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Today's entrepreneur is someone I've had the pleasure to get to know recently, through the context of exploring how software can serve and also sometimes be the bane of our existence. She has worked over the past several decades helping businesses improve their business operations and processes using a little piece of software. Maybe you've heard of it: it’s called Salesforce. Geraldine Gray is the CEO and founder of Endiem, and you're going to hear what that company is all about today as well. I would encourage you to stick around to the very end because this decade's long Salesforce MVP is going to share her Top Three App Exchange Secret Weapons. Of course, we'll discuss the Salesforce platform and how solar businesses can get ROI from that platform. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/339 (Gain access to all the

Today's intrapreneur has been inside the leadership team of some of the most successful brands in the solar industry and at critical times in their growth journey. We're going to take a look at her view from the Bridge as it were. Meghan Gainer is Head of Marketing Communications at Distributed Solar Development, or DSD, as we'll refer to it, which originally was incubated inside of General Electric. Her 14 years of commercial Marketing and Communications experience help her thread the needle for marketing and communications, public relations, strategy and execution for the companies that she's been privileged to help build companies like Comcast, SunEdison, Solar City, Tesla, GE, and now of course, DSD. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/338 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here)

It’s February 2021 and I’m stoked to have you here. Today's entrepreneur is a good friend of mine that many of you perhaps listened to in 2020, especially when he brought the 10 things that every entrepreneur needs to know when they're trying to raise capital: that's my friend Josh Beck. Josh is the Chief Investment Officer at BCI Technology Investments. He's had, in many ways a storied career. He's one of my favorite insider investor minds when I get to just chat with someone about what is happening in the world of global supply, especially with regards to obviously BCI is a big steel manufacturing concern. He's had some opportunities to be involved in major organizations in the industry like NEXTracker, which we spoke about in previous episodes. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/337 (Gain access to all the sho

If you listened to Episode 261, then you're no stranger to Mr. Sheldon Kimber of Intersect Power. But I wanted to bring Sheldon back, especially in this month, where we're thinking hard about what can the current administration and our industry do to elevate our voice to ensure we take massive action on climate change. Sheldon wrote an article back in the fall, and it got a fair amount of traction on LinkedIn (even Jigar Shah and many others commented on it). I wanted to bring Sheldon on to talk specifically about this article that he wrote, titled “software is eating the world, but steel is the hardware runs on” and it's a reply to Marc Andreessen's essay "It's time to build" where he posits that we don't have the drive to build the infrastructure and that complacency is killing the opportunity. Not so, says Sheldon...and we get into just exactly why we need to Dream in Steel again! I hope that you'll tune in and listen up to this dialogue where Sheldon and I dive into how clean energy as an industry is, l

Andy Klump holds the current and long-standing record of the most downloaded episode on SunCast. That's right, coming in more than 2000 downloads. I wanted to have Andy back because there's a lot about this man's life in how he ended up in China being a trusted resource for so many companies and individuals like myself around the world from Europe, to the Americas. I wanted to hear how he came about this venture called Clean Energy Associates, and I wanted to hear how he built through this adventure of living in China. Having a wonderful family, being an upright citizen and all-around good guy. Today we dig into the man that is Andy Klump, not just how he built his business, but how he's built his career. And I hope that you would come to admire this man as much as I do. He's a good friend, and a very good businessman. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. h

Today's entrepreneur I have been introduced to multiple times since 2014. Thanks to the homebound lockdowns of the pandemic this year, we finally had a chance to get to know one another. Matt Hankey is the Founder and CEO of New Energy Equity, one of the fastest-growing companies in our industry. They're the fourth largest solar commercial company in the US seventh largest developer in the United States, and one of the fastest-growing solar developers in the DC area. Suffice to say, this will be a fun dive into an entrepreneurial journey that has seen some extreme highs, probably some extreme lows, and we're going to learn a ton. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/334 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here) You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email Thank

Welcome to another Tactical Tuesday, a short-form conversation with subject-matter experts designed to give you practical tools, tips and advice for building your solar business or career. What you’re about to hear is a recorded keynote from our https://events.mysuncast.com/ (SunCast Career Summit). Paula Glover is the President and CEO for the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE). Established in 1977, the American Association of Blacks in Energy is an association founded and dedicated to ensuring the input of African Americans and other minorities into the discussions and developments of energy policies regulations. I truly appreciated and enjoyed having Paula come speak to our SunCast Career Summit back in September. And if you missed it, you're in luck because today, you get to hear Paula's keynote supporting the advancement of emerging leaders and increasing diversity across clean energy. It is a fantastic look inside how we can achieve more diversity and inclusiveness in the energy business,

This is Part Two of the episode we began earlier in the week with SEIA’s President Abby Hopper. We have a lot of ground left to cover, and we get into some GREAT insights from Abby in this one. But if you missed Part 1, I’d recommend you start there, then come to this one for the rest of the story. Abby really gets into the details on this episode about how we all can help hold President-elect Biden to account for the awesome opportunity before him to leave a lasting clean energy legacy. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/332 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here) You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email Thanks a ton to our podcast sponsors for continuing to help make this content FREE to You! Please check them out and let me know what you think!

Welcome back and Happy New Year, Solar Warrior! If you’re in the solar or energy storage industry, then today’s guest will be no stranger to you. I hope I do justice to making this useful and interesting, as she’s shared most of her thoughts and plans with us in a variety of forums. Abigail Ross Hopper became the first female President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in January 2017 just as the Obama-era solar boom was being handed off to the Trump administration. Abby has been dubbed the most important woman in solar by the media, and it’s true she carries an immensely important role. Before joining SEIA, Abby was the Director of the Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, where she led the agency that oversaw the leasing and development of all offshore energy, from oil and natural gas to offshore wind. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup

Happy New Year, Solar Warrior! In early December, I had a chance to sit down with CPS Energy executives to discuss their latest RFP, and I was amazed by the depth of answers they provided. Not only we discussed how the RFP is shaped, but also the underlying philosophy and methodology supporting the landmark power call for the Lonestar state! As many of you are well aware, having listened to the interview with Paula Gold-Williams (the CEO of CPS Energy) some weeks ago, the largest public power utility in the United States CPS is on a journey of decarbonizing their generation assets. And, as such has been foreshadowing a quite sizable RFP. On December 1, CPS along with the City of San Antonio announced the largest municipally-owned fully integrated electric and gas utility in the US is launching their RFP under what's known as the FlexPOWER Bundle initiative for a whopping 900MW of solar, 50MW of energy storage, and 500MW of firming capacity as part of the vision for CPS’ Flexible Path. Remember you can alw

I am honored to have you joining me yet again for another foray into the world of clean and solar-powered energy. Merry Christmas, and happy almost new year to all of you who are listening during the holiday season. Ryan Simpson is the head of marketing for Trina solar North America. He and I have been fellow sales and marketing colleagues and solar warriors in the hardware side of the PV industry now for going on two decades. I love hearing how he parlayed his experience working for McDonald's into a marketing role like Kyocera, for example, he's one of the funniest and savviest marketers I know in the industry. So I'm honored to finally get to share some of these stories. Ryan brings old school tactics for new school tech. With his decade-plus of experience in solar, Ryan has been instrumental in launching new and innovative products, developing and opening new markets and channels, introducing new marketing platforms, and creating technical documents to help companies achieve success. Today, Ryan drives

Merry Christmas to you. If you're tuning in today, it is Christmas Eve. Yes, we are still publishing because it's Thursday. I hope that you'll get a ton of value from today's story. We can keep this short and sweet because Benigno Villareal and his story speak for themselves. Many of you have likely never heard of Vive Energía unless you're doing business in Mexico. Over there, Benny and his partners have developed a massive portfolio and track record reputation across wind and solar. And I've long wanted to know how it all came together. Today, you get to listen in on that very discussion. Benny Villarreal heads “Vive Energia”, a Renewable Energy Company. He is credited for leading the teams responsible for the development, financing and ultimately the construction and commissioning of nearly 1 GigaWatt of Mexico´s currently installed Renewable Energy Generation capacity. For the last fifteen years, Dr. Villarreal has been intensely cooperating with the Mexican Government and diverse NGOs to obtain the basi

I'm honored that you're joining us for another fantastic foray into the world of solar energy. And I'm even more honored that you're tuning in this week. Merry Christmas to all of you listening. Some of you will identify with today's guests and the problems that he solves. If you've spent any time developing large or small solar projects, you know it can be an endless string of whack-a-mole in terms of organizing, checking off tasks, data rooms, diligence, checklists, Dropbox, Excel, Asana, Salesforce, the tools are disorganized, and the tasks disjointed. It's always baffled me why after 15 plus years, seems like we’re lacking a better way to organize and manage solar projects. Today’s guest, Philip Bruner, was frustrated as well. After Philip had struggled with the data disorganization of developing his own projects, he went on the search to find and then to create a tool that would solve it. And ENIAN was born. His journey to build software as a non-technical co-founder is one that I found insightful and

On Thanksgiving, you might have missed our excellent interview with Solar+ Storage entrepreneur and solar pioneer Arnold Leitner. Well in that episode, which I highly recommend you revisit clicking here, we glossed over a fun fact that his company YouSolar, Inc. is among the only 13% of companies that have launched a regulated crowdfunding campaign on a website called StartEngine and raised more than a million dollars, which helped to keep you solar alive during the pandemic, no less. Today we’re chatting again with Arnold to dig a bit deeper into exactly what this entailed and better understand how and what they accomplished. So if you'd like to hear how to get 500 customers and a million dollars in equity in 90 days through crowdfunding, using a verified platform and a tested strategy, well, you're in the right place. And also, if you're interested in your own crowdfunding campaign, well, you are in luck, because I've partnered with StartEngine to offer you $1,000 towards your campaign marketing. You can

As we head into the end of the year, it's often filled with a lot of stories a lot of time traditionally spent around the table around the cocktail, happy hours with our friends reminiscing and telling tall tales. I thought it'd be fun, as we have so many stories on the solar coaster to tell some tall tales, some true tales, and as such wanted to bring back an old friend. Perhaps you were one of those who's been with us from the beginning, then you'll recognize today's guest, Mr. TJ Kanczuzewski of Inovateus Solar, we're gonna dive into some of his war stories, battle-tested from the front lines. TJ has been with Inovateus since 2007. Driven by the Inovateus pledge to “Build A Brilliant Tomorrow,” he has been instrumental in developing a world-class solar team that has successfully deployed solar energy projects and products internationally. Currently, he is focused on expanding the companies efforts in the Mamoni Valley Preserve by inviting other investors and companies to join in the opportunity to come a

For those of you who are up on recent episodes, perhaps you’ll recognize today’s guest, Gregg Dixon of Voltus, Inc., recently featured in episode 316. Gregg gave us a fantastic insight into the world of Demand Response, and the way that through his company Voltus, Inc. and his deep experience with a company called EnerNOC, he has learned how the grid is necessarily evolving and integrating new Distributed Energy Resources (DER). There’s so much to unpack around DER that we didn’t have time to cover it entirely back in episode 316. Gregg and I go into what he referred to as The 4 Horsemen of Distributed Energy Resources. What are the 4 new ways that energy in DER format is being traded like an energy product that, in many ways, marks the end of an era, the changing of times for the electricity markets as we know it? We go into each individual one of these essential elements of Distributed Energy Resources: Energy Efficiency Demand Response Distributed Generation Energy Storage Remember you can always

If you didn’t meet today’s guest during our SunCast Weekly Roundup, Live at SPI video series, then you’re in luck because Fatima Ahmad is one of the most knowledgeable folks I know on how Congress gets informed on the climate crisis and how they can take action. Did you even know that there’s a House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis? Neither did I. And what’s more, they’ve compiled a VERY comprehensive document to help guide legislators and it’s a 547 page treasure trove of information! But you don’t have to go dig through it all yourself, no no, that’s why Fatima is here today. We’re going to give you the insider’s notes on the report: “SOLVING THE CLIMATE CRISIS: The Congressional Action Plan for a CleanEnergy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America”. So don’t go anywhere! Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 320 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/sun

Today’s entrepreneur is in rare company. I can’t recall that I’ve ever interviewed an entrepreneur who’s lost a Billion dollar contract. That story alone is worth tuning in today. But you’ll also learn how James Wagoner, and his Storage startup Joule Case, became the live events power provider for Live Nation, how he’s future-proofing consumer power needs thanks to a few failed startups and the tribulations of Covid. As Joule Case’s CEO, James builds teams, manages resources, and aligns to the long term vision. As a licensed professional engineer with years of developing technical projects and products, he comes from a technical background and understands the importance of people for any large technical project, product, or organization. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 320 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/323 (Gain access to all the show notes & r

Today's entrepreneur is going to show us how to use artificial intelligence to streamline customer acquisition. Austin Rosenbaum is the Denver-based Founder of Demand IQ, an A.I. based technology platform that promises to turbocharge your solar marketing and sales efforts. I've really enjoyed getting to know Austin since I met him on a conference panel this past summer, and it's just so clear to me that this young entrepreneur is on point on the digital trends that matter to small and medium-sized solar businesses. If you have wondered how the trend towards A.I. and the sales process is going to make a difference in solar sales, this episode is for you. By the way, this episode could be worth five hundred dollars to you, so if you stick around to the very end. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 310 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/321 (Gain access t

Today's entrepreneur is no stranger to not just business in the developing world, but also bridging the gap between business development, sales, and nonprofit fundraising and growth. It's an honor to be able to introduce Allison Archambault and the work of EarthSpark International on this Giving Tuesday. Allison developed not just her career, but the organization that she's been leading now for a decade, providing light, access to opportunities, and what she refers to as feminist electrification, to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 310 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/319 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here) You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email Thanks a ton to our podcast sponsors for continuing to help make this content FREE to You! P