Meet the recovering software executive turning wires, lighting, and AI into the future of luxury home technology.

In this episode: the story behind Connesso, the custom electronics integration company bringing AI-driven smart home design to Raleigh's luxury market, how Ryan Prestel and his partner built it from a half-a-million-dollar first project into a company chasing $100 million, and why "the first four letters of wireless are W-I-R-E." Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

If you've ever juggled nine different apps just to dim the living room lights, lock the garage, and figure out why the thermostat won't sync to your phone, you already understand the problem Ryan Prestel built a company to solve.

In this episode of Best of Raleigh, host Gretchen Coley sits down with Ryan Prestel, co-founder of Connesso, for a conversation about smart home technology, AI-driven design, and what it takes to build a company from the ground up in a city he never planned to move to.

From $200 Websites to Software Executive

Ryan built his first website in 1998, at 15 years old, and made $200 doing it. That entrepreneurial itch, paired with a mowing-lawns-to-buy-a-computer origin story, carried him through more than 15 years in commercial software, where he built, scaled, and sold companies. He jokes that he's "a recovering technology software executive." After selling his business in 2020, he went looking for something different, and found it in an industry nobody would call glamorous: home wiring.

The Odd Origin of Connesso

Connesso started with a favor. Ryan's college roommate and eventual co-founder had moved into custom electronics and smart home installation in Chicago high-rises, then landed in Columbus, Ohio, scaling a business there. When Ryan, freshly out of his own sale, suggested his friend try to buy that Columbus company outright, his friend didn't know where to start. Ryan, who'd only ever been on the sell side of a deal, offered to help figure it out anyway. That deal never happened, but the process hooked Ryan on the space. He and his partner started Connesso from scratch instead, launching with a $500,000 project straight out of the gate. Ryan joined full-time about a year ago to help scale the Raleigh operation.

What Is Connesso?

Connesso, Italian for "connected," is a custom electronics integrator: the team that wires and programs audio, video, lighting, security, shades, and home automation into luxury homes, offices, and commercial spaces. Ryan describes it as an "AI-focused trades business," built with its own software platform rather than borrowed tools. It's a deliberate contrast to what he calls the industry's "old guard," electricians who wired a house once and never came back to touch it again.

Connesso at a Glance

• Founded: 2023, now in year two
• Co-founders: Ryan Prestel and his business partner, combined 50+ years of experience
• Headquarters: Columbus, Ohio (engineering and operations hub)
• Raleigh: the company's second market
• Services: audio, video, lighting, security, shades, home automation
• Growth goal: build toward a $100 million company through organic growth and acquisitions
• Target expansion markets: 10 to 12 total, including Wilmington, Charlotte, and areas in South Carolina and Florida

Why Wire Still Matters in a Wireless World

Ask Ryan the biggest myth in his industry and he doesn't hesitate: everything is wireless. It isn't. His advice to anyone building new construction is blunt: get the wire in the walls before the house closes up. "The first four letters of wireless are W-I-R-E," he says, and skipping that step now means cutting into drywall later, or settling for a less reliable wireless workaround, when a homeowner decides they want a golf simulator or a home theater they hadn't planned for on day one.

Lighting Is the Fastest Growing Category

Of everything Connesso installs, lighting is growing the fastest, and it's now designed before a house is even framed. Ryan's team plans illumination around how a room will actually be used, whether that's highlighting a piece of art or a hockey jersey in a man cave. He points to touring a billionaire's Colorado home where individually placed lights, sized to the exact frame of each painting, lit the art even as the rest of the room went dark. That's when he says he knew lighting had become a design category in its own right, not an afterthought.

Previewing a Home Before You Build It

For big-ticket spaces (home theaters, golf simulators, anything in the $30,000 to $100,000-plus range), Connesso uses virtual reality to let clients experience the room before construction starts. It's not a gimmick: VR lets the design team model how sound will bounce off theater walls and check sightlines from every seat, catching problems before they're built into drywall and speaker wire.

The Service Model Nobody Sees

Ryan is candid that service, not installation, is what makes or breaks the business. Clients get his personal cell phone number. Security systems are monitored so a battery gets replaced before a client even notices it's low. It's a model built to prevent the thing Ryan says can undo all the good work on the front end of a project: a homeowner who can't get help when something breaks.

What Ryan Got Wrong

Asked about his biggest professional misstep, Ryan doesn't point to a specific deal; he points to burnout. After selling his software company in 2020, he didn't realize how depleted he was until he'd already run out of gas. His takeaway: "tuition isn't free," whether that tuition is a college degree or a hard-earned mistake, and finding a community of mentors to be vulnerable with matters as much as any business skill.

Connesso FAQ

What does Connesso do? Connesso is a custom electronics integrator that designs and installs audio, video, lighting, security, shades, and home automation systems for luxury homes, offices, and commercial spaces.

Can Connesso update an older, already-wired home? Yes. Ryan says an outdated system, even one from a home built decades ago, isn't a lost cause; his team specializes in bringing older infrastructure up to date.

How much should homeowners budget for smart home technology? Ryan says most homeowners spend roughly 2 to 3 percent of their home's value on this category, though the right number depends on lifestyle: how many people work from home, how many devices are in use, and how the family actually lives in the space.

What is Josh AI? Josh AI is a voice-controlled home automation and control platform Connesso installs. It replaces old-school intercoms and juggling multiple apps with simple voice commands, like announcing dinner, dimming lights to a preset scene, and turning off the TV, all at once.

Where does Connesso work? Primarily Raleigh and the surrounding Triangle, with additional projects in Pinehurst, the North Carolina coast, and select out-of-state jobs in states like Florida and Texas.

Rapid Fire with Ryan Prestel

• Home theater or outdoor entertainment space? Outdoor entertainment, all day
• One piece of technology you'll never stop being impressed by? Josh AI
• Biggest myth in the smart home industry? That everything is wireless
• Favorite sound you've ever heard from a system your team installed? The rumble of a subwoofer in the middle of a movie
• Golf simulator or dedicated home theater? Yes, both
• One word for where Raleigh's luxury home market is going? "Up and to the right" (he admits that's not one word)

Why It Matters

Ryan Prestel didn't move to Raleigh to build a company; he moved because his in-laws relocated to Pinehurst, following a family connection that started when his grandmother settled there in 1989.

What he found instead was a market full of new construction and high-net-worth homeowners being underserved by an industry that hadn't caught up to how people actually want to live. Two years and one $500,000 first project later, Connesso is chasing a $100 million future, one pre-wired house at a time. If Raleigh's luxury home boom needed proof that the infrastructure people never see is just as important as the kitchen everyone photographs, Ryan's business is it.

Related listening: Craftsmanship That Feels Like Home | Best of Raleigh Episode 79

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