Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Sandeep Ahuja, CEO of Covetool, a sustainable design platform that has raised over $36 Million in funding.

Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:

• Transforming Building Design with AI: Covetool is revolutionizing the architecture, engineering, and construction space by integrating AI with credentialed expertise to enhance building design processes, making them faster, cheaper, and more sustainable.
• From Services to Software to AI-Powered Services: Sandeep discusses the company's journey from a service-based business to a software platform and now to a combination of software and AI-powered services, enabling scalability and greater impact.
• Hyper-Targeted Marketing Strategies: Covetool’s go-to-market strategy is highly data-driven, focusing on content and engagement within specific micro-communities, like targeting principal architects in California with tailored messages about local energy codes.
• Importance of Letting Experts Lead: Sandeep emphasizes the value of trusting and empowering team members, even when it means stepping back and allowing them to make decisions that might initially feel counterintuitive.
• Iterative Learning from Customer Feedback: By actively listening to customer calls, Sandeep identified a significant market shift—from users wanting software to preferring comprehensive services—which led to the pivot towards offering “value as a service” (VaaS).
• Building Industry Disruption: Covetool is positioned to disrupt the traditional building design process by offering a lower-cost, more efficient alternative to traditional consultants, aiming to be the go-to design professional for buildings across North America.

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