Latest / Business Roundtable / From NASA to HVAC Innovation: Jordan Sotudeh on Decarbonization and Leadership

Transcript

From NASA to HVAC Innovation: Jordan Sotudeh on Decarbonization and Leadership · Business Roundtable

0:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I'm your host,
0:34
Speaker 1: David Carr, founder of Stewart Your Business, where we bring
0:38
Speaker 1: people together to accomplish great things. And this week we
0:41
Speaker 1: have another great episode with Jordan Soto where we're going
0:44
Speaker 1: to talk about some of the challenges of a startup,
0:49
Speaker 1: living purpose driven lives, you know, going through the messy,
0:53
Speaker 1: getting to the meaningful of innovation, personal alignment, building mission
0:58
Speaker 1: first businesses. That's where we're going to be getting into today.
1:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast, Jordan.
1:04
Speaker 2: Thanks David, it's great to be here.
1:06
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, we're gonna get into You're you're at the
1:11
Speaker 1: startup phase, you're in the funding phase, you're in a
1:13
Speaker 1: unique position. Well, we haven't had a lot of guests
1:16
Speaker 1: on here, but you have come from you have a
1:19
Speaker 1: solid background. Jordan. I'm excited to have you on here.
1:22
Speaker 1: I would love to have some folks listen a little
1:25
Speaker 1: bit to your journey and your story about what got
1:27
Speaker 1: you to the NARRA today and hopefully pocuses you're listening,
1:32
Speaker 1: whether you're a business owner or an entrepreneur, what does
1:37
Speaker 1: it take to step out in faith, to feel to
1:40
Speaker 1: live out your purpose, what your calling is? And I
1:43
Speaker 1: love you just to take take us back a little bit.
1:46
Speaker 1: Jordan too, Before you started Vanera as as CEO and
1:50
Speaker 1: co founder, where did where did this idea? Where did
1:53
Speaker 1: you come from? And you got inspired in this space
1:57
Speaker 1: to really help in a unique way. So I'm gonna
2:00
Speaker 1: I'll let you just take us back a little bit,
2:01
Speaker 1: give us a little story about your journey as a
2:04
Speaker 1: business owner and founder.
2:05
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, we might have to go quite a ways back,
2:09
Speaker 2: but I hope that from listening to this, anybody out
2:13
Speaker 2: there who has any doubts realizes that if I can
2:16
Speaker 2: do it, absolutely anybody can do it.
2:18
Speaker 1: There you go, there you go.
2:20
Speaker 2: So you know, back in college, I lived by what
2:24
Speaker 2: everyone said, right, do what you love, do what you love,
2:26
Speaker 2: and you'll never work a day in your life. Turns out,
2:29
Speaker 2: I love too many things. I ended up with three majors,
2:32
Speaker 2: a minor, a certificate, and I didn't know what to
2:35
Speaker 2: do with my life after that. And so you know,
2:37
Speaker 2: I flipped the question around what would I do if
2:41
Speaker 2: my happiness for guaranteed? And the answer seemed kind of
2:44
Speaker 2: obvious at that point. I would do something that I
2:46
Speaker 2: thought would benefit humanity that would matter after I died,
2:50
Speaker 2: not because it brought me a name or meant anything
2:53
Speaker 2: like that, but because it contributed to something bigger than myself.
2:57
Speaker 2: And that's why I got into the space sector at
2:58
Speaker 2: the time. At the time, it didn't have the kind
3:00
Speaker 2: of attention it has now. At the time, space was
3:04
Speaker 2: relatively quiet in the news. It seemed like something that
3:08
Speaker 2: we just hoped would grow. Right and as soon as
3:11
Speaker 2: we exist anywhere else, you know, our chance of extinction
3:14
Speaker 2: goes way down when it comes to the solution we're
3:18
Speaker 2: trying to help mitigate climate change and the effects of
3:21
Speaker 2: the environment. Here, space is kind of the only answer.
3:24
Speaker 2: As long as we have industry on Earth, it's going
3:27
Speaker 2: to be polluting. It doesn't matter how you power it.
3:30
Speaker 2: You know, that's throw more to Amax right there. However,
3:34
Speaker 2: over time, you know, after twelve years in the space industry,
3:38
Speaker 2: I started to realize that all these things I thought
3:40
Speaker 2: other people had covered needed more help and attention than
3:44
Speaker 2: it turned out I thought. And you know, the climate
3:48
Speaker 2: solutions are out there, but they're not getting adopted, they're
3:51
Speaker 2: not getting used. And over time, as I followed, one
3:56
Speaker 2: of my mentor's advice is to say, get closer to hardware.
4:00
Speaker 2: You know, I moved from policy and NASA and strategy
4:04
Speaker 2: at Bryce over closer to JPL, which is, you know,
4:08
Speaker 2: right next to hardware, right there's there's all kinds of
4:11
Speaker 2: fascinating geniuses. They're building all kinds of amazing technology. And
4:15
Speaker 2: I kept a little notebook right write down my ideas,
4:17
Speaker 2: and anytime I had something I thought was good, i'd
4:21
Speaker 2: look it up. And if I saw that somebody who
4:23
Speaker 2: was more qualified than me, or who was already further
4:26
Speaker 2: along than I could be, was doing it, you know,
4:28
Speaker 2: I just crossed off the list and say this is covered.
4:31
Speaker 2: And then at one point I noticed that when it
4:36
Speaker 2: comes to energy use, when it comes to emissions, there
4:40
Speaker 2: is one sector that dominates the world that is heating
4:44
Speaker 2: and cooling. Up to eighty percent of our emissions and
4:47
Speaker 2: energy use go to heating and cooling. And as the
4:49
Speaker 2: world becomes more prosperous globally, and as heating becomes more ubiquitous,
4:56
Speaker 2: that that's only going to grow exponentially. This was a huge, huge,
5:00
Speaker 2: which piece of the puzzle to buying us more time
5:02
Speaker 2: on planet Earth before we mess it all up. And
5:08
Speaker 2: when I looked up this idea that I had about
5:10
Speaker 2: making a modular adaptive solution it. It didn't seem like anybody.
5:15
Speaker 1: Was doing it.
5:16
Speaker 2: You know, I went through patents, I went through research.
5:19
Speaker 2: There's nobody doing this. And the more I looked into
5:21
Speaker 2: the industry, the more I realized it was just like
5:23
Speaker 2: Launch was back in the day. Launch was an industry
5:27
Speaker 2: right for disruption. A lot of legacy players who didn't
5:30
Speaker 2: want to invest in R and D didn't want to
5:32
Speaker 2: innovate or disrupt themselves.
5:35
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, so so you you So what I what
5:39
Speaker 1: I encourage other people as I'm hearing you Jordan's say,
5:41
Speaker 1: is there's plenty of opportunities out there. It's just paying attention.
5:45
Speaker 1: You were just taking notes and you're saying, look, you know,
5:50
Speaker 1: where where is something that's being neglected? And you saw, Hey,
5:53
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity, and you know, like you said, you know,
5:58
Speaker 1: addressing energyfficiencies and screen it's like, well, it's not necessarily sexy,
6:04
Speaker 1: but it's something that's absolutely needed. And it's, like you said,
6:07
Speaker 1: it's something across the world. And so sometimes I think people,
6:11
Speaker 1: I love that you're coming in this way, Jordan, because
6:13
Speaker 1: this is I feel like it's going to sustain you.
6:16
Speaker 1: I think people that get into business simply to make money.
6:20
Speaker 1: Is that that's a result of providing value and creating it.
6:23
Speaker 1: But it's if if it's that solely it, you're going
6:26
Speaker 1: to be hurting. In my experience, it's it's yes, we
6:29
Speaker 1: need money, you're you're raising funds and things like that. Absolutely,
6:32
Speaker 1: but the goal ultimately is that you're creating positive change
6:36
Speaker 1: in the world. And you're saying, where can I help?
6:39
Speaker 1: And and I think you know you could. You could
6:41
Speaker 1: have stayed. I mean you've been working at NASA or
6:44
Speaker 1: RICE or JPL, which is you know, many people say, hey,
6:47
Speaker 1: that's a that's a great job, that's very prestigious, and
6:50
Speaker 1: really what you're saying right when you say those names,
6:53
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, that's awesome. I think that's that's great.
6:57
Speaker 1: But you you felt even a greater calling. It wasn't
7:00
Speaker 1: I heard it, But you say it's not just about me.
7:02
Speaker 1: It's like I could stay there and feel good about myself.
7:04
Speaker 1: I'm doing good things, they're doing great things, something that
7:07
Speaker 1: somebody is there. But you've had the call in personally
7:09
Speaker 1: that I heard and said, hey, I got to take
7:11
Speaker 1: the lead.
7:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, if nobody else is, you know, that's there's no
7:16
Speaker 2: reason why you shouldn't step up and do it right.
7:19
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to stand here and judge anybody
7:22
Speaker 2: else's passions at all. But whatever you do, there has
7:25
Speaker 2: to be something that sustains you through the difficulties because
7:28
Speaker 2: there will be so many of them.
7:30
Speaker 1: Yes, well, and here's what I found. You know, in life,
7:34
Speaker 1: there's a tendency to Jordan, I think drift and sometimes
7:37
Speaker 1: we just kind of fall into things and it isn't
7:40
Speaker 1: Instead of being you're being very intentional and saying, look,
7:42
Speaker 1: I'm going to design a path forward. And yes it's
7:45
Speaker 1: going to be costly, it's going to take some time,
7:47
Speaker 1: but it's worth it. It's worth it because I see
7:49
Speaker 1: the greater when I say compelling vision of what could
7:52
Speaker 1: be that's driving me, and I think we don't have
7:55
Speaker 1: a compelling vision, whether it's in our current job as
7:58
Speaker 1: an employee or an entreprer, it's very it's it's we're
8:04
Speaker 1: left lacking or we're left like, man, I felt like,
8:06
Speaker 1: what did I do? What kind of legacy am I leaving?
8:08
Speaker 1: What kind of impact am I having? Really? Am I
8:11
Speaker 1: just leave them for myself? Right? Jordan? That's what I
8:13
Speaker 1: hear you saying is looking to have a greater impact
8:15
Speaker 1: in the world.
8:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you know I can share an exercise
8:19
Speaker 2: that I do that that might be helpful to people. Yeah,
8:22
Speaker 2: trying to figure this out. I'll do kind of like
8:25
Speaker 2: a personal portfolio review every once in two years. I'll
8:28
Speaker 2: go way back to the beginning. What are my fundamental
8:31
Speaker 2: assumptions about the universe, It's nature, about the reality of
8:35
Speaker 2: being a human being, about my experience, my lived experience
8:38
Speaker 2: in life. And then from there you can draw out
8:41
Speaker 2: what your values are and then compare it to the
8:43
Speaker 2: actions that you live by in your life. Are they
8:46
Speaker 2: aligned or not? Where do you need to make changes?
8:49
Speaker 1: Yeah? And I love that you do that, Jordan. I
8:51
Speaker 1: do the same, similar, similar thing, and I surround myself
8:55
Speaker 1: with similar people that will hold a mirror up to
8:57
Speaker 1: me and say, well, that's what you said your values were,
8:59
Speaker 1: that's what you said you were committed to, but your
9:01
Speaker 1: life doesn't necessarily reflect that. So is that really important
9:05
Speaker 1: to you or not? And having people in your life
9:07
Speaker 1: that surround yourself like that, and I know you've created
9:10
Speaker 1: a team with you that sees the greater vision. And
9:13
Speaker 1: what I found is a business owner working with business
9:15
Speaker 1: particularly Jordan. I think I think at this stage of
9:18
Speaker 1: the game. You're a great spot because it's very you
9:21
Speaker 1: have to be crystal clear, why do you exist, why
9:23
Speaker 1: is Vaniara there? What are we trying to accomplish there?
9:26
Speaker 1: Running feed funding and other things. But what happens over time,
9:30
Speaker 1: I found Jordan, as you grow, is if it diffuses
9:34
Speaker 1: and it can get like you said, we can get
9:35
Speaker 1: lost in the organization and then you're like, why aren't
9:38
Speaker 1: people like they don't see it because we haven't communicated
9:42
Speaker 1: it well, right, And I mean you've got to get
9:44
Speaker 1: really really crystal clear and communicating what Vanera stands for,
9:48
Speaker 1: why you're why you're doing what you're doing.
9:50
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely, and you know I'm happy to dive
9:55
Speaker 2: into that at anything. Yes, yes, it is very important
9:58
Speaker 2: though to also consider that if you want to jump
10:01
Speaker 2: into something like this, you have to let go of
10:05
Speaker 2: any inclination to shift blame anywhere else mm hm, even
10:10
Speaker 2: if it's somebody else who did something. If you're the
10:13
Speaker 2: person who founded the company, if you're the person who's
10:15
Speaker 2: nominally leading it, it falls on you no matter what
10:18
Speaker 2: it is.
10:20
Speaker 1: Right. So, so to get to that point, you know
10:23
Speaker 1: you said, like you know each fact, the heating the element,
10:27
Speaker 1: like you saw okay, there's there's a root problem here.
10:32
Speaker 1: How did you break that down? What were you doing
10:35
Speaker 1: to say okay, there's enough here? Like, how did you
10:39
Speaker 1: just state this is the fact that break that down?
10:42
Speaker 1: Jordan say, okay, I'm going to make a move on
10:44
Speaker 1: that cause I'm saying I want other people to understand
10:46
Speaker 1: We're to talk about specifically what Venera does, but I
10:48
Speaker 1: want them to think about, like what's the thought process
10:50
Speaker 1: I need to be looking at and then of course
10:51
Speaker 1: talk about what you saw with with what you're doing
10:54
Speaker 1: with Venera.
10:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. So a lot of people, and you know, there's
10:58
Speaker 2: no right or wrong way to approach this. A lot
11:01
Speaker 2: of people will find innovative products by the personal experience
11:05
Speaker 2: of using the product. That is a super valid path,
11:08
Speaker 2: That is a great path. Absolutely, you have depth of
11:11
Speaker 2: experience with this particular product and you see where things
11:13
Speaker 2: need to go because it's not working for people. I've
11:16
Speaker 2: always looked at things from a macro scale. You know,
11:20
Speaker 2: I was executive support in policy, strategy and business management
11:24
Speaker 2: at multiple organizations, you know, supporting executives at DG, NASA,
11:29
Speaker 2: Bryce Tech and others, JPL as well. Of course, so
11:33
Speaker 2: I look at things macro right. If you look at
11:35
Speaker 2: the larger trends affecting society right now, there is a
11:39
Speaker 2: bunch of stuff that is tapping our energy usage, everything
11:43
Speaker 2: from data centers to AI to what I already mentioned
11:46
Speaker 2: with the growing use of heating and cooling. These things
11:48
Speaker 2: are going to cause exponential strain on an already aging
11:52
Speaker 2: grid infrastructure system. Through twenty thirty five alone, the US
11:56
Speaker 2: is going to need two point five trillion dollars to
11:58
Speaker 2: upgrade it's a grid systems. And that's not accounting for
12:02
Speaker 2: a lot of these exponential growth factors, right. Nobody's accounting
12:05
Speaker 2: for the growth of AI and the data centers and
12:07
Speaker 2: how power they are in order to power that, right,
12:11
Speaker 2: that's going to be a whole other set of investment
12:13
Speaker 2: systems required. And if we keep using the HVAC systems
12:17
Speaker 2: that we have, it's going to be game over, man like,
12:19
Speaker 2: it's just not.
12:20
Speaker 1: Going to work.
12:23
Speaker 2: And the more you dig into it, the more you'll
12:25
Speaker 2: see for it. Right, HVAC systems. If you look at
12:28
Speaker 2: the California Public Utilities Commissions reports on this, up to
12:31
Speaker 2: twenty to thirty percent in efficiencies are caused by you
12:35
Speaker 2: in correct installation, improper maintenance, the rigid design of HVAC systems.
12:42
Speaker 2: You add to that that when you don't take care
12:44
Speaker 2: of these systems, they don't perform anywhere nearly as well
12:47
Speaker 2: as they do on paper. So all of that amounts
12:50
Speaker 2: to fifteen point two billion dollars annually that we rate
12:53
Speaker 2: payers pay in unnecessarily utility bills. So the more you
12:58
Speaker 2: dig into it, the more you see that this something
13:00
Speaker 2: that just has to change. And the more people I
13:03
Speaker 2: spoke to, you know, we've had one hundred and thirty
13:06
Speaker 2: plus customer discovery conversations with people who are utilities, governments,
13:12
Speaker 2: retrofit companies, developers, real estate, you name it. We've covered everybody,
13:17
Speaker 2: and of course you have to keep doing that absolutely,
13:21
Speaker 2: but we have huge validation, you know, we have we
13:25
Speaker 2: have all the validation we need to know that this
13:27
Speaker 2: is a real problem and that our solution can address it.
13:31
Speaker 2: You know, by modularizing the HVAC system, the heat pump
13:34
Speaker 2: in this case, because heat pumps are already so much
13:37
Speaker 2: better than legacy systems. But by modularizing it, putting sensors
13:42
Speaker 2: at the inlet and outlet of each of those components,
13:44
Speaker 2: tracking that data, you open up so many things. Not
13:48
Speaker 2: only has our technical our fantastic technical team developed a
13:52
Speaker 2: way to cut energy usage fifty percent over other heat pumps.
13:56
Speaker 2: You know, this design also enables life cycle savings on
14:00
Speaker 2: emissions from no no longer needing to repair things by
14:03
Speaker 2: throwing away the whole unit. You know, you end up, yeah,
14:06
Speaker 2: on every single metric that you could possibly think of
14:09
Speaker 2: for for the longevity and the holistic approach of what
14:13
Speaker 2: is the right way to build things?
14:14
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Well, I like how you said this. I
14:17
Speaker 1: mean you're seeing that you're looking so forward and we
14:21
Speaker 1: need voices like yourselves, Jordan, that are i'll call a
14:25
Speaker 1: pine a voice seeing what is coming down in the future,
14:27
Speaker 1: or our creative voice and understanding and saying, look, you
14:31
Speaker 1: you you talked about the numeric value billions and billions
14:35
Speaker 1: like of like, hey, and this isn't even including any
14:38
Speaker 1: experience expanse on this, So how can we do this
14:41
Speaker 1: and and try some things? And I think sometimes we're hesitant.
14:47
Speaker 1: I know some folks are hesitant, are like, oh, it's
14:50
Speaker 1: not it's not quote unquote broken, and nt how to
14:52
Speaker 1: fix it? And I'm seeing you're you're saying, look, I'm
14:54
Speaker 1: willing to go out there and try and yes, you
14:58
Speaker 1: were just before we I think we record you're saying, hey,
15:00
Speaker 1: the models are looking good, but we don't know that
15:02
Speaker 1: and we have to be willing. I think speak a
15:05
Speaker 1: little bit to this willingness of and what you've been
15:07
Speaker 1: seeing as you've been going forward of like prototyping, trying things. Hey,
15:12
Speaker 1: that didn't work, go back to the drum because some
15:14
Speaker 1: people they don't they don't want to quote fail, but
15:18
Speaker 1: talk about the journey of what you've been learning in
15:20
Speaker 1: this process.
15:21
Speaker 2: Jordan, Yeah, absolutely, there's a quote from a poem. I
15:25
Speaker 2: really like that. Uh, for for those who feel like
15:29
Speaker 2: broken things can't be fixed, We're we're all broken. That's
15:33
Speaker 2: how the light gets in.
15:35
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
15:36
Speaker 2: So just because you feel like something is broken, or
15:38
Speaker 2: maybe that you feel like you're broken, that doesn't mean
15:41
Speaker 2: that there isn't so much more for you to give.
15:44
Speaker 2: The way to approach this, I think is to try
15:47
Speaker 2: to thicken your skin as much as possible, especially if
15:50
Speaker 2: you're gonna do hardware. Let me tell you hardware. Hardware
15:54
Speaker 2: is unforgiving. And that's that's why you know, that's why
15:57
Speaker 2: why one of my mentors said, get as close as
15:58
Speaker 2: you can to hardware, because it will humble you. And
16:01
Speaker 2: and that is that is something that I have found
16:05
Speaker 2: very valuable.
16:06
Speaker 1: Mm hm.
16:07
Speaker 2: It teaches you that you don't get to decide anything
16:10
Speaker 2: really know you you have to work with it. You
16:15
Speaker 2: have to really really work with it and be prepared
16:17
Speaker 2: for surprises constantly. And you can look at them as setbacks.
16:22
Speaker 2: If that's something that helps you think more constructively about
16:25
Speaker 2: how to move forward, that's okay, think about it as
16:27
Speaker 2: a setback and build on that. But really they're not right. Really,
16:31
Speaker 2: it's part of the process. You have to fail in
16:34
Speaker 2: order to move forward. And you know, that's something that
16:38
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people I've I've worked with
16:40
Speaker 2: agree with, even if they work in organizations that don't
16:44
Speaker 2: accept that anymore for cultural reasons.
16:46
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm hmm. I mean, I would imagine talk a
16:49
Speaker 1: little bit about assembling your team at venerat Jordan and
16:53
Speaker 1: like getting people that get that vision and like you said, hey,
16:58
Speaker 1: failing as an opportunity. You know, it's a way of
17:01
Speaker 1: like you said, maybe we're a challenge. They share this
17:04
Speaker 1: mindset of this can do this innovation angle that you're
17:08
Speaker 1: coming up with Jordan, because not everybody has that, you know,
17:10
Speaker 1: how how did you, you know, find those people, bring
17:13
Speaker 1: them on and get them on to your team and say, hey,
17:16
Speaker 1: this is I I catched caught your vision Jordan, and
17:19
Speaker 1: really had that same mindset, and you speak to that
17:21
Speaker 1: of creating that team and that space.
17:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I got lucky. Oh, come on, I
17:29
Speaker 2: got lucky. I mean honestly, honestly, I got lucky. Like
17:32
Speaker 2: with so many things, there's so many entrepreneurs and successful
17:36
Speaker 2: people that come out and yeah, sure they had a
17:38
Speaker 2: part to do with it, But I think people really
17:40
Speaker 2: discount how much luck has to do with it. Luck
17:42
Speaker 2: has so much to do with it. You don't get
17:44
Speaker 2: to decide who you run into most of the time,
17:47
Speaker 2: even if you're seeking them out. You don't get to
17:49
Speaker 2: decide that. Right. In some ways, it feels like nobody
17:53
Speaker 2: gets to decide that, right.
17:54
Speaker 1: It just kind of happens.
17:56
Speaker 2: So I've known our co founders for a very long time.
18:00
Speaker 2: Julian was he was there at the hospital as a
18:05
Speaker 2: baby when I was born. I have known wildlife. He is,
18:10
Speaker 2: you know, he and a couple of other people are
18:12
Speaker 2: the closest things I have to a brother. Alvan Is
18:15
Speaker 2: is also just a fantastic individual, just personally professional. You know,
18:19
Speaker 2: they're they're both the best of the best. There's there's
18:22
Speaker 2: no no questioning that. Frankly, we were all you know,
18:27
Speaker 2: we were working on this for years on top of
18:29
Speaker 2: very demanding day jobs, and we all still you know,
18:33
Speaker 2: despite the you know, you can't avoid having having you know,
18:38
Speaker 2: being over taxed in a situation like that. But despite that,
18:40
Speaker 2: all of us we're still you know, performing really really
18:44
Speaker 2: well in our day jobs, you know, getting accolades and
18:47
Speaker 2: and all the things that you would expect from my performers.
18:49
Speaker 2: I think for the most part, the.
18:53
Speaker 1: Fact I want to say, you, so you grew up
18:55
Speaker 1: with two of your co founders. Is that what I'm hearing, I.
18:57
Speaker 2: Grew up with one of them?
18:58
Speaker 1: Oh cool, great, I don't like if I let my
19:01
Speaker 1: lary go celebrate.
19:02
Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, that's right, Yeah it is. It is worth celebrating.
19:05
Speaker 2: It is worth celebrating. Yeah, it is amazing to have
19:09
Speaker 2: those those kinds of long term friendships.
19:11
Speaker 1: Well, I agree. I'm gonna agree with you and that one, Jordan,
19:16
Speaker 1: I would say it may have been happenstance or if luck,
19:19
Speaker 1: however you want to say it, that you happen to
19:21
Speaker 1: just be at the right place at the right time
19:23
Speaker 1: where you guys are literally growing up or making those connections.
19:25
Speaker 1: But I do think to your point, Jordan, building relationships
19:30
Speaker 1: over time seeing I'm sure you guys have seen each
19:32
Speaker 1: other through lots of different life circumstances and right and
19:36
Speaker 1: building relationships so that you can be more authentic and
19:39
Speaker 1: real with each other as opposed to maybe trying to
19:42
Speaker 1: be something different, but just be your authentic self. Right.
19:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's that's a really great point. That's
19:47
Speaker 2: a really great point. Something that did have to do
19:50
Speaker 2: with it is is when you care about people and
19:53
Speaker 2: you put them first and you can suspend whatever you
19:58
Speaker 2: need an interaction to think about. Eight, that's how you
20:01
Speaker 2: build relationship over time. That's that's how you build a
20:04
Speaker 2: network of people that you know you can do anything with.
20:08
Speaker 2: Right And at the same time, you have to be
20:11
Speaker 2: vocal about what you want to do. If I didn't
20:13
Speaker 2: talk about what I was trying to do all the time,
20:16
Speaker 2: nobody would have heard it and said.
20:18
Speaker 1: Hey, I want I want to do this with you,
20:20
Speaker 1: right absolutely, So you know, so just to I want
20:26
Speaker 1: to go back and clarify Vaniera where you're at, so
20:28
Speaker 1: those people hear this. You assemble this team and you're
20:31
Speaker 1: talking about heap. What's the ultimate At the end of
20:34
Speaker 1: the day, when would you say Vanera is successful? How
20:37
Speaker 1: would you say we did our job successful? What what
20:41
Speaker 1: is the goal there? So when people say and they
20:43
Speaker 1: remember Vanera and they say what what what is that
20:46
Speaker 1: that ultimately you're looking to solve. I mean, we talked
20:49
Speaker 1: around it, but I want to hear like, if a
20:51
Speaker 1: Nara can do this, this is contributes to this? What
20:53
Speaker 1: what would that be a win for you?
20:56
Speaker 2: A win for us would be seeing our product and
20:59
Speaker 2: the marketplace. That's our earliest win. The long term vision
21:03
Speaker 2: is that this entire industry is transformed and it becomes
21:08
Speaker 2: focused on having the level of efficiency and comfort that
21:12
Speaker 2: all of us deserve to be able to live the
21:15
Speaker 2: longest and best lives that we can on this planet.
21:19
Speaker 2: The product that we're building now is already going to
21:22
Speaker 2: save you fifty percent on energy. It's going to caught
21:24
Speaker 2: your your maintenance costs by you know, ninety percent and
21:29
Speaker 2: the emissions by sixty to seventy percent over the lifetime
21:32
Speaker 2: of the product.
21:33
Speaker 1: Is this going to be just so I clarify to you, George,
21:35
Speaker 1: is this going to be both? Is this for the
21:37
Speaker 1: both the in like home user or is this gonna
21:39
Speaker 1: be commercial or is it kind of a combination of both.
21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, down the line, it'll it'll be all them. We
21:45
Speaker 2: hope to license it to every mature manufacturer out there
21:49
Speaker 2: because it doesn't make sense for us to keep something
21:51
Speaker 2: so get to ourselves. Everybody should be doing it this way.
21:54
Speaker 2: We need the solution out there as fast as possible,
21:57
Speaker 2: affecting as wide as wide swath of the economy is possible.
22:01
Speaker 2: It's going to buy us more time, it's going to
22:03
Speaker 2: save us more money. It's just a better way of
22:06
Speaker 2: doing it, like we really need to do it.
22:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely well. And so part of what I found
22:14
Speaker 1: in the marketplace Jordan, and I think you know getting
22:16
Speaker 1: what you're saying is I find people have great products
22:19
Speaker 1: or services and they make an amazing transformation. However, it's
22:24
Speaker 1: it's also getting that and why I have you on
22:26
Speaker 1: the podcast candidly is because it's also how do we
22:30
Speaker 1: make that message break through the rest of ways out there? Right,
22:33
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things out there that people say,
22:37
Speaker 1: yes that that's I do want to do that because
22:39
Speaker 1: one of the things I mentioned, I had another podcast
22:42
Speaker 1: guest on you where were talking about return on investment,
22:44
Speaker 1: and a lot of people who is modeling are like, well,
22:46
Speaker 1: I just don't want to spend that kind of money.
22:48
Speaker 1: I'm only going to do this in the short time.
22:50
Speaker 1: So they have to have a bigger picture of like
22:52
Speaker 1: what you're saying, Jordan, to take action, right, especially if
22:56
Speaker 1: the paint isn't big enough. How are you guys getting
22:59
Speaker 1: that message out there?
23:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's something that's evolved, and I'd love to
23:03
Speaker 2: talk about how that's evolved so that people can get
23:06
Speaker 2: an understanding of how to work through this.
23:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:09
Speaker 2: So at first we were going to do residential because
23:11
Speaker 2: all of us were like, that's what we understand best, right.
23:13
Speaker 2: We understand that, you know, we know people with houses
23:16
Speaker 2: right absolutely can connect with that, right, And so we
23:21
Speaker 2: broke down the pricing decision, like how do you decide
23:24
Speaker 2: what you're going to buy? When does it happen? How
23:26
Speaker 2: often does it happen? You know, all that data is
23:28
Speaker 2: out there, you just got to dig into it and
23:30
Speaker 2: if it doesn't exist, you just go out and talk
23:32
Speaker 2: to people and you can get it like that. Eventually, though,
23:36
Speaker 2: we realize that the life cycle benefits where our product
23:40
Speaker 2: really shines isn't going to be a huge draw on
23:44
Speaker 2: the residential market. Consumers don't pick that way. Consumers are like,
23:48
Speaker 2: what is this going to cost me now? And even
23:51
Speaker 2: with all these huge tax incentives, how many people are
23:53
Speaker 2: getting solar? You know what I mean? It's it's only
23:56
Speaker 2: when people feel like they get an immediate benefit that
23:59
Speaker 2: they make those kinds of choices. And that's you know,
24:01
Speaker 2: we can get into behavioral psychologies on another way.
24:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
24:06
Speaker 2: But which verticals do care about that?
24:11
Speaker 1: Right?
24:12
Speaker 2: Commercial institutional and these larger purchasers will look at our
24:18
Speaker 2: product and assess it in a life cycle scale. And
24:21
Speaker 2: when you do that, it stands out by by miles.
24:26
Speaker 2: That drastically lowers our customer acquisition costs. It ends up
24:29
Speaker 2: giving us a ton of other benefits for the business.
24:31
Speaker 2: It just makes sense.
24:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's important, especially early on. Like you said,
24:38
Speaker 1: who are those clients customers that have the money can
24:42
Speaker 1: invest see the value now? And like you said, the
24:46
Speaker 1: long term vision is, yes, we do want to help
24:48
Speaker 1: residential and others. As the company grows and the other
24:52
Speaker 1: preach I think that's a great perspective. I hope because
24:54
Speaker 1: they're listening that you understand and I have to do
24:56
Speaker 1: the same thing with my own business, looking at that
24:58
Speaker 1: and evaluating too to be successful. So it's you're you're
25:03
Speaker 1: pulling a lot of things together, you know, your and
25:05
Speaker 1: all the ones of these things, and keeping your finger
25:08
Speaker 1: on the pulse of all of those things. How do
25:10
Speaker 1: you do that on a day to day basis? What
25:12
Speaker 1: does that look like for you as a founder moving
25:15
Speaker 1: between all of these things?
25:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, organized chaos, organized chaos, Yeah, yeah, that's the one.
25:27
Speaker 1: I mean, it's challenging. I think that's where you want
25:30
Speaker 1: to have good you know, mentors or coaches or folks
25:32
Speaker 1: that have been ahead of you. I mean we were
25:34
Speaker 1: talking another colleague actual who was on this podcast a
25:37
Speaker 1: while back. Other people that can help speak into you,
25:40
Speaker 1: that can help guide you because we don't know what
25:43
Speaker 1: we don't know what time right, and so it's like,
25:45
Speaker 1: oh I didn't know. Oh I don't want to step
25:46
Speaker 1: into that, you know, pull So, you know, again, surrounding
25:51
Speaker 1: yourself with, like you mentioned earlier, good mentors so that
25:55
Speaker 1: you're focusing on what's most important, what's going to make
25:58
Speaker 1: the big greatest impact different if you will.
26:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, And you know, I'd also like
26:09
Speaker 2: to add to that that you have to take care
26:12
Speaker 2: of yourself. I've spoken to a few other people who
26:15
Speaker 2: have been going through the same thing, and I know
26:17
Speaker 2: we realize these things multiple times of our lives, right,
26:20
Speaker 2: But for most of your early career, every single problem
26:26
Speaker 2: you run into can be fixed with hard work and time.
26:30
Speaker 2: Every single problem you just pull an all nighter. You
26:33
Speaker 2: got it, you know, whatever it is, you can solve
26:36
Speaker 2: it that way. But at a certain point that is
26:39
Speaker 2: no longer an option. In fact, at a certain point
26:42
Speaker 2: that works against you. That that hurts you more than
26:45
Speaker 2: it helps you, And then you have to do all
26:47
Speaker 2: this recovery stuff. So you end up finding out that
26:50
Speaker 2: you have to rely on people more than you've ever
26:53
Speaker 2: been used to. Even if you were a manager. You know,
26:56
Speaker 2: managers jump in and help help their team with all
26:59
Speaker 2: kinds of things all the time, they have to rely
27:01
Speaker 2: on people. It goes even beyond that, you know. I
27:05
Speaker 2: think Ben Horwoods in his book The Hard Thing About
27:09
Speaker 2: Hard Things, says that the only thing that prepares you
27:12
Speaker 2: for being a founder is being a founder.
27:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, sometimes, you know, I have two children. Sometimes
27:19
Speaker 1: some people say when you have kids, they could tell
27:21
Speaker 1: you all about it, but tell you have kids, You're like,
27:23
Speaker 1: I don't really truly know, or same thing being married
27:27
Speaker 1: or whatever the case might be. A life experience. People
27:29
Speaker 1: can tell you about it to a certain degree, yes,
27:31
Speaker 1: but to your point, going through and actually living it
27:34
Speaker 1: out day by day it's so important. But I do
27:39
Speaker 1: I want to echo what you I want to reaffirm
27:41
Speaker 1: what you said, Jordan, of like you know you can't
27:45
Speaker 1: do it all, and in fact, you try to do
27:47
Speaker 1: it all, like you said, it's going to go against you.
27:48
Speaker 1: I just recorded another podcast with another gentleman from the
27:52
Speaker 1: environmental space and we're talking about subcontractors and relationships and
27:55
Speaker 1: how important that is because there's a lot of people
27:58
Speaker 1: that are specialists and they do that much better than you,
28:01
Speaker 1: so why not leverage have them in as part of
28:03
Speaker 1: your team. And I find that's the difference between people
28:06
Speaker 1: that really are successful, Jordan. What they're doing is that
28:08
Speaker 1: I know what I do best. I'm going to focus
28:10
Speaker 1: in on that and I'm going to get other people
28:12
Speaker 1: that do best. Not because you can grind if you
28:15
Speaker 1: want before, but it's gonna take you longer, and it's
28:17
Speaker 1: gonna not the best not best use of your time.
28:20
Speaker 1: And then what's our most valuable asset is the time right, So,
28:24
Speaker 1: like you said, yeah, you may want to do that,
28:26
Speaker 1: but you might want to rethink that in the long term.
28:29
Speaker 1: And your point, I think the urgency what I hear
28:32
Speaker 1: you saying, Jordan, is like, hey, we've got a plan.
28:34
Speaker 1: We've got to get the same to market. We've got
28:35
Speaker 1: to you know, we could take longer, but I really
28:38
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we get this with the
28:39
Speaker 1: right people and move it on. I don't want to
28:42
Speaker 1: be the bottleneck MODELO. Yeah.
28:44
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I can't you know, I can't put stump
28:49
Speaker 2: on your point enough that it is about the people
28:52
Speaker 2: that go along with you, you know, and you can
28:56
Speaker 2: point to any other self aggrandizing entrepreneur out there and
28:59
Speaker 2: see the same thing, right, Like I like to say
29:02
Speaker 2: that SpaceX proves that anything is possible when you hire
29:05
Speaker 2: enough NASA engineers.
29:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go, you know. I mean, so, I
29:13
Speaker 1: know we're getting it into the podcast is just because,
29:15
Speaker 1: but we're going to make sure that everybody can you know,
29:18
Speaker 1: find Venia. You guys connected. You and I are connected
29:20
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn too, so if they if you guys want
29:22
Speaker 1: to connect with Jordan there, I think you're what you're
29:25
Speaker 1: doing is so important. We haven't talked about this specifically,
29:29
Speaker 1: this area of what you're doing. I mean, it sounds
29:32
Speaker 1: in some ways mundane, but when you think about it,
29:34
Speaker 1: think everybody think about this. I live up in here
29:37
Speaker 1: in southern California. When we get snow, and you know,
29:40
Speaker 1: if we don't have heat or you know, it's it's bad,
29:43
Speaker 1: and so you know, think about the quality of life
29:46
Speaker 1: you're living. And we're very fortunate here in space, but
29:50
Speaker 1: think about what that looks like for everybody going through
29:52
Speaker 1: the world. And you know the difference that you can make.
29:55
Speaker 1: In this case, Vanera is coming up with a unique
29:57
Speaker 1: way of their product. And so I'm excited about this, Jordan,
30:02
Speaker 1: because again I want your showing what's possible. And I
30:06
Speaker 1: think we need more folks what I call, you know,
30:11
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs stepping out there being innovative. We need more Jordans
30:17
Speaker 1: in the world seeing the problem, checking it out, looking
30:20
Speaker 1: at that and saying, you know what, nobody's really addressing this,
30:24
Speaker 1: and then come alongside and you help each other. For Jordan,
30:27
Speaker 1: you and I were talking earlier before we started recording
30:28
Speaker 1: the podcast, because I've had a number of different folks
30:31
Speaker 1: on the podcast, and I said, let's find synergy. My
30:33
Speaker 1: way of helping is bring introducing people, connecting people, you know,
30:37
Speaker 1: that's what I do. But find whatever that personal why
30:39
Speaker 1: is what drives you to be successful and when I
30:43
Speaker 1: meeting successful, like you said, making an impact, making the
30:46
Speaker 1: world better than you found it, leaving it in a
30:48
Speaker 1: better place. And so I so appreciate you sharing and
30:52
Speaker 1: coming on the podcast with us. Jordan, last thoughts or
30:56
Speaker 1: things that you want to share with our audience as
30:57
Speaker 1: were I was wrapping up today.
31:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, A couple of quick things. One is that
31:03
Speaker 2: David's amazing. You know, He's introduced us to a bunch
31:07
Speaker 2: of people, all of them say how great he is.
31:09
Speaker 2: That is a ever of that being actual, you know.
31:15
Speaker 2: And then also for people thinking about this, if you're
31:18
Speaker 2: in the US, you have a huge opportunity for this.
31:21
Speaker 2: There are so many organizations out there that want to
31:24
Speaker 2: help you get out there and start something for yourself.
31:28
Speaker 2: Our first accelerator we founded with the Google Search and
31:31
Speaker 2: they are so aligned with us in values, Los Angele
31:34
Speaker 2: Cleantech in They're an amazing organization and there is going
31:38
Speaker 2: to be one like that for you, whatever your business
31:41
Speaker 2: idea is.
31:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that Jordan, you got out there, You're like, hey,
31:46
Speaker 1: we started researching there's an accelerator. That's another one. I
31:49
Speaker 1: was mentioning in your brook that we're going to have
31:50
Speaker 1: on something. Get out there. But I think it just
31:53
Speaker 1: takes you. Jordan. You saw, hey, there's there's an area
31:56
Speaker 1: in this in this heating HVAC area that's not being addressed.
32:00
Speaker 1: It needs help, and they're like, boom, you nail, let's
32:02
Speaker 1: get this thing. Take care of us, work on this.
32:04
Speaker 1: And so I so appreciate you stepping out being a
32:08
Speaker 1: leader in that way, and that's why I wanted to
32:10
Speaker 1: bring you onto the podcast today and feature you and
32:12
Speaker 1: Vanerain what you're trying to do and make a difference
32:14
Speaker 1: in the world. So thank you so much for being here.
32:17
Speaker 2: Thank you David, it's been great.
32:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right everybody. Well, as we're wrapping up the
32:23
Speaker 1: podcast this week, once again I want to encourage you to,
32:27
Speaker 1: of course like and subscribe. We always love that. Will
32:30
Speaker 1: you leave your comments so we can pass those on
32:32
Speaker 1: to Jordan. Of course connect with him. We'll have all
32:34
Speaker 1: in our show notes. And if you found this valuable,
32:38
Speaker 1: share it with others, inspire others by.
32:39
Speaker 2: What you've learned and.
32:41
Speaker 1: Listen to you today. I'll come back for our next episode.
32:44
Speaker 1: Until then, do well, Thanks everybody for listening.