Key Learnings from Episode 18: Building a Commercial Engine in Climate Tech with Mike Teall, former Chief Commercial Officer of Snugg

In Episode 18 of Beyond the Raise, Alex speaks with Mike Teall, former Chief Commercial Officer of Snugg, about what it takes to turn a climate solution into a commercially viable business. Drawing on a career spanning financial services, consulting and climate tech, Mike shares lessons from building Snugg’s commercial function from the ground up, navigating long enterprise sales cycles, responding to market shifts and tackling one of the UK’s most complex decarbonisation challenges: our homes.

Moving from Financial Services into Climate Tech

Mike’s route into climate tech began after a career in financial services and consulting. He spent several years with Lloyds Banking Group, including running the annuity business at Scottish Widows, before moving into consulting and eventually leading PA Consulting’s Life & Pensions practice.

The move into climate tech came through a conversation with former Scottish Widows colleague Robin Peters, who was developing the idea that would become Snugg. For Mike, the opportunity brought together two things he had been looking for: a more purposeful industry and the chance to work within a smaller, entrepreneurial business.

His financial services experience also proved directly relevant. Banks were an important route to market for Snugg, both because of their relationships with homeowners and their need to understand and reduce financed emissions. Mike already understood how large financial institutions make decisions, navigate procurement and allocate funding.

Key Takeaways

• Experience from another industry can provide valuable insight when moving into climate tech.

• Existing networks and an understanding of complex organisations can accelerate early commercial traction.

• Purpose was an important factor in Mike’s decision to move from financial services into climate tech.

Tackling the Complexity of Home Decarbonisation

Snugg was created to help people make their homes more energy efficient, reducing carbon emissions and energy bills while creating warmer, more comfortable homes.

The scale of the challenge was part of what attracted Mike. There are millions of individual homes across the UK, each requiring different improvements and individual decisions from homeowners.

Snugg’s digital platform uses property data to help homeowners understand potential improvements, from insulation and solar panels to heat pumps. Users can build a plan, explore costs and benefits, identify possible grants and financing, and find installers.

The difficulty is not simply giving people information. Homeowners have to understand their options, trust the advice and ultimately take action.

Key Takeaways

• Residential decarbonisation requires action across millions of individual properties.

• Every home presents different technical, financial and practical considerations.

• Digital tools can simplify the early stages of the journey by using existing property data.

• Providing information is only one part of the challenge. The harder task is helping people act on it.

Why Digital Tools Still Need a Human Element

One of Mike’s biggest learnings was how difficult it can be to convert digital engagement into real-world action.

A homeowner may be able to explore potential improvements online, but eventually somebody needs to understand the physical condition of the property. Issues such as damp, mould and ventilation can affect what improvements should be made and in what order.

Traditional retrofit assessments can be expensive, creating another barrier for homeowners. Mike sees an opportunity to combine digital tools, AI and remote surveying with human expertise.

Video, photography and property data could potentially make assessments more efficient while preserving the human interaction needed to build trust. For Mike, that trust is particularly important when homeowners are being asked to make significant changes to their property.

Key Takeaways

• A purely digital journey cannot solve every part of residential retrofit.

• Physical property conditions can fundamentally affect which improvements are appropriate.

• AI and remote assessment could reduce the cost and complexity of providing personalised advice.

• Human interaction remains important when consumers need confidence before making significant investments.

Measuring Action Is Harder Than Measuring Engagement

Snugg’s own research revealed another challenge. Around 23% of surveyed users said they had made a change after using the platform, but Snugg’s own click-through data did not show anything close to that level of activity.

People were using Snugg to research their options and then going elsewhere to find installers or arrange improvements independently.

That created a measurement problem. Snugg could influence a homeowner’s decision without necessarily seeing the eventual outcome in its own data.

The company’s Carbon Cashback proposition was partly designed to create a stronger connection between action and measurement. By verifying carbon reductions and creating carbon credits from those savings, the model can reward homeowners while providing better evidence that improvements have actually taken place.

Key Takeaways

• Digital engagement does not necessarily show the full impact a climate platform is having.

• Customers may research through one platform and complete their journey elsewhere.

• Businesses need to think carefully about how they measure real-world outcomes rather than clicks alone.

• Incentive models can potentially encourage action while improving visibility into the resulting impact.

Building a Commercial Function from Almost Nothing

When Mike joined Snugg, the commercial operation was effectively Mike and Robin in a WeWork in Edinburgh, armed with a PowerPoint presentation and a list of contacts.

The product was not yet fully built, but Mike believed it was important to start speaking to prospective clients immediately.

Large organisations, particularly banks, have long buying cycles. Waiting until the product was finished before starting those conversations could have delayed commercial traction by months or even years.

Those early conversations also served another purpose. Positive reactions from potential customers provided confidence that there was genuine demand for what Snugg was building.

Key Takeaways

• Early customer conversations can begin before a product is fully developed.

• Long enterprise buying cycles need to be factored into commercial planning from the beginning.

• Prospective clients can provide valuable signals about whether a proposition has commercial potential.

• Early market engagement can inform product development as well as sales.

Partnerships Can Create Scale and Credibility

Snugg always saw direct-to-consumer activity primarily as a way to test and improve the product rather than the main route to scale.

Building a consumer brand and acquiring customers directly would have been expensive. Partnerships offered access to organisations that already had large customer bases and shared an interest in improving home energy efficiency.

TSB became an important early banking partner, giving Snugg both reach and commercial validation. The later partnership with Which? represented another significant milestone, with Snugg powering its home energy planning service.

For Mike, partnerships such as these did more than generate distribution. They created credibility. When a trusted organisation chooses a young company to power an important customer service, the wider market takes notice.

Key Takeaways

• Partnerships can offer a more efficient route to scale than building a direct consumer audience from scratch.

• The strongest partners have aligned incentives as well as customer reach.

• Early enterprise partnerships can provide important commercial validation.

• A recognised partner can materially increase a young company’s credibility in the market.

Recognising When the Market Is Moving

One of Snugg’s significant strategic shifts was towards the electrification of the home.

Traditional energy efficiency models often focus heavily on measures such as insulation. However, Mike and the team saw growing importance in solar, batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps and time-of-use electricity tariffs.

These technologies increasingly work together. Someone buying an electric vehicle may begin considering solar panels to charge it, then battery storage and eventually electrified heating.

That required Snugg to rethink parts of its product. Adding new concepts creates complexity, particularly in a digital experience where too much information can quickly overwhelm users.

Mike’s broader lesson was that customer research alone will not always tell a company where its market is heading. Businesses also need to pay attention to policy, technology and wider market behaviour.

Key Takeaways

• Product strategy needs to reflect emerging market trends as well as current customer feedback.

• Electrification increasingly connects technologies such as EVs, solar, batteries and heat pumps.

• Strategic product changes often require removing complexity rather than simply adding new features.

• User research is one input into product strategy, not the whole picture.

Founders Should Stay Involved in Sales

Mike believes founders and senior leaders should never completely remove themselves from sales.

They do not need to manage every stage of every opportunity, but spending time with customers and prospective customers provides insight that is difficult to reproduce through reports alone.

There is also a point in many enterprise sales cycles where founder involvement can be particularly powerful. Once an opportunity is sufficiently developed, bringing in the CEO can help communicate the broader vision and give the potential customer confidence in the business behind the product.

The important thing is choosing that moment carefully rather than having founders involved throughout the entire process.

Key Takeaways

• Founders should maintain direct exposure to customers as the business grows.

• Customer conversations provide strategic insight as well as sales opportunities.

• Founder involvement can be particularly valuable at key moments in enterprise sales.

• The aim is targeted involvement rather than founder ownership of the entire sales process.

Product, Marketing and Sales Need to Work as One System

For Mike, one of the foundations of a strong commercial function is alignment between product, marketing and sales.

Product teams need to understand the market they are building for. Marketing needs to communicate the proposition clearly to that market. Sales needs to understand both what the product can do now and where it is heading.

Systems and processes matter too. A good CRM, disciplined pipeline management and clear commercial reporting all play a role, but they cannot compensate for a lack of alignment.

Mike also highlights tenacity as an essential commercial characteristic. A prospect saying no today does not necessarily mean the market is wrong. Circumstances change, priorities shift and opportunities reopen.

Key Takeaways

• Product, marketing and sales should be aligned around the same commercial objective.

• Commercial infrastructure such as CRM and pipeline management supports the strategy rather than replacing it.

• Sales teams need to understand both the current proposition and the product roadmap.

• Persistence matters, particularly when selling into organisations with long and complex buying cycles.

Good Salespeople Build Trust and Listen

Mike sees several warning signs when assessing sales performance.

One is continually finding reasons not to contact a prospective client. Maintaining appropriate contact keeps the relationship active and ensures the company remains front of mind as circumstances change.

Another is relying too heavily on polished presentations. Slides can support a conversation, but they cannot replace the trust built between two people.

Perhaps most importantly, good salespeople listen. Passion for a product can make people eager to explain everything it can do, but that can prevent them from understanding what the customer actually needs.

Strong commercial communication also requires adapting to the situation. Sometimes a client expects a formal pitch. Sometimes they simply want a conversation. Reading that difference matters.

Key Takeaways

• Consistent client contact is important during long sales cycles.

• A polished presentation cannot replace trust between people.

• Listening allows salespeople to adapt the proposition to the customer's actual priorities.

• Strong communicators adjust their approach to the type of conversation taking place.

Prove the Opportunity Before Scaling Around It

Looking at the climate businesses being built today, Mike believes founders should think carefully about how much they can prove before raising significant investment and scaling a team.

Advances in AI and rapid prototyping tools have made it easier to build and test ideas without committing the resources previously required to create a full product.

That creates an opportunity to test assumptions earlier. Who is the target customer? What specific problem is being solved? Will people actually use or buy the solution?

There is also a surprisingly basic question that can get overlooked: has somebody already built it?

For Mike, proving more of those assumptions before scaling can give founders greater confidence that they are building around a genuine market opportunity.

Key Takeaways

• Founders should test the market as far as practical before scaling around an idea.

• New prototyping tools make early experimentation faster and cheaper.

• A compelling idea still needs a clearly defined customer and use case.

• Competitive research should happen before significant resources are committed.

Focus on the Moment When Customers Are Ready to Act

If Mike were approaching Snugg again, one area he might explore differently would be focusing more tightly on specific customer trigger points.

Moving house is one example. It is a moment when homeowners are already thinking about renovations and improvements, making them potentially more receptive to insulation, solar panels or heat pumps.

Rather than building a journey designed to work equally well for everyone, a business could build around a narrower moment when the customer already has a reason to act.

That focus may reduce the overall audience entering the journey, but potentially increase the proportion who ultimately take action.

Key Takeaways

• Customer timing can be as important as the proposition itself.

• Specific life or purchasing events can create natural moments for action.

• Narrower use cases can allow products and messaging to become more relevant.

• A smaller, better-qualified audience can potentially deliver stronger conversion.

Commercial Leadership Is About Creating Clarity

As organisations grow, teams are exposed to more opportunities, ideas and competing priorities. Mike sees an important part of commercial leadership as creating simplicity within that complexity.

Clear objectives and metrics can help product, marketing and sales understand what the business is collectively trying to achieve.

This becomes particularly important for less experienced team members. Senior leaders may be comfortable juggling multiple possibilities and unresolved questions, but the people executing the detailed work need enough clarity to know where to focus.

Strong commercial leadership therefore means more than identifying opportunities. It also means deciding which opportunities deserve the organisation’s attention.

Key Takeaways

• Commercial leaders need to create clarity around what the business is trying to achieve.

• Product, marketing and sales objectives should reinforce the same priorities.

• Too many competing priorities make execution harder, particularly for less experienced team members.

• Leadership involves deciding what not to pursue as well as what to pursue.

Scaling Climate Teams Requires Passion and Tenacity

Looking back at Snugg, Mike sees the quality and attitude of the people around the business as fundamental.

In product, he values people who care deeply about what they are building and feel genuine ownership of the customer experience.

In business development, tenacity matters. Mike highlights Snugg’s Head of Business Development, Michelle Robinson, who entered a new sector, built a network and developed the credibility required to sell confidently into that market.

Mike also believes negativity can drain energy from an early-stage team. Start-ups inevitably encounter setbacks, so having people who remain motivated to find another route forward can make a significant difference.

Key Takeaways

• Early-stage businesses need people who genuinely care about what they are building.

• Product ownership benefits from passion as well as technical capability.

• Commercial teams need the resilience to find new routes when opportunities stall.

• Leadership energy and belief influence the attitude of the wider team.

The UK Home Decarbonisation Challenge Is Far from Solved

Mike believes policy is moving broadly in the right direction, particularly through the increasing focus on electrification.

However, the condition of the UK's housing stock creates a fundamental challenge. Older properties may need repairs, ventilation improvements, insulation or even substantial plumbing changes before technologies such as heat pumps become practical.

Financial incentives for the headline technologies cannot necessarily solve those underlying problems.

The relative cost of gas and electricity is another important factor. Mike points to the relationship between electricity prices and heat pump adoption, arguing that improving the economics of electrified heating could materially change consumer behaviour.

Ultimately, the challenge is not simply persuading homeowners to adopt new technology. It is creating a practical and financially compelling route from their existing property to a lower-carbon home.

Key Takeaways

• The condition of older UK homes can make electrification significantly more complicated.

• Some properties require fundamental improvements before low-carbon technologies can be installed effectively.

• The relative price of electricity and gas affects the financial case for heat pumps.

• Policy, finance, advice and practical delivery all need to work together to accelerate adoption.

Looking Ahead

Having left Snugg, Mike is moving towards the next stage of his career, including commercial leadership and advisory work.

His experience at Snugg has given him a perspective that spans product, marketing, sales and partnerships, alongside the particular challenges of commercialising climate solutions in highly regulated markets.

The experience has also reinforced the value he places on focus: understanding the customer, identifying the right trigger point and aligning the commercial organisation around a clear proposition.

Final Thought

Building a commercially successful climate business requires more than having technology capable of creating impact.

Snugg’s experience shows how much of the work sits between the solution and the customer: building trust, finding the right distribution model, understanding when people are ready to act and adapting as the market changes.

For Mike, strong commercial leadership is ultimately about bringing those moving parts together and giving the team enough clarity to keep moving in the same direction.