Vision quest | A Blue Hill entrepreneur feels the pride and pain of taking a product to market
Nielsen Van Duijn is a Yale-educated architect who lives and works in East Blue Hill. Having lived most of his life in southwest Connecticut, Nielsen had long dreamed of moving to Maine, making the move in 2002. He began work on Pond House Development, (www.pondhousedevelopment.com) — an 18-acre, 10-home community of affordable green homes whose residents would share both public spaces and an energy-efficient backbone tied to solar. Nielsen’s vision was to couple his home owners’ interest in living in Maine with an ability to have an aesthetically pleasing, maintenance-free, renewable energy experience.
Nielsen had set out to build a central solar system that would meter energy to individual homes, while securing credits for unused power that could be pushed back to the grid. He found examples of isolated island-based systems but could not find a precedent that had a back-tie to the grid and so had to engineer the electrical system himself. To develop this centralized system, Nielsen wanted to monitor power from each individual home — circuit by circuit — and collect the data centrally. From this genesis was born the eMonitor, a system that would provide detailed information about every electrical circuit in the household. Inspired by the “dashboard” of Toyota Prius, eMonitor presents a way for homeowners (and he, as development manager) to see all the energy flows in each house.
Like many entrepreneurs, he had arrived at what seemed to be a compelling market opportunity born of his own unmet need. Nielsen was aware that he did not have the experience and expertise to assess and commercialize the opportunity. So he reached out to Carsten Steenburg, a local friend and businessman, bringing him in as an equal partner in what became Powerhouse Dynamics. Where Nielsen conceived the complete concept vision (brand, web interface, commercialization opportunities), Carsten brought a mix of business and technical experience that enabled both to move the ball forward.
Teaming up
Nielsen’s big idea was to expose to each homeowner, via the web, a picture of their energy consumption outlet by outlet, appliance by appliance. More than just a data report, this web service would provide insight into where their consumption might be improved, with a business model that would include recommendations for corrective action that might lead to product recommendations. He envisioned an alert system that would send an e-mail or text message to a homeowner’s web or mobile phone to let them know if an electrical system needed their attention (e.g. a short circuit in a water pump) or simply a message about an opportunity to improve a consumption area specific to that home’s usage.
Nielsen knew he needed to add partners to develop software, electronics and a business plan and, of course, capital. Through his research, Nielsen wound up securing a key development partner in Rainwise, a Bar Harbor weather-monitoring company with relevant experience in development monitoring systems. Rainwise was excited enough to work for sweat equity to help develop and manufacture the company’s first prototypes. As they began the hunt for capital, they found interest from the VC community, but learned they needed a business model and plan that could attract individual and institutional capital. That’s when they met Dan Kaplan.
Dan had an impressive track record in new ventures, including being a founder and a business consultant to Mainebiz and other publications. Nielsen found in Dan the catalyst that could develop the plan and capital to give PHD the life it needed. Since Dan’s involvement, the company has attracted an experienced CEO, Martin Flusberg, and pulled together its first professional financing round from a Boston-area angel group. Today, PHD has sold more than 200 units, has been featured on “This Old House” and was featured in Mass High Tech as one of “Five startups you should follow.”
eMonitor was born in Blue Hill and is now being raised in Boston. Nielsen and Carsten will both have some ongoing role, though it’s unclear as yet what those roles will become. And while he has found the experience enormously gratifying — sharing the pride of taking an idea from birth to development — Nielsen also feels the inevitable mixed feelings that come with watching his “baby” grow up and leave home. He’s got a stake in the future and is choosing, as he must, to trust that eMonitor’s new owners will realize his vision. So for now, it’s back to residential development and, possibly, giving birth to his next big idea in energy efficiency.
Michael Gurau is president of Clear Innovation Partners, a Freeport-based firm formed to catalyze and sustain innovation and entrepreneurship in rural and urban economies. He can be reached at mg@clearinnovationpartners.com. Read more Venture Builder at mainebiz.biz.
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