Building an Energy Company’s Customer Portal

Amalgam architects and builds the customer portal for landlords and renters

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Introduction

A U.S.-based energy startup embarked on their mission to democratize sustainable energy for renters and landlords by installing and operating virtual power plants. These virtual power plants manage storage in batteries and energy distribution to the various loads in the building while at the same time selling excess energy to the local grid. The company partnered with amalgam to architect and build their customer portal where landlords can manage their communities and renters can opt into their service. The work done by amalgam enabled the company to provide a seamless experience for their landlord and renter clients.

Challenge

The primary challenge for the client was their inability to build their customer portal with technology experts with their limited resources as a startup
With limited resources the client was unable to:

  • Create their customer portal in a cost-effective way

  • Go to market quickly

  • Take advantage of best-in-class architects and builders

Approach

Amalgam's approach included:
  • Solution Architecture:  Amalgam worked with the company to analyze and outline the current vision and roadmap of the architecture and UX of their customer portal. The architecture and the front-end is powered by a HTML, Javascript, CSS, and Python codebase, the react.js framework, and a number of AWS services such as AWS Kinesis, AWS Lambda, PostgreSQL.
  • Creation of document management logic: Amalgam built the logic that powers document management for onboarding.  
  • Creation of permissions and logic for different user profiles: Amalgam created various user profiles with associated permissions and logic to handle community management and renter onboarding. 
  • Creation of data architecture for onboarding and document management: Amalgam architected and built a data infrastructure to manage and house customer portal data.
  • UX/UI design and front-end development: Amalgam wrapped the architecture behind the customer portal with a contemporary UX/UI design.
  • Continued Partner Build: Amalgam continues to be the company’s sole development partner for all of their technological needs.
Business Capabilities:
  • Ability to Execute Technical Migration, Integration, and Testing: Amalgam created business logic that facilitates quick and user-intuitive renter onboarding and community management.
  • Ability to create community-specific onboarding: Amalgam developed logic that powers the nuanced, community-specific onboarding process and document management.
  • Ability to manage communities for landlords: Amalgam created logic that allows for landlords and admins to manage their various community members.

Results

By delivering and continuing to build on the company’s MVP, the company was able to provide a seamless experience for their customers and was able to raise $130MM to date. Amalgam continues to help build the company’s mission as the sole.
Team Size
x 4
Timeline
7 months

Created user profiles and logic for the nuanced onboarding processes

Designed and built workflows for renter onboarding

Created architecture to manage renter and community data

Created security and backup protocols for key data