Startup of the Week: MyHeat

MyHEAT shows you where the energy is escaping from your home and gives you the tools necessary for reducing energy consumption and heat loss, ultimately saving you money.

Using large-scale data processing that establishes where energy is escaping from buildings, MyHEAT gives homeowners the ability to visualize and compare the heat escaping from every building in a town or city, and is available free of charge.

At the click of a button, you can see areas of your home that are losing the most heat and the least heat. Your home’s score can range from low to moderate to high building heat loss — the lower the score, the lower the heat loss. From there, MyHEAT recommends service providers that can help you increase your home’s energy efficiency.

MyHEAT is currently live in Calgary, Okotoks, Airdrie, Edmonton, and Sherwood Park, with over 500,000 houses profiled.

Here’s more from our conversation with MyHEAT founders, Jeff Taylor and Dr. Geoff Hay.

How did you come up with the idea for your startup? Was there an “ah-ha” moment?

When Dr. Geoff Hay bought a new house that felt colder than it should have, he wondered why there wasn’t a better way to identify the heat loss. That’s when the idea was conceived.

Our mission is to empower a worldwide reduction in urban greenhouse gas emissions, one building at a time.

What has been the biggest challenge so far? What have you done to solve it?

The biggest contributor to our success has been changing our early adopter customer base from municipalities to private industry. Our initial strategy of selling to municipalities may still bear fruit, but the sales cycle proved too long and we didn’t have the financial runway to stay focused on this customer channel.

What advice would you like to share with other new entrepreneurs?  

Talk to customers and get their feedback so you’re not building your business in a vacuum. Leverage government funding programs. Take advantage of productivity tools such as Google Docs and Slack so your team can communicate and operate more efficiently.

What made you choose to go down the path of entrepreneurship?

We have a passion for creating new things and entrepreneurship offers the freedom to explore new ideas. The mission of MyHEAT is to educate and motivate people to make positive changes to their homes and buildings that will reduce their impact on the environment.  We believe that climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and this mission resonates with us. If MyHEAT can encourage people to use energy more efficiently, we can have a positive impact on the world. That’s pretty motivating.

What do you and your startup need help with?

We’re looking for energy efficiency partners, marketing support, and investment.  For more information, check out myheat.ca.

Lloyed Lobo covers technology startups in Alberta. He is a partner at Boast Capital and Co-founder of Traction Conf. If you’d like to be featured, please email llobo@boastcapital.com.