The client
A seed-stage energy-tech startup offering a B2B SaaS platform that gives industrial and commercial energy managers a real-time, unified view of energy consumption, costs and carbon footprint. The platform pulls data from smart meters, IoT sensors, utility bills and existing BMS and SCADA systems, then normalises it to monitor consumption, peak demand and scope 1–2 emissions. Its analytics detect anomalies such as unexpected overnight consumption or equipment degradation, forecast spend and produce audit-ready reports for ISO 50001 and ESG disclosure.
The product targets mid-market manufacturers, retail chains and logistics operators that lack an in-house energy manager, and is sold as a per-site or per-metered-asset subscription. It was already live, with a free plan and a growing user base. The team was four people: the two founders (CEO and CTO), one full-stack developer and one marketer.
The challenge
- The product attracted users, but the transition from free to paid usage was uncertain.
- The two founders disagreed on the cause. The CEO wanted to rethink the business model and, with it, the pricing. The CTO believed the product still lacked key features and was not enough to meet what users were asking for.
- With a team of four, the two options competed for the same scarce capacity, and the debate slowed decisions.
- There was no shared understanding of where the product created economic value, so neither position could be tested.
Diagnosis
The “features vs pricing” debate was really a disagreement between two untested hypotheses. Each founder was reading the same weak conversion from a different angle: one saw a model and pricing problem, the other a product-completeness problem. Both were plausible, and neither could be settled by opinion alone.
What was missing was a shared understanding of user behaviour and of the value connected to upgrading. The team had not yet distinguished which capabilities supported ongoing usefulness and which justified a purchase. Without that evidence, new features and pricing changes were discussed without a common decision criterion.
Strategic approach
I started with actual user behaviour, connecting analysis, pricing and upgrade flows. The aim was to test both founders’ hypotheses against evidence instead of settling them by opinion.
- Analyse active user behaviour in Mixpanel to understand which actions and capabilities preceded continued use.
- Align perceived value and pricing by connecting relevant usage to the paid plan’s offer.
- Run rapid tests on upgrade flows to examine the assumptions.
- Align the team on a shared priority and a roadmap connected to available evidence.
- Act on acquisition quality: the team tightened lead qualification criteria, reallocated budget away from a low-fit channel, and adjusted messaging to emphasise multi-site ROI.
Delivery
10 weeks of work, product-event analysis in Mixpanel, 10 interviews with active users and 5 tests on upgrade messaging, timing and flow.
Results
- The debate was reframed: the data showed that the main problem was neither pricing nor missing features, but acquisition. Segmenting sign-ups by fit revealed that 58% of leads fell outside the target profile: too small, in the wrong sector, or individual users rather than multi-site operators. They registered, but converted at near zero.
- Conversion among target-fit sign-ups rose from 8.5% to 11.2% over eight weeks. Overall conversion moved from 3.6% to 4.7%; the gap reflects the share of out-of-target leads still entering the funnel.
- Faster path to payment: time from sign-up to paid conversion fell from nine to six days.
- Clearer economic value: consumption monitoring and shareable reports were identified as the capabilities most tied to willingness to pay, and were prioritised for the paid tier.
- A shared priority: the team moved from “features vs pricing” to a roadmap tied to evidence, starting with the quality of acquisition.
What the client said
“We were arguing about features and pricing, and the real issue was who we were bringing in. Now we know what to fix first.”
Founder, seed-stage energy-tech startup