How a Whole-House Contractor Beats the Tech Startups with Larry Waters

A Contractor Beats Tech Startups Without an In-Home Visit

Larry Waters built Electrify My Home around a bet that homeowners want a contractor who fixes the house rather than swapping equipment. He replaced the in-home visit with an intake form and a virtual assessment that filters tire kickers and lets him quote a budget before anyone drives out. The company handles insulation, air sealing, testing and electrical work in house, and Waters trains competitors because California has 14m houses.

Takeaways

• Electrify My Home only does all-electric work. Larry Waters built the company around electrification and says that in six years he has never installed anything gas. The company decarbonizes homes and sells the comfort and technology benefits to customers rather than leading with carbon.
• He fixes the house, not just equipment. Electrify My Home treats the house as a system, doing attic insulation, air sealing, blower door testing and all electrical work in house, with a subcontractor for other envelope work. Customers deal with one company.
• Deficiencies beat equipment swaps. Waters compares competitors who offset a home's deficiencies with new equipment to pouring water into a bucket with a hole. He fixes the deficiencies instead, so the equipment performs as intended.
• Carbon motivates only a fifth of customers. About 20% of Electrify My Home customers mention carbon or climate. The rest want better technology and a quality buying experience. They also want a contractor who can explain what sets them apart, so Waters sells on comfort and competence.
• He trains competitors to face larger rivals. California has 14m houses, so Waters says there is plenty of work for everyone. He teaches through utility workforce education programs and Energy Circle cohorts, building a Rolodex of trained companies across California to operate as a team.
• Retirement is three or four years away. Waters is 62 and plans to retire in three or four years. He says the crew at Electrify My Home will keep the business going, and he knew from the start that someone else would have to do the paperwork.

The Electrify My Home sales process

1. Customers fill out an intake form that Waters says filters out tire kickers because it requires some sweat.
2. The form triggers a virtual assessment, which he frames differently for each customer, including the embedded carbon saved by keeping four contractors off the road.
3. The assessment ends with budget numbers that customers sign as a handshake agreement before any site visit.
4. The quoted number is the top-end figure 98% of the time, and the monthly drop rate is about 1 to 2%.