folks are really excited about optimizing their processes and we've had some just great early adopter users who've been there along the way for us to give us feedback, help us improve, iterate and are just excited to use something new and novel as well as contribute to the building process as well.

Speaker 1: 19:31

Sure, now I think you mentioned maybe mentioned this earlier, being correct me if I'm wrong but so when the model is built out, the technicians in the house, they go through your process. Does it automatically integrate into the whatever field service software they're using or does it have to be a particular one? What does that look like?

Speaker 2: 19:52

Right now we aren't. We don't offer any integrations, but this is something that's definitely on our roadmap. You can output the results into a PDF very easily from within the platform and send it to yourself and then use that and it'll be in the CRM right off the bat. However, that is something that is definitely on the roadmap because we want to streamline this process as much as possible for our users, and on my ride along so I always get to see people flipping between different things for different pieces, and we want to make sure we can, we can help streamline to the extent that we can.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Sure so you know I would you know it's going to sound like I know what I'm talking about, but my experience with building these other automations and kind of being a file on the wall while while they're being built is what I should say. We've found that we use web hooks for a lot of things, and I mean like a lot of things. It seems like there are ways to almost I'm probably going to screw this word, I'm probably going to screw up I always say web hooks is just the easiest thing. That makes sense to me. But like a lot of things you can that are on an Excel spreadsheet or they're on a Google doc can be hooked into the field service software If it, if it does that make sense.

Speaker 2: 21:15

Yeah, you can. You can link different things that happen outside and then create pushes of that information into it.

Speaker 1: 21:22

Yeah, Provided they have an open API, right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So this is I think this is probably a minor thing that that should be I'm sure you all have a group on to have will accomplish shortly, because I don't think it's. I can't speak from a technical standpoint, but I don't think it's super duper hard. But again, this sounds like something I would say to my engineer and he'd be like well, pump the brakes on that.

Speaker 2: 21:51

Absolutely. I understand that, yes, we can come up with a lot of ideas and our goal is to come up with ideas and then figure out what's realistic. But absolutely, we will prioritize making sure that we can have a seamless experience with our software as well.

Speaker 1: 22:08

Yeah, that makes sense. All right, this is the primary thing that you're working on. Do you see anything bolted onto this in the future? That may not be something you can answer here, but I just thought I would ask.

Speaker 2: 22:24

I will tell you how we think about it. Absolutely, we are constantly evolving and improving. If I were to show you you've seen the version in November. December's version looks different. Our July version is something that is like a completely different creature, and what I'll be saying next year is our February version, our March version. They're all going to have different features and functionalities. So we are going to be building what the market tells us. Everything we built thus far has been based off of feedback from our users and has been designed to best support them in the field. Everything we build going forward will have that exact same lens, which is what can we do to make this easier to use, help folks sell on site and convert those sales, as well as get credit for the high quality work they're doing and then finally communicate that work with the install team. So, for us, every functionality that we're thinking about, any new feature, any new product development, is keeping that in mind, and there's definitely going to be some fun stuff on the horizon in 2024.

Speaker 1: 23:25

Sometimes it's hard to pry. I mean, I guess based on customer feedback, then obviously you can build the things that they're wanting. But I know that for us sometimes it's hard to prioritize, and I know this is the same with, like, the field service software. There's there's things I'll give you a quick example, like one would. I would think that it would only make sense to be able to automate the price book, right, the meaning? Like the manufacturer sends out the price book every month. One would think it would not be a problem to automate that into field service software and it just automatically update. Well, it just doesn't happen. It's not. We've built a process that does that now through a bunch of, like I said before, web hooks or whatever. I'm not exactly sure how they did it, but it's stuff like that that I'm like. It seems like it should be such a simple thing. How, how, how the manufacturer is not looking at this as an easy unit, does that?

Speaker 1: 24:21

make sense yeah, so I don't know where I was going with that. I completely lost the train of thought. It was going somewhere good.

Speaker 2: 24:31

I don't know where, but I had a feeling that there was an interesting question coming at the end of it. Yeah, so I don't.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Yeah, I completely lost it. It's been a while since I've done that, but I guess my point is it's like when? Oh, prioritization, that's what it was. So I think you know I would think that would be a high priority, but it's not a high priority. So there are certain things that have to be prioritized. Unless you've got, even if you've got, a massive team, you still have to prioritize things, and I do know that there are some of the, the, the softwares out there that they don't. It's almost like they built things to like 85 percent and then they moved to something new and it's like that's really frustrating and I'm not sure why that is, but that's been my experience, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 25:28

Well, the part of it is the desire to test as much as possible new ideas, new products quickly, before building the full, full set of features out. But I think this comes back to like just having such a close connection with our users and constantly getting feedback and then using that feedback to group themes together. And some people may say I'm having issues with this or I'd really like to see this, and they'll frame it in different ways. It'll, but it's being able to uncover what are the common patterns that might be caused by the same thing. Or people will be like, oh, I'd really wish I could show my customers this. And then somebody will be like, oh, I really like this from this.

Speaker 2: 26:03

And we, once we map all those sort of common features together, or the common commentary that we're getting, or questions or things that even just when somebody's like this isn't really that clear to me what I was supposed to do right here, right here, right here, what I was supposed to do right here, or what this word meant, that tells us that, okay, this is an area that we can refocus, and when we refocus, we might take this and we might build a whole new set of features off of it, or we may build a whole new process, or one thing we did was early last year we redesigned the entire platform. We heard enough feedback about I like my workflow to look like this, or I like to do this, and so we were like, what is the core thing here that people are asking for? And the takeaway was flexibility. So how do we build something that's more flexible? And so we did that. We released it.

Speaker 2: 26:52

I love new layout and it was something that was completely driven by a variety of different pieces of feedback, but it was something that together, those synthesized into okay, we can build something that looks a little bit different, that enables solving all of these different things that we've heard, or all of these different questions. So it's not always taken in the form of I wish I had this, but it's often questions that come in where people are like I really wasn't sure how to do this, or I wanted to know how to do this. I'm like how can we make this more clear by the way the product is designed? And this is where just having such talented team members really comes into play, because that's thinking about what is the real meaning of this question or this statement, and taking it to the next level.

Speaker 1: 27:38

Yeah, 100%. I think it's interesting to be for you being able to communicate between the two right, because they're the people that are giving you the feedback. They're not necessarily going to say it like a software engineer is going to understand it, right, or the yeah, any engineer or designer or whatever. So you're kind of the bridge between the field of conversation and then the software or the engineer conversation, which is important.

Speaker 2: 28:08

Absolutely, and I would say we have a lot of team members actually today that are that bridge, and this is one thing that's really core to our team is our engineers go out in the field, they go on ride-alongs too, they join user research sessions, because this is a tough job. We need to really understand that as an entire team, on the individual level, and so our engineers are out there with contractors, learning from them, hearing their feedback, hearing their questions, responding to all of it as well, and so that is something that I think we're really committed to and will remain committed to, but they really it's like I guess the term is user empathy, but really understanding what's going on for our users. We're constantly trying to improve that level of understanding every single member of the team, so it is something that's super important to us.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Yes, 100% it has to be. So I love that you get customer feedback and then build from that. How do you go about doing that? Because I know that you travel a lot and I think your partner, your co-founder, she, travels a little bit less. Now that's got to be hectic, because I don't know how else you get the customer feedback in real time other than just being on site. Is that pretty much how you get it?

Speaker 2: 29:35

That is one of the most helpful ways absolutely is ride-alongs are really illustrative because you see, okay, this is, you're in a real live environment of using the software and you can see all of the opportunities or see all the things that are going really, really well and that tells you, okay, we can continue to expand on this in this direction.

Speaker 2: 29:55

I would say we do a lot of remote user research sessions as well. We offer customer support, of course, as well, and so any support question that we get is something that we can then turn into how do we better support this user so that they don't even have this question in the first place? So trying to predict ahead of that, so I'd say there's sort of three ways. One is, of course, ride-alongs, which every single one of our team members does, and time in the field, which my co-founder and I, as well as one of our other team members, spends a lot of our time doing. And then the last piece is a lot of user research in one-on-one sessions similar to this, where we'll hop on a Zoom, we'll talk through questions. We'll talk through some of our questions about what's going really well for you, what's not going well, and pushing people to give us constructive feedback, which everyone's always really nice, but we have to really dig, and it's great because that's how we improve.

Speaker 1: 30:51

And I think we're going to have a lot of time to talk about this or sure, one of the things similar to what you're saying as far as having a customer service person getting that information back and maybe putting it. I don't know if you have a central place that answers questions, but what I've found is the companies that we've been working with, each fact technician well, each fact technician of knowledge bot, and the reason that we did that is kind of to avoid a lot of the communication between the tech and the service manager, because there's a lot of lost time that happens within that and a lot of frustration because, look, it's only one guy normally and depending on how a size company it is, maybe it's more than that, but let's just say it's one guy to every 10 technicians. He's answering calls all day long, answering questions that really now, with this knowledge base, they can just type the question in. Have you guys considered doing something like that or have you already done that?

Speaker 2: 31:54

That's a great question.

Speaker 2: 31:55

I think right now we absolutely should look for ways that we could leverage technology like that in our own support services. The really primary one that we offer is, obviously, we offer text calls, emails but what we also offer is a learning center. So in our application we have a suite of videos that guide through the platform, go through everything from a technology perspective, and we're constantly making it more robust. And that's our sort of first line of defense is resources in platform, but our second line is going to be is going to be there for the user in the moment, and I think what we absolutely will work towards is to the extent that we can automate so that we can provide really instantaneous or high quality support when those questions arise. Because, you're right, a lot of questions are very similar, especially when it comes to oh, could you explain to me how to evaluate insulation? Or could you explain to me how to check the window type? Absolutely, we can explain that to you, but we could probably design off of our own answers, design something that answers that automatically.

Speaker 1: 33:03

Yeah, totally, yeah, 100% you could, and it really would save. It would save a lot of time because you have the, you have the information, like it's not like you don't have the information, it's not like you don't have the questions that are coming in. So, yeah, you could totally. You could totally train something that would be very similar to what we've got, which is just an opportunity for you to go in and click on, almost like an app, is the best way I can imagine. You know, have people, imagine it and just ask it, whatever you want, and it's been really beneficial for me. I'm not going to lie to you, because there are technical questions, not that I get asked, but, for example, if there's, if something comes up in one of my trainings and it's and it's something that I don't know what it is they're referring to, maybe they're using the specific term and I just don't have a clue. I can just type that in and it'll tell me exactly what it is, and then I can act like I know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2: 33:58

Amazing.

Speaker 1: 34:00

It's been pretty cool. I'll be honest with you. So where do you hope this thing goes? I mean, where's the I guess, the future projections? Where are you, let's say, in a year, in two years? I imagine that there's a lot of work one that has to be done, but two. I imagine this is going to grow pretty quickly.

Speaker 2: 34:29

That is absolutely. Our goal is to grow quickly and serve as many of the best HVAC pros out there as possible, and so, as we think about where we're going, that's our mission is to help HVAC pros differentiate on site and deliver high quality, high efficiency installs for their customers every time, and so our objective is to continue to do that and to spread that across the country and to spread that with text really everywhere, and I think for us, as we think about that, a lot of this comes back down to continuing to build out not just our core product today, but really build on the features and the additional products that those users want, and that's our number one priority is build something that folks want to use on every job, just as they do now in the field, and help them really stand out and be rewarded for using that as well.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Yeah, so I know we're getting close on time, but one thing I would like for you to kind of explain is just can you kind of walk people through phyno technician and you were going to explain to me how to use this. Could you walk us through that really quick?

Speaker 2: 35:37

Absolutely. So I can roughly walk you through what an onboarding session would look like. So we sit down, we get you set up with your iPad, make sure everything's up and running. You take, you just start off, you open up the software and from there you're taking to a job dashboard. When you're in that job you can do a comfort survey, you can update any of the building materials, you can adjust any of the information we're pulling from property data as well as ASHRAE design data, and then from there you just proceed to take a scan.

Speaker 2: 36:05

So you're going to scan the home, you're going to scan floor by floor, and that really just means you're going around with your iPad held up and you're moving it around the rooms, you're closing out each one and from there you will finish each floor plan, and so you get a floor plan on every single floor.

Speaker 2: 36:21

From there you can just go straight to viewing your reports, and once you look at the reports, you'll be able to see the load calculation results, you'll be able to see the interactive 3D model, you'll see the 2D floor plans all laid out, and you'll have plenty of data that you can also use to engage with your customers, whether it be charts or information about energy use or sort of the impact of sunlight in certain rooms. There's a whole range of different things we can show, and the goal is for it to be a really data driven process, but one that also can meet the customer where they're at, by just showing them. Here's the customized, the customized view of your home and what you might need from a heating and cooling perspective and why you should be thinking about it this way.

Speaker 1: 37:04

I think this also takes it's bound to take a lot of doubt out of the customer's mind in terms of what you're telling them as the technician, right, because if it's there in a 3D model, it's in the iPad. There's got to be a level of and it's their house, absolutely that's what you gain a lot of trust, I would think.

Speaker 2: 37:27

That's our objective right and that's part of the reason our name is conduit is we wanted to be a connection point between customers and our homeowners and our users. We wanted that trust to continue to be built and that connection to strengthen. And it's really unfortunate that often when somebody comes into your home you don't necessarily trust them right off the bat because, based off of our users, we work with just such amazing people. But at the same time this is a resource to help mitigate sort of that sense of distrust that can sometimes exist when you enter in a home to sell a new heating and cooling system.

Speaker 1: 38:04

That makes complete sense to me. All right, so I'm trying to think. There was one more thing I had on the tip of my tongue, so I assume does it only work if you've got an iPad? I mean, one would think that most people that's what they're using. Do you run into people using other things?

Speaker 2: 38:24

For the most part, everyone's using Apple devices. It's been super interesting for us to learn and make sure that we understand the market as it is today, but that's one of the reasons we started building for Apple devices was because when we started our initial discovery over two years ago three years ago now we were just talking to people and asking, like, what are you using in the field? How do we make sure we don't add another thing for you to carry, another thing for you to remember? And unfortunately, because of the prevalence of field service management software, folks are already using iPads. Most firms we speak to I'd say over 80% are using them right off the bat, and so that makes it really easy for us to not introduce something completely new into a process and not have to carry something else. It's one tool you're already using.

Speaker 1: 39:14

Well, actually, yeah, because you know what right now they have to take in. I have to take in a measuring tape, they have to take in something, a pad or whatever how they're doing it. So I would almost say that in the iPad, regardless of if they're using it or not. So I would say they're probably taking less stuff in, right.

Speaker 2: 39:33

Our hope is to keep it simple. If we can keep it simple enough for folks to remember to bring it in, which they probably already have to do. To get to a quote, it's something that we pride ourselves in is just trying to be as streamlined as possible and support the users where they are.

Speaker 1: 39:50

Sure, yeah, that makes total sense. So I just assumed this, but I don't know if everybody else has assumed this. But a lot of this is you're using machine learning, you're using some AI with this, obviously, I would imagine.

Speaker 2: 40:06

We're building a lot of algorithms and we're also using one core technology that we're using as LiDAR imaging, and that is one that we're using a lot of interactive capability on top of, and that's the core technology. Actually, that I would say along this platform revolves around, more than anything else, is LiDAR imaging and using that and using the data that's coming off that to visualize in that 3D model and that 2D floor plan.

Speaker 1: 40:32

There were other. People like myself don't necessarily know what LiDAR means. What is that?

Speaker 2: 40:38

No, it's a good question and when we get quite a bit so the way LiDAR works is. Lidar is a type of there are LiDAR sensors that are embedded in these iPads and how it works is it sends light beams out and then it measures the time that those light beams take to come back to that sensor, and the time that it takes reflects how long that distance is, and that's how that sensor works. Lidar is used in a range of different applications. Most people have heard of it being used in self-driving cars. It's used for many other purposes, but self-driving cars is the one that is most common that folks have seen and heard of, because it's used to really sense out what's the surroundings and what are the objects and things that are lining this area.

Speaker 1: 41:26

That's wild. I would imagine the military would probably use LiDAR.

Speaker 2: 41:30

I would assume they do as well. Yeah, when in doubt.

Speaker 1: 41:34

Right, that's really fascinating, I mean, when you think about, when you think about if you I would imagine you've driven a Tesla at some point. It's pretty wild the fact that that thing can detect I mean, it's the safest driving car on the planet Like the likeliness of getting into an accident is pretty much not likely because of I'm assuming, because of the same technology, right, Maybe?

Speaker 2: 42:03

I have. Honestly, I have no idea how Tesla thinks about their structure of the cars. I do know that when you have precise information about location and what objects are popping up, it is a huge resource. So I imagine your hypothesis is probably completely right that using these different forms of technology is really really powerful to make things safer and easier. And I think that same thing applies in HVAC is how can we use more precise data to be able to size and deliver the right solution and win that trust with that homeowner?

Speaker 1: 42:37

Yeah, 100%. And I you know, and as you probably know, at this point, if you've got good data coming in, you're gonna have good data coming out and vice versa, bad data coming in, bad results coming out. And you know a lot of people I'm sure have played around with chat GPT and like, if you ask it, you know a not so specific question, you may get a not so specific answer yes, so important. So, so so important. Okay, great, so where, if somebody's interested in looking into this and I do need to mention we're gonna do a webinar, which I don't know that this will come out before that webinar. I hope it will.

Speaker 1: 43:22

I hope so too. Yeah, we'll make sure that it does. So we're gonna do the webinar the 13th of December at 12 o'clock. I'll put a link in below here and then where should people find you if they wanna get a hold of you, if they wanna get a demo or yeah, Absolutely well.

Speaker 2: 43:40

You can book directly a demo directly on our website, which is getconduitcom, but you can also reach out directly to me, ask me any questions that you would like. You can find me on LinkedIn, I guess Instagram, now Facebook but you can also just email me directly, which would be shelby at getconduitcom, and I'd love to hear from you and answer any questions. If you have feedback for us, we'd also love to hear it. That's how we make the product better and easier to use. So please, please, do reach out.

Speaker 1: 44:09

Yeah, I think it would be to anybody that's in the HVAC industry to reach out, because this is gonna be a game-changing technology, I believe, and it's just a matter of time before everybody's using it.

Speaker 2: 44:21

Well, thank you, corey. I appreciate that and we're excited to continue down this journey and continue building for our users.

Speaker 1: 44:29

Thank you, Shelby, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 44:31

Awesome thanks, corey.