Matthew: I’m curious—since we last connected, what’s on the horizon over the next 6 to 12 months? What are you most excited about?

Christopher: From a company lifecycle perspective, we’re about halfway between Series C and Series A. Right now, we’re focused on launching our FOME product into the market. We’re finalizing the last pieces of what I’d call our MVP, coming out of beta this quarter. Then we’re really pushing into market with a robust go-to-market motion.

We’re working with some of the world’s largest asset managers, usually starting with pilot programs. The idea is to demonstrate how our tools can drive real business outcomes and then scale up deployments across hundreds—or even thousands—of buildings across North America.

Matthew: That’s amazing. It sounds like you’re pushing the milestones on all fronts—bigger scale, bigger reach, bigger impact.

Christopher: Yeah, the last year has really been about figuring out where to apply that effort. Identifying the right customers, locking in on the business need, and over the past couple of quarters, it’s been about building the right tools and scaling into that opportunity.

Matthew: Going through different stages like that requires different muscles. Have there been any big surprises—things you thought you’d need but didn’t, or the reverse?

Christopher: One thing I’ve learned is that in the early stages of a startup, you’re essentially a value search engine. It doesn’t really matter how good your theoretical understanding of the technology is—it’s almost never the right fit for what the market actually needs.

So the focus in those early days was running a lot of experiments to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Once we found product-market fit, the shift was from “explore” to “exploit.” How do we commercialize? How do we move to market in a scalable, repeatable way with the right margins to prove our growth model and secure both revenue and investment?

Matthew: Looking back, do you see those moments as distinct chapters? Like “explore” vs. “exploit”? Or is it more granular than that?

Christopher: I’d say it’s a continuum. Innovation always happens at the margins, so there’s always a little exploration happening. But early on, it’s entirely exploration. There’s no core growth engine yet. The big shift happens when you start allocating resources toward building a repeatable business model.

For us, that transition happened when we raised our seed round. That capital was meant to take what we had learned and build a business around it.

Matthew: Was there a favorite moment during that period—something that stands out?

Christopher: Closing our first fundraise, for sure. That was the first time we had external validation—a mandate from the market—to pursue what we were doing. Before that, it was all bootstrapped. People didn’t always understand what we were building. Frankly, sometimes we didn’t either.

Fundraising forced us to synthesize everything we had learned, put the metrics together, and present them in a way that strategic investors—people who really understood the market—could say, “Yes, this is worth doing.” That kind of validation was huge.

Matthew: Thinking about the journey from zero to now, what would you say are some key lessons you wish your earlier self had known?

Christopher: There’s a lot of pressure to scale prematurely. The narrative is often that you’ll have a “Eureka” moment and suddenly know it’s time to go big. But in my experience, product-market fit is a gradual process.

It takes real discipline to avoid interpreting early signals as a green light to pour money and resources into scaling. One of the most valuable things we’ve done is tie resource allocation to specific, well-defined milestones. That discipline helps avoid overscaling before you’ve fully validated your solution.

Matthew: Is there an example where you nailed that balance between risk and resource allocation?

Christopher: What we’re doing right now is a good example. We audit buildings, and while we can’t model every type of building from day one, we now have the confidence to say, “If there’s commercial demand, we’ll build it.” But we ask the customer to put some skin in the game.

That’s a very different motion than early days, when we’d bend over backward just to land the first few customers. That scrappiness is necessary at the start, but it’s not resource efficient in the long run.

Matthew: It’s such an interesting shift—going from saying yes to everything, to saying no to things you once would’ve jumped at.

Christopher: Totally. And it also requires understanding who the right buyer is. Some customers love working with startups; others just don’t get it.

Being disciplined about not chasing low-quality revenue—even when there’s pressure from investors or the market—is a critical skill.

Matthew: Have you noticed patterns in your best partners? Traits that make them ideal collaborators?

Christopher: Usually, they’ve already tried to solve the problem themselves. They’ve built a spreadsheet or a Zapier automation—something that shows they understand the problem but don’t have the resources to solve it at scale. They’re grateful to find someone building what they need. Those people become real thought partners.

Matthew: Shifting gears a bit—when you look ahead, what excites you most about where Aedifion is headed?

Christopher: What excites me most is the opportunity we’re creating for the market. We’re helping the world’s largest real estate investors plan their decarbonization pathways—not from altruism, but for competitive advantage.

Being able to lease and sell properties with clear decarbonization strategies is becoming a differentiator. We’re essentially selling the pickaxes in a new gold rush, and if we stay attuned to the market, we can help our partners make real, impactful change.

Matthew: That’s what I’ve always loved about Aedifion—your potential for impact is so tangible given who you’re working with.

Christopher: Thanks. It’s a privilege, honestly.

Matthew: You’ve always struck me as thoughtful about learning from hypotheses, from tech to leadership. How do you decide when to bring in external support versus homebrewing a solution?

Christopher: Paid resources come at a premium, so we bring in help when there’s a time-sensitive experiment that will inform a strategic decision. And sometimes you just need extra hands.

One thing I’ve realized is that there are people with 30 years of experience who I couldn’t hire full-time—but they’ll work with me for a few hours. That can be more valuable than a team of five trying to figure it out from scratch.

Matthew: Was that always part of your approach, or a more recent discovery?

Christopher: It’s been part of the business from early on—especially legal and financial help. What we’ve learned over time is that the same fractional model applies to HR, product, technology—you name it. We’ve explored a lot of those options, including working with Sightglass on some of our latest initiatives.

Matthew: Looking ahead, are there specific kinds of leadership or support you’re planning to bring in as you grow?

Christopher: Definitely. As we expand into new markets—Europe, Asia-Pacific—we’ll need local expertise. Real estate is culturally and structurally different in every region.

There’s also a down-market opportunity. We currently serve the biggest real estate owners, but there are entire categories of building stock that deserve to be decarbonized. That will require partnering with cities, utilities, and financiers.

Decarbonization is fundamentally an ecosystem play. It requires integration and collaboration across many players to get where we need to go.

Matthew: Can you give an example of what that ecosystem looks like in practice?

Christopher: Sure. Take a company like Nike. If they want to decarbonize, they need to look at their offices, their supply chain—the rubber, textiles, overseas manufacturing, logistics. No one player can be the expert in all of that.

So, they’ll need to aggregate data and intelligence across the ecosystem. Big platforms like Google or Microsoft are trying to serve that role, but they still need companies like us to provide the insights. That logic applies across the board, from Fortune 500s to small businesses.

Matthew: Christopher, it’s been great hearing how clearly you understand where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going. You’ve built a lot of insight and foresight into this journey.

Christopher: Thanks—I appreciate that. And yeah, maybe it’s from having to tell the story so many times, especially during fundraising!

But the biggest thing I’ve learned is the value of execution capacity. We don’t always know what’s coming next week, but I trust our team to respond in an informed way. That’s partly culture—our ability to debrief, run retrospectives, and act. Anyone who builds that kind of capability and has a compelling value proposition can succeed.