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Green Light Distrikt
Green Light Distrikt is about entrepreneurship focused on the cleantech sector. Edited by Chris Williams with frequent guest posts from friends, experts and industry insiders from clusters across the globe. Our goal is to provide a place where cleantech entrepreneurs in various clusters across the globe can learn from one another. Green Light Distrikt is creating the "Hitchikers Guide to Clentech" to provide a resource for cleantech entrepreneurs. Read more
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BOSTON
January 18th, 2012
5 Lessons You Can Apply to Prototyping New Products
TOPICS: BICEP, BOSTON, Prototyping
Last year, I built and sold my first cleantech product. It is a tool used to install solar PV modules more efficiently.
Here is the story and what I’ve learned about prototyping in the process. Hopefully, it will be useful to you as well.
Here’s a quick snippet of what I learned.
- Closeness with customers is key, especially if you’re getting them to change their behaviors. If you’re building a new product and are not building relationships with beta customers, this is a problem. It is critical for time between iterations and testing. This is also critical for them providing you blunt feedback. Lastly, with many cleantech products you’re interrupting existing operations. If they don’t trust you, they won’t want to risk it.
- Don’t assume you know the answer. I was the target customer but 15 minutes of feedback on our alpha prototype enabled us to reduce manufacturing costs by 400% for our beta. This is key because unlike software or internet products, cleantech products are EXPENSIVE and tend to require face to face relationships.
- Work on your communications. The concept must be clear to the customer quickly or it will be difficult for them to provide useful feedback that can use to enhance the product.
Click below to read the full story. Also, apply for Cleantech Prototyping Academy if you want to learn best practices of how to build products faster (and cheaper) in order to impress investors or find beta customers. CPA is taught by Ethan Labowitz.
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January 10th, 2012
Green Light Distrikt in 2012 – Can We Increase the Velocity to $1 for Cleantech Companies?
TOPICS: BOSTON
Another year has passed and Green Light Distrikt is still alive.
The goal of Green Light Distrikt is constantly changing as my work, and the work of other industry insiders, continues to shift. Currently, I’ve published a study guide for the Solar NABCEP exam, invented a solar installation tool, I’m responsible for all marketing and sales at HeatSpring, and am consulting with both renewable energy installation companies and companies launching new products, technologies or services targeted at the solar or geothermal industry. All of these experiences have provided me a valuable skill, into how to build a product quickly, get it in front of customers, and collect money, or not.
What started as a personal blog, turned into a blog about the cleantech industry in Boston, then about the industry in multiple cities, and now Green Light Distrikt is a blog that is for people who are building cleantech companies. The goal is to make the blog for other people like myself, those that are constantly exploring opportunities and working to build successful companies in the cleantech industry.
Here’s a review about who Green Light Distrikt is, what we’re writing about, the projects that we’re working on and how they relate together and then topics and themes we’ll be writing about in 2012.
Most of the topics fall under one simple concept that GLD is beginning to focus around: How can we increase the velocity of cleantech companies to $1 faster ? By this I mean, what can we do to get companies out of “idea stage” and into “making money stage” as quickly as possible.
November 1st, 2011
What I Learned at the Harvard Business School Energy Symposium
BOSTON -Like in today’s U.S. electoral politics, energy is an overwhelmingly partisan issue. On one end are the oil and gas types such as Dr. Matthias Bichsel (Shell), who believe that conventional energy can supply the world with all its energy supply now and in the future. On the other end are the clean energy types such as Bill McKibben (350.org), who believe that we must move entirely to renewable energy in order to avoid the worst impacts of global climate change. While both sides may be right, the former will break the planet and energy security and the latter will break the economy – neither will provide a secure, healthy and prosperous world for future generations.
The answer is clearly somewhere in between, and that’s what I appreciated most about the open-minded dialogue I found at the recent Harvard Business School’s Energy & Environment Symposium, where I attended presentations about cleantech, distributed generation, unconventional fuels and global energy policy. All of these areas and more, according to Matthew Nordan of Venrock, “are bursting with opportunity.” There are some big names below – from the CEO of A123 Systems to a high-level policymaker at the World Bank – read past the break for the transcript of the day’s presentations and join the Green Light Distrikt Facebook group for updates on new events, blog posts and more.
October 31st, 2011
5 Common Problems with Cleantech Prototyping and How to Solve Them
BOSTON -
The following post is the start of a series focusing on making Boston a world class city for clean energy prototyping. Read more about the Boston Institute for Clean Energy Prototyping.
Clean energy is a tough business. As entrepreneur Eric Smith put it, we’re really good at leveling mountains and burning coal. So competing with coal and natural gas on price will require every ounce of innovation we can muster.
But unlike information technology, energy technology is often expensive to prototype. For some energy innovations, the prototyping stage is so fraught with expense and uncertainty that it becomes a barrier, preventing good ideas from achieving commercial success.
For the past few years, I’ve studied clean energy prototyping. Much of my work has been with startups, including several in the Boston area. I’ve helped companies design and build prototypes, and interviewed founders on the challenges they faced during the prototyping process. Many of the same themes keep cropping up, so I’ve put together a review of some of the most common mistakes to avoid:
October 25th, 2011
Two Awesome Events for Boston Area Cleantech Entrepreneurs
TOPICS: BOSTON, CleanTech Events, EnergyBar
I find that great events have three things in common. First, a very specific topic for a specific group of professionals. Second, you walk away having learned something and had an expectation of what you were going to learn when you RSVP’d. General networking is great but by itself can be boring. Third, a great crowd. The learnings from the crowd can often be better then the ones gained from the speakers, but you still need both.
In November, I’m helping to organize two events that will be extremely useful for professionals and entrepreneurs interested in the cleantech space in the Boston area. Each event is targetting a different and growing part of the industry.
HeatSpring Renewable Energy Meetups
The first is the HeatSpring Renewable Energy Meetup. It’s specifically targeted at professionals who are marketing, selling, designing or installing geothermal heat pumps, solar pv, or solar thermal systems. We’ll be having 6 presenters that will share best practices they’ve learned in the industry.
RSVP Here: http://heatspringmeetup.eventb
Date/Location. Sea Dog Brew Pub. Woburn, MA. 6pm – 8pm. Nov 29th
Green Light Distrikt and Energy Bar are hosting the 4th Energy Bar. The theme is how to scale a venture after initial sales. High growth cleantech companies have specific challenges to overcome in building sales after initial sales. The presenters will discuss common obstacles and how to overcome them. Presenters will be @cleantechvc, Rob Day, and Mike Feinstein VP of Sales and Marketing at Digital Lumens.
Details here: http://energybarboston.eventbrite.com/
Date/Location. Greentown Labs, Boston, MA. 5:30pm-8:30pm Dec. 1
