Episode 124: Disaster Recovery Gets a Tech Upgrade with Tessi

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Welcome to Everybody in the Pool, the podcast where we dive deep into the innovative solutions and the brilliant minds who are tackling the climate crisis head on. I'm Molly Wood. This week, let's keep talking about adaptation and resilience because the US might be trying to deny the reality of climate change at the federal policy level, but as Niall Murphy of Morphosis told us last week, the insurers, the financial institutions and the leaders of other nations are perfectly aware of reality.

As are unfortunately, many, many, many people in the path of extreme storms, fires, flooding, hurricanes, and other disasters. In the US alone, 3 million homes are damaged every year in some kind of natural disaster, and those disasters are happening more and more frequently. And the system for repairing those homes involves endless paperwork, manual inspections, a whole lot of fraud, and a major insurance gap.

My guest today aims to streamline this process, bringing homeowners vetted contractors and funding sources onto a single platform. So it's recovery, but it also creates a process that can incentivize people to build back more resilient at the same time. Let's do the details.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Hi, everyone. I'm Susan Hunt Stevens. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Tessi. And Tessi is fixing the broken post-disaster home repair system. So millions of homes in the United States are damaged after disasters. There's a billion dollar storm almost every 10 days now, and we are helping to get people home safer, faster, and more cost effectively for the whole system.

Molly Wood: This is one of those topics that I'm actually surprised and kind of horrified that I haven't covered yet, because we talk so much about the impacts of climate change showing up as extreme weather, um, and like you said, more and more and more frequently. And so disaster recovery and technology for that is, is so important. What got you interested in this specifically?

Susan Hunt Stevens: So I saw the problem firsthand in my second startup where we were helping companies run employee assistance funds, and we would get applications from employees who had had their home damaged after a flood or a hurricane, or a mudslide, or a fire. And either their insurance didn't cover some of the damage or the difference between what their insurance covered and what it was gonna actually cost to repair had, you know, a, a gap, what they call the protection gap.

Um, or the worst and the saddest was that people had gotten funds to repair their home. They'd put a down payment, uh, for a repair company to come do it. And the person never showed up, never did the work, and just ran off with their funds. And so they were applying for assistance so that they could start the whole process all over again.

And it just made you realize that it was one of those weird systems where, when this didn't happen very often, you know, um, and didn't affect that many people, you could kind of pull things together every now and then to really support a community that went through this and people could come in and, and all of that.

And now, when it's happening simultaneously everywhere, all at once, the system just can't expand enough to do it, which then opens up, um, opportunity for bad actors. And I'm not saying bad actors weren't there before, but I think it's become very lucrative to be a bad actor after disasters. And there isn't a system that keeps people safe, let alone, you know, eliminates the huge burden of paperwork and form filling and people showing up to do estimates and assessments and deciding what you need to do before any work ever gets started. And it just, the system can't function like this anymore.

And we're fortunately at a really interesting time in terms of, you know, both the need becoming basically every day. And the technology enabling a whole different approach to the system. And so we're kind of trying to, to fix it by taking advantage of that classic why now? Um, you know, we can do it with the technology and there's a need to do it.

Molly Wood: Mm-hmm. I don't wanna derail us completely, but what was your second startup that…

Susan Hunt Stevens: We, uh, we're,

Molly Wood: you ended up forseeing this problem?

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah. So, um, ultimately we ended up…

Molly Wood: This is also a roundabout way into your origin story

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah, exactly. I love it. So the second startup was essentially the largest provider of sustainability, social impact, wellbeing, and DNI engagement programs to large global corporations.

So we worked with hundreds of companies and, you know, millions of employees had access to these programs. Um, and we ended up selling the company in 2023 to a much larger social impact technology company. But, uh, it was an incredible, um, journey to really be at the forefront of helping organizations, um, who had, in some cases, the leaders had already set goals around sustainability, um, and impact, but now needed every employee to understand what they were and what they could do differently at work, and how to get involved and engaged.

And what I loved is that we were able to prove that when you got employees involved in these things, it was really good for attracting talent, keeping talent, and there was a really strong business case. And I always love sustainability stories where the business justification makes the investment just a no brainer.

Molly Wood: Right, and, and this actually feels like that, I would imagine, right because it, on the one hand, it is truly disaster recovery, but on the other hand, it is incentivizing construction and manufacturing and…

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah.

Molly Wood: repair and infrastructure that might be delayed for years without it.

Susan Hunt Stevens: I mean, you know, the homeowner value proposition is just obvious. You know, okay, you do less work, you get your money faster, and you get to go home faster with high quality work done, and your money doesn't get taken with you and you don't deal with bad guys. That's obvious.

But what I love about this solution is everybody in the system who is a good actor actually wins and the bad actors lose. So insurers who want to fairly pay claims for damage, um, and not be defrauded win. They save money, they can pay the claims faster, they provide better customer service. Disaster restoration companies who do good work now have the information they need to scale and hire and bring more people in and mobilize, you know, whereas right now it's really hard for them to determine whether they should make that mobilization investment when they have no idea, you know, what the volume of of work is gonna be, and no way to necessarily get it profitably.

So it's one of those times where it's not just one person in the system that benefits from an innovation. The whole system benefits from an innovation, and I love those types of, um, companies that just, you know, as I, as I, I kind of joke, you know, I would still never get in a car with a stranger, but I do it almost every day, thanks to what ride sharing brought to, you know, our lives, which was the ability to get from point A to point B.

You know, it, 99.9% of the time safely, um, you know, for a price that was clear and transparent before you got in the car. And, and as a result it changed transportation. And I think we have the same opportunity to do that in, you know, post-disaster construction.

Molly Wood: Right. Let's talk, this feels like a point where people are going, okay, cool, but how does it work? And so let's do that and then we'll talk more about this kind of inflection point that you’re at.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah.

Molly Wood: So how? How are you doing this?

Susan Hunt Stevens: Well, so the big unlock, there are many, you know, networks of providers, um, you know, and you could go out and try to get one on Angie or Thumbtack or things like that. The unlock for us was really recognizing where the friction was in the system and the friction in the system was that right now, you know, multiple entities, at least five, if not more, need to come to a home to do a manual in-person assessment and estimate in order for any work to get done.

And so your insurer needs to come if you're insured, if it's a disaster where government assistance is being provided, they need to do a verification and validation of damage. And then anyone who's doing the repair has to come and do the assessment and estimate. Our goal is to have every single home affected have a damage assessment estimate within 24 hours of a storm.

Molly Wood: Mm-hmm.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Because when you have that, and we do that using AI and we take in all sorts of different data, but the really transformative combination is now, um, very precise satellite, fixed wing, and drone data with AI analysis of the damage on top of it.

And then phones, you know, like these in our pockets that have an ability now to take images from the interior of the home, you know, and even things like security camera footage and things like that, and turn that into a set of work orders that can then, then be priced.

And so our IP, for lack of a better word, is the model that turns all this imagery into sequenced work orders that enable it to be priced and dispatched.

Molly Wood: Got it. And then who in this case is the customer?

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah. Like any sort of multi-sided marketplace, you know, that's always a huge, uh, question. But I, I, I liken it to, um, if you don't have labor to, uh, actually do the home repairs, you don't have a system. And so in our mind, the, the, um, ultimate customer that we wanna make sure is on the platform is the provider of the various different services that are needed.

Um, and for these folks, whether they're, you know, um, during expedient home repair or they're doing mold remediation or roof repair or, you know, um, debris removal or any of these things, um, you know, being able to have for them to look at a job, look at what the estimate is, look at the funds, have been verified, they can then take the job and go.

And so when we have that group of people there, what we're giving 'em is the ability to take jobs without having to go and then maybe only get it 30% of the time or 40% of the time. You know, and if they, um, you know, if they doesn't make look like a fit for them, they can pass and it goes to the next provider. But, um, we see that as the ultimate customer.

Now, the two other groups are really important. The, you know, the homeowner has to agree that this is the estimate and what they're, you know, gonna pay. And then there's the funder who is actually providing the money. And you know, this is one of those weird situations where everybody assumes it's the insurer, but in a flooding hurricane situation, only 4% of homeowners are actually covered by insurance on average.

And so who are the funders? You know, people are essentially self-insured, so it's themselves. It may be local banks that, um, or they’re, you know, or home equity loans or people that are putting money into the system for the homeowner to do it. It could be government if it's been declared a big enough disaster, and there is government aid.

It could be charities. Um, I heard a, a staggering statistic from, um, GoFundMe that almost $250 million went into, um, people raising money to fix homes after disasters on the platform. And I,

Molly Wood: Oh my god.

Susan Hunt Stevens: I was like, whoa. You know? And so, you know, I mean, it's a, it's, it's. Globally, it's estimated that there's about $300 billion that goes into post, uh, disaster damage repair every single year.

In the US the estimate is around 3 million homes. And the, the, the, you know, sort of spending per home, according to Harvard, is around $22,000 per damaged home. Um, so that's a lot. It's, that's a lot of money that's getting spent, and it's just, you know, so the money's there. The labor is there, it's just not in the right place. They don't know where to go as efficiently and as effectively, and the homeowners left doing all this work to try to make that happen.

And so if we can just, you know, make that part much more instantaneously, people will get home faster and easier. You know, the labor will be able to work more efficiently, effectively. You know, fraud for everyone in the system gets weeded out, and we just think it's a better way to do business.

Molly Wood: Tell me more about the climate part of this, because on the one hand, this is just a, this is just a solution that should exist for all kinds of disasters. Um, but, but let's like put a finer point on the fact that, you know, this is coming after an interview about funding, adaptation and resilience solutions, which this is one.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Absolutely. So this is the part that got me as somebody who's spent 15 years in, in climate and sustainability, um, and especially trying to do behavior change around climate and sustainability and getting people to do things.

So, it is really hard and there's a lot of weird disincentives for people to actually make a lot of these investments upfront. Um, and so as much as we would love for people to do a lot more mitigation than they do, you know, that's, it's, it's just challenging to make that time and money work and so that people are doing and trying it. But the absolute best time to get people to build back better is when they're in the process of already building back.

And that that decision around what to do can be put in front of them as an option and a nudge. And it may not be fully funded by their insurance, but it might be 80% funded by their insurance. So take somebody who's roof has, you know, gotten a hole in it, but they're in a fire prone area, that might be the best time to put back a more fire-resistant roof. But the insurance may only cover the sort of existing type of roof that they had.

If at that point in time you can say, listen, you know, the work order for an existing roof is covered by insurance, but for an extra $2,000 you could do a fire-resistant roof. And oh, by the way, there's financing available 'cause there's some really cool financing packages coming for Resilient Home Upgrades to do that happen. Now the person's having to make a $2,000 decision, not a $15,000 decision around it. And um, and they've got the workers already coming and they're already doing the work, so they're already out of house. And all those other things that stand in the way of us sometimes doing those home upgrades that we deep in our heart know we probably should do.

Um, and so we think it's actually the best time to nudge in those resilient upgrades, but the other thing about it is to not underestimate the value of bringing houses up to a higher standard of code when you do the build back repair as well.

And so one of the things in our system is that we'll do the work orders to the standards that are resilient building standards. And so that's gonna be another piece of it is just the work that's getting done is getting done high quality and it's getting done to higher standards of code. And when you've got, and you're hiring somebody that sits driving by in a truck, that's not necessarily happening. And so, um, we think it's just gonna make the work that gets done more resilient and those upgrades where they make sense for people and where there's financing or they can afford it or it's a good time to do it, or, you know, and maybe someday the insurance folks will, you know, get involved and, and be doing this as well.

Um, I think, you know, if you talk to insurers, the hard part is, you know, the business case for them. The person would need to stay on the policy much longer for that to have a return. And so, uh, you know, um, maybe, um, maybe some of the insurers that are the insurers of last resorts, like the fair plan and things like that is starting to do some of these things.

But, um, you know, I, I'm not relying on insurance to, to come in and do these. We're relying on the fact that it's gonna be the best, cheapest, easiest time for people to do them. And they may make logical choices if they have access to financing to do 'em.

Molly Wood: That's such a, um, that's just such an interesting point, an interesting wrinkle to see it as an intervention point. And then, um, consider building in such a way that hopefully this wouldn't happen again. Are you, do you then screen for installers who maybe offer those incentives? Like how complicated does that get as you're putting together your multi, multi-sided marketplace?

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah. So, um, you know, the first thing we screen for is obviously, um, that the people that we send have the right licensing, certifications, background checks, you know, all of that. Um, the financing side of this, that we really see it as, you know, there's funders for work and this probably in many cases ends up being one of those, you know, complicated blended finance capital stacks. You know, if you really think about it, like..

Molly Wood: I love that kind of thing. Lay it on me.

Susan Hunt Stevens: You know, like my insurance is gonna cover these six work orders and then I'm gonna personally pay for these three, and then I've been able to get a volunteer to do this one, you know, um, kind of thing because we've got folks that are willing to do that.

So, you know, you can see these kind of, um, blended solutions coming together, but I think there's gonna be plenty of people who are sorting out how do we help homeowners afford and fund, um, resilient upgrades, and we just need to be a channel for those folks to reach the homeowners at the right time. In the right place.

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Time for a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the homeowner side of things, how good the technology actually is, and how often insurance is not who is paying for repairs.

Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool. We're talking with Susan Hunt Stevens of Tessi AI.

Molly Wood: So let's talk about what the homeowner does here. Let, uh, I wanna walk through the, you know,

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah.

Molly Wood: sort of at the end of this process at the funding and the installation.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah.

Molly Wood: What happens in the disaster scenario?

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah, so our vision is that you, at any point in time after a disaster, can put in your address and we will tell you what happened to your house. Um, and we will tell you what it's gonna cost to fix your house. And that is free to any homeowner at any point in time when the system's available broadly. You know, and so, um, just, you know, think about the, the watch duty, um, story from the LA Fires.

Molly Wood: Yeah.

Susan Hunt Stevens: So it was an app that almost everybody started to use to figure out where the fire was and how, and what it affected and things like that, you know, and so. We take a lot of inspiration that when you provide something valuable to homeowners, it should be accessible to anyone.

And so our idea is that our preliminary damage assessments are available to anyone. They get better and better, and we'll coach homeowners through getting 'em to the top level quality if we need warm entry and things like that. Um, and then if they're interested, we'll check to see if their homeowner, um, policy covers the damage that we've seen, um, and if we have a relationship with insurer, then the insurer can decide to take our damage assessment and say, yes, this work is approved. And then we can dispatch. If they need to go through their typical insurance process, they will. And then as soon as we know that they've got the funds, then we can dispatch. Um, we'll help 'em fill out government forms, we'll fill, help, fill out where applicable charity forms.

And one thing I'm really proud of is that we're really trying to do this at a system level. And so if somebody just doesn't have access to anything, whatsoever, we'll dispatch to volunteers that are in the environment. In fact, one of, um, our first customer is one of the largest, um, post-disaster volunteer forces that support socially vulnerable homeowners. And it's great to be able to test with them because that estimate is less of a factor, you know? Um, they just need to know that they have the right skills and they have the right equipment and that the homeowner is giving them permission to come in and do the work. And so gets us an ability to test and to get that data and get those homes in before we're dealing with do we all agree on the estimate?

Molly Wood: Right. Wow, that's incredible.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah. And it makes it equitable as well. And I think,

Molly Wood: Yeah.

Susan Hunt Stevens: a license to operate and trust, imagine if, you know, it would be illegal theoretically, but um, you know, you could totally see systems and you know, you and I both know that pre-Uber, these systems did exist where drivers wouldn't take you certain places, you know?

And so I sort of feel the same way, which is we have to be able to dispatch work to whoever's willing to do it, and if there's volunteers and to help everyone. And so most people, you know, will go through some sort of paid path, but for people who can't, we will do everything in our power to match them most efficiently, effectively, to the volunteer forces that are showing up as well.

Molly Wood: Yeah. And then say more about the different, the, the, actually, let's talk a little bit about insurance. I mean, you know, there's, there's no question that insurance is emerging and has been emerging as the linchpin of a lot of disaster…

Susan Hunt Stevens: Our entire financial system. [Laughs]

Molly Wood: Let's just say our entire financial system.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Because it’s based on mortages and we know what happens when mortgages are a problem, so yes.

Molly Wood: Exactly. And you're, maybe you can't get a loan to rebuild at all because you're in too much of a climate vulnerable location. Like there's just, I, I think we could not say enough about the role that insurance plays here, and I wonder what those conversations are like you.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah. You know, it's, um. So first and foremost, I have been pleasantly surprised by how positive the response to initial conversations with insurers has been. Even though in many ways the, you know, the, the dispatching today to restoration workers may happen through a third party, um, administrator, or they may have a managed repair network, but they're not necessarily telling immediately people what happened to their home and what they're gonna have to do to fix it and how much it's gonna cost, you know, and so just the ability to have a policy holder know immediately, at least, you know, one, one view of the truth.

And, um, an executive, a very senior executive industry, who will remain nameless said for those insurers who actually pay claims, this is gonna be amazing. For those insurers whose business model is to try to delay, deny, and, you know, not pay claims, you could find yourself a little bit in a public adjuster role, you know, um, of like, no, this is the damage this, you know, we've verified we can show you every single thing. We know what it's gonna cost 'cause we're not making up the cost numbers. We're using the industry standard that you all agree on.

And so, you know, I think for those insurers who are, who are good companies, who are trying to assist their policy holders to the greatest extent available and who are struggling with expense ratio and cost and trying to stay in business in, in places, this is gonna be wildly helpful.

Um, you know, and I think the, and the data in and of itself is also gonna be, I think, really valuable to insurers. Um, you know, in, in sort of that aggregate level of, you know, if in 24 hours we know how much labor, materials, homes, et cetera, across an entire landscape. You know, that's invaluable information for an industry to have. Um, you know, and it's, it's pretty rapid. So I we're getting positive response.

That said, um, I spent some time at an insurance brokerage firm in my career, and I was inside the consulting arm of one of the major insurers, and I have, um, I’ve wanted to make sure this business could work irrespective and would work and would be valuable irrespective of how insurance started to make decisions.

Because it is an industry in flux, um, particularly in disaster-prone places. And, and it isn't, you know, as I'd mentioned earlier, the, you know, 96% of homeowners who are in a flood hurricane are not covered. And so this is a system that has to work whether you have insurance or not. And what we have to see is insurance as a form of capital that may or may not be present to help people build back.

Um, what I hope this helps do is make a system that's really, really important to an ability to get a mortgage, be able to function, um, you know, longer and better and, and stay in business in these places, um, longer than maybe they are gonna be able to. Now there's a lot of different reasons insurance decides they can't do business in place and there are places where people probably shouldn't be building back.

And one of the things that we've focused on, at least initially, is we really are gonna focus on those people where, um, you know, they may have severe damage, but it's not complete destruction because I think when you're in a complete destruction scenario, there is a really important question you have to ask about are we, you know, should we be building back completely here? And the process may be really different, whereas when it's a major damage and you really are just trying to get back to that place because it is habitable again and it is, you know, um, I think that's just a different mental model. And that doesn't mean we won't end up long term doing rebuilds, but I think to start, you know, people are, are facing a very different question when it's a full rebuild.

Or, you know, a fire scenario is super complicated because, you know, um, and one of the reasons we're not starting with fires is because you not only can't build back. Let's say your home is still standing but damaged, but everything around you has burned down. You really can't get back into the home until all that debris and all those toxins are out of that neighborhood. Um, or you'll go back into a home and it'll get recontaminated when the rest of the work happens. And so it's, you know. It, those are, those require, you know, full systemic solutions, uh, on a block by block, you know, community by community basis, and we'll get there, but that it's hard enough to sequence within a property, let alone across 18 properties.

Molly Wood: Then how, I mean, how, just going back to the technology for a minute, how accurate can you be?

Like, tell me about the enabling technologies that actually do make this possible. Like, are…

Susan Hunt Stevens: It's, it's kind of mind blowing.

Molly Wood: If there’s a disaster, you get a drone? Yeah.

Susan Hunt Stevens: It's, it is, it is kind of mind blowing. So first of all, we're very, very fortunate that there are a lot of third parties who are doing and collecting this data and even putting AI initial, um, layers over some of that data. Um, and so there's a number of companies here in the us there's a number of companies internationally who are collecting it.

Um, you know, you can actually get pretty good and much lower costs than even 2, 3, 4 years ago. You know, seven CM resolution, um, satellite data. But then there's companies that are sending out fixed wing, they're sending out drones, there's companies sending out balloons. You got all sorts of different ways of doing this.

Molly Wood: Yeah.

Susan Hunt Stevens: That piece is, uh, really interesting. And then, you know. I'm sure you've had, um, fun with AI where you've loaded photos in and gotten it to just, you know, look at photos and things like that. I just, for fun and Claude Code the other day, built an app that would like point at things at my house and tell me the replacement value, you know, and I was able to do that in a few hours. I know, it's crazy. Um, and, um, exactly.

Molly Wood: Also, handy for insurance. Honestly.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Exactly.

Molly Wood: I mean, huh? Yeah, totally. I'm like, whoops. You spun up a new company. Oh no.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Oh no, exactly. Um, but you know, there's just.

Molly Wood: Susan can’t swing a cat in her house, by the way, without hitting a new company is what happened.

Susan Hunt Stevens: So, and do you know when you're running one, you're not allowed to start a bunch of others. Your investors are so like, not supportive of that. And so yeah, I had all this pent up company inside of it. But, um, but yeah, the, um, so it's just what you're able to do with image analysis is, is, is mind blowing off of your own camera phone, off of first responder phones, off of, you know, um, home video from security cameras or things like that.

And so the ability to analyze that and what AI can do to analyze where you're getting that. And then just, you know, systems talking to each other much more intelligently. And so this sounds crazy, but if we have the full damage assessment and all the homeowner information, it makes us really good at filling out forms.

Molly Wood: Right.

Susan Hunt Stevens: So now you know, today, you go and you fill out manually a bunch of forms and send them in. And so, you know, we would love to convince anybody who makes anybody fill out a form to stop doing that. We will fill out the forms for you, and if we don't have to piece some information, then you are prompting the homeowner to add something, as an exception, not as the rule every single time you fill it out. And you've got imagery to back it up and you know, and so there's all sorts of things that are just gonna make it really accurate.

But, um, this is where I also get very excited about, you know, there's lots of different names for it. Let's just call it, you know, um, self-learning, uh, artificial intelligence. Our system gets better at better and better at creating accurate work orders the more work orders and images we create. And so, you know, but what helps with this is there's always a human in the loop at the end of it, which is the company that comes to repair. We don't yet have robots that are coming to repair our homes, and so there is a human in the loop who comes, and if something isn't accurate in it, they have an ability to take a picture, upload it to edit the estimate and get instant agreement from everybody. And think about, you know, that that in and of itself is valuable because then we see where the mistake was in the model and can fix it going forward.

And the other part is when you're doing things at a landscape level, you know, often if you can get the imagery from one home first. It's gonna give you much better data around the homes around it. And then if you get other homes around it, you get homes around it. And again, we don't get anything from the inside without permission from people to, to do that and them adding it themselves. But that's gonna be the thing where, you know, we just get better and better at being able to create these estimates, um, as soon as the person says it's okay to do it.

Molly Wood: I love it. All right, so where are you now? What is the status of Tessi now?

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah. So we are, um, deploying with our first customer imminently. Um, you know, a, a, there's this weird part about this job where you don't want to deploy ‘cause that means a bunch of people's lives just got really upended. But at the same time, to help people, you need to deploy. So we're, uh, eminently deploying with first customer, the aforementioned group that sends folks out after to help socially vulnerable homeowners.

And so, um, and then the next phase will be adding in the commercial estimating side and then deploying, um, our to our first homes with the commercial estimates, and then full scale capability by the end of the year.

Molly Wood: And 5 million, a million homes in…

Susan Hunt Stevens: A thousand homes in 2026 is our goal.

Molly Wood: A thousand homes in 2026.

Susan Hunt Stevens: And then a million in 5 years. So, you know, good round numbers.

Molly Wood: That's a, it's a good, it's a good company to keep your focus on.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah.

Molly Wood: If you’re going to have to pick one, this feels like the one.

Susan Hunt Stevens: Yeah, I think so. I think so. And, you know, and again, um, I remember sitting at a wedding earlier this year across from a woman who lost her home in, uh, the Palisades fire. And I showed her the prototype and she's like, I need, I, I need this, like right now.

You know, I, she's like, I need this right now. I cannot tell you how horrible the last few months have been and what I've had to go through, you know, and, and she told me the stories and I mean, they're crazy stories.

Molly Wood: They’re crazy. Yep.

Susan Hunt Stevens: So, you know, you just, anyone who sees this, who's been through it realizes how, how game changing it is. But you've gotta get a whole system to work together to make this happen.

And that you and I both know, those are not the easiest businesses, but when they work, they take off quickly. And I, and I am, I'm, you know, knock on wood, but I think that is what we're standing at the precipice of, which is exciting.

Molly Wood: Susan Hunt Stevens is the founder and CEO of Tessi, T-E-S-S-I. Thanks so much for the time today. I appreciate it.

Molly Wood Voice-Over: That's it for this episode of Everybody in the Pool. Thank you so much for listening. Email me your thoughts and suggestions to in at everybodyinthepool.com and find all the latest episodes and more at everybodyinthepool.com, the website. If you'd like to become a subscriber and get an ad free version of the show, please hit the link in the description in your podcast app of choice. Thanks to everyone who already has.

Together we can get this done. See you next week.