Startup Series: WattBuy
Today's guest is Naman Trivedi, Co-Founder & CEO of WattBuy.
Naman Trivedi is the Co-Founder & CEO of WattBuy. He founded the company to help millions of Americas choose cheaper, greener electricity plans and advance the global transition to a clean energy economy. WattBuy provides transparent, intelligent insights for homeowners & renters, helping them save upwards of 40% on electricity bills, select renewable energy plans, and gain a deeper understanding of their home's energy use. Prior to co-founding WattBuy, Naman worked at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, pushing a policy initiative for Community Choice Aggregation. This system aggregates the buying power of individuals in a neighborhood to purchase renewable energy supply contracts. He also spent two years at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama Administration, working on federal renewable energy policy and grand prizes.
In this episode, Naman gives me an overview of WattBuy, why their work addresses climate change, and what motivates consumers to use WattBuy. We also talk about how WattBuy builds trust amongst its customers, the barriers WattBuy faces as the startup looks to scale, and a discussion on how to increase home sustainability consulting. It was great to learn more about WattBuy and have Naman join me this week.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded August 11, 2021
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Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey or MCJ as we call it membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show, that weren't just looking for education, but they were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack community for those people that's now mushroomed into more than 1,300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screen for; determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent, and we're not wasting our time for trying, and a collaborative spirit.
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Today's guest is Naman Trivedi, CEO and co-founder of WattBuy. WattBuy was founded in 2017, with the goal of helping millions of Americans choose cheaper, greener electricity plans and advance the global transition to a clean energy economy. We have a great discussion in this episode about Naman's journey as an entrepreneur, the decision to found WattBuy, the initial entry point of the company and some of the twists and turns along the way before they landed on the model that they're doing now, which has been working really well. We talk about the landscape, and how confusing it is as a consumer and how incentives are misaligned and how hard it is to make the right choices. We talked about how WattBuy can help. We also talk about some of the thorny areas that WattBuy as got to manage and how they're going about doing so such as incentives, such as objectivity. And we also talk about which pieces they're automating, some of the trade-offs of automation versus a more oriented approach.
We talk about their initial entry point referring electricity providers, but we also talk about their broader ambition to expand beyond electricity providers, into other aspects of a clean green home. Naman, welcome to the show.
Naman Trivedi: Thanks, Jason. Great to be here.
Jason Jacobs: Great to have you. I'm excited to catch up. I know we had talked, gosh, maybe it was six months or a year ago. It's all a blur on pandemic time, but it was really interesting what you're doing, and it sounds like you've accomplished a lot since then and the models evolve. So I'll get the update at the same time that, that listeners will get the update, and we'll kill two birds with one stone, here.
Naman Trivedi: That sounds great. Yeah. It's an exciting time for us, and obviously challenging through the pandemic as an early stage startup, but I think that it actually quickly helped us figure out our focus and actually identifying a lot of that product market fit. So in some ways, we've kind of come out stronger than, you know, where we were a year ago or, or you know, less March.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, I Know. I mean, some companies have come out stronger and some companies, unfortunately, haven't come out, but one thing's for sure, I think the last year has been pretty intense for all Of us.
Naman Trivedi: Absolutely. Yeah. That's very true. Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: Well, taking things from the top, what's WattBuy?
Naman Trivedi: Yeah. So at WattBuy, we are focused on... One of the things is a simple but very ambitious vision. We wanna to get every household access to more affordable, cleaner electricity. And the way that we're doing that is by building a clean energy platform that empowers enterprises to help their customers choose more affordable, clean energy options for their home. So we have a series of API integrations where we have enterprise partners in the FinTech space and the real estate space, and in the consumer hungry space who are providing personalized electricity plans, solar offers, and more to their customers in a single click, oftentimes helping them both save money and go renewable. So in many ways, what we're doing is helping some of the biggest brands and enterprises in the world launch their own clean energy market places and provide their customers with climate friendly cost-saving energy solutions.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And just like, whenever we kick off with that question, I've got a ton of questions in areas I want to dig into there. But before we do, maybe talk a bit about the origin story of the company and, and your journey to doing the work that you to today.
Naman Trivedi: Yeah, that sounds great. I probably first got introduced to climate change and renewable energy, I should probably in high school. I did a lot of policy debate. I mean, we actually had one topic one year that was around presenting in debating plans on how the US government should incentivize the development of renewable energy. So we researched and debated solar programs, nuclear energy solutions, like molten salt reactor as and integral fast reactors, you know, different forms of investment. So honestly, at that point, my reaction to all of this was, this is cool stuff. You know, this is cool technology. I don't even think I had an understanding of climate change at that time, other than, you know, it's important and people say it's important, but I was just fascinated by the idea that we could build an unlimited energy source.
So actually, a lot of what I've done since then was kind of wrapped up in that initial experience, you know, policy, technology, business development, and then entrepreneurship angle. So I'd never actually had a technical background in any of this. And it was actually more of a policy angle that I first approached energy and climate change from. And it was actually at a couple of kind of policy internships, this place called the Silicon Valley Leadership group business think tank in the Bay Area that represents all the kind of classic Silicon Valley companies and promote state and federal solutions, you know, for various areas, one of which was energy.
So actually, worked on community choice aggregation that was happening in Marine County. This was, like, the early days of, of CCAs, you know, where you can allow local governments to actually procure power on behalf of their residents from an alternative supplier while you know, someone like a PG&E is still provides the distribution services. So did some of that work. And then when I was in college, you know, ran this club that was kind of an energy club where we did some local projects getting rooftop solar on campus, did some international projects in Haiti and Paraguay and in West Africa with biodigesters and solar charging stations.
So I was kind of deep in the policy entrepreneurship world for a while, and then transitioned into the technology side. The kind of one experience that I think was the most formative in that was in the last few years of school. And a little bit after I was working in the Obama administration. I'm in the White House and the office of science and tech policy. And there, worked on a technology and innovation team and was able to pursue a lot of clean energy projects. So the big one there was the Department of Energy SunShot Challenge, where the goal was to bring the average price of solar down at 6 cents per kilowatt hour. So helping teams kind of go through that process, delivering some reports to Congress on the status of that price program, which was, you know, a multi-year prize program with different stages.
But then also using advanced market commitments to promote innovation in the solar industry. So just using the fact that the federal government is one of the largest purchasers of energy in the world to guarantee demand and promote development in that way. So a lot of that kind of influenced some work in entrepreneurship and actually my current co-founder, I was his intern at his first energy startup that was building smart meters and mobile payments systems for utilities and emerging markets. So we were building these cheap, you know, 60, 70 dollars smart meters and having all the payments done through mobile, very similar to what SparkMeter is today.
And what SparkMeter is doing very successfully today, it was kind of a precursor to that. And so we would have these smart meters installed them in rural areas. And the goal was to help the utility expand access out to rural regions of the country, where, you know, otherwise there's high rates of energy theft. You have to loadshed and turn off electricity to a whole portion, you know, of a city. And in this world, you could actually turn it off to an individual house. And when that payment happens again, you turn it back on. For a whole host of reasons, that didn't work out. You know, we, we ended up shutting down combination of a couple of Americans trying to work in, you know, break the phone country and not having good enough understanding of how to make that work and hardware, you know, just being difficult.
So we ended up shutting that down and actually that's where the story for WattBuy began around 2014. So a long time ago, actually from where we are today. We were living in DC and actually has seen that we had a choice for electricity, and pick some plans that we thought were good and renewable, but effectively got scammed. You know, we signed up for a plan that seemed like had a good rate. It turns out it was one of these teaser rates that was, you know, gonna double in a couple of months and then we were locked in. So, you know, as a policy nerd, I went and sat in on a couple of these public utility commission hearings. You know, generally they're not too exciting, but what was happening in them, I know this was a complain session.
And there were hundreds of residents there that were essentially, you know, yelling saying, "Your job is to protect us, and you failed to do so." And what was, you know, happening and, and kind of what we realized is there was a lot of door to door knocking in low-income neighborhoods saying, you know, "Hey, I can save you money as an alternative energy provider. Why don't you sign up?" And, you know, most people don't know what 6 cents or 7 cents per kilowatt hour means, and frankly, don't even know what it means to have choice for your electricity. So you go ahead, you sign up, and you're locked into one of these variable rate plans that can, that can hike after the initial teaser period.
So we actually set out initially on a social mission saying, "Can we build trust and transparency into a market that is currently benefiting from the lack of it?" So that was kind of the origin of where it all came from. You know, we've, we've had a big evolution since, but we still kind of carry that social mission with us.
Jason Jacobs: And so maybe talk a bit about your initial entry point, and then with the benefit of hindsight, some of the key phases that you've been through up to present.
Naman Trivedi: Yeah. So initially, you know, it was like, "Can we build trust and transparency?" And the way that we were thinking about it was, if we can help every homeowner and renter understand how their home uses electricity, then we can be sure that we are recommending the right plan for them based on their home and its usage characteristics. And what we very quickly found out after building this, you know, machine learning model and helping people understand usage and capturing data from our own users, our own, you know, like 50 users at that point, was that no one cares about electricity. That no matter how hard we could work to help people with visibility and transparency, you can't deny the fact that electricity and energy does not take up a lot of the consumer mind share.
And so we were left with this problem where we built a product that we thought worked, but, you know, similar to many startups at that stage are building... You're building for yourself, you're not building for your customer. So we, we struggled with that for a while. And so it took us actually a couple of years to transition from that, which was really just a electricity marketplace, where you can enter your address, and we can show you how your home uses energy, and you can choose the right plan into what we are today. And I think the big shift, you know, that we had was in realizing that we need to reach consumers at the point in time where they are making a decision about their utilities.
And when you think about that, it's not a lot of time. Americans spend about eight minutes a year thinking about their utility. So we have a very short window to get into people's minds to make this decision. And the thesis that we had was there are probably two points in time. One is when you move, you have to set up electricity one way or another. And then the second is when you get your bill, and you might notice that you have a high bill in the summer, or there's some kind of a discrepancy, or you just have to pay it and we can... Then you find that [inaudible 00:12:24] at that point.
So what we first started was in the real estate space saying, "Can we strike some partnerships with real estate companies in the multi-family space or single family, or some of these prop tech companies that are arising to say, 'As a part of your moving process, can we help you set up electricity in a single click because we've automated this full process end-to-end from choosing your provider all the way through, you know, paying your bill?'" And so that's where we found a set of companies where we kind of launched our first integration. So that initial product market fit was with energy and real estate.
And that was probably about two years ago where we felt that there is actually a really good model for us to build, where we can plug into every point in time where a customer's making a decision about utilities and be the seamless, intelligent way to make that choice. So one of our biggest initial partners was this company called Updater, which helps about 10 million people a year move across the US. And as a part of your process for moving, they're helping you, you know, choose your moving company. They're helping you choose your internet, your TV, and they've integrated WattBuy's API as the one-click utility setup as a part of that moving process. And we're able to nudge those customers towards choosing, you know, renewable plans in their area.
Jason Jacobs: And when you're doing that matching, what are the criteria that you're assessing for fit, if any?
Naman Trivedi: You mean for the customer and what plan they should choose?
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, so which plans are you servicing, for what customers, and how granular do you get when it comes to matching?
Naman Trivedi: That's a great question. So the way that we do it right now is any customer comes through either WattBuy's platform or a partner that is integrated WattBuy's APIs. And then we are able to take in your zip code or your address, you know, the address gets us kind of higher fidelity in our recommendations back to you. And then we have a machine learning model, you know, where we've gathered training data from a mix of proprietary and public data sources. So we, we capture usage data, you know, from our status as a broker in many states. We also have real usage data from our own customers. We've got housing characteristics, you know, from a variety of different sources, including your, your square footage, bedrooms, stories, you know, heating type cooling type, your use code.
We other weather data from Dark Sky to get an accurate picture of, you know, what the weather looked like at each point in time where we have usage data points, same thing with temperature, humidity, wind speed. And then we also actually have a custom built climate zone map to measure how your property is prepared for specific temperature. So, you know, as an example, a house in Texas, you know, does not handle zero degrees as well as the house in New York, and tends to use more electricity. So we, we have kind of built that all into a model that helps us figure out on a 15-minute increment basis, how does your home use electricity? We obviously aggregate that up to the kind of monthly and annual level, and then match that against the plans.
So we say, "Here are now about 200 plans, and we have the direct relationships with the retail providers in, in all of these markets." And then we can do that matching to say, "For your home, based on this usage, we recommend that this plan is going to save you this much money, and you can go 100% renewable by going with it." So there is kind of mixing and matching of characteristics in the plans that sometimes customers have preferences on. But in general, we have found that in the cases where the renewable plan is at par with the default rate, or even a little bit higher. There are a significant amount of customers choosing that plan.
Jason Jacobs: And stepping outside of your WattBuy hat for a minute, if we're just taking a look at the landscape for consumers, there's homeowners, there's condo owners, there's renters, there's two families. There's probably a bunch of other types of housing that, that I'm not even thinking about. So given that landscape, what are the main buckets of options that exists? Because from my standpoint, it's super confusing. There's options, like in Arcadia, where I am essentially complementing what I'm using in the house with something out of the house that is cleaner. I can put solar on my roof. I can... I can get a solar roof. I can do community solar. I don't know, maybe, maybe just kind of lay the land for, for people like me or, or listeners that might not have a good handle on that. And, and then the follow-up is gonna be, which subset of that do you focus on when you're... When you're dealing with these plans?
Naman Trivedi: Absolutely. It is impossibly confusing to figure out what is the right set of things that you should do for your home energy ecosystem to be a steward of the planet and make sure it doesn't break the bank. That is a lot of what our product roadmap envision is about. So the answer to your question is, I'll answer it in, in two ways. Right now, what we do is we estimate your home's usage, and then we recommend the right... the right electricity plan for your home. The next stage of that is for us to add in additional products and services, including community solar, including rooftop solar, including devices for your home, so that we can build you a full recommendation of, "Here's your home, here's your usage. And here are the set of actionable insights that you can take to optimize your home energy ecosystem."
So we started with the retail energy choice, you know, because there was a clear business model. We kind of knew it well, but we're now actually starting to expand out of that so that we can provide the full comprehensive set of recommendations on, "You're a good candidate for solar, for rooftop solar. And here's the payoff time period for it. And let us pair that with the optimized electricity plan to make sure that you are getting the best, you know, bang for your buck. And you're maybe even putting electricity back onto the grid, you know, at a price that is preferable for you. And maybe here's a battery that you should attach with that rooftop solar to make sure that you can store, you know, when you don't need to, you know, power your home." So that's kind of the world that we envisioned and what we... what we are working on right now is that second piece of expanding out of just electricity into that solar world.
Jason Jacobs: Got it. So as a consumer, should I, and should we think of WattBuy as a trusted advisor that doesn't provide these services yourself, but partners with everybody who does, and then helps matchmake for the consumers preferences and logistics with the plan that's gonna best suit their needs? And that plan could be a plan or it could be equipment, or it could be any combination of things. And directionally, while you started with these retail plans, the evolution of WattBuy will be more end to end whatever your needs are to power your home in a affordable and clean way?
Naman Trivedi: That's pretty accurate. I think that's a fair representation of what we're trying to build is to be that neutral marketplace that is helping you make the right decision for your home, right. Our allegiance is to the homeowner, is to the renter, but it's to the individual. And what you described on the supply side, right, the right set of products and services from a clean energy standpoint that you should use for your home is where we focus. The only other part of that, that I would add is we are also heavily focused on the distribution of how do we get this solution in front of consumers? And that's where we have partnerships with large, you know, FinTech companies, banks. iBuyers in the real estate space, uh, real estate marketplaces, you know, essentially to build the largest distribution network for consumer clean energy, to make sure that we are reaching as many consumers as possible.
And what we do, you know, in that world is that we take our APIs and white label it to a partner so that we can harness their already strong brand to get in front of consumers to say, you know, "Here's our energy marketplace, and we can help you make decisions for your home."
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And when you think about that flow, you mentioned when people see a bill and you mentioned when people are moving, are those the two types of partnerships you're doing today is entities that serve people when they're in one of those modes, or are there other use cases that you've uncovered that are attractive?
Naman Trivedi: They grow every day. Our understanding of what is possible and what kind of enterprise partner we can work with continues to expand. So just to give you some, there's a couple of electric vehicle charging companies, the charging stations, where we're starting to work with them, where we can say, "Hey, you have an EV. You're charging it. Can we also send you up on the optimize electricity plan to make sure that you are getting, you know, the best deal, and also making sure that the electricity that's being generated is clean for your home for your EV charging?" There are some lifestyle brands that we're starting to talk to that wanna build a clean energy marketplace, where, you know, we do a revenue share with the enterprise partner and we collectively donate the proceeds to a nonprofit that is of the customer's choice.
So in general, what we have found is many companies are quickly coming to a understanding that they need to become a climate company. And that goes beyond just ESG kind of solutions and outward facing commentary that comes out. And there's a lot of supply chain focus on greening the supply chain, which is very important for a lot of these companies, but we are actually telling them that to remain and continue to build confidence in your customer base, you need to have a climate stance. And we can provide climate solutions on behalf of these brands to their customers.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And I think you mentioned, before we started recording, that you don't strictly carry clean plans, but any plan that can power your homes, so... but you also mentioned here that this is for companies that want to have a climate stance. So can you talk a bit about how you think about impact and how you reconcile carrying everything with being a climate focus company?
Naman Trivedi: Absolutely. It's pretty important to us. There's two parts to this that are important to us. One of our missions is to make sure that renewable energy does not stay a luxury good. In most cases, renewable energy and buying, you know, and and electric vehicle up until now for a long time was expensive and, and out of reach for most Americans. Buying into renewable energy and solar was expensive for most Americans. So we are working towards a world where we only serve 100% clean products for everyone. But in our minds, there is no value in being dogmatic if the market is not supporting it.
And we initially want to bring as many people into the fold as possible to help them start thinking about their energy use and help them get comfortable about making decisions around energy use. And what we found is a lot of partners that we work with know that their customers primarily care about saving money. And so to that end, we may, you know, have a few plans that are not 100% clean, you know. Potentially, 50% clean or 25% clean, but our saving customers north of 20, 30, 40 percent a year and get them involved in the process of making decisions from their home energy.
And over time, as we kind of hit that critical demand, we hope that we can start working with a lot of our supply side partners or potentially our own creating a lot of these 100% green plans for customers far below market cost. So that is kind of the world that we are towards. But our go-to market strategy involves bringing as many people into the fold as possible, which is why the cost saving value proposition in our minds is equally important right now.
Jason Jacobs: And can you talk a bit about how these plans work structurally? So for example, in my house, we have natural gas. I use Arcadia Power to power it with quote-unquote, "100%" clean energy. I, I pay extra for that because I believe it's the right thing to do, but what is actually happening there, and how impactful is it relative to just using natural gas? And also how impactful is it relative to if I put solar panels on my roof and put a battery onsite and actually untethered from the natural gas completely, if that were possible?
Naman Trivedi: That's a great question. And in general, the closer you are to the production, the higher fidelity that there is to kind of confirm that you are using clean energy for your home, right? So the, the example of solar plus battery is gonna be kind of the, the truest version of that. And in the Arcadia world, and even in our world, it's kind of one level removed where at some point in the process, you are paying someone to put in renewable electricity onto the grid and you are still using your distributor, you know, whoever is kind of owns the wires and poles to provide that electricity to your home. In many ways, it's kind of an accounting change for the customer where you are paying someone to put renewables onto the grid. But of course, the electrons that come to your house are still electrons.
And so functionally what happens in our market is that the generation of electricity is open to competition. So you can choose between 20 and 100 providers for your electricity, depending on where you are. And these providers in some cases are generators. So they actually own their own wind farms or own their own solar generation facilities, you know, in various areas, or they are resellers. So they are buying electricity from wholesale markets, packaging it up into a rate plan, and then selling it to you as a consumer. And so they can guarantee that it is 100% renewable. And then you kind of sign up for that to make sure that that is put onto the grid.
So functionally that's what's happening in a lot of these cases, whether it's community solar, where a solar project is being created on, on behalf of you and, and a group of two, 300 people in your area or in the retail energy space where a generator or a reseller is making sure that there is a commitment to buy a certain amount of energy that is 100% green or offset the renewable energy credits for your home.
Jason Jacobs: When it comes to options, are you only surfacing some subset of the options that are available that you have relationships with or what type of coverage you have, and, and also just how much effort goes into being enabled to surface something as an option? Does it require a formal partnership or is that information visible and accessible to anybody that wants it?
Naman Trivedi: Yeah, that's a good question. So what, what we do, we have a big list of the top providers in each market. So we kind of go down the line of who is saving customers the most money and also in good standing with the public utility commission. So there are absolutely, you know, varying degrees of ethics and kind of ethical business being done, you know, by the players in this market. So we are on a... very focused on making sure that we only present, you know, partners that are in good standing to our customers. So we do have a formal relationship with everyone that we present, but in the case where we know that, that plan that we have may not be the cheapest, we do inform the customer that there is another rate available, but here are the risks associated with it and why we don't have, you know, that partnership on what... by today.
So in general, we do everything with the end-user in mind with the homeowner or renter. And we have kind of struck our partnerships, you know, in that order to make sure that we are always getting the best possible rates for customers in all of the markets that we operate in.
Jason Jacobs: Is there a toggle for customers that want to optimize for clean over-optimizing for cost, or does it just default strictly to optimizing fr the lowest cost option?
Naman Trivedi: Do you mind saying that question again?
Jason Jacobs: Sure. If there was a dirtier option that were cheaper, but I wanted the cleanest option, but it wasn't the lowest cost one. Is there a way that I can input as the consumer what I'm optimizing for because it might be different than the person to my left or the person to my right?
Naman Trivedi: Yes, there is. So you, you can optimize for that mix of clean and costs. And actually, there was this company that some people may know called Hipmunk. It was a flight, you know, decision engine, similar to kayak. And what we're trying to build actually right now is something similar that they have that I used to love just as a product experience, whereas you're choosing your flight, you know, you're making decisions on how many stops what's the cost, time and cost, right. Was a big thing there. And they would help you sort your flights by agony, which I thought was brilliant. And we're trying to build a similar kind of tool that says, "What is this definition of optimizing for renewables and costs where we can get you the right kind of sweet spot, where you're willing to pay a little bit more, but maybe not so much more to go green right now."
Jason Jacobs: And yeah, this is interesting. I've been tweeting a little bit about this because I want to make my house cleaner, but it's very confusing because anyone that I talk to has either, if it's a general contractor, let's say they might lack the expertise. If it is Tesla, and I'm talking about their solar, well, they're trying to sell me product, if it's a retail provider, they're trying to sell me a plan. If it's a, a battery or a storage, they're also trying to sell me stuff. And what you're talking about is at least positioned as objective, and we can talk about incentives and business models and things like that. But I guess one question I have is, is it possible to provide the consultative decision-making that consumers need to make the best decision in a digital way like this at scale? Or does it just require more... almost more like a services model to get it right?
Naman Trivedi: Yeah. Yeah. That is something that we think about a lot, right. That we provide everything self-serve right now. And it is confusing. There are... you're seeing 8 cents per kilowatt-hour and, and solar rooftop sizes. And are you going to get an 8-kilowatt system or a 12 kilowatts? And these things don't mean anything to anyone. It is a industry that is kind of stuck in jargon, and we try very hard to pull out of it. And so that's part of our bet, right? Is that we can message this and present it in a user experience that can be self-served because that is the only way that it can scale because no one has aggregated consumer energy demand in a single, in a single-engine and helps consumers make multiple levels of decisions at different price points for different parts of their home. So it is a huge bet and I'm... we will kind of stumble along the way.
But I think what we have found so far is that electricity might be one of the trickiest things to explain. You know, what is a choice? What it means that you're switching my provider? What does it mean that it's renewable? Why is it that I can switch in Texas and New Jersey, but I can't switch in California and we're making it work, right? And I think that's what makes us... I think we have some of that early validation that one of the hardest things is getting across to consumers. And so as we add in other products and services, we can message it in a way that says, "You know, as you're choosing your retail plan, we should pair it with Arcadia's community solar or another community solar project. And you actually seem to be a good candidate for rooftop solar, because we can understand the solar incidents of your roof. And, you know, here's what kind of system you should use. Take a look at a couple of these offers that we have."
So it's going to take time. It's pretty hard. But I think the only way it does scale at a consumer level is if you do it self-serve. There may be parts of this that require, you know, a, a service model. But our vision is to make it as easy as buying a Tesla on their website.
Jason Jacobs: Is there anyone doing service model that you know of?
Naman Trivedi: None in the consumer space. It's pretty rampant in the, you know, CNI commercial and industrial space, right? Where a lot of these decisions are, "Hey, how much energy are you going to use? And based on that, let's strike a deal for how much energy I will supply you and how much you will pay it," right? So that is actually a very service-driven world right now. And then, you know, a lot of the larger purchases are absolute service rates, right? So when you are getting quotes for solar, that will be kind of heavily service-driven, right? There's... There are not too many scenarios where you can get all the way to the point of the install without having a conversation.
Jason Jacobs: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Got it. And can you talk a bit about your traction today? How long have you been in market? And don't disclose anything you don't want to disclose, but it'd be helpful just to kind of get some context for, for scale.
Naman Trivedi: Yeah, absolutely. So company we've been working on now just over four years, we're a team of about 20. We are live in all the competitive choice markets; so Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, everything on the east coast, DC. And we're starting to launch nationwide later this year with solar offerings. And we serve... We have probably in the tens of thousands of customers kind of coming to us every month. And we're kind of getting, you know, thousands of customers kind of set up on plans, you know, every single month. So it's, it's kind of been rapid scale since the beginning of this year, as we've been able to launch with a couple of these really large, you know, FinTech and, and real estate partners. And hopefully, we don't see that stopping anytime soon.
Jason Jacobs: How do you make money?
Naman Trivedi: We get paid by the electricity providers every time we bring them a new customer. So we're getting paid, you know, by them, but importantly, we don't get paid any more or less by any one of them based on the plans we sell you or what you choose. So we have made it very clear, unlike some other marketplaces that have been out there in the past where, you know, they are bumping up providers that are paying them the most, we... you know, our, our algorithms do not take into account how much money we made for each customer.
Jason Jacobs: And is it the same terms across partners, or does it vary?
Naman Trivedi: It's the same terms across partners, although it does vary across geography. So, you know, and, and that, that really has more to do with the unit economics that the retail providers are able to pay, right? So some markets are lower margin for them than others. That kind of influences it. But across the board, you know, across the partners, our economics are the same. So, you know, contractually, we also don't have an incentive to push you one way or another. We want to do what's right for the customer.
Jason Jacobs: Are you an impact-focused company?
Naman Trivedi: We are. At the philosophical level, we strongly think that if the US is gonna position itself as a leader, you know, in the global effort to address climate change, Americans consumers have to, you know, stop pumping carbon into the sky every time we turn on our light switches. And so about 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US come from residential electricity generation. And we had done some studies earlier this year that said that 90% of consumers claim to favor renewable electricity options. But in actuality of only about 1% of them take the required steps to enroll in renewable energy options, right? So what we are focused on is can we bridge this gap between intent and action by one reaching customers at the decision, you know, their energy decision points, like moving into a new home or, you know, cutting expenses or, you know, home appliance purchase.
Second, providing these enterprise-ready APIs that make it easy, you know, for these partners to integrate. And then third provide intelligent analytics and, you know, a seamless customer experience to make that decision. So we think about it at that level. And then on a metric level, right, like what we think about, we're obviously early and we're looking to hit that scale for this to be meaningful, but we're setting ourselves up to start tracking, you know, what is the net renewable electricity that we service? What is the equivalent passenger vehicles driven a year that we're removing from the road, but then also, you know, the average annual savings that we provide for a customer, and what percent of underserved users do we help as well? So there is the climate impact, which is a priority for us, but then the other one, there is also the affordability impact. Access is probably one of the key pillars of what we are also working towards from an impact standpoint.
Jason Jacobs: Now, given that you mentioned that it sounds like the theory of change here is let's build our customer base and our distribution and get embedded in these flows. So we're with the right customers at the right times as we grow our customers and grow the times that make sense to serve them. And let's help them find the lowest cost options and we'll optimize for cost, but then directionally over time, as things clean up essentially, and the cost for the cleaner continues to come down, then we can efficiently get them clean as quickly as possible, which I buy. But one question for you is outside of yourself, like what are the biggest blockers to lowest costs being clean in more aspects of these homes? So in other words like that theory of change, how do we accelerate it? What's holding it back?
Naman Trivedi: In most cases, and at least what we do now in the retail space, it's the combination of customer acquisition costs insurance. It's very expensive to find consumers to make this decision. And if you do, right now, it's people that know that they can choose and switch. And so they're shopping pretty often. So in many ways, what we are trying to do as a business directly creates that world where we can solve customer acquisition costs and bring them down to a revenue share that we do with a partner, an enterprise partner. And it close to eliminates the churn because these are customers that otherwise did not know that they could choose or switch or make this decision.
So we are expanding the market by bringing in brand new people that are making this decision and trusting it and not looking to switch every, you know, couple of months. So as we do that, you kind of solve the two ends of that issue. That is kind of one of the biggest reasons why electricity choice and you're selling electricity is a low margin business, right? If you could fix that, then all of a sudden the economics for providing renewables starts to look favorable. It's not entirely there, but that is a huge portion of, of how we get there.
Jason Jacobs: And if, if you could wave your magic wand and change one thing, that's outside of the scope of your control, that would help catalyze that. What would you change and how would you change it?
Naman Trivedi: I think everything comes down to scale and getting more customers. And in our mind right now, every company needs to become a climate company. And if every company hired a chief climate officer, we would have kind of a path to getting to hundreds of companies that we want to talk to, to help them launch their own clean energy brands and build this massive customer base that is going to push for cheaper priced renewables, more options, and a better understanding of how to go renewable. So that would be my, my magic wand way of let's get a chief climate officer into every enterprise.
Jason Jacobs: And where would that sit relative to, let's say the heads of sustainability titles that we see today?
Naman Trivedi: I think it is the peer or just kind of reporting, you know, directly to a CEO. In my mind, the chief climate officer is building the thesis for why solving climate problems are critical to the business's growth as well. That these are hand in hand and there is not a trade-off, which historically has been the thought process that if you are doing good or doing something to benefit climate, it is coming at a cost to the business. So in my mind, the sustainability initiatives are what fall, you know, that kind of fall from that, or kind of are the action items that come from that, but at the kind of thesis and vision level, making sure that what the company is doing for climate is also the best thing to be doing for the business.
Jason Jacobs: Speaking to potential customers out there like me, what message do you want to deliver? And what types of people should check out WattBuy?
Naman Trivedi: Anyone in the US can check out WattBuy, and we'd love feedback on what you see. We provide electricity choice options in the competitive choice states across the US right now. If you're not in a competitive choice stage, you're gonna still be able to see analytics on how your home uses electricity. And that's a model that, that we continue to improve over time. So in the coming months, we're going to be able to provide a series of recommendations for your home based on your usage and my message to consumers everywhere is that the individual action, you know, matters. There were some summary of the, you know, EPCC report that I read recently that said the earth rewards good behavior. And that is true on a systemic level and with policy and, and making sure that we align policy, but it also matters on the individual level because that continues to compound.
So I would say, you know, the decisions that you make around your home are critical and are gonna become, you know, ever more complex as we have more products and services. So we want to make sure that we can help you make that right decision.
Jason Jacobs: And what about potential partners for integration? What types of partners do you want to hear from, in case there's any listening?
Naman Trivedi: I'd love to hear from Patagonia REI, we would love to hear from companies like ChargePoint Volta, and, and if you're a credit card, if you're a MasterCard or Amex, we can find creative ways to work with your customer base to make sure that we are getting them the right set of energy options for their home and helping you build a brand that is climate-conscious and providing climate forward solutions for your customers. So everyone from fashion and makeup companies to energy companies, we are talking to you right now and helping build clean energy marketplaces for these companies under their brands. And if I didn't mention you in my list, we still want to hear from you because we've found a lot of creative opportunities to build this for customers in, in many different segments verticals across the industry.
Jason Jacobs: What about hiring any key hires that you want to call out?
Naman Trivedi: Yes. We've Been looking for a senior product designer and a head of design for some time. So we have all of our jobs up on AngelList right now, and we definitely love any interested applicants there, a couple of engineering positions as well, and a growth marketing manager. So we have, we have a couple of positions we're still hiring for through this round. And then in the next couple of months, we'll likely have several positions open again.
Jason Jacobs: Nice. And Naman, anything I didn't ask you that I should have, or any parting words for listeners?
Naman Trivedi: No, I think we covered it all. My only thing that I would share for anyone that's listening that is not in the climate space and, and wants to break in, is that at this point we need everyone. It doesn't matter what you do and what you think your skillset is and whether or not you've worked in energy. There is a company out there that needs your skill set, whether it's in, you know, a software company or hardware company, and whether it's kind of a deep tech company, there's kind of no shortage of a need for talent in this space. So I just encourage everyone who might think that they don't have the energy knowledge to pursue it because in many ways, a lot of what built our business was some level of naivety of not understanding the energy space well enough to actually have the ideas to go and build a company. So I just highly encourage everyone to, to pursue it if that's their goal.
Jason Jacobs: Well, great message to end on. And certainly, there's a lot of people that fit that profile in the MCJ community. So Naman, thanks so much for making the time to come on the show and best of luck to you and the WattBuy team.
Naman Trivedi: Thank you. Thanks, Jason.
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note that is dot CO, not dot com. Someday, we'll get the dot com, but right now dot CO. You can also find me on Twitter at JJacobs22, where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that, thank you.
