The challenge
Selling solar should be simple. Homeowners want lower power bills, the technology is proven and the environmental case is clear. In practice, the sales process is slow and fragmented, and every delay is a chance for the customer to lose interest.
A typical solar sale moves through several separate steps. Someone has to work out how many panels fit on the roof and where they should go. Someone has to estimate how much sun those panels will catch, how much energy they'll generate and what that's worth in dollars. If the customer needs finance, they go through a separate loan process. And once the deal is done, the job has to be passed to an installer. Each step often lives in a different tool, a different spreadsheet or a different person's inbox.
Sunivo was an early-stage startup focused on accelerating solar sales and installation. Its founders saw that the biggest gains wouldn't come from improving any single step. They would come from connecting all of them, so a customer could move from curiosity to a booked install without the momentum dropping away between stages.
That meant building something ambitious for an early-stage company: an end-to-end workflow management platform, including a live mapping experience that most solar tools at the time didn't offer.
Our approach
Put the panels on the roof
We integrated Google Maps and wrote custom JavaScript so users can place solar panels directly on an image of their own roof. That made the proposal tangible from the first minute.
Calculate the value instantly
Once panels are placed, the platform calculates sun exposure, likely energy generation and the monetary value of the system, so the customer sees what it's worth to them straight away.
Carry the sale through to install
From there, the platform takes the customer through a loan application to fund the install, then dispatches the job to an installer. We built the full product on Bubble.
The results
Sales velocity rose by 35% compared with selling without the software. By keeping the whole journey in one place, Sunivo removed the gaps where solar deals usually stall: waiting for a design, waiting for numbers, waiting for finance and waiting for an installer.
The map experience changed the conversation with customers. Seeing panels on their own roof, with the generation and value calculated on the spot, made the decision concrete. Instead of a quote arriving days later, customers could understand the proposal while they were still interested.
Connecting finance and job dispatch to the same platform mattered just as much. When the loan application and the installer handoff are part of the sales flow, there's no point at which the deal sits waiting for someone to move it along.
For an early-stage startup, the product also proved how much can be built quickly when the stack is chosen well. Sunivo had a full end-to-end platform, including a custom mapping integration, without the time and cost of a traditional build.
“The Lightning Products team has been integral in helping us launch Sunivo, a very complex web application built in Bubble. As soon as they came on board our efficiency skyrocketed as they brought product management structures, tools, and strategies to the table that we didn't even know existed. This is a mandatory hire if you're serious about building and launching a quality product.”
What this means for your business
If you sell a considered purchase, such as solar, home improvements or anything that needs a site assessment and finance, your sales process probably has gaps between steps where customers drift away. Closing those gaps is often worth more than optimising any single step.
We build end-to-end sales platforms that connect design, pricing, finance and fulfilment in one flow, including custom mapping where the product needs it. Customers see the value sooner and deals move faster. If your sales cycle is longer than it should be, let's look at where it stalls.
