Should Your Integration Company Add a New Service? Product Lessons From Portal's Founder
Before you add a new service, product line or tool, make sure it solves a problem most of your clients share, start with the simplest version that works, and budget for supporting it for years. Every new offering is a commitment, not a launch.
That's the lesson Kirk Chisholm, founder and Chief Product Officer of Portal, learned building software for AV companies. Chisholm ran an integration business before Portal, and on episode 3 of 1NSIGHTS, he shared what his pivots taught him with host Jason Griffing, OneVision's Director of Product.
How do you know a new idea solves a real problem?
Talk to customers until you find the problem they all share. Chisholm learned this the hard way. His integration company grew to more than 50 people and, at its peak, worked in about 1,000 homes a month. To run it, he spent more than $500,000 building custom software.
When he offered that software to other integrators, they loved it at first, then dropped off one by one. The reason was always the same: their business didn't work exactly like his. What every tester did agree on was the shared product catalog. That became the core problem Portal was built around.
His process for finding that kind of core problem:
- Interview one customer and sketch a solution.
- Talk to a second and adjust so it fits both.
- Keep going until you find the common thread.
- Start simple. It's easier to add complexity later than to strip it out.
The same applies to an integrator weighing shades, energy management or a new service plan. Build around what most clients need, not what one client asks for.
What does a new offering really cost?
More than the launch. Portal's team has a shorthand for this: if we have this baby, we have to raise it until it goes to college. Every feature, product line or service you add needs ongoing support, training and attention, even if few clients end up using it.
Chisholm admits the lesson is hard to learn in theory. New ideas are exciting, so teams over-engineer them. Only after maintaining a pile of rarely used features do most people learn to hold back.
Who is your real customer?
The answer isn't always obvious. Portal began as SupplyStream, a free catalog for dealers, funded by distributors. It was growing, but the team was building for distributors, who weren't the customer the product was made for. Large distributors also saw it as a threat and stayed out.
When the company switched to charging dealers directly, about half stayed right away and 80% were back within a few months. Then it asked those dealers what to build next. The answer was obvious to them: proposals.
Griffing pointed out that integrators face the same question with builders, architects, designers and homeowners, whose interests sometimes conflict. Knowing who you're optimizing for makes those calls easier.
How should you handle customer feedback?
It depends on your stage:
- Early on, skip the giant lists. With a small team, Chisholm tells people not to track every request. The problems that matter will keep surfacing until you fix them. Reordering a long backlog mostly wastes time.
- Watch for recency bias. One recent request can feel urgent and pull you off course.
- As you grow, look for patterns. Portal's support team reports weekly trends, such as a sudden spike in accounting-sync questions, rather than every ticket.
- Talk face to face. Chisholm learns more from a dozen in-depth conversations at a trade show than from the most-voted items on a request list. Feedback isn't a democracy.
In a live poll, attendees were split evenly between too much conflicting input, not enough engagement and difficulty acting on what they hear.
When should you chase something new, like AI?
When it helps you build what you were going to build anyway. Chisholm has no patience for technology in search of a problem. Portal's AI proposal tool came from seeing AI check pricing on a real project, which fit squarely with what Portal does. Even so, it pushed other roadmap items back a few months, and some users asked why the team wasn't working on what they'd requested.
His takeaway: new technology earns its place when it serves your direction, not when it's simply new.
Why does brand matter as much as the product?
Because people remember how you made them feel. Portal's signature orange pants started as a way to stand out at a first trade show where everyone wore khakis. Chisholm judges design the same way, by how it feels, and calls the skill behind it radical empathy: imagining a customer's reaction the first time they walk in.
Watch the full conversation
Kirk Chisholm - Portal | The Innovator’s Playbook: Building Products Customers Love
1NSIGHTS Podcast
About 1NSIGHTS
1NSIGHTS by OneVision explores how integrators, operators and industry leaders think, build and adapt in a fast-changing custom integration landscape. Recorded live and shaped by audience questions, each episode goes past surface-level trends to the real decisions and trade-offs behind growing smarter and staying competitive. Explore all episodes →
