From Discovery to Execution: What home electrification customers really need

👋🏼 Hi, I’m Moiz. I'm a Fractional Head of Product who helps top climate-tech teams build product from strategy, discovery, to execution. Each issue distills one proven concept that I use with my clients - and gives you a way to apply it to your work.

Here's what's inside:

This edition is about how Josie-Dee Seagren Li, a seasoned product leader, helped a home electrification startup uncover customer pain points and launch a product that helped customers save money.

• The problem: Upfront's rebate tool surfaced incentives but customers abandoned after discovery—they didn't know how to actually get installations done
• The insight: Using JTBD and journey mapping Josie-Dee found homeowners needed trusted contractors more than rebate information
• The solution: Pivoted from rebate widget to full-service platform with SMS contractor matching that solved the real friction point
• The lesson: Climate tech teams often build for policy windows instead of customer pain—structured discovery catches this before you waste months iterating the wrong product

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The product was live, but something didn't add up...

Upfront, a VC-backed, early stage home electrification startup had just launched a product that surfaced incentives for EV chargers and heat pumps at the point of sale.

The Founders saw regulatory tailwinds for energy-efficient appliance rebates, growing homeowner interest in electrification, and market trends in EV adoption and home charging (80% of charging is done at home).

Their first focus was to make government, utility, and new IRA legislation rebates for energy-efficient upgrades (e.g., heat pumps, EV chargers) easier for residential customers to understand and redeem. They went through a few iterations:

• 1st Iteration - Rebate Estimator & Instant Rebates: focused on making these rebates instant at the point of sale.
• 2nd Iteration - Buy-Now-Pay-Later for Energy Efficiency: introduced a payments product to allow homeowners to finance energy-efficient upgrades through a BNPL model.
• 3rd Iteration - “Upfront Companion”: provided white glove service help to claim rebates after purchase.

This last iteration was the most challenging to find a path to scale and justify continued investment. Activation of the rebate estimator was solid, but drop-off after rebate discovery was too high. Conversion from interest to appliance installation to white-gloved rebate processing lagged.

Enter Josie-Dee, who helped them scale

The team struggled to understand and optimize each touchpoint their product had across their user’s purchasing journey, and how their GTM channel stakeholders fit into this journey, who were direct-to-consumer retailers selling energy-efficient products.

That’s when they brought in Josie-Dee (Seagren) Li.

Josie-Dee is a rare blend of domain expert with a product-led mindset. She has experience in EV charging and home automation that was immediately valuable to the company. She wasn’t hired to optimize UI or write stories in JIRA. She was brought in to apply product management fundamentals to figure out why an MVP wasn’t unlocking real traction.

Here’s how Josie-Dee and the team turned a promising product into a meaningful climate solution timed to market tailwinds, using continuous discovery to uncover what users really needed…

You can read the full case study here...

From Insight to Action.

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