When Matt Rogers founded Nest with Tony Fadell in 2010, heating and cooling the home was not the area that two former applicant engineers thought were crazy about.
That fixation defines a new category of product, the smart thermostat. This serves as a beach head for the smart home ambitions of other companies, despite Google’s nest in Vine, killing products that were once the core of the company.
“Nest isn’t necessarily doing everything I was trying to do years ago,” Rogers told TechCrunch. “It was one of those things when I sold my company.”
However, Rogers couldn’t shake his obsession with HVAC.
“I’ve been thinking about HVAC for a really long time. It’s longer than most people,” Rogers said with a laugh. “And the opportunity is really great. There are opportunities to improve efficiency, comfort, quality of life. All of these are true.”
Rogers’ optimism, coupled with his seemingly inexhaustive energy, has helped him serve as a heat pump startup, an informal advisor to quilt, whether he runs an investment, philanthropy and activist organization with his own new food waste startup, Mill, and his wife.
“I had a lot of things to start up the factory,” Rogers said.
Now Rogers makes Mill happy where he is and says he has time to “go deeper into the company.” In this case, it means joining the quilt as an independent officer.
Rogers met quilt co-founder and CEO Paul Lambert a few years ago, just before the company raised its seed round. Since then, they have been in almost constant communication.
“We talked about it almost every week for years,” Rogers said. “Matt, Paul’s co-founder, sometimes calls from factories and suppliers, saying, “What do you think about X? Give me some advice.” At some point, it’s good to formalize it. ”
As Rogers takes his seat in the board, there is even more chance that the quilt will be picked up from where the nest has left. The company already focuses on product design and user experience. “We’re really trying to do a nest playbook,” Lambert said.
“The world is getting hotter and richer,” he said. “And as the world gets hotter, people need more cooling, heat pumps are AC. And as the world gets richer, people buy more cooling.
“All of these macro trends are true,” agreed Rogers. “It’s good to work with the team carrying the torch.”
Source link
