Summary

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.

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Transcript

See a number right at the top that

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represents your carbon footprint and

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then we have a large catalog of almost

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100 different high quality offset

0:06

projects that we sell projects all over

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the world like planting trees pulling

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methane out of coal mines you know

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making wood stoves more efficients we

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have all sorts of different projects you

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can see them at acclimate.com offsets

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and so companies can then go in buy the

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projects that they want to offset their

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footprint every month

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[Music]

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thank you

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[Music]

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all right this is another episode of the

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founders pack four mural impact podcast

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my guest today is William lupesco from

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acclimate how are you doing William

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I am doing well thank you

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so you I think you mentioned you were in

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Denver

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um

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and that you recently or a couple years

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ago you went through the tech Stars

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program

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uh just over a year ago at this okay

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terrific well we've we've interviewed a

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lot of tech stars and and why common air

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guys so we're excited to have you but

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maybe for people that don't know who is

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William and what is acclimate

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uh yes my name is William opesco I'm the

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CTO I'm one of the co-founders of

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aglimate we are building software to

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help businesses do their part to fight

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climate change uh so our software makes

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it really easy for any business but

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especially small and medium businesses

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to figure out what their carbon

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footprint is

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um to figure out ways in which they can

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reduce it and then to buy offsets is for

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the part that they can't uh we think

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that climate change is really the you

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know big crisis of our time and that we

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all need to

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Take A Part together in um you know

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working to solve it so that's that's

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what we do

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very interesting it seems to be and I

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always it seems to be a high growth area

1:56

in the sense that there's a lot of

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attention on it but I I guess I'm not

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too familiar with a lot of the climate

2:04

Tech that's out there so what was the

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big problem that you recognized and what

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was kind of the background of the

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founders that decided to go tackle this

2:13

yeah so my co-founder uh Mike Smith he

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started another company before this that

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was developing carbon offset projects so

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um

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basically what they were doing is they

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were going into areas that had been

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burned by forest fires and they were

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planting trees to sort of accelerate the

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regrowth of the forest uh and in the

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process those trees pull carbon out of

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the atmosphere and that generates a

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carbon offset and so

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um he did a great job with that they

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ended up planting the largest carbon

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reforestation project in this country

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two million trees uh in Northern

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California that was a couple years ago

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and so they realized that they needed to

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come up you know if they really wanted

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to tackle climate change on the scale

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that it needs to be tackled they needed

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to come up with something scalable and

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that involves technology so my

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background before this was working in a

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I had started a previous company

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um that was iot company

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um in the pet space but I you know was a

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software developer uh know how to build

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technology you know how to build

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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

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stream uh and so we teamed up about two

3:27

and a half years ago and now we're here

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so if someone decides to use acclimate

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like what's kind of the experience like

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what's the first point of entry and then

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what would they kind of use it is it

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like a daily thing is it like a monthly

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thing like how does this integrate to

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what they're doing yeah it's it's it's

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like a monthly thing uh not really any

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more than that so uh we have an

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onboarding process uh where you'll work

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with one of our friendly climate

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Navigators

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um to work you you know to like sort of

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get all of the data that you need into

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the platform

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um for example we send an email to all

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of your employees to figure out how they

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commute or how they work from home and

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that automates the process then of

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calculating all of your commuting and

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home office submissions every month uh

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we ask you information about your

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offices your utilities sort of all that

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Baseline stuff if you have a QuickBooks

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account we can link directly to your

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QuickBooks account and we have an

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integration uh we have an algorithm that

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can take financial data and convert it

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into emissions data oh there's a process

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of going through and getting everything

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set up but then once it's set up

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um

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basically you log in every month you

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check to make sure that we got all of

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your data right uh or you input any new

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data

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um that you had so if you took any

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flights in the last month and we weren't

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able to read them out of QuickBooks you

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could put some flights in uh basic stuff

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like that and then you'll see a number

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right at the top that represents your

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carbon footprint

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um and then we have a large catalog of

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almost 100 different high quality offset

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projects that we sell uh projects all

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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

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they want to offset their footprint

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every month and become a climate leader

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and then you can display on your website

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that you've been doing the right thing

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for the planet and that helps with your

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marketing or how to be able to show your

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investors or your employees that you

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are aligned with their values so

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amazing all right

5:31

um and then how are things going for you

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guys so far and how did you get your

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first customer out of curiosity

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yeah so things are going well we have uh

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we launched the platform about a year

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and a half ago uh spent the first year

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just building

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um we have over 300 users on our

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platform now

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um and we're working on converting more

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and more of those into paid users uh I

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think we're into like 30 to 50 ballpark

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for paid users

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um so we're growing

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um we're still a small team uh still

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hungry our first customers actually came

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to us through just our own network uh

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and they were really the ones who helped

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us identify that this was a problem that

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needed to be solved

6:14

um you know these companies

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they care about doing the right thing

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for the planet but there was really no

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good solution for them to be able to do

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that and so they knew that Mike my

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co-founder was doing this carbon offsets

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thing and so they came to him asking him

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for help on how to do it

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and he said hey like we're building this

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great software solution let us show it

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to you as soon as we're ready uh and so

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we already had

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at least a dozen maybe closer to two

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dozen customers wind up waiting to use

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our product as soon as it was ready to

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launch

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um and they actually helped us you know

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through the different rounds of early

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testing of the product and giving us a

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lot of feedback to make it into the

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product that it is today

6:54

that's terrific all right um so if you

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could offer other Founders only one

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piece of advice what would that be

7:02

uh it would be that nobody invests in

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ideas people invest in businesses uh and

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so there's a lot of Founders out there

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and I was one of them when I first

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started my first company uh thinking

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like I have this amazing idea and I it's

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so brilliant that investors will just

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throw money at me uh but that's not how

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it works at all you actually have to

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ideas are easy businesses are hard you

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actually have to start implementing the

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idea

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um there's a lot of different ways to do

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that if you're a developer the easiest

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and quickest way is probably just to

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build your product and start getting

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customers on board but even before you

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have a finished product or something

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that's built you can start signing up

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customers you can start doing a lot of

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the work that your product will

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eventually do for them you can just do

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it by hand manually while you're working

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on

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getting the product built software

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really is just a way of doing repetitive

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tasks at scale and so if you only have a

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handful of customers you yourself could

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just do those repetitive tasks for them

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but still show that they're getting

7:59

value out of that and that you know you

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can then replace that manual task with

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software to be able to scale the

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business so you have to do something to

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be able to show that your idea is more

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than just an idea otherwise nobody's

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going to care

8:13

that is great advice and that's

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consistent with we kind of like

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evangelize which is rapidly prototype go

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talk to real customers and investors and

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be comfortable with going early exactly

8:25

excellent uh so what has the role of

8:28

Partnerships and or Community been in

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your success so far

8:32

oh it's been huge uh a lot of our

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customers have come to us through the

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channel Partnerships that we have

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um so we're really well positioned in

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our space or we have a pretty unique

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offering

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um there aren't a lot of other products

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that do what we do specifically for the

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segment that we do video which is small

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businesses

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and

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um so we've been able to go out and get

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a lot of great Channel Partners on board

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with us who

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are um doing other things in the space

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where there's this uh outfit that you

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know they go and they certify businesses

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as green

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and they look at a lot of the things

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that we don't look at like water usage

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and waste and you know all of these

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other things but for the carbon

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accounting tool they really didn't have

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a good solution and so they've partnered

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with us and like we are now there carbon

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accounting tool of choice and they like

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just bring customers into us and a lot

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of our customers are coming straight

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from that partnership uh and we have

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several more of those in the works so we

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would not be where we are today Without

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Partners the partners that we have

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um and it's been a huge key to our early

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success that is amazing to hear all

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right I want to be conscious of your

9:45

time uh what is the best way to get in

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touch with you and who do you typically

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like to talk to

9:51

uh the best way to get in touch with me

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is on LinkedIn and I get a ton of stuff

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on LinkedIn and so the best way to

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actually get me to pay attention is if

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you don't sound like you're trying to

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sell me something

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um

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your title and you'll get three to five

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people every day trying to sell you crap

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on LinkedIn so

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um if you are genuinely interested in

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what we're doing and you want to somehow

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talk about that without trying to sell

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me something just make that clear in uh

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your approach on LinkedIn and I

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definitely will pay attention otherwise

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I will probably just ignore it

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um and we do like to talk to

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um that's if you want to talk to me

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directly if you want to get in touch

10:37

with acclimate and you want to learn

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about how we can help your company do as

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part to fight climate change

10:42

acclimate.com

10:44

um I think it's hello at aquamade.com we

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are super easy to get a hold of and we

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want to talk to anyone who cares about

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fighting climate change and doing what's

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right for the plan

10:54

amazing we will include those details in

10:57

the show notes uh the final thing is as

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you know when we meet interesting people

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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

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nominate as a future guest

11:10

absolutely so we went through the

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techstar sustainability program uh last

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year and so I could really nominate uh

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you know

11:19

pretty much anyone from that program but

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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

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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

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to you before it makes introductions

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between members of Founders pack you

11:45

know which are typically founders of

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scalable Ventures so you get to kind of

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a bit of a peer group so I'll make sure

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that I send you that otherwise we look

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forward to following your journey that

11:53

sounds great thank you so much

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[Music]

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foreign

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[Music]

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