Eighty percent of homeowners say no to memberships. That's the number that just triggered an 18-month, ground-up rebuild of an HVAC monitoring platform. Three sensors became one. Fifteen minutes became thirty seconds. Wi-Fi setup disappeared entirely.

Josh Teekell, founder and CEO of SmartAC, built the company's first-generation product to make memberships more efficient — and it worked, driving 20% more revenue per home and retention in the mid-90s. But efficiency wasn't the real ask.

"The product is great. The experience is good. You're in a box of memberships, and you can't break out of that box to help us grow in any other way."

That feedback sent SmartAC back to zero.

Gen 2 replaces three sensors with one, cuts setup from fifteen minutes to thirty seconds, and drops Wi-Fi entirely in favor of a nationwide radio network with 97% coverage.

"Now it's literally take it out of the box, scan the QR code on the sensor in the app in place, and you're done."

The bigger shift isn't hardware. It's strategy.

Gen 1 chased efficiency inside existing accounts. Gen 2 chases volume — the 80% of homeowners who never signed up for anything.

"It's really a land grab strategy with gen two."

At five dollars a month and zero money down, the offer is built to turn one-off service calls into standing relationships. A 1,000-homeowner study backs it up: 45% would buy in at that price, rising to 56% once loyalty credits are added.

"It's easier to sell a new system when the homeowner sees a problem, tracks it over a few weeks or months, gets worried enough to actually book with you, and then you're out there."

Not every part of the pivot went smoothly. Splitting the team between a product not yet generating revenue and one that was proved difficult — even for Teekell.

"If you're the founder of the business, you know it before you're told it."

The payoff shows up in the accounts he's watched grow from $10 million shops into $40 million operations.

Josh Teekell recently joined Jackie Aubel on the "Toolbox for the Trades" podcast to discuss:

• [2:54] What changed at Smart AC: Announcing the Gen-2 platform launch

• [13:03] Leveraging $5/month pricing to capture the non-membership homes

• [19:56] Homeowner survey results validating low-cost monitoring models. Check out the survey data here! 

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