Sighten Solar Review
Co-Founders
Sighten, based in San Francisco, was founded in 2013 by Co Founder: Conlan O Leary, Co Founder: Graham Hommel and Co Founder: David Villagra to create an independent software platform for the residential solar market. Sighten provides solutions for solar installers, channel managers and financiers. As one of the few software companies that provides solutions for several parts of the solar residential value chain, Sighten stands out.
The Needs of a Residential Solar Company
The residential solar market is driven by the need to deliver solutions to differing customer requirements in large volumes. This requires a robust sales, design and quotation process to address the consumer needs effectively. Software such as Sighten provide the backbone of this process, additionally functionality for the channel managers and financiers differentiates Sighten from the competition.
Partnership with Sunnova: Leading Privately Held U S Residential Solar Service Provider
In 2019 the residential solar market in United States was fast evolving and Sighten CEO & Co Founder, Conlan O Leary announced that “Sighten has launched a major partnership with Sunnova the leading privately held U S Residential Solar & Storage service provider”.
Sighten partnerships with leading solar asset management and solar financing companies puts them in a strong position to build on the value chain and provide support over the life cycle of solar & storage installation.
Sighten
Sales & Marketing
Sighten allows for exploration of the marketing and sales strategy that is pertinent to the interest of solar companies. Their solar sales series blog posts dives in and describes the sales using the science of decision making. Sighten would be boosting your solar sales by providing software customers can easily train their employees to use.
The browser based Sighten solar software is simple to use and follows an operational process that is now tried and tested by their solar installers. Sighten software platforms is creating a unique iteration in software for solar development that will empower your employees, who will benefit from the adoption of best practices. Sighten proposals and quotations are based on the principles of decision making involving the following;
1. Single Option Aversion
The customer’s need to have more than one option to make a decision.
2. Decoy Effect
The creation of an option that highlights the benefits of an option by providing the appropriate juxtaposition, thereby making it more favorable in the eyes of the customer.
3. Storytelling
Providing information and mundane data in a narrative that allows the customer to better relate to the communication of the benefits.
4. Social Proof
The understanding that everyone wants great reviews testimonials that raise the name recognition of the solar company in the eyes of its customers thereby providing confidence to the customer.
Process
Any solar design software’s worth is dependent on its ability to facilitate a frictionless business process. In the day to day process for the solar installer, employees’ expertise needs to be applied in sequence and at the very appropriate moment to successfully complete the sales proposal. This is akin to an assembly line; any lack of metaphorical parts in this context will cause the assembly line to come to a halt. This would mean that the sales proposal will wait for the appropriate input from the engineer, purchase manager or sales executive to be completed. Often, this input is less than a minute’s worth of action but the time lag between information request and information receipt could mean that a day is wasted in the interim.
Bottleneck
Mitigating these bottlenecks is the very reason Sighten was created, in the context of solar design what we are looking for is ensuring that all the internal inputs are available immediately. By ensuring that this information is pre-determined and available in the Sighten software. In practice, this translates into creating a list of preferred solar modules, inverters, mounting methods and standard equipment. In addition, the cost implications of these preferred equipment are already determined. The variables that are brought in are site & customer specific; to which the best application of these preferred equipment is applied.
Kaizen: Notification Frequency Lifecycle Stage Analysis
Solar installer companies use the techniques that are distillation of the best in class system design capability and benefit from Sighten’s industry knowledge. The engineer has determined the best equipment from a design and reliability perspective, the purchase manager has weighed in on the costs based on market conditions, the marketing & sales process manager has given the requisite input in branding & consumer touch points and, finally, the financial implications of loans & lease contracts are vetted by the financial & legal team. For continuous improvement the frequency with which each contributing resource is notified or requested to provide an input in each design lifecycle stage is analyzed; reduction of which is the goal of Kaizen.
Installers
Sighten brings with it best industry practices and applies them in a manner such that solar installers can focus on their core competencies and depend on the browser based software’s ability to balance the varying factors to cohesively deliver on the process requirements. Sighten does this by creating a standardized design process which relies on various inputs being predetermined in order to provide a frictionless sales process to create a solar proposal and quotation. In addition provision of software features such as project sunroof, integrated financing options and e-signing of contracts enhances the user experience for the solar installer.
Channels
For a larger multi-locational company concerned with several locations spread over a geographical region the channels platform allows for the management of the network. Allowing to extend the abilities of Sighten beyond that of a solar design and proposal software tool. In this way Sighten stands apart from a large number of its industry peers.
Financier
In addition, Sighten platform for financiers, is another unique iteration of a standard solar sales platform. Beyond the usual integration of financial services and options within the solar design platform Sighten provides a solution for the financiers to view the various companies using their financial services as part of their sales proposal. This provides financiers & investors in solar asset with the insight and metrics that they require to address the needs of the customers and modify and fine tune their financial offerings to better suite their clientele. They would also be able to look at regional differences and anomalies stemming from unique circumstances and benefit from not having to create all encompassing standard products.
Sighten Value
Sighten brings its value to financiers by making the process of providing a financial solution a comparative and dialogue based process. By providing each customer and installer with several financing options SIghten is able to receive feedback from the market about the financing solutions in comparison to competing solutions. What Sighten achieves by providing this feedback back to the financiers is the real world analysis of their product as compared to the peers. In comparison to a standard integration, which is a product pushed to the market by the financier, there is a treasure trove of data for the financier using the Sighten Financier product.
Sighten Solar Reviews Testimonials and Referrals
The reviews testimonials and referrals indicate that Sighten is a solution that delivers on the expectations of the participants of the value chain. In Sighten end customers are encouraged to provide referrals with the referral email option integrated in the Sighten solar proposal.
Conclusion
The, San Francisco company, raised a Series A funding of $3.5 million from investors keen on making the world a different place. Software startups in the residential solar industry finds investors who are willing to make a big difference in driving residential solar sales using strategic investment in solar software. Sighten stands shoulder to shoulder with other software companies in the quest to combat climate change and foster first past the post in our solar proliferation ideology.