New startup ideas · Physical world · Climate and energy
startup idea
Wattbid
The marketplace where small businesses sell their flexible power to the grid.
Wattbid enrolls the HVAC systems, EV chargers, and batteries of restaurants, gyms, and retail shops through the electrical and HVAC contractors who already service them, then auctions that aggregated flexibility to utilities and grid operators hungry for peak capacity.
- Marketplace
- Small business
- $100B+ market
- Network effects, winner takes most
- US first
4/5
venture judge
4
similar startups, last 2 years (33 all-time)
93%
of 1 nearest real companies still alive
yes
6 matching federal grants and programs
Direction supported by government programs and grants
Test it before you build it
$800 · 4 weeks · 40 prospects
For $800 and four weeks, prove that Texas HVAC contractors will sell grid enrollment for a revenue share and their restaurant clients will sign over thermostat control.
Riskiest assumption · Commercial HVAC contractors in Texas will actively sell grid-flexibility enrollment to their restaurant clients for a recurring revenue share, and those owners will sign control of their thermostats for a few hundred dollars a year, before thermostat makers bundle the same program natively.
1Focus group: who and where
The owner or service manager of a commercial HVAC contractor in Dallas, Houston, or Austin with 5-50 technicians and a maintenance-contract book of restaurants and gyms, coming off a Texas summer where every client complained about peak-season electric bills.
where to find 40 · TACCA (Texas Air Conditioning Contractors Association) chapter meetings; the TDLR air conditioning contractor license search, filtered to commercial license holders in the three metros; the Service Roundtable community and its Service World Expo, where growth-minded contractors already buy add-on revenue programs.
2Sell first, build later
To contractors: a signed channel agreement paying a recurring 20% share of grid revenue on every client site they enroll, starting with the next ERCOT emergency response contract period. To restaurants: enrollment of their existing smart thermostat with a scheduled connection date, first payment after the first cleared program period.
the ask · $0 to the SMB; the site earns $200-400 a year and Wattbid keeps a 30% cut of cleared revenue, with 20% to the contractor
a real yes · A real yes is a signed enrollment authorization with thermostat credentials and a calendar-booked connection date, a signed contractor channel agreement, and an aggregator LOI with a stated price; verbal interest, 'add us to the list', and contractors who sign but name zero clients are not yes.
3Small experiments
The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.
1. Sign five contractor channel deals
$250 · 10 days
Pull 40 commercial contractors from the TDLR license list, cross-reference TACCA membership, and call each with the outreach script. Pitch a one-page channel agreement: they introduce restaurant clients with smart thermostats, earn a recurring 20% share of each site's grid revenue, and Wattbid does everything else.
keep going if · 12 of 40 take a 20-minute call, and 5 sign the channel agreement naming at least 5 restaurant clients each
2. Ride-along restaurant enrollments
$450 · 14 days
Join two signed contractors on scheduled maintenance visits and pitch 20 restaurant owner-operators face to face with a printed one-pager: your existing thermostat earns $200-400 a year, no new hardware, opt out of any event. Ask for a signed enrollment authorization with a connection date on the spot.
keep going if · 10 of 20 owners sign the enrollment authorization with a scheduled connection date within 21 days
3. Get a buyer for the megawatt
$100 · 14 days
Call Voltus, CPower, and Enel X North America, all registered ERCOT participants that buy aggregated flexibility, and offer the first enrolled megawatt of restaurant HVAC load. Ask for written indicative pricing and a letter of intent to accept the portfolio into their ERS positions.
keep going if · 1 of 3 aggregators signs an LOI at pricing that pays each enrolled site at least $150 a year after the contractor's share
4Collect a deposit up front
Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.
$0
no cash yet: take a signed commitment
how · No money moves before a program clears, because the SMB is being paid rather than paying and Wattbid cannot transact in ERCOT without a registered partner; collect instead a signed enrollment agreement with device authorization and a booked connection date from each restaurant, a signed channel agreement from each contractor, and one LOI from a registered aggregator (Voltus or CPower) to purchase the first enrolled megawatt.
what it reserves · A place in the first 100-site Texas cohort, a locked 20% first-year revenue share for the contractor, and a connection date within 21 days for the restaurant
refund · Enrollment cancels free with 30 days' written notice and no funds are ever held from the SMB.
target · 10 signed site enrollments, 5 contractor agreements, and 1 aggregator LOI within 30 days
before taking money · Do not promise payment amounts, bid capacity, or curtail any device in an ERCOT program before a registered QSE or aggregator partner has accepted the portfolio in writing, and make every enrollment agreement contingent on program acceptance.
Go: build it if
5 contractor agreements from 40 contacted, 10 of 20 pitched restaurants signed with connection dates, and 1 aggregator LOI whose pricing nets each site at least $150 a year.
Kill: stop if
Fewer than 2 contractors sign after 40 contacted, or fewer than 4 of 20 restaurants sign, or no aggregator offers pricing that nets a site $100 a year - at that payout neither side stays engaged, which is the card's stated risk.
5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open
outreach message
You already service rooftop units and smart thermostats for restaurants across Texas, and ERCOT pays real money for the flexibility sitting idle in those systems. We enroll your clients' existing thermostats in grid programs: each site earns $200-400 a year, you earn a recurring 20% share on every site you bring, and we handle enrollment, events, and payouts. Twenty minutes this week to walk through the numbers on your maintenance-contract list?
landing page
Your AC can earn your restaurant $200-400 a year $0 to enroll: your existing smart thermostat joins ERCOT grid programs through your own HVAC contractor. Sign the enrollment authorization and pick your connection date today.
deposit terms
No payment is due today. Signing authorizes Wattbid to connect your existing smart thermostat to ERCOT emergency response programs through your contractor, with your connection scheduled within 21 days; you can override any event from your thermostat and your first payment arrives after the first cleared program period. Cancel enrollment any time with 30 days' notice at no cost.
Would you run this test?
One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.
Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.
Scorecard
One score that balances how trendy the idea is, the demand for it and its potential for 100x, with competition measured relative to every other idea in the catalog. Recent startup trends first, government priorities second.
62
Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 38.8 x 1.61
Active
competition: more crowded than 56% of ideas · headwind x0.72
+2.0
government priorities, secondary (6 matching grants)
Trend
33
Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.
- Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)10
- Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector47
- Sector direction (live batch)50
- 2026 trend analyst25
Demand
58
Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.
- YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)0
- Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)100
- Operator judge: real pain75
100x potential
69
Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.
- Venture judge75
- Market size axis100
- Moat axis100
- Neighbours still alive42
- Technologist judge25
Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 272 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were marketplace, sell, flexible, power, enrolls, hvac, chargers, batteries.
The idea in full
- What
- Wattbid enrolls the HVAC systems, EV chargers, and batteries of restaurants, gyms, and retail shops through the electrical and HVAC contractors who already service them, then auctions that aggregated flexibility to utilities and grid operators hungry for peak capacity. SMBs get monthly checks within weeks of enrollment via a no-code connection to their existing smart thermostats and chargers; Wattbid takes a cut of every cleared megawatt. Contractors act as the sales channel and earn a recurring share, so no field team knocks on doors twice.
- Why now
- Popper Power (Alchemist Class 41) is solving peak grid overload for utilities by turning streetlights into a VPP - evidence that grid operators are now paying for aggregated small loads - and the cluster's 170-company 2024 cohort, its largest ever, is concentrated exactly where data center demand is stressing US peak capacity.
- Wedge: first customer and entry point
- HVAC contractors in Texas enrolling restaurant thermostats and backup batteries into ERCOT emergency response programs, where payments clear fast and a three-person team can sign the first hundred sites through five contractor partnerships.
- Path to 100x
- US retail electricity is a $400B-scale market and grid operators will pay billions for peak flexibility as data center load grows; a two-sided marketplace where more enrolled megawatts win better auction prices, which recruits more contractors and SMBs, is a liquidity game that one player takes most of. The 100x case is Wattbid becoming the clearing venue for distributed flexibility - marketplace take rates on a structurally growing commodity.
- Ceiling
- Flexibility revenue per site is a few hundred dollars a year, so the outcome depends on reaching millions of sites before device makers bundle grid programs natively.
- Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
- Popper Power aggregates municipal streetlights for utilities; Wattbid aggregates private SMB loads through contractor channels, a side of the market no brief company touches. WattShift supplies utility rate data and is a natural data vendor, not a marketplace.
- Main risk
- Utility demand response program rules change and cut aggregator payments below the level that keeps SMBs and contractors engaged.
Five judges
Each judge scores every idea in the catalog with a named rubric; the venture judge decides whether a card is shown at all (4-5 is venture-grade).
Venture investor
4/5
Two-sided liquidity where more enrolled megawatts win better ERCOT clearing prices, sold through contractors so growth is not capped by founder hours.
Bootstrapper
5/5
Five HVAC contractor partnerships enrolling restaurant thermostats into ERCOT pays checks within weeks, with a three-person team and no capital stack.
Operator
4/5
ERCOT already pays for emergency response megawatts and HVAC contractors already service the sites, so revenue clears within a year.
Technologist
2/5
No-code hookups to existing thermostats and chargers is integration work that Tesla, Enphase, or the thermostat makers absorb in one release.
Risk
3/5
Contractor channel and SMB base are diversified, but ERCOT program rules set the payment level and can be rewritten annually.
trends
2/5
Demand response aggregation of small loads is a pre-2023 business; the ERCOT wedge is sensible but names no 2025-2026 shift the brief supports.
Similar startups in the directory
Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (marketplace, sell, flexible, power, enrolls, hvac, chargers, batteries): 33 all-time, 4 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.
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We make utility-scale battery projects investable to provide flexibility for clean power.
The generator's reference companies
Real companies the model named as closest when it wrote the card, with their fate. A check mark is a company the radar could verify in its directory.
Public money in this direction
US federal grants, SBIR/STTR awards and open opportunities from the radar's public-money feed, matched to the idea's terms; the sector totals give the context.
6
grants and programs matching the idea
203
startup-relevant grants in Climate and energy
$167M
awarded in the sector, tracked
13
opportunities open now in the sector
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of an Ultra-Low-Power Microrobotic Sensing Platform for Deployable Distributed Robotic Systemsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-17
- Percutaneous Stellate Ganglion Stimulation in Septic Shock to Improve Hemodynamics and Vasopressor Requirements During Transportawardhigh relevance
NIH / NHLBI · SBIR phase I · $294K · posted 2026-08-15
- I-Corps: Translation potential of a metal-free, membrane-free long duration energy storage technologyawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-10
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of Shape-stable Salogels for Low-Cost Thermal Batteriesawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-07-17
- Fuel Cell Longevity in Motion: Understanding and Controlling Degradation in Dynamic Environmentsawardmedium relevance
National Science Foundation · EPCL: Energy, Power, Control, · $467K · posted 2026-08-04
National Science Foundation · NSF Engines - Type 2 · $15M · posted 2026-07-14
Market signal
What the radar sees in Climate and energy: new companies by cohort year, the forming YC batch, and outcomes since the February snapshot.
Climate and energy · 99 → 115 → 200 → 90 → 45 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 89% aliveYC F26 live: 1 in this cluster, 1% of the batch (was 1% in S26)Since February, of 118 YC companies here: 1 acquired, 2 shut down, 9 rewrote their pitch
Design attributes
The card is one cell of a designed set: every axis below was chosen before the text was written, and the text had to realize it.
- Buyer
- Small business
- Business model
- Marketplace
- Path to 100x
- Network effects, winner takes most
- Market size
- $100B+ market
- Capital intensity
- Capital-medium (ops, field teams)
- Speed to revenue
- Revenue within a year
- Technical depth
- Integrations, no-code
- Go-to-market
- Partners and channels
- Moat
- Network effects
- Geography
- US first
- Regulation
- Some regulation
- Vibe
- Hot space
Listed under
An idea sits in its own sector and in any sector its text clearly touches.
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