going and getting the data, and going out and telling people they can do this,” Young says. “In the classroom, the unit economics work a lot better.”
Having played an integral role in the founding of MeterHero, Conroy says there are parts of the acquired company’s software code that are familiar to him. Before he launched STEMhero, Conroy helped lead an effort to package MeterHero’s software so it could be used by schools and other nonprofits. But after Conroy’s departure, Young concentrated on the rebate- and reward-based business model, which primarily involved selling to owners of homes and buildings.
“Sometimes it’s saying, ‘Can we go back to how we had it before?’” Conroy says. “The model before was maybe a little more advantageous to teachers.”
Conroy says that Polymathic, a Chicago-based software development shop, originally wrote the code for MeterHero. Milwaukee is located about 90 miles north of Chicago, which Conroy says is close enough that the acquisition marks something of a technical homecoming for MeterHero.
“It felt really good to bring back the code to where it was created,” Conroy says. “It is significant that [MeterHero] is coming back to Milwaukee. For us, this is the perfect place.”
