I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Logan Soya over the past year through conversations our firms have had about how we might work together to provide additional value to some of our mutual clients. I’ve also had the opportunity to meet a number of his terrific team members at a variety of industry events recently. I wanted to share parts of my conversation with Logan that may be of interest to professionals in the CRE Tech industry.
About Logan Soya, Founder & CEO of Aquicore:
Logan founded Aquicore 3 years ago while working on his MBA at Georgetown, he is an accomplished triathlete and a technologist at heart (although he prefers a straight razor, to the high-tech razonrs on the market).
About Aquicore:
Aquicore is a real-time energy monitoring solution for large commercial real estate properties. They install web-enabled meters for electricity, water, and gas data in buildings. The software then pulls that data on a real-time basis for commercial real estate portfolios, and uses that data to help reduce the building’s energy footprint.
Scott: Tell me a little bit about your typical client. How would you identify a good prospect for you, what does your typical customer look like?
Logan: We really specialize in two particular segments to date. The first is commercial real estate office and mixed use. That’s a core function for us where we’ve seen a lot of success and a lot of growth.
The second is in corporate real estate, so owner-occupied corporations. Major clients include Under Armour, Brookfield, and DQT. We have a pretty good blend of experience in those particular assets.
Most of the assets that we do business in are probably bigger than thirty or forty-thousand square feet, and that can range all the way to over a million. Once you’re above that particular threshold, it’s pretty easy to make the value proposition case.
Scott: Much like us, you’re in a space with other people who are doing things like you, some of or part of what you offer, so in that crowded space, in the mind of the customer or the mind of the prospect, how do you differentiate what you offer, and how you stand out among other companies in the space?
Logan: First is that by being a full-stack service, we really kind of take on all of what it takes to deliver this real-time energy monitoring, from the metering, to the delivery aspect, to the software itself. That really helps us specifically in speed to value, meaning that we’re typically pretty quick out of the gate in terms of being able to get your system up and running, installation time, so it’s usually in the 30-days range, which is pretty aggressive in commercial real estate, as you can imagine, to get something up and running and get your first customer satisfaction story out.
We’re also a bit more extendable, meaning that we can do electricity, water, and gas. And we can do just building level metering, as well as detailed sub-metering of the building. That sort of added deeper dive into a building can add a lot of value, especially for the more sophisticated client.
The last thing that I’ll say is that the platform is really built to be extendable, meaning that even if you’re not the most sophisticated client in terms of energy monitoring, we can get you up and running at a very low cost. As you mature as a client, and you mature as an organization towards these higher, deeper levels of understanding with energy monitoring and what you could do with it, the platform can still grow with you. This way you won’t have to skip to another thing, or take another vendor, or go on to another solution as your organization grows.
Scott: That’s a pretty compelling offering. This is certainly not a paid endorsement in any way, but from what I’ve heard from our product folks who’ve had a chance to look at the application and in the discussions they’ve had with you, one of the things I heard regularly from them is that they’re really impressed with the usability of the application. From a design standpoint, which we know from being in the space, the user experience is critically important. I’ve heard that you’ve done a terrific job there.
Logan: Thank you. I appreciate it.
