Service Pitch & Rebates
Founding designer at Pika Earth
Jul 24 - October 25
Overview
Problem
HVAC providers faced a dual challenge:
- Selling complex, high-efficiency units
- Collecting the government and utility rebates that made them affordable. Every program had its own forms, required documents and review process. Mistakes mean lost money.
Solution
A unified solution across two products:
- ServicePitch, an iPad app for sales teams to create compelling presentations for high-efficiency units
- Pika Rebates, a web dashboard to streamline back-office rebate filing
My Role
- Founding designer. Drove over $1.6M in combined revenue by owning the end-to-end design & research for core products.
- Led the conversion of web tool to a native iPad app, converting monthly active users into daily users .
- Led research that resulted in a strategic pivot to a 0-1 dashboard that transformed a manual back-office workflow and doubled revenue.
- Defined the design process, established a critique culture, and introduced an AI prototyping workflow and a basic design system to operate at the speed of 5 developers.
My Team
- VP of product
- 3 full-time developers (including the founder)
- 2 contract iOS developer leads
- GTM team of 5
Key Designs
Back office: rebate filing dashboard
Built & validated a dashboard to break data silos
Front office: Preparing for a sale
Created some of our most loved features
Front office: Data rich presentation
Refined presentation UI to highlight differences
Product 1
ServicePitch
ServicePitch was an iPad app that helped HVAC salespeople ("comfort consultants") sell high-efficiency units at the kitchen table.
- Why it mattered: High-efficiency units were a hard sell. Reps were juggling clunky decks and real-time rebate math.
- When I joined: A web app with no offline mode, a key barrier for reps who often had poor connectivity in customers' homes.
- My role: Led the move to a native iPad app, including offline mode and quality-of-life updates.
- Result: Helped land SILA, one of our biggest clients, and moved monthly users to daily use.
From web to iPad
Offline mode
More user-friendly presentations
The Pivot
Rebates 0-1
ServicePitch gave contractors the rebate data to close sales. Rebates actually got them the money.
- What we learned: In research on ServicePitch, contractors kept telling me the savings looked great on the iPad, but actually getting the money back was a pain. Filing was complex and error-prone, and backlogs topped $150K.
- Our bet: We'd handle the filing for them and use automation to do it fast. A 3-customer test quickly confirmed that we could match ServicePitch's revenue with less effort, so the company pivoted.
- Goals: Cut time to file, and get new filers working within 2-3 days so we could take on more customers.
- My role: Sole designer, taking the filing dashboard from 0 to 1. Ran research and validated the new product via a Lovable prototype.
Product Prototype
Iterations
Ironing out data challenges
Failing fast: attachment checklist
One interface, two audiences
AI Strategy
Users were anti-AI
I avoided “AI” terminology in the product, and made sure any AI extracted fields were editable
Buyers Looked for AI
I designed the reporting page for them, with a much heavier emphasis on AI to show our product value
Design Systems
I used shadcn for most components, set up a custom type and color system to match our brand, and mapped my Figma colors to Tailwind for engineering. As the sole designer, my approach was: validate first, ship quickly, polish later.
User Testing
Validated the new direction
with customers
Led testing with internal
filers to inform the roadmap
Results
...$1.6M
Total Revenue
< 2 weeks
Rebates became our main value prop
My end-to-end design and research drove over $1.6M in combined revenue for Pika. The strategic pivot to rebates successfully helped our customers reduce their time to file, proving out our product value, doubling our revenue and earning their loyalty:
"I went through and audited everything in there. BLOWN AWAY!!! Thank you!!!
HVAC Install Manager
"I'm happy to help y'all in any way. You've been a tremendous help"
Head of Rebates
It's fun working with you guys…this can really improve our business"
HVAC Business Owner
Learnings
Sharing design vocabulary
- I learned my role as the sole designer went beyond design to educating the team on best practices. My PM and I introduced a process document, with phrases like"Problem Jam," for the team to learn to provide timely feedback on concepts before we moved to high-fidelity design critique.
Protecting my time
- I learned to protect my bandwidth by saying "no" to low-impact requests. My focus on the most critical projects would drive greater value for the business. For example, for our latest website redesign, I advocated to hire a contract designer.
Building a relationship with users
- I learned that at the heart of driving revenue and growth was building trust with users, not just the perfect product. I built rapport through small gestures, like sending a user wine after a research session, which made them feel valued and led to more thoughtful, candid conversations.
Illustration Credit: Humation
Pika Earth