Last August, I started Easy Reserve Study, Inc. (EZRS) with little more than a product specification and a business plan.
Now, we are a team of 12 in the middle of our private beta, with our broader rollout launching in the next few weeks. The product is real, customers are using it, and the company looks very different from the idea I had on paper twelve months ago.
I find reflection useful, and a one-year anniversary is a good excuse to do it — a natural point to look back before moving forward. Over the past year, four things stand out: three realizations that surprised me, and one belief I had to let go of.
AI Moved Faster Than I Expected
The speed of artificial intelligence’s development surprised me. A year ago, ChatGPT and early experiments with what generative AI might become dominated the conversation. Today, our team regularly works with AI tools. The capabilities now available to us through AI are materially different from what they were when I wrote the original product specification.
The evolution of AI affected EZRS in two ways. Because AI can now make parts of development, research, and analysis more efficient, it changed how we build the product. It has also changed what the product itself can do. Capabilities that would have seemed ambitious when we started are now practical enough to incorporate into the platform.
The lesson for me is that a product specification cannot be treated as a contract with the future. In a fast-moving technology environment, it is a starting point. You need enough discipline to execute against a plan, and enough flexibility to rewrite that plan when the tools around you improve.
My Team Became the Experts
The second realization that surprised me is about my team. We brought in world-class talent — engineers and operators with real technical depth — and asked them to learn a new industry from the ground up: the terminology, the workflows, the customer problems, and the economics.
Today, they hold their own in conversations with career reserve professionals — real knowledge in an industry they knew little about a year ago. There’s real pride in watching my team develop industry fluency. A CEO shouldn’t aspire to be the only person who understands every subject.
Building It Right Took Time
Development took longer than I originally wanted, even with the efficiency gains from new technology. I would always prefer to move faster. But I’m comfortable with the pace, because we didn’t spend that extra time standing still.
The product changed substantially from the original specification. We learned from the industry, we changed workflows, we added capabilities, and we adapted to a market that itself has evolved considerably over the last few years. A timeline matters, but blindly protecting a schedule while ignoring what you are learning is not discipline. It is stubbornness.
The Assumption I Had to Change: Pricing
We closed the biggest knowledge gap with pricing. I came in with a strong conviction that EZRS should follow the model software companies and investors tend to prefer: subscription-only.
The problem is that a meaningful segment of the reserve study industry’s internal workflow doesn’t match a subscription-only model. Many professionals price their own work by project, and a pure subscription creates friction with how they generate revenue.
It took time and conversations with prospective customers to internalize that and move forward with the decision. Their feedback forced me to reconsider the model, and we adjusted by adding a per-analysis option alongside subscription pricing. Conviction is useful when building a company, but it can’t become attachment. The market doesn’t owe you agreement with your business model.
I’m grateful to the future customers who challenged our assumptions and told us how they actually operate. Their feedback on pricing has been one of the most valuable assets we’ve had this year.
Year Two Starts in the Market
The next twelve months will look very different. Year one was about turning an idea into a company. Year two is about putting the product in the market and letting reserve professionals confirm the value it creates.
More assumptions will change. The product will keep evolving. AI will surprise us again, customers will use the software in ways we didn’t anticipate, and the team will keep getting better at things I once thought I needed to own myself. That’s not a failure of planning. That’s what building a company looks like.
I’m tremendously proud of what this team has accomplished in one year. We went from a business plan and early product specifications to twelve people, a working platform, and customers helping us prepare for launch. Now we get to find out what happens when EZRS is truly in the market.
I’m looking forward to year two.
The Leadership Principle
A successful first year does not prove that your original assumptions were right. It proves that you learned fast enough to change the ones that were wrong.
About Easy Reserve Study (EZRS)
Easy Reserve Study® (EZRS®) is AI-augmented reserve study software for smarter capital planning. Built for reserve management companies, independent reserve specialists, property managers, HOAs, vacation clubs, and institutional operators — EZRS replaces static spreadsheets and fragile manual processes with a continuously updated, living system of record.
We are building in active partnership with the reserve planning industry. If you are a reserve professional curious about what we are working on, we would welcome the conversation.
Book a discovery call at https://ezrs.com/contact/
