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A homeowner entrepreneur successfully markets a thermostat product. BBC Last week, Dragon’s Den was criticized by a residents’ group for infantilizing its residents.
Timeostat (sometimes written as TIME:O:STAT) works by allowing residents to keep their home heated at a selected temperature for two hours at a time with just two button presses. Masu. – 1 hour per click.
In the show, landlord Anthony Cherry makes a deal with entrepreneur Tookar Suleiman to invest £80,000 for a 30% stake, which will drop to 20% if he returns the money. was.
But Dan Wilson-Crow, deputy chief executive of tenant campaign group Generation Rent, said: “Rather than infantilizing tenants, landlords should give tenants the information they need to run their home’s heating system. “We need to provide certainty and trust that tenants will make the right decisions.” decision.
“We often hear of landlords renting out their homes with rent included, but then trying to limit the tenant’s control over the comforts of their own home.
“It seems like there may be issues with this product, but how easy is it to make sure your home is warm on a cold winter morning, or comfortable when you get home from work?
“It’s also a concern when homeowners limit the heating so much that the house doesn’t get warm enough, resulting in mold problems.”
This product also caused angry reactions such as: Twitter/Xis branded as. “an evil idea”, and some viewers said it was “kicked out of the entire show”.
Cherry said Dragons’ Den decided to hide some details of the product because its properties default to a minimum temperature of 14 degrees, according to the inventor.
As for Dragon’s Den itself, Cherry said, “At that time.” [two-hour] The message “Heating will turn off when timer reaches zero” appeared, giving the impression that the heating would turn off after the boost period.
Anthony Cherry replies – “The tenant’s well-being is most important.”
property wire Cherry claimed that the product’s main purpose is to “empower tenants and enable landlords to lower their bills and offer attractive rents.”
Cherry also responded to Generation Rent’s Dan Wilson-Crow: The comfort and welfare of tenants is a top priority for every good landlord. Dissatisfied tenants will not renew their contracts.
“Timeostat is not designed to restrict heating, but rather to empower tenants and allow them to turn on the heating whenever they want without landlord intervention.
“Many unscrupulous landlords lock their thermostats in boxes or use apps to turn their tenants’ heating off and down. Timeostat gives tenants easy access to their heating with simple, intuitive controls. It’s designed to do that.”
He asserted that there is no need for residents to wake up in a cold home, but that it depends on whether residents wake up on a set schedule.
It has an automatic program function, allowing you to set two preset times when the heating will automatically turn on, usually in the morning and evening. The tenant can control this schedule, but the landlord controls when she has 1 hour, 2 hours, or he has 3 hours, etc.
Mr Cherry said homeowners do not have the ability to turn off the heating completely and there is also a default minimum temperature setting of 14C.
For poorly insulated homes, Cherry recommends setting a minimum temperature of 18-19°C.
A boost period of 2 hours is set as the default.
Mr Cherry said: “We tried to rule out the possibility that the landlord had a bad attitude, so we added a minimum of two hours. I really hope they can’t turn off the tenant’s heating. Because I think there is.
“As an experienced landlord, I know that the tenant’s happiness is paramount. That’s what really matters, but I don’t like the idea that there are people who would take advantage of that.”
Cherry said she uses Timeostat at home with her three young children.
He further added: “If it doesn’t work, I’ll hurt my neck.” Even my young daughters can turn on the heating if they wish.
“A timeostat is also in my elderly parents’ home, where they find the controls easy to operate and welcome the resulting savings.”
Timeostat modes and apps
As specified in Dragon’s Den, there is a “comfort mode” that homeowners can enable to keep the heating on for up to eight hours at a time, but the target temperature is lower than the two-hour setting. and become lower.
For the first two hours, residents can use whatever temperature they like, but for three to four hours the maximum temperature is reduced to 21°C, and after eight hours the maximum temperature is reduced to 19°C.
There’s also a “seasonal mode” that removes minimal feature settings and cuts the heating to a one-hour boost, but Cherry assured us that it can only be activated between June and August.
A landlord app has been developed that allows you to monitor temperature and humidity levels in all properties, as well as change settings remotely. If the temperature is dangerously high or low, the app will send you a warning and allow you to turn on the heating remotely.
Cherry’s journey from landlord to entrepreneur
Cherry has been a landlord for 20 years, mainly renting out student share houses.
He bought his first property in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. But then he began studying podiatry in Northampton as an adult student, at which point he decided to buy his second property in Northampton and rent out his old house. Thereafter, he slowly expanded his HMO portfolio.
Once in the workforce, he felt that too much heating was wasted across his portfolio, so he developed his own time-delay switch that was hard-wired into the boiler. This immediately saved about 40 to 50 percent on heating costs, he said.
He then decided to develop his product for the commercial market.
After filing a patent, they launched the product in 2016 and have sold 13,000 units so far, some going to private landlords and some wholesale. I am currently using the 3rd generation of Timeostat.
For larger transactions, Cherry said letting agents in York and Leeds have introduced the product across their portfolio and are encouraging new landlords to use it when using their services. It is said to be a condition.
So far, Cherry has marketed her product using Google Ads and social media to target HMO landlords and speaking at real estate investor events.
On Dragons’ Den Cherry said sales in 2021 were £175,000, in 2022 £181,000 and in 2023 £394,000. Last year’s gross profit was £228,000 and net profit was £93,000.
next step
Following the TV appearance, a new version of the product will be launched on the market for serviced accommodation and holiday caravans.
A fourth version of the flagship product is also expected to be launched by the end of 2024.
Timeostat costs between £169.99 and £229.99 depending on the model, which is around 10 times more expensive than a regular thermostat. But Mr Cherry argued on Dragon’s Den that HMO landlords could recover the difference in one month.
Before investing in Cherry’s venture, Tookar Suleiman claimed he could introduce landlords to people who could buy “hundreds of thousands” of units, so the company could be ready in the next few years. It is said that there is.
Dragon’s Den Overview
When pitching in Dragon’s Den, Cherry said she first noticed a major problem with one of her properties during a routine maintenance call. He described a hot, sunny day when the occupants were not home, but the heating was on “full blast” and the windows were wide open.
Cherry said she left the thermostat on because tenants told her it was too complicated to use. At this point he developed his own product.
He said he was looking for investors to invest in Dragon’s Den to turn the small business into a large company, while using their connections to gain direct access to the people who run the holiday park. He said he thinks it is a big opportunity. Even holiday caravans and Airbnb listings.
Deborah Meaden, one of the ‘dragons’, said she had more than 1,000 units at the holiday park. However, she gave up on her investment, saying that her capital investment was too large.
Stephen Bartlett has decided not to invest, citing a lack of interest in the HMO landlord industry, but fellow moguls Peter Jones and Sarah Davies believe other thermostat developers could win the technology race. I felt it was very sexual.
Touker Suleyman detailed his experience with co-living spaces, as he is currently working on a project in west London to deliver 129 homes, and his partner plans to deliver 1,000.
Suleiman offered to take Cherry’s 35% stake in the company for £80,000, but this was reduced to 25% when the money was returned.
However, Cherry remained firm and successfully negotiated a 30% contract with Suleiman, which could have been reduced to 20%.