01 — Product flows
Contractor journey flows
The research is organized around 12 steps in the contractor’s job workflow rather than around individual companies. Companies are evidence within each flow — they show how the market solves (or ignores) each step. Treehouse’s differentiated surface is identified by where company coverage is absent or shallow.
12 flows — lead intake to post-sale
A homeowner expresses interest. Speed to first meaningful response is the primary variable — booking rates drop sharply past the first five minutes. Three products in our Tier A cluster compete directly on this step.
4 companies · 3 in comparison matrix
The contractor creates or imports a customer record and a job. Usually happens inside the FSM. For Treehouse, the question is what it inherits from the lead-intake step and what must be re-entered.
2 companies · no comparison matrix yet
Is this a real, serviceable job worth allocating capacity to? Qualification overlaps with lead intake for AI-response tools, but is a distinct decision for the contractor reviewing the lead.
3 companies · 2 in comparison matrix
Collecting the physical evidence needed to scope and estimate the job — without a truck roll. This step is the most important gap in the competitive landscape. No competitor in our research serves it. This is Treehouse's core differentiated territory.
1 company · 1 in comparison matrix
What work is actually required? For electrical, this means translating the panel data and job type into a specific scope of work — what circuits, equipment, and labor are needed. This step is where Treehouse's Edison system operates.
2 companies · 2 in comparison matrix
What does the work cost? Translating the scope of work into materials, labor, and a sellable price. Most FSMs have basic estimating. Specialized proposal tools (Airship) focus on making this step fast and presentable.
2 companies · 2 in comparison matrix
Trade-specific intelligence that turns a scope into a code-compliant design. For HVAC, this is Manual J load calculation and AHRI equipment matching. For electrical, this is the NEC load calculation, single-line diagram, and panel schedule. Airship does this for HVAC. Treehouse's Edison and Kopperfield do this for electrical.
3 companies · 2 in comparison matrix
Turning the estimate into a customer-facing document. Airship is the strongest external evidence for what this looks like as a specialized product. Housecall Pro's Sales Proposal Tool is a paid add-on. Most contractors use PDF generators or word processors.
3 companies · 2 in comparison matrix
The homeowner reviews the proposal and decides. For in-home sales tools (Airship), this happens on a tablet in the kitchen. For remote proposals, this happens asynchronously on the homeowner's own device.
2 companies · no comparison matrix yet
The financial commitment: deposit, payment schedule, and terms. FSMs handle this natively for most contractors. Treehouse's role here is limited — this step stays in the contractor's existing system for most jobs.
1 company · no comparison matrix yet
What gets written back to the FSM, what stays in Treehouse, and where the system of record for each data type lives. This is the boundary question for every Treehouse integration.
6 companies · 2 in comparison matrix
Scheduling, dispatch, installation, inspection, and invoice. This is the FSM's core competency. Treehouse's role here is primarily providing the permit package and scope documentation the tech needs in the field.
2 companies · no comparison matrix yet
Top 10 product questions
Strategic questions the cross-flow analysis surfaces. Each is a hypothesis — none are validated internally yet.
Where does automation materially improve speed to proposal — and where does it introduce errors that a human must catch, negating the speed gain?
Remote photo collection (Flow 4) and Edison scoping (Flow 5) are the highest-leverage automation steps. Lead intake and proposal formatting are fast with or without automation.
What is the minimum information required before a quote can be generated — and what information can be collected asynchronously from the homeowner vs. requiring a physical site visit?
For an electrical panel upgrade: main service size, breaker inventory, and appliance list are sufficient for a remote scope. For a whole-home rewire: physical access to the conduit routing is also needed.
Which steps are already well-solved by FSMs — and where do contractors still use spreadsheets, intuition, manual review, or workarounds?
FSMs solve scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, and payment well. They do not solve scoping, load calculation, permit documentation, or the proposal presentation experience. Those are the gaps Treehouse and Airship fill.
What trade-specific intelligence creates differentiated value — and how does that intelligence degrade or become commodity over time?
Edison's NEC load calculation and Panel IQ's photo extraction are the current moat. Manual J became commodity for HVAC once tools like Airship and CoolCalc standardized it. The same commoditization risk applies to Treehouse's electrical scoping.
Which capabilities should be native to Treehouse versus integrated with a third-party tool — and where does Treehouse's integration layer become the bottleneck?
Treehouse should own the scoping intelligence (Edison, Panel IQ) and the permit documentation. It should orchestrate the financing application, the FSM writeback, and the voice/SMS response. It should not own scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, or payment.
What does a contractor actually need to see versus what can happen automatically — and what level of automation creates anxiety vs. confidence?
Contractors need to see and approve: the Edison scope (before pricing), the proposal (before sending), the permit package (before submission). They do not need to see: photo extraction processing, pricing calculation, FSM writeback.
How should Treehouse behave when confidence is low — and what is the right escalation path when the automated scope is wrong?
Treehouse should surface confidence explicitly — a 'scope confidence' indicator with the specific fields that are uncertain. The escalation should be to a human review queue, not a site visit by default.
What terminology and object model best matches contractor mental models — and where do gaps in shared vocabulary create adoption friction?
Contractors think in 'jobs,' 'estimates,' and 'invoices.' Treehouse's 'project,' 'scope,' and 'proposal' language may not match. The panel data extracted by Panel IQ needs a name contractors recognize — 'panel record' vs. 'service information' vs. 'existing conditions.'
What does a contractor need to convert a homeowner who never meets a tech in person — and at what ticket size does the remote model break down?
For jobs under $5,000 (single EV charger, small panel work), remote scoping and async proposal probably work. For jobs over $15,000 (whole-home rewire, service upgrade plus solar prep), homeowners may demand an in-person visit regardless of proposal quality.
What parts of the workflow can eventually become Treehouse-owned if the product expands — and what must always stay in the FSM or with the contractor?
Treehouse could eventually own: homeowner-facing communication, permit application tracking, job completion verification, property intelligence database. It should not try to own: scheduling/dispatch, on-site work order management, payment processing, payroll.
No competitor covers information & photo collection.
Every Tier A competitor (Broccoli, LeadTruffle, Cactus) marks this step not-applicable. Airship has no photo feature anywhere in public evidence. The only external analogue is Kopperfield, which is fully unresearched. This is Treehouse’s differentiated territory: Panel IQ operating in a step the market has not yet addressed.
See Flow 04 →