The Company
Public Grid is a mission-driven startup on a bold path: to make renewable energy free and accessible to everyone. Founded by Zack Schmitz and his team, Public Grid removes the friction of expensive bills and complex onboarding, aiming to simplify the transition to clean energy for everyday people.
As part of their product development and community-first strategy, Public Grid regularly conducts user testing campaigns — but not without challenges.
The Challenge
To validate features and shape product direction, Public Grid ran frequent user testing campaigns where participants signed up via online forms. But over time, a serious issue emerged:
- High volume of fake or throwaway emails
- Participants who never showed up or were clearly not real users
- Wasted time and resources coordinating test sessions with no-shows
“It was a massive headache. Our team is small, and we were constantly losing hours trying to chase down signups that turned out to be fake or unreliable.”
– Zack Schmitz, Co-founder & CEO, Public Grid
With limited time and a fast-paced roadmap, this level of friction and uncertainty was unsustainable.
The Solution
Public Grid implemented Reverse Contact to verify user signups and validate email authenticity.
- Email-to-LinkedIn verification
Reverse Contact was used to look up online profiles associated with signup emails, giving the team instant confidence in whether a user was real. - Better targeting for outreach
With verified data, Public Grid could send personalized follow-up emails that resonated more and filtered out low-quality signups. - Cleaner user test pipeline
The team no longer wasted time on flaky leads — only users with confirmed digital presence were invited to test.
Implementation Steps
- Ran email addresses submitted through user test forms through Reverse Contact
- Verified users with LinkedIn or other social profiles
- Prioritized real profiles for outreach and test scheduling
- Tracked attendance and follow-up success rates
The Results
- Success rate for test show-ups jumped from 10% to over 70%
Nearly three-quarters of confirmed users now participate in scheduled tests — a 7x improvement in pipeline efficiency. - Massive reduction in time wasted on no-shows
The team gained back hours each week by avoiding outreach to fake signups. - More reliable data for product feedback
With real users participating, feedback quality improved and release decisions became more data-driven.
“We moved from a 10% success rate for signups to over 70%. It cleared up our calendars and gave us confidence that real people would actually show up.”
– Zack Schmitz, Co-founder & CEO, Public Grid
Conclusion
By using Reverse Contact to validate user signups, Public Grid turned chaos into consistency. What was once a frustrating bottleneck is now a scalable, dependable part of their user research pipeline.
For early-stage teams trying to build fast and test faster, this is how you protect your time and your roadmap.
Turn Emails into Identity Data
