One person, one trade, one gap.
A one person research and process consultancy working with HVAC companies in Arizona and operating from Chicago, Illinois.
Kopikat Research is Cesar Carbajal, working out of Chicago, Illinois. The firm works with HVAC companies in Arizona, in the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas, and with one competing company per service area.
The work centers on one question: what happens after an HVAC estimate does not close. Most software tracks the jobs a shop wins. Kopikat Research works the other side of the book: turnovers that never got written, unsold estimates with no reason logged, financing declines nobody offered again, and aged quotes that never got a second contact.
The method is public in the research library. Count the last ninety days, put a reason and an owner against every unresolved estimate, rank the queue by dollars and recoverability, and report what was recovered and what it cost to recover. The app that runs this sits on top of ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber, so a shop keeps the system it already has.
“Every account stays in your name” means Kopikat does not take ownership of the shop's CRM, customer records, software accounts, phone numbers, domains, or other systems. The shop retains ownership and control. The email is cesar@kopikat.io.
Why this gap
Kopikat Research exists because of one pattern that kept showing up in conversations with owners: the moment a replacement estimate does not close, it stops belonging to anybody. The software keeps chasing what it can see. The turnover on a sticky note, the quote waiting on a spouse, the financing that stalled, none of that has an owner, a timer, or a report. Most of what a company loses, it loses there, quietly, without a record.
Why Arizona HVAC only
Depth beats coverage. Replacement tickets in this trade are large, the season makes the pile grow on a schedule, and a Phoenix summer creates exactly the conditions where good opportunities die of attention. Staying in one trade and one state means every conversation compounds: same software, same seasons, same objections, same arithmetic. A firm that works everywhere learns a little about everything. This one would rather know one gap cold.
What the work actually looks like
Reading estimate records. Counting a ninety day book with an owner on a screen share. Putting a reason and an owner against every unresolved row. Building the recovery queue, then watching whether the process still holds after the novelty wears off. Writing what turns out to be true into the research library, including the corrections. It is closer to bookkeeping than to marketing, on purpose.
Where this stands
The thinking is published. The method is written down. The first live implementation will be measured, not assumed. Kopikat Research would rather be trusted for what it can show than believed for what it claims.