David Rosa

06-06-20

Reflection – Learning Launch    Challenge    I am the founder and an owner of a technology company focused on distributed energy  resources installed on and in buildings.  We have developed a vertical axis wind turbine to be  installed on rooftops.  Historically, the problem for any wind turbines being installed on  rooftops is that the limited size of the roof and its capacity to hold a large wind turbine limited  the volume of power that could be generated to the point that there was no real commercial  benefit as a result of doing so.  Our challenge is to install technology on a rooftop that will  produce enough power for the building to make it worthwhile to commercially develop and  scale.  There are many significant hurdles, from architectural and structural to performance,  efficiency and aesthetics to consider, which could take years for us to prove and attempt to  satisfy all customer needs.  In addition, the technology calls for what is referred to as an “array  system” of installation, which includes 6 units per installation to be most efficient.  Making and  installing 6 units can be quite expensive and time consuming such that, financially, it is a  significant commitment to the buyer, and a profitable endeavor for my business.  And in the  world of technology, first mover can be very beneficial, so time is of the essence.    Selection    Our team had developed and iterated multiple prototypes of the new technology in the shop  and had not yet installed on a rooftop.  In order to test our full array system, the cost was  greater than $1.0 Million, and thus we chose to explore 4 Learning Launches with 4 potential  future customers.  We called them “pilots”, and we set out to execute them cheaply and quickly  with each client, based on the different needs of each client.  Each different need was also  considered as a way to explore the likely different sub-categories of building markets we could  approach in the future (e.g. industrial vs. commercial, high-rise residential vs. office parks, and  urban environments vs. islands).    Application    For our multi-pronged learning launch, we set up the teams for execution into multiple pods,  with each pod targeting one turbine install each and one specific installation characteristic to  pursue.  This reduced the number of units we could use in the learning and maximized the  impact of what we could learn.  We then assigned each of the 4 installs one major goal to learn;  1. Architectural aesthetics, 2.  Structural integrity, 3.  Building code/commissioning ease of  install, and 4.  Performance maximization.  Internally of course, we wanted to know all of these  factors for all of the installs, so we assigned the same set of team member functions to every  project pod but used different team members to participate in those roles.  While this may  seem like a large number of people, the collective total was still less than one-fourth the  number of personnel we had projected to use on the actual launch eventually, and given the  volume of learning to come, we as owners felt it was worth it. (hint: it most certainly was).

David Rosa

06-06-20

We believed that we could a) install in an architecturally pleasing way, b) do so with the needed  structural integrity to c) meet all building codes in a given jurisdiction and d) perform at a high  enough capacity to provide greater than 25% of the building’s power directly to the building  from its rooftop.  Trying to do all these in one place would have been extremely costly, and  risky.  Each pod was then given this as their “goal” for their specific pilot to test our ability to  execute for the customer’s specific needs at that location.  The first customer being primarily  interested in a product that was pleasing to the eye and complemented the building  (architectural aesthetics).  The second concerned with installing a great deal of weight on their  rooftop (structural integrity).  The third being mostly concerned with the adherence to certain  building codes pertaining to electrical and hurricane codes (ease of install).  And the fourth  customer focused entirely on how much power we could generate (performance).  Each pilot  would solve for that customer’s needs first, and then we would combine all of the solutions and  learnings into future solutions.  Each of their “must be trues” became our pilot goals as we  searched for the truth of both what our customers needed and more importantly “why”.  As  pilots, the customer’s involvement was critical at every stage.      Insight    The insights gained in this process were astounding.  Quite simply, we were both ecstatic and  terrified at the same time.  Allow me to break it down by pod:  For the Architectural pod, we  incorporated the feedback of the architects while designing the installation, placing the turbine  on the roof, shaping the base connections to the building and including the customer in the  dialogue all along.  As we did so, we discovered desires from both the building owner and the  architect that were far more robust and exciting that we had hoped, but also quite unrealistic  to execute.  As the install progressed, we discovered the client was less happy with the  aesthetics and more focused on performance than they had originally offered, and thus the  volume of changes requested became a questionable cost we realized may not be worth it for  us to satisfy the architect, which was our original assumed ‘need’.  For the Structural pod, we  had focused the team on structural options to achieve best possible install.  We discovered that  some of the solutions offered by the engineering team were quite impressive and yet quite ugly  to the architects, even though more structurally sound.  One potential solution actually  changed the design of the product itself, which we did not anticipate at all.  For the building  code/ease of install pod, we found that our engineering teams had done an incredible job  actually ‘overengineering’ the prototype, meaning they had ensured that every aspect met the  most stringent of codes.  This was both great to hear and left us wondering if we had spent too  much capital overengineering it.  The answer was likely “yes”, and yet, we were thankful to  discover it now!  And finally, the Performance pod had been tasked with finding the very best  rooftop location and options for improving performance while actually on the roof.  When the  decided installing at roof’s edge, the team accidentally discovered the use of what we now call  a “spoiler”, which is like a spoiler on the back of a race car, that helps direct the wind flowing up  the side of a building into the turbine and improves performance.  This is now patented for us.   All four of these pilots were accomplished in a 3-month period, approximately one fourth the  timeframe of a projected commercial install.

David Rosa

06-06-20

Approach    The vast amount of learning achieved during the multi-pod learning launch delivered us wisdom  beyond expectations.  While we believe it could have been done faster, and potentially with  fewer people, we would not have learned of the structural options had we focused on  performance and aesthetics primarily, which we were doing prior to the learning launch pilots.   The ability of the Performance pod team to focus strictly on that aspect and not any others, led  them to a discovery that, now patented, will boost our performance dramatically and become a  key aspect of our product offering.  This would have been unachievable any other way than in a  learning launch.  And the Architectural pod team received such powerful feedback from the  customer on shape and look and feel of the product that we have changed our design to meet  the needs of the customer and his/her architect.      Final result, we have a better looking, stronger, building ready, and higher performing product  as a direct result of the learning launch.  We are now going to market with confidence and data  that brings us all great hope for our future.      Thanks Design Thinking, our business is better since we met!

*The New Hover Wind System – watch for it on a building near you….soon!

