Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Etrit Demaj, Co-Founder at KODE Labs, a real estate IoT platform that has raised $38 million.

Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:

• The Early Vision for KODE Labs: Etrit and his co-founders saw a gap in the real estate market for a scalable, cloud-based operating system for smart buildings, which led to the founding of KODE Labs in 2017.
• Bootstrapping and Belief: KODE Labs operated without outside capital until 2022, relying on the founders' belief in the transformative potential of cloud-based smart building platforms and their own financial resources.
• Landing the Empire State Building as a Client: In 2022, KODE Labs secured the Empire State Building as a client, showcasing their platform's ability to meet the high standards of iconic properties committed to ESG and smart building initiatives.
• Evolution of Go-to-Market Strategy: The company’s GTM approach evolved from a local focus to a regional and then national strategy, driven by initial success and feedback from their first 50 buildings.
• Pioneering the Smart Building Category: KODE Labs is redefining the smart building category by transitioning what was traditionally on-premises to the cloud, making large-scale deployments globally feasible and cost-effective.
• Building a Channel Partner Network: One of the most significant strategic decisions was creating a channel partner program, enabling global scalability through certified partners who can implement and build on the KODE Labs platform independently.