Getting a lot of sleep 😴 is good for you. And I agree.
Helping 🤲 others is good for everyone. Here I hope you agree… #payitforward.
Over the last 10-20 years the home tech industry went to bed happy and content. And woke up relaxed and confident.
Small incremental change, growth and the feeling of being almost alone on the hill were the order of the day.
Until one sunny morning 100 “Smart Sparks ⚡️”* showed up at the gates.
Then 1,000. And soon 10,000´s…
*Smart Sparks ⚡️ – term used in the United Kingdom for electrical engineers getting into the home tech industry. PS how cool of a name is that 👊🏼!
The Smart Sparks ⚡️ wave and smile 👋🏻 at the incumbents. They try to make contact. They bring gifts 🎁 like loads of talent, engineering skills, ambition, a strong workforce, leads on projects, relationships with builders,… all shiny and valuable things the home tech industry needs and wants.
Smart Sparks ⚡️ are different from the incumbents when we (yep I am one of those “old boys” in that sense) got in the industry, often from an AV background.
engineering vs sales
services vs products
roadies vs rockstars
…
I want to make the case to invite Smart Sparks ⚡️ into the home tech industry. Make them fellow companions on the journey to grow the home tech industry.
Let us welcome them in and share knowledge insights and opportunities. together form and create a more diverse community of home tech professionals. If we work together as a dynamic mesh of small businesses we are better equipped to serve homes of today and tomorrow. #hometechcoalition
But before we can help each other we need to identify and accept a few facts and differences when it comes to Smart Sparks ⚡️ & Incumbents:
- Incumbents: Incumbents have the opportunity to define the relationship. Facilitating and helping vs confronting and competing. That is the choice that will determine the type of relationship we will have with each other moving forward.
- Patience: Being new is a temporary state. Give ambitious smart entrants help and the benefit of time. We all started with an ambition to expertise ratio of 100:1.
- Perspective: Applying what worked for Incumbents back in the day will/may not work for new entrants (business model, training, …)
- Skill set: Smart Sparks⚡️ have a skills set our industry desperately needs, namely engineering, labour and the capacity to charge for it
- Complementary: There is more demand than capacity to design and install solutions anyway in the home tech market.
- Waaaaay cooler label (marketing is everything these days):
“Smart Spark ⚡️” is way cooler😎 than the “Hifi 🔊 or TV 📺 guy turned integrator”. You always want to join the cool kids. - Community feeling: Smart Sparks⚡️ are acting like an open source community. That contrasts with the incumbents looking to build moats around their business. Just surf social media groups and communities and find out for yourself.
- Timing: Smart sparks are on projects well before other trades. Timing is everything in life they say…
- Relationships: Smart Sparks ⚡️ have relationships with builders while incumbents have relationships with home owners. How cool and complementary is that 👍🏻.
- Infrastructure: Smart Sparks put in the actual cable infrastructure upon which the connected home is built.
- Numbers: Smart Sparks ⚡️ have the numbers compared to Incumbents. A ratio of 100:1. Very similar to number of architects:incumbent integrators
- different well…. let me say car they drive (everyone can extrapolate from there…): A ford transit vs a jaguar …
What everyone has in common is a need for business building skills; solution selling on emotional value (value proposition), huge market potential ahead of us and a common monstrously voracious 🦖 competitor (big tech and amazon in particular)
To the incumbents: the competition is NOT Smart Sparks⚡️ entering the home tech industry. There are more than enough homes for everyone to work in.
The competition is the so-called smart devices that are sold at or below cost to harvest data from consumers.
🖖 Smart Sparks ⚡️at the gate: HELP them.
Let´s open these gates and welcome them in.
👉Disclaimer: few ideas are my own – fewer are perfect or polished – all of them are meant to accelerate debate and change (yes indeed, stir shit up).
This is the second post as a follow up of my previous call to action to the home tech industry to form a #hometechcoalition and #buildtogether. You can read my previous post here: A new mission 🚀 – #smallbiz #hometech #coalition.
The future is not like the weather. It doesn’t just happen. People make the future. It’s not a destiny or hope; it’s a decision. 👊🏼