The goal of transforming the residential marketplace through introducing and inspiring widespread acceptance of energy efficient technologies is an extremely complicated undertaking particularly given the diversity of products and services with technical potential and the varied interests of the stakeholders in the process. In this paper, the authors present experience gained in the establishment of two market initiatives designed to transform regional residential lighting and clothes washers markets. All program aspects are examined by the authors, including; the outreach and recruitment of program sponsors, the program scope and its determination, market research, the promulgation of new technical standards, the evolution of a management structure for each working group, and the development of a new means of evaluating the performance of each initiative. These factors were critical in the founding of the working groups as well as in their ability to continue to work together cooperatively. The experiences that are presented in this paper provide first-hand information that may be useful to others considering models for state-wide or regional market transformation activities.