By Hannah Curran, Sponsored Content
Shipshape Solutions Inc. makes homes smart enough to take care of themselves so that we can live in a world where every home is safe, reliable, and efficient – and every community is sustainable.
Alexander Linn, CEO and Founder of Shipshape, said Shipshape exists to help homeowners save time, money, and energy when it comes to maintaining and operating their house. “We looked around and saw a world where many people are struggling to take care of their homes, and the experience people have is painfully reactive. Something breaks down, and then you fix it. By helping the homeowner proactively address these upcoming issues, we can prevent damage, wasted energy, and unexpected interruptions from their life. We call this Predictive Maintenance.”
Shipshape offers a proprietary predictive maintenance platform that integrates smart home devices throughout the home – from crawl space to attic – so that homeowners can harness data from their appliances and systems in their homes to get an alert if something is going wrong.
“We wanted to give homeowners something like a check engine light for their house, so they would know before it’s too late that something’s not working right,” Linn said.
“An appliance might break down, or say it’s performing poorly, so the check engine light goes off and then with the tap of a button we help them connect to a local pro, for example, an air conditioning contractor, and maybe we help them take advantage of a utility incentive to replace their AC unit.”
Shipshape takes the install burden off of the homeowner. They offer pro installations and partner with local dealers to offer pro installations when they are already there to do work at the home. “Most customers get Shipshape because they bought an expensive system from their contractor, and they want to protect their investment. For example, they got their crawl space weatherized, and that came with a sump pump and a dehumidifier, and to give them peace of mind that their investment is working, the contractor offers performance monitoring and maintenance management through Shipshape,” said Linn.
Shipshape works with the local businesses that homeowners rely on, ranging from big companies like Alabama Power to small family-owned businesses like Mold and Mildew Solutions Specialists. Shipshape also works with plumbers, electricians, HVAC contractors, and many other types of service providers. Shipshape worked closely with
Alabama Power’s Smart Neighborhoods R&D team as they developed the Shipshape platform. Ultimately, Alabama Power invested in Shipshape to help them grow.
Recently, Shipshape announced that it’s building a Network Operations Center in Birmingham. “We are building an office and restoring a beautiful building that will have the Shipshape sign on top of it and house our “Home Assistants” who help homeowners all over the country,” said Linn. “We’re rolling out right now in Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee. We’ve got a few more Midwestern and Northeastern states to launch, and, before long, we will be coast to coast. Customers nationwide will talk to a friendly customer support agent in Birmingham, Alabama.”
“Most Shipshape customers don’t think of Shipshape as a technology or smart home product, in fact, most don’t have any smart home devices or even a home security system. The homeowners we serve are not a typical smart home or home security customer. These are folks trying to take care of their homes and stay in their homes who don’t want to be overburdened by them. It’s a surprise to a lot of our customers when they realize how easy it is to make their home a Shipshape home,” said Linn.
“Our customers look at Shipshape as a simple service – people have a system they’re worried about, for example, an AC unit, water heater, dishwasher… they are worried about water leaks, high humidity, wasting energy, and we offer a service to monitor the performance and help them with the maintenance. They don’t want to crawl up into the attic or run financial risks of big expenses if something is overlooked. In many cases, their homes have become financial burdens and maintenance hassles. We run into way too many indoor air quality issues that have led to health disasters. Shipshape is helping people stay in control of their home, to be able to maintain their home without having to ask for help from their neighbors or get surprised by expensive bills,” said Linn.
Shipshape is on a mission to help homeowners and communities by using the power of technology to promote sustainable economic development. They even donated 2% of the founding equity in Shipshape to a foundation that makes grants to help homeowners gain access to the improvements they need to make their homes safe, reliable, and efficient. Linn said, “When our customers buy Shipshape and help make Shipshape into a successful company, that helps grow a foundation that is setup to benefit low-income and need-based homeowners by making grants to help them make their homes safer, more efficient, and more reliable.”
The Shipshape Foundation came out of Shipshape’s philanthropic model they call the 2-2-2 model. They also set aside two percent of their product and two percent of their time. In other words, they offer their product on a subsidized basis to one out of 50 homeowners. And they set up a policy for their employees to volunteer for five days out of the year, that doesn’t count towards a normal vacation, so they get volunteer time off.
Linn explained, “as Shipshape grows, we will have more employees to contribute their volunteer hours, our foundation can make more grants to help make homes safer, more reliable, and more efficient, and more homeowners will get access to our product at subsidized rates. This is designed to create a win-win-win scenario with our platform, that was the idea behind our 2-2-2 model, it’s a way to create hyper alignment with the homeowners and communities we serve.”
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