Mobile app · 2024
Verdant
Helping households see, shift and shrink their energy use
A home energy app that turns smart meter data into simple, timely nudges, so families save money and use cleaner power without thinking about it.
- Client
- Verdant Energy
- Role
- Product designer and front-end developer
- Timeline
- 12 weeks
- Year
- 2024
Results
- Installs in the first six months
- 250k
- Energy use at peak times
- −18%
- Average app store rating
- 4.7
The challenge
Verdant had the data: half-hourly readings from thousands of smart meters and live prices from the grid. What it did not have was a product people would open more than once. Early testers described the first prototype as “a spreadsheet with a leaf on it”.
The approach
We kicked off with a two-day discovery workshop with the founders, then spent ten weeks designing and building alongside their engineers. Every week ended with a working build in the hands of twenty pilot households.
- A single daily view that answers one question: is now a good time to use energy?
- Gentle, well-timed nudges to run the dishwasher or charge the car when power is cheap and clean
- A weekly story that turns kilowatt-hours into money saved and carbon avoided
- Production-ready interface components, built by me and handed over with the designs
The outcome
Verdant launched on schedule and passed a quarter of a million installs in its first six months. Households using the nudges moved almost a fifth of their usage out of the evening peak, a result that became the centrepiece of Verdant's next funding round.
We came to Mara with a messy idea and a hard deadline. Twelve weeks later we launched an app our customers genuinely love, and the numbers have backed it up ever since.
Sophie Brandt
Co-founder and CEO, Verdant Energy
