2023: CleanTechies Lessons, Top Episodes, & Future
Hey there 👋 — Happy New Year! — Welcome back to CleanTechies.
Today, we are doing something a bit different. It may be 2024 but we’re going to spend a littleee more time on 2023. A lot of folks have been recapping — we figured we’d do the same.
Here’s what to expect today
Our 5 favorite episodes from 2023
What we learned from running CleanTechies in 2023
What we are looking forward to in 2024
Let’s get into it. Wait, no everyone says that… 🤔 Ah, nevermind, forget the transition
Our 5 favorite episodes from 2023
Picking our favorite episodes from this year is kind of like asking someone to pick their favorite child; there is definitely an answer, but it’s usually a bad idea to say it out loud 🤣
However, after quite a lot of delibaration, here are our top 5. To pick them, we thought about each interview not only in terms of the content but how we felt about it afterwards — including our remarks on the guests themselves which we normally don’t get to share. 🚀
These are not ranked in any particular order.
Shaun Abrahamson | Third Sphere
Ep. 136 (Hardware as an AI Moat, Design for Finance with the Climate Capital Stack, & More)
The interview with Shaun was one of the first longer format episodes we did, so we had quite a lot of time to pick his brain.
What stood out was the sheer amount of knowledge Shaun had from his experiences investing. His openness to collaborate and help others out really gave us a taste of what we imagine the people of silicon valley tech-boom would have been like back in the late 90s — so motivated to create the future rather than waiting for it.
Shaun is someone who you can tell is really thinking about the world of climate in a unique way. He is also very motivated to help. People who are that genuine have a massive positive effect on the world around them regardless of what they work on.
Biggest Takeaway: Be patient in your career because true wisdom and insight comes from persistence and compounding…trust the process.
John Fazzolari | Revivn
Ep. 137 (The Rigatoni List, Bootstrapping, The Recommerce OG, Scaling a Logistics Heavy Business, & More)
Speaking with John was super enjoyable, inspiring, and insightful. Revivn, is a fascinating example of a bootstrapped startup that was in climate before climate was a thing. Their survival and now growth is due to pure grit and determination.
A fun thing that John shared was his Rigatoni List (so interesting it made it in the title). The “List” is list of the people who you think are great people that you want to stay in touch with. Keep up with them and check in from time to time. Keep it dynamic.
Biggest Takeaway: Develop new relationships always and be sure to maintain connection with the best people in your life.
Susan Su | Toba Capital
Ep. 93 (Hard Truths About VC, Raising Advice, & Small Fund Limitations)
Susan was the first person Silas met in VC who made him feel seen in regards to being an ‘outsider’ of silicon valley. Growing up in rural Wisconsin, it’s often easy to feel left-out. Susan truly understood the need to find ways to open the doors to silicon valley throughout other geographies.
She was an incredible and memorable guest with incredible sense of practicality, willingness to help, and great advice. When Silas got to meet Susan during Climate Week, it was no different. That’s even more profound.
Biggest Takeaway: Approach whatever you do with a open-mind to help others who are truly interested — not everyone had the same access as you and it never hurt to help anyone.
Matt McGraw | Anthropocene (Anthro) Ventures
Ep. 121 (Size Matters...Fund Size, Re-industrializing the World, Hardware is NOT Hard, & More)
Matt was perhaps the most entertaining guest of the year but also packed full of wisdom. It is clear he is doing what he does because he feels he has a responsibility. He’s had plenty of success and didn’t want to be a VC but saw that he was well positioned to make an impact given his success in Silicon Valley. We bonded over him being from a small town as well.
The perspective he uses when investing, especially conscious of overhyped areas. He also knew how to strike the balance between having rules for what you will look at and knowing when to be flexible.
Biggest Takeaway: Building hardware does NOT always take substantially longer than software, nor does it take more money. The growth and dollars are just distributed differently in the lifespan of the company.
Rick Zullo | Equal Ventures
Ep. 116 (Understanding Customers (as a VC), Developing Industry Networks for Your PortCos, & More)
Equal Ventures approach to investing in climate was something totally new for us on the pod. In principle, they start with a thesis in their target industry, then find a company that helps make it happen. In some cases, they will find an existing company that has an existing advantage and will convince them to pivot.
The main reason this episode is here is because of how Rick brings people together and learns by putting himself in the middle of the action. He brings the action to him. Centering the action around you in a way that helps others first is something that anyone can apply to their endeavors. This was especially apparent at their Climate Capital Summit. It was the BEST event all of climate week.
On top of all this, you can tell he’s a genuine person who cares deeply about the people around him.
Biggest Takeaway: Approach what you do from first principles, build a community to learn from the best, help others, and develop a unique perspective.
The 5 things we learned from running CleanTechies in 2023
#1 Silas: Going together is better than going alone
Since Feb of 2021, I had been running CleanTechies alone. The only help I had was the video editor I’d hired and towards the end of 2022. It was always something I kept up because I know how to persist. Around February 2023, I was recording 2-4 times a week, pushing out episodes as fast as I could, and just kind of keeping things on autopilot.
Then, at some point in the spring, I ended up bumping into Somil. He reached out to chat because he had been listening to the show, and he also had been producing a newsletter called SIP on the intersection of climate and product management. We chatted about climate, Africa, and content. After that meeting, it popped into my head that maybe I should see if he’s interested to joining me because he seemed to get it and to have the hustle spirit.
Eventually I figured, I’ve been on autopilot and to get to the next level, I couldn’t do it alone.
This was the best decision I made regarding CleanTechies since deciding to start it in the first place. Outside of the things great about Somil, there’s practical benefits to not going-it-alone. Here’s why:
Having someone else involved in your initiative helps keep you on track. When you’re not the only person with skin in the game, you know you need to keep it up so you don’t let them down.
Shared need to pursue excellence is realized. Excellence looks different from person-to-person. Building this something with Somil brought the impurities to the surface and gave us a way to improve this show.
Another point of view challenges you. There have been many instances where Somil had a different view on an initiative. That helped me flex my thinking about things many times and I believe has helped us create even better content than what either of us could do solo.
In summary, find someone to partner with when you want to build something great —it will have a lasting impact.
#2 Somil: Manufacture your luck
This has been a major year of growth for me — looking back, January 2023 me wouldn’t recognize the kinds of things I’m up to today (in the best way). Part of this growth has been the fantastic opportunities I’ve had to work on climate in meaningful ways — investing in the built environment at Elemental Excelerator, leading product at SparkCharge, networking at many, many, many climate events, and recording episodes on this show. It has been a dream.
It’s not always clear what the opportunities are or what they will look like. Don’t focus on that. Running this podcast has taught me a lot about operating with ambiguity, and some of our best moments were never planned. They happened, however, because we were active in doing good work and letting people know we were curious and willing to work hard.
Sometimes, I think we got lucky, but it happens often because it’s manufactured. Keep talking to people, let people know what you are about, and how you can help. One of those conversations could land you as a cohost on a show one day 🥳.
#3 Silas: Quality > quantity
Both personally and professionally, I learned this. It came down to realizing what matters is not putting out the MOST content but rather the BEST content.
We have put out 67 episodes this year. Looking back, not all of them were great. Yes, they all had some nuggets in them, but not all of them were kick ass. If I were to go back, I’d put out the best only, and then chop down the okay ones to a LinkedIn post or a short recap audio post to focus on the key nuggets.
In summary, with podcasting, focus on making the BEST content, not the MOST content & ensure you really screen each guest before putting them behind a mic.
#4 Somil: Celebrate your wins, no matter how small
Climate is new — it’s harder to tell what a win looks like than in other industries. There is no “climate-career,” and most of us are doing things that have never been done before (which is the whole point of the entrepreneurial game).
In this lack of structure, we need to create our own. For this reason, goal setting is incredibly important. Define what success will look like and celebrate it when it happens. Running this podcast can sometimes feel like a blur and maintaining a sense of progress can be hard. Defining what “good” looks like has really helped avoid burnout and stay consistent.
#5 Silas: We have ALL of the financing tools needed to save the planet
While more money in climate will never be a bad thing, I believe we have the types of capital and amount of capital needed to save the planet.
What’s still needed is a broader distribution of the knowledge on how to navigate the capital stack and landscape of funds. Founders need to have better guidance on moving through the capital options with the end objective being PE or Infrastructure dollars. In otherwords, increasing the quality of returns to the point where capital is much less expensive than VC.
The reason I know this is a combination of all the episodes this year but in particular a few helped me truly comprehend this.
Ethan Goldsmith at Keyfram Capital (Ep. 91) Speaking with him really opened my mind to realize that not all Climate Startups should be built and funded in the same way.
Erik Terjesen at Silicon Foundry. (Ep. 78) After speaking with Ethan, I recalled my conversation with Erik earlier in the year. Those two together helped me realize the importance of the role that CVCs play. We’ve had four CVCs on the show which all reinforced that idea.
Shaun Abrahamson at Third Sphere. (Ep. 136) The episode we did with Shaun came about because I had the chance to attend their event during climate week on designing climate hardware for financing. This event + that conversation really topped off the understanding that we have what we need — we just need to navigate it better.
In summary, we have the funding and the types of financing; we just need to navigate the options better.
What we are looking forward to in 2024
The evolution of storytelling in climate. Throughout 2023, many people pointed out the need for good storytelling in order to achieve our decarbonization goals. 2024 will be a good year for that. Podcasts are great for that 😉.
Episode 200. CleanTechies started 3 years ago. Sometime this year, we will put out episode 200. We’re excited for that milestone and to take that chance to look back on what we’ve learned.
The evolution of climate founders. The # of resources that have come out in 2023 to help founders build successfully is…ginormous. I’m confident climate founders will become much more sophisticated about building in 2024.
Deployment. We have seen a lot of great early climate-focused funds pop up in the past years — 2024 needs to be the year of deployment and real action if we are going to keep this thing moving.
Thank you all so much for listening, learning, and building a greener planet. We appreciate your time each and every day — knowing that there are people who appreciate our content is what keeps us going.
Here’s to 2024 🥳🚀🍾
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