The Climate Torch: CEO Interview with Walid Halty of Dvinci Energy
Led by CEO Walid Halty, Dvinci Energy aims to simplify the residential solar process in order to reduce customer acquisition costs for longtail installers, while reducing the solar purchase complexity for American homeowners.
Why did you create Dvinci Energy?
I hadn’t planned on starting Dvinci Energy, but my experiences led me here to solve a big problem in solar. After dropping out of college, I went to work for SolarCity (now Tesla) about seven years ago. I went all in. I was their top salesman. I made a lot of money, but I wanted more. I then founded Bright Planet Solar, my first company, and exited within a year. A year later, I started Dvinci Energy to address challenges in residential solar, such as false advertising, huge customer acquisition costs, big change orders, and poor conversion of leads. We need to make solar easier than it is today. It’s less than 2% of all U.S. power, but there’s so much room for growth. And people want to work for themselves. We give them tools to grow businesses with more efficient solar sales and installations.
Who does your company serve?
We serve two customers: First, we help solar installers with lead generation and fulfillment via our software solutions. Second, we help homeowners find the right solar installers, get accurate solar designs, and find the solar solution that’s right for them, without having to be energy experts. There’s lots of confusion out there. We are simplifying the decision making process.
What problems do you solve for your customers?
Customer acquisition costs are about $3,900 per solar install across the U.S. That’s crazy for an industry maturing so quickly. In contrast, we can do it for about $600.
How does your work contribute to mitigating climate change?
It’s pretty simple. We are accelerating the clean energy movement. And we’re not stopping at solar. We’re also adding batteries, community solar, and community wind. We track the GHG emission reductions that we create. It’s a metric that motivates our team and our customers.
What makes your company different than its competitors?
We are a full stack solution, with software solutions that cover all the bases, beyond lead generation, such as solar design tools, CRM platforms, document signing, project tracking, and financing options. We’re also trying to find creative ways to partner with our potential competitors. This problem is too important for the industry to remain siloed.
How are you rethinking your business strategy to get through the COVID crisis? How do you play both offense and defense?
First, virtual appointments with homeowners and installers have helped. Because we are a software provider, this was easy. But we have noticed that this less personal touch lowers lead conversions for our solar installer partners. Second, we provide flexible financing solutions, including PPA, loans, and leases. This has helped us remain useful. If we had just one option, then it would be tougher. People don’t want loans now, so they’re going back to a PPA or a lease. Lastly, we’ve noticed that interest in solar has gone up because everyone is online more often.
What are 2-3 things that your industry needs most to succeed, but is currently missing?
Aside from what our company is doing, I see fragmentation, due to low barriers to entry, as a big challenge. There is too much noise out there. Quality is hard to find sometimes. We need consolidation, digitization, and standardized permitting processes. This doesn’t have to be so hard.
How are you finding growth capital this year?
So far, we’ve been self-funded. But we’re raising some seed capital now from non-solar, non-cleantech investors who see the appeal of our software solutions for an inefficient market with huge potential.
When it comes to addressing climate change, how do you remain optimistic?
Personally, I meditate every day. This helps. I try to think about my goals as if there were no limits. I aim to bring that attitude to the work, to see beyond the short term, to focus on the positive progress we’re seeing.
What kinds of apps, databases, or software help you and your team excel?
We love G Suite for email and document collaboration, Slack for communications, Aurora Solar for accurate solar designs, and SolarWakeup newsletter for daily trends. We’re also developing a lot of tech internally.
What kinds of personal habits, mindset, exercise, meditation, or scheduling help boost your productivity and increase your resilience to “fight the good fight”?
My 20-minute meditation every morning helps me remain clear headed and mindful throughout the day. I also pray every morning and read one chapter of a business book to get the juices flowing. The night before each day, I plan out every 20-30 minutes so I’m super prepared for what’s to come.
What are 1-2 quotations that keep you focused and motivated?
“You are paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of the problems you solve." -- Elon Musk. As entrepreneurs, we can work on anything, so we might as well focus on big problems that help move humanity forward in the right direction.
What are 1-2 books that you’d encourage other climate change entrepreneurs to read?
Tony Seba has a lot of great books, such as Solar Trillions, Rethinking Transportation, and others here. Next would be Originals: How Non-conformists Move the World by Adam Grant. Finally, I’d recommend Atomic Habits by James Clear.
What are you excited about now?
Before starting Dvinci, I think I had great habits, but I’ve lost some of that temporarily. I’m excited to back on track, focused on the 1% constant improvement on self, family, personal finance, etc. These compounding effects are what it’s all about. I’m also excited to see what the solar industry turns into, how resilient it is, and what the new normal of global electricity looks like in the years ahead.
Who is inspiring you now? Who can other climate change entrepreneurs learn from?
It’s overused but Jeff Bezos and Amazon seem to always set the standard for modern business execution and innovation, despite growing larger. Ditto for Elon Musk. His vision to get people to buy in, before the market is ready, is remarkable.
What question did we forget to ask, but that deserves an answer?
We all ask frequently ourselves, “What are we really good at?” But we need to look at it from others’ perspectives, not just our own. I find it helpful to ask people that are close to me – family, friends, business partners – about how I can improve. That said, we should not try to fix every flaw. Instead, we can hire for that. And just because we like to do something doesn’t mean it is high value to our team or customers. This kind of self-awareness is so important.
Finally, on a biweekly basis, I try to think of 100 ways to answer big questions in life or business. For example, how could I get in front of 1,000 podcasters to tell our story, or generate $250M in the next 24 months? We often don’t ask specific enough questions to get what we want.
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Note:
THE TORCH is an interview series from Entrepreneurs for Impact. We profile CEOs and investors mitigating climate change. Our goal is to highlight their work and inspire others. As we deal with multiple crisis, from Covid and racial injustice to climate change and economic recession, we need some of this positive light in what seem like dark times. Onward and upward.