.png){kind=logo}
In this interview, William shared his insights on the future of sustainability in business, how Aclymate's platform is making a difference, and what it takes to build a successful startup in the tech industry.
See a number right at the top that
0:01
represents your carbon footprint and
0:03
then we have a large catalog of almost
0:04
100 different high quality offset
0:06
projects that we sell projects all over
0:08
the world like planting trees pulling
0:11
methane out of coal mines you know
0:13
making wood stoves more efficients we
0:14
have all sorts of different projects you
0:16
can see them at acclimate.com offsets
0:18
and so companies can then go in buy the
0:20
projects that they want to offset their
0:21
footprint every month
0:22
[Music]
0:32
thank you
0:34
[Music]
0:40
all right this is another episode of the
0:42
founders pack four mural impact podcast
0:44
my guest today is William lupesco from
0:46
acclimate how are you doing William
0:48
I am doing well thank you
0:51
so you I think you mentioned you were in
0:53
Denver
0:54
um
0:55
and that you recently or a couple years
0:57
ago you went through the tech Stars
0:58
program
0:59
uh just over a year ago at this okay
1:03
terrific well we've we've interviewed a
1:05
lot of tech stars and and why common air
1:08
guys so we're excited to have you but
1:10
maybe for people that don't know who is
1:12
William and what is acclimate
1:15
uh yes my name is William opesco I'm the
1:18
CTO I'm one of the co-founders of
1:20
aglimate we are building software to
1:24
help businesses do their part to fight
1:26
climate change uh so our software makes
1:29
it really easy for any business but
1:30
especially small and medium businesses
1:32
to figure out what their carbon
1:33
footprint is
1:35
um to figure out ways in which they can
1:36
reduce it and then to buy offsets is for
1:38
the part that they can't uh we think
1:40
that climate change is really the you
1:43
know big crisis of our time and that we
1:44
all need to
1:45
Take A Part together in um you know
1:48
working to solve it so that's that's
1:50
what we do
1:52
very interesting it seems to be and I
1:54
always it seems to be a high growth area
1:56
in the sense that there's a lot of
1:58
attention on it but I I guess I'm not
2:01
too familiar with a lot of the climate
2:04
Tech that's out there so what was the
2:07
big problem that you recognized and what
2:09
was kind of the background of the
2:10
founders that decided to go tackle this
2:13
yeah so my co-founder uh Mike Smith he
2:18
started another company before this that
2:20
was developing carbon offset projects so
2:23
um
2:24
basically what they were doing is they
2:26
were going into areas that had been
2:27
burned by forest fires and they were
2:29
planting trees to sort of accelerate the
2:31
regrowth of the forest uh and in the
2:34
process those trees pull carbon out of
2:35
the atmosphere and that generates a
2:37
carbon offset and so
2:39
um he did a great job with that they
2:41
ended up planting the largest carbon
2:43
reforestation project in this country
2:44
two million trees uh in Northern
2:47
California that was a couple years ago
2:49
and so they realized that they needed to
2:52
come up you know if they really wanted
2:53
to tackle climate change on the scale
2:54
that it needs to be tackled they needed
2:56
to come up with something scalable and
2:58
that involves technology so my
3:01
background before this was working in a
3:03
I had started a previous company
3:06
um that was iot company
3:08
um in the pet space but I you know was a
3:10
software developer uh know how to build
3:12
technology you know how to build
3:14
software products and so I teamed up
3:16
with my co-founder who was who had this
3:19
great idea uh you know in the climate
3:21
change space and he brought me in as the
3:23
developer to go out and build this
3:24
stream uh and so we teamed up about two
3:27
and a half years ago and now we're here
3:29
so if someone decides to use acclimate
3:33
like what's kind of the experience like
3:34
what's the first point of entry and then
3:36
what would they kind of use it is it
3:38
like a daily thing is it like a monthly
3:40
thing like how does this integrate to
3:41
what they're doing yeah it's it's it's
3:43
like a monthly thing uh not really any
3:46
more than that so uh we have an
3:49
onboarding process uh where you'll work
3:51
with one of our friendly climate
3:52
Navigators
3:53
um to work you you know to like sort of
3:56
get all of the data that you need into
3:57
the platform
3:59
um for example we send an email to all
4:01
of your employees to figure out how they
4:02
commute or how they work from home and
4:04
that automates the process then of
4:06
calculating all of your commuting and
4:08
home office submissions every month uh
4:10
we ask you information about your
4:12
offices your utilities sort of all that
4:14
Baseline stuff if you have a QuickBooks
4:16
account we can link directly to your
4:18
QuickBooks account and we have an
4:19
integration uh we have an algorithm that
4:21
can take financial data and convert it
4:23
into emissions data oh there's a process
4:25
of going through and getting everything
4:27
set up but then once it's set up
4:29
um
4:30
basically you log in every month you
4:32
check to make sure that we got all of
4:34
your data right uh or you input any new
4:36
data
4:37
um that you had so if you took any
4:38
flights in the last month and we weren't
4:40
able to read them out of QuickBooks you
4:42
could put some flights in uh basic stuff
4:44
like that and then you'll see a number
4:46
right at the top that represents your
4:47
carbon footprint
4:49
um and then we have a large catalog of
4:51
almost 100 different high quality offset
4:53
projects that we sell uh projects all
4:55
over the world doing all sorts of cool
4:57
things like planting trees pulling
5:00
methane out of coal mines you know
5:01
preventing
5:03
wood stoves from um making wood stoves
5:06
more efficients we have all sorts of
5:07
different projects you can see them at
5:08
acclimate.com offsets and so companies
5:11
can then go in buy the projects that
5:13
they want to offset their footprint
5:14
every month and become a climate leader
5:16
and then you can display on your website
5:18
that you've been doing the right thing
5:19
for the planet and that helps with your
5:22
marketing or how to be able to show your
5:24
investors or your employees that you
5:26
are aligned with their values so
5:29
amazing all right
5:31
um and then how are things going for you
5:33
guys so far and how did you get your
5:34
first customer out of curiosity
5:36
yeah so things are going well we have uh
5:41
we launched the platform about a year
5:43
and a half ago uh spent the first year
5:44
just building
5:46
um we have over 300 users on our
5:49
platform now
5:51
um and we're working on converting more
5:53
and more of those into paid users uh I
5:56
think we're into like 30 to 50 ballpark
5:58
for paid users
5:59
um so we're growing
6:02
um we're still a small team uh still
6:04
hungry our first customers actually came
6:06
to us through just our own network uh
6:09
and they were really the ones who helped
6:10
us identify that this was a problem that
6:12
needed to be solved
6:14
um you know these companies
6:16
they care about doing the right thing
6:18
for the planet but there was really no
6:20
good solution for them to be able to do
6:22
that and so they knew that Mike my
6:24
co-founder was doing this carbon offsets
6:26
thing and so they came to him asking him
6:28
for help on how to do it
6:30
and he said hey like we're building this
6:32
great software solution let us show it
6:34
to you as soon as we're ready uh and so
6:37
we already had
6:39
at least a dozen maybe closer to two
6:41
dozen customers wind up waiting to use
6:43
our product as soon as it was ready to
6:45
launch
6:46
um and they actually helped us you know
6:47
through the different rounds of early
6:49
testing of the product and giving us a
6:51
lot of feedback to make it into the
6:52
product that it is today
6:54
that's terrific all right um so if you
6:57
could offer other Founders only one
6:59
piece of advice what would that be
7:02
uh it would be that nobody invests in
7:04
ideas people invest in businesses uh and
7:07
so there's a lot of Founders out there
7:08
and I was one of them when I first
7:10
started my first company uh thinking
7:12
like I have this amazing idea and I it's
7:16
so brilliant that investors will just
7:17
throw money at me uh but that's not how
7:19
it works at all you actually have to
7:22
ideas are easy businesses are hard you
7:24
actually have to start implementing the
7:25
idea
7:27
um there's a lot of different ways to do
7:28
that if you're a developer the easiest
7:31
and quickest way is probably just to
7:33
build your product and start getting
7:34
customers on board but even before you
7:36
have a finished product or something
7:38
that's built you can start signing up
7:39
customers you can start doing a lot of
7:42
the work that your product will
7:43
eventually do for them you can just do
7:44
it by hand manually while you're working
7:46
on
7:47
getting the product built software
7:50
really is just a way of doing repetitive
7:51
tasks at scale and so if you only have a
7:53
handful of customers you yourself could
7:55
just do those repetitive tasks for them
7:58
but still show that they're getting
7:59
value out of that and that you know you
8:01
can then replace that manual task with
8:04
software to be able to scale the
8:05
business so you have to do something to
8:09
be able to show that your idea is more
8:10
than just an idea otherwise nobody's
8:12
going to care
8:13
that is great advice and that's
8:15
consistent with we kind of like
8:16
evangelize which is rapidly prototype go
8:19
talk to real customers and investors and
8:21
be comfortable with going early exactly
8:25
excellent uh so what has the role of
8:28
Partnerships and or Community been in
8:30
your success so far
8:32
oh it's been huge uh a lot of our
8:34
customers have come to us through the
8:36
channel Partnerships that we have
8:38
um so we're really well positioned in
8:41
our space or we have a pretty unique
8:43
offering
8:44
um there aren't a lot of other products
8:46
that do what we do specifically for the
8:48
segment that we do video which is small
8:50
businesses
8:51
and
8:53
um so we've been able to go out and get
8:55
a lot of great Channel Partners on board
8:57
with us who
9:00
are um doing other things in the space
9:03
where there's this uh outfit that you
9:05
know they go and they certify businesses
9:07
as green
9:08
and they look at a lot of the things
9:10
that we don't look at like water usage
9:12
and waste and you know all of these
9:13
other things but for the carbon
9:15
accounting tool they really didn't have
9:16
a good solution and so they've partnered
9:18
with us and like we are now there carbon
9:21
accounting tool of choice and they like
9:23
just bring customers into us and a lot
9:25
of our customers are coming straight
9:27
from that partnership uh and we have
9:30
several more of those in the works so we
9:34
would not be where we are today Without
9:35
Partners the partners that we have
9:38
um and it's been a huge key to our early
9:40
success that is amazing to hear all
9:44
right I want to be conscious of your
9:45
time uh what is the best way to get in
9:47
touch with you and who do you typically
9:49
like to talk to
9:51
uh the best way to get in touch with me
9:53
is on LinkedIn and I get a ton of stuff
9:56
on LinkedIn and so the best way to
9:58
actually get me to pay attention is if
9:59
you don't sound like you're trying to
10:00
sell me something
10:02
um
10:10
your title and you'll get three to five
10:13
people every day trying to sell you crap
10:15
on LinkedIn so
10:17
um if you are genuinely interested in
10:19
what we're doing and you want to somehow
10:21
talk about that without trying to sell
10:23
me something just make that clear in uh
10:26
your approach on LinkedIn and I
10:28
definitely will pay attention otherwise
10:29
I will probably just ignore it
10:31
um and we do like to talk to
10:34
um that's if you want to talk to me
10:35
directly if you want to get in touch
10:37
with acclimate and you want to learn
10:38
about how we can help your company do as
10:41
part to fight climate change
10:42
acclimate.com
10:44
um I think it's hello at aquamade.com we
10:46
are super easy to get a hold of and we
10:48
want to talk to anyone who cares about
10:51
fighting climate change and doing what's
10:52
right for the plan
10:54
amazing we will include those details in
10:57
the show notes uh the final thing is as
10:59
you know when we meet interesting people
11:00
on the podcast we'd like you to nominate
11:02
another interesting person we talk to
11:04
investors or founders of scalable
11:06
Ventures who would you William like to
11:08
nominate as a future guest
11:10
absolutely so we went through the
11:12
techstar sustainability program uh last
11:15
year and so I could really nominate uh
11:17
you know
11:19
pretty much anyone from that program but
11:20
if I had to choose one I think it would
11:22
be a Carlos Gaitan of the company
11:24
Benchmark Labs they're doing some really
11:25
amazing work uh and they would be
11:27
fabulous guests for you amazing okay
11:29
Carlos you've been nominated as a future
11:31
guest we will accept that we look
11:33
forward to that introduction William
11:34
thank you so much I do want to send you
11:36
an invite by the way to try out intros
11:38
by Founders pack that's as I mentioned
11:40
to you before it makes introductions
11:42
between members of Founders pack you
11:45
know which are typically founders of
11:47
scalable Ventures so you get to kind of
11:48
a bit of a peer group so I'll make sure
11:50
that I send you that otherwise we look
11:51
forward to following your journey that
11:53
sounds great thank you so much
11:55
[Music]
12:06
foreign
12:10
[Music]