The Biggest Opportunity In India: Decentralized Solar

so with more money comes more problems was the way that Manan introduced himself to us like a week back I think a couple of weeks back and then we decided that you know that that this need this episode needs to happen so let's begin with who are you what do you do why are you here and let's go yeah I mean I'm I'm famously quoting Michael Scott from the legendary show the office when I say More Money More Problems so I I'll tell you um I'm obviously an avid uh viewer of the office as you can tell since I quote from it apart from that uh so I I run a company called solo ladder what is happening with solar what is happening in India and what do you think is it gonna look like we are too used to consuming electricity which is produced at a certain source and you know we have these cool power plants which then uh produce electricity and then the electricity is transmitted all across like using grid infrastructure what rooftop solar is is it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to decentralize our source of um electricity production and consumption the rooftop solar is essentially the first decentralized commercially viable form of electricity production that we currently have and also what's the beauty of it is it's super modular in nature so you don't really need to be a heavy consumer in order to set up like a rooftop solar power plant even if you're consuming like one or two kilowatts you can just have like four or five panels sitting on top of your rooftop sitting on top of a rooftop and you can consume the entire electricity by yourself it's also the cheapest form of electricity purely due to the fact that um you know there is no transmission required so again what that enables that can potentially enable is that if we can increase the per capita or consumption of electricity for average Indian we can actually Elevate the average quality of life because our current uh per capita consumption of electricity three times lesser than the global average what is the upset Capital that's required that number really varies basis a lot of factors but I'll give you a roundabout number right [Music] so I run a company called solar ladder with a couple of friends of mine Abhishek and faran Abhishek is my University friend in Farhan is my school friend so we are a supply chain platform for solar installation companies what we essentially do is we provide a software on which solar install is able to run their business and then there is a layer of procurement through which they can procure all the goods that goes into making a solar power project and then there's the layer of financing through which short-term and long-term financing is provided for for the enable Windows uh rooftop solar adoption so we're currently the most used solar software in India um we have more than 300 plus solar companies who are using our system including large companies like Mahindra fourth partner and and the likes and um yeah we recently raised a round of funding we raised a total of 1.3 million dollars and this was from uh axillar Ventures which is the fund of Infosys Founders at Harvard professor taruna and also from Titan Capital which is Kunal Bell and Rohit once from Snapdeal and DVC fund and and like a bunch of angels including deeper Chen who's a partner at Bain and Company so we are uh this is this is the story as of today we've been at it for um three plus years so we started this company um a three three plus years ago and um you know we've lived through countless pivots on absolutely no uh sort of external funding before this being uh you know very much like this podcast how you guys are essentially you know starting it from scratch making like doing the video editing yourself doing the um you know the lighting and everything yourself we've had a very similar Journey uh wherein you know we would be the guys who would uh go to the rooftops take the site measurements do the sales talk to investors even to the extent that there was certain like certain times a truck is supposed to get dispatched from uh like a warehouse of ours and we would be there at site to make sure that everything is um you know in in one piece essentially so that's that's uh like a synopsis of who I am and how we got here I want to say this infomercial was brought to you by thank you for joining us we have Manan from the solar ladder who is giving you this infomercial no how many times have you given that yeah I mean I I have I have reached a point where there is no distinction between my identity and what I do I think I am my work so this is just one after the other I wanted to stop you I want to be like okay he's going to take a break no that's that's the and no that's that's the fender that's the magic and the tragedy of it let's start with modern before solo ladder sure please who is Manan where does Manan come from and up until you say three plus years so 2020 so let's say covet right March 2020. from 1996 97. e96 yeah 96 hit from 96 to 2019 let's 2020 sorry so um I mean very much like you we're still done with Calcutta boy so I uh I went to school in uh I went to school in St James and uh that's what I did uh 18 years of my schooling before I went to study at the University of Warwick that's where I did my undergrad in economics um that's why I did my undergrad in economics and um yeah so University was fabulous I wouldn't change a thing about it I was definitely one of the most active students on campus in a like University as like as a philosophy uh University was supposed to be a place where I know what I don't want to do in life so I just uh I was involved in a lot of activities so that I know more about myself and um and and try to understand like you know what what is it that I want to do and the way I got to what I want to do is through a process of elimination rather than just sticking to a certain path for all my life so that's that's been uh my journey in college I was uh I used to I used to participate in a bunch of raising and giving giving activities wherein I would um fundraise photos particular organization over the summer I volunteered one summer in South Africa teaching kids in a black Township called Alexandra and the other summers in Brazil uh so these were like two essential Summers that I spent uh thinking that earlier earlier on I thought that I wanted to be in social impact and um but I mean through these experiences what I realized that that's not who I am and that's not what I'm meant to do because I get to involved in the in the life of the folks that I'm trying to serve so I mean that that's like a synopsis of the process of elimination that I went through in college but otherwise a fairly active uh just in general I was I used to play All Sports and um you know in school and in college so that's that's been a that's been a journey so far is your run-of-the-mill curious active making life based on a series of eliminations yeah I don't think I can't even call that out of the mill so yeah definitely not your run-of-the-mill Calcutta boy no no absolutely I am very like a proudly I'm Cal just a little about how Manan and I met I was going to meet a mutual friend and he was there as well and he had a copy of this book which I think is one of my favorite books if not my favorite book The Fountainhead by Anne Rand and I think that deserves special mention because I don't think Maran also realizes how much him having that book made me want to talk to him and be like dude I love that you have this and I really want to talk to you as to why you have this no that that is uh there's quite a note to start a friendship or meet any meeting on right so yeah I used to have this bad habit of carrying physical books around I mean now that is I mean I try to uh I I like this was back in Bombay when I just come back from University and yeah I had I think we were with SRI world and uh Trio that was the first time we met and uh yeah big believer of objectivism dude I still think a physical book has Supremacy like how much ever you give me Kindle iBooks PDF ebook whatever there's a feeling of reading a book which I don't think can be matched absolutely I agree with you especially the smell of it right the smell of books smell the feel I think I think there is something about holding a book in your hands no 100 percent 100 percent let's go with a believer of objectivity what what does that mean um so objectivism is essentially like uh the encapsulation of iron Ren's philosophy I mean I'm telling you my version of it of what I understand it uh I mean she doesn't believe in institutions she believes in um a man being in institution of his own so there is no there's no hierarchy there's no hierarchy in that world where because everyone is working for themselves rather than um you know like selfishness is a virtue in the land of objectivism of Android so let us know there is no uh is there is that right we should what what do you I would I would tend to agree with what you're saying I completely understand where you're coming from I remember I think I was in the sixth or seventh grade when I read it for the first time and those first three words Howard Rorke laughed yeah yeah he's about to take a jump from yeah he's about to jump off a cliff yeah naked yeah in the middle of nowhere with no one around him yeah when he had just gotten rusticated from the college for being too uh creatives not non-conforming yeah that's the word I just remember being struck by this this non-conformity becomes a major major driver for entrepreneurs I've seen because you know the world as it is right now it's very driven by get good education get this this this checklist and get a job and then you live in the job and then you die but on your front you did this this this you got the education part and then you decided I'm gonna climb on top of the roofs and I'm gonna install solar panels for people and where that'll go we'll see right how that transition that mindset was that a fight how difficult was it um so um I it was actually a very natural transition it wasn't it wasn't like I always intended to do this I I'll be held against my uh I I I probably should be saying this but I'll say it either way yeah I'm you know contrary to popular belief that I am super passionate about climate change and like solar is what I always wanted to do for the for my entirety of life up until now that's not the truth it actually was like a series of happenstance that led one thing to the other and we started a company so faran is my school friend and uh he was working so he was at Berkeley when he was working at uh working on a few well solar projects on on blockchain and uh he was like Hey I'm I'm doing this project and my colleagues are not interested in pursuing this any further uh are you interested in uh joining me and starting a company I was like yeah sure I mean I'm not too much Smite as well so that's essentially how we went from a like like friends to colleagues working at uh solar light and at the same time uh there was Abhishek who was my University friend uh we literally graduated at the same time and and like I think uh The Story Goes wherein he asked me like what are you up to post graduation because even he wasn't up too much and uh yeah I mean we didn't want to what we knew was that we we knew which is Bridges bird uh which was that uh we don't want to get into any sort of established uh organization I think that is uh what we didn't want to do so this this seemed like it checked all the boxes in terms of uh non-conformity at its best yeah so in fact yeah so we had a checklist of non-conformity so we had to make sure that everything conformed onto the non-conformity checklist so how much of the non-conformity was bought by the lack of a job as compared to the lack of the will to actually look for it don't call me out man no no it was it was a bit of both I think I was in that phase wherein uh so I was in the UK and I had applied for like uh like three or four jobs which I really wanted to get into and uh yeah I didn't get those jobs so then I was like I'm not applying for 30 of them and that was pretty much the story for uh I'll be shaking for on as well where they had like a bracket of like four to five stints that the opportunities that they wanted to grab if not then let's figure it out sort of a ideology is what we followed so you went graduation I mean or straight after graduating graduation work experience yep it was so uh this essentially is my my if I mean my Provo Builders resume would just have one job on it this is my first and hopefully I mean we are if we are able to create like a lasting company this would also be my last job so um yeah this is my first stint so to say like I we started this company we lived through multiple pivots we changed the name of the company a couple of times and then we came to the company in its current form I was wondering why solar ladder was not sitting with me like this company was called something else right I like so I don't LinkedIn and I was like it doesn't sound like the name Manan told me like it was something else yeah no no 100 it was a you know here yeah you know yeah yeah I had to confirm once again because I was like this is not the name I remember right no uh are we we corrected a wrong like by changing the name because that was just a difficult name to pronounce and um I mean there was number one and also we pivoted the business models multiple times right because people were calling it energy uh and like a bunch of stuff so it obviously didn't fly very well it we didn't have the recall but at the same time I mean fundamentally what used to happen when we were running eurosia was that it was a b2c Marketplace so let's say vishwat wants to go solar eunuchia would come to them and help them decide who their service provider should be so someone like an urban club for uh potential rooftop uh customers but now we have gone for a B2B so our customer is not the end customer who we're uh End customer but we are serving the um the solar installer who's doing the work yeah so we're like the operating system for these solar installation companies so are you guys all all of you very technical no so uh so contrary to prop uh answer your question no but contrary to popular belief uh solar is more Finance than its Tech so it's like a finance like a financing business under the Garb of technicalities so but but that said uh Farhan is the technical guy he's uh he's a product and also the solar guy who's uh he's Technical and then there's abhishekan I who have who are um economists by like education proficiency and we mainly look after like the finance bit let's dive deeper how is it a finance under the Garb of technicality interesting so today I think solar is very uh very similar to a card right so um solar is very similar to a car in the sense that cards became omnipresent number one when they became economically viable and number two when there was financing available only on the on like only um a finance was available for on the car itself today what what's happening is that uh today what's happening is that um if you want a loan on your solar power project it's essentially uh it's a home improvement loan uh so you have to put something as collateral in order to get a loan to finance your solar project but what's starting to happen in happen is that there are a lot of banks nbfcs and other financial institutions who are starting to recognize solar as an asset by itself wherein because there is like a development of another secondary market and there is a lot of salvage value of the solar companies that go into making a solar power project there is a lot of a lot of recognition of the solar power plant as a financial product so I would say so so that is starting to happen right so I would so why solar is similar to a car because there are institutions that are starting to believe that solar is a solar is a financial asset in itself and what we essentially do is um uh we help proliferate the adoption of solar by being that platform that is also helping distribute these loans for the End customer that's number one but on top of that uh so that's like one piece of the finance which is long-term finance that is required to get uh to increase like the solar adoption today if I was someone who wanted to install a solar power project as you said I would come to you and be like hey I have such and such area or at least this is what you were at least because you said you were b2c obviously you've changed that essentially what would be is that I have such and such area I'm looking to install a solar power project here how would it work from there on right no so um we again at we serve the solar installers so what I wouldn't come to you you wouldn't come to me you probably don't need to know I exist um it's similar to so so you you don't need to know I exist it's like uh so but like the solar installer who's giving you a quotation he is running his entire business on our system yeah I have not come to you I have gone to that person and been like hey I want to install a solar power project yes that's right but that guy he is running his entire business on solar land so um what does that mean it's an operating system for solar installers so they are able to you know give you a cost benefit analysis of the solar power project that you're pondering over he can give you a financing option through US wherein uh you can decide whether or not you want to opt for a certain Bank on an nbfc and what kind of roles they are providing on top of that that he will need to procure the materials that goes into making a solar power plant so there's solar panels they're inverters there are structures there are cables and so on and so forth all of which he is going to procure through us and at the same time uh you know let's say there is any discrepancy in the payment terms between either the financial institution or you in terms of how you want to how the project should be serviced again we come in as the short-term financial and help them execute the project on on like smoothly so essentially so sorry you're coming back to that main point about how is this a financing business there are two kinds of financing that are required to propel solar number one uh broadly uh two kinds one is long-term Finance which where the End customer requires a loan in order to service the project and number two is the short-term Finance there's a solar installer requires in order to execute the working capital that he needs in order to execute the project so both of which we enabled the money comes out of your kitty in order to give the loans or are you just a facilitator for the loan between the person and another financial institution a bit of both um so a bit of both so what you're essentially asking is uh are we recourse financiers or are we non-recourse financials so a bit of both we have like we have we are dsas in certain cases to uh you know direct selling agents of certain nbfcs where we don't want to take a risk in other cases what happens is that we have these uh complex structures of first laws default guarantees wherein so we are not a registered nbfc so we don't loan our own money but we park our funds with a bunch of nvfcs but they are happy to open let's say 5x or 6X the lines of that Equity that I've parked with the nbfcs and they lend on rbr I want to make it easier for the viewer so nbfc I think is a non-bag non-bank financial company right yes banking Financial cup yep right so for the viewer what you are trying to do is either you're gonna give them money to the person directly I have this money you can use my money in order to buy your solar power plant or whatever the project is you you pay me back slowly slowly the other option is you're in contact with another nbfc and it's their money but you might be invested with them so you have direct skin in the game with that kind of a bank and the third one is you are just an agent and you are connecting the consumer with the nbfc and you're just taking a mission element am I correct on all three fronts yes you're right on all three they don't have the right to lend someone their money being like hey you know here's the money then you can pay us back this is a loan on our from us you I mean yep and you pay us back these are the terms you're right yep so for that you have to be an nbfc loans come with these beautiful things called interest rates right so what kind of interest rates do you provide and how competitive or what not so you're actually making this in infomercial for it no I actually I actually had a roommate in college right in Chicago and this person who's a nice guy the both thing didn't know how loans worked okay so like this guy was like I have an education loan and I I was a student of Finance I was like let me take a look at it I take a look at it he has a 13 education loan he's already drowned in 120 K of student debt and he's working in social sciences in which his max pay is going to be like sixty thousand dollars so you can never cover his interest basis and I ask him do you know what this is he's like I don't know what this means I don't know what interest rate means right so I just want to break down the process of thinking from a company's perspective for the viewers right no I think what's in this scenario that you have mentioned I think what's also important is what's the tenor of this education loan because um sure like it's not payable in one year but if we look at a 15 20 year time Horizon then the education loan is would be payable even if it's interest rate is 12 so at 120 000 12 you were paying 14 400 just in interest right so even if even if you were to amortize that the amortization of the principle anywhere even if you do it over like a 50-year period it's still going to be you'll have to pay north of 14 000 a year the basic expenditure of life would be forty thousand dollars and if you're paying 14 000 out of pocket out of cash you're making sixty thousand dollars how are you gonna cover anything so um sure I mean also like his 60 000 is going to but yeah I get your broad point sixty thousand also going to increase over year on year but sure I I mean yeah how do our loans work yes we try to be a lot more friendly we don't try to hide under the bushes in with like our terms so to say it's a you know um it's really like I can't I I can't give like a uh you know like a general um because it's you know they could so so that's one of the things that do highest so Lewis can go as low as like 10 highest can go 15-ish percent it really depends on so you know when you're doing like a financial check on an entity where you have to loan um there is a lot of uh there are a lot of things that are checked right like civil scores bank statements uh who they are transacting with if it's in msme then who are their Downstream suppliers who are their customers what kind of concentration that they uh what kind of supplier or customer concentration they have and so on and so forth they're close to like 20 to 30 parameters that is nbfc has to check before underwriting a case so you know and the interest rate is obviously just one of the variables the other variables are also like the tenor uh the security uh The Upfront payment that um the customer has to do so these are all parameters at a decided basis their due diligence so one of the things that we also do on the back end is we're trying to automate these decision making processes for our partner in bfcs and Banks as much as possible so that I'm clear I want to give I want to go back to the car example essentially your Mercedes-Benz you're making the or you're facilitating the making of the car or whatever no actually that does not work you either say you like you have like 10 dealerships and each of them are getting cars from Mercedes-Benz you are helping them procure those cars if they are not able to and they're procuring the cars on order um so let me think of the best example so this housing yeah housing uh so do you guys know all these companies called infra Market of business do you know uh um I'm trying to think of the bags so let's let's say uh should I I had suppose when I was pitching to investors but like I've I've already started with the word how about we start with the word asset right so for anything to for you to be able to get a loan against anything it needs to be an asset right so you say solar is an asset it's an asset because it has like some kind of a future cash flow attached to it so in the future it will produce some kind of a value for you you take all of that value you bring it to today and you realize that oh it's worth this much and that this much is being leveraged to get money out of it and that money out of it is the loan part which you are willing to provide the people is that correct uh sure yeah yes so basically you guys are saying this will have value in the future you take some value now it will keep producing value in the future out of that value you keep giving me my share and I'll be paid off I think what you're talking about is like the hypothetication of the solar power plant to get another loan on top of that um I think that is definitely the but like I wouldn't go that deep I would just call it like so solar is an asset which is you know you put an upfront uh investment and is going to is going to like fetch you returns over a period of time that is essentially the definition of an asset what has qualified you to or you guys how are you getting your information as to what solar installers might need so it's uh I mean that is um I mean it's the Cornerstone of any business which is just listening to your customers right um uh I think at the core of it all is what uh you know why combinator very famously says that that their motorways make something people want and like what that essentially means is that you got a keep listening to what the customers need spend time with them and build Solutions on top of the problems that they may be going through on a daily basis so you know the customers know the problems really well you understand the problems and build a solution for them so that's so I mean what qualifies us uh what qualifies us is just the fact that we listen to them and spend time with them and we've done that over the past three four years understanding each and every a note of the supply chain node of what a solar installer does on a day-to-day basis in fact like a lot of us have spent like a few days with our customers in their office to understand what all goes in and out of their factories their warehouse their offices and so on and so forth how much did your experience with Universe factor into this of course that was the uh that was the be-all and the end all in terms of actually spending time with the customer so you know what you guys are doing so you know one of the advice that I was going to give you when you guys were setting this up I my advice to you was going to be that uh you know whatever happens don't subcontract this to someone else until you figure out uh until you figure out like how to like just do it by yourself that's that's been our motto as well in the early days that's pretty much what was to it yeah that's I think more about us getting used to doing two things full type rather than you know something that we don't know it's just that it gets in the way sometimes right no no absolutely but uh what what my point was there was that like you know there may there may be a Temptation right there that let's get a person or maybe let's subcontract it to someone that my only opinion was that even if it's get delayed getting delayed it's totally okay just don't subcontract it because that's still motto that we also kind of so to answer your initial question about why uh how did we like qualify and how did we how did the energy experience help yes so those were the times when we actually went on the ground did the sales spoke to investors uh spoke to you know the end customers understood every single issue there was in the entire supply chain even to the point where one of us would actually even go to the uh truck truck drivers like or go to the warehouse to see the truck driver off I mean these were situations where we could easily like could have subcontracted it to someone right but uh to answer your question you know just did our you know your times help yes because we were on a shoestring budget and scarcity creates clarity and um that is uh that is the motto that we kind of adopted wherein we'll be the ones who literally do every single thing there is and not subcontracted because that's that's how you get to be the process to the customer because once when like the organization starts you know bloating up there are a lot more people um then the distance between you and the customer just increases and when that happens you know you kind of start playing Chinese Whispers with your teams which is actually interacting with the customer in in which case it's not easy to extract what exactly right the customer is wanting or the customer is saying but your experiences from the early days is what is going to help you create that framework for you know all the years so yeah uh sorry just like a very long convolutely convoluted answer to what qualified US and did you know jlbs it was just doing it all in the early days without burning too much money on it let's talk about the customer on a more macro scale let's talk about India right that's the main Market you are serving in my understanding right what is happening with solar what is happening in India and what do you think is it gonna look like in the near future right no no super exciting times for solar um I think it's uh it's the opportunity of our lifetime um you know what's what's happening on a very macro scale is essentially uh what's happening on a very macro scale is essentially like as far as rooftop solar is concerned we are too used to consuming electricity which is produced at a certain source and you know we have these cold power plants which then uh produce electricity and then the electricity is transmitted all across like using grid infrastructure what rooftop solar is is it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to decentralize our source of um electricity production and consumption so um so that's uh you know that's that's what's happening in terms of uh well like that's the kind of solar rooftop solar this is actually the first decentralized commercially viable form of electricity production that we currently have and also what's the beauty of it is it's super modular in nature so you don't really need to be a heavy consumer in order to set up like a rooftop solar power plant even if you're consuming like one or two kilowatts you can just have like four or five panels sitting on top of your rooftop uh sitting on top of a rooftop and you can consume the entire electricity by yourself so that's the kind of opportunity that rooftop solar is presenting uh as of today uh it's also the cheapest form of electricity purely due to the fact that um you know there is no transmission required so again what that enables that can potentially enable is that if we can increase the per capita consumption of electricity for average Indian we can actually Elevate the uh average quality of life because our current uh per capita consumption of electricity three times lesser than the global average so the other thing matter with solo that at least I have noticed is that a lot of these electricity state boards and things like that like West Bank all today does not allow you to give back to the grid there's also a certain minimum that you have to pay so in terms of viability have you know have you had this similar problem in other states as well or is it just a what-off thing um no it's actually a one-off thing um I would say it's not I wouldn't say one-off I'll say I'll still call it a minority so if you go if you go to the West Coast whether that be Rajasthan uh Maharashtra um Karnataka Gujarat these places are super friendly too uh solar policy in general rooftop solo policy policy to be specific yes there is a problem with uh this there's like a state of flux in the sense that you know we've had like a certain policy or in 2015 that has changed over a period of time and there's a state of flux which is kind of irritating for the customers but uh you know the the policies back in the west coast are definitely getting much better and uh yeah there is there is a problem in uh Calcutta uh per se with the grid not allowing net metering and other Pro solar Pro rooftop solar policies but look electricity being a concurrent subject which is like you know falls under the central uh law and also digress state law on the center like as far as the center is concerned they have passed a law wherein net metering is like you know is is supposed to be um available to any and every consumer so it really is so if today West Bengal is not allowing it it's very much stopping at the state level that's good I mean I'm so glad that that's the case because I remember we've had this conversation quite a few times and this is back in your University ideas yep and this was always the concern that how viable is it when a you can't give back and B you have to pay a minimum repairing 85 percent of what you've demanded has to be paid as a demand charge and things like that so there was a whole lot then it was not really very commercially viable and it was not something that you we wanted to get into for that specific reason so I'm glad that that's a very West Bengal Calcutta specific thing rather than a india-specific thing yes yes it is a West Bengal specific thing but at the same time still like you know if uh you know there is this you may let's say for example you are um hypothetically you require 100 kilowatts to meet your entire needs you can still size your system in West Bengal to meet only your daytime needs and it will still be commercially viable so you know if net meter was allowed you could go in for an entire 100 kilowatt and sell the excess electricity to grid and get credits for it but what's uh what you can still do now is let's say your daytime consumption is 50 kilowatt you can still set up a 50 kilowatt system there will be a wastage of electricity units which are you know excess sleep uh you know produced in excess if you go for like a reverse power relay um but uh but on a whole you will still be like that 50 kilowatt will still be a very commercially viable proposition for you uh because just to talk numbers right if if let's say the cost of electricity currently is seven rupees per unit and we so I'm bringing apples to Apple's comparison because you know seven rupees you're paying per unit it's an Opex cost that compare operational expenditure uh but if you were to set up a rooftop solar power plant you are putting an upfront capital and then you don't have to pay any Opex charges but if I were to levelize that cost of electricity over a period of 25 years which is the life of the solar power plant that's seven rupees compares to only two rupees of solar electricity cost is only two to three rupees compared to the seven rupees so the the savings that you can make the project IRA and the savings the return on investment is massive it's a complete no-brainer yeah on a logical scale India is a country very rich in solar energy like we have Sun throughout the year it is not even that the nights are very long in certain times right and solo has been there since I think 1970s 1980s we have known about solar power plant solar power panels right it's not it's not like it just came two years ago why isn't India just like filled to the brim with solar power plants everywhere like on in every state in every city right I would say the I think it's uh I'm gonna be a little pompous here and say that there it's because companies like us haven't existed it the reason I'll tell you the reason why I feel so as well right because this business is a very localized business um in the sense that there are these really small hyper local companies all across um the uh the country which are doing the solar installations right the biggest bottleneck that they face is you know working capital financing getting the right material at the right price uh being able to run their business on a full end-to-end like automated tool that is something that these guys don't have uh don't have in order to proliferate solar to the kind of potential that you know which uh Akil that you think there is and uh the main issues today as far as proliferation of solar uh solar is concerned is the supply chain issues demand as I mentioned is a no-brainer but the biggest issues lie on the supply side wherein installers are not able to operate properly manufacturers are not able to predict where to place the material where the demand is going to come from these are the biggest pain points that we want to solve and at the end of the day access to finance Remains the largest bottleneck as far as the End customer is concerned so a lot of banks and nbfcs were previously giving loans as a home improvement loan on the solar power plant itself but what's starting to happen is that a lot of nbfcs and institutions are realizing that solar power plant in itself can be an asset and uh people are starting to collateralize the asset and give them a loan uh give a loan to give a loan hypotheticated by the solar power plant itself so that they can finance that upfront Capital that is required to get the power plant what is The Upfront Capital that's required right so it really depends on the scale that which we are talking about let's look at say a 10 kilowatt 50 kilowatt and 100 kilowatt sure so that number really varies bases a lot of factors but I'll give you a roundabout number right so for a 10 kilowatt system it can cost uh you somewhere around uh four lakh to five lakh rupees this is for the initial setup only yeah only initial setup and the main cost is only initial setup so four to five lakh Rupees is what a 10 kilowatt system will uh cost you um and then you know as so that's essentially like um we look at the per kilowatt pricing so 40 to 50 rupees per 40 to 50 000 rupees per kilowatt that is essentially the costing but as the scale increases the per unit costing decreases so the average size so average size for a residential system is around five kilowatt so that would be around two and a half lakhs um for an msme that or that five kilowatt would be around 50 kilowatt that's the average size for it msme that would be around 25 lakhs or actually it's the per unit cost decreases so I would say around 20 lakhs and then for an industrial let's say Warehouse or even even like a large Factory it can go up to 500 kilowatts wherein it's again the per unit cost decreases to around 35 rupees 35 000 rupees per kilowatt and that would be approximately 1.75 crores this space limitation right like it completely depends on how much space you have on top of a warehouse to even be able to set up a 500 kilowatt plant am I correct or am I incorrect absolutely so you know as I was saying that giving up it's this is a very customized product it's not standardized by any means so you know there when we do um you know so these are like one of the biggest complications when it when I was referring to the kind of problems that solar installers have even like a technical site visit requires a lot of deliberation before giving a proposal you know in other Industries giving a proposal is very standardized you give like a one page of Po or a pi and that's about it but the over here what let's say you want to set up a solar power plant for your house a person will have to come he'll have to read your electricity bills see the amount of unencumbered rooftop space there is so Shadow free and there can't be any Shadow falling from trees etc etc then ask you the question about how much space you are willing to give up or put up a super structure for in case you are wanting to not give up the space and then you know essentially you'll have to run the entire simulation on another software of it is the software essentially is like a you know to see key is particular building is latitude like longitude over the course of the entire year because that differs from one place to another and the cost benefit analysis will be majorly dependent on that parameter so a proposal is very intricate and uh you know at the end of the day it's not just it's not just you're not just putting a solar panel on your rooftop there is a structure that is essentially supporting it then there is an inverter which is the brain of the entire power plant then at the same time there is an entire like cable link you've got to do you also need to make sure okay water tank is as fast so that you can clean the panels on a regular basis it's a very customized solution and uh to you all also do something based out of batteries like if you if someone say wanted to connect a set of batteries to the solar power project as well right so batteries are in uh do we do it or do we enable them to do it yes of course but our battery is uh very commercially viable as of today no absolutely that is something that I would say outside of India a lot of the people that are facing this issue with solar power and why they're not putting it is because mainly because of the batteries and because they can't utilize their whole thing at night yeah absolutely you're right like batteries are not uh batteries are not commercially viable in India abroad also it's less or so but it is the future yeah yeah 100 so okay and I are major battery Enthusiast oh see so we really like to read about a lot of batteries we don't know much about how to make them but uh I think when we were doing our new segments and stuff like that we used to always have our #battery news of the week or nearly yeah oh you guys got to do like a podcast on that particular topic alone we'll get someone who is a battery expert you know that'll that'll be more informative because I think whoever listens to us and whoever has been listening to us since about February or March will have noticed this almost every week or two weeks we used to do a news episode and it used to have battery news of the week we're actually trying to get into more into the energy production also we did an episode with Narayan so he's running how to produce electricity from ocean waves so they have a very interesting project going waves like the waves hit the machine and then the like it just sort of like they use the power that the weight yeah they use the power with which the wimp will hit that machine to create the the music so it's not I think tidal was more based on plates moving as per the tide and all that I think this is more to do with initial like how a wave initially will hit record this interesting machine which is still in testing phases I think that he said that it would be implemented by March 2024 I mean the mechanics of it would be still similar to like hydropower right I'm not sure exactly who is the mechanics but uh you can watch our episode for that yeah there is definitely a turbine attached to the whole thing sure everybody should watch that episode like now that episode will be out by the time this is a card so hopefully everyone watching this has already watched that if not link is above the per capita energy consumption has been a very interesting topic of discussion I think Bill Gates has been a big proponent of that as well because of this book written by watlow's Mill who talks about exactly whichever Society has been at the top of the food chain has always had the highest level of energy consumption for example right now it's the US who is at the top of the food chain and their energy consumption are Bonkers then it's China again Bonkers right even in the past when it used to be like Roman Empire their energy consumption including the human mechanical energy was at the top of the food so do you think you being an enabler for people to set up solar businesses in the first place right that's what you are enabling people to do that go out there and set up your own solar business do you think that can significantly push India into a lot more energy consumption per se right uh just one thing I want to you know differentiate is energy is very different from electricity like uh that's that's definitely one very strong differentiating factor between the two to answer your question guess we are uh enabling we want to increase the per capita consumption of electricity that is definitely one of the uh missions that we um you know uh swear by because we feel like today if you look at it from again like a very macro scale only three to five percent of the entire like households and offices are actually air conditioned and the the summers are just getting worse right there is there is there's an entire angle about how um climate change adaptation is a big issue and it's going to be a very big issue as we as yours go by and when we go into that 2030s and 2040s so if we can somehow have more electricity consumption that is enabling not enabling any sort of cooling I think that will be in big win because cooling is the most electricity consuming part of any uh you know whether that be residential commercial or msme unit and the applications are in a hot country like us is not just about like getting like cooling for people but it also for you know Supply chains for Cold Supply chains for food and so on and so forth so there is a massive ceiling when it comes to being able to increase the consumption of electricity in terms of urban versus rural how have you seen the adaptation of solar in India when you say Urban versus rural do you mean like in urban areas versus rural areas or do you mean like uh folks who are living folks like Urban folks versus rural folk because you know I'm saying areas I'm doing more of an area wise because as we said earlier the main issue with a lot of the solar at least for commercial is it's space limited right whereas literally you have that space available and also the way that most always a conventional electricity reaches rural places it's a lit that the coverage is a little lesser there so would I mean I would assume that if there are people who are able to provide solar projects to those remote extents or to rural areas I'm assuming people would be very happy to get that on board so right what's your experiences with that there are many many aspects to this uh but to let me let me answer your question in a way that so there's a lot more solar penetration that is happening in the msme sector which is non-urban and or not just ever semi even like just general like the solar Revolution when it comes to so there's the most amount of rooftop most amount of solar that is set up in large Parcels of land this is a ute there are essentially two kinds of solid whereas the utility scale solar and then there is the rooftop solar of course there's like floating solar on like oceans and stuff but I'm not getting that on on the Land There online there is actually two kinds of solar rooftop solar and utility scale solar the most amount of action is actually seen in the utility scale solar where the likes of adani Etc are setting up large power plants and you know transmitting that electricity all across uh the country so you know adani also owns the grid so they Supply that electricity to their own grid and then that is in turn consumed by us but again that's how the right we believe that that's not the right way to go solar the right way to go solar is decentralized rooftop solar which is uh rating ourselves of the inefficient grid infrastructure that we currently have which is 200 years old to answer your question about to get further into rooftop solar uh where do we see a lot more action it again is in rooftop solo we see a lot more action in the industrial sector in the large factories in the then it trickles down to and the MSM is again which is non-orbid urban doesn't see too much of an action urban areas in India don't see too much of an action and we don't expect it to either because of the fact that uh as you mentioned there isn't enough roof space available in order to set up these power plants so even if you were to set up you know let's say you had limited unencumbered space and you were able to set up a small rooftop power plant it will only meet a very small portion of your needs especially the commercial yeah exactly this is what I was referring to more specifically was decentralized rooftop solar in rural areas where the conventional electric grid doesn't usually get them got it okay so about that um so yes there is a lot of incentives being so you know currently there's a custom scheme which has come out that has to do with empowering Farmers with Solar Solutions in order to power their pumps in order to you know water pumps that that is used in irrigation that that kind of application is seeing a lot of traction and there's a very strong incentive and subsidy schemes in order to proliferate that kind of application if we are talking about rooftop solar specifically it's an expensive uh it's it's expensive for Rural communities to adopt rooftop solar but at the same time there are a lot of organizations that work under the uh under the mission of making energy access electricity accessible to all and they are doing it under their own like funding so to say do you think it's gonna get cheaper in the next decade in the next five years or whatever a rooftop solar in general not as much it has not as much as it has in the last 10 years so just to give you an idea of the price points over the past like 2010 to 2020 I think 2010 it was 10 times more expensive than it was today essentially you know how like certain Technologies especially like semiconductors they they fall in prices over a period of for 10 years that kind of has already happened uh and we don't expect too much fall in prices any further after you know a reduction of 10x has already happened in the past 10 years so we've reached the price point where it is commercially viable it's a no-brainer the I think the the the actual like as I mentioned previously the actual problem lies in the supply chain and the lack of access to finance so then there is a more the technological shift has already happened there needs to be more innovation in storage batteries business models that is helping proliferate uh rooftop solo that's that's the kind of phase that we are in I'll tell you why my question in the first place because once I do get financing from you let's say I get it for 25 years and my belief system is that yeah the solar has gone down so much in the past decade what if I get trapped into like a 25 year thing where I have paid 10x the price and five years later I feel screwed is there an insurance is there some sort of a defense mechanism for me to make that decision easier right no that is actually a very big issue that a lot of folks face for adopting solar and um yeah that that is you know it's a very it's a very volatile like solar panels in itself are very volatile so you can't really time when to get your solar power plant um is is what I feel especially for like a residential system um which is like fairly small um so I think the best time to go solar was yesterday is uh is my opinion to everyone um you shouldn't try to time it because it's not really worth it and especially when you're working for like smaller systems of course when this Quantum starts getting larger then you know there needs to be a lot more optimization in terms of costing but um is the technology going to evolve yes it is uh I can't say that it's not uh you know there may be other forms of technology which will be you know like first for example there was I think there was a there was a uh there was a research which was being done at Stanford wherein certain solar panels were able to produce electricity at night um so those kind of breakthrough technologies will keep coming but at the same time your what you have to look at it in in terms of is um is going to be um you're going to start making saving from the your start you're going to start being savings from day one and your payback is going to be four years and there is uh there is a significant secondary Market which is also starting to come up so there is a you know significant salvage value to the solar power plant as well your payback period is four years four four to five minutes so all right let's say Five Years Around 50 and your plan is for 25 years so what if five years down the line that is a better offer how does that or how would that better offer in in sense of cheaper something breakthrough technology say solar panels can generate power at light right note that that that kind of risk you take with every technology right what about it there today like you buy a phone you can always have a better iPhone that is going to come up the very next uh that's what you have an upgrade cost right so if I want to today if I bought a phone one year ago and I have it on a certain contractor I can't even don't have it in the contract I go over to the person and I'm like hey I want to give this phone and I want to buy the new phone right so they will give me x amount of price on my old forehead give me the new phone so that's my question inside yours time so today I put in a solar power project and I have financing for 25 years five years later there are solar panels that can generate power at night what's that what's the upgrade cost what is the way how do I go about it no currently so I can't give you a an answer right now on terms of What's the upgrade cost because you know what's happening with again like phone for example or even automobiles is that there is a significant secondary Market right today that's significant secondary Market in solder is starting to show signs so I can't give you a number immediately is you know ideally you will be able to sell your solar panels get the upgraded solar panels and uh yeah I keep saving on your electricity costs and as far as the financial is concerned well everyone has their own terms and so I can't like give like a these are very customized contracts right I can't give like a a while I like I'm trying to simplify by comparing it to automobiles or um automobiles or uh phones these are very customized contracts but what my hope is that the majority of the financials wouldn't have a problem as long as they are obviously making their uh returns that they need to so basically this is something that has to be figured out between the end user and the financier and then as and how the secondary solar Market develops you're going to get a better picture and in today's date that secondary Market does not exist it's starting yeah so that level of secondary Market let's say as there is for a say mobile phones or cars or whatever that doesn't exist to it which is why in Azog like what July 2023 we don't have to way of you know saying that okay maybe in five years you have a certain upgrade course but you do envisage that comes in 100 maybe one of our viewers can build like a secondary Marketplace online kind of thing for solar panels when you get the viewers we want to do that at some point of time but sure yes you named a couple of companies that you see yourself as right you were like I'm Salesforce I am India mod I am XYZ for solo right I see you as YouTube for solar why I see you as YouTube for solar is because YouTube as a platform allows for the creatives to come on and set up their careers as creatives and for you are able to provide a platform for these people who wish to set up a business in solar that get to come on your platform and set up a business for solo so let's get a deeper dive into numbers how many businesses have been able to set themselves up because of you and if you're comfortable with the whole my numbers are this we would love to hear some sure yeah YouTube is definitely a great example another very good example would be uh YouTube for creators a good example another great example would be let's say Shopify for um you know e-commerce so these are essentially enables yep so that's uh in terms of numbers we currently have 300 plus solar companies who are running the entire business on our system um in terms of so you know I was talking about I spoke about the wrong North metric uh actual North metric is essentially how much how much solar we have deployed and essentially how much carbon footprint we have reduced so directly or uh you know we directly or indirectly we have essentially 300 megawatts which are 300 megawatts worth of solar which is deployed by customers who use our system 300 Mega this is over the past two years so 2021 2022 2023 numbers are not fresh yet but um you know these this is how much we have enabled in the past two years 300 megawatts in terms of numbers that is approximately worth 100 million dollars yes so 100 million dollars worth of solar has been deployed by customers who use our system so you all are making money based off of subscriber models that these people sign up with B have uh we have the way we make money is essentially so sure we have like a software subscription that's one piece of it uh then you know once uh then we also have like when people purchase material from us we make money there when people in get financing from us we make money there um and the idea is that we are also building a lot of value-added services in terms of like for example uh if someone needs a design or needs to do a site visit and they don't have a personal we try we're trying to get into all those segments basically everything that our customers needs and wherever a monetization opportunity exists we try to but yeah a major major Revenue actually comes from selling materials to these customers or user system and of course there's a software piece as well so you're basically connecting the supplier of these products whatever whatever saving like I'm going to be manufacturing a solar panel someone who's minded activating the thing that the solar panel stands on the structure the materials for that structure Etc so you were you have your deals in place for them and then you end up providing them to your customers and then you're making up cards yes we are aggregating is it because you see you're aggregating and then yeah like a wholesaler yeah so I would think that solar power people setting up the solar power plants on my house would be not very inclined to newer Technologies let's go let's go that way I feel like it would be something that you buy off of the shelf and then you install it for somebody on the rooftop and then they have solar how did you educate them how did you get them to employ a software employer CRM system employ the education of such softwares because it is a learning curve that they have to go through that okay I have to see this this is this was it difficult like starting off with a software company right absolutely and I'm not going to take any credit for that because I don't take part take care of that part of the business at all so it's Abhishek and faran who should Abhishek Farhan and the entire team that looks after the software deployment and customer success and and so on and so forth um you're right you're absolutely right it's a very uphill task uh in getting Indian smes to use software but at the same time what we have seen is that the receptiveness so you know there's there's a learning curve it's steep in the early days but once they get because the software has been designed very well by faran and you know there's a lot of intricacy has that has gone into you know product design and uh usability um we have seen that after they go through the learning curve maybe for a month or so the stickiness is very high and what we're also seeing is because of high internet penetration just in general which is you know post jio kind of a world that we live in uh there's huge there's there's an unusual amount of Technology receptiveness among smbs as well initially they would not run their businesses on even like Excel sheets they would run it on pen and paper but now what we are starting to observe is uh at learning curve is steep but if you make a really good product wherein uh you know there is a lot of usability and a lot of uh value they are going to stick to it for the long run are you profitable we were profitable until the previous fundrais uh now we are in growth mode does competition scare you because they're going to be popping up here and there and everywhere once your growth comes about right the way the way we look at it is that our biggest competition is coal or we're talking about competitors in the same Market yeah I know 100 that's the that the way we look at it is that our biggest competition is actually cold there is no this is a very vast ocean um competitors uh we are we look at competitors as enablers right because today the solar Market is quite small as in like it's seeing its early days whereas the uh we have to push the boundaries off uh push the boundaries of for uh of solar so com if there are competitors we are pushing like so-called competitors we are essentially pushing like the borders together so we don't pure like look at them as purely like competitors as a long long way to go long uh journey to Charter and uh more companies that work in this space the better it is for all of humanity and in fact uh I'm not just saying this from like a uh you know holier than thou kind of a perspective actually we actually kind of believe that and I was actually like you know funnily enough I was or funnily enough I was watching that too when you ask me this question to immediate Clips stand out in my head the one is obviously like you know there is a I think there's a blonde or uh interview between uh Messi and Ronaldo who are sitting beside each other and they're you know they're asking about their perspective on each other even yesterday I was watching like this uh one interview of the Pinder goyal um and uh zomato and him talking about swiggy and in fact he he has he has complimented swiggy in um uh in in the IPO documents as well so these two clips like stand out immediately wherein you know if one you know if there aren't enough there should be someone who's pushing you to be better than you are yesterday and um and I think that is more so in our space because you know climate Tech has seen busts as well they've seen a boom it has seen a bust and then again it's seeing a new boom and it's very important that companies are built in uh number one ethically number two innovatively and if you don't have too much like folks who are also running around the corner um then you're not getting pushed on a regular basis and the boundaries need to get pushed for sure so and don't look at them as competitors so they don't scare us I mean yeah that's that's my opinion big statements and comparing yourself to Messi and Ronaldo yeah no of course you gotta keep aspiring we've got some info version to like aspirational was told I don't know what to say we went from Salesforce to YouTube to Shopify and now we are at Messi Ronaldo no these are just like like we don't I just want to get back one question I had you said the learning curve is steeped for the first month yeah how do you get them to make that handicuff uh it all starts off with knowing the customer and knowing the kind of issues and problems that they deal with um you have to have a very good smooth onboarding process which is which is delivered online on Zoom uh you have to have very strong customer support mechanisms which are always there in order to even help them with key a button press condenses that kind of queries so you know India is a place where customer service is not um you know not at its best so even if you go in extra mile and give Superior customer service people are willing to stick with you so great onboarding good customer support usability of the product obviously that is again like something that has to be given kudos to the entire Tech team they have created a very user-friendly product which is um which is easily you know it's intuitively getting used by multiple companies which were which are first time software adopters so even if you look at like you know there are certain uh if you look at khata book for example uh in in India what they have done is if gotten like kirana stores to start using software for the very first time um so that's essentially like you know that's the kind of mindset that you need to have wherein I think the the broad three pillars which you need in order to get first time software adopters to use software so create customer support good onboarding and number three was uh just product usability so I wake up tomorrow morning I see this podcast I see Manana sitting there talking about this company and it's going to enable me to open a Solar Company okay so to open a solar installation system I go online and I start thinking how to set up this thing what now what's the next step how do I get to solar ladder how do I set it up what's the process well the first thing you do is you start uh start using the software right wherein you can run your entire business you can create your uh projects you can start doing sales you can start creating proposals through which you can start pursuing the End customer so that's the the entire end-to-end software you can run end-to-end business you can run on our vertical sash tool how does one get it that's it so you are on our website um you get in touch with us uh on our website chances are if you're starting a solar business and you know someone who runs a solar business they may refer you to solar land and uh because we are the most used solar software in India today so um yeah that's another great way in which we get a lot of customers is through referrals or uh through um the solar like our website so that's number one you start using our software start trading proposals start doing sales work then if you once you will start winning certain projects you will require material in order to set up these projects you require the material at the right time at the right price point and you require all of that from one place we are that One-Stop shop place by through which you can get all the materials and goes into making a solar power plant so whether that be a solar panel an inverter steam structure cables uh pipes so on and so forth so everything you can get from a One-Stop shop Marketplace then on top of that you realize that okay this customer is great he wants to go ahead but he uh he needs some sort of financing because he doesn't want to pay The Upfront Capital again we arranged the financing for you to push to your end customer then at the same time you realize that okay this uh this financier who is financing the End customer is not willing to pay me upfront for executing the project and you require working capital financing again that is something that we help you get so it's a full you know every pain point we have taken care of and then we are also building like value-added services like let's say you also need to get a permission from uh from the discount in order to um you know the in for the power plant that you have set up again that permission also will help you get so it's uh you don't have to run around 10 places especially like an SMB which is like a three to five member team you don't have to run out 10 or 10 places to get 10 things done for with 10 different people we are there through one stop shop where they can get every single thing done so our tool is a premium tool uh so uh you start you can start using the free tool to start using maybe the basic functions like CRM and sales proposals but then as the time goes by you can start uh you know our software isn't priced that much so it is suited for the smbs so it's at it's the the pro and the premium versions are not priced more than 2000 rupees per user per month right so that is the cost of using the software but when it comes to so now how much now it really depends on what you want to purchase from us whereas the pricing differs the quantity Etc so usually we tried our customers have seen I'm sorry I won't be able to tell you how much it costs because it's not a standardizing but what I can tell you is that they end up saving at least three to five percent on their costs uh when they purchase from us as compared to purchasing from the market because our pricings are better our working capital uh financing is there so they can get material or credit and so on and so forth and three to five percent is by the way a very very large amount when you look at it from three to five percent of the revenue right which basically translates to if the profit margins are you know let's say eight to ten percent then we're essentially talking about like profit increasing by 30 so that is a massive uh value prop that we are providing and then also you'd also need to if you look want to look at it from another perspective they don't have to go around running to 10 people to get 10 things done so that is another like unaccounted cost for that we are saving for that it's let's have your anti-self solo why is solar bad you know um do you guys consume electricity of course you don't need to consume as much electricity you know that right like you can uh you can live an aesthetic's life and uh not have like air conditioning cooling you and uh you don't need too many lights you don't need all these appliances around you so there you go we should got it but okay no to the office like 3xc press it oh my God I know this camera has gotten it and it could have been like zoomed in and fronted Center because the things on your face like you were telling us you could live in Aesthetics life you know it's like you know it's like one of those questions when you go like for a job interview someone asked like what's your biggest weakness I work too hard I tend to not sleep because I'm so obsessed with my work no but like okay going back to the activity let's let's anti-cell solar um aha this is how do I anti-cell solar and not sell anti-cell electricity um yeah man it's a difficult one um well I think what did I mean what solar does is definitely like it takes away space from your roof so what we have seen is um what like the main issues that a lot of customers face are number one if they are not so you know they don't fall under the realm of financial accessibility and they don't want to put The Upfront Capital those are the folks that get off the uh get of the solar uh number two are folks who probably don't have a pakka house so in that case you can't set up like steel structures on which you set up a uh rooftop solar power very easily and those of Our Heroes not from India pakka house is a house with cement and columns and like most of us sleep kacha house is something that's made out of mud it doesn't have any colors or steel or any support as such which is why it cannot support structures on top of it yep um so if you are one of like I mean if these are the if you fall in one of the two uh rarest and solar is not a great uh proposition for you um third would be maybe if you um if you don't want to go for a super structure right like usually you know the thing with India is that Terraces are actually a place where community uh like like a community gets together and has a has a good time putting up a rooftop solar power plant kind of blocks that space and even when you put up a super structure to put up that solar power plant the natural sunlight penetration in that rooftop space is kind of decreased so if you're again like you really value your Terrace and you want it to be the way it is and don't want um you know any sort of encumbrances over there so then roof like rooftop solo is not a good sell for you this is again for residential today if you're a msme i it's very difficult for me to anti-sell solar because like like oh you're not looking to make profits I think that's if you're if you're like if you're if you're not looking to make savings and profits I mean that's that's when you don't buy or put solder through some something you know when you when you ask a solar guy to add to sell you solo even in his NT cell he is saying maybe even it is saying if yeah and he's selling so that he's like you don't like to make profits you don't like to do this then don't set up so now we have a final question for you left for our view by our previous guest okay and funnily enough it has worked out well enough that it goes with the first line of this podcast More Money More Problems so we're taking money out of the equation so he says if money doesn't exist as an entity in this world where would you be oh if money doesn't exist and I honestly like honestly I think I'd still be doing the same thing that I'm right now um yeah I I love what I do I I feel like it falls very well into uh uh ikigai essentially being so yeah that I think it falls very well into the realm of what I would have liked to do and I would still be doing the same thing maybe I would be playing a lot more I would be playing a lot more music uh playing a lot more uh football while I still can uh and giving lesser hours to work uh compared to what I am doing right now but yeah I I think life is pretty good wouldn't it wouldn't change a thing

Channel: Thought Bistro Podcast with Vishrut and Akhil

Views: 2,427

Keywords: Podcast, Founder, Courage, Leap, Solar Energy, Sustainability, Decentralization, Enabler, Rooftop Solar, Renewable Energy, Green Technology, Solar Power, Solar Ladder, Thought Bistro, Solar Industry, Climate Change, Solar Solutions, Solar Business, Solar for Homes, Solar Future, Solar Market, Solar Growth, Solar Benefits, Solar Revolution, centralization vs decentralization, solar innovations inc, renewable energy, climate change news, climate change 2023, b2b marketing

Id: RCTkgs0FwgY

Length: 89min 57sec (5397 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023