Bloc
Groups households so electricity retailers bid for them together, so renters get bulk pricing they couldn't get alone.
Problem
Plenty of people suspect they are overpaying for electricity and still do not switch. Retailers tend to charge long-standing customers more than new ones, and the fixes so far (comparison sites, government tools, group campaigns) all leave the household to do the work. The barrier is effort, not information.
What I did
Bloc is four of us: Annie, Miles, David and me. We took it to UQ Weekend of Startups in 2026.
- I built blocau.com in Next.js, including the waitlist and the worked bill comparison. The figures on that page are labelled as example data, because they are.
Decisions
These are the team's decisions, and they are plans until a retailer has bid.
- Start with renters who are moving. A new tenant has to contact a retailer anyway, so we are not asking anyone to break a habit.
- Approach challenger retailers first. They have more to gain from a group of ready customers than the largest retailers do.
- Blind bidding. Retailers see postcode, usage band and headcount. They never see names until a deal is done, so a group cannot be picked apart.
- Show the benchmark. The best public offer sits on the same screen as the Bloc offer, with our fee next to the number it affects.
- Households never pay. The plan is a flat fee from the winning retailer, paid only when a household actually switches.
Evidence
- Third of about 58 teams at UQ Weekend of Startups 2026.
- Our own interest survey, August 2026: 46 households, self-selected, not a representative sample. 42 of the 46 rated a group rate 4 or 5 out of 5, and 22 left an email for early access without being asked to.
We are still validating with retailers. The auction and savings figures in our deck are illustrative, not results.