Since we launched the latest version of EEx Charge earlier this month, we’ve gotten quite a bit of attention from some well-known media outlets. Greentech Media has a terrific overview of how EEx Charge is different, The Washington Post looked into the unique, multi-national structure of the EEx team, and Washington Business Journal looked at what inspired us to build Charge.

We’re also really excited about a few stories in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which cover our favorite issue -- EEx Charge customers! Take a look at how factory owners are looking for energy savings, and adapting to a changing labor environment in China. We love helping the world to learn more about the real challenges and opportunities facing our customers, so this coverage was great to see. Stay tuned for more coverage as it develops.

Try Charge free for 30 days!

On behalf of the entire team at Efficiency Exchange, I'm happy to announce that EEx Charge is now open to the public! As of September 17th, you can create an account at EEx.io, and get started reducing your monthly costs in just a few minutes.

In fact, we're so excited about the first public release of Charge that we're giving all new users 30 days of free, unrestricted access to EEx Charge. Enter as many bills as you'd like, follow recommendations, and take a bite out of your utility bills for a full month. If you want to keep using Charge after that, you can upgrade to a paid account, and keep all of your previously entered bills and progress. So give Charge a shot! Many customers will discover more than enough savings during their free trial month to cover the cost of a full account for the rest of the year.

So what's new in this release? Well, while those of you who have seen Charge in the past will notice a bunch of small improvements to the everyday user experience, the biggest improvements are for brand new users. We've made getting started faster and easier than ever, with a whole new setup process, in-line instructions, and lots of little improvements to get you in and out of the system faster than ever. Try it out, and of course, let us know what you think, and how we can continue to improve it.

To get started, simply go to the EEx.io homepage and follow the instructions in the signup section on the top right of the screen.

Over the last several months, there’s been a tremendous amount of activity here at EEx. It’s all leading to some exciting announcements over the next few weeks, but before we get to those, I thought it might be nice to interesting to share some of the experiences that make EEx unique.

Factory Road Trip 2013

If you know anything about EEx, it's that we don't build our solutions in a vacuum. The only reason we even knew something like EEx Charge made sense was from years of working inside factories, alongside the line managers and facility supervisors who make manufacturing go. While we had already brought early versions of EEx Charge to dozens of factories for testing last year, our latest release was expected to contain tons of new features and improvements we simply had to get in front of real world factories. So off we went.

A lot of small companies might be intimidated by the idea of visiting sixty factories in three weeks, on a shoestring travel budget. But those companies aren't EEx. CEO Taryn Sullivan and China Sales & Marketing Lead Jamie Yu took every bus, train, and taxi they could find to every corner of Dongguan, starting and ending their extremely long days in our Chang'an office. In between, they visited some of EEx's first customers like Circle Furniture and Concord Ceramics, along with a host of brand new facilities we met through referrals, phone calls, and events. But new or old, every customer experienced EEx's unique mix of secret chocolate chip cookie recipe, basketball skills, and of course, unyielding dedication to industrial efficiency.

Introducing something different to the world -- even something as simple and rewarding as Charge -- isn't easy. If you want to make a difference, you don't get to simply push a button somewhere in Silicon Valley and watch society change. It takes a ton of work. For EEx, that means getting inside every facility we can find, talking to every owner and facility manager we can meet, and learning exactly what the future of Chinese manufacturing is going to be. What are the challenges? Where are the opportunities? How can American tools and technologies improve the lives, bottom lines, and even the environmental impact of Chinese entrepreneurs?

As always, we learned so much from our friends and customers in China. But above else, we realized one thing -- the general public is definitely ready for EEx.

From Tennessee to Dongguan, with love

Back here in the U.S., we waited every day for the latest customer update. How did Charge handle the billing structure in each province? Did it account for the oft-misunderstood lighting charge? What kind of savings did we find for factories with existing efficiency programs? How easy was it for customers to handle multiple bills?

The answers to those questions are long and a little complicated, but in general, they were good news. In fact, our most immediate challenge was a little surprising. Charge was making a difference in just about every factory we visited; so what would it take to enable Charge to help factories we couldn’t visit?

This is a scary, exciting moment for anyone who builds software -- when you realize that it's time for users that you may never meet to sit down and start relying on the tool you've designed. The questions start popping up in your mind on every screen; what have we missed? Will it be easy enough? Will everything make sense? Sure, all those customer visits help, but with something new like Charge, it's vital that people understand not only what they're doing, but what they're getting out of the whole thing.

With the team still making factory visits each day, Lee Trout, our lead developer and I met up in Johnson City, Tennessee to figure out exactly what was missing. We revisited the entire signup process, what entering your first bill is like, and stripped out everything that didn't need to be there. We demoed our new concepts to Taryn in Chang'an, and talked about user expectations with Jamie and Paul Lu, our Shanghai-based Program lead. Over the next month, we went to work rebuilding the new user experience, smoothing out the bumps, and preparing Charge for a bigger future.

Our Busy September

As you can probably guess, September, 2013 is shaping up to be a huge month for EEx. We've got an excited, growing customer base. We’ve got major product improvements around the corner, and are preparing for an influx of new users we've never even met. We're working with major channel partners to make Charge a key component of energy management training and cost control best practices. We even redesigned the EEx.io website, to provide visitors with more information about Charge and some of our amazing customers!

But there is -- and I can't stress this enough -- simply so much more to do, and so much to share with you over the coming weeks and months. So from now on, you won't just be seeing sporadic updates here from the occasional trade show or team meeting. Instead, I'm going to use this space to start telling you why EEx matters, and what we're planning to do about it. Jamie, who runs the Chinese language site, will do her best to share her thoughts there, but we won't worry about keeping the blogs synchronized. Instead, we're just going to do our best to keep everyone interested in EEx -- in any language -- as informed as possible.

So stay tuned, and check back over the next week or so for some additional announcements.

While everyone here at EEx has been busy working on EEx Charge, we still found the time to attend the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco, CA. In addition to learning about lots of very cool new technologies and businesses (motors, tires, social networks, you name it), we were also fortunate enough to present at the Entrepreneur’s Showcase, where EEx CEO Taryn Sullivan explained some of the problems facing factories today, and how Charge is positioned to help.

Thanks to the Cleantech Group for hosting a great event, and giving us a chance to meet a lot of interesting people. If you saw us/heard about us during the last couple of days but didn’t get a chance to talk, drop us a line at info@eex.io, and let us know what you thought…. and now, back to work!

If you know anything about EEx (and if you don’t, read this), you know that nothing is more important to us than our Chinese friends, partners, and customers. That’s why we’ve been working hard for the last couple of weeks to build a brand new version of EEx.io, where the Chinese-speaking world can learn about EEx, our growing team, and our exciting new services in their native language. It’s been a lot of work, but today, as you can see in the picture above, we’re ready to launch!See EEx China for yourself at www.eex.io/cn, and check back for updates from Jamie Yu, EEx’s Product Marketing lead in China. You’ll find everything from the English page on the China site, and vice versa.