Archive for the ‘Smart Grid’ Category

Optimum Energy Secures $4.5 Million to Fuel Company Growth, Accelerate Sales of HVAC Energy Efficiency Software

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Optimum Energy has been an Altus Alliance client for the last year or so. Bill Lawler has led a Sales Process Optimization (SPO) project adding HVAC sytems to the list of different markets sectors where SPO has worked. Other successes have ranged from SaaS, Online Advertising, Higher Ed lead generation, enterprise software and more. The press release detailing the funding round for Optimum is appended below. Congratulations to Nathan, Gary, Jim and Ben.


SEATTLE, Wash. — June 17, 2009 — Optimum Energy, LLC, provider of Ultra High Performance HVAC software solutions that set a new standard in energy efficiency, today announced it has secured a commitment of up to $4.5 million in equity financing  led by investor, LLC. Leveraging the success of OptimumHVACTM, third-generation heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) energy efficiency software introduced in October 2008, this financing will be used to respond to broad scale demand from the market. Based on current operating plans, Optimum Energy does not anticipate future funding rounds.

“Columbia Pacific invests in and operates a diversified set of businesses,” said Stan Baty, managing member, Columbia Pacific Advisors. “Optimum Energy is at the top of our portfolio on three important criteria: customer value proposition, financial model, and alignment with market trends. It offers building owners proven economic payback along with environmental credentials. Optimum Energy has succeeded in building its business efficiently and now is poised for profitable revenue growth as it rides the wave of demand-generating legislation and investment.”

Optimum Energy’s solution is based on Hartman technologies that have achieved or exceeded projected reductions in energy use in more than 60 installations across the U.S. Optimum Energy’s active pipeline of sales opportunities is currently more than $25 million, consisting of approximately 180 projects in a wide range of facilities, including: commercial high rise office towers, schools and universities, data centers, federal and state government facilities, hotels, casinos, airports and shopping centers.

“Since the company was founded in 2005, we’ve been focused on a capital efficient validation of market size and the performance of our technology,” said Nathan Rothman, CEO and founder of Optimum Energy. “Now that we’ve demonstrated the scalability and persistent results our software solution provides, we’re expanding our sales and engineering teams to respond more quickly to increasing market demand. This round of funding positions us well to serve this growing market and realize our revenue goals.”

Management Team

Today Optimum Energy announced the naming of Bert Hogue to chief financial officer, and Gary Gigot, Microsoft and Visio alumnus, to chief marketing officer. Optimum Energy’s management team also includes Nathan Rothman, B.E.P., CSDP, CEO and founder; Jim Hanna, vice president and founder; and Ben Erpelding, P.E., C.E.M., director of engineering. The company is currently recruiting a vice president of sales. 

Optimum Energy is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with satellite offices in California, Texas and New York.

OptimumHVAC Solutions

Optimum Energy’s standard software solution is targeted at facilities equipped with centrifugal chiller plants and/or variable air volume HVAC systems.

For each project, Optimum Energy’s Engineering Services group provides a scope of work, projects savings and calculates return on investment, including applicable utility incentives. Payback typically falls into the 18 to 36 month range. Optimum Energy then delivers those projected savings with OptimumHVAC software, resulting in increased operating efficiency that lasts the life of the plant. OptimumHVAC also gives facility managers the ability to measure and validate HVAC performance anytime, anywhere, via a secure Web site.

About Optimum Energy, LLC

Based in Seattle, Washington, Optimum Energy’s reliable, demand-based Ultra High Performance HVAC optimization software applications are proven to reduce commercial building HVAC energy consumption and operating costs up to 60 percent. More information is available at www.optimumenergyHVAC.com.

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Clean Energy Trend: Energy Efficiency

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Altus client Optimum Energy has made major strides in the last year reaching a wide array of commercial buildings. In this interview on the Seattle Startup Buzz, Optimum Energy’s CEO shares where they are having success, the stimulus package’s impact on them, what others can learn from their experience and even a bit about Ken Griffey and Lance Armstrong. Read this interview with Nathan Rothman.

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Climate Solutions: Pioneer in seeing NW’s Clean Energy and Smart Grid opportunity

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

The NGO Climate Solutions, based in Seattle and Olympia, is coming up on its 10 year anniversary. Since nearly its inception, Altus partner Dave Chase, has lent a hand to their efforts assisting in their strategic planning, marketing and whitepaper development. Well ahead of mainstream consciousness, Climate Solutions published their seminal papers in 2000 and 2001 outlining how the Pacific Northwest was/is positioned to lead.

Chase contributed to two of their later papers that are worth reading if you want to understand how the Smart Grid presents an opportunity for the Northwest. There is $4.3B in the stimulus package.

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Sales Learning Curve: Why Smart Grid vendors must go slow to grow fast

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Internationally known technology and business analyst, Jesse Berst, publishes Smart Grid News reporting on the latest insights on the Smart Grid sector. This sector is one of the few growth sectors in today’s economy.  Altus partner, Dave Chase, wrote a guest piece entitled Sales Learning Curve: Why Smart Grid vendors must go slow to grow fast. Jesse moderated the Voyager Capital-hosted session that had Mark Leslie speak about the Sales Learning Curve which is where Dave Jones, Doug Schulze and Dave Chase originally met Mark Leslie.

Mark was instrumental in helping Altus form a practice around Leslie’s Sales Learning Curve framework. Altus Alliance remains the first and only consultancy to develop a practice around this now well-regarded framework that was subsequently published in the Harvard Business Review.

Chase opens the Smart Grid News piece with the question:

“Why does it always take longer and cost more to build a technology company than anyone expects?”

And then expands on that common refrain.

That lament is true for all high-tech firms, but nowhere so true as in the energy technology sector, which has all the usual challenges plus a target market (utilities) that is one of the most conservative on earth. Yet a simple fact defines every successful company — it figures out how to bring in more money than it spends. The Sales Learning Curve may be the best way to solve this fundamental equation. What’s more, it is not a “soft” technique with vague parameters. Rather, it is a concept that can be measured and monitored with the same rigor as the Manufacturing Learning Curve (MLC), which determines how long it takes to reduce manufacturing costs.

He draws the parallel with the MLC and highlights the curve in a sales context.

The Manufacturing Learning Curve shows how cost declines as volume increases. The Sales Learning Curve shows how the Sales Yield increases as learning increases. As illustrated nearby, the Sales Yield is simply the average production per full-time salesperson. Until salespeople sell more than they cost, they are a drain on cash flow and hiring more only makes that worse. Yet, according to Leslie, salespeople can’t sell more until the entire company has undergone some “organizational learning.”

Sales Learning Curve

The exact shape of the curve is different for every company and sector but the central tenet remains constant — during the “go-to-market” phase companies should “Go Slow to Grow Fast.” Just as athletes and musicians practice very slowly until they master a movement, companies must spend and hire slowly until they truly know what customers want and need.

Key message:

You can’t speed up the process by hiring more people or throwing more money at the problem. Organizational learning takes time. Customers must spend time with the beta product; reps must spend time with customers, and then spend time with the company’s engineers and marketers to translate customer preferences into better products and better marketing. The gating factor is not the ability to add new features or pump out new marketing brochures. The limitation is the time for the entire organization to truly understand and internalize customer needs.

We have worked successfully in the Energy Efficiency sector and seen that the organization that “measures twice and cuts once” can both reduce the sales cycle and increase the quantity and quality of their sales pipeline. For example, one company saw their pipeline go from a low-quality $3MM pipeline to a well-qualified $22MM pipeline.

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