IOW STRATEGY ROOM · 2026-05-11
From form-filler to decision intelligence — the Headroom pivot brief.
This is the working pivot brief from the IOW Strategy Room session. It contains: the competitor read, the strategic direction, the v1 prototype, and the existing execution layer. For the team call.
1
The competitive board, in one table
| Lane | Buyer | Sold | Price | Player |
|---|
| Decision intelligence (utility scale) | Capital allocators | Numbers for a credit memo | £850 – £15k / engagement | Quantail owns |
| Commercial-scale decision intelligence | 50kW–5MW developers / EPCs | "Will this site clear?" | £150 – £500 / site | EMPTY — OUR LANE |
| Application execution | Installers (residential / small commercial) | "Submit my G99" | £50 – £125 / app | DNO Renewables owns |
DNO Renewables: 12-month head start, free portal, SolarEdge PDF ingest, productised pricing, enterprise API channel forming. Trying to outrun them at the bottom is a slow loss. The empty middle is our lane to claim.
2
The strategic shift, in one line
Pivot Headroom from "G99 form-filler for installers" to "pre-investment site intelligence + execution layer for commercial solar / BESS developers (50kW–5MW)." The form is downstream of the decision. We're playing in the wrong river.
3
The live product — open any module
① SCREEN A SITE
Grid Check
Postcode + capacity + asset type → real DNO mapping, live OSM map, export headroom, queue position, curtailment risk, indicative connection fee with 5 cited ECR comparables. Solar · Wind · Hydro · AD/CHP · BESS.
Open Grid Check →
② WILL IT PAY BACK?
Build It
Self-build vs On-site PPA vs Sleeved PPA vs Roof Lease — compared across 25-year NPV, payback, effective rate, pros + cons. UK 2026 rate landscape. Auto-flips winner as inputs change.
Open Build It →
③ FILE THE APPLICATION
G99 Submission
The existing Headroom G98/G99 application portal — postcode→DNO lookup, address autocomplete, inverter/installer libraries, MCS lookup, PDF generation. The execution layer below the Intelligence wedge.
Open application form →
④ MANAGE THE PIPELINE
DNO Application Manager
Portfolio dashboard — every site you've screened, tracked from Screening → Submitted → Approved → Energised. Comparative ranking, filter by DNO/verdict/status, bulk operations. The IPP-grade view.
Open dashboard →
⑤ STRATEGIC CONTEXT
Market Brief
UK universe · target buyers · revenue math · how competitors manage today · first 5 discovery calls. The full analyst pass.
Open brief →
4
The 90-day path
| Sprint | What we do | What we prove |
|---|
| Today (call) | Show v1 demo. Agree go / no-go on 4-week proof. | Strategic alignment. |
| Weeks 1–2 | Pick UKPN East England. Hook into ENA Connect Direct + DNO heat maps + ECR. Five customer discovery calls with commercial developers. Wireframe site-centric dashboard. | £150–300 WTP is real. |
| Month 2 | Ship MVP for chosen DNO regions. Anchor blog post — own the vocabulary. Bring in 1–2 design-partner EPCs. | Product clears at $-stake usage. |
| Month 3 | Layer G99 submission back in with SolarEdge / Easy-PV / OpenSolar PDF ingest. Three-tier pricing live. 10 paying developers, £5–10k MRR baseline. | Unit economics + retention. |
5
Money + risk
- Capital ask: £20–40k for 90 days (data acquisition, dev sprints, content). Validate before any bigger raise.
- Risk: if discovery calls reveal commercial developers won't pay £150–300 per site for screening, kill thesis fast and pivot. Don't sink more capital into the form-filler lane.
- What we don't throw away: existing G99 form, postcode→DNO logic, PDF generation, postgres schema — all reusable as the execution layer beneath Headroom v2.
6
Why we win
| Mode | How Headroom wins |
|---|
| Ethos (credibility) | Own the vocabulary for the middle market: "effective vs headline curtailment", "queue attrition", "site headroom", "ANM-zone discount". Bankable assumption registers. |
| Pathos (emotion) | Sell relief from wasted capital and dead sites. Quantail's case studies show £400k abortive cost / 18-month delay avoided — same fear, smaller-scale buyer. |
| Logos (logic) | Transparent math the developer can put in their model. Headline % vs effective %, queue × attrition, headroom kW vs ask kW. Auditable. |