Shelby Breger: [00:00:00] This feels like a win for everyone. It feels like a win for homeowners. It feels like a win for small businesses who can sell that equipment and install it. And it feels like a win for like our broader grid.
Wyatt Smith: Shelby, welcome to Untapped with UpSmith. It’s great to see you.
Shelby Breger: It’s great to be here. It’s nice to see you as well.
Wyatt Smith: Awesome. Shelby’s a, a, a great friend and great entrepreneur who is building a really important company, Conduit Tech, focused on, um, helping to support contractors and, and winning and giving more data to homeowners to help do their jobs better.
Wyatt Smith: So we’re really excited to learn about it and learn about the work you’re doing.
Shelby Breger: Well, similarly, we hugely admire UpSmith over [00:01:00] here at Conduit Tech and I think we share a lot of common goals and common mission, which is around supporting contractors. In driving the best results for their customers and also benefiting in the meantime.
Wyatt Smith: Totally. Well, the skilled worker shortage takes many forms and, uh, the customers that we’re serving are certainly battling it every day. And so our, our goal in this conversation is to, you know, share, uh, different things we’ve seen, things we’ve learned working with them over the past several years. Uh, and hopefully it’s helpful to people out there that are trying to solve similar problems.
Shelby Breger: I love it.
Wyatt Smith: Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Do you mind starting, Shelby, just like sharing more about your background, like where’d you grow up? What was life like as a kid? I think people will be really fascinated to hear.
Shelby Breger: Yeah. So I grew up in the, the, the hated and loved state of California. Um, hopefully folks don’t hold it against me too much, but, um, grew up in California, um, had a wonderful, wonderful childhood where I was very focused on, you Um, sports [00:02:00] like many folks and, um, and academics.
Shelby Breger: So I was very focused on, um, just participating in those ways and, uh, always very narrowly focused as well. Um, but it was like my life revolved around swimming and water polo and then, uh, and then school. So it was, uh, pretty uneventful, but it was also, uh, also a lovely place to grow up. And I, there are a few, there are many beautiful places in this country, but I got to say California is definitely one of them.
Wyatt Smith: And yeah, pretty impressive academic track through that. Talk about some of the choices you made along the way and what led you there.
Shelby Breger: Yeah. Um, I, in terms of academics, I sort of started off, um, I went to college. Not really knowing what I wanted to do. I think I actually applied as like a languages major did not take like a single, like linguistics class.
Shelby Breger: Um, my entire time there. Um, but what I ended up uncovering was the opportunity to learn a lot and grow the way I thought about different things. There’s so many different ways to do that, but found that I got [00:03:00] to hone my like critical thinking and creative thinking skills, um, and eventually went on to studies, uh, economics and sociology.
Shelby Breger: Before graduating. And when I went out into the world from there, my entire goal was just to work with smart, interesting, curious people. Um, and that’s sort of what’s driven my entire career thus far, which has wound in many different directions.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. No kidding. How do you think about. The steps in the journey that led you to decide to start a company.
Wyatt Smith: What were the, the key moments in that, in that experience?
Shelby Breger: It was a series of pretty like wild, constantly escalating events. Um, and I think it starts like, it starts back at the end of like 2020. I was trying to think about like, you know, I am curious about a lot of things. I want to have a bigger impact on the world that I’m having today.
Shelby Breger: Um, and I don’t really know where I want to focus and I don’t really know what I want to focus on. So I just started exploring. Um, and I was looking at like three different areas. I was working in industrial energy efficiency at the time, [00:04:00] so with pulp and paper mills. And I was thinking about like, I want to be closer to what feels really tangible to me and to my friends and to my community every day.
Shelby Breger: Um, and I got really interested in the concept of residential energy efficiency. So instead of big plants, um, small homes that are similarly operating and, and keeping us comfortable and fueled all year round. Um, and I just started learning about, okay, what helps drive residential energy efficiency? This feels like a win for everyone.
Shelby Breger: It feels like a win for homeowners. It feels like a win for small businesses who can sell that equipment and install it. Um, and it feels like a win for like our broader grid. And that was like my opening question, like, what can I do? Um, and I just started learning. I started interviewing people. And along that journey, I actually met my co founder, Marisa, um, who had similarly started on her own journey.
Shelby Breger: She’d been at it for six months as well, had been learning about this space, trying to figure out what she could do. And we met and we’re like, okay, well, let’s, let’s try doing [00:05:00] this together. This will be a lot more fun. Um, what can we learn? What can we do? And we started, uh, building just different tools and figuring out who do we want to build for and what do we want to build for.
Shelby Breger: Um, and very quickly, I kid you not, within the first, like, two week sprint, we’re like, we want to build something for residential contractors. Um, and there were a few different reasons why, uh, but the first reason was that we wanted to find a way to help, um, help contractors who are really the backbone of the entire built environment.
Shelby Breger: Um, they’re the ones building and creating and doing everything that needs to get done to keep our, like, our homes running, and frankly, everything running. Um, yet what we saw was just this massive increase of burdens that are being put, burdens, requirements, um, many different things that are being sort of put on contractors to handle.
Shelby Breger: And there is, it’s making it harder and harder to run a, um, economical and efficient business. And so we started looking at some of these different challenges contractors were [00:06:00] facing in 2021. And that’s sort of what kicked this all off, um, in terms of like, okay, now how can we help? Um,
Wyatt Smith: that’s great. Well, let’s talk about the problem that you’re solving.
Wyatt Smith: Okay. So. Could not agree more. They’re the backbone of society. They’re doing such important work to keep our community safe. What, what is the problem that you focus in on most directly?
Shelby Breger: Yeah. So what we focus in on is being able to sell using the quality work that you have to do anyways. Um, and specifically the challenge that we’re thinking about is like, how do you design, um, design the right system installation?
Shelby Breger: How do you sell that right system installation? And then how do you hand it off to your install team? That’s like where we narrowly focus. Um, and what led us to focus there was during that early process of discovery, we sort of, this was 2021. So everybody remembers 2021, it was a crazy time, um, crazy time to be alive, but there were equipment shortages, labor shortages.
Shelby Breger: And then the last one was everybody was still, they were seeing an increase in competition needed to figure out how do I differentiate from my [00:07:00] competition and how do I, um, actually stand out and convert these sales. When I do have a lot of lead opportunities and with those three things in mind, Marisa and I were like, what can we do to support?
Shelby Breger: How can we focus on this? And what’s the right solution? And so for us, you know, we looked at the labor shortage and we’re like, Hey, we need to build tools that make it easier for people to succeed inside the home and to lower that barrier to entry so that we can have more and more folks entering the ecosystem and, and really participating in this really important career path.
Shelby Breger: Um, labor, the equipment shortage, we’re like, we’re just not even going to try and tackle that, but that we’ll leave that to someone else. Um, and then, and then the third piece around sales conversion. And really differentiating from competition and using quality work as a means to do so. That’s where we saw a huge opportunity and that’s sort of the theme under which we’ve been building.
Shelby Breger: So how can we help design, help sell, and then help hand off to the installers who are going to go build that installation for that homeowner?
Wyatt Smith: That’s great. I love so much the idea [00:08:00] around helping make the experience better for a new entrant into the trades. So somebody who’s, who’s joining and has lots of potential, but it’s still sort of learning how to be effective in their job.
Wyatt Smith: So, so what’s, what’s that person’s experience like using Conduit Tech?
Shelby Breger: Yeah. So there’s, we work with a range of different folks. And for those who aren’t as familiar with our technology, we are a design and sales platform. So we enable you to walk through a home, scan the home, build out a 3d model, a 2d floor plan, or Um, and ACCA certified load calculation, as well as visualize what equipment’s going to look like inside that home.
Shelby Breger: So using augmented reality. And all of these tools are generated and intended to help you not only design the system, but engage the homeowner in the process, so they can really see the craftsmanship that goes into this. Um, but all of those things that I just described are things that are super time consuming without a technology like ours.
Shelby Breger: Um, if you were doing a traditional system design, you were using some of the legacy software platforms out there that are. You know, very robust, but really time consuming to learn. First off, [00:09:00] you have to take weeks to go learn them. But then on top of that, um, the, the challenges is that they take hours to do on every single job.
Shelby Breger: And then the amount of costs that that adds to an HVAC business is, um, really just insane. And so what we looked at was like, you not only need to make this easier to learn, um, or just possible to learn in the first place. It’s, it’s so difficult to learn. I, I personally went to one of these trainings and I was like, I can’t do this.
Shelby Breger: Um, and I don’t see how, like, to me, I was like, I, like, I know that this is just like, it’s so daunting to even sit down when you have so many other things going on in your mind. So we knew we had to make this, um, easier, more doable to learn. We had to make it faster, and we also had to make it so that it was a tool that people could see a direct benefit for themselves for.
Shelby Breger: Not just, you know, I’m going to build out this design. I may or may not win this quote. Um, but it had to be something that was like, this is the right thing to do. I’m going to get a great design. I’m going to use this to engage my customer. There’s going to be value to me, value in that sales experience for [00:10:00] both of us.
Shelby Breger: And on top of that, I’m going to get the results I need to be able to do the high quality work my team is committed to. And I think that’s when we narrowed in on, like, it needs to be easy to learn. It also needs to be easy, like replicable and easy to do. That’s enabled us to actually work with contractors across the country, many of whom are new to the industry.
Shelby Breger: I’d say 50 percent of our users have never done a system design before. Um, and what’s important is that they’re able to pick it up. Because we are, our platform is built in a way that you can learn it very quickly. And then we compliment it with training and ongoing support, because we also know that like technology is great, but a human touch is really important.
Shelby Breger: And I think that’s something everybody who works in the trades really understands and knows and appreciates.
Wyatt Smith: You know there’s that adage that seeing is believing. I’m curious. What was a moment where that, like, ah-ha moment happened for an early customer where you thought, Oh, we’re onto something here. Can you take us back to a turning point there?[00:11:00]
Shelby Breger: Yes. So I think there was like a point, this is probably about a little over a year ago where we finally had like, we, we frankly, we finally had like the version of the software that we knew was reliable and robust and that our users could trust in the field. And I think when they started telling us like, this is how my customers reacting to me coming in the home and doing this process.
Shelby Breger: This is like the new level. Um, it is, I’ll, I’ll quote one of one of our users. Um, his name’s Tony. He’s like, I was able to take back control of my sales process. Um, he’s like, I was able to actually show the customer. This is what we’re doing. Uh, like, I know that I just walked in. I’m a total stranger, but this is why I’m doing, and this is what I’m doing.
Shelby Breger: And not only instilling the sense of pride in their own work, but being able to communicate with the customer in a way that’s much more tangible to the customer about what’s going into every single one of those jobs. Um, and then of course, I think that was the first piece. And then the next piece was when people started sharing their sales impact with us.[00:12:00]
Shelby Breger: So what were they seeing from a sales conversion perspective? What were they seeing from a ticket size? Um, one of our users reached out to me, this, this one’s just top of mind. He reached out to me in June and he’s like, I just had the best first three weeks of June ever. He’s like, I’ve sold $600, 000, uh, like completed $600, 000 of new installs in this first three weeks.
Shelby Breger: I’ve never been able to do that before. Um, not only because I’m able to get some time back because of how he was doing his system design beforehand, but because I’m now able, um, to really focus on my customer, engage them with design in a way I never could beforehand. Um, and I think those, those are the pieces that also get me really excited because, you know, the customer, the end homeowner is having a better experience, and you also know the contractor is seeing results for themselves.
Shelby Breger: And I think that’s a big piece of what we wanted to, to achieve. And that’s where like our name as a company comes from is like, we wanted to be a connection point between the customer and the contractor, but just the connection point, something that helps bridge that gaps with [00:13:00] tools to help communicate and visualize that experience.
Shelby Breger: Um, so I’d say those are like the aha moments. And I think every time we have, um, we were, we use Slack, which is an internal teams communication tool. And every time Um, we get one of these pieces of customer feedback. We share it back with our entire team because like, that’s what motivates us all is like, how can we create impact for both the customer, um, our customer, which is the contractor and homeowners.
Wyatt Smith: I love the purpose that is also built into that. So for this person who’s able to take back his experience as a professional, and then also feel a whole lot of pride in the work that he’s doing, where the person that he’s serving also says, I get it. Like I get why this is going to be helpful to me. And I couldn’t have figured that out by myself.
Wyatt Smith: It’s so, it’s a, such a great thing that you’re here in my home. That’s pretty special. Are there any insights that come out of that, that you think really inform how you want to build the product as you go and what you hope it will look like in the future? [00:14:00]
Shelby Breger: Absolutely. I think this is like. When we saw this, our first version of the product just really involved, like, scanning, building out a 3D model, using that to engage the customer.
Shelby Breger: That, of course, has an impact, but as we build out more functionality, it’s what do we replicate about that, like, core engagement experience? Um, there’s obviously the pieces that make this much easier to do from a design perspective, but how do we use the platform and structure the platform in a way that’s intentionally about creating that connection with the customer?
Shelby Breger: And so, First, we released, you know, the LiDAR enablement, then we released augmented reality. Um, what’s coming next is more customization, all based off of, like, customer input. And I think, as we think about, like, our trajectory, it’s all about how do we customize that journey for that homeowner so that it does feel very specific and specialized, um, but also how do we make it so that it’s more visual and enhance that experience?
Shelby Breger: Because every time we’ve released something that, like, Makes that experience a little bit more engaging with the customer. We see that that’s, that’s what our customers, what our contractors are responding [00:15:00] to and are really excited about and where they’re seeing the impact with the homeowners they work with.
Shelby Breger: Um, so I think that really does in terms of like, and I’m sure this is how you run, um, UpSmith as well. Everything we build is based off of customer feedback. It’s both based off of like what we hear from our customers, what their pains are. And then it’s also based off of like tactically, like, Hey, this is really annoying in the platform when it does X, Y, and Z.
Shelby Breger: Like I would love if it could do something different. Um, and so that’s how we define our product roadmap is really based off of where the feedback comes from and then what we can see the greatest points of value are so we can amplify them.
Wyatt Smith: That’s great. As a founder, where do you spend most of your time?
Shelby Breger: I would say the vast majority of my time is spent on our, our customers, um, in a few different ways. So, um, as a founder, this is true for you, Wyatt, I’m sure is like worst. I, I’m fortunate. I have a co founder who we essentially like balance between where is the bottleneck Um, so for us, you know, when we were hiring, uh, and growing our customer [00:16:00] success team, we needed more support there.
Shelby Breger: So I became our, our, an, an additional customer success manager. And that’s where I spent all of March, April, May, June, because until we felt it’s like we’re able to fill that gap, I wanted to make sure our customers were well served. Um, and then as I brought on an amazing team member who was able to take that work back off my plate, then I’ve pivoted to where we needed support next.
Shelby Breger: And so. I think for me, what always comes first is going to be our existing customers. Um, obviously we always want to grow and continue to grow our business, but it’s always going to be our customers first, our existing customers. Um, the next, um, like the next priority is going to be my team because my team is the core foundation that enables us to, um, support those customers.
Shelby Breger: And that is a huge piece of everything. I couldn’t do this without, um, first off my incredible co founder, but also every single one of our team members is vital to our ability to run this and, um, and achieve the goals that we have. Um, and so the next piece is [00:17:00] making sure I can enable them. Um, I’m super fortunate that my team like can run and can operate totally without me.
Shelby Breger: And so that’s why they come in second. But for us, you know, one thing that was really important to Marisa and I, when we started this company was. Um, it’s really vital that we treat every individual with respect and kindness, and that’s why the people pieces come first, which is our customers and, um, our team.
Shelby Breger: And so those are first and second, and I don’t, I don’t know what else comes next after that, but that’s probably 99. 9 percent of my time.
Wyatt Smith: Makes total sense to me. It sounds familiar. I would love to learn from you about a conversation you had with a customer that, that sort of changed the direction that the company was going.
Wyatt Smith: And you’ve alluded to a couple in the conversation already, but I’m particularly interested if I’m listening to this as a contractor who may be facing some challenges right now, helping his or her team be successful in the sales process, and there [00:18:00] could be some signal in what that other contractor shared with you that could be helpful to that person.
Wyatt Smith: Um, So what, as you reflect on it, it stands out as an insight that you gained along the way that you think really helped shape the direction.
Shelby Breger: Yeah. So there’s so many ways I could go with my answer to this question. So I’ll, I’ll pick the first one, which is just like, in terms of the direction are of our, our own product, and then happy to talk about like what we see for, for our contractors and like what makes them the most successful.
Shelby Breger: Um, but for like, for our product, we, we, Marisa and I first started building this company. We’ve played with a lot of different ideas. We’ve, like, thrown them all out onto the market. And, uh, a lot of them were not good. Um, and I’ll give you some examples. Like, one of them was, like, a rebate finder, which is great, except the rebate programs change, like, every day.
Shelby Breger: And a lot of contractors honestly cannot even participate because they change so quickly that it’s hard to guarantee that level of service to a customer. Um, and then they’ve also developed some great workarounds as well. So, I think that, like, [00:19:00] there is a, that was an example of something we, like, put out to the, like, we put a prototype into the market, we asked for feedback, um, people were like, this is nice.
Shelby Breger: And we’re like, that’s not good enough. If it’s nice, the next question is, like, okay, well, would you pay for it? Would you want this? Would this change your life? Um, and I think there was a very different reaction when we released, you know, what we have today, at least in the earliest forms, people were like, when can I have that?
Shelby Breger: When can I sign up? People were willing to sign, um, letters of intent saying, I’m going to buy this when, whenever it’s ready for this amount of money. Um, and I think there was such a big difference between how people reacted to the different, different prototypes we released. And we released a lot more than just, um, That rebate finder, but I don’t want to totally embarrass myself here.
Shelby Breger: Um, so we’ll leave it there, but it’s what we saw was there was just a different reaction. Um, and I think that makes a huge difference, um, for just. For our team. And that’s how we think about a lot of our new features and the new products we develop, nothing makes me more [00:20:00] excited, like over this weekend, we did some like release and we didn’t announce it over, um, over the weekend because it was just on the backend.
Shelby Breger: They didn’t need to update anything, but they saw something different. In their reports, and we released like an improved report and I got like five different texts being like, Oh my God, this is amazing and nothing like gets me more excited than like when people give us that unsolicited feedback that like this is like this one really well.
Shelby Breger: I also like when we get the constructive feedback, but like, it’s, I think that those moments are like, okay, this is how we know this is working. And this is like a difference in reaction. Um, so that’s my first answer to the question. Happy to answer it from the, the contractor perspective, the, like the other angle I could take it.
Wyatt Smith: Please do. Yeah. How does that stand?
Shelby Breger: Well, I think like, so this, uh, just one of the ways I initially interpreted this question was just like thinking about like, okay, so what makes our contractors successful? What makes them like, what are the factors that I see like jump out when I see like an amazing like high growth business and like, they’re going to be successful [00:21:00] adopting any technology, not just ours.
Shelby Breger: And I have to say, every time I speak to a general manager and they’re like, Hey, I just hired my first salesperson. I’m like, congratulations. This happened to me twice earlier this week. I spoke to two different owners and they’re like, yeah, I’m hiring my first salesperson. They’re not coming from the industry.
Shelby Breger: Like, I’m kind of trying to figure out like, how do I support them? And um, and I’m like, that’s a huge step. It’s a huge step that you’ve been able to take yourself one further step out of the field. That means that you’re going to be, have different problems, but you’re now, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re.
Shelby Breger: You’re creating like some level in between you and like every single customer and you’re no longer the central point for every single interaction your customer experiences. And that is amazing. So I think the first step I see is like, like when teens are like, okay, I’m going to enable myself. When they start investing in themselves, I think that’s always something that I see really powerful.
Shelby Breger: And then I think it leads to like my next point, which is like when I meet somebody who I can tell, like. Really cares about their team and is really focused on [00:22:00] growing their team and helping achieve that. Um, that’s always something that really jumps out as like, you’re going to be successful with whatever you’re going to do, but you’re definitely going to be successful when it comes to technology adoption.
Shelby Breger: Um, and that’s something that always jumps out to me, um, as well.
Wyatt Smith: How does a contractor know when it’s time to hire their first salesperson?
Shelby Breger: It’s a good question. I typically see it happening around like employee number like 10 or 11 from an employee headcount perspective is where we see it happening. Um, or at least where like people start to do it.
Shelby Breger: I honestly think it’s when the owner is finally like, okay It’s time for me to take a step back outside of the field because I’m not like I’m managing multiple install crews I like am getting blown up when I’m like On a customer site by like all these other questions and calls that are coming in and I can’t support Like I can’t focus on any one of these in an efficient and effective way And I think that’s a big sign for a lot of the, the owners and managers that we’ve spoken with like that, that they need to make a change [00:23:00] then, um, is that they have to have some other filtering mechanisms so that they can be really present and sent like present for their customers.
Wyatt Smith: Is there a certain level of revenue? That is a sweet spot.
Shelby Breger: That’s a good question. I think it varies by business because we see some businesses that hire their first like dedicated sales team member at like four or five million in revenue. And we see a lot that hire it around 1 million is where I often see it.
Shelby Breger: Um, but I think it depends on the model because some folks, one, it really depends how many texts you have that can sell.
Wyatt Smith: So if your technician is, is capable of asking great questions and leaving a letter to the right answer and then closing, then you can probably wait a little bit longer to have someone who’s a dedicated salesperson.
Wyatt Smith: When you, when you’ve looked at the, I, one thing I’ve observed is that some home service companies. Empower their technicians with selling responsibility. Others see it as more of a specialized skill. And the [00:24:00] expectation is that a technician is going to flip a lead or ultimately hand off that opportunity to another specialist.
Wyatt Smith: What have you observed in terms of the different ways companies attempt to, to resource that and hire the team against that opportunity?
Shelby Breger: I think for a lot of the companies we work with, they are more likely to have dedicated sales team members and flip the lead. Um, but we see a range and we see like a range of people wanting to enable their, their selling techs or their techs who can sell, want to enable them with better tools and resources.
Shelby Breger: Um, and I think that it’s definitely a mix, and I think it really is team contingent. But what we typically find is that there’s like, most teams have a number of techs, only a few of them have the privileges, like privileges, I don’t know, some, some will view that as a privilege, some will, will not, um, but only some have the, uh, are given the ability to sell.
Shelby Breger: And then often if that is the case, then they’ll have, um, most of their comfort advisors, they’ll have a comfort advisor as [00:25:00] well, um, to work with those other techs. But. But I think what we find is that disproportionately we work with a lot of folks on the sort of comfort advisor or dedicated sales team member, um, means, but it’s a range for sure.
Shelby Breger: And I think we’ve seen an increase in the selling tech model. Um, but I think it, it really depends on the company level and what, yeah, what, what they have found to be effective for their market, because we see a range of models for sure. And I think if you look at a lot of the larger companies in the space, they also have a range of different models that work.
Wyatt Smith: There are a lot of different types of skills that show up inside the companies that you and I serve and we, we think about that a lot at UpSmith because part of our mission is around helping to upskill a new generation of builders to take on the skilled worker shortage. I’m curious how people of varying experience levels and competency levels experience the Conduit Tech product differently.
Wyatt Smith: And how do you think about, um, [00:26:00] the right sort of mastery someone needs to be successful? I, I understand to be like fairly easy to get started. Is it a different experience for someone the more time they’ve been in the field and that the more experience that they have?
Shelby Breger: I think it is, but not, you know, like it really varies because what we find is that like the folks who have the least experience in the field are the people who are most comfortable with technology.
Shelby Breger: Um, and the folks who are the most experienced are, have a range of comfort levels with technology. So it does really vary. Um, and, and that’s not a critique in any way. It’s, it’s, you know, where have you spent most of your career? And the people who’ve spent most of their career in HVAC often were installers, often were service techs, and then transitioned more into a sales role.
Shelby Breger: And so they have a lot of experience that serves them really well in so many ways. And many of them are very, very technologically savvy. Um, some folks prefer to like have a way of doing things. They’ve always done it. And so. So we see different value propositions essentially for each one [00:27:00] of those types of youth, like users.
Shelby Breger: So somebody who has been using, you know, their last job was in AT& T sales, they’re super familiar with like how they’re going to use a tablet regularly as part of every single one of their sales processes and how they’re going to use more modern technology as part of it. And they’re really excited by it.
Shelby Breger: Um, and we see that model a lot. And so we find those users get up to speed very quickly with the technical elements. And so our onboarding is more customized. To help them think through the elements that are going to drive system sizing and design and how to explain those to a customer. Whereas, for the folks who feel less confident with technology, we’re going to spend more time just on the mechanics, but they know all of the, like, the mechanics of, like, just how you navigate through our platform.
Shelby Breger: Because it’s going to be different than any other platform they’ve looked at, because that’s not, that hasn’t been their focus in the past. They’ve been using a manual way of sizing and system analysis, but they know all the foundations and fundamentals of HVAC. And then there’s folks that are all around that continuum, and in between there are tons of [00:28:00] people with lots of experience, who have lots of experience with technology too, and like, they’re like, they, they don’t even like, they’ll, they’ll sell like multiple systems without even going through an onboarding with us, and they’ll be like, yeah, it’s having a great impact on my sales process, and I’ll be like, but we still want to onboard you, like, just because you can onboard yourself doesn’t mean like, we still want to give you the same level of service we can give you.
Shelby Breger: Um, so it’s, I would say there’s a huge range, um, but I think that what we see is that everybody, every entrant into, like, the Conduit platform, um, has an advantage for why they can learn this well, and it’s either because they love technology, or if they hate technology, it’s because they really do know a lot.
Shelby Breger: That, um, will serve them well and really reduce any barrier to entry as well.
Wyatt Smith: I love that insight around how digital native users experience it differently, even though their core competencies in the trade are lower, their, their fluency for using a product like yours is really high. And then maybe somebody that’s got [00:29:00] a ton of experience and deep expertise is new to your product.
Wyatt Smith: And so thinking about that person’s experience and getting out of places that get them frustrated or stuck, that’s, that’s super important.
Shelby Breger: Absolutely.
Wyatt Smith: Do you
Wyatt Smith: invest?
Shelby Breger: Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Wyatt Smith: Go ahead. Please.
Shelby Breger: Oh, I was gonna say, like, this is a big reason that we actually do custom onboardings, um, for users is that we think we know everybody’s learning journey is going to be different.
Shelby Breger: We work with each team independently as part of our process because we want to make sure that they’re having a good experience, that we are understanding the differences among their team members in what they’re comfortable with and what they’re not. Um, and so we do a mix of, you know, team level training as well as one on ones because what’s really like challenging for me is going to be different than what’s challenging for you.
Shelby Breger: Um, and we know we’ve now worked with so many different users across so many different teams that. We sort of know what’s, what each user type is going to need and how, what are the best, but what are the best ways to cater to their experience so that they can [00:30:00] feel confident in front of the customer doing this as quickly as possible?
Shelby Breger: Um, because that’s what everybody wants is people want to feel that confidence right off the bat as quickly as possible. And so our goal is how do we help you get there and feel confident in what you’re doing? Um, and also give you the right level of training and support. And so some people, like they love to run out there, go, go use it a bunch of times, then come back to us.
Shelby Breger: Some people want to meet with us five times before they use it in front of a customer. Either is fine. We’ll support either journey. Um, it’s, it’s just about how are we going to help you be successful in the field?
Wyatt Smith: I love that. That’s great. Adaptability with your team to help them win. Curious with the skill labor shortage, with the challenges that exist around enough people that have the right experience and training to come and be successful in the trades.
Wyatt Smith: How are you seeing that impacting your business? How are you thinking about your roadmap in a way that’s going to. Both adapt to it and, and help to serve people with it. What are your plans for the future related to that, that context?
Shelby Breger: Like helping. [00:31:00] Yeah. With that, that skilled workforce gap and trying to support in whatever way we can.
Shelby Breger: I mean, everything about our roadmap is about making our platform as easy to navigate and usable as possible, and then also create more and more tools that can help you engage the customer. And I think a perfect example of this is when we released our augmented reality Uh, visualizer, what you can do there, visualizing equipment in different spaces inside the home and outside the home.
Shelby Breger: Um, any, that, that’s very logical to, frankly, anyone. We’ve done that, like, I, I don’t know if you’ve used, like, the apps where you can visualize what, like, a different pair of glasses is going to look like on your face. Or, like, what a couch is going to look like in your room, but it’s the same thing. And it’s something that, like, you don’t need any training to pick that up and know what to do with it.
Shelby Breger: And I think as we think about different tools that we can release. There are different, there’s a lot of value that can be created that isn’t as, that doesn’t require a lot of analysis, but we can share because we have done the, like, through computer software engineering, we [00:32:00] can actually develop great answers, great results, and great designs off of a range of different things or different features that are Thank you.
Shelby Breger: A lower barrier to entry or to require even less onboarding and training than what we have today.
Wyatt Smith: I, well, I’m excited to keep learning from you. The work you’re doing is really important. And, uh, the reputation that your company and team has as a result of serving people well is, is super high and that’s well deserved for sure.
Shelby Breger: Well, that’s super kind. Um, and something we work hard to earn.
Wyatt Smith: All right, so we have a lightning round, which are some questions for us to learn about, about you and about some of the things that make you tick.
Wyatt Smith: All right. Productivity hack. We’re all about producing more with the time that we have. What’s the most effective productivity hack that, You take advantage of.
Shelby Breger: Um, I use a platform that enables me to like, when I make calls that it enables me to call and like, just like speed it up.
Shelby Breger: So it’s, it’s something that like, it’s called like a power dialer. So I just create myself my list of tasks and it goes through them one at a time. And it goes, it drops my time into thirds. So I need to call a few of our users just to check in. If it, if they don’t pick up, I just move on to the next one.
Shelby Breger: And it goes super quickly. Um, that’s a small productivity hack, but it is one that I really love because it just gets me back 40 minutes of my day every day.
Wyatt Smith: All right. And what’s it called?
Shelby Breger: This one’s called Orum. I have tons of like tons of other platforms out there, but lots of power dialers, um, that if you are somebody who needs to make a bunch of phone calls [00:34:00] in a day or knows what your tasks are going to be, and you need like some rigor around it, when it comes to making follow up calls, um, that is a perfect tool,
Wyatt Smith: it’s called a Orum, you said.
Shelby Breger: Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: All right. Spell that.
Shelby Breger: O R U M.
Wyatt Smith: O R U M. All right, folks.
Shelby Breger: There’s out there. So it’s, but it’s a, it’s a great, it can be a great tool depending on your, your needs for it.
Wyatt Smith: I bet there’s people out there that need to be power dialing. So this is a good hack. What do you think is a question that people should ask themselves more often?
Shelby Breger: I mean, the number one one is like, what could I have done better, um, in that situation and, and evaluate, you know, we’re all going to make mistakes and we have to give ourselves grace when we make those mistakes. But especially when it involves other people, I’m thinking about like, how could I have, maybe that went fine, but what could I have done better to make that go great?
Shelby Breger: Um, and I think that is, um, I think that that’s something that [00:35:00] at least is like core to a lot of my team members here at Conduit is like, we’re always thinking about how can we make ourselves better? How can we make the company better? Um, but also how can we make our relationships with one another even better as well?
Shelby Breger: So what could I have done better would be the question I ask.
Wyatt Smith: Continuous improvement. That’s great. Exactly. If you could go back in time and give advice to your future, your former self about the future, what would you, what would you counsel the younger Shelby on?
Shelby Breger: I would say move faster. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s funny because I always like look back at my past self and I’m like, man, I could have done more.
Shelby Breger: Um, and I think that is, um, there’s a balance, of course, you don’t want to just move quickly for the sake of moving quickly. But I think that like, I think this is, that’s probably my number one thing is like, what could I have done to accelerate what I learned in the first year of Conduit and learn that in six months instead?
Shelby Breger: Is that possible? But like, I would love to have moved through that faster so that we could have gotten to the stage that we’re at right now, which is so fun and so energizing. [00:36:00] Um, but how can we get there faster so that we can deliver the impact we want at a broader scale?
Wyatt Smith: Podcast recs, book recs, things that you would encourage other people to check out?
Shelby Breger: Yes. Um, well, obviously this podcast. Um, followed by, I also really enjoy the Rilla Labs podcast, which I know Wyatt, an episode with Wyatt’s upcoming. Thanks Um, and I would also say, um, HVAC School, that’s my, my third favorite, uh, not, those are not in rank order, but my, my, uh, top three right there, um, I think it’s a phenomenal podcast that goes deep into a lot of technical elements as well, and it’s just been such a great way to learn about the trade.
Shelby Breger: Um, those are going to be my three favorite for the trades.
Wyatt Smith: Great. Those are good ones to check out. Well, we, we also want to make sure our listeners have a chance to learn more about what you’re building and, and know how to support you. What’s the best way that they could be in touch?
Shelby Breger: Absolutely. So our website is going to be getconduit.com. [00:37:00] There is, um, you can always book a time directly to meet with our team there. Um, we also have our contact information and then you’re also always welcome to email me, which is going to be Shelby, my first name at getconduit.com. So very simple, very easy and, and pretty phonetic.
Wyatt Smith: Easy to find. Uh, and you respond very quickly in my experience.
Wyatt Smith: So it’s, uh, awesome to have you on the Untapped with UpSmith podcast. The work that you’re doing is super important. We’re, we’re glad to be a, a peer that’s out there working hard in the trenches, uh, alongside you. And thank you for your friendship. It’s really fun to, to keep building.
Shelby Breger: It is. Thanks, Wyatt.
Wyatt Smith: Take care. Alright folks, we’ll see you next time. Take care.
