Piers Dormeyer - Eagleview’s Big Reveal – Rebrand and Platform Evolution - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Piers Dormeyer, CEO of Eagleview. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts to on the road adventures, we'll uncover the stories, innovations and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. So fasten your seat belts and join us as we embark on this exciting roofing road trip. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from Roofer's Coffee Shop. This is Heidi Ellsworth. And I have to tell you, this is breaking news. This is big, baby. This is a big podcast and I am so excited to be here with Piers Dormeyer, the CEO of Eagleview. Good morning, Piers. 

Piers Dormeyer: Heidi, good morning. Great to see you, hear you. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I tell you what, yeah. Thank you for getting on the podcast, Roofing Road Trips. You guys have some big news today and we are so excited to be breaking it on this very special launch day. So let's just start out with introductions. If you can introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about Eagleview and then we're going to hop right in. 

Piers Dormeyer: Sure. Piers Dormeyer, I'm the CEO at Eagleview. I think a lot of your listeners know who we are. We're known for our 3D models, our roof data and our imagery that's been serving the roofing industry for 15 going on 20 years. A little while. 

Heidi Ellsworth: The company that changed the industry. Right, Piers? 

Piers Dormeyer: Your words. Not mine, Heidi. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Well, since I was there, I think I can say it. I'm just going to say it. 

Piers Dormeyer: Touche. 

Heidi Ellsworth: And today you are changing things up again. Tell us what's happening. What is the big reveal that everybody's going to be seeing today? 

Piers Dormeyer: Sure. Well, we're certainly excited. I love the enthusiasm. We think it's a big deal. It's really a new chapter for Eagleview. There's a couple things going on. So the first one is it's a major launch of our newest platform called Eagleview One and then we're wrapping, also around that, brand new rebranding. So maybe I'll get into Eagleview One a little bit first. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. I would love to hear about ... I mean, I love the name, first of all. It's pretty cool. It sounds very scientific, future. 

Piers Dormeyer: Yeah. Well, I had no part in that, but I will tell you we are excited. I think that Eagleview One is, in essence, a platform. And we use that word, platform. It gets thrown around a lot and I don't love that, but this, in that sense, it truly is a superstructure, if you will, that unifies and brings all of Eagleview's imagery, our 3D models, things like our roof reports, our AI-derived analytics, our drones and even partner data all into one place, into one digital experience. 

So that's really exciting in the sense that customers that maybe had only interacted with Eagleview with this listener base, our roof reports, which are well-known, maybe haven't experienced a lot of what we do with respect to our imagery and maybe some of our other data where we're talking about looking at change detection and understanding our post-catastrophe modeling after a tornado or a hurricane. They're going to be able to experience that. They're going to be able to get this new suite of AI tools. And then you're also going to see just a different way of interacting with Eagleview from a 3D and a digital experience, which is going to scratch a lot of itches that customers have had of ours for years. 

Heidi Ellsworth: You know what, Piers? Having watched Eagleview, Pictometry, now bringing it all together, this really has been a dream and that I've heard about throughout the years, but it really took vision and a visionary. So talk to me a little bit about your role as CEO and really how you've seen this and wanting to take the company to this next step. 

Piers Dormeyer: Yeah. I mean, you kind of nailed it. This really isn't rocket surgery, but what it is is it's certainly the right time. And there's been some things that have gotten us to this point and have been the cause for action, if you will. One of it has been, over the years, we've started to capture better and better imagery, higher and higher resolution, more frequent capture. So the quality of the base data set that we go out and fly airplanes every day to collect and process, that has gotten actually exponentially better and more powerful. And that's really always been just an ingredient offering. We built products out of this raw material, but there's a lot of value in that raw material. 

Then this thing happened with GenAI a couple of years ago, that everybody started learning how to interact with things like ChatGPT. What we've found is now that we can take that really rich data set that we go out and fly those airplanes to capture, we can start to process that on top of some of these AI tools. And then what we just saw was this explosion of value and all of these insights that customers across all of our different verticals are finding value in when they're solving new problems. 

And the epiphany was ... You know what? This data that's useful to a lineman for an electric utility might just be valuable for a contractor. And why don't we, rather than sit here and try and guess and anticipate and just build products, why don't we just unlock all of that for our customers and let them get whatever they possibly can and then tell us about it? So really, this has been less about guessing and building new products and trying to sell it to our customers, more about listening and learning and enabling. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it. And it really fits with the atmosphere we have, the environment of business today. Everyone has that mindset of ... What can I do next? How can I bring my business to that next level? With you opening up all this data, that's going to be huge. 

Piers Dormeyer: Yeah, that's really it. And I think we're orienting the company towards the customer a little bit more because we really want to learn more about what our customers are doing with this so that we know how to better prioritize and put efforts in to make it even better and even faster. So it's really exciting. We get to learn a lot as well. And yeah, we're pumped about it. 

Heidi Ellsworth: And Piers, when I think about going back ... 2008, even before that a little bit, Eagleview started to where it is today. Let's just talk about roofing since we're on Roofing Road Trips, but when I look at all the ways the data's being used, it's being integrated into all these other softwares. So you have companies like Roofle or other companies that are doing quick bids and they're using it for lead generation. I mean, there's just so many different things in roofing alone that is being used that weren't even thought of back in 2008 and when it all started. How much of this new platform will also be ... I know a big part of it is your integrations. Is that going to make any changes in some of the integrations that are out there? What's going to happen there? 

Piers Dormeyer: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because that's really important. There is two faces to Eagleview One. There's absolutely the ... Go log in to this user experience that's got Eagleview all over it. And then there's the developer side. So a couple years ago, we started building a best-in-class developer portal, developed dev center where developers can go log in, they can get access to all those API keys, those STKs, so that they can take elements of our experience and embed them in their own workflows. And that's really important to us. It's important that we deliver our data to where our customers need it. And that's sometimes behind an Eagleview-branded piece of software and a lot of times it's not. It's within some CRM or some other type of UX. So we certainly want to support that. That's really important to us. And then we'll ultimately offer support to get people to get up and running quickly as well. 

Yeah. That's great. And it really rolls into my next question. And then, of course, we got to get to the branding. But my next question is for contractors out there, when Eagleview One takes off, no pun intended, what will look different for them? What's going to change for them? 

Piers Dormeyer: Yeah and I'll get into a little bit of the roadmap too because this truly is just the beginning. But the very first release, which is here at the end of June, two things are going to change. One of them is that when roofing contractors are interacting with the roof data, the roof report, there's an entirely new 3D digital experience that you're going to see that report transported into. So you're going to be able to manipulate the property, you're going to be able to spin that around, take a look at it. You're going to see the context of the environment around it. 

One feature that's been asked for for years and is really interesting is the ability to turn off facets and turn off areas. And this is important for not just roofing contractors, but also folks on insurance. You can turn the carport off or you can take this piece off because maybe that wasn't damaged or maybe you're doing a repair. So we're going to have some of those quality-of-life features that we've been planning on for quite some time. So you're going to find that robust digital experience happen right out of the gate. 

2D reports are going to go away. So fast follow, you're going to see the ability to turn a 2D into a 3D in this digital experience. 

And then maybe not so much a software feature, but there's entirely new pricing options. So there's the subscription product. You get entirely new pricing options that address the challenges in the seasonality in the different segments. So we find that ... We've been testing the pricing out for almost six months. We feel like we have something that's going to work for folks a little better than the transactional pricing we've had in the past. So I think that's pretty positive as well. 

And then you're going to see ... We are already planning our August launch. We're planning our October launch. Those things are already scheduled. So you're going to experience ... Eagleview One is going to feel a lot like the old days of Amazon Prime, where you're signing up for 99 bucks and you're getting your two-day shipping. Six months later, you've got a streaming platform and music and whatever else is in there. I don't know because I just see boxes show up every day. But Eagleview One is going to feel a lot like that. 

Heidi Ellsworth: That's cool. I love that. I love it. And you are wrapping all of that with a brand new brand. Tell us about that. 

Piers Dormeyer: Yeah. So we're very excited about the brand. This is a new chapter. We're really focused a lot on that customer-centric offering, but we're also focused on those insights and on that data and we think that's really where the power is. The power in all of this imagery and all this data and these models is really given to the customer. That insight is the power. And we wanted a symbol, frankly, that conveyed that. So we really thought about the important work that our customers do. It's important work. We have a very patriotic, strong customer base. We wanted a strong symbol. And frankly, it was a no-brainer. The most obvious thing is we really wanted to grab that powerful eagle as our symbol and move forward with it. 

Heidi Ellsworth: It feels like it's coming around a little bit. Full circle. I love it. 

Piers Dormeyer: It's not bad. Yeah, I love it. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Wow. Well, today's the day. So as contractors, you're going to see all of this on Roofers Coffee Shop. Check it out, all the new branding. We're very excited to see it ourselves. I will say we are recording this ahead of time, so I have not seen it yet and I am really excited for the day that it will be out. Anything really for the contractors, Piers? Any last thoughts on just really embracing some of this? There's so much with AI, so much going on, that sometimes I think people are a little overloaded, but really the importance of embracing new ways of doing things and some of this new technology. 

Piers Dormeyer: Yeah. The idea here is these tools have proven to be just so powerful in really solving some of these challenges around workforce and not having the resources and getting in front of the costs. And I think it's really important that you take every advantage that you can. And we think a lot of this geospatial data, this information, can do just that. We're also happy to help with teaching, helping implement, sharing best practices. That's something we really like to do. So if there's any way I can be of service or any of my team, please reach out. 

Heidi Ellsworth: So cool. Piers, you do so much for the industry and you do so much overall. Thank you for everything you do and this is really exciting. Thank you for taking your time out today to be on Roofing Road Trips and share this exciting news. 

Piers Dormeyer: It's my pleasure. Happy to do it. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay. Everyone, check it out. Home page. You're going to see all the information, the new platform, the new branding. Eagleview One. This is industry game-changing once again. So Piers, have a great day. Thank you so much. We're excited to show it off. 

Piers Dormeyer: Cool. Thank you. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Please check out all the Roofing Road Trip podcasts under the RLW. Be sure to subscribe and set those notifications. And more than anything, today, check out Eagleview. Big day. We'll see you next time on Roofing Road Trips. 

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