Scaling Clean

Cleantechers - 

My recent Scaling Clean guest, Scott Case, is deeply experienced in starting successful ventures. He came to cleantech by way of Priceline, as that company’s founding Chief Technology Officer.

Among nearly 20 other different experiences, Scott now runs ZettaWatts, which has pioneered what it calls the “Additionality Rec Market” (AREC). It's offering fixed-price forward contracts to buy AREC from new projects under development. ZettaWatts is based in the National Capital Area, where I live and work, so it was good to have a neighbor on the show. 

Here are Scott’s time-stamped highlights:

6:21 – When you think you don’t need help, it’s probably the first sign that you need it. 

10:15 – Leadership is a practice. You’re never done. 

12:48 – Observe the traits and attributes of leaders you admire. Then, borrow what resonates the most with you.

13:53 – There are three things to come back to as a CEO: Transparency, ownership (ensuring employees have both responsibility and the authority to reach goals) and resiliency.

24:23 – Hiring is the most difficult thing you do as a founder or a leader. You’re bringing new DNA into your culture, and new employees will have a profound impact. If you get hiring right 50% of the time, you’re doing great. 

Scott had also shared three big lessons for founders of startups (19:26):

Thank you for coming on the show, Scott.

George Hershman is one of the most prominent leaders in U.S. clean energy. He spent his career running SOLV Energy, formerly known as Swinerton Renewable Energy. He also recently served as the Chairman of the Solar Energy Industries Association. 

SOLV is a widely recognized EPC. It has built 8 GW of utility scale solar capacity and now manages over 9 GW across more than half the states in this country. 

If there is anyone who has collected a lifetime of leadership and management wisdom, it's George.

Here are his big three points:

4:30 - You may be eager to take risks right off the bat, but it’s easier for a more mature company to take risks than it is for a new company. If you just started a business, be careful taking risks. Before starting a project, make sure you have the right people and a good understanding of your objectives first. 

12:42 - Renewables have moved out of the era of policy dependence and niche markets. Renewables are now the lowest cost of energy and the fastest to deploy. It solves the biggest problems around energy distribution now that we have storage at scale.

23:29 - When interviewing new candidates, it’s important to determine how that person will make you feel comfortable and uncomfortable. When done the right way, people can be transparent and challenge your organization to be better. This is especially important for companies that have low turnover, who may have a narrowed point of view.

Cleantechers –

My most recent Scaling Clean guest is someone I’ve known for 20 years, Stephen Lacey, who has a perspective on clean economy like no other. 

He’s covered our sector as an editor and early podcaster at Renewable Energy World, then editor-in-chief for Greentech Media, and now he's the founder of a new media and research company, Latitude Media. Stephen's not only covered our CEO audience, he's joined their ranks as a founder. 

Here are Stephen’s B3P’s:

3:58 - People used to view the clean energy industry as “other.” Now, it is a multi-trillion dollar transition that has changed the business models of energy companies across the globe. People now take the transition seriously. 

8:48 - The mindset shift from managing one team to running a business with 3+ teams is very different. As a business owner, you need to use your management skills to devote your attention to each team, while how ensuring they work together into one cohesive unit. 

19:32 - This industry has dramatically expanded, and incumbents sectors are nervous. But we need to double the trillions of dollars we are already putting into the global energy transition if we are to avert the worst of the climate crisis. That said, if pessimism causes us to lose our ability to fight, we’ve lost. 

Thank you, Stephen, for coming on the show.

Cleantechers - 

My most recent guest on Scaling Clean has been an advisor to three Seattle-area companies, a policy lead for the e-mobility leader Lime, as well as an official in four municipal transportation departments. But, he's also the CEO of an innovative camper van sharing company, Cabana. 

On a recent episode of This Week in Cleantech, I nominated Scott Kubly for “Cleantecher of the Week” because he courageously authored an open-kimono post on LinkedIn about Cabana’s ending. 

Here's the thing about cleantech: It's hard. We're disrupting powerful, mature, incumbent sectors, and it's not like the disrupted are passively waiting around for us to put them out of business. Oh, and add to that difficulty the normal challenges launching companies within new industrial sectors.  

Everyone is going to have failures. We're going to lose jobs, accounts and companies. I've learned that there are more lessons and improvements available from failures than wins. Scott continues to display that courage and openness by agreeing to be our Scaling Clean guest. He's the first to talk with us about lessons learned from a significant, recent loss. I'm grateful he's done that. 

25:25 - Recognize the value of time. Cut off less impactful endeavors (even if you love them) to focus on what matters for demand. Channel your time toward company growth.

29:06 - To be a successful CEO, it’s crucial to make mistakes and apologize without requiring forgiveness from others – but forgive yourself. In the leadership world, errors are inevitable. The key lies in transforming those missteps into valuable learning experiences.

48:55 - The Stockdale Paradox, named after Admiral James Stockdale, is a mindset that involves short-term realism and long-term optimism — a mindset that is often necessary to handle the challenges of owning a company. Even if you are struggling through your current reality, it’s crucial to maintain faith that you will be successful in the end

We've had serial entrepreneurs, power sector veterans, techies, and people with finance and energy trading backgrounds, but Nikhil Vodhovkar is one of the few first-timer CEO’s we've had on the show. Not only is he an alumnus of academia at a very high level – Johns Hopkins,  MIT – but he leveraged that background to start Raptor Maps.

This SaaS company provides owners and operators of both utility-scale and C&I projects with digital solutions to boost production and manage the health of their assets. Raptor Maps plays a vital role in scaling the industry through software that records and tracks asset performance, digital solutions for asset management and remediation challenges, and the deployment of solar robotics.

Here are Nikhil’s B3P’s (“Big 3 Points”):

11:02 - Get in the weeds, get your hands dirty and fail quickly. The quick pace necessary to make decisions and try new things will likely lead to failures. But that’s crucial for company growth. That is how you to learn and move on. Embrace failure because it’s rich in lessons… if you’re willing to learn. 

20:03 - If you want to be a CEO, don’t worry about what constitutes the “perfect idea.” Find (or create) the seed of what you believe will be successful, and iterate. If it’s not the current idea, it will be the next one. You’ll need grit and courage to see growth. 

23:03 - While making new hires, always have a technical or hands-on component of the interview process. This will help you determine what you are looking for with the new hire. For example, if you are hiring someone for your sales team, do you care more about their ability to pitch someone on the spot or research a company well? Then test that ability. This will also show you how that candidate reacts to the challenge, not just how well they perform.

As listeners know, our show engages CEOs in conversations that harvest best practices and usable tips to successfully build, run and lead companies. Our diverse lineup has featured power sector veterans, techies, individuals with finance and energy trading backgrounds, among others. Now, we introduce our first CEO with an environmental consulting background, Robin Laine. She’s also possibly the youngest CEO we’ve had on the show.

Robin now runs the renewable SaaS company Transect. She founded her company with a mission to revolutionize the way traditional environmental consulting firms evaluate potential development sites for renewable energy projects. After dedicating 11 years to three different traditional environmental consulting firms, Robin recognized the need for change. 

Here are Robin’s B3P’s (Big Three Points) from the show:

8:31 – Working in clean energy fosters a unique and collaborative environment, driven by a shared commitment to save our planet. Due to the industry's rapid technological advancements, we work in a space with creative mindsets and problem solvers.

11:00 – As a new CEO, having a clear "why" is crucial. It helps overcome fundraising rejections, challenges with early clients, and product criticism. It’s also important to aim for your product to be 10x better than the current solution.

27:34 – The energy transition has the current administration's support. We also have both the appeal of capitalism and public opinion urging the private sector to rapidly expand power generation and integrate it into the grid. This creates a positive momentum for the transition.

Over the last 2 years of interviewing clean energy CEO’s, Sean Kelly is our first with the background as a veteran energy trader. In fact, Sean has traded or managed traders for over 7 different companies in his career

I brought Sean on the latest episode to speak about his background in energy trading and how that helped equip him for his role as co-founder and CEO of @Amperon for the last 6 years. He describes Amperon as “the forecasting company for the energy transition.” 

Sean had some unique things to share. Here are his B3P’s (Big 3 Points):

11:31 - The clean economy sector is where everything is headed – it’s not the “clean economy” sector anymore, just the economy. Once someone starts working in this sector, it’s hard to move elsewhere because this is a good spot to be. 

18:39 - To be a great CEO means to inspire the right talent, bring them into your workplace and be a leader who demonstrates good leadership. 

29:53 - If you want to keep a high level of performance as CEO, it’s important to take care of yourself. Spend time with your family and focus on both physical and mental well-being. Release any stress outside of work so you can start each day on a good note.

On Scaling Clean, we have the pleasure of interviewing people with a variety of backgrounds. One less-represented experience on our podcast are PhD-ers turned CEOs.

That’s why I’m excited to talk to Mahesh Konduru, who is the former CEO and now board chair of ProSep, a global energy services company focused on water treatment and chemical efficiency.

Mahesh's company is private equity financed, with operations and subsidiaries in four regions around the world. He's also CEO of Momentum Technologies, a company that processes critical minerals and metals into high-purity materials with a heavy initial focus on recycling lithium batteries.

If you’re short on time, here's an overview of our conversation:

5:22 – It’s tempting to rush through team building in the fast paced, hectic environment of a startup. But doing so puts your team and company at a disadvantage. Take the time to understand the capabilities and aspirations of employees before settling into a rapid, task-completion mindset.

14:56 – The role of a CEO at a company that’s scaling technology from proof of concept to commercial is a different kind of role than a CEO at an established company.

At an early stage, you’re primarily focused on proof of concept and the path to commercialization, making your responsibilities:

1.            Always make sure there is enough cash. Always.

2.            Set the culture.

3.            Be comfortable with risk taking.

Once the company has reached profitability, the CEO’s focus shifts more to goal setting and talent retention. 

18:14 - Match the ambition of your company with the addressable market you're seeking. If the addressable market is huge, keep your ambitions huge as well. If you don't set the ambition, the capital will not follow.

24:23 - CEOs ‘inheriting’ a new team – rather than creating one, as a startup – have a particular challenge in gaining the trust of their new employees. One unconventional way to build a strong team is job shadowing – literally. Spend a day watching your employees in action to understand the full scope of their responsibilities and observe the ways your leadership could make their jobs easier.

Cleantechers, welcome back to Scaling Clean. The podcast that gathers company-building and management tips from the most accomplished leaders in cleantech. 

I don’t know about you, but everywhere I go, and everyone I hear from in cleantech leadership is wrestling with the same thing: Where to find talent in a tight labor market. At Tigercomm, we’re having clients ask us to build their corporate communications partly to support recruitment, which is a relatively recent development. 

Our guest today is someone with 20 years’ experience solving that problem, much of it for clean economy companies. And as someone running a company that’s also looking for talent, I’m really looking forward to talking with Paige Carratturo, the San Francisco-based co-founder of Sea Change, which describes itself as “a talent venture company.” I suspect that if anyone can give clean economy leaders useful advice on handling this super-tight labor market, it’s Paige. I also think that the way Paige’s shop pursues its mission will equip her with some longer-term insights into what work environments and interview processes are best suited for today’s talent pool. 

14:55 – To stay current on the talent pool, a leader needs to be regularly talking to potential candidates. Communicate with your team regularly about market conditions, spend time with your customers, and attend industry events. Don’t be afraid to lean on recruiters to get a detailed understanding of the talent market that comes from speaking with candidates daily.

16:50 - The ‘cool’ factor isn’t enough to draw in cleantech talent anymore. Top talent most values a healthy work culture, the flexibility to follow their passion at work and be able to affect huge issues like climate change, and strong company missions that align with their values.

18:50 - To be a successful recruiter, communicate with your candidates as you would a customer - transparency and clarity about the interview process makes candidates feel prioritized. Each person at your company who talks to a candidate should have a different goal for the conversation to ultimately make a hire based on data, not just gut feelings.

Cleantechers, welcome back to Scaling Clean. This is the podcast that gathers company building and management tips from the most accomplished leaders in clean tech. Today we talk with Hala Ballouz, who has spent the last 15 years growing Electric Power Engineers, EPE as it's known among developers, from a consultancy of 10 staff to a national presence of over 200 grid connection experts. Hala is actually the CEO of two companies, EPE and ENER-i.AI.

She's also led both GridNEXT and the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Alliance. In her current role, she helps developers connect to the increasingly complex power grid through both consulting services and SaaS offerings. 

3:38 - Slow down. Take the time to find what you are genuinely passionate about. Then, once you’re there, never say no to new opportunities. 

7:30 - Grow your company by delivering the impossible. Build an organization with a handful of people that understand the grid from every aspect: distribution, transmission, generation…everything.

13:44 - Look for people who are motivated to drive on their own. You want your hiring to be aligned with your approach to drive business growth. You want to deliver quality and relevance before you think about the revenue component of things. Invest in the future, not just the present.