Cory Vanderpool of Sprk talks messaging, market education & building the “backside” of the solar industry

What if the most valuable part of your product... isn’t what you built first?In this episode of The Plucky Bamboo Podcast, Chris speaks with Cory Vanderpool, founder of Sprk - a company on a mission to give energy upgrades like solar panels real value in real estate transactions.With over a decade in the solar industry, Cory saw deals collapsing, value being lost, and no one bridging the gap between home energy systems and the people buying and selling those homes. So he built a new kind of company - one that’s creating the back-end infrastructure the clean energy market desperately needs.Together, we explore:🔹 Why most sustainability products struggle with messaging and market adoption🔹 The painful lesson of building the “wrong” feature - and what finally unlocked traction🔹 How Sprk chose one clear audience and stopped trying to solve every stakeholder’s problem🔹 What founders must understand about awareness stages and “meeting people where they’re at”🔹 Why building something great isn’t enough - you have to make sure people want itIf you’re a founder trying to scale in a complex or low-awareness market, this episode will hit home.