Enode connects & optimises the world’s energy devices
Enode builds the digital infrastructure for a zero-carbon future. Energy businesses use Enode’s APIs to help their customers connect and optimize their own energy devices like EVs, home batteries, solar inverters, and HVACs.
Complex product, confused customers
Enode’s challenge was that their product, while powerful, was too complex for customers to understand. There was a widespread misunderstanding of their product and its value. Sales cycles were extending because visitors to their website were often left with more questions than answers, such as "Do you build the front-end application?" or "What other components do I need?"
Sales conversations with prospects were derailed by technical discussions rather than the use cases customers could build once they connected to multiple energy devices through a single API. This approach led to a longer sales cycle, confusion due to misconceptions about their product, such as the belief that Enode built white label front-end applications.
Identifying the best-fit customer in a new category
In an entirely new category, it’s tough to pinpoint competitive alternatives. There were several overlapping competitors, but none that did exactly what Enode does. Most competitors focused on connecting to just one type of energy device, like solar panels. One major competitor, SmartCar, positioned themselves as the API for connected vehicle data. But, their core use case was helping freight companies track mileage and maintenance issues of their fleets. While they could connect to EVs as well as traditional combustion engine vehicles, their focus wasn’t on optimizing EV charging or Vehicle-to-Grid to save energy and costs.
Enode's biggest competitor wasn't another company — it was inaction. Energy companies rarely tackled device integration because they were overwhelmed by the breadth of brands which they needed to build integrations with, let alone the cost of maintenance and updates. Building these integrations would require a dedicated development team and take at least 24 months to build. This complexity helped us refine our best-fit customer: large energy providers like Octopus Energy and Total Energy who already had built consumer-facing apps. If Enode could handle the integration heavy lifting, these companies would be motivated to build the functionality so that consumers automatically optimize their energy devices.
While product positioning typically focuses solely on users and influencers — in this case, Developers and Product Managers — we took a broader approach with Enode due to the infancy of the Open Energy category. We included the buyer, specifically the CTO. While Developers and Product Managers focus on the next 12-24 months, CTOs plan for the next 5-10 years. Much of what Enode makes possible — a world where consumers can optimise their power consumption in real-time and send power back to the grid — isn't on product roadmaps, as it was widely considered to be 5-10 years away. By showing CTOs this future was possible today, we motivated them to engage their product teams.
Making the product value tangible
While Enode's products — Connect, Optimise, and Aggregate — were already well-defined with a clear customer maturity journey, their practical applications and customer value weren't immediately obvious. To address this, we mapped out use cases for each product. Here are three examples:
Home Energy Management – Users connect their energy devices to work together automatically, lowering energy bills.
Demand Response – Automatically adjusts a user’s connected energy devices during peak times to balance the grid by reducing or shifting electricity use.
Smart Charging – Automatically starts/stops EV charging during off-peak hours to save costs and reduce grid strain.
We created dedicated landing pages for each use case that clearly showed which components were needed and Enode's specific role in each solution. We also simplified the language, replacing technical terms like 'DER' with more accessible ones like ‘Energy Device’, a term we coined and defined as any device that consumes or produces energy.
Each use case page also featured customer success stories with concrete results — like 29% reduction in household energy bills and 20% lower home EV charging costs — making the value tangible for potential customers.
Powering the ‘Open Energy’ revolution
Beyond positioning, we needed to make people care about Enode by making it part of a larger story—one that speaks to the future of the energy industry. This story highlights the opportunities for energy companies that embrace this future and the risks for those that don’t.
Imagining a more sustainable energy system sounds appealing, but picturing what it truly looks like is challenging. Our current energy system is centralised, reliant on large power plants and outdated infrastructure that struggles to meet the demands of electrification and renewable energy. The future of energy will be decentralised, powered by millions of distributed energy devices like solar panels, EVs, and home batteries. These energy devices will be software-enabled and respond automatically to grid changes.
We call this Open Energy. Much like Open Banking, before it existed, customers had little visibility, limited engagement, and almost no control over their financial lives. Open Banking unlocked a wave of fintech innovation. Open Energy will do the same—by giving customers control through the interoperability of energy devices, so they can cut their energy bills or even make money by selling energy back to the grid. Open Energy represents a shift from traditional data hoarding to a open, more sustainable energy system.
By being the first to coin the term 'Open Energy,' Enode has positioned itself as a thought leader. Through consistent messaging, targeted PR, and brand marketing, Enode is building a community of advocates who are passionate about Open Energy and its potential.
