Client stories
Customer discovery for an impact startup - Case Kapacity.io
Customer discovery for an impact startup - Case Kapacity.io
Customer discovery is imperative when we want to build a product or a service that truly meets our potential customer's needs. Investing time and money on an idea that was never validated with potential customers is one of the most common reasons why startups fail, and according to CB Insight, up to 42% of startups die because there's simply no market for them. Therefore, we want to use customer discovery tools to validate ideas and provide proof of product-market fit as early as possible.
Our friends at Kapacity.io asked us to help them with their customer discovery process. They wanted to form a clear picture of their potential customer segments and understand which segments are the most promising ones for their business. Also, they wanted to create a compelling sales narrative and materials targeted to the segments found.
Kapacity.io is a Finnish startup company with a mission to transform the way buildings consume energy and build a sustainable and efficient energy system for the future.
Kapacity.io has developed a cloud-based AI tool that optimizes and controls energy systems. The software optimizes the heating systems based on indoor air conditions, heating and cooling demand, weather forecasts, and electricity prices.
With us, your heating and cooling systems will always be optimized for maximum performance with minimal costs while delivering real and measurable impact for the environment.
Kapacity.io has had a promising start, and their idea has got recognition in startup competitions. They have won the Conception-X Demo Day award and Helen's Industry Hack challenge.
Customer discovery is said to be all about questioning your core business assumptions. When performed correctly, customer discovery is a customer-centric, scientific process that puts evidence behind an assumed product-market fit.
We started the customer discovery process with Kapacity.io by facilitating a series of workshops. During the first two workshops, we listed the potential customer segments and, to make them comparable, we scored them on various metrics. Together we selected the most promising customer segment and started to build the sales narrative and materials for the selected segment.
In the third workshop, we had a chance to work with an actual customer who represented the customer segment we selected. With the customer, we were able to test and validate the story we had built. During the final workshop, we edited the materials based on the feedback received. Also, Kapacity.io worked on the materials independently between the workshops.
During the workshops, and especially between them, the team was able to process the issues and form a lot of new ideas. Kapacity.io really benefited from the fact that they had to dust their thoughts weekly, and Coventures provided a structured platform for that.
There's no doubt that the PropTech market has room for new digital innovations, and there's a big potential for Kapacity.io's product, as they are an exceptionally interesting startup that can make a positive impact by reducing the use of fossil fuels.
We also learned that even though Kapacity.io’s product is good, selling to property owners can be difficult, and some productization needs to be done to make it easier for us to communicate the value that customers receive from the service.
Our next joint project will focus on productizing Kapacity’s offering. Our goal is to define which services Kapacity.io could be offering in the future and how to deliver the message about them.