There is a reason walking into a luxury hotel can feel different before you have even checked in. Sometimes, you can smell it.
Miami startup The Scent Standard thinks that experience should not be limited to hotels, high-end retailers, and other large commercial spaces. The company, launched in May by childhood friends and Miami natives Michael Acosta (CEO) and John Raine (COO), is building what its founders call “scent as a service.”
The idea is simple: The Scent Standard installs a scenting system, provides the fragrance, and handles maintenance and refills through a recurring subscription. Customers can choose how they want their home or business to feel, then largely forget about the mechanics behind it.
“We saw that there wasn’t an option for it,” Acosta said. “Now we feel like we’re really making things a lot easier.”
Acosta and Raine grew up together and attended Westminster Christian School, but took different paths before becoming business partners. Acosta attended Rollins College and built a career in finance and banking, where working with business owners gave him the entrepreneurial itch. Raine played football at Florida Atlantic University and Northwestern University before spending two years with the Atlanta Falcons. He later moved into finance.
The pair had long talked about starting a company together. The scent idea emerged as Acosta studied home services businesses through his banking work and began speaking with HVAC operators.
He learned that customers were already buying HVAC-connected scent diffusers online, then calling technicians because they did not know how to install them. HVAC companies, meanwhile, were reluctant to sell scenting themselves because doing so required sales, marketing, inventory, and logistics outside their main business.
“There’s a big gap here,” Acosta recalled thinking.
The Scent Standard’s answer was to partner with HVAC operators rather than build its own technician network. Licensed professionals handle installations and service visits, while The Scent Standard manages the customer relationship, fragrances, logistics, and subscriptions.
That model is already finding customers across residential, retail, and commercial spaces. The company has worked with local names including Ferrari of Miami, 100 Miracle Mile, and Westminster Christian School. Retail has been a particularly strong category, with customers ranging from boutiques to med spas.
The founders shared that the company became profitable within four months of launch. Its operation now includes five core employees and 33 service providers through its HVAC installation and service partner.
Technology sits behind much of the service. The team uses HubSpot to manage customers and automated workflows to track consumption and schedule monthly or quarterly visits. It has also used Claude for back-office automation and is working to connect its systems with ServiceTitan, a platform commonly used by trade businesses.
For the founders, Miami was a natural testing ground. Acosta said the city’s growing luxury market has created customers who place a premium on service, an idea familiar to both founders from banking.
“People value that when you go to a restaurant, you like that they remember that you’ve been there for the last two years and they take good care of you,” he said. “Miami, for our business and our business model, was like the perfect place to start.”
Now they want to see how far that service model can travel, one sweet-smelling HVAC system at a time.
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