Sample playbook · One idea, every surface
This is whatyou actually get
Below is one idea carried all the way through NELL - the DeepValidate report, the 21-section GTM strategy, all 13 Build & Execute surfaces, and the closing strategy page. Same layout, same depth, same honesty as the real thing.
Free to start. No card needed.
An AI copilot that turns an HVAC technician’s roof photos and voice notes into a code-compliant inspection report before they climb down.
- Industry
- Vertical AI · Commercial HVAC services
- Stage at intake
- Idea, no product yet
- Founders
- Two founders. One ex-mechanical contractor, one engineer. No budget for paid media.
- Verdict
- 68 / 100 · Promising — but only if you narrow it
Stage 01
DeepValidate
11 scored dimensions across 5 pillars, each one sourced. The report is built to tell you where the idea breaks, not to agree with you.
- Problem84
- Demand79
- Market61
- Timing74
- Funding52
- Competition44
- AI Stack57
- Pricing / WTP72
- Unit Economics58
- Revenue Model70
- NELL Fit76
Problem Validation
Confirms the pain is real, severe, and worth paying to remove.
Median time logged on inspection paperwork across 6 sourced contractor surveys
Missing photos or missing code references, per two state inspection bodies
Truck roll plus rescheduled crew, from a published trade-association fee table
"I spend more time in the app than on the unit" — recurring complaint across 11 threads in the last 18 months, all cited with deep links.
Inspection module named in 22 of 61 negative reviews sampled. Same two words each time: slow, rigid.
At contractors under 200 headcount — the pain is being solved by hiring people, which is what a budget looks like before software exists.
The pain is real, expensive and already funded — contractors are paying humans to do this today. That is the good news and the warning: a budget that visible has been noticed by everyone who sells to this trade.
Demand Signals
Whether real buyers are searching, complaining, and willing to switch.
| Signal | Volume | Trend | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| "hvac inspection software" | 2,900 / mo | +41% YoY | Growing, low competition |
| "mechanical code report app" | 480 / mo | +12% YoY | Thin but high intent |
| r/HVAC + trade Slack threads | 11 threads | Ongoing | Unprompted pain, no vendor named |
| "servicetitan inspection alternative" | 210 / mo | +88% YoY | Switching intent — your wedge |
- Unknown
- Nobody in the sourced threads names a price they would pay. That number has to come from your first ten conversations, not from this report.
- Confidence
- High on direction, medium on magnitude. Search volume for a trade this size is thin by nature.
Market Sizing & Revenue Ceiling
TAM / SAM / SOM with sources — then the ceiling that actually matters.
US commercial HVAC service software, sourced
Contractors with 8–200 techs running scheduled compliance work
What a focused team can realistically reach
At the recommended entry price and a realistic win rate
≈ 42 contractors at the entry tier
Big enough for a real, profitable software business. Not big enough for a venture round that needs a $1B outcome — so raise accordingly, or do not raise.
Competitive Landscape & White Space
Every credible competitor, priced, with the gap each one leaves open.
| Competitor | Entry price | Their strength | The gap they leave |
|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceTitan (module) | $398 / tech / mo | Owns the whole back office | Inspection is a checkbox form. No photo reasoning. |
| Field-service generalist | $99 / tech / mo | Cheap, easy to adopt | No mechanical-code knowledge at all. |
| Paper + PDF template | $0 | Free, universally understood | Every kickback in the problem section starts here. |
| Regional compliance consultancy | $4K / audit | Trusted, signs off legally | Cannot scale past a person on a roof. |
Full field-service suites
Photo-to-report AI, generic
Code-cited reports for one trade
Your lowest score, and it is the one that decides this. A horizontal "inspection app" loses to a suite that is already installed. A report the county inspector accepts without a callback is a different product, and nobody credible is selling it.
Pricing, Willingness to Pay & Unit Economics
The comparable table, the anchor, and the CAC / LTV arithmetic under it.
per technician, per month — anchored below the suite, above the generalist
| Metric | Sample value | Benchmark source |
|---|---|---|
| ACV | $21,400 | 7.2 techs average × entry tier |
| CAC (founder-led) | $1,900 | Trade-show + warm intro mix |
| Payback | 1.4 months | Derived, not assumed |
| Gross margin | 78% | Inference cost modelled per report |
Idea-Level Risks, Marketability & Pivots
What kills this, the early warning for each, and the three ranked pivots.
ServiceTitan ships photo-to-report as a free toggle inside a suite the contractor already pays for.
- Mitigation
- Own the code library and the inspector-accepted output format. That is a data and relationship asset, not a feature.
- Early warning
- Any major suite posts a "compliance AI" job req or ships an inspection beta.
Sell to the inspection authority and the insurer instead of the contractor — same engine, a buyer whose budget is regulatory rather than discretionary.
- Kill it if
- Fewer than 3 of your first 25 contractor conversations will pre-pay a pilot inside 8 weeks.
Recommended Next Steps & Sources
The exact next moves, ordered by certainty bought per day spent.
- 01Get 5 real inspection reports that were kicked back3 days · founder can run alone
Pass = you can name the exact failure reason on 4 of 5. Fail = you are guessing at the product.
- 02Price test at $249 with 10 contractors1 week
Pass = 3 say yes without negotiating. Anything else and the anchor is wrong.
- 03Confirm one county will accept an AI-generated report2 weeks
This is the wedge. If no authority will accept the output, the wedge is not a wedge.
- Sources consulted
- 23 — every claim above deep-links to one
- Refused to estimate
- Competitor headcount, unpublished pricing, and funding we could not source. Marked as unknown rather than filled in.
- Confidence
- High on problem and pricing. Medium on market size. Low on incumbent roadmap — stated as low.
A report that fails costs you no credit
DeepValidate is $49 for your first two reports, and Quick Validate stays free and unlimited on every plan. Start with the free read - the same engine, a shorter run - and only pay when you want the sourced version.
Stage 02
GTM Strategy Report
21 sections in one document — positioning, the named buyer, channels with CAC, pricing rules, moat, and a 90-day roadmap. Built on the DeepValidate report rather than starting over.
- Market Intelligence Summary
- Market Type & Stage KPIs
- Has This Motion Ever Worked?
- Buyer Value Map
- Competitive Battlecards
- NELL Priority Matrix
- Strategic Pillars
- Offer Architecture
- MVP Definition
- Messaging Library
- ICP-Matched Messaging
- Revenue Architecture
- Pricing & Discounting Playbook
- Proof Pack
- Design Partners & Paid Pilots
- Success Metrics
- Compliance & Security Posture
- Strategy Execution Risks
- NELL Journey Assessment
- Priority Action List
- GTM Sources & Confidence
Founder Positioning
The one line you say to every buyer, investor and hire.
“Northwind writes the inspection report your county already accepts — from the photos your tech already takes — so the crew leaves the roof once.”
- Rejected
- "AI-powered inspection automation for HVAC." Describes the technology, and every competitor can say it tomorrow.
- Kept
- The claim is about the outcome the buyer is measured on — one truck roll instead of two.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Firmographic, technographic and intent — the profile your list is built from.
| Dimension | Target |
|---|---|
| Company | Commercial mechanical contractor, 8–200 technicians |
| Geography | US states with a mandated annual mechanical inspection |
| Tech in place | ServiceTitan or BuildOps for dispatch; paper or PDF for inspection |
| Trigger to act | A failed inspection in the last quarter, or a new compliance hire posted |
| Economic buyer | VP Operations — signs, owns the re-inspection budget line |
| Champion | Lead service technician — feels it daily, has no budget |
| Blocker | The office manager who owns the current PDF template |
Fewer truck rolls, a number they can put in a board update. Lead with the $1,850 re-inspection cost.
Off the roof 40 minutes sooner. Lead with the demo, not the ROI.
Their template survives. Show the export, not the replacement.
Acquisition Channels
Primary channels with CAC, the backups, and what to refuse.
- Warm intros via co-founder’s contractor networkStart here
CAC ≈ $0 · expect 6–9 conversations, 2–3 pilots
- ACCA + regional mechanical trade associationsStart here
CAC ≈ $1,400 · slow, but this is where trust lives
- ServiceTitan partner marketplaceMonth 4+
Needs a live integration and 3 referenceable logos first
- Trade YouTube + technician creatorsMonth 4+
Reaches the champion, not the buyer. Useful after you have a demo.
- Google Ads on "hvac software"Refuse
You are bidding against a suite with a 40× budget for a keyword that is not your wedge.
Execution Roadmap
Prove → Build → Scale, as three 90-day windows.
- One county signs off on the output format
- 5 paid pilots at $249 / tech
- Report accuracy above 92% on 100 real inspections
- ServiceTitan integration live
- Self-serve onboarding for crews under 10 techs
- First 3 case studies with named contractors
- Marketplace listing
- Second trade added (commercial plumbing)
- $40K MRR, or the pivot in the risk section runs
Defensibility Audit vs. Agentic AI
Scores the moat against someone cloning this in a weekend.
- Proprietary data (code library + accepted reports)74
- Distribution / trust with the trade61
- Workflow lock-in48
- Model or technical edge19
The model is not the moat and never will be. Everything defensible here is the code library, the inspector relationships and the archive of accepted reports — all three are earned by doing the unglamorous work early.
Stage 03
Build & Execute
13 surfaces behind one tab group, in the order the work actually happens: who buys, what to build, what to sell it for, where demand comes from, what to say - and then the 12-Week Operator Runbook that runs it week by week.
Sales Playbook
Pro BuilderStart here. Where your selling actually stands, then the step-by-step for your first ten deals.
- 01Book 25 conversations from the warm listWeeks 1–2
Not demos. The goal is to hear the kickback story in their words, five times.
- 02Run discovery against the 14-question bankWeeks 2–4
Qualify out fast: no mandated inspection, no deal.
- 03Sell the pilot, not the platformWeeks 4–8
$2,500 for 60 days, credited to year one. Paid pilots only — free ones do not tell you anything.
| Stage | Exit criteria | Typical days |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Named a failed inspection in the last 90 days | 5 |
| Technical fit | One real report processed in front of them | 9 |
| Pilot agreed | Purchase order raised, start date set | 14 |
| Closed won | Pilot converted at 3+ techs | 38 |
- To land 10 customers
- 167 conversations · 42 pilots · 24% pilot-to-paid
- Weekly rate needed
- 13 conversations a week for 13 weeks
Potential ICPs
LaunchpadThe GTM report describes the buyer. This one names them — real companies, verified domains, a reason to move now.
| Account | Techs | Why now | Route in |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Sample] Cascade Mechanical | 64 | Posted a compliance-coordinator role 3 weeks ago | Warm — co-founder worked with their ops lead |
| [Sample] Harbor Point HVAC | 31 | Two failed county inspections on public record | ACCA chapter meeting, October |
| [Sample] Deltaflow Services | 118 | Just migrated to ServiceTitan — tooling in flux | Cold, VP Ops named |
| [Sample] Ridgeline Climate | 17 | Owner posts in r/HVAC about paperwork | Community, champion-first |
- Per account
- Verified domain, headcount band, the buying committee by title, and the trigger that makes them worth calling this month
- Also included
- Paste-ready sourcing queries, and the customers your competitors already have
ICP Survey
LaunchpadNELL writes the instrument from your report. You share one link. Screened answers come back as a go / kill verdict.
- 01Q3 · "How many inspections were kicked back last quarter?"Screener
Answers under 1 are disqualified before they reach your results — they are not your buyer.
- 02Q7 · "What would you pay, per tech per month, to remove that?"Price anchor
Open numeric. No ranges shown, so the answer is theirs and not yours.
- 03Q11 · "Would you start a paid 60-day pilot this quarter?"Commitment
The only question that counts as a buy signal.
13 disqualified and shown as disqualified, not hidden
Against your $249 anchor — close enough to hold
9 of 21 would start a paid pilot this quarter
Build It
LaunchpadThe validated idea as a build you hand straight to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Replit, Lovable, Bolt, v0 or Emergent.
- Components
- 9 — capture, transcription, code-match engine, report composer, review queue, export, admin, billing, audit log
- Architecture
- Named services, the data model, and where the code library lives so it stays yours
- User journey
- Tech on the roof → review on the truck → office export, screen by screen
Build the capture screen for Northwind. Context: HVAC technician, gloves on, one hand, poor signal on a roof. Input: up to 20 photos + a 60s voice note, queued offline. Output: a draft inspection report with each finding tied to a code section. Constraints - Offline-first. The upload can fail; the capture cannot. - Every AI-written finding is editable and marked as AI-written. - No finding ships without a code citation. Blank beats invented.
You build in your own tools. The repository and the account stay yours — NELL writes the brief, not the code.
MSP
LaunchpadThe Minimum Sellable Product — the smallest version someone will actually pay for, plus a clickable wireframe.
| Verified pain | The feature | Cut for v1 |
|---|---|---|
| Reports kicked back for missing code refs | Code-citation engine | Multi-trade support |
| 2.4 hrs/day on paperwork | Photo + voice → draft report | Custom report designer |
| Second truck roll to re-inspect | Inspector-ready PDF export | Analytics dashboard |
- Wireframe
- A downloadable multi-screen clickable HTML prototype — usable in a discovery call before a line of code exists
- Pricing
- The concrete number, not a range: $249 / tech / mo, pilot at $2,500
PMF Validation
Pro Builder90-day organic playbook — the communities, the cadence, and the leading indicators that move before MRR does.
| Community | Members | Rule that will get you banned | Your post |
|---|---|---|---|
| r/HVAC | 312K | No promotion without flair + history | Share the kickback data. No link, week one. |
| HVAC-Talk forums | 78K | Introduce yourself in the intro board first | A teardown of one real failed report. |
| ACCA member Slack | Invite only | Members only — join the association | Ask, do not tell. Question post. |
| Indie Hackers | 110K | Build-in-public tolerated, selling is not | Weekly numbers, honestly. |
- Says PMF is coming
- Unprompted DMs asking when it ships · techs sharing your export in their own threads
- Says it is not
- Upvotes without replies. Popularity is not demand.
PMF Paid Channels
Pro BuilderA 14-day, $300–$1,500 paid test with real creative briefs and a kill gate on each channel.
| Channel | Budget | Why / why not | Kill gate |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn — VP Ops, mechanical | $600 | The buyer is targetable by title here | CPL over $95 by day 10 |
| Meta — technician lookalike | $300 | Reaches the champion cheaply | CTR under 0.6% |
| Google — "inspection report kicked back" | $400 | Tiny volume, perfect intent | Under 12 clicks in 14 days |
| Reddit Ads | $0 | Skip. Organic works here and ads do not. | — |
Headline: "Your tech climbed down. The report came back." Visual: split frame — rooftop unit / a rejected PDF, red stamp. Body: 31% of commercial inspections get kicked back for a missing code reference. Northwind writes the citation while the tech is still on the roof. CTA: See a real report (not "Learn more").
Lead Gen
Pro BuilderPersonal network first, then warm intros, then cold — with the arithmetic to hit the number.
- 01Your own LinkedIn network, filtered to the ICPWeek 1 · free
31 first-degree contacts match. This is the highest-converting list you will ever have and it costs nothing.
- 02Warm intros through the ACCA chapterWeeks 2–4
9 introductions requested, expect 5. Scripted asks included.
- 03Cold cadence against the named listWeeks 4–12
40 accounts × 3 contacts × 6 touches. 4% reply target.
- Needed
- 167 conversations to land 10 customers
- Sources
- 31 network · 5 warm · 131 cold — the cold number is what a hand-built SDR list has to cover
Outreach
LaunchpadPersona-by-persona sequences for the 4–6 budget owners who close fastest.
Hi [name] — public records show two mechanical inspections at [company] got kicked back last quarter. Both for a missing code reference, which is the single most common reason in this state. We write the citation while your tech is still on the roof. One contractor your size cut re-inspections from 9 a quarter to 1. Worth 15 minutes to show you a real report?
- Cadence
- 6 touches over 18 days — email, LinkedIn DM, voicemail, email, break, referral ask
- Objection bank
- 11 objections with the answer and the proof point behind it
- Warm-intro chain
- Who to ask, in what order, with the ask written out
Personalized Outreach
LaunchpadGive NELL the account list and the buyer title. Each account is researched live, and every message connects what we find to that buyer’s week.
They are solving this with headcount right now. That is a live budget and a live decision.
Named, dated, and citable in the first line of the email.
Tooling is unsettled — the window where a new vendor gets a hearing.
Saw you’re hiring a compliance coordinator. Before you fill it — most of that role is chasing missing code references on reports that already came back. We do that part automatically, and your techs keep working the way they work now. Happy to run one of your real reports through it and send you the output. No call needed.
MRR Execution
Pro BuilderAn anchored 12-week tracker to $10K MRR from where you actually are — not a target pulled from the air.
In 12 weeks, from $0
At the sampled ACV — not 600. That is the whole point of the arithmetic.
Conditional on 13 conversations a week. Below 8 a week it is not.
| Motion | Customers | MRR | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warm network | 3 | $5,350 | High |
| Association / events | 2 | $3,100 | Medium |
| Cold outbound | 1 | $1,780 | Low — do not plan on it |
This plan dies if the founder-led conversation rate drops below 8 a week. Every other number here is downstream of that one, and it is the only one entirely within your control.
Execute
Pro BuilderThe 12-Week Operator Runbook — the weekly cadence, with what you did and what it moved logged against it.
- Week 1Warm list built and mailed31 contacts · 9 replies
- Week 2First 8 discovery calls5 confirmed the kickback pain
- Week 3County sign-off conversationFormat accepted in principle
- Week 4Wireframe in front of 10 contractorsIn progress
- Week 5First paid pilot signed—
- Week 6Pilot #2 and #3—
Every week has a log button. The Activity Tracker keeps the record, so the plan and what actually happened never drift apart.
Pro Builder
Pro BuilderWhat the operator engagement adds on top of the documents.
A NELL operator in the trenches weekly — execution, not advice.
Weekly office hours and a room of founders at the same stage.
Score 75+ and the 12-week incubation opens — mentorship, credits, GTM support.
Launchpad turns the strategy into things you can send on Monday
Named accounts, the buying committee, the MSP spec with a clickable wireframe, and outreach written per account. Pro Builder adds the playbooks above it and a NELL operator running the weeks with you.
Stage 04
NELL Strategy & Next Steps
Everything above, collapsed into one page: what the evidence says, what you have built, what is still open, and the five things to do next.
Promising — narrow it
Sourced, bottom-up
4 with priced battlecards
Survey median $220
Switching-intent search
8–200 tech contractors
- Validation
11 scored dimensions across 5 pillars, scored 68. The wedge is code citation.
- Prior Attempts
3 companies tried this before. Two died horizontal; one was acquired for the code library.
- Buyer Evidence
34 survey responses, 21 qualified, GO verdict.
- GTM Strategy
21 sections — positioning, ICP, channels, 90-day roadmap.
- Build & Execute
MSP spec and wireframe are ready. 12-Week Operator Runbook starts when the first pilot signs.
- 01Get one county to accept the report format in writing. Nothing else matters until this is true.
- 02Convert 3 of the 9 pilot-ready survey respondents into paid 60-day pilots at $2,500.
- 03Ship the capture screen only. The review queue and the exports can wait 6 weeks.
- 04Publish the first four failed-inspection teardowns — the content thesis starts earning in month 3, so start in month 1.
- 05Set the kill date: if fewer than 3 pilots are signed by week 8, run the insurer pivot.
What unlocks what
Everything above, by plan
- Unlimited Quick Validate
- 2 IdeaBank industry briefs
- Everything saved and re-runnable
- Stage 01 in full
- 11 scored dimensions across 5 pillars, sourced
- An investor-ready PDF
- Stages 01 and 02 in full
- Potential ICPs, ICP Survey, Build It, MSP
- Outreach and Personalized Outreach
- Every Execute surface above
- 12-Week Operator Runbook and MRR Execution
- 1:1 operator support and NellVibe
About these figures. Northwind is not a real company, and every number on this page was written to illustrate the shape and resolution of a NELL run. The sections, tabs and counts are the real ones. The findings are not - a real report is generated against live sources for your idea, and each claim in it carries the link it came from.
Your turn
Run yours
One line is enough to start. The free read comes back in minutes, and nothing above is behind a card until you decide it is worth one.