Startup Weekend • 54-hour MVP blueprint

BuildingBenchmark CHI

Chicago

Policy + Climate + Civic Tech

Make energy benchmarking compliance cheaper and clearer.

A compliance helper that guides building owners through reporting steps, flags missing data, and estimates improvement paybacks aligned with city rules.

Local fit: Big-city service reliability, building energy compliance, and environmental health; strong need for transparent dashboards and circular construction reuse.

← Back to finalist list

Core user stories

As a building owner/manager, I input basic building attributes and see a compliance checklist.
As an engineer/contractor, I generate a retrofit opportunity list with rough payback ranges.
As an association, I see an anonymized portfolio view to prioritize outreach.

Clickable demo scope (what you build)

Building intake form → compliance dashboard (seeded rules + sample building dataset).
Retrofit pathway cards (lighting, HVAC, controls) with simple savings assumptions.
Exportable action plan PDF mock (download button).

Team of four roles

Product & Policy Lead: Translate compliance rules into a checklist; define minimal building inputs; write guardrails to avoid false precision.
UX / Frontend: Build building intake → checklist → retrofit pathways screens with clear explanations.
Backend / Data: Implement simple calculator and action plan generator; seed a sample building dataset and pathways.
Partnerships / Story / Ops: Talk to a building manager/engineer; validate willingness-to-pay; deploy and pitch.

54-hour build plan

Hours 0–6: Pick one user segment; do 5–8 quick interviews; lock the “one workflow” MVP.
Hours 6–24: Build the clickable flow end-to-end with stubbed data; draft the policy narrative.
Hours 24–40: Add one policy-ready output (brief/dashboard/export); tighten UX; seed data for 2–3 neighborhoods.
Hours 40–54: Polish demo script; add analytics mock; finalize pitch + one-page handout.

What to show in the final demo

The “happy path” (one user completes the core task in under 2 minutes).
One policy-ready output (a brief, dashboard view, or export).
One local proof point (seeded neighborhoods / agencies / partner types relevant to Chicago).

How it can earn revenue without becoming extractive

Revenue fit (values-aligned): tiered subscription for building portfolios + paid onboarding; provide discounted tiers for nonprofits/co-ops.

Guardrails: publish scoring criteria, minimize data collection, and default to community ownership where possible (co-op/commons patterns).