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Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast artwork

172 Rejections Later: How Stuart Lombard Built ecobee Into a Smart Home Leader

Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast · 2026-03-12 · 28 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

54 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density11 / 20
Originality9 / 20
Guest Caliber15 / 20
Specificity & Evidence12 / 20
Conversational Craft7 / 20

Stuart Lombard built ecobee into a smart home leader despite facing 172 VC rejections, a Nest invasion by Google, and the structural complexities of hardware-software integration. In this conversation, Lombard discusses how mission-driven branding around climate impact attracted both talent and customers, the critical differences between hardware and software development cultures (waterfall planning, fail-safe requirements, inventory forecasting), and the operational reinvention required to scale from 10 to 600 employees. He explores decision-making frameworks like Playing to Win and OKRs that replaced ad-hoc prioritization, world-class hiring in design and AI talent as competitive moats, and how ecobee ultimately outcompeted Google's Nest by focusing on customer service and data privacy - strengths that larger tech companies could not execute. For B2B operators building scaled hardware companies or competing against well-funded entrants, Lombard's insights on resilience, capability-building, and competing on customer-centric differentiation rather than features alone offer concrete strategic lessons.

Key takeaways

  • →Resilience through rejection can be a competitive advantage - ignoring VC feedback to pursue the thermostat market proved more valuable than accepting conventional wisdom about market viability.
  • →Hardware and software require fundamentally different operational models; waterfall development cycles for retail inventory commitments conflict with agile software sprints, requiring separate innovation tracks for risky new features.
  • →Scaling a company requires CEO reinvention every 50-100 employees; decision-making frameworks like one-way vs. bet-the-company decisions and the Playing to Win strategy model become essential for organizational coherence.
  • →Competing against giants like Google/Nest forced ecobee to identify specific defensible advantages (world-class design, AI forecasting, customer service, sustainability) rather than trying to compete on all dimensions.
  • →Machine learning models for retail forecasting revealed that top-quartile stores sold 16x more than bottom-quartile stores, enabling precision inventory management across 500+ component supply chains.

In this episode

  1. 1From Internet Service Provider to Accidental Entrepreneur
  2. 2172 Venture Capital Rejections and the Decision to Persevere
  3. 3Hardware vs Software: Building a Thermostat Company
  4. 4Inventory Management and Machine Learning Forecasting
  5. 5Scaling from 10 to 600 Employees: Reinventing Leadership
  6. 6Strategy Frameworks and Decision-Making at Scale
  7. 7Competing with Nest: Turning Threat into Opportunity
  8. 8Differentiation Through Customer Service and Sustainability

Mentioned

ecobeeNestGoogleStuart LombardVenture GuidesHome DepotGeneracTIMESage NyeJeff BezosPlaying to Win

Guests

Stuart Lombard

Topics in this episode

OKRsGoogleSupply chain managementHome DepotMission-driven cultureecobeeNestPlaying to Win frameworkmachine learning forecastingsmart thermostat designdata privacy in smart homesMission-driven leadershiptransparencyleadership reinventionhardware complexity

Questions this episode answers

What are the key differences between building hardware-software companies versus pure software companies?

Hardware development requires waterfall planning with fixed retail windows (e.g., Home Depot deadlines), cannot employ fail-fast culture due to safety and recall risks with devices in homes, and requires meticulous inventory management across ~500 components per product. This contrasts with software's sprint-based agility and tolerance for rapid iteration.

How did ecobee compete against Google's Nest after it entered the market?

Ecobee realized that Nest's greatest strengths (scale, tech focus) were also weaknesses - Google would never prioritize customer service or sustainability the way ecobee could. By excelling in hands-on customer support and positioning around energy savings and climate impact, ecobee differentiated where the larger competitor couldn't execute.

What frameworks helped ecobee scale from 10 to 600 employees without losing strategy alignment?

Stuart implemented Playing to Win (clarifying aspirations, where to play, and how to win), decision-making frameworks distinguishing bet-the-company decisions from routine ones, and OKRs to replace ad-hoc prioritization and expose cross-team dependencies that were causing bottlenecks.

Why did ecobee reject 172 VC pitches before securing funding?

Early investors dismissed the $250 smart thermostat as unmarketable before Nest proved the market existed. After Nest's success, VCs argued the market was already won. Stuart persevered by ignoring this advice, recognizing that venture capitalists are wrong 90% of the time and lack perfect foresight.

How did ecobee use machine learning to manage retail inventory and forecasting?

Ecobee built ML models to predict demand by store and detect merchandising issues in real time. They discovered top-quartile stores sold 16 times more units than bottom-quartile stores, and the algorithms could identify when retail partners failed to stock shelves even when partners didn't realize it themselves.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

11 / 20

There are genuine operational insights - hardware waterfall vs. software sprints, a separate innovation 'labs track,' and the 16x store-performance variance discovered via ML - but these are interspersed with extended motivational storytelling, recycled platitudes about resilience, and framework name-drops that add little net density for a B2B operator.

our top quartile stores sold 16 times more than our bottom quartile store. So it was like bottom quartile was, let's say 1 times unit, next quartile was 4, next was 8, next was 16
we had to actually create like a whole different labs track, which was separate from our production track, where we could Take risks and innovate and prove out technologies before they went into a product

Originality

9 / 20

The 'enemy of my enemy' framing applied to Apple and Amazon against Google is a genuine strategic insight, but the episode leans heavily on well-worn references - Bezos one-way doors, Jim Collins, Playing to Win, OKRs, Scott Adams - that circulate freely in founder circles, and the closing lesson is a Caddyshack quote.

the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so when we looked at Google, who are Google's enemies? Well, at the time, you know, Apple and Amazon were competing on a whole bunch of fronts
Jeff Bezos talks about this too as being sort of one way door decisions

Guest Caliber

15 / 20

Stuart Lombard is a genuine multi-time operator - built Canada's largest ISP, spent eight years as a VC partner, then scaled Ecobee to 600 employees over 16 years through hardware, retail, and a competitive battle with Google before a strategic exit to Generac; he has clearly done the thing at scale.

I started one of Canada's first Internet service providers, which became Canada's largest Internet service provider. And we took that company public
I spent eight years as a partner in a venture capital firm

Specificity & Evidence

12 / 20

The episode has meaningful specificity in places - 500 thermostat components, 16x store quartile variance, ML demand forecasting, hiring an AI team in 2015 - but the $500M Google loss is explicitly labelled hearsay ('whisper numbers') and much of the scaling and culture advice remains at the level of anecdote rather than named metrics or timelines.

There are about 500 components that go into an Ecobee thermostat
the whisper numbers were they were spending, you know, or losing $500 million a year in that business

Conversational Craft

7 / 20

The host relies heavily on soft, chronological setup questions and repeatedly summarises the guest's answer back to him for confirmation rather than probing deeper; there is no pushback, no follow-up on specific claims, and the 'rapid fire' section yields generic VC-selection advice that any standard question would have produced.

Do I have that correct? Absolutely. Yeah.
What kept you going? And was there something that you were able to learn from those rejections?

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Stuart Lombardguest76%
  • Sage Nyehost24%

Most-used words

important21venture16market15ecobee15first12better11didn11product11different11customers10felt10smart10part9idea9home8customer8

Episode notes

What if getting rejected 172 times was the best thing that could happen to your startup? In this episode of Built Not Born , host Sage Nye sits down with Stuart Lombard, co-founder and former CEO of ecobee, to unpack the grit and strategic clarity required to build a lasting company. After 172 investor rejections, Stuart transformed ecobee into a trusted smart home brand competing against giants like Google and Nest. He shares how founders must develop the judgment to filter advice, balance hardware’s operational rigidity with software’s agility, and recognise true product-market fit before scaling. Stuart also explains why culture, transparency, and mission-driven leadership aren’t soft ideals but competitive advantages. From navigating hardware complexity to building a 600-person organisation, this conversation reveals how resilience, focus, and long-term thinking turn scrappy startups into market leaders.

Full transcript

28 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

The benefits of being a mission driven business were huge because it attracted employees and customers and it allowed us to create a brand that stood for something. And I think people felt certainly I felt this way, that I wasn't just making widgets, I was making the world a better place. And I think that was important to me. And I think a lot of people who joined the company, that was important and then I think that came through to our customers who were like, this company is about more than just selling me an individual device.

On the performance culture part, I think that's really important. Hello everyone and welcome to Built Not Born, the Startup Go to market podcast by Venture Guides. I'm Sage Nye and around here we believe that great companies are built not born one smart decision at a time. Each week we take you through real conversations with founders, investors and go to market experts on what it really takes to land customers and scale your startup.

Now let's get to work. Welcome to Built Not Born, the podcast where we dive into the real stories behind startup execution, venture capital and go to market strategy. I'm Sage Nye, partner here at Venture Guides. Today's guest has built a company that you have definitely heard of and many of you have probably used in your own homes.

At ecobee, Stuart Lombard co invented the smart thermostat, got rejected by VCs 172 times which we will be covering later and one finally funded him. He raised capital, was a market leader and then then was gut punched by a 10,000 pound gorilla. Instead of giving in, Stewart raised Ecobee's game and focused on what they could offer that his competition could not partnered with the smart device ecosystem and preserved data privacy. Ultimately, by always putting customers first, Stewart out customered the giant and became a time recognized 200 best inventions of 2022 along with many many accolades I should add.

Over 16 years he turned Ecobee into one of the most beloved smart home brands on the planet. And his customers have collectively saved over 30 teraw energy which if you're wondering is enough to take Los Angeles and Chicago off the grid for an entire year. He sold the company to Generac without ever losing sight of the reason why he started it. To fight climate change.

So Stuart, thank you so much and welcome to the show. Thanks very much for having me. I'd love to start by giving the audience a little bit of background from your perspective. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

Sure. So, engineer by training, accidental entrepreneur. Actually I was going to go to business school until I quit and I was out west. And I was skiing and I was bored and.

And I wrote a business plan for an Internet service provider in 1994. And rather than going to business school, I took the money that I was going to spend at business school and I started one of Canada's first Internet service providers, which became Canada's largest Internet service provider. And we took that company public and. And then I had the bug.

And so I've started a couple of companies. The most recent one was Ecobee, and in between, I spent eight years as a partner in a venture capital firm. Wow. I gotta say, I'm a customer of Ecobee.

I've shared some of the funny stories about I can change the temperature in my home for the people that are there even when I am not, which has led to a lot amusement for myself. It's a wonderful feature, but crazy background and definitely puts into context. You know, the next time our listeners are bored, they could scroll LinkedIn or Instagram or they could start a company. What a wild experience.

I'd love to jump into some of the story of Ecobee. You've talked about getting rejected by venture capitalists 172 times. Most entrepreneurs would have given up on trying to fundraise and build a company well before that period. What kept you going?

And was there something that you were able to learn from those rejections? Yeah, it was certainly very difficult. I mean, when we started, I was very excited about our business as entrepreneurs are, and went to all these VCs and I was like, hey, we've got this great $250 thermostat. And they were like, stuart, nobody cares about thermostats.

Right? And no one's going to pay $250 for a thermostat. And then after, you know, Nest came out, all the venture capitalists were like, of course, Everybody wants a $250 thermostat, but the market's already been won. Life is too short.

Fail fast, Go home and do something productive with your life. And, you know, I remember, I have one vivid memory of a day kind of like today. It was a freezing cold day in Toronto. You know, the wind was blowing and I had just been rejected for probably the 170th time.

And I went down the elevator and, you know, went out on the street and, you know, when you go in the old days, you went through the failings of people smoking outside the buildings. And I'm not a smoker, but I was like, so stressed. I was like, I bummed a smoke of someone and I stood on the corner. And I was like, should I quit?

Should I quit? Should I quit? And I said, you know what? I'm not quitting.

And, you know, I just kind of resolved to keep going. And I think, you know, when you read lots of people's venture stories, it's a lot about resilience and perseverance and resourcefulness. And, you know, that's really what it took. And, you know, in the end, you know, everything turned out well, so, you know, it worked out well.

But I think that idea that if you put your mind to something and you're willing to work hard, you know, you can really achieve anything. And I think that was the, you know, the biggest lesson. I guess the other lesson, which Scott Adams has this great quote, which is venture capitalism is the only profession where you get paid an outrageous amount of money to be wrong 90% of the time. And so, you know, I think VCs are super smart and, you know, they have a lot of good ideas, but, you know, nobody has a perfect view of the future.

And I think as a CEO, one of your toughest challenges is figuring out which advice to take and which advice to ignore. And thankfully for us, I ignored that advice. And so, you know, that was another piece of learning that maybe take away from it. Did it help put a chip on your shoulder to just want to prove all 172 wrong and build, like, the Vegas company and.

And do all of that, or. Or not quite? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I used to joke that I'd tell people, I was like, you know, I'm actually seven feet tall, but because I have all these tips on my shoulders, I'm just six feet tall.

But it was definitely motivation, I think, to prove people wrong. And however you need the motivation, it definitely helped. It is interesting, most of the companies that we talk to on this podcast and frankly, in the market that we spend time in as venture guides, are pure software companies. But Ecobee, to your point, had the $250 smart thermostat, which is obviously hardware and software dependent.

What are some of the biggest differences and challenges that you saw building a sort of hardware and software company versus your previous ones, which were mostly software? Some of the differences are cultural and some of the differences are structural. Right. And so one of the things that I didn't appreciate was a cultural difference was hardware development tends to be very waterfall.

And if you think about having a retail product, for sure, where you need to be on store in, let's say, Home Depot. And Home Depot has told you, like, you have a week window May 7 to May 12. And you know, if your product doesn't show up that day, it's not going to be in store. And the next date is in September.

And so your work back schedule creates this waterfall, right, to get all the different things together to happen at the same time. And our software teams were like, we don't plan ahead. Like, you know, we want to plan in sprints, right. So if it's longer than two weeks, I have no clue what's going to happen.

And one of the strengths and opportunities of being a hardware company is that you have to put your stuff in packaging and you have to print the packaging. And so it's like if the feature is on the box and we can't ship it on time, like we're in deep trouble. And so culturally managing that I think was something that was really quite interesting and maybe unexpected. I think the other thing is that fail fast and break things doesn't work in hardware.

Right. And so when you put devices into millions of people's homes, and I mean heating, cooling is, it's not like a pacemaker, so it's not that mission critical. But people want their heat to work. I have frozen pipes and leaks and.

Yes, exactly. So you can't afford to make mistakes. And you know, if you brick devices or if you have a safety issue, you know, and you have to recall those devices from the field, it's incredibly expensive and it probably takes the company under. And so you have to be very meticulous and careful.

And you know, and we thought a lot about that to make sure, you know, we had an instance, for example, where our manufacturer decided to change the assembly instructions, all for good reasons, but they got it wrong, unfortunately. And you know, before, you know, you've got, you know, hundreds of thousands of broken devices in the field that you have to get back. And so it's painful. And then of course, the other thing is all around, you know, things like inventory and supply chain and managing your inventory.

I think sort of also how you take risk is a problem. Like because your development cycle is so fixed and we need to get this product to market by this date, you can't take a lot of risk in that product development process. And so what we realized is that, you know, we wanted to create these new features that were super exciting for consumers, but they came with risks. Right.

We didn't know whether we could actually accomplish them or not. And so we had to actually create like a whole different labs track, which was separate from our production track, where we could Take risks and innovate and prove out technologies before they went into a product. Because of course if you got halfway through the process and you realized that that new air quality sensor that you wanted to use that you thought was such a great idea didn't work right, then all of a sudden your whole process was behind like a year or something like that.

So those were some of the challenges we had. And when you think about taking risks as well, I imagine inventory management is quite hard because use the, I think you said Home Depot earlier, use that example. You have a certain window to get them to product to put on the shelves, but you also need to make sure it's enough products that there's something for someone to buy until you can restock. But not too much where you've put too much on the shelves and then you don't have enough for somewhere else or it's too much capex or something.

How do you think through questions like that. It's a great question. I mean, we used to joke like we can't pay ourselves in thermostats, right? So that was sort of like the stick was like, okay, we get this wrong.

We're all getting paid in thermostats and thermostats. You can't pay the rent with thermostats. And so it's a big problem. It's a big challenge also because you know, your retail partners don't necessarily know what's happening in their own stores, right?

And so forecasting becomes really, really important. And you know, There are about 500 components that go into an Ecobee thermostat. So getting all those components at your manufacturer at the right time in just the right quantities. So to your point, you don't use up too much working capital is a big challenge.

Forecasting demand, I think in any business is a challenge. And then forecasting what's happening in your retail stores is also a big challenge. And so we used some pretty incredible machine learning models to predict what was happening in stores. One of the things that was really interesting is that you'd think most stores would sell roughly the same amount of units.

But our top quartile stores sold 16 times more than our bottom quartile store. So it was like bottom quartile was, let's say 1 times unit, next quartile was 4, next was 8, next was 16, right? So if you lost a top quartile store, that was really bad. And so anyway, so we'd be even able to predict what was happening in store.

And that could be things like Your display goes down or your partner doesn't put inventory on shelves. We had a situation where one of our partners, they didn't actually merchandise the product for like, three months, but they didn't know it. They were like, oh, no, no. Sales are just slow.

But we could figure out through this machine learning algorithm that they actually hadn't put the units on the shelf. And so a lot of it is around, you know, sort of detailed forecasting and understanding, you know, what's happening in the field and then having a strategy. And we had all these algorithms that kind of predicted safety stock and how components of everything that we needed based on lead times. That's really impressive.

Especially putting into context that you were well before the age of AI when you could just point a model at it and have it tell you insights and answers. You actually had to come up with the algorithms to figure it out yourself. Really impressive. So along those lines, Ecobee has grown from a tiny startup to over 600 employees.

And it grew to that scale in about 16 years, which is really impressive, especially when you think about all of the complications that go into this type of business. Were there moments when you realized that your current mode of operations couldn't scale and you had to shift? And then how did you recognize that in those moments? I think one of the biggest challenges for me personally as a CEO was reinventing myself.

And I really felt like I had to reinvent myself every couple of years because being 10 people in a business is different than being 50 people in a business, different than 200, different than 600. How you communicate and how you operate the business is very, very different. And I think some of those things are like, you're sitting at your desk and you hear someone say, like, I don't understand our strategy or I don'. I don't know why we do what we do.

And you're like, oh, my God, like, to me, anyway, that was like a heart attack, you know, because I was so used to working with, like, 12 people. Everybody knew everybody. And if all of a sudden, like, you know, somebody had a question, they would just turn around, you know, swivel their chair and talk to you. And then there was a period where we grew from like, 200 employees to 400 employees.

And all of a sudden we realized, like, we were making the same mistakes that we had made previously, and we had lost the institutional knowledge. Like, we had gone through all these, like, incredibly difficult, like, processes where we had gotten good at things and learned things. And then, because there were so many new people, how do you get those people up to speed? How do you help them learn?

How do you help them not make the same mistakes? And so those were some of the cues. Maybe one other one is I used to joke that in the early days, the way we managed the business, we were like, you know, five year olds playing soccer, you know, and if you ever watch 5 year olds playing soccer, you know, they're all glommed on the ball and wherever the ball goes, they, you know, they run with it. And that's sort of the way the business worked.

And the kind of, you know, the brain trust would sort of follow the ball and, you know, and then all of a sudden you were playing on multiple fields and I just couldn't keep up. And Lucille Ball was a comedian in the 50s and she has this great skit where she's in a chocolate factory and she's. Her and her friend Ethel are putting chocolates into chocolate boxes. Somebody bought a conveyor belt and.

And then somebody speeds up the conveyor belt, right? And so they're like, you know, sticking chocolates in their pocket and they're like down their shirt and they're eating them and it's a complete mess. But that's the way that I felt because the decisions were coming like faster and faster and I was like, I couldn't keep up. And maybe one other, you know, sort of just on the clue and then I'll get to kind of like some of the, the things we tried to do was also like not being the smartest person in the room.

And I don't mean that conceitedly like I was the smartest person in the room. But you know, when you're 10 people, you're deeply involved in all the decisions get made. I knew pretty much what everyone was doing and all that kind of stuff. You know, as we grew and we became a lot more people, I didn't have that context anymore.

And I probably wasn't a very good decision maker because I didn't really understand the context. And so what's my role in making decisions when I'm no longer, you know, I'm really not all that up to speed on like all the details of the decisions that have to be made. And so I think one thing was certainly putting in place like decision making frameworks. And Jeff Bezos talks about this too as being sort of one way door decisions.

Right. And just for me as a CEO, having a sieve of like, is this a bet? The company decision was a massive stress reliever for me because I used to treat every decision as they were existential, right? And so I would stress about it and all that stuff.

And then that allowed me to sort of say, like, this group of decisions I don't have to worry about so much, which was a big deal. And then the second part was really defining our strategy. And so we used a framework called Playing to Win. This great book, Playing to Win by Roger Martin and A.

G. lafley, that sets up this very simple matrix about what are your aspirations, like, what do you hope the business is? And that was the first eye opener for me because I always thought people had the same aspirations as me, but when we actually started writing them down, people had like all kinds of different aspirations. And so that was the first thing.

But I think knowing what you want to be and where you want to go is an important part of setting up your strategy. And then, you know, where to play is kind of like which geographies, which products, which channels. So again, fairly straightforward. And then the other piece that became really helpful was like, how to win.

And that was concretely writing down how you win. And so, you know, one of the things, for example, you know, we realized when Nest came out was that we were actually not that great. So I tell people, like, we thought we were the champions. We were the only ones in the market at the time with a smart thermostat.

And people told us how great we were, but really we weren't playing in the NHL. We were playing like intramural hockey somewhere and we were the intramural champions, right? And then Ness came out and it was like, oh my God, there's this whole other league and this idea of wanting to be great. We always wanted to be great, but being great and wanting to be great are two very different things.

And this idea of like, how you win and setting out, like, what are the core competencies that you need to really win in the market, you know, that was transformational. And so for us, for example, like, we needed a world class design team. We couldn't just kind of like Bob's brother and this person who's our, you know, use our designer as a mechanical engineer. And because we were being resourceful and all that stuff, but it wasn't going to be good enough.

And that put a lot of pressure, I think on me as the CEO to do some of those things. So, for example, you know, we were just talking about our forecasting ability. Well, one of the things we said early on was that we needed to have forecast world class AI talent in the business that we thought was going to be a decider for how well we did. And so we went out probably in 2015 and we hired a AI team that worked on products and all kinds of ML challenges we had and stuff like that across the business.

But that sort of level of organization and thoughtfulness about what it takes to win, you know, what's important versus your competitors. Super, super important. And then that sort of strategy, you know, that maybe changed like once every three years or something like that doesn't change a lot. But then that fed into our annual plans, became our budgets.

And then we used okrs as sort of like our short term planning. And because we didn't have okrs when we started, it was kind of a free for all. And I'd come into the office and I'd say something and people were like, okay, that's the new priority or whatever it was. And okrs allowed us to really hold me accountable, but also to like hold teams accountable to understand what everyone was doing and probably empower your direct reports as well.

Totally. Yeah. And a lot of the bottlenecks that we had were cross team bottlenecks. Teams didn't know what the other teams were doing.

So that was a way of exposing to all the teams. If you're the mobile team and you need somebody to write a server API for you, you know what the server team's doing and you know whether you're on their priority list or not. So therefore you know whether your feature is going to ship or not. So that was pretty transformational for us.

That's awesome. So you brought up the story of Google and Nest and I'd love to spend some more time on that because I do think while maybe not the exact same experience, something similar happens to every company where you have exciting technology. You're bringing something new to the market, you build up a business and then the problem is you get big enough that other people start paying attention and a major company can come in or someone with that background will build something right and risk totally disrupting you.

And so can you take us through sort of what your first reaction was in the moment, but then also how did you think about the strengths of your business and how to move forward as opposed to just sort of giving up or trying to find an exit path? The first reaction was like, oh, we're so dead. That would be most people's. Yeah, like pure panic.

And I remember looking around the room and everyone was a bit shell shocked. And so I think that was sort of the first reaction. I think that in good to great. Jim Collins talks about, you know, having a worthy competitor.

And I think having a worthy competitor is really an important concept. And certainly in our case, they made us better. It forced us to really raise our game. I think before Nest, we'd come up with an idea that was pretty amazing.

And then we'd be like, okay, that never works, you know, or that'll never work, or it'll take too long or it's too hard or it's too whatever. And so we sort of sold our. A great idea down to, let's say 80%, and then let's say our execution was 80%. So then you got like a 56% solution that really wasn't all that great, to be honest.

And so they really forced us to lift our game as we talked about to think about what it takes to really win, what capabilities we have to be really good at. But then we also realized that their greatest strengths are also their greatest weaknesses. You know, because they were so big, there were things that we could do that they could not do right. And so, for example, one of the things we came up with was customer service.

And then we felt like customer service, because installing smart home devices is or can be relatively complicated. Like, customer service was important for our customers. And we thought, google will never do customer service properly, or, you know, it's just not in their. In their ethos.

And sustainability was another one where we thought like, you know, Google is this tech company. We can talk about sustainability. They can't necessarily talk about sustainability. And then we could use their strength against them because they were spending.

Well, the whisper numbers were they were spending, you know, or losing $500 million a year in that business. And they were, you know, super bowl ads and a whole bunch of other things. And so how do we draft behind that awareness that they're creating? And really, that was around customer reviews.

We believed that customers were going to do research, and if we had great customer reviews, they would pick us. And so, you know, we monitored things like NPS religiously and really focused on customer reviews. And then maybe the last thing was really around the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so when we looked at Google, who are Google's enemies?

Well, at the time, you know, Apple and Amazon were competing on a whole bunch of fronts. And so, you know, we felt like if we couldn't win in the Apple ecosystem or the Amazon ecosystem, like, something must be very wrong with us. And so we developed very close relationships with Amazon and Apple, and that served us really well, because for people who wanted to be in the Amazon or the Apple smart home ecosystem. Ecobee was the choice.

So if you were Google, you were going to go Google, it was okay. We were going to probably lose that battle anyway. But if you're one of these other customers in these other ecosystems, you know, that gave us a huge opportunity to win and we really got some brand halo from those two businesses which were super supportive in our own development. That's awesome.

So it sounds like the first thing you did was you had to sort of take a second and realize what the situation was, but then figure out, okay, what are our specific strengths as a company, as a brand? What can we do that they can't? And then not just what can we do alone, but what are the partners that can help give us that exponential lift. To your point at the end as well, do I have that correct?

Absolutely. Yeah. Really great. Okay, so I know we're nearing the end of the session and I do really appreciate your time.

I have a couple rapid fire questions that we hear from the founders that we talk to a lot and I'd love to get your perspective on it. The first one is, you know, you've spoken and worked with many VCs at this point, venture capitalists. How do you think about what to look for, how to pick the right venture capitalist partner? I think first of all, a big part of it is the rapport with the individual partner.

You know, the firm is important, but I think the rapport that you have with the individual partner is the most important. That's the person who's likely going to sit on your board. That's the person who you're going to interact with most. And so I think that's the most important thing.

You know, certainly their reputation I think is really important. And, you know, their ability to bring additional capital I think is important. And I think it's okay to lay out, you know, here's what I want from my VC partner. And so depending on who you are, you might want help building the business, like operational experience, or you might say, like, you know, I've already got that, thank you.

Like, I don't need any more help, but I think that's certainly important. Other industry contacts, business development, there are a lot of things your venture capital partners can bring you. And so thinking about those in advance and thinking about it more than just money, I think is really important. And then understanding the individual partners that you're going to be working with and having a good rapport with them, I think are the most important things.

Makes a Lot of sense. This next one's actually, I think one that you've thought about a lot, particularly as you think about fighting climate change. That mission of Ecobee as well. How do you think about building a mission driven and, or a performance driven culture across your team?

And are those intention or can they work together? I think you need both. And so I think certainly for us, the benefits of being a mission driven business were huge because it attracted employees and customers. Right.

And it allowed us to create a brand that, you know, that stood for something. And I think people felt, certainly I felt this way that, you know, I wasn't just making widgets, I was making the world a better place. And, and I think that was important to me. And I think a lot of people who joined the company, that was important.

And then I think that came through to our customers who were like, this company is about more, more than just selling me an individual device. On the performance culture part, I think that's really important. One of the things we tried to create was a very open, transparent culture. And I always told people, you can disagree with me at any time, I am never going to be upset with you.

If I'm going to walk off a ledge, I would really rather you tell me before I walk on the ledge than after I hit the ground. And you're like, I knew it, but I didn't want to say anything. And so, you know, I mentioned it before. We, when we created our office, for example, we, we created or designed our office intentionally to foster collaboration and to make sure that different people from different departments would interact with each other.

You know, just a simple example, like every wall in the whole office was whiteboard. So if you had an idea, you could scribble it down at any time or you could have an ad hoc meeting at any time. You know, and then our, our lunchroom was like right in the middle of the office. And then adjoining the lunchroom was our hardware lab because it was sort of the center of what we did.

So all of the prototyping and all that kind of stuff that we did, all of that was like sort of front and center so that people could see what we were doing, could understand what was coming, could give people ideas or share ideas or whatever it was. And then I think that idea of holding each other accountable and not in a negative way, right. But people want to be part of successful teams, right? And so understanding how you're doing, measuring success, doing better, you know, those are important things.

And again, those were things that we were very transparent about. So Everybody knew all our financials, everybody knew all of our KPIs, everybody knew all our OKRs and our objectives. And so we could have frank conversations about, you know, where we were succeeding and maybe where we weren't, but then that enabled us to course correct a lot faster. Makes sense.

And as you're thinking about measuring and learning and all that, there's points in a company's life when you want to scale very quickly, and then there's also points where, you know, it makes more sense to protect the balance sheet and maybe prove out a couple more challenges and stuff. How do you think about what indicators to look for or how to know that you're ready to scale? I think there are really two. One is product market fit.

And I think when you have good product market fit, you can really feel the, you know, the market pulling your product. And so, you know, sometimes it feels like a slog, sometimes it's like, wow, orders are coming in and I didn't do a thing. Right. So that's a good time to scale.

And then I think the second part is align to scalable economics in place. Right. And so if you lose more money the more you sell, that's probably not a great thing. But if you have sustainable economics or aligned to sustainable economics, then that's a great time to scale.

A couple last questions I have before we wrap are probably going to be some of the hardest ones. And the first one, I'll warn you, is the most difficult. Can you share one of your favorite memories from the creation and building of Ecobee? One of the greatest memories I have is, you know, when we launched Ecobee4, Ecobee4 was the first product with the voice assistant inside.

And so to kind of go back, you have to think about where we came from, which was like, Stuart, nobody cares about thermostats and what are you going to do six months from now? Because thermostats are already as good as they were ever going to be. Back in the days where, you know, they weren't even Internet connected. Here we were talking about AI and ML and voice and all that kind of stuff.

And so clearly we come a long way. And then for a large part of our history, you know, we had a twin and we had this twin that was Nest. And, you know, we were the black sheep twin. So we were like, not as smart and not as funny and, you know, we had no personality.

And it's et cetera, et cetera. And so in around that time, the narrative flipped and we became equal or better than Nest. And I remember just walking into the office one day and as I said, we had a hardware lab in the middle and we had this great open lunch area where people could gather and all that kind of stuff. And the office was a buzz.

And I just remember thinking like, we're getting better. Every day you walk into the office and I feel like we're doing things better and better and better. And it sort of started as kind of like a slow walk and just felt like we were getting better. And I was just so proud of the team and all they'd accomplished.

It just felt like, you know what, we're, we're world class. Like we're good. And not only that we're good, but getting better. That must have been an amazing feeling to that point, I think leadership goes a long way.

And learning these leadership lessons, you've talked about reinventing yourself so many different times throughout the build. What's a lesson that you wish more founders understood as they're growing their businesses? My favorite lesson is actually from Caddyshack, which is, you know, you know that part where Chevy Chase is with Danny and he's like, see your future, be your future. And I really feel like a lot of the limitations that we put in place are limitations that we have are limitations we put on ourselves.

And this idea of having a clear vision of where you want to go, what you want to do, and then striving to do that, I think is really in reach and I think probably more in reach than a lot of people think. And so see your future, be your future. Fantastic. Well, Stuart, thank you so much for your time today.

This has been really insightful eye opening for me and all that goes into building a solution in a company like Ecobee. And frankly, just a very fun conversation as well. Where can people learn more about you and your work these days? Best places on LinkedIn so.

Stuart Lombard on LinkedIn. Awesome. Well, thank you again. I know that there's a lot to take away from this episode and I'm excited for people to be hearing it.

Thank you. Build Not Born, the Startup Go to Market podcast is brought to you by Venture Guides. To find out more about Venture Guides and and how our venture capital plus guiding model helps early stage startups build scalable go to market strategies and grow faster. Visit ventureguides.

com and then make sure to search for Built Not Born in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts, or anywhere else that you listen. Hit subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. And we look forward to building with you. On behalf of the team here at Venture Guides, thanks for listening.

Until next time, keep building Significant.

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