This is a slightly different episode, where I chatted with Charles Bai, CTO and cofounder of my startup Paces! Paces provides actionable data and analytics for green infrastructure developers, operators, and investors to understand what and where to profitably build. We discussed how On Deck was central to us finding a cofounder, why we are passionate about changing the built environment to be more climate positive, advice on startup fundraising and more! 

Do you know any solar, wind, battery storage, hydrogen or EV charging developers? Let us know at team@paces.ai thanks!

https://carbotnic.com/paces

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

The unedited podcast transcript is below

James McWalter

Today I’m speaking with Charles by CTO of paces and my co-founder welcome to podcast Charles.

Charles

Thank you James excited to be here.

James McWalter

Brilliant I Guess to start could you tell us a little bit about yourself where you’re from I Guess your whole story.

Charles

Absolutely so I’m originally from China born raised in Beijing went to Cornell For Undergrad so Dc as and also easyc there worked on a couple of startups and ideas and in the past three years I been on Facebook ai. Um, effort first was mainly around Ai product and then I moved more towards infrastructure where I work on sustainable AiEff efficiency and optimizations and large model inference. Um, and.

James McWalter

And just yeah, so I guess what is sustainable Ai.

Charles

Yeah, so so same but ai is is actually a very interesting space. Basically you know in the past couple years a models has grown exponentially large and you know training a models doing a model inference and are not going to be That’s cheap anymore and it consumes a lot of power uses all of Gpus and a lot of observers at the same time is becoming a lot dirtier so training a model can cause a lot of carbon emissions. So part of the work. We’ve been doing at Facebook is. Sort of meing the power and carbon footprint of ammodals from training to inference and see how we can make them greener.

James McWalter

And is that why you joined um on deck and I guess could you tell us a little bit about um what on deck is and you know it’s obviously very central to how we match. But yeah I’d love to hear the kind of thought process for why you joined on deck. So.

Charles

Ah, hundred percent yeah um I was I I was also on deck was actually introduced by 1 of my friend who I’ve been talking to. He also went to Cornell and we’ve been bouncing ideas around the ai space and. one day I song to him I was like oh man I you know I wish I could meet more people meet more likeminded people and he says he joined on deck after he worked at Facebook and then Google and he said it was a great experience. He met a lot of. Like mine and people there want to start companies and he quit his full-time job after that so he suggested me to apply to it to be honest by the time that I apply to it I didn’t know too much about the program. But um, yeah I just went through the whole process. Also. Talk to some ondack alumnis and found out that whole community is great. So that’s how I joined.

James McWalter

Yeah, brilliant. Yeah um, and actually Charles if you could like you then ask me that the next question so you know so you could be something like oh that was my onduck experience. You see what I mean. So yeah, good.

Charles

Um, ah yeah, that was um, that was my on that experience remind me why you joined on that games.

James McWalter

Yeah I mean probably not super dissimilar so you know I think I’ve mentioned on the podcast in the past that I was living down in Mexico waiting on a rather protracted green cardd situation to resolve itself eventually that did but what I was down there I was working at a company called respondent. Um. Remote first company doing some cool things. Um, but wasn’t really anything to do with climate or kind of impact that I really wanted to have with my kind of next role so Leftft responded and started just playing around with a lot of ideas in the climate space started this podcast and. The opportunity came to apply for ondeck and so I applied for on deck because I didn’t have a cofounder and I was like you know I’m very very very minorly technical in terms of coding something quite terrible together. But like you know I definitely haven’t somebody technical enough to build real product. So I basically joined on deck to find a cofounder. And um I applied and I was rejected for the first the first time and then um about two months later I got an email saying oh you’ve been accepted into the the next round of the next cohort. So I joined you know as 100 % remote company a remote first cohort it was I think the last on that cohort where. Weren’t any other types of cohorts. Everybody was a founder and I joined working on a idea around Sms Chatbots aimed at farmers to try to make them more climate friendly and to offer them advice at various points in their kind of yeah farming process and so I kind of worked on that for a few months um that’s why and I joined on deck I was talking to lots of people trying to convince them to to that. This is a good idea to work on and yeah in the end I decided that it was a tough space and so you know I guess the immediate appeal of things like regenerative ag from a client point of view is that. For me at least because I come from a farming background I got the space pretty quickly. Um I think the struggle was that things move very very slowly within agriculture. It’s a very very socially driven industry right? So it’s even if there’s better technology. You also have to convince. Lots and lots and lots of farmers to adopt that new technology and that is actually a really tough problem. It’s nearly closer to being a you know b to c type space rather than a b two b space and so you know after working on it I actually built ah a product I had it in market was a very large Ag business was actually trialing it. But I kind of decided that it wasn’t really the direction I wanted to go and so became at that point really really interested in clean energy and clean transportation and a lot of the kind of big issues in that space. Um, and yeah and so I was like okay, let’s just start talking to lots and lots of people who are working on.

James McWalter

The massive deployment of solar and wind and Ev charging stations and hydrogen refuelling stations and all those cool things and seeing you know why aren’t we building that fast enough you know is it a money issue is it a technology issue is it something else and those I guess the genesis for the direction that ended up becoming paces.

Charles

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

James McWalter

Yeah, and I guess you know I know you were um, you know so you went into on deck and I think you were wanting to do something with the sustainable Ai idea was that the kind of original project. You wanted to work on there.

Charles

Yeah, so I was I was thinking sort of I was sort of brainstorming this idea of making Ai greener as a whole because you know if we see this problem at Facebook you know there. There are also probably some other organizations or entities where’s seeing sort of this. The same problem. Um, and I’ve been talking to some people around it as well. But later I was sort of more drawn to to clean energy and some of the these other verticals or industries that are much stier than technology because. Ah, technology industry as a whole is is pretty clean compared to some of the other ones like rose state or or energy. So so that’s when I decided. Okay, you know it’s it’s better for me to work on something that emits a lot more and that that emits a little bit more. Mission compared to technology Industry. So That’s why I was looking to real estate and and renewable energy and things like that.

James McWalter

So yeah, it’s interesting and I guess at the same time as when you and I started talking to each other last summer I was going through a very similar journey and doing all these different user interviews with solar and wind project developers and there was this kind of remarkable moment I remember quite well where I was talking to a particular solar developer. And they said that only 1 in 5 of the these big hundred million dollar solar projects they work on actually ends up getting built and that the rest fail for various reasons and I was like so shocked by this number that I was like convinced that this particular developer was just bad at their job and I was like oh you know because I didn’t know the space that well and I was like oh.

Like so I need to like talk to other people and I started talking to other people and I know you were talking to other people and we just kept hearing this one in 5 success rate and and at the same time there’s like tens of billions of private money and public money like sitting on the sidelines waiting to be deploy to build these things so it’s not not a financing issue. And that became like I guess a little bit of an obsession for for us. Both this idea that there is all this money to be spent on clean energy, clean transportation green buildings and so on but we’re just not successfully executing on that in the level and the velocity that we need. Um, so yeah, so it became you know something of ah I guess an obsession and you and I were like oh maybe we we should be kind of founders together. Um, and I guess like you know when we were kind of chatting what what was the thing that convinced you that this was the the idea to move forward on. So.

Charles

Yeah, so I guess there are 2 things so one is you know this industry is is very dirty. So I really think that you know a lot of the technology is already there but deployment is is a big issue right now and we’re just simply not. Building fast enough and deploying fast enough and the second is I think this industry right now along with some of these other climate industries or other verticals within the climate industry is very data hungry and a lot of the problems that they’re facing today can really be solved with. Better data and better analytics and they’re not really used to this sort of process of having data and having insights actionable insights to help solve their problem. So I think these two are sort of the main. Ah, reasons why I think that you know this is a a good idea that we should go for and also we after we talk to you know potential customers and we sign an l I and I think by that time we know that you know we’re we’re on the right track.

James McWalter

 so I guess yeah so I guess when you know it was like signing that letter of a tent. Yeah, having those conversations. Um it was kind of amazing how kind of quickly moved you know as a matter of a few months that we kind of went from like deciding to move forward together to you know. Saying okay, this is something that could maybe be fundable. They could maybe have other customers interested in all that kind of thing and so I think I guess my main message is like once you kind of know you really do know and having like a high degree of velocity to your decision making is like super important.

Charles

So ah, hundred percent um yeah so you you spoke to a lot of different peoples. You know, actually looking for cofounders that you’re you’re mentioning when you’re on deck and what’s your process like.

James McWalter

It? yeah, it’s it’s’s super interesting and obviously you know it’s worked out well here but like I would love for people who are listening to this who are kind of going through a summer process and trying to say you know who should I found something with um it I definitely interacted with well over a hundred people maybe close to 150 people in. Yeah, the previous 2 years went to the level of like you know having you know one day work sessions with a couple of people. Um, there’s a list of 50 questions to ask your cofounder that does the rounds comes out of first round capital um went through that process with ah with a few people. And I think like the biggest thing was that I was so structured with the approach and I think I was potentially too structured with the approach because like I you know I was like oh some people it seemed like a good fit. But I think I was so structured I kind of missed the probably what was the most important thing for at least for me and like. In a way that like can kind of get something up and running is like a bias towards building because I was looking for somebody who’s technical I talked to again a ton of technical folk who are just to the person like an incredible you know, engineer or data scientist or whatever you know that technical skill set. But. Not everybody had like a massive bias towards like building right? like a lot of people wanted to talk about things but a lot of people wanted to ah you know, um, like like change idea constantly. You know there’s lots lots of different things. Um and some of those like I learned a ton from like all that process. But I guess charles when when you and I met and like I could see that you were. Kind of looking at these kind of working on these like side hackathons. You know here and there and like just talking to tons of people and just being super active in like the building community. It was not like bias towards action that I was like oh this is the thing I should always have been indexing on in my search and I guess like that’s like the main message I had like you know your process you should have some sort of process. Of course. But like really identifying that the main thing that will work with trying to get something from 0 to one and to me I think like the velocity of building and the bias towards action like those are like the most important things and also of course you need to you know you need to vibe you you know you need to be able to disagree in a kind way. You need to have all those other elements that are kind of interpersonal. Um, but I guess you know what? what are your kind of thoughts on on how your search went well.

Charles

Ah, hundred percent um I think I think for me is is also kind of similar you know, um I I think um, we both let share sort of this. Spies towards action. We really want to build something I really and we also really want to build something that changed the physical world. We think that you know, um, there’s they’re just simply not enough companies who are especially climate companies to sort of doing things that like shape the physical world and we really. Have that bias towards helping other companies rather developers to build faster and we just want to help mitigate the climate issue and the entire sort of situation right now as as fast as possible. Um.

James McWalter

And and to do that we’re we’re working on an Mvp getting getting some sort of product. How is that going you. You’re doing 99% of the building. So what’s that process like been for you.

Charles

Yeah, so it’s it’s been great I mean we so right now we’re we’re building and mep to to have this. Basically it’s a jazz tool to to help right now specifically targeting developers to help them find better size to build their. Gray infrastructure to basically provide them these deep due digons data up in front so that they won’t build something and in couple months they found out that oh you know we can’t build here because of this reason for that reason. Want to surface all these data up in front and tell them basically give them these analytics and allow them to make better decisions and um, yeah, we build a we build a demo. We are currently iterating our and Mvp with. Our ouri signers and also our design partners and things are going great. We are integrating a lot of data and we are also providing analytics on top of the data. And by the end of this month I hope that we can actually let me redo that part. Ah and by the end of next month I hope that we can have the V 0 mvp build so that we can actually start piloting with some of the.

James McWalter

It Yeah, it’s so exciting. You know, like because sometimes especially as we’ve kind of gone through things like fundraising and so on you know and I’ll spend a lot of my time talking to investors and then like a week might go by before I talk to our design partners and the other people who are interested in in the product we’re building.

Charles

Potential customers.

James McWalter

And all of a sudden I talk to them and like it just gets so exciting to see how their eyes light up when we show them. You know a sketch like ah you know a design sketch or we show them the progress you’ve made charles in in the kind of and Mvp construction and they’re like oh that feature is a 5 out of 5 value or that feature. A 4 out of 5 or even that feature is a 2 out of 5 and we know that we shouldn’t be prioritizing that type of feature for a specific user set like all of that kind of constant feedback. You know is has been so valuable and and honestly having you know, tried and failed with different startups in the past I think my biggest lesson having done done this a little bit in the past with with as I said less successful efforts. Is that we built more product than we validated by the market and this time around like having those kind of close relationships and having basically the user drive the process and for us then to bring you know that data awareness that ah you know that that analytics and ml awareness. Software awareness to actually then craft that into like a world-class product like that’s like the really exciting thing that you know that there’s basically we tried to dramatically reduce the chance that we build something that nobody wants like at least these users you talk to every week at least? Ah, they’ll might use. It.

Charles

Hundred percent I really think that you know, especially building a product like this iterating with the customers interacting with them and really making sure that you’re building something that they want is very very important. Um, yeah, and yeah, we have also been fundraising could do. We have done anything better when we seen you know our prec round.

James McWalter

Yeah, so we’re we’re just about done raising our preeed and we we got into kind of just just north of 7 figures. Um, and honestly like having never yeah, really raised directly in the past for myself or I think for both of us. Um, it was definitely learning experience for us. It went. Looking back shockingly quick. Um, looking forward. You know part of me was like it might take two weeks and then it takes a few months or a couple months and even that is very fast for a lot of you know, relative to like a lot of people who I’m sure listening to this and like kind of going through their process I would love to say just like. Give people a sense of numbers like we engaged about 400 investors had 66 first meetings and close 10 investors and so you know it’s definitely like a numbers game. Um, and I think coming from ah a sales background for for myself. Yeah, you. I was kind of going into it like expecting just a lot of Nos and a lot of rejection. Um, but that doesn’t make mean it’s like trivial right? Um, even when we would get the first couple of checks in from some really great angels. Um, yeah, so basically like there was nothing for the first week or two then we got a couple of angel checks in in week three and then like a week went by. Before we got at something else and like a week sounds like nothing but when you’re kind of in it and you’ve just had 2 angel checks. You’re like oh where’s the next one and like you’re also seeing you know, maybe 7 to 8 nos a day every day as you’re kind of going through that and a lot of them are like not direct Nos but like non-responses or you know people who seemed like. They were very excited and they just kind of fall off the Map. Um, so you know if I think about the um things we could have done better so you know one of the things we we definitely didn’t I guess appreciate was that how much better you get the more meetings you have um I think we were just bad for the first like 20 meetings like just just plainly. Didn’t really have good answers for a lot of things and so I think that because we didn’t really realize that you’re just so bad for the first 20 meetings. Um those some of those meetings were like you know you felt worse coming off those meetings than than you might have. And so I think like the big, the big lesson for that is like for any future time. It’s like just get the first 20 meetings done even if they’re not ideal investors because you learn so much from those you know and by the time you’ve hit twenty thirty forty meetings you’ve heard every question you’ve heard every potential issue and you should have good answers for that. And so you know people would ask us about the total addressable market. You know how big a market are we tackling they would ask us things around you know how do we reach our customers. They would ask us things about data collection. The defensibility of our remote. All those things that we had a pretty okay idea of um and.

James McWalter

We could like articulate yeah charles and high talking to each other maybe for you know a if we had like ah just an hour long conversation but in a kind of pitch conversation. You’re trying to get that idea across in like 1 minute per question and you’re just not good at for a while and so I think that’s the biggest thing it’s like just just. Lots of practice and no no practices as good as the actual pitch itself and so put yourselves out there and I wish we’d done that a little bit more. But yeah, overall like I’m I’m pretty pretty damn happy with how it all went to be honest, anything you think we should have approved charles and yourside. Yeah.

Charles

No I think I think overall we we did great. It’s also our first time so we definitely got. We definitely got let me redo this um, let me think of a little bit first. Um. What are the things that.

James McWalter

You You could talk about how we we gave lots of updates to throughout and we continue to make progress on the company like we sign an extra alloy and that kind of thing So you you.

Charles

Yeah I can I can talk about maybe the continuous momentum and everything um, cool. Yeah, so I think this you know this is also my first time as well. So I think both does we. We don’t really have a lot of experiences but. I think one one thing we did pretty well and is to basically show the momentum have continuous sort of updates with with the potential investors who’s interested in investing so we had we initially had 1 our eyes and one li and then we. We basically signed another one a couple weeks later and we are also continuously to build out the and mbap the demo and everything and we also took design partners on board. So showing really showing this momentum of growing and you know. Having more customers more more product build is is pretty critical for us to have a ah good race.

James McWalter

Absolutely and and that momentum I think has continued even like in our personal lives and so on I think we’re boat moving apartment over the next few weeks you are I believe moving country you are moving across the country and so you know like how has been like all those kind of you know, balancing. Those kind of personal things while trying to make progress on you know, a fastoving startup than for you.

Charles

Yeah, so moving moving is always Stressful. You know across country moving is is even worse I would say definitely I would say you know take your time. Don’t stress too much about It. You know there are a lot of moving pieces try to manage all of them and. Um, try to have dedicated time on you know, handling your personal Stuff. Don’t don’t spend your entire time on Building. You know the the startup and save some time for yourself and forget all the operational tasks and Logistic takes These are very important as well. So yeah, So so I would I would say that you know have dedicated time to handle all these moving pieces. So.

James McWalter

And I guess once we’re you’re you’re settled in New York um you know we we’ve just set up ourselves like ah, a little office space in Brooklyn we’ll be starting kind of working in there in a few weeks but I guess. You know how do you think about? what what you want us to achieve over the next couple of months like what are our kind of short-term muscles in your mind.

Charles

Yeah, so I think you know on the on the product side. Definitely we want to build a Mvp v zero and then continue to iterate that with the users that means like connecting a lot of the data we collected deployed the data and then making sure that the users can consume these data. And insights through the web app so that is the main thing I would say as sort of the immediate next step and and also at the same time kind of you know, build out more data sets collect more data that are. And be useful for for for customers.

James McWalter

Yeah, absolutely so like you know I echo that um just on the data point. Yeah, so we’re you know we’re collecting zoning data. We’re collecting permitting data. We’re collecting interconnection into the grid data to re try to you identify like good places to build but you can’t do the whole country. You know in day one so you know there are. Like over 3000 counties and jurisdictions in the United States and so you know you have to kind of prioritize for a certain extent and that you know that is ah like always the balance right? because if you had national coverage that you definitely be of a value. But how do you actually get an mvp like an actual true Mvp. Like can you get like 10 counties or even one county worth of data that is actually valuable to some users and then you kind of build out rather than yeah spending months and months of data collection and then ending up that oh nobody actually cared about that data and then theater bit. You know I can’t wait for the first dollar of revenue that is ah that’s going to be. You know a lovely milestone you know I think been in having been in fundraising now for a few months and you know you hit like your fundraising number and people are obviously very congratulatory. Yeah in your kind of personal circle and that’s obviously like a great moment to hit those numbers because a lot of people don’t and so you know we feel obviously very kind of. Proud of of that and and very kind of fortunate and humble about it. But it’s like okay you know you raise money to build a business and you build a business by growth and revenue and all those kind of elements and the most important metric of all I guess is the actual climate effect and so yeah, so I’m I absolutely like super excited over like the next few months because we can completely focus on the business. You know. Building product getting in front of users hopefully getting them to pay us. You know a few Bob a few dollars and and then kind of continue to iterate from there.

Charles

That’s great. So these are sort of our short term aim you know and what how do you see? what paces that can be over the next few years

James McWalter

Yeah I mean I think this is like 1 of our you know shared views is that um, when you kind of think about the scale of climate change and like all the kind of associated problems. We really have to kind of completely rebuild the built environment over the next few decades right? Like if you look out across the world. You have. You know coal-fired power plants. You have ah gas cuzzling vehicles you have ah you know buildings who aren’t very very well insulated and you know this combination of factors is just very very high in terms of like carbon emissions and so basically we’re going to have to change all of that and we’re already starting to see it. Um, as we mentioned that there is a ton of funding for from it for this kind of transition both from the public and private sector and more is needed but at least for the next couple of years. The money is is available. Um, but really, it’s like the transformational nature of the built environment is going to be I think catch a lot of people by surprise. Um. You know we’ve had a particular type of city and kind of suburban world over the last hundred years um throughout the western kind of western society and also you know large parts of the rest of the world and that’s going to start to shift in various ways and ways that are not really predictable. You know one example is as you kind of have a more distributed energy grid. Um, that changes the types of businesses you can have the types of communities. You can have um as we move into much greener buildings. Um, that also changes the types of ways that people live and then transportation you know I don’t think people realize how much quieter and and kind of more enjoyable. It will be to be in cities when all vehicles are evs or hydrogen powered. It’s just going to be like a profoundly different and you know more kind of positive way to live and so obviously there’s a lot of doo and gloom in the climate world. But we’re super excited by um, yeah, the potential change that’s coming and how it like paces and and what we’re building can kind of speed that up and enable. You know the. Climate optimum use case for like all the world’s land and so yeah I guess like what’s exciting you about ah our future kind of vision and mission charles. Yeah.

Charles

Yeah I think for me is I really want to see all these you know big changes in the physical world I think that’s that’s what drives me to to work on on paces as well. I really want to see you know all these new renewable energy. You know sites getting built and you know one day I really want to visit some of them myself as well. And yeah, and also the transfer. Ah the transformation of the cities that you just mentioned I think it’s also very exciting for me. Um I think. You know, climate to be honest, like climate this this climate people as a whole. Um we don’t really make a very good. Um, you know, um, illustration of the future. Basically all of them. All of us are sort of saying that you know things are going to go bad and if you don’t make changes. We go even worse. But really we believe that there’s and there’s another way out right? and this things can be a lot greener. We can see vertical farms. All these cool new. Um. Cool news sites in the in the city and imagine everyone drivinging ev and were hydrogen you know powered cars instead of gasolineing power cars and things are going to be a lot quieter. So there’s I think there’s this alternative sort of 2 chair that we can build and is is. Ah, lock reer and is a lot nicer. So I’m very excited about that.

James McWalter

Yeah, no, Ah, absolutely. And and I guess like thinking about the kind of wider like scale of Innovation. You know we we both kind of have orbited different type of climate communities on a lot of tech Folk. You know if you were somebody kind of listening to this and and they were kind of inspired by what we’re talking about. They want to kind of start their own thing or work On. You know some cool new Idea. You know what are some areas of Innovation. You wish that more smart people were working On. It’s particularly around climate and.

Charles

Um, I Really believe that another big piece of this is talent. Um, to be honest I Really think that we don’t have enough people um, working in the space right Now. It’s still a relatively small. Space. People are very collaborative but at the same time There’s simply not enough manpower to sort of you know change the world fast enough so I would I would say that you know having some some sort of school or some sort of you know training platform. Um, that can bring more people on board and have more people working in greener industries and together sort of mitigate the climate change Issue. So I think that is another big piece that’s sort of missing right now.

James McWalter

Yeah there’s ah this concept that ah a friend of mine has talked about which is he calls it like the next million where we have about a million ish people working directly on climate today. Um, you know across government and startups and all different kind of things and that’s great, but like who’s the next million. Right? And as we move kind of into more and more people working directly on these problems. They’re going to be less I guess kind of politically or emotionally or ideologically driven and they’re more going to be driven by just like you know the normal parts of life you know driven by their ability to have impact but also is this a good place to work is this a place that. I’m fulfilled in my job I’m working on cool problems and I think that the just because of the scale of yeah yeah, the different elements of climate um like more and more people are going to like look at that as something that they want to spend the next thirty years on and yeah it’s it’s super excited. But I agree like the velocity of people joining and working on these things is just not not fast enough. And I think a lot of that is to your point like there’s just not that many pathways that are very clearly articulated and so I know I know we have Sam Steyier who was talking about greenwork and like you know that’s one particular kind of pathway which I think is really promising and and it’s super exciting. Um, but we absolutely need like tons of those you know like if you are a like ah a great software engineer working at a fang company. You know if you are um, an accountant if you are you know a lawyer if you are whatever the skill set if you are you know, somebody who is an electrician whatever the kind of role that you’re working on today. There was absolutely work to be done directly working on climate and yeah and would love people to kind of yeah feel free to reach out to us. Um. You know email the podcast. Whatever it may be will always help to try to like direct people into working on those projects you know, connecting with the types of communities that have already arisen and definitely way more will also arise kind of working on these projects as well.

Charles

Great. Um, is there anything that I should have asked you but I did not.

James McWalter

Yeah that’s always the question I end with normal guests. But yeah, um I guess if anybody’s listening to this and they are a clean energy transportation or a green building developer operator investor. We’d love to hear from you. Um, as charles mentioned we are working on our Mvp. It should be out pretty soon. And we’re already starting to do kind of demos and setting up early trials for what we’re building and so yeah, if you are unhappy with the efficiency or profitability or success rate of your green infrastructure project development. Um, we want to talk to you and so yeah, feel will add our email address to the show notes of the podcast definitely feel feel.

James McWalter

Free to kind of reach out to us and the podcast is not going anywhere. Um, you know we we love having these kind of conversations I’m sure Charles will stop by from time to time as we have more things to report and we’ll continue to kind of talk to like great people who are working on climate from a climate tech kind of yeah point of view. And so Charles has been absolutely great. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Charles

Thank you James thanks for having me.

James McWalter

Thank you everyone.

Great to chat with Tomi Ristimäki CEO of Kempower! Kempower designs, manufactures and commercializes charging solutions and services for electric vehicles! We discussed the fast-paced evolution of EV charging, electrifying fleets and more!

https://carbotnic.com/kempower

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

Remember, If you want to support the podcast please rate and review 5 stars on Apple, Thanks so much! 

James

The unedited podcast transcript is below

James McWalter

Hello today’re speaking with Tomi Ristimaki Ceo of Kempower welcome to podcast tommy brilliant to start. Could you tell us a little bit about chem power.

Tomi Ristimaki

Thank you Thank you? James. The ke power is ah is a finish and so for the ones who don’t know we are in Europe. So so we are finished fast starting manufacturers so we make for electricive vehicle buses work machines, everything that moves actually. Charting solutions.

James McWalter

That very good and when what drove the initial decision to start working at Kem power and what was the kind of early days of kem power like.

Tomi Ristimaki

Early days of campmpo is not so distant past I think the company in this form is found in 2018 but as ah as a history of the company. We belong to a company group which has been doing more than 70 years application with power electronics to welding industry. And this was skippa was found in as a new company in the group to focus in in in the new market and there’s a lot of synerys even people don’t maybe think that that welding and charting is the same thing but that so engineers view it’s it’s quite close. Application is is is there. So I think that that’s the background why it was founded exactly here to this company group.

James McWalter

And so yeah, we’ve actually talked to a few people who have spun out or been founded by you know, large kind of corporations or or company groups. Um, what do you think are the you know I guess the pros and cons of that way of Starting. Ah. Like a business I mean obviously you you definitely have some support in a way that like a typical startup might not have but you also potentially have to kind of deal with ah you know aspects of large company bureaucracy and so on.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yes, exactly ah that that was the reason it was It was like kind of like a clean start that it was powdered as a completely different company so you get kind of the pros and cons of the world so you can use the resources of the big company and the processes working and and basic the it systems and. You don’t have to do everything in the beginning because we were buying buying like the finance services Hr services from the group in the beginning now and now it’s actually independent but it gets gives a good startup point when the company can keep the keep the bureaucracy out of things.

James McWalter

So.

James McWalter

And absolutely.

Tomi Ristimaki

Can take only the good things from the past and um and concentrate on on on making the important things so looking at if you look at the first years I think it was first hundred percent r and d that it was hot under r and d in sales and now when we are looking at 2022 is all the older function are within the company already.

James McWalter

So.

Tomi Ristimaki

But it it gave a good kickstart for the business.

James McWalter

Absolutely and and in those kind of first year or 2 of just kind of pure r and d focus so were there any kind of pivots in terms of the product you know roadmap or the kind of product vision over those few years you know was Ken power going in a certain direction and and changed later or has it been always very focused on the kind of core offering you have today.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah, it’s been coreop offering in charting and actually that history also goes back to the company group. There was a project that we have we’ve done actually the first fat. Ah first chart is already in 2012

James McWalter

Yeah.

Tomi Ristimaki

But then the then the company who its actually the family who owns it they decided that there is not enough evs to focus it in this yet. So so part of the let’s say but portfolio ideas come come way before way before the company was founded.

James McWalter

And you know I think looking in 2022 when pretty much all the large auto manufacturers have said they’re moving fully to evs you know over the next decade you know having ev charging station infrastructure seems like ah like a no brainer. But even four years ago that definitely wasn’t the case and so I guess what was the kind of. Like the court insight that made its make sense in 2018 where it didn’t make sense in 2012 um to be so that you’re ready for this kind of inflection point. That’s just occurred in the last like eighteen months

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah I think it’s it was the market studies and looking at the numbers which are the growth figures and and nobody actually believed in those figures at that time and and then what actually happened is a lot faster will open in the market in real life. So that. It has ah surprised me I’ve I’ve been working with demobility for the last ten years and the fast pace what has happened in just the last two years has surprised me a lot.

James McWalter

I’m so and so you know when you were kind of considering this like taking on this this particular kind of you know direction from your kind of previous career. What was like I guess the most exciting aspects about this relative to some of the other opportunities like I’m sure that were available to you.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah, it was actually I was I was working I’ve been 20 years in electrification in in overall but the first ten years went in an industrial looking at energy saving in industrial space and and things like that. But then I joined the startup world in 2011 working with power trains for heavy vehicles doing hybrid systems electric systems for trucks processses machinery and that was pretty early that you can call really tri dog to excavate the manufacture in 2011 about doing a hybrid or awful electric system that’s completely different than than doing it today.

James McWalter

Right.

Tomi Ristimaki

So I Got really excited on on the Ev business and and let’s say electrification because I didn’t really mind on cars or evs or trucks as a young. But then I became an electric engineer and then finally when everything turned to electric. It turned my head as Well. And um I can be called maybe Ev enthusiastic and now all the machines are really interesting because it’s actually close to your heart and and what you know.

James McWalter

And threaten.

Tomi Ristimaki

So this is this is is definitely the opportunity to join the charging business was kind of relevant move to even more electric because doing the powerrain business was a lot of hybrids and things still working with diesel engines. This is a lot lot more focused on actually making the world better.

James McWalter

So.

Tomi Ristimaki

But you’re working working in the full electric world.

James McWalter

Absolutely and and so today I guess who is like ah like a you know a core user. What and what does that kind of typical kind of customer profile look like.

Tomi Ristimaki

If you if you look at our our customers who buy our solutions I think the biggest group is transport operators today who are serving then the customers with electricity. But for us, it’s also the public transport operators logutistic companies.

James McWalter

Oh.

Tomi Ristimaki

And if we look at the mining or harbor world. We are selling to the vehicle manufacturers mostly because that mother is even let’s say less advanced yet but like public transportation or or private causes today except the mining and harpers which is fast but let’s say construction vehicles agriculture.

James McWalter

Um, and and so what would like a typical deployment then look like um to kind of get it. You guys set up for a customer for a user.

Tomi Ristimaki

They are still couple of years ago

Tomi Ristimaki

So I think that from our selection point of view that our solution is for larger installations larger charting sites and this is how we actually believe that it will happen as well that that is single.

James McWalter

Ah.

Tomi Ristimaki

Charters is not the way how how when the ebs are becoming in the norm that people actually want to charge their vehicles in a siteway have more connections and also the services around it if we talk about the private car industry. And also if we look at public transportation. Never there never is a single vehicle. There is always a fleet and this is the same also when we look at the electric trucks in the future I think our main core is the logistic centers where you charge the vehicles when you’re ah, loading unloading or or where the vehicle spent the night and and then this is kind of how we see the future is that the charting sites are somehow concentrated and our whole solution is in this this world. How we develop.

James McWalter

That’s so that’s so interesting. Yeah I think you know coming out of the kind of Fossil Fuel petroleum you know based ah transportation. There’s a very specific I guess Pattern for where you would refill right? It’s ah so it’s a well-known. Um.

Tomi Ristimaki

The.

James McWalter

Kind of site selection process to get a gas station to get a petrol station Sighted. You know you need within a certain kind of level of Demographic density. It needs to be at certain types of kind of crossroads and so on um, and then and there are there are kind of various factors. How is that different for Ev charging. Um, you know. You also have these kind of elements in in electricity whereas the the cost of electricity can vary the amount of charge time that that it takes can vary a lot relative to kind of you know gas-powered vehicles and so how do you think about how that site selection for evs is different to Fossil powers.

Tomi Ristimaki

Of course when you talk about private costs which is easier to understand for everybody. It’s it’s then you have the main way of charting is of course where you stop for a long time. It’s home or workplace and and there the equipment is is not our main scope.

James McWalter

Vehicles. Okay.

Tomi Ristimaki

Are considering the high power so in that the selection of crossroads and things like that is quite similar to the federal states when you look at the long distance the routes. But then now what we see even more interesting in there is the shopping centers restaurants where the people stop anyway. And we see that this happening in Scandinavia in first pace that actually the retail chains are taking over part of the charting because they own the sites which are already in good locations where the people stop so that you don’t need to go to the so-called gasase and fueling world. This was also the mistake what I had when I got my first tv that I thought that I need to go somewhere to charts.

James McWalter

You right? because you could basically could be sipping throughout the day or throughout you know any sort of time period. You can get it at night or yeah, very very short bursts can help as well because you’re really just trying to get enough range to get through the job to be done that.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah, and I think the sites where you charge the cars will be the places where you get other services so you don’t actually spend extra time for charging because you you need to do anything you need to do shopping. You need to do you need to eat somewhere. You need to stop when you’re driving. So.

James McWalter

Particular day.

Tomi Ristimaki

I think it Also it’s changing the concept for the I think the gas station in the wrong term in the future. So I think it’s like a human service stations where you have other services where the people need to stop anyway and and plan the routes this at least what I have noticed when when changing dbs.

Tomi Ristimaki

Because we don’t have at home. We have 2 2 electric vehicles and even the lawnmower is is electric so there.

James McWalter

Oh ah, lawowers are about as as polluting a yes, even it’s a small engine as it could be so having electric lot more. They very cool and and so does that kind of open up the possibility of like new types of business model then for.

Tomi Ristimaki

Um, yes, then.

James McWalter

Those stations right? If you had some sort of human services. Maybe the energy to to recharge is literally free and you can have all these other services kind of stacked on top of it because you’re getting you know potential revenue from the driver in other ways.

Tomi Ristimaki

And this is how how actually why at least I don’t know what what happens in us. But at least in Europe you see a lot of fast food ch and and and grocery stores investing in charting equipment because that’s kind of. They have already the services or when you have a new charting station and then the services are built around it. So this is kind of a different different way way of how how ah the future moves in that because it’s ah but when you look at the let’s say professional e equipmentp then of course that you have.

James McWalter

So absolutely.

Tomi Ristimaki

Another thing is because time is money if you look at for long distance trucking they will be separate size. There will be huge powers in the future because you need to move it and when you’re doing professional things. It’s not the same as as you can have ah let’s a coffee break or a lunch break in every.

James McWalter

Ah.

Tomi Ristimaki

Every every place but you need to have breaks in those businesses as well. So that’s just planning.

James McWalter

Absolutely and how you know would in your kind of experience across Europe have the the utilities kind of responded to this kind of emergent ev charging again I know in different markets. Semichies are very excited by it. Some are quite kind of scared about it because they might be already at capacity and are worried about. Ah, you know in this increased load at the end of the day when everybody gets home and like plugs in their evs all at once and so how how do you think about that kind of relationship with the the utilities. Those who are you know own the wires for the energy itself and.

Tomi Ristimaki

I think the main grid in most of the countries can handle the extra load but it it’s the let’s say the last end which has a problem I mean the living areas or shopping malls that the axle connection from the main grid to that site is limited. And that needs some investments in the world and then you need some smart charting also for for I think living areas or suburban areas where you might have a lot of cost charging so that remains to be solved in ah in a way that you cannot grow the grids to unlimited possibilities. But it’s also controlled by the price of electricity. So in a way when the charting is actually taking into account the the market price of electricity which in the modern contract can change by hourly. The people will concentrate the charting when the other loads are lower. And of course we are. We are in a country where the problem is not that big in Finland or in Scandinavia which are used to electrical heating in the houses and in Finland everybody has a sa at home which is just using electricity. So if you don’t turn the so on you have electric electric cap to charts your car.

James McWalter

But it’s a big.

Tomi Ristimaki

But immediately if you use those 2 at the same time. The fuse will burn. So of course that’s ah obvious thing but we have it easy in here with but not every place in the world is is the same. So.

James McWalter

Ah, that’s fascinating I’ve had a finished friend say to me they would prefer to lose their car to their saa. Um, and so if that if that’s the tradeoff you people might maintain theira.

Tomi Ristimaki

That is quite true even that that’s not the topic of today but the Finn wouldn’t buy a house without so night would be like buying an apartment without shower or something like this. It’s a just the culture.

James McWalter

absolutely that’s absolutely fascinating um and yes, very very very different to where I grew up in Ireland but ah, you know my my wife is definitely a fan of saunas and so someday maybe maybe we’ll have one um and so ok and so the ah yeah when you I guess. Like in terms of that that kind of like the core technology then but you guys have built. How do you think about how your frast charger kind of compares to others in the market. You know what are the kind of advantages of that kind of r and d effort that you know that was put in and in your early days of developing power.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah, it is this basically the system thinking and having a solution that can serve more vehicles with a single many of the competitors are still working with this kind of standalone boxes which can maybe service 1 or 2 cars at the time. And we are all the time thinking that when the ebs are really like the main mainstream way of moving then you need more plugs more systems and how to use the limited power connection to serve as many vehicles as possible. What we call in the camp power the dynamic solution that the the power of the charging point changes based on the remain of the vehicle so that basically all the capacity what you have can be re resolve to the next one when the other one has a pattern getting full. So that’s I think the core of the idea that. How you can use the limits what you have today and and and make the best of it and and be able to connect as many but cars as possible because the the time the most ill-spent time is that when you wait in a car to get your car plugged in.

James McWalter

So right.

Tomi Ristimaki

And not the time that you wait a card to be charged because then something is happening.

James McWalter

So so I guess couple thoughts on that So one I guess question is around it sounds like we’re moving into this very very data. Rich environment right? whereas before any individual driver was a somewhat a bit independent node that might hit into a given gas station fill up and so on.

Tomi Ristimaki

When.

James McWalter

Um, its its ability to communicate with other drivers is basically just captured in the price of oil and yeah and the price of petroleum over a certain amount of time you know taking into account things like supply shocks and so on which we’re going through now but the kind of world. It sounds like you’re describing is you have a ton of. Somewhat connected devices that are trying to communicate with each other tend to communicate with the grid in some way to try to optimize so that you know the end user has the best possible experience right? when they plug in. Um, yeah, their their car has the sufficient charge or their vehicle if it’s heavy. Duty vehicle has efficient charge for when they need it.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah, yeah.

James McWalter

So do you think about that kind of data data element and how these different devices should best communicate with each other right.

Tomi Ristimaki

That is a data element and it’s also very important to provide the information to the end users when they are charging that what’s happening and and and that’s ah also where we are I think with our data connection know how we are in a good system because we are providing even. Mini accurate estimation of charting behavior and providing that to people who are charting even if their car doesn’t have apps how to follow it up. Our charters have basically they make a website special website on every charting session and you can take it with you with your mobile phone when you’re going out so when you’re doing other things you have. All the knowledge that you need to know if the chart is happening that your battery is full in 10 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever you have so we believe in in this sharing the information and and and sharing also the information to the users if their car is the limiting factor in charting or is it charter or. Is it the fact that there might be several people charting in the site with that shares the power and and it gets the uncertainty ah away and gets the easiness and and sharing information into into into the users and that’s.

Tomi Ristimaki

What we have found out. It’s the majority of the employees What we have is Ieb drivers and we are kind of making the products for ourselves as well. So what? what we would like to see is is what we have developed to the market.

James McWalter

Yeah, it’s It’s so nice when the user testing can be done with actual you know the team itself right? like often you know people are trying to build products even my own startup that I’m working on like I am not the end user I’ve never had that direct problem and so it does mean you have to do a ton of user testing and like.

Tomi Ristimaki

Are.

James McWalter

Talking to the users constantly. But if you do actually have that lived experience of of the problem. It does make a massive difference.

Tomi Ristimaki

It it makes and I noticed myself I worked with the let’s say electric systems and and hybrid system for vehicles for 10 years and I would have only been an evi driver for 3 years and I learned more about experience on how it feels like to be an ev driver in the last 3 and. And it’s really important to have a r and d and sales group who are who are actually if it drivers they understand it a lot better.

James McWalter

Absolutely and I guess on the ev manufacturing side of things. How are the manufacturers I guess performing from your point of view. Um, as we kind of talked about a little bit earlier. There has been this kind of clear step change in the last two years where the large scale developer like manufacturers of automobiles have committed to yeah electrification. Um, but I guess some of the recent announcements around electrifying you know, very heavy duty ah like utility you know trucks like f 1 truck and so on in the United States seems to be. Kind of purely just trying to electrify an existing body like like ah from a gas power body rather than kind of thinking through from first principles like what does having an electric drive chain mean to the kind of redevelopment of automobiles in the first place. Do you expect to see a lot more kind of of evolution from ev manufacturers.

Tomi Ristimaki

Um, in.

James McWalter

Over the next few years or will we basically have ah the you know the current types of vehicles but just with an ev drive drive chain rather than a gas-powered one and.

Tomi Ristimaki

It’s a quite different I’ve been involved ah in in more and more than 150 different kind of vehicle electrifications in the past before the charging career. So Actually ah how you design The vehicle is different. And I think I’ve never been in a private vehicle I’ve been in more heavier vehicle standards and of course how you make the vehicle if you make it from scratch to Electric. You get a better design and it’s kind of like an intermediate if you just change an electric power into something Because. Ah, how the weight points and and transmission and everything is Done. You can do it a lot more clever if you design everything from scratch as electric and then you can see that development Also that if you look look at the like a Chinese market where they are only developing evs now. And and how the design is done. It’s done based on the requirements of the electrical design and not having the burden of of the past behind you and that’s even more heavier ever. You go. But what? what? I’m also saying that many of the industries are already doing that.

James McWalter

Oh.

Tomi Ristimaki

And probably the private cost has have have the biggest burden because you have like systems and car bodies which have been developed for investment on on making millions of cars and you are kind of you cannot throw that aside. But if you look at heavier vehicles. You have more easier done because your investment has planned anymore anyway, for the hundreds of vehicles. So that volume goes away and then you can develop something new if that makes sense cut.

James McWalter

Yeah, no, no, and absolutely um and it is the ah the B Two B Versus B Two C markets right? like in all industries can vary quite a bit because you do have that kind of personal selection element. You know people have been optimizing just the feel of driving for such a long time that. Ah, you kind of you know, need to respect and and honestly evs are much more enjoyable to drive in general um relative to the status quo.

Tomi Ristimaki

It’s it’s about private costs having the feeling of of using this these are like a consumer items which are based on on performance in a little but little bit. But if you look at pre equipment. They are even more based on the behavior because that’s how you earn money. That that’s the whole business. So in in that way the demands in in there might be even more because some sometimes if you look at. For example, sample the the cheapest evs. The only requirement is that it moves forwards and backwards and and brings you from 1 place to another.

James McWalter

Right.

Tomi Ristimaki

And then the performance vehicle market I think one of the big things happening in the evs you can say anything about Elon Musk I drive tesla so I like that development but what he did to the market is to make the electric cars look sexy and you’ll make a good looking car with the high performance. Because I think the early hybrids in the market they were weak and they didn’t look good and they were made main for fuel fuel cost optimization or something like that and not for the performance and it changed the whole thinking when when you made the evs look cool. And now we have seen what happens when you do that.

James McWalter

Um, yeah, yeah, you know I personally stopped reading his Twitter feed just because it’s it’s too stressful, but he yeah absolutely is kind of singlehandedly or tessla. Singlehandedly you know, pulled forward the market you know five to 10 years.

Tomi Ristimaki

And it changed the image. It’s it’s now I think without that I think you wouldn’t have even some heavy truck Manufacturers wouldn’t move into that because yeah, like it. It was a publicity for the whole industry of of moving.

James McWalter

Yeah.

James McWalter

But and absolutely and I think you can do a kind of straight line from that kind of development on Testa side through the kind of emergence of spacs themselves like even as like ah like a concept and a lot of the funding of you know and not every clean energy sp has obviously gone very very well.

Tomi Ristimaki

Um, and goation.

James McWalter

But some definitely have and have’t enabled you know some pretty cool companies to emerge over the last like 2 to 3 years so yeah yeah,

Tomi Ristimaki

And without somebody doing it first. Ah you, you might not have the situation that thediciable move move further because you need examples in the market.

James McWalter

And what really has done also is like drive fear into the heart of the incumbents of like oh you know like we we are now dealing with a company that has a market cap greater than basically the entire industry right? So onces tesla hit a trillion dollar market cap all the other car manufacturers are like well yeah. Like even though their actual amount of units produced is so much lower than this clearly this is the future clearly this is where the markets think the future is and so they then scrambled in. Ah I think a net positive way to actually respond to that and start producing a ton themselves.

Tomi Ristimaki

It has pros and consoles starting from clean table. So so you you might have other challenges then than than the electric thing but I can also understand the difficulty for traditional manufacturers to move the electrification because it’s you have done.

James McWalter

Ah.

Tomi Ristimaki

Hundred years on something and developed all the or your investment efforts are there and we are talking about the peakest change since the invention of internal compost engine to the cars or gasoline engine first and then the other variations.

James McWalter

But not absolutely and on the kind of policy side. Um, do we have all we need in place for the kind of mass adoption of evs and getting the V infrastructure charting infrastructure in place. Ah you know. The the way I kind of think about policies is a couple different elements. So one. There’s direct encouragement of something but then also there’s direct discouragement right? So maybe permitting is too difficult. Environmental fact you know environmental policy might prevent things like ev charging stations actually getting built in certain areas. Um, so how do you think about the kind of current policy picture in Finland and across Europe and potential areas that it could improve.

Tomi Ristimaki

I think the you especially in the eu there is a lot of legislat and go go going on which actually supports the electrification process and actually make it makes it a must actually from the infrastructure side I myself don’t like subsidies on the on the. My own business that much but I say the subsidies actually and and people getting the evs solves the chicken and the egg situation in a way that if you support the getting of Tvs The infrastructure will follow. Except of course for for not so populated areas and there you need government supports and and things like that. But that’s kind of the way it is but somehow somehow the heavily subsidized market also becomes weird. So that that’s from the business point of view. That’s that’s not the favorite place i’ would like to have at least the charting infrastructure. So um, coming from the market demand and it’s the way because we believe that we have the best system and that helps to win with the best system but in subsidized market you get some kind of a consultant making a specification says that the. Charles days might be like this and when you are providing then something better. It doesn’t fit to the spec that some guy wrote and that is giving a a live weird. Let’s say behaviors in in a subsidized market.

James McWalter

Yeah, it’s it’s I think the way I kind of think about it is there’s these kind of 2 kind of curves that kind of cross at some point and so there’s definitely like a role for government and policy to enable certain completely brand new greenfield markets to emerge out of r and d labs and so on um, but then. As the cost curve for that technology comes down which we’ve seen from Lithian I on batteries right in particular like that that incredible kind of decrease in cost curve now. It’s so cheap, relatively speaking and continue to get cheaper. Although of course there are supply and jaing issues and you know nothing is completely easy. But um, the governments then.

Tomi Ristimaki

Um, name.

James McWalter

Really their biggest role is really then to get out of the way. Um and kind of remove like restrictions because the technology itself is not cheap enough that that yeah the market can can respond in a very dynamic way and picking winners and loses it at that point fails and so it is this kind of interesting you know, kind of Conundrum you know I’ve looked at.

Tomi Ristimaki

You.

James McWalter

Different government programs in the United States so this organization organization rpe which does funding of like large scale kind of our you know r and d type type work for anything to do with clean energy or not just clean energy anything to do energy but a lot of clean energy components of it today and some of the ah. Like grants that they’ve made some are completely frontier technology and I’m like yes there should definitely be grants for those but some of them are things like ev charging infrastructure I’m like well I think it’s a well yeah, it’s a reasonably well solved problem right now. It’s all about distribution and business model rather than the underlying r and d and so yeah I guess how do you kind of think about that balance.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah I think in know overall overall the I want think Glory a little bit different direction and question I’m I’m thinking about a louder on the charging infrastructure and and and how the evies become become the norm and nor in the industry and basically.

James McWalter

Please.

Tomi Ristimaki

If you look at the government funds going in there. You you help the first stage get the the fear out of people that they can actually buy it and maybe that’s that’s a good way. But after that. Comes to second way with which will be large need for the infrastructure because when the people actually get get the evs and everybody notices that you have too little amount of infrastructure and um, um, it’s it. It’s what what’s happening I think the future lab of evs which is called Norway. And you thought that you made a lot of investment in the recent years but now that people have actually a high number of evs. The investments are growing a lot and also the payback time is getting very short because the amount of charting people are doing is is so high.

James McWalter

Bret.

Tomi Ristimaki

Ah, you might have even less than 2 year payback times for the investment which is normally pretty good if you look at the infrastructure and and and it’s changing the way and I think a lot of the countries who are now thinking that they they are doing a big investment in charting infrastructure. It’s way too little for the real.

James McWalter

5 but.

Tomi Ristimaki

Need in the future years.

James McWalter

Yeah, you know you’re seeing like single digit billions. Um, across like you know large countries like the United States and go 7000000000 in the most recently passed bill for ev charging infrastructure and at 1% of vehicles in the road in the us are ev’s um I believe what. in in Norway it’s it’s kind of approaching 15 to 20% now but particularly well all new vehicles like the numbers of course like way higher. Um, but we do have to kind of move through the existing stock.

Tomi Ristimaki

The the total stock of course is lower. But I think in Norway I think they’re closing up the new cars. It’s it’s more than 60% is is either either plugin hybrid or or electric.

James McWalter

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and how do you? what? I I Guess with all these you know we’re kind of talking about the kind of broader context you know within that. What are the kind of next you know 1 to 2 year Milestones that Ke power hopes to achieve.

Tomi Ristimaki

I Think it’s It’s so of course we would like to be the prepared solution for easy charting all around the world. That’s not the mild goal but that that that’s a goal. Ah and we are hoping of course to see it is also in the in the background is is is.

James McWalter

Sure.

Tomi Ristimaki

I’ve been working with clean tech all my life and it feels good to come to work and to to working in this kind of solution of course the massuptional evs I Truly believe that it actually helps the environment helps the world.

James McWalter

Up. So.

Tomi Ristimaki

And I think it’s a high value I think we also see now employees that there’s a lot of Ev drivers where I think we have also a high rumper of solar panel owners and things it actually affects the other things What you do when you’re thinking goes goes that way that you are you are starting to think about the environment and talking about. Feeling good about doing things that that improve things.

James McWalter

Yeah, not so and and that the kind of number of people who are starting to work in this space and then who are you know coming up with their own kind of innovative ideas and maybe within the companies are working at or maybe they spin off and start their own things. Ah. That Yeah, absolutely incredibly bit exciting and honestly it’s the basis of the startup of this podcast is like talking to people who are kind of on on those kind of different types of Journeys Where would you let you know if there was a couple of smart people ah kind of listening to this podcast interested in starting something in in this space. Are the kind of big gaps where there’s not enough innovation where some cool companies could be potentially formed to kind of focus and solve some interesting problems.

Tomi Ristimaki

I Think it’s also I think ah, all around the space at the moment because I think there is more demand and than Supply. So So there’s a lot of space to to be around. But I think the universal payment solution things and making that easier has has a space. But also also making let’s say a I think the general laziness of of humans in nature is is giving a lot of opportunities people in in a way that if you make things Easy. You have a way to succeed in in the world.

James McWalter

And.

James McWalter

And so when you say the universal pay. Are you talking about like like Cross network for charging infrastructure or kind of more generally.

Tomi Ristimaki

Cross network of starting in from ah structures. But also the the way how the vehicles work today and and how how how generally everything works is is I think the best inventions in the world ah is done because people are lazy and they want to make things easier.

James McWalter

Earth.

Tomi Ristimaki

That’s the first thing what comes to mind when when you if you make things easier then you have a possibility to succeed and our goal is also to make the charting experience easier than refueling so that was the winning idea in the beginning. How how how can you make that easier.

James McWalter

Right? right? Yeah I guess it’s you know and it kind of goes back to deity part of the conversation about you know once you start experiencing driving evs yourself or experiencing a specific new type of way of being you start to see the problems around that and one of the things I say to a lot of people are interested in starting companies is like. Just start jotting down every annoying thing that happens over the next week like every time you see something that’s like you know, delayed you or was slightly annoying or whatever it may be just jot it down and all of a sudden that’s your list of company ideas and because of kind of the nature of the world today. So many of them have a clean tech or climate kind of relationship. Ah, to start something in and.

Tomi Ristimaki

But actually the driving of Tv is already so much more comfortable than using a combustion engine car that there is no way of going back I always say that but it’s not enough to test for one week because you get this annoying things which are not actually annoying after few months of using. So I think the the general test drive is not the good way I think it’s just jumping in and and and going into the into the solution and there is no way back if if you are if you are doing maybe some individual will will go back. But that’s that’s say I think the this justifies the rule.

James McWalter

So no yeah I fully fully agree absolutely and I guess for you you know personally you know you’ve been kind of you’ve been Ceo of the company for for a little you know for a few years now um what’s most surprised you? um.

35:27.74

James McWalter

As you’ve kind of built out the company you know from kind of your position.

Tomi Ristimaki

I think from the point of view is the last two years and the market growth we are still growing 3 digit growth and and we are still talking about last year the revenues for twenty seven million Euros and you are not supposed to do 3 really digit growth at that level anymore.

Tomi Ristimaki

So it is what has surprised me a lot is the adaption of the ev and and and how the market is growing. It’s I would have suggested like I said it shouldn’t surprise me working 10 years in theopulate. But the last two years have really surprised me on on on what’s happening. And even in Finland I think the general but public was so much against on evs and now the now you see normal people buying evs which is a big big change. They not not only your engineer friend who is just enthusiastic about technology I would like to have a new toy. It’s it’s normal people who are who are moving.

James McWalter

Sure or no.

Tomi Ristimaki

And then there’s a lot of things which is of course the increasing fuel prices and things like that is changing changing the attibus.

James McWalter

Yeah, and ah, you know we’re we’re also seeing some of these kind of supply shocks around what’s happening in you know in Eastern Europe and so on and the the kind of large effect that has on energy prices on you know oil the barrel of oil. Um, we’re seeing queues at gas stations at least in the United States that we haven’t seen in a very very long time and all those things like feed into this idea of if I have an electric vehicle that I can plug in in all these different ways I have more general security if I have solar panels on my roof I start to have my own kind of personal ability to have resilience. Not just as a. Private citizen. But also yeah, commercial and industrial applications and and starting to kind of give people a lot more flexibility and resilience around like their own energy needs to transportation.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah, and it’s it’s now having options also to choose from if we look at let’s say 7 years back the only option was nicent lee for tesla more or less that there. There’s a lot a lot of between and it’s how how the carif effects are bringing the new models it. It’s it’s there’s something for everyone.

James McWalter

Right.

Tomi Ristimaki

Not yet boy if we want to pull a horse trailer for several hundreds of kilometers so or Caravan or something like that and and that that might be a niche market where you have yeah we have diesel cars and things like that in the future as well because that’s difficult to achieve with the current current.

James McWalter

Sure yes.

James McWalter

Yeah, but to your point a lot of those kind of use cases I think are sometimes they’re kind of overstated um by like you know people generally talking about the market or people just even talking about their own lives like people all often like overd index on the you know 1 in 2 year events rather than like how they actually live every day and I think that’s.

Tomi Ristimaki

Ah, think solosis.

Tomi Ristimaki

Million.

James McWalter

Ah,, there’s I guess some you know that that falls on the people building the solutions right? to better communicate like and better understand you know the the emotional need to have that backup and ability to you know to toe of to toe enough that maybe the person actually has never towed before but they. Feel the need to have that option even if it’s like not super relevant right? yeah.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah, and and and in Finland it means going to lapland without toilet break with a trade and and has to try run thousand five hundred kilometers without any charging or that’s kind of like ah abnormal needs or. You wouldn’t do that. We even we weren a gaszzling car but that’s what you want before you can change kind of thinking that’s at least what you can read from ah any newspaper article written positively on the ev is the first comments on the comment section will be like that.

James McWalter

Yeah, how how do we get to lab land. Yes, that’s that’s fascinating.

Tomi Ristimaki

Ah, next comment will be about the children of Congo and then about coal power as so i.

James McWalter

Right? Ah, yeah, it’s always the same 3 and I’ve I’ve seen something very very similar when I’m Fred read those comments as well. Ah.

Tomi Ristimaki

And every Ed driver must know where the electricity is produced and what’s used for that that that’s a general requirement from from the people commenting. So do you really know where your electricity is made. Okay, yeah, would you know where your gasoline is coming from so it’s.

James McWalter

It’s it’s it’s ever coming from somewhere worse by definition push. Ah yes I I think you know a lot of those are to be honest, like I think sometimes fake comments. Um, like I mean again, there there are the way think about it like there are completely legitimate. Reasons for concern around an individual you know, range anxiety like maybe going to La Plan doesn’t make sense but you know if they have ah parents that they want you know grandparents to to see their children and that’s like an extra few hours away. Yeah and those are definitely kind of understandable use cases. Um that that we have to kind of you know, respect. But I agree like there’s a lot of these kind of random statements that are very very consistent and seem to be coming out of you know often kind of Troll farms that that kind of thing. So.

Tomi Ristimaki

And and it’s not always troll farm ja individual with a lot of voice and and lot of opinions. But it’s it’s something is not real. Something is real but it’s also the general. Um, let’s say resistance against change and this is a big change and it’s a change of thinking. Ev behaves in a different way and and you need to think you’re traveling in a different way. it’s it’s it’s actually not so stressful. It’s a way of thinking and looking at range anxiety. It’s a very normal discussion in the areas we don’t have a lot of ebs. You don’t see that anymore happening in Norway.

James McWalter

Right? yeah.

Tomi Ristimaki

But there’s a lot of discussion on charging queues and the problems with charging queues that you have to wait 2 hours to get your car to charged and that’s actually how it changes and that’s also where our our sal solution kind of addresses it that you have to have the places to block the car so that. You are not waiting in the car to get get to the get to the larger. Yeah.

James McWalter

That’s your opportunity. Absolutely tommy. It’s been great. Really enjoy the conversation before we finish off is there anything I should have asked you about but did not.

Tomi Ristimaki

Yeah I don’t think so I think you ask a lot and I could talk forever. So so I think we are not jeopardizing your time time here. Yeah, thank you.

James McWalter

No, where is it all well to I mean thank you so much is is great chatting 

Great to chat with Sam Steyer, Co-Founder and CEO at Greenwork, Greenwork is a software company that connects workforce training programs to employers in clean energy, transportation, and the trades! We discussed ways of increasing the industrial workforce, the importance of finding the right co-founder,  trade schools and more!

https://carbotnic.com/greenwork

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

Remember, If you want to support the podcast please rate and review 5 stars on Apple, Thanks so much! 

James

The unedited podcast transcript is below

James McWalter

Hello today. It’s my absolute pleasure to be speaking with Sam Steyer cofounder and Ceo Greenwork welcome podcast Sam Steyer brilliant to start. Could you tell us a little bit about greenwork.

Sam Steyer

Um, thank you James Thanks so much for having me on. Yes, absolutely so ah greenwork is a software company and we are helping ah clean energy companies and generally future looking industrial companies hire skilled trades talent today. We do that by offering. Ah, platform for trade schools and workforce development programs where anyone who is a student or a core member or customer of one of those programs can make a profile and get help on greenwork in building their profile and getting their construction history together. Ah, from the trainers and career counselors. They’re already working with in real life. The schools can organize their job placement and career readiness place process in 1 place and then employers can log in and connect with schools connect with students and hire. Awesome tradespeople who are passionate about their industries and who are getting started in their careers.

James McWalter

So super cool and what drove that initial decision to start greenwork.

Sam Steyer

Ah, my interest in greenwork really grew out of working on the twenty twenty presidential campaign I’d been a software engineer in clean tech and a software founder in clean tech but on the campaign I was. You know, surrounded by the democratic party thinking around the green new deal and build back better and my dad tom steyer was running on a climate message. So I was out you know going to factories and projects related to renewable energy and talking to americans across. The country and especially the early primary states about climate and it just became so clear to me that there’s this amazing opportunity to grow and and rebuild a. Ah, highly paid. Highly trained large industrial workforce in the us and then it was absolutely a necessary step to work on climate and an amazing thing in and of itself and so I wanted to build a company that would play a small role in supporting that broader mission.

James McWalter

So That’s so Interesting. You know I think those of us working in tech were often quite insulated I Guess from you know more kind of blue- colar type work and so as you were kind of starting to have those kind of conversations. What were the initial surprises as you talked to people in the ground that kind of inspired. You do kind of start green work.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, um, the first was I visited the largest wind tower manufacturing facility in the United States in Pueblo Colorado um, it’s actually really cool because it is right by a decommissioned you know Fossil Fuel drivenn steel mill and a decommissioned coal plant and now there’s a massive wind manufacturing facility which I found emblematic. It’s also just in at so brief aside an amazing city puebo Colorado that has 4 congressional medal of honor winners for a relatively small town which is very. Ah, cool and you know statistically unlikely. But um so I was there I got to tour this incredible facility and while I was doing the tour. They let me know that they were sort of hiring for every skilled trades role and couldn’t find enough folks industrial painters, welders, etc and I was shocked by that because I felt like okay this is a highly paid job. Doing really cool future looking work I’m surprised. It’s hard to find people and that sort of set off my interest in learning more about the skilled trades and ah the shortage of people entering construction. Um, so that was one and then I would say the other experience. To me that was sort of was meeting all the staff across the campaigns. You know the nature of the primary is the campaigns are always going to the Sam Steyere place for the Sam Steyere events and I just met so many young people whose plan for their life was work on this campaign. Ah, help the Democrats win and then go get to work implementing climate solutions and I felt like okay, there’s this you know some of those people are going to be policy activists or or white collar business people but to solve climate. We need to move a lot of atoms not just bits. And some of these people are going to go build awesome careers being tradespeople and engineers and technicians.

James McWalter

And in terms of like people. Yeah not being enough people to do all that kind of construction move all those atoms is it more that those people do exist but they’re like in the wrong places geographically or even in career stage or is it. We just. Have a massive gap in the number of people who are just not trained for these kind of Roles. So.

Sam Steyer

Um, so I think it is more the latter though I will say that that we have heard over and over again from you know, contractors and experience construction experienced manufacturing people that someone who has mastered a trade is much. Way far ahead at doing ah, you know, different kind of trades work than someone who’s starting from scratch so there is a big opportunity for people who have been you know doing ah related trade to come be senior theaters in clean energy companies. Ah, but there also just are not enough raw number of people and I think that’s because ah, we didn’t have positive enough messaging about the trades we didn’t share how much money people we can make it can make how with people how much money they can make in the trades and in some cases we’re not paying people enough or offering. You know, good enough benefits of vacation and safety and the things that make it good job up to people in the trade. So I think there is a need in messaging and resources to to reinvest in the industrial workforce in the United States just to bring in more people.

James McWalter

And we also have this yeah this concept the great resignation that’s been happening over the like the last six months yeah and that seems to be happening basically across the entire economy um people are you know are trying to upscall and people who are already I guess upskilled. But maybe in a lower skill job than they initially committed to. Um, they want to kind of move on to something bigger and better often with kind of an impact level. Yeah how you thinking about that I guess that macro piece is that helping to be a bit of a you know tailwind for what you’re trying to build as well.

Sam Steyer

Um, it. It is because companies are really reckoning with hiring problems and so that you know makes them more inclined to talk to us the way that I really think about it is it is. Holding companies accountable to offer good Jobs. You know in ah in a world where there are more jobs than job seekers and where people are sort of taking a step back to look at what’s happening in their lives jobs that were underpaying people or offering a you know, unfriendly or unhealthy environment. Um, but. They cannot cut it anymore and so the the way that you know I think that’s a good thing and the way that we try to reflect it in our platform is we um, won’t let you know any employer post any job. We um, you know want w two full-time Jobs. We want fair. Wages and if we have people through the platform get a job at a company and you know report back you know a number of them. It doesn’t work out and they say it’s not a good work Environment. We would remove that company from the platform. So I think it has meant. You know companies need to think harder and work harder to offer good jobs and I think that’s a good thing.

James McWalter

You absolutely and then in terms of the the kind of company getting up and running right? So You know you saw this kind of massive need. Um and I believe you have kind of a cofounder. You know what were those kind of interim steps to kind of go from this. Yeah,, there’s a big problem to be solved I have this idea. Up to you know I have I have a startup and cofounder and we you know we have a product and all that kind of thing.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, yeah, great. Great question and I’ll tell you what I did and also you know ways in which I would do it differently for for entrepreneurs who are listening because I definitely did do everything right? Um, so I I decided I wanted to do this sort of an August Twenty Twenty I spent

James McWalter

Right.

Sam Steyer

Ah, the rest of 2020 just organizing conversations with people who I thought would have a interesting perspective or who who might you know were sort of a good model of our future users to to ask them and to try to learn more about what we should build through that process I was extremely lucky to meet. My cofounder gotham j a raman he was a good friend of a good friend and he had um, ah recently ah been cto and cofounder and built a business called rickshaw that was bought by Jodache and then he was working at Jordache and after a while at jordash he decided. He wanted to do something focused on climate and so he was when I met him on a sabbatical trying to figure out a next step related to climate and um I after 1 or 2 conversations just had an extremely strong. Intuitive feeling that he was the right co-founder for me that you know why values it was just someone I really liked and wanted to spend time with and and that you know I am a software engineering background but probably not or or certainly not qualified to be a cto um and whereas he’s really really strong. Ah, engineering and product person who’s a great cto and um I think so I I realized I wanted to to be cofounder at First. He just wanted to sort of be an advisor and help explore the idea together and then a few months later he came on as co-founders sort of December January Twenty Twenty one um I actually had my first child was born in January Twenty Twenty one my wife and I welcomed our son and so I took paternity leave and or I guess I didn’t technically have a job but I took so you know a step back and then we.

James McWalter

Button Sure course. So.

Sam Steyer

Incorporated the company and sort of started operating on March thirty first twenty twenty one

James McWalter

And that’s pretty much exactly a year ago from when you know we’re recording this or even actually when I think this might be coming out. Um, and so you know and that’s I think having personally just also just gone through the kind of cofounder search process and finding also an amazing cofounder which for the.

Sam Steyer

Um, yeah.

10:18.84

James McWalter

Audience Sam Steyer also has met to charles my co-founder and charles and I would be doing our own podcast here in the next couple of weeks to talk about what we’re working on. Um but it is it is kind of remarkable like I probably easily talk to well over a hundred people in that co-founder search and then when you find them it just feels very easy and and you know the default the default is yes instead of like.

Sam Steyer

Um, yeah to yes completely agree.

James McWalter

Figure out ways to say no you know Um, so and so and you know in that’s kind of I guess in the last year you’re like okay you know you have this kind of founding team. You’re ready to go. You have a clear you know need within the market. Um. Were the kind of different like product ideas I guess right? because there’s a lot of different ways to potentially kind of solve this problem. You know what? what were your kind of thoughts that as that kind of went along. Yeah.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, we yeah gosh we have been through several. Um, so we actually originally launched as an online cohort based class for people to transition into ah technical solar jobs. So we. Um, we worked with a really awesome experienced solar technician to build a very short online course five total hours of live instruction as well as some sort of quizzes and tests and we would offer it for free and then. Ah, try to help the graduates get jobs and charge the companies that hired them a placement fee. Um I still think there’s definitely room for more online education in the climate space and and there’s some cool companies building it. But in our case for that role. We learn pretty quickly that hands on. In-person training was important both you know to learn how to do stuff that’s at least partially kinesthetic. Um, and second to understand the the challenges of being a solar installer you know fear of heights and physical demands of crouching and lifting heavy stuff and feeling comfortable in a construction site environment. And that we were you know, not even though we were trying to tell people those things that that we weren’t conveying them that well in an online course and um and so it wasn’t a good. It wasn’t enough preparation and it wasn’t a great you know, vetting mechanism to figure out if people it was the job as a fit for them so we did that for a few months and then. Ah, you know, adjusted to what we are currently building. Um, so other ideas we considered are were instead of building the marketplace between people and jobs building the marketplace between you know subcontractors or you know. Contract small construction firms and big companies I think I think there’s lots of things that are needed to approach this problem. We ended up feeling really excited about what we’re focused on because of what we were talking about earlier that we felt like we need just more overall people to have skills and experience. In the trades and that we need a ah more inviting more transparent path for people to get there and so we wanted to build that.

James McWalter

It makes a ton of sense. So just just quick show note: um your Mike just started just just in the last minute just started hitting against maybe the table or whichever but is up to the up to up to about 1 minute ago everything was fine but nowheres at all.

Sam Steyer

Oh sorry about that I’ll step back from the table has this made it a little better. Okay thing.

James McWalter

This is this is perfect. This is perfect I think you just wanted if it hit something that was the only thing um and Q were back in and so once you kind of as you kind of iterated through those I mean it sounds like you were doing actually a little bit of coding you’re getting it actually launched seeing where where the sticking points were. Um, or was this more kind of user kind of qualitative user research based I Guess how was that kind of entire process and then what was the point where you were like oh this is very clearly the the right thing to move forward with.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, so we right or wrong really had a bias to try things by launching them. Um, and so we we actually created our online solar installlar course we actually taught 9 cohorts nine one week cohorts of it.

James McWalter

Oh Wow I.

Sam Steyer

Um, and we sort of lucked into what we are now building because we as one of many recruiting tactics to get people to take the course we approached the California conservation core which is a state. Ah. 1 to one and a half year service program where people go and learn either land conservation firefighting or ah energy efficiency and for the energy efficiency folks they work on state buildings and it’s just an amazingly cool program in my opinion. It’s been around since one 76 it has. Really high. You know review from the people who go through and it’s a mix of sort of like hands-on technical skills learning to work in challenging environments with a team and then also sort of like spiritual conservation like they have a ah reading list of amazing. Poetry and writing’s about working with the land and working outside so but a brief aside but so we’ve got a number of students from the Ccc the California conservation core and we found that in teaching our class our average student who we acquired off an online channel who had little. Construction background was struggling to get a job and if they got placed in a job. Not always finding it to be a fit in both directions but that the folks who took the course from the Ccc who were very close to finishing their service who then worked with us to get a job. We’re getting a job. Job offer in the first interview and then we’re having a good outcome on the job and so it made us think oh like going through a trade school or a workforce you know conservation course some sort of training is a really. Strong signal that someone will get and succeed in one of these jobs and so we decide to just reorient towards working with those kinds of programs.

James McWalter

And so you’re kind of been moving into something with some sort of kind of Marketplace dynamics right? So you have you know the like the the trade schools on one side and then the employers in the other.

Sam Steyer

Very much. Yeah.

James McWalter

And when you in Marketplaces you always have a bit of a cold start problem and always one side is harder than the other. How do you think about those dynamics and.

Sam Steyer

Totally yes, so we we definitely face all of the cold start marketplace dynamics. Ah we we believe that the hard side of our marketplace is talent that. You know if you can find ah great tradespeople and technicians and maybe engineers. There is a huge demand for them from the kinds of companies that we work with um so to solve the cold start problem. We we have. Trying to do are 2 things 1 limit geography. We’ve only launched in the Bay Area Sacramento in Los Angeles and the idea being if we can get to you know, ah honor number of users if they’re dispersed across the country. It’s very unlikely that we’ll have matches between jobs and people. But if we if they’re concentrated. Have a much better shot. Um, and the other thing that we’ve done is try to build helpful tools for the supply side that are helpful even in the absence of looking for a job or having the right job on the platform. So we have been. You know you can use greenwork. To work with your career counselor to build a job search profile and a resume and a cover letter. Um, you can see other folks from your school and what they’re doing their job search and so we’re trying trying to you know, build something that really listened to and solve problems for a trade school ah to. To have a way to sort of build up supply in because they’re awesome and we want to help them.

James McWalter

And then in terms of the trade schools right? So I would imagine they have some ah yo some courses or diplomas or or certifications that are very well fitted right? like explicitly maybe renewable energy related others will be something more akin to construction or generous construction general contracting. You know. Electrician that kind of thing and so how do you think about? you know, pairing things up relative to a very very specific ah type trade schools skill into a specific role and yeah, and yeah, how do you kind of think about that balance.

Sam Steyer

Ah, we focus almost completely on the latter kind of background that ah you know our belief is it is hard both to learn and to sort of have the desire. You know the right desires and attitude to succeed as a. Construction worker or an Electrician but that the um, the a like the new learning that someone needs to do from that skill set to to succeed at a solar company or a battery company or a Ev company is much smaller than the learning to build that. Core skill set. It’s much more like we need good tradespeople and we need them to work on these problems. Not like we need hyper specialized people who are you know, really different than an Electrician um and then also on our experience companies do want to teach on the job. They want to teach. Ah, specific to their product. They want to teach their way of doing things. They they want to and so so it almost does it make sense to bring them someone and say like this is a fully finished person who knows how to do everything you do because each company has little things they do differently. The key is. Connecting with people who have the core skillset and who understand the rigors of these jobs and are are going. You know, excited for them and able to thrive.

James McWalter

And how do you think of it. You know your kind of key metrics. So is it Yeah people placed people who are still there after a certain amount of time that kind of thing.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, so we um, we haven’t I mean are are given that we’re working with a marketplace that has sort of 2 sides sort of three sides we we have a number of metrics. It’s it’s not super simple but basically ah first we think about. Building supply you know number of job seekers number of schools. Then we think about ah connection and placement. So a number of interviews number of placements and then critically you know retention in the job because we want to help people get jobs. They’re really excited about and we want to help companies hire people work out and then our business model is. Greenwork is free for job seekers and for schools and we charge ah employers on a saas basis and so we have sort of standard saas metrics around monthly recurring revenue and growth and churn.

James McWalter

And in terms of the employer side. So I’d imagine it’s a ton of solar especially if you’re in California maybe a couple of wind. Um are you seeing kind of any interest in some of these other you know green infrastructure type elements. Yeah ev charging stations hydrogen those kind of things.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, absolutely so so most of our existing employer base are solar contractors but we have absolutely have seen a big opportunity in ah energy efficiency building automation green construction. Um, we’ve had the. Ah, we’ve definitely seen a big opportunity in building out and maintaining charging infrastructure that we don’t actually have a customer in that space yet. Um, and then the um I would say the biggest surprise to me very pleasant surprise is um I’ve seen a number of awesome advanced manufacturing. Projects in the Bay Area you know companies that are building a factory or a product design facility in the bay area who need assemblies and fabricators and cnc machinists and and other sorts of high skilled hands-on rolls.

James McWalter

It makes sense and yeah, it’s ah super exciting. You know people literally like building out like these kind of future kind of use cases and in terms of the um, the trade schools themselves and you know in in Ireland trade schools are like a very kind of integrated part of the community part of education. Um, yeah I grew up. Yeah in in a kind of farming background and like the default is like your construction every day you know for most your your teenage years and so there’s like a very clear pipeline into getting some somewhat certified and then moving into kind of more professional type type use cases. You know and I know other countries like Germany and so on have also these kind of incredibly like sophisticated ways of of matching people. You know, matching people with skills and interests and and all that wouldn’t trade. How is the Us doing in general like do we have enough trade schools are they to write types of trade schools to kind of hit the numbers that we need to over the next decade

Sam Steyer

Um, so my opinion is without just casting any aspersions at the existing trade schools some of which are fantastic. No I think we need more I think we need them to get more. Attention and have more prestige. You know like if you if you ask the average person to list as many colleges as they could and then as many trade schools as they could um you know most people who lift many borders magnitude more colleges. Um, and ah and so no I think we need more. I would also just say we right now work with schools that we ah you know consider good feeders for us. But that are really different like we have 2 year community college programs we have twelve week nonprofit training programs we have state conservation core. Which are somewhere between a school and a state or national service program so there so there are awesome programs out there. But I think we need more more attention and ah a more sort of organized and standardized system.

James McWalter

And the trade schools themselves. You know I’ve talked to a few people and not through the podcast. But in general who are trying to sell to you know, educational institutions governmental institutions and so on those sales cycles can be you complex and long even when maybe the ticket price isn’t even that high and so. How do you? Yeah, How have you’ve kind of found that. Um you know are are some of the trade schools. Incredibly Excited. Some are more difficult.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, um, so we are in a slightly different boat than a product that is like at core selling to schools because our product is free for the schools. But um, but my general impression has been the administrators and teachers and career counselors at these schools are. Fantastic, fantastic like really committed for the right reasons really smart, really practical. Um and are understaffed and over committed and so the I think the slowness that people see in the sales cycle is they’re selling to someone who has. 18 priorities on their plate and is doing their their best and so what we have tried to do is make sign up and onboarding incredibly easy and fast and impress upon people that we don’t need to start with a schoolwide rollout that like if they have. 1 technical education program and 1 instructor who’s willing to hold the admin account and 20 students who they can email their school greenwork link to that. That’s enough to start and then we try to land and expand.

James McWalter

So super interesting. Do ever any of them. Ask you to come in talk talk to anybody get get on the ground kind of thing.

Sam Steyer

Yes, and we’re trying to you know?? Um, we we obviously started the business during the pandemic and we’re very remote and online at the beginning. But um, we’re trying as much as possible to get in person with schools and companies and it it. Um. They ask us to to do it to sort of onboard and help people set up their accounts but it is actually a gift to us every single time we go. It’s worth It. We always understand more learn more build a deeper relationship by going and meeting people in person.

James McWalter

And yeah I think one of the fascinating things about this whole space is that the perceived risk of getting a job is um, probably higher to the average person than what it actually is because it’s so opaque you know I’m ah I’m currently in and in South Bronx at my mother-in-laws and all the ads around here. Are you know. Basically force trade schools in spanish um, but there’s kind of ah I guess a gap between what’s being advertised and like the actual role that people will be doing right? It’s just kind of like talking about the course itself but not really kind of filling in the gap of like you know this is a twenty thirty year 40 year career

Sam Steyer

Um. This minute.

James McWalter

Ah, this is the actual income you could have this is how you would become you know a respected memory of community All that kind of thing. So how do you think about those kind of community kind of social elements that inspire people to kind of engage in. You know the kind of jobs that we both agree need to be you know, need to have more of.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, that is a really smart question. Um, so I think 2 things 1 is our goal is ultimately to make our software tell that story in a transparent clear way. You know show people who have graduated from this program now work at these companies. They work in roles where people are making this much money here is a video of someone who has a awesome career that started at a trade school talking about their career that sort of thing. So I think that’s one is just trying to make that information much more accessible I think the other is. Um, trying to dispel a sort of Stark distinction between trades and white collar. You know it. It doesn’t make sense to me and it actually is usually not true that the whole senior leadership team of a so of a excuse me solar company would come. From a white collar background when a solar company is you know in most ways, a construction company and a core you know, moving atoms. Um, and and so I think ah making sure that it’s actually true that there are are roles that start as. You know, hands on technical roles and and laid to a career path in a very senior position of leadership making a lot of money and highlighting people who have walked that path.

James McWalter

Its super purchaing and you know there’s also this and I’d love to kind of get your take especially having you know seen the kind of internal kind of political machinations and and um on the kind of policy side over the last couple of years. But what’s been really interesting is this kind of. Set of thoughts around what some people are calling new industrialism others have called the abundance agenda these are coming from people like Ezra Kline and Derek Thompson and so on were you talking about how the United States in particular over the last you know few decades just has not built enough things internally right? and we just need to do a ton of that and so obviously build back better is like this. Very big shiny like effort at a kind of moving policy in that direction I know the the motto of your company is build the future. You know how do you think that policy can interact better with the kind of work that you’re doing day-to-day to kind of accelerate that you know just building more out you know things getting more atoms and you know deployed.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, um, that is a great question I think for one ah the one the way that would sort of most directly impact us and that I really believe in is more public funding for. Ah, trade School Education Community College education having less people take on college debt. You know I think that there’s there is a lot of innovation in Silicon Valley around finding creative ways for people to pay for vocational education. But I think it. Ah. It’s hard because the benefits to vocation to education not to vocational education accrue to the person who’s learning over the rest of their life which is a really long payback time and accrue to you know all of us the the people who work with them. The people who vote in the Sam Steyere elections as them. The people who live with them and so I think there’s. Education so valuable. Ah, but it but it usually or often makes sense either for people to pay for it through tuition or just for society to pay for it. So I think more funding for education and including trades and engineering education. Um. Is is 1 thing and then I think the other thing which I think the byed administration is doing a great job of is using the public sector to model good things to the whole country so you know buying ah 0 carbon advanced. Infrastructure projects with federal government having good labor practices and high wages for the people who work on those projects and it is a little more abstract but like setting an exciting positive example that we can build really cool, big things and so I think. You know most of the the private the public. The private sector is bigger and a lot of the the sort of stuff we need to build is going to end up being private sector. But I think the public sector can set a really strong inspiring example.

James McWalter

And yeah, that that makes some sense and ah you know one of the ways I think about how these things play out is like there are different types of levers right? and so we have you know to tackle climate. We need to have all the levers you know being used in similar ways. But it’s you with activism lever you know you have ah you know. Policy lever. You have you know, kind of large corporate enterprise lever you startup levers you all these different for kind of levers that kind of hit pieces of problem in different ways and 1 of the things I’ve been kind of thinking a lot about is how government and actual startups I could potentially could be interacting better and so you know on 1 side you know should startups. You know.

James McWalter

Ah, as well as you guys are as as well as like the kind of thing I’m working on should be more involved should we be more involved in the political process and on the other side you know should governments be doing more to kind of encourage successful startup formation or is it really just you know it’s like oil than water like those 2 things have such kind of ah you know opposite methods of like thinking about risk and all those kind of things that.

James McWalter

You know it’s better for us to kind of be somewhat siloed and and figure out problems and in kind of unique ways.

Sam Steyer

Um, I’ll answer your questions reverse order. It is not oil and water and we definitely should have relationship with each other it. We almost must you know we’re working on the Sam Steyere huge problems living in the Sam Steyere country. Um I don’t think that startups.

Sam Steyer

I Mean maybe they should but I I would actually not frame it as startups should participate more in the political process I think startups should interact more with the civil service and the apparatus of government and I think that there is a conception among startups that it is more difficult and less efficient than it actually is. You know I think if if you call a workforce development board or a city or you know a part of the department of Energy. You are typically pleasantly surprised by how responsive and helpful and eager to work Together. You will find the person on the other end of the line to be. Um, and and and so I do believe that that sort of startups should be interacting more with government but I don’t think it should be to set policy I think it should be to you know, do projects and um, not always but often. Government is a convener and a funder and a priority setter but not, you know doing the the execution and so I would encourage startups to figure Out. You know what their state and local government is doing and seeing if you could fulfill some of it and I think oftentimes you’ll find if you can. You’re not replacing Government. You’re replacing like an old school software company. That’s good at selling to government and you probably can offer something better.

James McWalter

And then you know I on I guess startup somewhere more generally right? So I believe you went through y combinator and would’d love to kind of hear quick thoughts on the on that experience. But I guess specifically around you know the number of you know climate or you know.

James McWalter

Large global problem focused or impact focused startups in your cohort and I guess how did I guess the very impact focus startups interact with I Guess the less impact focus but maybe still working on you know, large B Two B Saas problems and whatever it may be um, like is there any I guess tension is there a need for you know. People working on on the very impact side are they looking across and me like hey guys you know, maybe maybe you know we should evangelize and onto the impact side and and how do you think about that dynamic.

Sam Steyer

Um, so we we were in the Y Combinator Summer Twenty One batch. Um, it was fully remote. We had a really good experience I think it that um this is not what you asked, but just to give the the context that one of it. We kind.

James McWalter

So please.

Sam Steyer

Incredibly valuable was the partners at Ycombinator have just are very smart people who have seen an incredible amount of startups at our stage and so they were able to guide us direct ah direct us and in some cases sort of push us and hold us accountable to make changes that would have taken us a very long time to figure out on our own. Um. So it. It was really helpful in that regard. There was not a tension at all of trying to be an impact driven startup in ycombinator. In fact, most people I think had a sort of impact lens or you know would be like whoa cool like you’re working on climate or well cool. You’re like.

35:23.44

James McWalter

Right.

Sam Steyer

You know, building something for a blue collar audience that that made it easier to sort of relate and people were supportive of it. Um, ah, there are plenty of climate companies in y combinator. In fact, there was a recent Paul Graham tweet about how there’s a bunch of exciting new climate. Companies why combinator and maybe it foretells a trend in terms of how startups can interact with each other and push one another I think ah at the stage that we were at last summer it is so hard to. Get customers find product market fit. Ah you know, figure out how to do all the things that are expected of a founding team with the time in a day that there’s much more emphasis and sort of shared learning about how to. Get your company off the ground and how to make things work and that is common across you know the companies that are doing b two bs or or climate or whatever and I think that that and so it felt very easy to relate to other companies. It felt like we were mostly sort of strategizing with each other about how to.

James McWalter

You right? right.

Sam Steyer

How to do those things how to make a early stage business work. How to learn from your customers and try to get towards product Market fit. Um, so I think that that conversation about impact lens is super important and I but I could imagine it. Dominating more with companies that are further along in their journey right? right? right? that that’s that is being honest, you know what it what it has felt like and why it’s felt very easy to relate to other early stage startups.

James McWalter

You right? when you’re default dead like everything everything is about just being getting to default alive.

James McWalter

No Absolutely. Um and I guess for you Personally, you know if you were starting out because I know you you had previously cofounded station a and and had these kind of other kind of experiences working at different companies. Um, so. You know some some young person are not not so young, but they wanted to kind of start a company over the like the next little while um, what are something that I guess you learned or you’re like oh I wish I’d known that before I before I get it set out and running.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, so I’m first give advice that is is very common already that I think is cliche but I think is true which is you have to launch and start operating and that is actually a faster way to learn even though it’ll feel you know. Challenging and scary and it’ll be tempting to do more analysis and conversations the things that I’ve found that I think are less commonly known that were more counterintuitive to me. Um, ah oh and the other one which is cliche but it’s definitely true. Is. It’s more fun and easier with a cofounder and and quality of cofounder is so important you know it’s worth time and effort to be the right person. Um, the things that I found that I that were more surprising to me I would say number one when I started I thought of it as like there’s this sort of challenge to get investors challenge to get. Customers challenged to get employees challenged to get you know media whereas now a year in I feel like customers is actually the only challenge and everything else if you can get customers will these you know if you can get sales. You can definitely get investors in media. You know and then employees is hard but it’s sort of a second order problem. You need to hire them to work for a business that exists. So I really if I if I was starting again with think much more about like who are my first 5 customers because that’s what’s really hard. Um, the other thing I would say is there’s a huge amount of writing and talking about. Ah. Product market fit. But I think there’s an increasing amount of writing and talking I think is really smart about founder market fit you know the startups are a very long journey. It is much easier to work that hard for that long if you love and feel authentic about what you’re building and a lot of the early sales will be 50% selling yourselves and if you are a effective you know logical face of the business. It helps a lot. So I think ah, you do need you do need product market fit but also it will be easier to get product market fit and and a lot more fun for the you know 10 years of your life. You’re pursuing it. If you pick something that that stems from a personal mission but also like a personal love for what you’d be doing day to day you know if if you love math and data start a business that has a big you know data science and Ai component if you love marketing and brand. Start a business that’s like an online community that kind of thing.

James McWalter

Right? I guess like so much is so difficult and getting customers as you said is is by far the most difficult all the other bits have to be fun and easy just because that’s your default that’s your default emotion and so if it’s like ah you’re waking up out of bed. Um, you know and I’m sure you’re similar like I’ll like I’ll wake up sometimes at five thirty in the morning and I’m not.

Sam Steyer

Um, yes, yes.

James McWalter

I Don’t feel stressed I’m just like so excited to think about what we’re going to be doing over the next like day I’ll just be like woke up like woke like excited and it’s all stressful of course but like’s it’s also like I can’t wait to you know to get through breakfast to to get going at these things right.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, totally seen.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, and like there’s going to be some parts that are gri like I don’t think Eddie would like cold call it customers or you know figuring out how to set up accounting or and like if you’re the the Ceo you definitely have to do both of those things and um. And so like make sure as you’re saying make sure the parts that are content are something you really love Yeah yeah, the comedy hit of the two and.

James McWalter

Or cold calling quickbooks which is a recent experience I had basically to try to get something up and running um and also no absolutely I also believe you’re a reser ah reservist at San Francisco Fire department um

Sam Steyer

Um, yeah I am.

James McWalter

Which which you would text me but also my my researcher found independent lays I wanted to ask you what that experience is like.

Sam Steyer

Um, it’s awesome. So the the san francisco fire reserve is a a volunteer organization. It started during world war ii in order to have a domestic fire department in case of some sort of attack that caused a fire especially when you know lots of. People were in armed services. It has gotten much smaller since then but carried on you know since I think 1942 it um is a once a week organization where we meet on Thursday nights to practice and then if there is a 3 alarm or greater fire. In San Francisco we’re called to go to the fire and assist the professional fire department. You know we’re doing the sort of support kinds of roles. It is primarily made up of people who um, plan to become professional San Francisco Fire department firefighters and are going through the process and are using it as a way to learn and build their relationship with the department. Um, but there are also some folks like me who are who for whom it is the the end goal. Um, and it’s it’s really fun like we get to go do. Cool physical thing you know spraying hoses and throwing ladders and that kind of stuff and it has a bunch of really nice. You know, sort of community civic oriented people. Um, who who live in San Francisco and it I’ve only been doing it for a year but I love it and it’s been real.

James McWalter

Yeah, and I think having some sort of community engagement is something that I always promote to to friends and and founders and and all that kind of thing. It’s so easy like when you’re you know, servicing a global market and all this kind of thing to forget that so much change and impact can happen.

Sam Steyer

Treat.

James McWalter

On the road and it gives you just a ah bit of perspective on how much just thought the people are living and other people are kind of going about their day that that’s often missing you know when you spend your life on different slack communities. So.

Sam Steyer

Totally totally agree and it yeah it has totally enriched my you know I’m a deep San Francisco lover already. But it has even further and enriched my feeling of community and connection with the place I live which I really really really value.

James McWalter

Sam Steyer It’s been amazing. Um, is there anything I should have asked you about but did not oh.

Sam Steyer

Um, yes, 2 2 things. Ah 1 is both with the the startup and the San Francisco Fire department you know Thursday night volunteer opportunities I’m married and have a 1 year old son both require. A lot of time and put me and the startup puts me in a stressed out mood sometimes and so I want both say a huge thank you to my wife Tessa who’s incredibly supportive and awesome and also just let any ah aspiring founders know that if you are in a long-term relationship you you know your.

James McWalter

So amazing.

Sam Steyer

There is also something your partner is signing up for when you start the company. Um, and ah the other thing I would say wanted to say is I’ve been working in climate tech in 1 way or another since twenty eleven I’ve always loved it and loved the people in it but we are in a moment right now where the amount of. Talent and funding and attention and excitement in climate tech is just so so much higher than it’s ever been before. There’s so many good companies. Um, there’s so much more ah sort of like ah legitimization in the eyes of conventional tech. It’s just awesome and I encourage people to come join and I want to send send love and support to all the climate tech folks out there.

James McWalter

Absolutely I can’t echo either of those enough. Um, thank you Sam Steyer it’s been amazing.

Sam Steyer

Yeah, thank you Really appreciate the opportunity.

Great to chat with Ory Zik, CEO at Qnergy, a company that uses a unique engine to convert normally vented methane to useful energy and reduce emissions! We discussed how a modern Stirling engine generator can decrease methane emissions, their use in oil and gas operation, how they are built to last extreme weather conditions, climate profitability and more!

Qnergy is hiring!

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James

The unedited podcast transcript is below

James McWalter

Hello today we’re speaking with Ory Zik Ceo at Qnergy, welcome to Podcast Ory to start what is Qnergy.

Ory Zik

Thank you Thank you James and good morning. So Qnergy is a company that focuses on a unique problem on the problem of distributed methane emissions. It turns out that methane is. Second only to carbon dioxide in terms of it’s important to climate change. But it’s a much harder problem to tackle most of the methane sources are distributed you know organic waste sources industrial kitchens dairy farms. Ga operations but most of the current solutions are centralized so we address this problem by focusing on onsite mitigation of methane emission and we do this. Through a propriety technology that I think we’re the only company in the world that controlled in this way called the free piston sterling engine. So we use this free piston sterling engine to address the distributed methane issue and since the technology is useful to many other applications. Part of our model is to partner with companies that would like to pursue those applications.

James McWalter

That and so what’s the typical company type that might use your product. So.

Ory Zik

So I mentioned to recently we’ve announced the deal with the total energies Total energies has a gas operation all over the world. This deal is specific in the Us and our our systems.

Ory Zik

And have I would I would say as follows. Our systems has 2 unique advantages and perhaps a and perhaps a disadvantage The key advantage is that they are very reliable. We provide power generators that walk in all climates all situations from sandstorms to snowstorms. And reliably twenty four seven the other advantage is that they walk with methane in its raw form whether it comes out of the ground and and in a gasfield or and methane digested in a dairy font. So the deal with total energies. Was to help them abate methane emission throughout the gaz supply chain using our generator and the way it walks is we take the gas that they produce provide power and with this power run air compressors now why are air compressors important.

Ory Zik

Because typically in gas operations they used to use the pressure in the gas to activate mnemonic devices now. It sounds very technical and maintained but there are about a million of those devices in the us and it’s equivalent to more than 10000000 cars

Ory Zik

So we we announced the deal where we sold more than 100 systems to total and to mitigate this issue and so since then we’ve signed a large number of similar deals. So that’s number 1 the other typical customer would be let’s say a dairy farm. That would like to mitigate their methane emissions from and common calm manure and our system that can digest again that can take methane in its very and a row and polluting form and take it into and and convert it into useful energy and can do that so that’s. Ah, like 2 examples.

James McWalter

That’s that’s very interesting and I guess in terms of how the kind of company developed over the years I mean I understand that you joined a ceo later but I guess before you joined were those kind of early days was this the kind of primary problem that the original kind of founding team was looking to solve or did this problem kind of arise based on some. Kind of research on something else was there. You know basically was there any kind of early pivots along the way. So.

Ory Zik

So I probably answer it in an unconventional way because we developed a free miston stling engine. It’s it’s a very interesting story that happens across 3 continents and two centuries. So.

James McWalter

I amazing.

Ory Zik

Actually original invention was an invention by a scottish clergyman Robert Robert Sterling invented an engine that is an external combustion engine namely it takes unlike the internal combustion engine that you use in your car or most people do.

James McWalter

And.

Ory Zik

This external combustion engine takes heat external to the engine. So the engine is sealed and and and can generate motion that can generate electricity which was found later on so about two centuries ago the engine was invented and since then nobody built in. 2 centuries nobody built a commercial generator based on the stling engine until cuneg and until cuanji managed to do it and now it’s ah 3 centuries because it was invented in in in in the old England and we develop it in the us. And and there is and and we developed it with a team that combinened innovation from Israel and from the us we’re based in Utah so we have a factory in Utah that has engineers from Utah and from Israel now the reason we need this combination is because one of the. Biggest problems with the sterling engine and I’m talking about the variation that is called the free piston sterling engine and it’s really it’s relevant because it’s a very very low maintenance. It can walk for tens of years without any maintenance and the reason we needed this. Ah. Cross-pollination and across innovation is because these engines are very difficult to control the walk in a fixed frequency and then you need to control the amplitude and it’s it’s a complex electronic exercise that we’ve solved. Now I was in terms of myself. So I’m in terms of my background I’m a physicist I have pgd in physics and I managed a few companies in the energy space that I’ve started and a few years ago four five years ago I was asked by Keyne Energy’s investors. To visit the company and and we had a good conversation and initially I was very cynical because I knew that nobody walked nobody solved a sting engine problem for two centuries. So why why in Utah

Ory Zik

So I remember reading the presentation in the plane and and thinking about a you know ceiling for Helium and the electronic controls that I’ve mentioned and these sort of things and said well it’s probably probably be a short visit because I don’t think that it walks and then I came in and everything is walking.

Ory Zik

Product is actually phenomenal in its performance and so so that’s what brought me to cu and four years ago and I stayed and I mentioned that we have 2 advantages and a disadvantage so one advantage is the reliability and the other is that we work with all. Sorts of methane in the most polluting forms but the disadvantages that our engine is currently pretty expensive. We can go to home depot and buy a a five Kilowatt generator at less than 3 $ 3000 our generators are orders of magnitude more expensive because of the performance.

Ory Zik

And our vision is to increase quantity increase volume and by that reduce cost reduce price and then we’ll have a ubiquitous high performance engine that people can use.

James McWalter

Yeah,, that’s really fascinating and I guess like over those kind of two centuries. You know there’s a lot of different areas that we’ve made advances in you know, materials technology. You know, software programming to manage things you know in a lesser way things like mechanical engineering a lot of those early advances happened. You know. A while ago. Um, what kind of combination of those different advances like resulted in this successful use of the starting engine.

Ory Zik

I think and I would say 3 1 is soft and the and the 2 others are hard. They are start with the hard so precision manufacturing became much lower cost much cheaper and since we win our our engine contains helium. And so we need to seal for helium for about you know more than 10 years and there is a joke in the company that every pressure vessel is either empty or leaking. So you know everything leaks at the end, especially if especially if it’s helium so precision manufacturing laser welding allows us to do this in.

James McWalter

I price.

Ory Zik

In a more effective and lower cost way. That’s number 1 the number 2 is the advances in electronics specifically power electronics as I mentioned that allows us to control the engine and so these are the 2 hard ones. The soft one is perhaps our persistence. Our engineers have been working on this. Problem for some of them for nearly three decades. You know they’ve been persistently solving problem after problem as some of them walked with Nasa on a on a variation that could be deployed in space. So Nasa has a press release saying that this engine design is the most reliable heat engine ever invested. Ever invented in the history of humanity. So persistence is a big deal. You just need to stay on the problem and solve knock out 1 engineering problem after the other.

James McWalter

And understood. Okay, interesting and then you know once you you kind of went out to the factory. You see. It’s like okay, what you read on the plane was actually correct. You’re you’re seeing it in action kind of very exciting. Um, what were the kind of different applications that were considered right because if I think about a typical internal combustion. Engine. You know is there tens of thousands of different applications that it’s been used for over the years and you know from passing your cars to all these other you know to lawnmower and everything in between how do you think about? you know where what was the consideration around these different kind of use cases and then how did you kind of in the end focus on this kind of methane piece.

Ory Zik

Um, where I.

Ory Zik

Yeah, so it’s great. Question. So for us. We wanted to you know it’s I would say it’s the innovator’s dilemma. You don’t want to go to a market which is ah too large for you to tackle and you want you and you want a ah a market that and. People will be willing to pay premium for the performance of the product until you reduce the price and go to larger markets. It’s almost like you know, think about the staircase every every time you reduce the cost you have larger markets but initially out of the gate we were at the level of hundreds now. We’re you know. We’re increasing our production rate. We’ve been growing a hundred percent year over year in the last four years but we started so we started so the way we thought about it is the canonical applications for reliable generators of this size would be combined hit and power namely. You know, residential and genatorors that provide heat as well. So we we knew that we can solve this problem but we didn’t want to start with the residential obit two c market out of the gate because it’s complicated. You need to deal with installers and these kind of things. Other market to consider is a solar. You can put the stling engine on the focal point of a dished trucks the sun and generate power and we and but this was a head-tohead competition with photovoltake and the prices of cofoablel taike were and. Less than a dollar per wat so that that wasn’t interesting. What remained extremely interesting is a problem that nobody could address which is methane abatement initially in gas fields and then in all the distributed methane and that I’ve mentioned so that’s why we focused our generator. The first market would be the oil and gas operation mainly natural gas because those companies have the financial capacity to pay a premium for the performance and they have the urge. It’s if their own need. And also your monities need to reduce methane pollution in those sites. So so that was a perfect match for us. We started focusing on this market now we have we started by the way as an anonymous company. Nobody knew about us so we started with a try and byproduct a program. Namely we let people to try it and if they don’t like it. They can send the product back and we had a hundred percent hundred percent conversion from try to buy which was great for us and something to be proud of in terms of the field first mentality that we’ve implemented.

Ory Zik

And now we have about eighty eight zero customers many of the oil majors. We raised capital from the ogci the oil and gas climate initiative recently and as I mentioned total energies and a few others are now buying our systems in the hundreds.

James McWalter

And and in terms of like the status quo where let’s say an oil and gas major is not using your system. Um the methode that is being kind of produced during natural gas collection like how is that being collected is that being flared is that you know what’s the kind of typical kind of use case.

Ory Zik

Now So the typical use case. This is a problem that will sound very technical but it’s actually acute so in a Ga operation that doesn’t have grid connection The entire gas site is controlled.

James McWalter

Today or the variety of choices that people are making today versus when they’re using your system. So.

Ory Zik

By the pressure of the gas that comes out of the ground the through nomadic valves now the status quo is that anytime you open anytime a a controller a valve changes a sit a position a little bit of methane is emitted. Natural gas is 80 to 90% methane and and this is emitted. It’s too small to flare. So there’s no solution you just emit straight methane into the atmosphere and now it’s considered 84 times more and a potent higher green global warming potential than c o two so there are about a million valves. Million dollars in the us that constantly emit methane to control gas operation 15 to 20% of the industry’s emissions are just these these disolved and the solution is known is straightforward and is very easy to implement all you need is to connect. Our generatoror to a little bit of gas that powers it and then you replace all methane emission with instrument air with clean air which is also safer because instead of having methane on site you have air and and and that’s that’s that’s very easy to implement and now what makes it interesting. The Epa has. Proposed regulation and that to forbid natural gas operators from emitting and methaneroonomatic devices I would say that this is probably 1 of the disadministrations and. Legacy to be regulations on methane.

James McWalter

And so once it it gets into the device is it producing electricity or energy that can then be utilizing other use cases or is it more. This is an elimination of the conversion of the gas into a format that just is not released into the atmosphere. So.

Ory Zik

Yeah, it’s yeah think about it as a conventional power generator but it can walk just a conventional power generator. It can walk with methane from from a gas site as fuel. And produces electricity and some heat. The heat is useful, especially in Canada and in some northern regions when you need access heats in those sites. But essentially it’s a generator takes natural gases fuel and produces electricity now in those sites. The electricity is used to run air compressors. And you have access excess electricity for whatever they need whether it’s a surveillance surveillance dataquisition and data communication. These type of things.

James McWalter

Very interesting I actually had a bit of a deep dive on methane producing coal mines back in the summer I was looking around at different problems within the kind of climate space as potentially something that I might want to work on on and I found this kind of interesting tension between different types of regulations and so.

Ory Zik

Are you.

James McWalter

1 side you had regulations around. Ah you know human beings and like the osho ah kind of regulations around keeping people safe and with those regulations there’s like a very very strong bias towards not keeping any sort of gases very dilute because the last thing you want is somebody down in a mine or in a gas. Well. You know, checking pipes who you know they’re usually wearing all this apparatus anyways. But you know if if anything goes wrong, they’ll suffocate and die and so there’s like this strong tension to have things very very delute on the other side. Um the more concentrated you can make the gas the more valuable it is as a resource either as you mentioned you could potentially flare it. Um, which you know is better for the for the environment if not very useful or you can capture it and kind of generate electricity or energy from it and then actually make a completely I guess useless byproduct into something directly useful and that kind of latter piece is as you mentioned is kind of governed by the epa how do you think about these different you know. Um, kind of rules and policies and how they kind of can produce better outcomes than they currently are.

Ory Zik

Think you touched the very important point which is the premise of what we do most methane sources are distributed and dilute but the current solutions just address the centralized and massive or large sources. So All we’re trying to do is use this sting engine to put to make it as small as possible if you will so we can. We can take the dilute otherwise unused or unuseful sources of methane and turn them into useful electricity and the reason is because collection. Very very expensive make it uneconomical and people are not doing it. But that’s a that’s large large portion of the methane that is ah emitted and and and for us anytime we use a delute source of methane and take it into and turn it into. Electricity. We also support safety and and and allow people to meet safety Compliance comply with safety regulations more easily.

James McWalter

So Absolutely and then how how do you think about? let’s say where the industry is going in general. You know there’s a lot of I guess pressure on things like natural gas production from a kind of total kind of missions point of View. You know there are. The Divestian letter that blackrock wrote around the coal industry. You know, starting to be pressure on the kind of shareholder and proxy vote side of things around any sort of kind of oil gas producing companies. Um, which you know if those companies shut down right? You know those have a you know pretty direct impact on your business. Um, how do you think about navigating I Guess the next kind of Decade. Where there’s going to be increasing pressure to in essence a lot of times shut down these kind of minds versus solutions like yours which are actually trying to make the process you know green in some way.

Ory Zik

Yeah I think the way we think about it is the form traditionally you would think about only the ah roi of your product today. We’re thinking about the climate return on investment or the carbon abatement cost or the carbon intensity of what we provide. Because more and more customers and are thinking about you know they they they invest in carbon mitigation because it’s important for their esg reporting their internal or external or regulation compliance but they invest money that they wouldn’t invest otherwise. Just to clean up their methaneum. The methane emissions and greenhouse gas pollution. So the key driver I think the most important thing to understand is that the key driver keyeconomical driver in the industry is shifting from conventional ah roi. To and a couple between conventional roi and climate ah roi so people will look. We look at the total cost of ownership of something that needs to mitigate a certain amount of and of greenhouse gas. For example, they deal with the total energies that I’ve mentioned and this deal was signed after we’ve. Demonstrated that you can abate methane at the cost of less than a dollar per ton of co 2 equivalent and that that that became very compelling so the number one I think the most important message is that this same climate return on investment or. Or carbon intensity metrics carbon abatement met metrix and that’s that’s that’s number 1 the number 2 thing that I think that we should think about is and the logistics and cost and that is involved with distributed methane. I’ll give you an example, you’re in New York in New York the tipping fee for organicnic waste is can be a few hundred dollars per ton now. So if you can treat waste on site all of a sudden and the economic equations become economic equation become compelling so traditionally. Even if if even if traditionally you wouldn’t pay attention to biogas to energy at low concentrations because of carbon pricing and tipping fees now it becomes very canonical to pay attention to those solutions.

James McWalter

Yeah that’s really interesting I actually there’s a kind of phrase I’m going to try out on you which called climate profitability we’re trying to capture like this kind of tension between what is the profitability of the asset today and then what is its kind of future climate risk. Um, it’s future climate effect and like try to bake those into the overall discount rate of the asset itself and kind of combine those 2 concepts right? because you know I think we’re we’re moving into a space where you know we initially have these kind of various esg net metrics that are just trying to get a handle on what’s happening. But I think as you said like we’re trying to move into a place where. Any sort of asset in the world that is affecting the climate in some positive negative or neutral way. Um, those effects are starting to have a price associated with them through you know to per ton of co 2 equivalents um per you know tipping fees or fines or you know even tax credits. And so trying to bake all of those different things into the asset to try to really actually get to a sense of what the actual ah roi of that asset is um, has you know I think is ah becoming this ever more complex calculation. But I think is ever more important so that people actually make decisions that are not just best for the climate but also actually have ah like ah you know are probably the most profitable decision for the business. Of so.

Ory Zik

Yeah, and so I I land for this, you know it I’ll take you a little bit back to your own Philos Philosophicalphic philosophical days. You know is a stilling book philosophy and we’ll we’ll go to this to this to this way of thinking.

James McWalter

Sure sure why not.

Ory Zik

So tradition. That’s how I think about it traditionally you would think about investment in 2 dimension and gain versus risk and both are measured in dollas right? You have like a 2 wo-dimension space what’s the gain was the risk 2 dimensions I make my calculation now we have a third dimension which is the climate impact.

James McWalter

So.

Ory Zik

The the carbon intensity or the carbon impact or the g greenhouse gas impact of a project now when we think about climate profitability we’re trying to collapse this third axis to climate access on the plane of profit profit and risk. Financial profit and risk but they might be inherently decoupled and we not. We might need to think to to learn to think in in this extra dimension. Not everything can be calculated in dollars because we don’t have a good way to capture the you know negative externalities. So so it’s an open question whether we can say.

James McWalter

And.

Ory Zik

Whether whether we can say okay, this is let’s let’s let’s collapse everything to doolas or can we think in keep thinking in 2 dimensions.

James McWalter

Yeah, and and I think kind of jumping on that like I think this is where I think like the value of storytelling becomes very important. You know there’s a lot of companies who are trying to. Build business models around that exact equation that you’re outlining you know, trying to build things and yeah, a lot of those companies are the people we talked about this podcast and often it’s just because you can’t assign a very easy dollar incentive to the climate element. You know the way we fill in that gap often is a story about the future and saying this is where things are. This is where the kind of media feature looks like it’s going and then the kind of longer term or far-off feature. You know, might look like this and I think that can help I guess start pointing people. You know the customers like your you know your your own customers and and similar kind of stakeholders to start to kind of think in these kind of terms. Um. Because I guess like 1 one area where it does affect the dollars and cents is in the share price of the company itself. You know we’re we’re starting to see like that discount happening at quite a large amount and you know if you’re going to lose several billion dollars of value um because you’re not actually thinking about these things even if you are technically today very very profitable

Ory Zik

Exactly.

James McWalter

Um, the cfo all of a sudden cares. You know.

Ory Zik

Yeah, no I totally I totally agree I think that look if the theory of change of how to impact corporate is through shareholders and we know that it’s happening and we’ve seen what’s happening and what’s happening in Exxon then it’s then the process. The transition is happening now. The question is what metrics people will. Using because you know shareholders still shareholders still say to the Ceo look we need and a profitable company. We want the dividends and we want it to be climate friendly and once the tension arises you need to quantify both and I think that it’s there’s no robust way to. Clearly quantify environmental impact in general and definitely climate impact in a way that shareholders understand so we see and the mscii index and all kinds of esg indexes. But there’s no strong correlation between what you what you report and those are reported. Indices or even externally audited indices and the actual climate impact. So that’s I think the jury are still out and we we focus on methane because we you know this is clearly the largest the largest beast in this carbon zoo and. And and and for us distributed methane is a hugely unattained market.

James McWalter

Yeah, and actually it’s one way when I first started looking at methane as I mentioned last year One of the kind of big appeals about about methane and is tackling it early has outsized effects in the longer term because as methane is released today. Um, a lot of its impact is you know like happens over the curve. First year or 2 as it decays in the atmosphere and then it’s just very very hard to counteract that and so if you for me at least if you had a magic wand and you were like trying to kind of solve climate at scale you try to focus on methane very very early and some of these other ways that we’re producing carbon could come later now. Ah you know the way we’ll actually do it is just a little bit of it all. You know over time and you know try to tackle it in different ways. Um, you mentioned this other use case around the kind of dairy farm right? So we have ton of ton of cows. They’re being milked. They produce a ton of manure this produces methane. Um, and I’ve mentioned in this podcast in the past that I come from a farming background. And you know farmers are a very different type of ah you know type of user type of person to to kind of talk to relative to you know total or you know some of these very very large oil and gas type companies. How have you found? you know those kind of conversations those kind of early users and how those different and maybe how even the pitch might different relative to you know.

Ory Zik

Right? Yeah, no, it’s a great question. So I think many many of the farms are you know? small 20300 cows and that’s our ideal for the size of the generator of our generatorors now if farmers can gain a premium for their product because of their environmental performance.

James McWalter

The kind of oil and gas majors.

Ory Zik

Then then then it starts to be compelling and if they can have a system which is fully circular which is what we’re now deploying it becomes even more compelling now this the top of this food chain company like danon and Nestle and are driving farmers. To better environmental performance. So when we introduce a solution that can take the digested animal manure turn it into and useful power. The heat can be turned into it can be. You know, prevent freeze off of the food and. And and you know and those those farms consumers you know, a lot of hot water. So it’s nearly ninety percent even 95% efficiency. Even the little amount of c o two that our generatoro provides because it’s clean. CO 2 We have only trace amounts of Co O and ox can be used for local agriculture. If you can go if you go come to the farmer and say look you have higher premium for your product and we give you this solution which is very convenient and by the way it’s some kind of an immunity against back and blackouts because you know that farmers are not immune to the blackouts at everybody else.

James McWalter

Threat.

Ory Zik

Suffered but in their case, it’s even more painful then it’s a compelling argument. It’s a different type of sales than in oil and gas. But I think it’s a very large market and it’s a market that we are very serious about.

James McWalter

No, that’s absolutely fascinating and you know farmers are out in the middle nowhere reliability. It’s often. They’re out in middle of nowhere relatively speaking and so reliability and resilience for their facility is is incredibly important right? like often. They’re the last person that the.

Ory Zik

Um, yeah.

James McWalter

You know the electricity company will come to to fix the wires and so having that kind of extra source from resiliency point of view can be also quite powerful. For example.

Ory Zik

Yeah, and and and you’re absolutely right? that unlike and oil and gas operators. These are individual buyers but they’re driven by but their customers as well. So so as the customers but want to become.

James McWalter

And.

Ory Zik

More climate friendly. It drives the entire supply chain.

James McWalter

Absolutely and then I believe you had a couple of recent kind of know, pretty decent capital raises which I imagine are going to help kind of fuel your growth over the next couple years. What are your kind of plans for expansion and development over. Let’s say a 2 year time horizon.

Ory Zik

Yeah, so we are currently hiring and and growing the the company and our business model is as follows we focus on the this distributed methane problem with the with our sterling generator. But then we acquire. Complementary Technologies in order to provide full solutions whether it’s whether it’s the compressors or digestors in order to provide full solutions but our generators have much broader applications as we’ve discussed backup power Microc Hp space. Whatever So We also have part of what we do is partnering with companies that would like to develop those applications and we and we sign them and those type of partnering agreements where we ah keep developing Gen the engine and the generator but other companies can bring it to market so that allows us to grow. And I call it in a responsible way because we need to understand the handful of markets while allowing others to utilize the technology to other Markets. We just raised the $16000000 from the oil and gas climate initiative and thank you and.

James McWalter

And congrats.

Ory Zik

And and we use this for to fuel growth since we are in sales and revenues is you know double digits millions of dollars we will raise additional capital to future to fuel and future growth. But so far we feel with. No pun intended but we feel that we have the fuel in our engines again.

James McWalter

It Very Good. Um, and I guess like thinking about the overall space right? You know distributed methane to problem that there was no kind of great solution for you know your your product goes kind of try to tackle that problem when you think about like other areas maybe directly or or you know they might be. Pretty close to what you’re working on or maybe they’re a little bit more distant where do you want to see more innovation where do you want to see you know more smart start smart people, starting companies or pivoting. You know, existing technologies to kind of work directly on problems that have you know similar impacts to what you’re trying to achieve at Q energy.

Ory Zik

Yeah, oh that’s a great Question. So I think look fundamentally we see even even with the interest Inlin tech and and and and global warming and and your podcast Obviously it plays a role. So Thank you for that. Even with this interest there is much more capital going into. Other sectors that in my humble opinion are less Important. You know what? what we call technology in this society is not a hardcore thermodynamics and electricity. It’s more a computer engineering and optimizing clicks and. And views and these sort of things that for me are less less compelling at least but much more capital is growing going into those spaces So first and foremost I would like to see more capital going into solving climate challenges now within those climate change challenges I think that the buttery cost. Ah, battery storage cost went significantly down So I want to see this trend continues and batteries that are more environmental friendly also in their afterlife because Lithium has its ah challenges. This will be really important in terms of Innovation. And and on the other side of this I think that the grid needs to be modified to be able to deal with all kinds of small contributions. So a virtual power plant.

James McWalter

And.

Ory Zik

Be much more effective if you can take and you know Kilowatt and two Kilowatt sources and not only tens of kilowatt sources and effectively I mean taking it and utilizing it. So these 2 areas I think require and significant development.

James McWalter

I yeah no I love kind of both with those kind of areas and yeah I appreciate the comment on some of the investment you know is going into I mean there the the old line that you know the the best minds of a generation are working on. You know, eking out. Little bit more revenue in fintech and then that became the the best minds of generation or working on ads. Um, and I think what has been very exciting for me I guess over the last two years since I kind of started looking at this space and indep is just the number of people who are yeah making a change you know I had this phrase at the great resignation.

Ory Zik

Um, yeah.

James McWalter

Where a lot of people started just shifting around their work a couple months ago and I you know anecdotally know just a ton of people who have decided you know I’ve been working for you know, a fine of yeah I’m a machine learning engineer at a fintech company. Um, where I’m just trying to figure out better ways to predict. Credit scores. Well maybe there’s some other thing that I could work on that might have you know more of ah aligned impact with their own kind of values and I think that’s just starting and I think the next kind of 5 to 10 years is going to be such a fight for that talent if you’re working on something that has a profound positive effect on the planet you are going to. Start to win more of those hiring battles.

Ory Zik

Yeah, but yeah and I would say that this battle actually starts early in University I would like to see more people studying you know physics and chemical engineering chemical engineering and those type of things because those are the the disciplines that will that can change the needle I mean it’s not that. Information will not change the little needle but I think more Ill but I think that there’s enough of this this an imbalance between the hardcore sciences which yeah at the end of the day will make the impact and as you said those those that are making more money but less impact.

James McWalter

Absolutely and looking at your kind of background. You know you’ve started run companies in both Israel and the us have you found any kind of differences I guess from you know, company culture company development point of view between those you know, just like I’m I’m from higher than originally and ah. Kind of company that I’m working on on the side is just not possible in my view to build in Ireland for a lot of different reasons. So yeah, how how do you find whereas while Israel has like this amazing kind of tech sector. How do you feel like that those kind of 2 kind of company cultures can are different or you know how are they I guess.

Ory Zik

Yeah, yeah, so I’ll start with qynaji I found that these 2 cultures are extremely complimentary and that’s why in kynaji we have 6 engineers that relocated from Israel to to Utah because we find that this a.

James McWalter

Interestingly the same.

Ory Zik

Synergy and and combination of cultures is extremely powerful I think the military background and maybe some of the kendo attitude in the israeli culture allows people to take higher risks which are always necessary but then when you want to build the most reliable generator you need to be really to follow processes and be diligent. How you do things and I think that at least the people that I’m proud to work with in Utah excellent in in those so we have innovators from Israel and and and and us that brings like these 2 and that that make it. Stronger by combining the 2 disciplines but I would say that the israelis are a little bit more and risk takers and and they need to be honested if all have a more at an and and tendency for processes. There’s also some when you think about Israel as a.

James McWalter

I’m fresh.

Ory Zik

Is a startup nation There’s some cultural thing that is happening in Israel this and maybe island is the same way I’m not sure but Israel has some social safety net that in the us and is doesn’t exist typically in Israel you you know after you. You go to the military you go to university but you don’t have these college debts and and those sort of things that impact your ability to take risks as an entrepreneur. That’s why you see per capita more startups in Israel because the risk is lower and in the us there’s a significant amount of and innovation. But I think many people are risk are adverse. Just need a job to pay the bills and I think I would hope that this and this will will change and the other thing which is very comforting to do business here in the us versus in Israel. It’s much easier to scale a business in the us than Israel in Israel because of the size of the map. Because it’s size of the market began because the the system is built for scalability and Israel is a niche. So actually the market for Israel is in the Us.

James McWalter

Yeah that’s that’s really interesting on that first point this kind of tension between well I guess this kind of social safety net and and the power of that at least in the irish case and I think it’s true of a lot of european western european countries the so social safety net is absolutely this way to encourage risk taking. But. At least in irish culture. It’s coupled with a cultural social pressure not to take risks. Um like I I’ll tell people who’ve never visited Ireland that the most hated people in Ireland are typically the wealthiest and most successful um and I’m definitely not a you know hardcore libertarian or anything but it is kind of peculiar that.

James McWalter

You know, bono and the collisons from stripe are not people that the average irish person would actually appreciate it all and so you know I love my country of course. But I think it is this kind of this interesting tension where you know you could actually take the time off, you could have your healthcare covered. You can go to university I mean that the state paid for me to go to my undergraduate completely. Plus like ah you know a few extra quid on top of that. Um, but the actual I guess you know peer group that you’re surrounded by um, doesn’t really value taking those risks and so you know for all that kind of technical and structural support. Those kind of software support levels are are missing now it is starting to change. We are starting to see some cool companies forum in Dublin and so on. But I guess how do you think about that relative to Israel us.

Ory Zik

Well I said it is you made me think about something really interesting I think that look there’s a risk and reward so if the reward is only for only financial and the culture doesn’t appreciate. You know those billionaires. It’s 1 thing. But if the reward is also impact. And you would say look these people are making a huge impact taking the risk taking the financial risk and this a scalability also has to do with the business but they have an impact then it might change the social appreciation towards those risk takers. And most social entrepreneurship I think is is is a direction is is a way to think about it I think Israel similar to the us is and I would say financial driven society I mean people appreciate those that made the significant amount of money and but I think this is you know. People make their own balance between the impact and life and and and how much money they need and how much money they want to make obviously in ah in a in a capitalist society There is a financial reward but financial road is not all of it I mean many people maybe including. Ah you know both of us on this call could make. More money if we choose something else but we choose to do what we do because we feel that this is where we want to spend our time and energy.

James McWalter

Absolutely and and very well said I can completely kind of agree with that or is my great conversation. Um, is there anything I should have asked you about but did not.

Ory Zik

Well, we are growing and the biggest challenge at this point is to find the right talent so you know people that want to give us a call and go on our website and just apply people that are talent. Talented in real engineering real hardcore chemical engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering feel free to go on our website and send us a note. We’re growing and we need We need the brain power to help us grow.

James McWalter

So and we’ll include your careers page in the show notes all right? Thank you so much.

Ory Zik

Thank you.

Great to chat with Deirdre Lord, Co-Founder of The Megawatt Hour, The Megawatt Hour’s software transforms data into energy analytics for fast, accurate, forward-looking energy information for energy users, managers and finance professionals! We discussed how they developed their product, a case study around the value of energy analytics, the state of global energy volatility and more!

https://carbotnic.com/themwh

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

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James

The unedited podcast transcript is below

James McWalter

Hello today we’re speaking with Deirdre Lord Co -founder of the Megawatt Hour welcome to the podcast Deirdre brilliant and I supposed to start could you tell us a little bit about the Megawatt hour

Deirdre Lord

Thank you so much great to be here. Sure the Megawatt hour aims to minimize cost and usage for commercial and industrial customers and improve business outcomes by transforming utility data into actionable information.

James McWalter

And what drove that initial decision to start at the Megawatt hour

Deirdre Lord

Sure so we my business partner Bob bright and I have been involved in retail power markets since the late 90 s we spent you know decades helping to build retail businesses mean it and when I say retail I mean. Businesses that bought power and gas but mostly power wholesale and then transformed wholesale ah electricity into a retail price for commercial and industrial customers and so we were always on the company side doing that and in fact, the. Business prior to the megawatt hour that I started was a business called juice energy started with colleagues from constellation new energy and we focused on transparency and green power and that business closed in 2006 and Bob and I essentially and ah. Couple of others got into a you know conversation and with the classic kind of whiteboard exercise and said what’s missing from the industry that has real value for customers. We acknowledge that there were plenty of. Power suppliers. There were plenty of consultants and brokers. But there was no information resource that linked markets to customers that provided transparency around their cost and usage and if you look at other deregulated markets that kind of. Platform exists you know in financial services you can go to Schwab online and see you know how your how your investments are performing. There was no such thing in our industry and so that was the genesis the spark behind building the Megawatt hour

James McWalter

Amazing and in that kind of whiteboarding you know process over those you know hours or days or whatever it was. You know I Guess how did you? you know how did that process go in detail you know were there are lots of different ideas or did this kind of spring out very early on and it was about kind of. Iterating on that kind of core concept of.

Deirdre Lord

Yeah, it’s a really great question and it came what we really did was we said you know what have we heard from customers in the fat in the past and what have they said to us and one of the things that customers consistently said prior to. Building juice and while we were running juice was you know I you look they would say to to me you know, deirdre you look trustworthy. But how do I know I’m making the right decision for my business that was just a consistent message that we heard from customers so that need. Jumped out right away and then when we looked at the supply chain we and our and how that that supply chain overlapped with our skills. It became pretty clear pretty quickly I mean it was not a matter of days of. Of work. It was you know a couple of hours of of talking through what we thought was missing what our skills really? um, you know called for and how that all of that came together.

James McWalter

And then you’re like okay we have this idea you know we we’ve already kind of somewhat validated from our experience and these other kind of previous conversations. What was next you know how how did you kind of proceed with I guess product development and all that set of things.

Deirdre Lord

Yes, so we we wrote up a bunch of of we first sketched literally on a piece of paper the graphics that we wanted to be able to present to customers the the. The high level information that we thought would then spark a behavior or or help a customer make a decision and we had a graphic designer turn that into more interesting visuals. You know something better than pen and paper. And we then took that around to customers who we’d known in this industry and over the years and said does this information help you characterize and and understand your own business in a new way. You know we really kind of went very basic and just tested the idea that way.

James McWalter

And then kind of going into these kind of you’re like a design sprint I guess where you’re you know, kind of helping helping them help you build an Mvp potentially down the road and so what were the kind of additional elements.

Deirdre Lord

Correct. Yeah. Correct. That’s right.

James McWalter

Yeah, was there anything that I guess was surprising when you were bringing that visualization and it’s like oh that that piece like was more valuable or less valuable than you expected.

Deirdre Lord

Um, well so we thought initially that um we thought that customers would really have a lot of of skepticism. Around kind of the underlying data that sat behind these graphics so we spent a lot of time explaining how we developed these visuals and where the data came from and how we how we transformed lots of rows of data into. Actionable information and we were somewhat surprised that customers didn’t worry about our credibility in terms of our ability to build a price. Um, and so that was 1 surprising piece of of kind of learning that we had. Um, another was that we have and we still to this day have pretty basic straightforward visuals and graphics. It’s not elaborate and it’s incredibly powerful for customers. You know what? what that made us realize is gosh you know these customers are used to looking at rows and rows of spreadsheets in excel and it doesn’t take a whole lot to to bring about real clarity in decision making you know. Basic good graphics and a good ui can can be very very powerful.

James McWalter

Yeah I guess you know I think a lot of companies when they get started out misinterprets The kind of minimal part of visual viable product and and often we’ll overbuild in ways that don’t really get to or don’t really focus on solving the kind of core problem and especially in a world where people are coming From. Trading documents or trading excel spreadsheets and and like um, you know the data like the I guess the the data pipes have such a power the calculations on top of that have a power and like the presentation of itself. Yeah, it was nice to have but isn’t as important as the other elements.

Deirdre Lord

Right? right? I couldn’t agree more and we still to this day find that customers tell us you know I spend when we’re talking to customers who are who are. Talking about their process. Their business process. They’ll say things like I spend the period between the Christmas holiday and the new Year’s holiday gathering all of my utility bills and all of my utility data and trying to turn it into something that I can use. In my business decisions and they never get to the visual representation. You know they never get to what is this information really telling me because they are getting buried in you know, rows and rows and columns and columns of data.

James McWalter

No absolutely and so I guess thinking about where the the the product is today. Let’s say I sign up, you know I become a customer like what’s that experience like and you know how how would I kind of interact with the product and get value.

Deirdre Lord

Um, the first thing we do a lot of the setup because our art we came to understand very quickly that you know customers are not going to type in lots of utility data. They will give us the. Permission to access their utility data directly and once they do that we do all the setup in the back end. It’s all automated. Um, and then you know the so the experience is very quick and very easy and you know it takes us when we get a customer’s you. Utility information and permission. It takes us anywhere from you know, half an hour to maybe a couple of hours to get the the information to the customer and get them the forecasting capability and the pricing data. Um, so it’s quite quick I mean they expect their assumption is that it’s going to take weeks and it really takes hours. So the experience is very very quick and easy and then you know the the real issue is how quickly does the customer get value right? That’s what. We care about um and it will really will depend on what the customer’s goal is naturally um, you know are they are they burdened by managing their budgets and that’s a process they do. You know once a year but then they try to update quarterly so you know getting a budget quickly is is a really powerful and important part of their work and so they can get value within. You know, depending on you know the timeline and depending on what their goal is. They’re seeing value. You know, really almost immediately. Especially I would say during periods like this where we’re seeing a lot of volatility and pricing and cost and a lot of confusion about what the future holds for. Energy users.

James McWalter

And I believe one of your customers Cornell University you’ve kind of done a recent project with them. Could you tell us little bit about that.

Deirdre Lord

Sure happy to in fact, the article we we worked with Cornell um the article just came out in district energy magazine this week Cornell has made a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2035 and so they’ve made a whole host of meaningful investments to get to that goal in the late 1990 STheMontrealProtocol phased out chloroplurocarbons and so the university was faced with a challenge. They either had to replace their chiller plant to accommodate this phase out or you know there had been a project that had been kind of bouncing around I think since the 60 s at Cornell which was to use the the cold water the cold deep water of Cayugga Lake which is. Lake where Cornell is is situated use those that cold water to basically chill. You know provide chiller capabilities provide cooling capabilities to the campus and so if you take we take ourselves back to the late 1990 s and the chillers. The re chiller rebuild was going to cost they estimated 58 to $60000000 I’m sorry the chiller replacement was going to cost $30000000 the lake source cooling which was this. This lake project was expected to cost between 58 and $60000000 and so the the campus was faced with well we would expect despite the high initial capital cost that the lake source cooling project would. Deliver much lower operating costs. Um, the expectation was that chillers were going to be 6 times as energy intensive as the lake source cooling project. So decision makers had to present data and analytics. Back in the late 90 s to capture this trade-off and they did ah quite a robust simulation Monte Carlo simulation that forecast electricity prices over 30 years and then they they did a present value analysis. That compared the present value of the costs of running lake source cooling versus this chiller case and they included you know electricity prices they they included operations and maintenance debt service. All of that and it became clear.

Deirdre Lord

Back in the 90 s that lake source cooling had both a lower expected operating cost by about $20000000 and a lower risk around those outcomes you know it was ah a lower distribution around the mean basically running lakes or cooling. And so Cornell this past spring said well we’ve been running lake source cooling for 20 years how did those initial how did that initial analysis turn out and how did we do you know How did we do on a. On an energy cost basis greenhouse gas emissions basis community lake effects you know lake impacts and so thank goodness you know the the there was an environmental studies class of undergraduates that took this project on. For their capstone research in last spring and they had a team that dove into the economics and the environmental impacts and the lake effects and the community impact. Um, we helped support the. The the students who looked at the economics because what we ended up doing is saying okay we we can now comb through utility bills and see what happened with the actual price of electricity over these last twenty years the actual operating costs of lake source cooling. But then we had to also help those. Students say well, what would have happened if the chillers had actually been running um and it was incredibly exciting. We used a lot of the data that that reside in our in our software to help model all of this. And what was exciting and I think very heartening was to see that after 20 years Lake Source cooling despite the fact that electricity prices have been all over. You know they didn’t they didn’t come any close to the anywhere close really to the expected. Electricity price that was forecast bacant back in the late 90 s but nevertheless the savings were significant um lake source cooling ended up costing the university about $20000000 less than than what the chillers would have cost under that same period and there was a there was a 14% irr on the project and about a six and a half year payback. Um, and so and then.

James McWalter

So amazing.

Deirdre Lord

the the avoided co 2 emissions and metric tons was about one hundred and twenty seven Thousand c o two ah metric tons of co 2 So you know that project was absolutely essential to helping. University get down the path towards carbon neutrality and what’s I think compelling about this is there are going to be other customers like Cornell big and smaller. Even you know you don’t have to be a huge university to face this and they’re going to have to ah. You know, address this question. Do I you know do I invest in a higher upfront capital cost for perhaps a less proven technology. You know, but 1 that has real carbon benefits or do I go to a slightly better. You know, slightly more efficient alternative that that may have a higher operating cost and so I think that example is going to be 1 that could have um you know real real impact and ripple effect across the the commercial industrial customers you know around the. Country around the world for that matter.

James McWalter

Yeah, it’s quite a kind of difficult spot that a lot of clean tech and you know, clean energy companies find themselves in because they are looking at this you know 5 10 20 year time horizon to show like the real value in in their product or solution relative to the status quo. And so you know a lot of the people who are making it you know a buying decision today. Um, very unlikely to maybe be the person responsible for whether there was success or failure ten years twenty years on the right line and so having these kind of very strong case studies showing you know, clear efficiency gains and and clear upside. Very powerful again. Not not just in this specific kind of case. But as you said like across a lot of different cases as people are trying to you know, bring newly commercialized technology to bear solving some of these problems. So.

Deirdre Lord

Couldn’t agree more absolutely and and um, so and you’re right about the institutional commitment. You know one of the things that we hear often is especially if if someone is. Is not sure they’re going to be around for the next twenty years they’ll say well. Why would you know I think the forecast is essential to making these calls and we hear people say all the time. Well the minute you do a forecast. It’s going to be wrong. Why do a forecast you know and um. We would just make the case that what the forecast does as it did for cornell in the late 90 s what it does is it really helps helps an institution to clarify the trade-offs and and and bring some clarity also to. The the values or the the objectives of an organization or or a business and and so you know even if your concern is that it’s it’s not going to be perfect or it’s not going to be right? It definitely surfaces decision. You know. Decision criteria in a ah, meaningful and very kind of directed way.

James McWalter

Yeah, it’s always kind of this 2 step process right? like you kind of have to measure what matters for that old saying to to see exactly what’s happening you need to figure out baselines. All those kind of things and it’s always a necessary but not sufficient first step to getting. Making change happen right? because then the the second piece is then putting in place the the change to improve whatever that metric might might be and I think you know a lot of companies have done a really good job at different types of measurement but giving. Yeah I guess empowering using those measurements to empower that like secondary kind of decision making process becomes ever more important.

Deirdre Lord

Right? exactly? Yeah I mean I think there’s a lot of emphasis on on sort of like how will this? How will this investment or this technology help our business run. But what their. Isn’t always ah, always a commitment to as well. What what did happen? How is it a performing and how can we? you know how can we track our performance and then tweak whatever the decision is that we’re making going forward. You know so.

James McWalter

Yeah, absolutely and and you know a lot of the underling reason for I Guess Megawatt existence is just ah, a kind of default lack of transparency across utilities the energy space kind of more generally. Um, how have you seen that change if at all over the last you know last.

Deirdre Lord

Yes, yeah, great. Great question. You know I would say when we when we first you know how people talk about a product is either Aspirin or penicillin and you really want to be the penicillin. You know.

James McWalter

Number of years like are are is there more transparency is it is this still like ah like a real battle.

James McWalter

Yep.

Deirdre Lord

I think when we came you know we so first started envisioning this early stages I think we were much more in the in the aspirin category. Um, and now you know while transparency continues to be very challenging. Um, there seems to be more and more of a a realization among customers that it is essential and that so we’re kind of shifted into the the essential product category and so. You know again, transparency is still challenging. But I think interestingly you know as as customers and as the cni market has shifted more towards yeah esg goals and and broader you know sustainability goals. There is this? um. Philosophy that and um, integral to that is having more transparency around data and analytics. Um, unfortunately I would say the one area we haven’t made as much progress on is just ease of access to data. Um. That still is extremely fragmented in the United States and I believe is still a significant constraint to a ah real and significant and fast transition to a new energy economy. You know? ah. New energy transition.

James McWalter

Yeah I think a lot of the issues lies in kind of the incentives of the various stakeholders right? So You know the the utility right? The grid operator who has incredible amount of data right? like they’re they’re drouting a data but they’re kind of internal incentives. To share and deploy that data in a way that allows like the ecosystem to benefit is pretty limited. Um, often. There’s also a technical inability. You know, maybe there’s a talent like issue in terms of you know, having a ton of smart data data people at those kind of companies because again those incentives aren’t in place maybe to make those hires.

Deirdre Lord

Correct. Yeah.

James McWalter

And so I guess like how do you see that evolving is is that yeah, are there pressure points appearing to kind of make improvements in that in those areas? yes.

Deirdre Lord

Yes, and I would also add and you you allude to this I mean I’ve been in a big organization. A big company. Um, that has legacy systems and it’s not entirely It’s not a trivial exercise to kind of turn that. Battleship you know Um, so I have some I have empathy sympathy for utilities who are feeling that pressure to make a transition It’s just a big challenge. Um, but to the question of um of do we see this changing and the answer is. I cannot imagine that it will not change and I think a lot of the pressure points are coming from companies like well like take Google. For example, you know Google wants to be able to match their usage 24 7 to renewable. Resources and that is huge undertaking and and I don’t believe it’s possible with with legacy utility data access systems. Um, so what what I am passionate about doing and I’m kind of trying to build. More momentum around this is you know let’s make sure when we when we make utility data more accessible that it’s it works for big companies like Google but it works for it. Also works for you know the k through 12 school down the street or anyone else who. Wants to make a broader commitment to sustainability and renewables.

James McWalter

Yeah I mean you know we have this kind of ah like long tail. You know fat head kind of model right with the distribution model of energy usage and so yeah, even if we sign up all the fortune five hundred s to products like this which is great and would have a mass foot impact like we have. Millions of snbs different organizations that also need to know this and and have a huge kind of aggregate ah effect and.

Deirdre Lord

Exactly exactly? Yeah yeah and I you know I Still believe though that if we can do I mean I know we’re not perfect on Healthcare you know and medical data. But if if we can I don’t think that. Let’s put it this way I don’t think the utility kind of um, ah, privacy and confidentiality is the real issue at Stake I think you know customers would would give up you know and would certainly Provide. Um, permissions to to any kind of company that’s going to help them get on a path to to lower or no carbon. Um, so I think if we can do it for Health Care. We can do it for energy.

James McWalter

Yeah, and even if the each other is gave up the doesn’t even have to be down to the at the at the home or business level like the substation level will be lovely for in a lot of cases you know, ah cool and you could have mentioned a little bit earlier that we are certain cities kind of high degree.

Deirdre Lord

Yes, right? Correct Yeah right.

James McWalter

Of energy volatility right? So we’re starting to see some parts of the United States Europe is in yeah, having very high energy prices. That’s even affecting kind of geopolitical elements and and so on um, how do you think this is kind of going to pan out is this so much shortlived and kind of just early kind of growing pains. Are we.

Deirdre Lord

Crisis. Yeah yes.

James McWalter

Kind of entering an extended period of I guess Energy Volatility and Insecurity right.

Deirdre Lord

Yeah I mean I sometimes joke about if I could you know if I could make a good prediction here I’d be living already living on a um, sailboat in Fiji or something but um, it the sense that we get and we’ve been.

James McWalter

She asked her.

Deirdre Lord

Involved in these markets since the late 90 s I would say one piece of kind of one data point that’s worth considering is we had high gas prices in 15008? Um, there were you know we were up over. Ah, believe it was $8 a de oftherm at one point. Um, we are still I think in relatively good. Um and relatively low electricity and gas price environment. It’s just that we got used to. For 5 years of very very very low prices. Very low volatility. Um, and with the destruction of demand around. Um the pandemic. You know we we hit literally record lows. So 1 thing that I think we’re all reacting to. You know, residential customers through to businesses is um, a short-term memory problem. You know we haven’t we don’t remember when it was routine to pay you know 10 $100 a megawatt hour for you know peak summer prices. You know? So so that’s 1 thing to consider we we are now experiencing more volatility higher prices after years of lows um but the sense that we get from looking at these markets pretty consistently is that. Volatility is likely to be back for some time. Um and at some point we will probably see so right now natural gas sets the marginal price for power in the northeast I think maybe everywhere. That will change as we move towards you know broader electrification more renewables. So I think that’s going to be a really interesting dynamic to watch when do we shift from you know a period in which natural gas is setting. Um, power prices and and then what is going to set power prices you know is it going to be offshore wind pricing. Is it going to be storage. You know we don’t know. Um, so that’s a very very very long answer to your question and I think the shorter shorter answer is we are in a. In periods of uncertainty about how we’re going to transition I believe we will see more continued volatility over the next 12 to 18 months and then when we see a shift to a significantly different kind of.

Deirdre Lord

Set of power resources there that will probably continue. Um, so I guess the answer is yes continue volatility. Ah.

James McWalter

Yes, yes, so all. Yeah I think it is this interesting dynamic that as we’re seeing with some of the the kind of inflation worries in the United States over the last few months um yeah the consumers really hate volatility in prices, especially prices of of staples like electricity food and that kind of thing. And so one of the things I’ve been wondering about is like how this type of thing will intersect with more kind of government policy at some sort of level. So for example, there are some experiments started where you know there will be a consistent subscription price paid for energy by the consumer.

Deirdre Lord

Yes.

James McWalter

Certain point and basically the local utility. The local Monopoly will have to you know, try to eke out some sort of margin out of that but they’re not going to be able to like expose that amount of volatility on a month -to-month basis now in the long run that individual consumer might be paying more for energy because there’s still less to be. Sort of margin baked into that volatility calculation. But I think generally you know I think the human psychology kind of runs in the direction that people want consistency and what they pay rather than volatility where at all Possible. So.

Deirdre Lord

Right? Interesting yeah, you know and when we um when we it this kind of volatility leads to odd behaviors. To be honest, you know. For example, we see customers when the market is is really high and they’ve they’ve. Spent you know years. Not really hedging any kind of power or gas market comes up and they say I’ve got a hedge I’ve got to put a hedge in place. It’s it’s you know it’s understandable on the 1 hand because you’re just trying to kind of stop. The pain of volatility. But that’s just really not the time to be making that decision. You know? Um, so that’s another kind of behavior that we’re really trying to to help customers navigate and manage which is you know the time to buy. Power and gas for 2022 was a year ago not three months ago

James McWalter

Right? and looking at your background I believe you advise a number of different clean tech startups. What do you kind of learned working with those companies how they might do things differently compared to you know your kind of initial approach back when you started the megawatt hour and so on. So.

Deirdre Lord

Yeah, um, that has been so exciting I mean it’s been a tremendous amount of fun for me to to be involved with companies like clean choice and station a and electrota. Ah, they all, um, are very very attuned to and very quick to respond to things that you know work in their products and things that they need to tweak and. You know I think we you know once you’ve been around for a while it can be a little bit harder to be quick to to you know, adjust and change. So I really have enjoyed seeing how quickly you know? um. A company like station a is able to to incorporate. Um, real terrific learnings into into their product. Um, you know they they’re a good example of a company that. Um, really uses um financial and you know pricing information but doesn’t rely on utility data to do so um, you know so they’re presenting cost information but they’re not not relying on you know. Reams and reams of utility data to the extent that um, that customer I mean that that clean tech companies can build solutions for customers that you know don’t rely on some of that. Um, ah. Monolithic utility data I think that’s a great learning to take away. You know, use Ai use machine learning wherever possible. Um, what else have I learned from them. Um I think always the importance of really great customer experience. And um, really you know station a as a great responsive user experience. Um electrota has been great. They’re ah um, they’re a ev charging company. They have been um, great at attracting talent. And um, and shifting their focus from sort of more 1 ne-off charging stations to a broader infrastructure type business and um and then clean choice. Um, is also I think really.

Deirdre Lord

Been amazing at figuring out what residential customers. How to how to make renewable energy purchasing easy for residential and that was something in my career as in in retail that I always felt was vastly kind of under. Under invested in and so they’ve been great at really understanding the residential consumer.

James McWalter

And if you look across the kind of space right now. Um, obviously a lot of problems to solve. Where would you like to see more innovation. You know a couple smart people listening to this and like oh you know I want to want to get involved in this space where like the are the big opportunities that that people could try to start looking at and fetch you tackling. So.

Deirdre Lord

Um, oh boy, Great question I mean I suffer from a little bit of if you’re a hammer. Everything looks like a nail and so I really see you know there are great Technologies They’re great kind of ah. There’s a lot of interest in hardware and battery storage and you know I’m not as well versed in sort of the hard the hardware side but I would love to see more people doing the kind of work that we’re doing which is really diving Into. Um. The forecasting and financial modeling to make the case for um, for new technologies on on really good hard science and and and math you know, um, and and so I Think. You know customers Still don’t have enough resources to evaluate. Um the financial impacts of of different decisions. Um I You know my my vision back in the early 90 s when I first got out of Um. Of graduate school was that I wanted to see essentially significantly more distributed solutions to get to a more Carbon- neutral society and so. I Still don’t think we quite have the you know ideal structure for micro-grids and and I am quite convinced I continue to be convinced that um that our you know our economy and our energy infrastructure will only be. More distributed and I think that we’re still a pretty long way from from making that happen and there are a lot of pieces that need to be added to that puzzle. But I Also as a compliment to that I don’t think we’ve effectively engaged residential customers. In this economy yet in this you know, sustainable ah energy industry I Don’t think we’ve gone far enough there to make it easy and make the choices that they make meaningful to their pocketbooks.

James McWalter

Yeah I agree with a ton of that I think on the figuring out the profitability side I think that’s become more and more core question right? as esg types choices become a just part of any sort of top line or bottom line approach to business where it’s like okay I want to build something that has a.

Deirdre Lord

Let’s say.

James McWalter

More positive climate impact. But what is the third year profitability of that asset again at whatever level I think on the distributed energy side. It is this kind of fascinating thing like we’re starting to see a little bit of lineup on the policy side with some of the recent you know Ferc orders and so on and what’s been very exciting on that. Ah, but in the kind of distributed energy resource space. Um, are these kind of emergence of groups like the der task force and and a few others where you have like just a ton of energy in people who are you know at the early stages of starting companies or just coming out of university and just being really really excited about the distributed space like it’s it’s been absolutely fascinating and then just on that last point I think.

Deirdre Lord

Um, yeah.

James McWalter

I Think one of the things and I’ve harve on this on other podcast episodes I think we’ve done collectively. It’s a pretty bad job of describing like the really exciting fully electrified future for the average homeowner. Um, and I think we just need to do if we do a better job at that and just how much better your home will be if you do all those things I think that helps on the demand side.

Deirdre Lord

Yes, yep.

James McWalter

And then we sell just a ton of work to do so that you know when a Hvac person shows up at some of this house. Their default is not the old fossil model of Buts of no.

Deirdre Lord

exactly exactly yep I mean I have I just visited a friend outside of New Haven who has ah an ev and put pv panels on his roof. This was probably 5 maybe seven years ago and he and he told me back then you know I’m not doing this for the economics. You know I’m doing this because I really care about this. It is his most excited moment when he shows people you know the the charger and when he looks at his you know when he looks at the. The Kilowatt hours flowing back into the grid so you know to see how he he’s a doctor. He’s a he you know he’s not in this business at all. But you know if you could capture that experience and and bring it to people and and help. Them really understand what this means I agree with you I think you know we need to make that much easier to access.

James McWalter

So absolutely deirdre has been a great conversation. Is there anything I should have asked you about but did not.

Deirdre Lord

You know I don’t maybe what? um premier league team. We support in this household but other than then liverpool. Yeah, ah well your time will come.

James McWalter

I’ll go first. Yeah yeah, who’s who is that you are I grew up I just United a supporter but it’s it’s been a bad few years for us. You know.

Deirdre Lord

and and I guess the 1 thing we’ve learned from from their recent experience is that 1 team mate doesn’t make the team right? 1 superstar that maybe that’s the theme for energy. There isn’t 1 superstar that’s going to solve all the problems right.

James McWalter

So absolutely? Um, yes.

James McWalter

So if if we could capture the the spiteful energy of a glance from Christina Ronaldo to the to the bench when he’s being taken off I think we would solve a lot of the problems. Thank you Deirdre.

Deirdre Lord

That’s for sure. Thank you so much.