The Entrepreneurs for Impact Podcast: Transcripts
#131:
20 Gigawatt-hours of Clean Power While Saving Customers Millions of Dollars — Naman Trivedi, CEO of WattBuy
Chris Wedding:
In today's episode, instead of talking about business and finance, we're going to focus on the people side of growing a climate tech business. Today, we'll listen to five CEOs or investors talk about advice for their younger self, recommendations for books and podcasts, habits that keep them healthy, and sane on this startup journey, and a lot more. Shout-out to Bill S. for his recommendation for this kind of compilation. Hope you like it.
First, we'll hear from Naman Trivedi, Co-founder and CEO of WattBuy, which helps homeowners find the best electricity, solar plans, and more all at the lowest price. Using just a home's address, they crunch the data to recommend personalized bundles from the most trusted providers. To date, they've helped procure 20 gigawatt hours of clean power while saving customers millions of dollars.
Naman Trivedi:
Relationships make the world go around, people and relationships. I think that's true for any progress you make in life and I'll just speak to me, early on it was because of my parents and family support, but then it was peers in school and professors and teachers. But even now it's because of your colleagues, your investors and your customers, and those relationships and someone vouching for you or someone helping you out when you least expect it. Anything good that I can point to you in my personal journey and WattBuy's journey is all due to people who have graciously offered to guide me when I least knew what to do. That's still actively true, today. I don't expect that to ever go away.
Chris Wedding:
The two notes I wrote down here, one was, basically a transaction mentality versus a relationship mentality. Pretty different, or maybe said differently, a quid pro quo perspective on interactions versus a relationship, pretty different, but it's really easy and common to err on the former, especially early on. How about some habits or routines that keep you healthy, sane and focused? What would those be? Daily, weekly, monthly, what you got?
Naman Trivedi:
Maybe this is controversial, maybe it's not, but I hate that there are hundreds of productivity hacks and podcasts and Twitter threads and everything around it. Maybe it's just become too much and there's some nuggets of excellent advice out there. There was certainly a period of time where I thought I had to figure out some of these things, but for me, I honestly do what I feel I need in the moment.
02:56
If it's an afternoon run in Central Park when I have time and the day is great, I'll go do that and come back and do some work if I have to in the evening and that's awesome. But fundamentally, I believe in my ability to achieve goals around the company and I think every entrepreneur should and has to. It's generally how they've gotten to the point that they decide that they should start a company, run a company, et cetera. And so, generally I think that you have it in you to figure out the right balance for your life and that's very different for every person.
For some people, you may be driven by making sure you have solved every problem that day and you'll sleep better because of it. But hopefully this can inspire anyone that doesn't want to follow a rigid routine or do a cold plunge or anything around that. Because for me, I spend a lot of time with family and friends, me and my wife's, both of our siblings all live around us, so I don't have any secret.
You have to do what works for you and if that's the cold plunge, power to you. I want a warm shower. I experience discomfort many other ways at work, so that’s my honest answer to it is, it's taken time to find the balance. Absolutely, especially in a work from home world. We were remote before COVID. I mean, that felt really weird to me to be at home when everyone we were talking to was in an office, at a partner company.
It certainly took adjustment, but I got some advice earlier on where I had asked someone like, “Hey, I don't have a rigid routine. How do I develop one?” They were like, “Do you feel like you're not achieving what you want to achieve?” And I was like, “No, I actually feel like I'm doing a great job.” And they're like, “Then why would you change what you're doing?” and that stuck with me. So, I've found my way that I'm pretty comfortable with now.
04:44
Chris Wedding:
Well, for listeners to lots of these podcasts, it feels like you're talking to me right now, Naman. We don't have a cold plunge. We've thought about it until we saw the price tag. We're like, “What, for a cold plunge?” Anyway, no. I think what you're highlighting is that, look, there are many paths to get shit done, to build great companies, to tackle climate through business and finance, et cetera, there are many paths.
Part of what you said reminds me of a quote by the Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, who was really the teacher that got me into that space 25 years ago. He says something like, don't just do something, sit there. The opposite of this structure and busy-ness mentality. I mean, maybe the tweak for you would be don't just do something or don't just have a routine, instead, sit there with family and friends, that’s the balancing the foundation perhaps for you.
Naman Trivedi:
Definitely. Yep. The question is right and it's a question that I think founders and executives at companies likely don't get to honestly ask or answer themselves often. So, I appreciate you asking it because a lot of the culture around health and sanity and mental health and productivity has turned into a task and a thing you have to figure out. You have to do right and you have to let people know how you're doing it and that's, I think to the quote you mentioned, it's antithetical to what that's all about. And so, to anyone that is kind of figuring out how they work, I would just recommend to think about what works for you and not try to copy anything that you see that may sound good.
Chris Wedding:
Right, so two-hour morning routines are not required?
Naman Trivedi:
Not required. It may be awesome and for some people it totally is. I think it matters a lot and we have folks in our company where you have three kids and your time is highly limited and you need that separate time, then you have to do it that way. If you're single and just graduated from college, you have a completely different – So, I think a lot of this also changes over time and internally at WattBuy, we're quite respectful that every person thinks about it quite differently.
07:17
Chris Wedding:
You make me think of a fact I heard yesterday where there's this author, YouTube influencer perhaps, ultra-athlete, David Goggins, I believe is his name and just total badass, I believe former Navy SEAL. Anyway, our two teenage boys are fans and I heard that he also meditates two hours a day. My boys are not quite in the meditation yet. I mean, who needs to sit still, right? But when I said that, my wife said, “Wait, wait, wait, is this guy married? Does he have kids? Like, who has two hours to do all that, right?” Anyway, yes, each situation is different.
Naman Trivedi:
I'm sure there could be entire podcasts about the philosophy behind this and how to think about it, but there's also a really good argument that entrepreneurs are athletes in their own way. You don't see NBA players or tennis players or anyone probably repeating what I just said about do what you want, when you want, figure it out kind of a thing, because there's a team involved. There's a lot that should be rigid. So, I would say I'm also not giving credit to how much is probably rigid for me, but I think personally, I find a lot of value and comfort and flexibility in my ability to maintain mental health, maintain productivity, as opposed to other things you could fill that time with, which are equal and valuable and useful for people.
Chris Wedding:
Well, if this were on YouTube and you shared your calendar, I'm sure folks would see the back-to-back nature and think, “Oh, well, no wonder folks like Naman need some flexibility in their schedule.” Let's go to two more topics here. One is, are there books, podcasts, tools, quotes that you think readers may find value in?
Naman Trivedi:
Yeah, I'll give one tool and maybe one book. As a tool, I'd say there's a lot of shiny stuff out there, cool software, tracking stuff, sales software, et cetera. I think one of the most powerful things you can use is Notes on your iPhone. It syncs to your Mac, it's on your phone. I'm assuming that you have an iPhone and Mac for the purpose of this tool.
I now run most of my notes for five years on that and not very well organized because I can search. My belief is you don't need significantly high level of organization around it and it goes to another weird philosophy I have, which I'm trying out. I don't know if I'll stick with it, which is, I don't think you need to-do lists. I think if it's important, you'll remember it and if you don't and it slips by, it probably wasn't critical or it's okay that it got delayed. It's a little bit towards trusting yourself and trusting in you knowing what is critical and what is not.
10:19
What I found a lot is, I used to build a lot to-do lists and I'd leave like nine of the 12 things undone, which defeats the purpose. Other people may take it very religiously to complete the to-do list and there's strategies around it, but especially as in entrepreneur, CEO world where you're being thrown maybe 15 decisions to make a day and a lot of different tasks, you naturally figure out what's actually critical to solve today and what is not. There's obviously overarching things that matter over time that need progress and need real work done behind them, but that's just a shout-out for the Notes app and I keep it simple.
Chris Wedding:
Got it, okay.
Naman Trivedi:
Then my second one would be a book, which is my favorite book of all time, which is Dune by Frank Herbert, has now been turned into a movie where part two is coming out. One of the original science fiction epics, a great study of politics and again, relationships. You can draw a lot of parallels to building companies and competing in the world and leadership and actually energy if anyone sees the connection between spice and oil. So, there's a lot of great lessons and it's a great read. I probably read it a handful of times, but renewed my excitement over it because of a couple of great movies that are being built on the back of it now.
Chris Wedding:
Well, you're picking on one of the two common themes for, I would say non-business books, one being sci-fi and the other probably biographies. I don't think biographies are purely business books, but a little surprising perhaps.
You’ve also raised some interesting scenario where your anti-productivity hacks and anti-to-do lists, and I think for a lot of people, if they were anti both those things, you may wonder what they're going to get done. They may get some things done. Anyway, I think it's one thing to be building a company with this kind of traction and corporate partners and investors and to be anti-productivity and anti-to-do. Often it is easy to be anti those two things without accomplishing or building what you're building. Anyway, fun juxtaposition. How about the final word here. What's a message, a call to action, Naman, for the listeners here?
12:58
Naman Trivedi:
I would say every path is non-traditional in entrepreneurship, and I think that's the point. You probably heard some things from me that sound weird, and I hope that's the case. If you're a listener and you're thinking about starting a company, it's worth it to take the plunge.
I had all sorts of concerns on, did I have the requisite experience? Did I know how to work enough with engineers? Did I know enough about climate and energy? I had never worked at a utility. I had never worked at a big energy company. The answer to all those questions is likely what you think. The answer is you probably haven't worked with enough engineers and you don't know enough about energy and I'm here to tell you, none of it matters.
It’s worth it to take the plunge because the entire part of it, you will learn along the way. To go back to them belief I hold strongly, you'll learn it through the relationships. Those relationships will compound and that's where you'll figure it out and you'll be more than surprised at how many people are willing to help you along the way if you take the plunge.
Chris Wedding:
Well said and I'll plus one that. I was listening to a podcast earlier today and they're talking about this one particular individual who was great at bringing people together. A great connector, giver versus just a getter, if you will. The comment was that person is a friend billionaire. I was like, “Well, that's an interesting concept.” We think about billionaires as just the dollar bills, but what if you were just so rich in relationships, right?
Second, we'll listen to Jacqueline van den Ende, CEO at Carbon Equity, a fintech platform that seeks to power the world's most impactful climate technology solutions with retail capital. In under two years, they've mobilized $120 million across 450 high net worth and mass affluent individuals to invest in professionally managed venture capital and private equity climate funds.
15:10
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Well, I think the thing I uniquely believe in is exactly that concept of money as a means. That's interesting because looking at the generation of my parents, people really grew up with money as a goal in itself and money was status and money was power. And as a result of that, a lot of people became disenchanted with money and a lot of, especially women, have totally disassociated with money. They don't care about investing. They're not interested by it, but when we start to recognize the power that money has, the ability to affect change, the ability to vote with your dollars, I think it really changes the way that we think about money. For me, that builds a much more emotional connection with capital.
I don't care about money. I really don't for myself have a dream to be super rich or live in a massive mansion, I simply don't care. But if I can affect the level of change whilst myself being comfortable, good enough for me, and if more people start to think like that, I think that could be a big shift. There could be a groundswell of momentum for that kind of thinking amongst millennial type of restoration who that’s a much broader felt needs to have purpose with your capital. So, that's something I perhaps uniquely believe in.
Chris Wedding:
Well, it's true that we were in the process, at least by US definitions of certain generations, this process of the biggest wealth transfer in history, of some, I forget the number, I think it's like $60 trillion, passing from baby boomers to their kids. You mentioned women's interest or lack therein in investing, but I believe that data shows that more women than men will inherit that, I'm digging deep in the past here, but $60 trillion of wealth being transferred. So, you're right.
Greater alignment with the kind of investing we're discussing on this phone call certainly bodes well for money as a means, money as a tool because when you were talking about the power of capital earlier on, the phrase, the golden rule came to mind. Not the golden rule from religion, but the golden rule that she with the gold rules.
17:47
Jacqueline van den Ende:
I love that.
Chris Wedding:
As this wealth transfer occurs and more folks who care about, yes, earning for their retirement, et cetera, but also doing well with that capital, the future can look a little more hopeful. Jacqueline, if you could chat with your younger self, what's some advice you would give her to be more effective, happier, et cetera, on this pursuit?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
I would like to have second guessed myself less. I very long time to become the entrepreneur that I always thought I wanted to be. So, I've been swerving around it. I've always had this drive and this dream to become an entrepreneur. I did many things in that direction as a student. I founded the largest non-profit student-run strategy consulting firm of the Netherlands, which is big, but it's a non-profit type company. For me, it didn't fully count as entrepreneurship.
Chris Wedding:
It counted once.
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yeah, and then I worked for Rocket Incident, which is one of the largest European venture builders and I founded their online real estate platform in Southeast Asia, but I wasn't taking the entrepreneurial risk there myself. Then I led a large fintech company and after all those years, after like 12 years of experience, I still was not sure that I could be an entrepreneur.
People in my environment actually also doubted me. A family member said, “Well, you shouldn't think that just because you're a CEO in the Philippines, you could be a CEO in the Netherlands.” A partner at a fund said, “I'm not sure that you could be an entrepreneur because I'm not so sure that you could basically get through the product market fit phase. I'm not sure if you have the patience.”
Now, when I look back on all the things that I've been building since a young age, I think, “Oh, yes, I can.” Why have I been second guessing myself? Maybe it's something that's very innately female that we doubt whether we can do things that obviously we can do no less well than anybody else would. So, I would have liked to trust my capabilities and my instinct a little bit more growing up so that I would have sooner acted on this dream of truly becoming an entrepreneur.
20:11
Chris Wedding:
Well, I love you sharing that. I don't like the feedback you got along the way. You mentioned the link between that feedback and you as a woman. I mean, maybe part of it too is the prevalence of women entrepreneurs, women CEOs, so seeing yourself in those other people probably didn't boost your confidence.
Jacqueline van den Ende:
No.
Chris Wedding:
It's funny that one person said you lack the patience to find product market fit. I mean, entrepreneurs are notoriously impatient.
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yes.
Chris Wedding:
I mean, if someone calls you impatient, it's like, “Oh, [crosstalk – 00:20:49] you,” right?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yes, that's totally true.
Chris Wedding:
I've joked once on the podcast before, but one of my early reviews in private equity with my managing director was like, “Yeah, you're a self-starter to a fault.” And I was like, “Wait, am I being criticized or complimented right now? I'm going to take the latter.”
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yeah, that's such a good point. Totally true, Chris.
Chris Wedding:
If you had to pick some books or podcasts, tools, quotes, that listeners would find value in on their own entrepreneurial journey, what comes to mind?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Quotes, this too shall pass. If I were to tattoo something on my body, which I don't have yet, but I like the quote this too shall pass because it reminds us of when things are good, enjoy them because this too shall pass and when things are bad, don't worry about it. You'll get through as long as you keep on walking, you'll make it out. So, for me, it's a good reminder that there are ups and downs and you will get to the other side, but also enjoy what is worth enjoying whilst it lasts.
22:02
Chris Wedding:
I think what I like is that you started by interpreting that in the direction no one thought. Like usually we hear this too shall pass it's like, “Oh, well, shit sucks right now. Oh, it's okay. This too shall pass,” but it's also the reverse. When things are awesome, like hang on Boy Scout, Girl Scout, this is also temporary, right?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yes, very much and in entrepreneurship, that's very important because some days are great. Some days everything is going perfect, or some months things are perfect, but I already know that hard times will for sure come around. I mean, you cannot build a business without having any setbacks. Like enjoying the moments and enjoying the self-confidence, that feeling of traction while it’s there, knowing it will disappear at some point and there will be challenges. So, yes, very much.
Chris Wedding:
All right. So, I stopped you from maybe going to a book perhaps?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yeah, for me, Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, extremely valuable book being a CEO. I think the core lesson there is about vulnerability and what I learned from Brene Brown is that you can truly connect with people by being more personally vulnerable.
Chris Wedding:
Well, I think when we revved up for the podcast, I asked you like I ask all my guests like, “What would make this a success?” And part of your answer was, “Let's have a real conversation,” right?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yeah.
Chris Wedding:
I was like, “Well, we can do that. Yes. Sign me up. That sounds great.” Tell us some habits or routines that keep you healthy, sane, and focused.
23:50
Jacqueline van den Ende:
For me, the past year, I've been waking up at 5:00 a.m., which is really helpful. So, initially it was a bit painful to wake up at 5:00 a.m., especially in the Dutch winter, which is really cold and dark, but it gives me focus time.
When I wake up at 5:00 a.m., I spend like 15 minutes doing some fitness, and then I work until 7:00 a.m. when I have coffee with my wife. So, it's like a one and a half hours of focus time every single day where I do the most important thing, the thing that's going to move the needle most.
I don't know if that's recognizable for other CEOs, but my days are just jam packed. I spend nine to 9:00 to 6:00 or 9:00 to 7:00 or 9:00 to 8:00 just full time in meetings and maybe if I have a 30-minute break in between, I'm lucky. There's no way you can get anything done and then when I'm done, I have a hundred thousand fifty emails per day. So, I'm just drowning and just trying to keep afloat. But this 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. makes sure that I have some time and actually can feel good about myself and what I achieve and every day move the needle by a little.
Chris Wedding:
Well, again, keeping it real, Jacqueline like, “Oh, CEO, hooray.” Also, it's a damn hard job. I think what you're describing fits in the bucket of deep work, right?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
That's deep work, totally.
Chris Wedding:
Longer periods of time, not 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there, an hour and a half or longer chunks of no distractions.
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Exactly.
Chris Wedding:
Well, hey, look, we're out of time. I'm sure you're back-to-back here. What's a final message or ask from listeners here, Jacqueline?
Jacqueline van den Ende:
Yeah, well, given that I have the opportunity to address your listeners. If you are interested in what we're building with Carbon Equity, we're always looking for talents, advisors, people to join us on our journey. So, I'd love to get in touch. Just touch base with me through LinkedIn.
25:56
Know that I am a horrible responder. My LinkedIn inbox is overflowing, but I will try to get to it and do feel free to follow up if you don't hear from me. Be persistent because I'm not intentionally ignoring you. But I'd love to hear from you and see if there are ways to collaborate down the line in building Carbon Equity as the global go-to impact venture capital and private equity fund investing platform.
Third, we're going to hear from John Tough, Managing Partner at Energize Ventures, a leading climate software investor that manages $1.2 billion across two strategies, venture capital and growth equity.
John Tough:
Biology and chemistry, investment banking. So, when you're at Duke and you want to go investment banking, it was really big, exciting moment. You get there and you're like, “Oh, this isn't that exciting.” Then you're in investment banking. You're like, “Okay, I want to go to private equity or venture capital, like let's do it.” And then you get in, you’re like, “Oh, this isn't that exciting.” I think that there's so many people who follow a very rigid rule set and I follow myself. The feedback I'd give to my younger self and my kids is, you really need to see what you care about and try to get involved in that as early as possible.
I considered joining firms that were focused on traditional venture capital, traditional growth equity and I just couldn't bring myself, I needed to work with something that mattered. And so, I wish I had been more comfortable saying that out loud at a younger age. I couldn't imagine a better job now, but the younger and still follow the path is, it's easier to say now, but it's hard when you're in the moment.
Chris Wedding:
Well, I like that a lot. Maybe saying it in other words, the things we want may not be the things we want. Some level of experimentation is great or maybe it's like, we shouldn't really want what other folks think we should want perhaps.
28:18
John Tough:
Yeah. It leaves the perfectional world too. I lived in the Bay Area for seven years. I lived in Chicago for four after undergrad, moved to the Bay Area for seven years because you had to be there. You have to be in the Bay Area if you want to do early stage investing and be in entrepreneurship. I had a family, had that hard decision, do I trade off my career for my family and move back to Chicago? What a silly idea.
You can work anywhere and COVID made that obvious, but I think some of these geographies love to make it obsessive about how important it is to live there and be in the network. I'm far more productive, our team's far more productive working in the way we work, remotely. And again, I couldn't have said that to my late 20-year-old self. I wouldn't have understood it, but now it's easy to say.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. Your pre-Bay Area self.
John Tough:
Yes.
Chris Wedding:
Or one could actually work in the space from a little cabin in the woods in Chapel Hill, perhaps.
John Tough:
I'm envious of your background now. Downtown Chicago is far inferior to that.
Chris Wedding:
Well, when I get the pleasure of advising some of my Duke students on job choices, career choices, I say, “Well, what are you solving for?” “I wish I would have taken this job.” “But what are you solving for?” And those variables besides just money and options and all the rest. They know that, but it's just spelling it out perhaps.
John Tough:
Yeah. Hard to break through.
Chris Wedding:
It is. Tell us some habits or routines that keep you healthy, sane, and focused in what is a rewarding but demanding job.
John Tough:
We have five ethos here at Energize. One of them is family first. I lean into that probably more than anybody. I have two boys and a girl, seven, four, and one. I might get my energy by being with them. It's exhausting. It's like a second job away from the main job, but 5:30 every day I'm on the train back home if I'm working in the city, seeing them every night, if I'm not, and it's a big part of where I get my energy.
30:29
Now, do I go crazy some days? You bet and so I'm running or using the rowing machine three or four times a week, but back to maybe the previous generations too, it used to be, you had to trade it out to your family for your career. I fundamentally believe that if that's where you're working, you're making a poor choice, you can't have both. I get a lot of energy from family. I mentioned I have a twin brother, we stay close. I have two sisters and I try to keep all of that pretty close.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I totally agree. Sometimes when we get those emails from a co-worker, a partner or whatever else, and there's some reason they can't attend or can't join or whatever event, and it's because of family. My first two words are often family first, dot, dot, dot, doesn't matter what’s the next, family first.
John Tough:
Yeah. The people who I want to like me more than anything are my kids, so if I have to make sacrifices, it's a pretty easy equation.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. Well, you miss in the ages. On video, you can see mine when they were about those ages in the background here. Now they're 11, 15, 17. I'm pretty sure the oldest one still loves me. I'm pretty sure, but I take confidence in that Mark Twain quote that said, when I was 17 or something, I thought my dad didn't know anything and by age 22, I was amazed how much my dad had learned. I'm pretty sure it was Mark Twain who changed, but anyway.
John Tough:
I'm obviously not there yet, but somebody described the early teenage years as going to the dark side of the moon, so I have something to look forward to there. I'll enjoy it for now, but yeah, it's an important part.
32:08
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. I think on the prioritization, actually, I think from the book Essentialism, there's a story about Clayton Christensen, the famous, I guess, innovators dilemma.
John Tough:
Yeah. From Harvard.
Chris Wedding:
Early days in his consulting career, his boss is like, “All right, we've got to work extra, we need you to come in on Saturday.” This is some young analyst associate being like, “Ooh, yeah, I really have Saturdays for my family.” The managing director is all pissed off and comes back, he’s like, “All right, fine. We'll accommodate that, but you got to come in on Sunday.” He's like, “Yeah, about that, Sunday is for God. Sorry.” He didn't get fired and I thought, man, the Galatian, let's say.
John Tough:
I think it's about consistency really. So, like we tell our team that and I tell my team on like Thursdays at 4:30, I'm leaving early because I'm Coach Tough for one of the soccer teams. If you lay it out there and you're consistent about it, people respect it. It's when you're being inconsistent about what you deem a priority is when you lose your team, whether you're an entrepreneur or an investor, people admire consistency.
Chris Wedding:
Well, when my wife complains about how much I love my routines, I'm going to remind her of that quote. It's like, “Mr. Tough said.”
John Tough:
Routine.
Chris Wedding:
How about some books, podcasts, tools, quotes, John, give us some that you think listeners would find value in.
John Tough:
Beyond this great show, of course. I'm a real sucker for autobiographies, usually in the finance or of course sports arena. I started when I was doing road trips from Chicago to SF when we were moving in the first time. The first one I read or I listened to was Andre Agassi’s, Open and that just showed me how the public persona of an individual is so different than what you see behind the scenes. If you haven't read that, it's jarring, frankly. And so, I just play read a couple hundred of biographies in some capacity.
34:08
Well, one of them that is relatively recent I learned more from than I expected, it was Bob Iger's, A Ride of a Lifetime. It was his journey through Disney. What I liked about it most was he actually had really good management advice throughout the book as well, which is rare. Then I'd say I always played John Malone, he's got this book called Cable Cowboy. He was the first individual to roll up a lot of the communications networks in America.
Anyway, you're focused on innovating industries like climate tech, you forget that eventually it will be a more dated sector and it will have to have profits and use economics and all of that. It's interesting to watch how those industries evolve because there tends to be repetition amongst business models, whether you want to admit it or not. And so, seeing how other successful individuals have built businesses is helpful.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. No need to reinvent the wheel.
John Tough:
No.
Chris Wedding:
Even though the industry name may sound different.
John Tough:
By the way, I noticed from recent podcast, you never answer that question. So, anything new that you're reading?
Chris Wedding:
Oh my gosh. What a great question.
John Tough:
I see a ton of books behind you. Maybe it's just one you're picking up again.
Chris Wedding:
It's true. Well, I mean, honestly, I've been reading more books on executive coaching so I can be better at helping these three dozen climate CEOs I have the amazing pleasure to work with. Let's see. I was rereading my underlined notes from the data gene recently. What's over here? Oh, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, which was this type A person's approach to experimenting with what leads to happiness.
John Tough:
Oh, interesting.
35:47
Chris Wedding:
So that's a really good one. I've been sharing this book called Remote, which was written pre-COVID by the founders of 37signals, I think, aka Basecamp. How to lead great teams, whether or not together, I think you might've seen that one. I'll tell you what, the one I really want to get through, but I haven't focused enough is, Influence which is kind of a classic. Robert is his first name and maybe—
John Tough:
Cialdini.
Chris Wedding:
Thank you. Yeah.
John Tough:
I mean, some of those classics they're a classic for a reason. They keep coming back. You forget that it's the simple things that end up driving engagement and influence.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. Listeners may have heard this, but I try to take a spring and fall solar retreat at a tiny home in the mountains of North Carolina and I just read and hike and meditate and maybe visit a brewery or two, but all alone. I brought Influence with me and I was like, “This is the wrong damn book for a mountain retreat.” Anyway.
John Tough:
You played yourself.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah.
John Tough:
That's a more social book I'd say.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, that's right. Well, John, so we're at the end here. Is there a final message, a call to action, a question you wanted to answer we didn't get to? What's a final cut of word or two here?
John Tough:
I think what I'm most excited about is the community that is officially established around climate tech. This podcast, for example, it's a really hard space. There's regulatory issues, there's competitive issues, there's geopolitics, there's consumer interests. Everything in climate, you couldn't define probably a harder area to work in right now and yet it's probably the most rewarding.
37:38
Then last time there was this up and down, most of the ecosystem hadn't been fully formed and so, it mostly disintegrated. What I feel right now is that the staying power of this climate community is here. It's like it's here and it's going to endure. And so, just the more that everybody here engages, it helps and gives advice and joins important networks the better because it's not a journey to do alone. Whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're an investor, whether you're a buyer of the product at a corporation, reach out and get involved. And so, I'm pretty excited to just see the tentacles all coming together.
Chris Wedding:
Well, clearly, you're speaking from my book. I mean, that is the reason I created this climate CEO peer group community is it’s a super hard job. I mean, really rewarding, but you don't need to like figure it all out on your own. How about learning from a few dozen great humans doing the same thing?
John Tough:
Yeah, exactly. If you're using AI, it doesn't matter. It's the we, and your we can be a bigger group than you probably initially expected.
Chris Wedding:
Which really ties back a little bit to one of your cringe factors around who you look for is like, if you say I a lot, probably you'd be saying we a lot more for your company or for your sector.
John Tough:
If I hear somebody say I a lot, I'll send them to you, Chris. Like, “Go to Chris and come back to us in six months and then we'll hear your pitch again.”
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, there you go.
Fourth, Sarah Richardson, Co-founder and CEO of MicroByre, joins the podcast and talks about more advice she'd give her younger self. MicroByre makes pets out of bacteria, quote unquote. They domesticate naturally occurring bacteria and introduce them to industry. They enable customers to efficiently produce bio-derived chemistries at or below current petrochemical economics . Newly cooperative bacteria can replace ancient biomass aka petrochemicals with renewable biomass for example lawn clippings efficiently and economically.
39:50
Sarah Richardson:
I spent a while just accepting authority. I mean, you should hold your parent’s hand while you cross the street. There are some things you don't have to live in the hard way, but as I trained, as I started getting interested in specialty, I just took a lot of what people said for granted if they were in an authority position, if they were more senior to me.
That's not always the best way to figure out what's going on or to put yourself in a position to innovate. You have to be annoying and ask why. You don't have to ask them, but if you do ask them and it gets to the bedrock for them of that's how we've always done it, that means there might be something to look at there. They can't remember why, this happens a lot too. Like, “Why do we do it this way?” And they're like, “Don't know.” There's something that might've been overlooked there. So, I would try and encourage my younger self to question authority more, not necessarily to confront it, but to understand from whence their authority is meant to spring.
Chris Wedding:
Well, luckily our two teenage boys do not listen to my podcast, so they won't hear that, but I do try to give them rationale for why we have certain expectations.
Sarah Richardson:
That really helps. It really, really helps. I think that's one of the parenting things is as much as you can, don't just say, “Because I said so,” that is not convincing, it's not helpful and it will spark, but we need to know why. Giving them the reason, even if they end up disagreeing with you, at least helps them see you as logical and reasonable and that's not just kids, it’s going to be everyone you need to convince to come on your side.
Chris Wedding:
Yep. For sure. How about on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, tell us some habits or routines that keep you healthy, sane and focused.
Sarah Richardson:
Well, I'm bad at that. I'm really bad at that, but I do love optimizing my computer usage. I am death on bad UI. I don't use a single built in Apple app. I don't, they're not optimal. My husband laughs at me because I'll go through four email clients that are not Gmail or Apple Mail to find the right one because the stuff will work, but it'll be feature poor, which for most people it's enough, but if you're really trying to squeeze out the effectiveness of your time, you need a different address book app. You need a different email app. You need a different task and reminders app.
42:19
One really great one I just discovered and I wish I'd had it four years ago is Agenda. Agenda lets you take notes directly tied to your calendar. So, you're in a meeting and you can tie it to that meeting, take all your notes and it works with Markdown. Then maybe you don't remember what you wrote, but you remember when you wrote it or you want to go review things, it's literally linked to the calendar. I love it. I love it.
Another one I'm always trying to ramp up my use for is OmniFocus and I use that for both professional and personal stuff. It's the best for writing down like your passport needs to be renewed in four years, put that in OmniFocus. Yeah, defer it.
OmniFocus has so many nice features for making sure you're only looking at the stuff that's important right now. You don't have to carry that haze of all this, oh, don't forget you have to -- Put it in OmniFocus the first instant you think about it. Both of these might be Macintosh only things, so I’m really sorry if anyone wants this and they use Windows. My advice is one, switch to Mac, but no, seriously, go to a website called alternative2.net and put in the software and then filter it by Windows to see things that have common features, which is how I get out of the Apple ecosystem for apps.
Chris Wedding:
Okay. That was just the right amount of geekiness that I was hoping for. Sarah, thank you. You delivered.
Sarah Richardson:
Apple's never going to sponsor me.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. How about books or, you gave us some tools there, books or podcasts, quotes, et cetera, that you think listeners should pick on?
Sarah Richardson:
I am the biggest fan of, Well There’s Your Problem. Have you heard of that one?
44:05
Chris Wedding:
No.
Sarah Richardson:
It's a crew of pretty irreverent people. One leading this session is an engineer and they just go through disasters of engineering throughout history. Like here's why that bridge fell down with a lot of education, a lot of digressions. It's a podcast with slides. So, you can listen to it, but it's better if you can follow the slides along on YouTube and they're just one, really knowledgeable, two, pretty hilarious, but I learn a lot about history because of the amount of scrum text they put into the disasters. So, it's not going to be for everyone. They are irreverent.
Chris Wedding:
Good. You’ve already said it, yeah.
Sarah Richardson:
Okay. I love them. I love them. Then there is something to read that I'm constantly pushing on people. I don't know how many of them actually do. It’s Epigrams and Programming. It's very short. It's something like 120 little epigrams. They were all written by Alan Perlis, P-E-R-L, like the language, I-S. He was the first computer scientist to win a Turing prize, I believe and he has this set of 120 epigrams that are gold. Even if you don't program, you can skip over some of them, but some of them are going to apply to life. They just are.
One of my favorites that I'm constantly quoting at my staff is never have a good idea you're not willing to be responsible for.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. Right?
Sarah Richardson: If you don't want to be the one to do it, don't say it. There are just so many good ones and if you are a programmer into computer science, they have an extra deep level and the ones where he specifically -- One of my favorites is you can tell a lot about a programmer by their attitude towards the continued vitality of Fortran.
He wrote these epigrams in like 1982. It's still true today. They're just really brilliant. So, I would go through them if you're not in computer science anyway, and skip the ones that make your eyes roll past and go for the ones like an adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms, just sit on that one. I love this. I love them. You can just Google Alan Perlis epigrams and they'll pop right up.
46:26
Chris Wedding:
It sounds like the kind of thing that a Buddhist engineer would like.
Sarah Richardson:
Yeah. I have read them. My husband has a PhD in computer science and he tends to be oppositional about some things. He just wants to have that discussion. So, he came in ready to argue with some of them and it's so funny to watch him go, “I, I, okay.”
Chris Wedding:
Actually, it's pretty good. Yeah. I surrender.
Sarah Richardson:
Yep.
Chris Wedding:
Well, Sarah, I feel like we should just cancel the rest of our meetings and just keep chatting. However, there are companies to run and CEOs to help. Hey, listen, we're rooting for you-all’s success at MicroByre. Science is bleeping amazing and glad you all are—
Sarah Richardson:
So is engineering.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, there we go.
Sarah Richardson:
You got to give props to the engineers out here. The highest compliment you can pay an engineer is taking what they did for granted, like we did with domestication. Everyone who domesticated plants and animals, they didn't get to be called a bioengineer, but that's what they were. So yeah, science is fricking cool. Engineering, really bringing it to the people.
Chris Wedding:
I love it.
Finally, we'll talk to Bryan Hassin, CEO of DexMat, a next-gen climate tech materials company that transforms carbon from an expensive environmental problem into high-value, high-performance materials. And, luckily for the climate, he brings hundreds of millions of dollars in prior startup exits to this important problem.
48:04
Bryan Hassin:
This is a topic that I think becomes more salient to me every day and every news article that I read or tweet that I read, et cetera, if we fail to build the sustainable, prosperous, equitable future, and obviously I'm an incredible optimist, I believe we'll succeed. But if we fail, I think it will be due to a failure of imagination and courage, I would say.
I grew up in the space industry, so I grew up around amazing inventions that taught me that anything is possible. It's not a coincidence that I chose to attend Rice University where I had the opportunity to play football on the very field, in the very stadium, where JFK gave his famous moon speech. We choose to go to the moon, not because it's easy, but because it's hard and that to me is really important, but I view that language as very important. So, you've got to have the imagination to imagine something that seems impossible, but then you've got to make the choice to actually go out and do it.
In this field of climate, in climate tech, in climate policy, there are so many really smart people. In some cases, I think maybe a little too smart for their own good. They're so eager to tell you based on their depth of knowledge why something won't work. What we really need for a problem of this magnitude of urgency is people thinking about how something could work. This happened a lot at –
So, at Third Derivative, we were born and incubated through RMI. And so, RMI is full of really smart people and they would publish a report saying, this can work and this can't work and we, at Third Derivative would be with our boots on the ground looking at entrepreneurs and directors, “Actually, it looks like this can work.” Then it was good partnership because then we could have a bidirectional flow of information.
To bring it to business, I mean, that's what we're doing at DexMat. We're not asking how can we make steel a little bit greener. We're going back to first principles and imagining a future unconstrained by these dirty centuries’ old materials and we're making the choice to do this massive scale up and cost down. And so, it doesn't have to be climate, it doesn't have to be business, but I think the best of humanity comes at the intersection of imagination and courage.
50:20
I think there's a deeply held belief of mine, something I try to impart to the people around me, whether my family or my teens, it's certainly something I've tried to live by, some with varying degrees of success.
Chris Wedding:
I'm imagining those responses from folks that are very smart, they're experts, but they're finding ways to say, “No.” It's like, “Well, it won't work because of,” right? Versus, I think a reframing is, “Well, what if?”
Bryan Hassin:
What would need to be true in order for this to work?
Chris Wedding:
Exactly. Even better.
Bryan Hassin:
You have those conversations and you ask those types of questions or those types of reframes, and you get some very smart people thinking a little bit more laterally and thinking a little bit outside of the constraints of the status quo that they're used to and they come up with some really amazing things.
Chris Wedding:
It's true. How about if you're hanging out with your younger self, Bryan, give us some advice you’d pass to him to be, pick your adjective, happier, more effective on this journey?
Bryan Hassin:
Well, first I’d tell him to enjoy the period of his life where he really had a lush head of hair. I say that as I'm sitting across from you, the long-haired monk and me with my shaved head. I've always been a sprinter. I was a sprinter on the football field, I was a sprinter in career. I always want to be out there ahead of everyone else doing something first.
I started my first kind of serious software venture while I was still in university, took over my first CEO role at 24, but just as a consequence, I made a lot of mistakes. I mean, I did a lot of bumping around like a pinball, learning a lot through the school of hard knocks. I'm not sure that was all necessary. I may have been better served by spending some time working for someone else or someone’s else, who really knew what they're doing and really having the humility to learn from others rather than just going out there and doing it all myself.
52:16
Maybe a corollary as well is, not just having the humility to work for others, learn from others, but to ask for help as well. We were talking about this before you hit record, but there's so much in this entrepreneurial space of chest thumping, and you ask someone how it's going, and, “It's going well, we're crushing it,” et cetera. You know the entrepreneurial journey is challenging and can be lonely, et cetera.
Chris, I'm sure you know from the cohorts that you run, that the best learning and the best conversations really happen when founders open up and are vulnerable with each other. Sometimes they're content learnings, and sometimes they're just psychological, just feels great not to be alone, but there's someone else who's experiencing the same thing. So, I wish I'd learned that a little bit earlier in my life and felt less of an obligation to be wearing a persona that was always successful.
Chris Wedding:
You should have been that vulnerable football player, right?
Bryan Hassin:
That's right.
Chris Wedding:
Hey, let's talk about habits and routines. Look, we're recording this in January, it is the season to be rethinking these things. Whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, describe some habits that keep you healthy, sane and focused.
Bryan Hassin:
Sure. Let me describe maybe a couple that are tried and true and a couple that I'm experimenting with because as you say, it's January and the time for new experiments. I learned a while ago that I'm a moving meditator. I don't have a lot of success when I try to sit still and meditate, but I can do some of my best thinking, have my best epiphanies when I'm doing yoga or when I'm running or I'm out on the trail, what have you. And so, I found myself recently falling into a pattern of always listening to content while I was doing those things.
53:59
Like I was trying to catch up on all my podcasts or what have you and as a consequence, I was cheating myself out of this great thinking time, this great meditation time. So, now I'm having a lot more success in having the discipline, A, I can do those activities earlier in the day so they can help get me in the right frame of mind for the rest of the day, and B, not distracting myself with content, but really freeing up my mind for epiphanies.
The second, I've got, I think we all learned this during COVID and remote work. If you want something to happen, you've really got to protect it, put it on a calendar. I've had a lot of success putting it publicly on my calendar. Like this is the time that I'm going to exercise. This is the time that I'm going for a run. So, not only does it protect my time for that and my priority for that, but it also communicates that to my entire team.
It's one thing if you say, “Hey, at this organization, we value work-life balance,” whatever, but it's another thing if the CEO has got it on their calendar. It provides implicit permission for one else to do it. By the way, it doesn't have to be exercise. I put a nap on the calendar as well and be very glad for it.
A couple of experiments that I'm running right now, I just started using software. Actually, you may know Aaron Houghton, he was an entrepreneur out of UNC Chapel Hill, had a couple of big successes, but found himself still struggling with anxiety. So doing a lot of mental health work for himself as a founder and then saying, “Hey, well, maybe other founders could use this as well.”
So, he’s got an app called Founders First that's a habit development and mental health app for founders or employees of early-stage companies. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. So, jury's still out, early-stage experiment, but Founders First so far seems to be pretty cool.
Second, this is an idea I had while we were driving over the holidays to visit family. I was listening to greatest hits, songs that are really low, including a bunch of songs that give me chills or bring me to tears. I just get so energized when that happens. So, I'm trying to start the day, every day with a song that gives me chills and/or brings me to tears and just set my mind state right as I try to go out and do something really inspirational, try to start off really, really inspired. So far, that's a lot of fun. We'll see how that goes with the experiment as well.
56:14
Chris Wedding:
Moving meditation, I like that. I was just saying on a podcast recently, there is science saying we do think better when moving. Now, some would argue, well, are we supposed to be thinking while meditating? I mean, kind of, potato, potatoes, right? You're comment about always squeezing in content, I can totally relate where it’s like, all right, I'm going to the restroom. Well, I got to put a podcast in to go to the restroom. Dude, it’s like three minutes.
Bryan Hassin:
It really resonates with me. It really resonates.
Chris Wedding:
But by analogy, if your paper's already full of notes of color, how are you going to write new stuff there? You need the blank space to have those. Oh boy, we can go on and on here. Let's go to the next one only because of time. Let's talk about recommendations, Bryan, so books, podcasts, tools, quotes, what are two or three, you think folks who are listening might benefit from?
Bryan Hassin:
So first, let me give you a spicy take. Almost everyone on every podcast that's climate related ask for a book recommendation, will recommend Ministry for the Future. I explicitly-
Chris Wedding:
What do you mean?
Bryan Hassin:
…de-recommend it. I don't recommend Ministry for the Future. I think it's got a great, very evocative opening chapter and then I find it to be frankly kind of boring after that. It has some interesting technological ideas, but then it says, I won't spoil it, but, “There's this one great thing that we did and that saved everyone.” I don't think that's really the way things are going to work out, but it does paint some interesting pictures of solutions that could be out there.
57:56
I think for a more compelling thing that gets you to the same place, I really like the Expanse series. It's a hard sci-fi series set in space. Space, the first frontier, maybe not the first, maybe underwater was, but the great frontier where sustainability is really important. And reading the Expanse series, that's where I first learned about cell culture meat, for example, and a number of other technologies that actually now are starting to play a really prominent role in the pathways for climate tech.
From a leadership standpoint, I spend a lot of my time thinking about how is my leadership going to be a force multiplier that helps us achieve goals. I'm a big fan of the work of George Kohlrieser, his original book Hostage at the Table, because he was a former police hostage negotiator, applying some of those principles to psychology and leadership. Then he’s more recent book called Care to Dare, it's all about secure base leadership and how as children, we're programmed to take risks, to risk pain.
Like learning to walk, we might fall down because we know that we've got a parent or a caregiver who's there to pick us back up, we've got a secure base nearby. It becomes so ingrained in us that even as adults, if we want people to take risks, we need to make sure that they've got a secure base on which to take those risks and take those big ambitious links. So, it's important for you as a leader to create that environment for your people. It's also important for you to create that environment for yourself if you want to be a big, bold, ambitious leader as well. So, love that work.
Podcasts going slightly off climate topic, big shout-out to Azeem Azhar’s, Exponential View podcast. Our work at Third Derivative was trying to think, how do we exponentialize the work that Third Derivative is doing? How do we exponentialize the work that many of these promising technologies could have? Obviously, that's a lot of the work that we're doing now at DexMat as well. And so, Azeem does a great job of staying on top of the technologies and the trends that are happening, really help you see around the corners of what's coming next. But if I could leave one thing that I think is really important for ambitious climate change makers too, it’s going to get out of the climate sphere and get out of the self-help books and the business books, et cetera. It's really just to keep yourself inspired by reading really awesome fiction.
01:00:18
I talked about imagination and courage. For me, I need to go back frequently to books that inspire my sense of imagination and courage. I go back frequently to The Hobbit; The Alchemist I love. I'll go to Calvin and the Hobbes. Just an incredible childlike sense of adventure and magic. And if you're like me and have small kids, there's a lot of opportunity to do double work here because a number of the animated films out there have these things. Moana is one that I love.
Now, every time, it's also one of the songs that I listen to get me chills, like the How Far I Go song. She's imagining a future out beyond her island and she has the courage to go, take the bold risk to go out beyond the barrier reef, et cetera. By the way, it's all in the name of sustainability, I find it so resonant.
Chris Wedding:
If only there were a video to accompany the hand motion, along with your enthusiasm, Bryan.
Bryan Hassin:
My Italian heritage will come out [crosstalk – 01:01:15].
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, that's right. You mentioned that, “Yeah, well, you asked for two or three. I'm going to break the rules. I'm an entrepreneur.” Rings very true at our last climate CEO retreat as I tried to gather the talking CEOs back to the agenda, back to sit down. They didn't listen too well and one of them was like, “Yo, Chris, the reason we don't listen is because it's a bunch of entrepreneurs, we make our own rules, baby.” I was like, “I know, but I'm trying to help.” Anyway, well said.
Hey, let's wrap up here. Final words, Bryan, this could be a call to action, who do you want to hear from, that kind of thing. What you got?
Bryan Hassin:
And so, by the time this episode airs, we should be public with the announcement that we just closed around a funding. We'll be hiring like crazy. My approach to building a team is generally less focused on the specific roles that we think we need today because by the way, those will change tomorrow, and more focused on just building an incredibly talented team. So, we have a strong bias for humility, curiosity, diversity of perspectives and experiences and networks and certainly mission alignment and objectives. So, we'd love to hear from people who are inspired by our mission and want to be part of it.
01:02:31
We're also already hearing from funds about a potential next round of funding. So, if there are investment funds that would like to completely disrupt some incredibly dirty industries and have the imagination and courage to support such a transformational startup, we'd love to hear from you. Maybe also in the interest of not just putting out requests, but achieving some kind of karmic equilibrium by putting something out there as well, let me share a piece of advice that one of my sales mentors gave me a long time ago. I've been finding it very useful recently as we've been closing around a funding and has been negotiating deals, et cetera.
It says, in any negotiation, when you get a yes, when you get to the outcome that you're looking for, shut the fuck up and get out of there. Because if you keep talking, the only thing you can do is move away from yes. You can't make it more yes. The only thing you do is put the yes at risk. In a podcast when I've been talking a lot, you talk a lot about having two ears and one mouth, practicing the art of silence. In this specific case, it might be an appropriate way to end it.
Chris Wedding:
Well, I think the reason I have podcast guests is so that they talk a lot and I talk a little. So, mission accomplished and also good advice and a hilarious phrasing as well.
Thanks for listening and if you want more intel on climate tech, better habits and deep work, then join the thousands of others who have subscribed to our Substack newsletter at entrepreneursforimpact.com, or drop me a note on LinkedIn. All right, that's all y'all. Take care.
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