Lesson 1: Environmentally-driven businesses should make the most of their hardcore customers

Good Energy came out of wanting to empower individuals to do more about climate change, and to make one particular decision that would have a significant impact. While I had no experience of launching or leading a company, I understood the energy industry, and more specifically, its shortcomings. 

At the time, there weren’t really any other big clean energy suppliers. But this proved to be a bigger challenge than we first thought. After our first investor went bust, we struggled to find venture capital funding. So we decided to tap into the people who believed in us most—our core customer base. Startups with an environmental mission will find this group to be both incredibly loyal and critical to the business. For us, crowdfunding meant bringing these dedicated customers even closer, and giving them a financial stake in the business. 

If anything, we didn’t tap into them enough. These consumers can be your biggest ambassadors, and should be core to your marketing and growth strategy. Tesla, for instance, has a members’ club for their owners. Giving those customers a platform to talk to each other, but also as a wider outreach to get more customers, can be very powerful.

Lesson 3: Growing awareness is changing consumer behaviour towards green solutions

Success, in large part, is down to market timing—whether a number of determining factors line up to create fortuitous conditions for your product. Climate tech is reaching this.

For one, there’s a much wider awareness of the climate crisis now than there was twenty years ago when I founded Good Energy. People around the world, by and large, have woken up to the very real impact of climate change—most visible when vast parts of the globe (from Siberia to Australia) are actually on fire.  This is combined with the associated health impacts of climate change. As soon as it starts to affect individuals, people take it seriously.

More importantly, the cost of technology has fallen considerably. While solar panels might have once been way out of reach of the ordinary consumer, companies like Solivus are now able to provide affordable solar panels that are suitable both for homes and commercial buildings. 

More than just being cost effective, in the face of an energy crisis, solar panels will actually save you money. A solar-powered economy could have vast benefits. If you could say that 20-to-30% of power costs are always fixed, then you know anything manufactured in the UK isn't exposed to that same level of inflation. For businesses, any rational boardroom would make a decision that would secure them long term energy prices. 

Lesson 5: Businesses should make strong statements about their mission

I love seeing that something like the B Corp Certification has become so important for businesses with green credentials. By codifying your ESG values into your legal framework, it allows founders to make a clear, strong statement about their intent as a business. Any investor who comes on board will understand this from the off.

B Corp obviously came along a number of years after us, and by that point, we were already listed, making it very difficult for us to pass any special resolutions. For founders now, though, I’d say there’s tremendous value in pursuing a B Corp assessment, or something similar, from the beginning of your venture.