New startup ideas · Physical world · Climate and energy
startup idea
Wattfolio
The autopilot subscription that runs every electric device in the home.
Wattfolio is a consumer subscription that takes control of heat pumps, EV chargers, solar inverters, and home batteries and runs them against dynamic electricity prices using learned thermal models of each house and ML price forecasts.
- Software subscription
- Consumer
- $10-100B market
- Creates a new category
- Global from day one
3/5
venture judge
7
similar startups, last 2 years (42 all-time)
79%
of 3 nearest real companies still alive
yes
8 matching federal grants and programs
Direction supported by government programs and grants
Test it before you build it
$650 · 3 weeks · 25 prospects
For $650 and 3 weeks in ComEd territory, prove homeowners on hourly pricing will put $24 on a card for automated heat pump and EV control, and that installers will bundle it at point of sale.
Riskiest assumption · A homeowner on a dynamic tariff will pay $12 a month, card on file, for automated device control whose credible saving is $20-40 a month, rather than only accepting it as a free app.
1Focus group: who and where
A homeowner in ComEd territory enrolled in or eligible for the Hourly Pricing program, with a heat pump installed in the last three years or an EV in the garage, facing a first real winter of hourly rates with no idea when to run what.
where to find 25 · The r/heatpumps and r/electricvehicles subreddits; Citizens Utility Board of Illinois events and newsletter, which actively recruits ComEd Hourly Pricing households; Nextdoor neighborhoods in Naperville, Oak Park, and Evanston; heat pump installers listed on the EnergySage directory for the Chicago area.
2Sell first, build later
A founding subscription: from November 1, 2026, Wattfolio schedules the home's heat pump and EV charging against ComEd hourly prices using a learned thermal model of the house, targets $20-40 off a winter monthly bill, and sends a monthly savings report.
the ask · $12 per month; founding reservation $24, which covers the first two months.
a real yes · A charged $24 reservation or an installer's signed pilot to bundle the next 10 installs; upvotes, waitlist emails without a card, and 'I would totally use this' do not count.
3Small experiments
The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.
1. Card-on-file reservation page
$400 · 14 days
Put up a one-page site with the headline, the $12 a month price, and a $24 refundable pre-order taken by card at checkout. Drive traffic with mod-approved posts in r/heatpumps and r/electricvehicles, Nextdoor posts in the three named suburbs, and $350 of Reddit ads geotargeted to Chicagoland. Founder answers every comment thread personally.
keep going if · 15 paid reservations from about 500 visitors, a 3% visitor-to-card rate
2. Installer bundle pitch
$100 · 10 days
Pull 8 Chicago-area heat pump installers from EnergySage and pitch a one-page pilot: they offer Wattfolio on their next 10 installs and earn $50 per activated home. This is the cheap proxy for the OEM-channel bet the whole card rests on.
keep going if · 2 of 8 sign the written pilot agreement covering their next 10 installs
3. Bill teardown calls
$150 · 14 days
Book 15 calls recruited from the subreddits and CUB newsletter readers, offering a $10 gift card. Get each household's Green Button usage data, compute what last winter would have saved under automated shifting, and ask for the $24 reservation live on the call.
keep going if · 10 of 15 share usage data; 5 of 15 pay the $24 on the call
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.
$24
per prospect, refundable
how · A $24 refundable pre-order charged to a card at checkout on the landing page, the right instrument because this buyer is a consumer deciding alone in one sitting and a charged card is the only signal that separates intent from a compliment. set up: Stripe Checkout ↗
what it reserves · A founding-cohort spot for the November 1, 2026 heating-season start, the $12 a month price locked for 12 months, and the first two months of service.
refund · One-click full refund any time before service starts.
target · 15 paid reservations within 21 days from about 500 visitors and 15 calls
Go: build it if
15 charged $24 reservations at a 3% or better visitor conversion, at least 5 of them closed live on bill-teardown calls, plus 2 signed installer pilots, within 3 weeks.
Kill: stop if
Fewer than 5 reservations across the page and the calls, zero installer agreements, or computed savings on real ComEd bills under $10 a month.
5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open
outreach message
You are on ComEd hourly pricing and either running the heat pump schedule by hand or not at all. I am building an autopilot that learns your house and shifts the heat pump and EV charging into the cheap hours; beta homes target $20 to $40 off a winter monthly bill for $12 a month. Can I get 20 minutes to look at your last two bills and show you exactly what last January would have cost?
landing page
Your heat pump and EV, run automatically against ComEd hourly prices. $12 a month after launch; reserve now for $24, your first two months included. Reserve your spot for the November heating season.
deposit terms
Pay $24 today to reserve a founding spot: it covers your first two months and locks the $12 a month price for a full year. Service starts November 1, 2026, in time for the heating season. Full refund with one click any time before your service starts.
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.
58
Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 36.0 x 1.61
Active
competition: more crowded than 61% of ideas · headwind x0.70
+4.5
government priorities, secondary (106 matching grants)
Trend
47
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)65
- Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector47
- Sector direction (live batch)50
- 2026 trend analyst25
Demand
42
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 pain25
100x potential
47
Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.
- Venture judge50
- Market size axis67
- Moat axis80
- Neighbours still alive12
- 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 autopilot, subscription, electric, device, home, consumer, control, heat.
The idea in full
- What
- Wattfolio is a consumer subscription that takes control of heat pumps, EV chargers, solar inverters, and home batteries and runs them against dynamic electricity prices using learned thermal models of each house and ML price forecasts. It is distributed white-label through heat pump OEMs and installer networks worldwide, who bundle it at point of sale, so households buy comfort and a lower bill rather than an app they must discover.
- Why now
- Exnaton AG (PnP 2026) is rolling out AI-analyzed dynamic tariffs and Energy Sharing, EQUIUM is pushing new heat pump hardware into buildings, and the graveyard shows SunSwitch (2024) dying on a hardware-bundled solar subscription - the software-only control layer riding OEM channels is the model that survives.
- Wedge: first customer and entry point
- One heat pump OEM in one dynamic-tariff market, shipping Wattfolio as the default controller app, proving a measurable bill reduction per home in the first heating season.
- Path to 100x
- Hundreds of millions of homes are electrifying, and the software that coordinates all devices in a home is a new category above any single OEM's app - won through distribution, since the installer channel decides defaults. A few tens of millions of subscribing households at software margins, plus flexibility revenue shared with licensed aggregator partners, is a multi-billion revenue business.
- Ceiling
- If per-home savings stay small, consumer willingness to pay caps ARPU at a few dollars a month and the outcome depends entirely on volume.
- Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
- Exnaton AG sells tariff software to utilities, sitting on the supplier side; Wattfolio sits with the device owner across all suppliers. SunSwitch owned the hardware and died under its capital load; Wattfolio owns only the control layer.
- Main risk
- Device OEMs decide the control layer is strategic and build a good-enough version in-house.
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
3/5
Hundreds of millions of electrifying homes is a real pool, but a few dollars a month ARPU on borrowed OEM distribution is a fragile moat.
Bootstrapper
2/5
Consumer ARPU of a few dollars a month, dependent on heat pump OEMs who can build the controller themselves, is a volume game not a cashflow one.
Operator
2/5
Homeowner savings of a few dollars a month is a vitamin, and the OEM channel owns the customer, not Wattfolio.
Technologist
2/5
Learned home thermal models are real but modest, and the card admits the heat pump OEM whose channel it depends on can build a good-enough controller.
Risk
2/5
Distribution is entirely the heat pump OEM channel, and the same OEMs can make the control layer in-house.
trends
2/5
Dynamic tariffs and heat pump control were sellable in 2023, and climate is down to 1% of the YC S26 batch - no fresh shift here.
Similar startups in the directory
Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (autopilot, subscription, electric, device, home, consumer, control, heat): 42 all-time, 7 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.
The autopilot for home energy
100% automated inspection for consumer electronics parts
On-device AI that knows your entire life and does your work overnight.
Smart packaging that tracks consumer product usage
Belun Technology makes a wearable device for monitoring users' health while sleeping.
Serenity Power drives the clean energy transition using advanced Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology, focusing on decarbonizing complex industries.
Fluid Wire Robotics develops high-performance force-controllable robotic arms for operations in critical environments. Based on proprietary "Fluid Wire" technology, they enable advanced manipulation in oil & gas facilities, underwater areas, nuclear power plants, mines and clean-rooms.
The memory computer for your digital life.
Charging session management for fleet EVs.
Tech-enabled heat pump contractor that cuts costs by 60%
Home - Propellane
Provider of healthcare services intended to help patients get rid of their alcohol addiction. The company offers a monthly subscription program that accompanies the consumer or their loved one through different services, as they progress with the program, they are able to have a healthier relationship with alcohol under measurable success criteria, providing patients with information based on science and medicine in a fresh, dignified and respectful way to control their alcohol addiction.
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.
8
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
- Daily Burn Active Together: A personalized, dyadic exercise and health program for people living with dementia and their family care partnersawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIA · SBIR phase I · $500K · posted 2026-09-17
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Longitudinal Diagnostic Method for Residential Branch Circuits Serving Sustained High Impact Electrical Loadsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-19
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of an Electrochemical Bandage to Manage Chronic Wound Infectionsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-17
National Science Foundation · CSCS: Circuits and Systems for · $550K · posted 2026-08-04
- DEVELOPMENT & TESTING OF A NOVEL THERAPEUTIC DEVICE FOR IMPROVING MOBILITY IN PATIENTS WITH LOWER-EXTREMITY PERIPHERAL ARTERY DISEASEawardhigh relevance
NIH / NHLBI · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2026-08-01
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Robotic Hand Therapy System with Mirror-based Feedbackawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-07-24
NIH / NHLBI · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2025-08-01
NIH / NIA · SBIR phase II · $889K · posted 2026-09-22
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
- Consumer
- Business model
- Software subscription
- Path to 100x
- Creates a new category
- Market size
- $10-100B market
- Capital intensity
- Capital-light (software margins)
- Speed to revenue
- Revenue in 1-3 years
- Technical depth
- Deep tech: ML, hardware, bio
- Go-to-market
- Partners and channels
- Moat
- Distribution moat
- Geography
- Global from day one
- Regulation
- Unregulated
- Vibe
- Hot space
Listed under
An idea sits in its own sector and in any sector its text clearly touches.
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Fictional company written 2026-08-26 from MarkosWeb data; the companies, grants and numbers around it are real and tracked. Treat the idea as a research prompt, not a plan.