How to Scale a Battery Energy Storage Company Without Failing | Ep. 91 [Mark Hagedorn]

1 00:00:06,719 - > 00:00:08,560 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: What does it really take to build a 2 00:00:08,560 - > 00:00:12,480 battery energy storage company fast without breaking quality, 3 00:00:12,640 - > 00:00:15,679 blowing margins, or losing control of the systems that make 4 00:00:15,679 - > 00:00:17,120 it scale possible? 5 00:00:17,440 - > 00:00:18,800 Welcome to Industry Ignited. 6 00:00:18,879 - > 00:00:19,280 I'm Dr. 7 00:00:19,359 - > 00:00:23,920 Leanne Aguilar, and today I'm joined by Mark Hagedorn, former 8 00:00:23,920 - > 00:00:27,199 CEO of US Best Corporation and now head of commercial 9 00:00:27,199 - > 00:00:30,000 operations for Verdi and US Best Corp. 10 00:00:30,239 - > 00:00:33,439 Mark is an operations, supply chain, and field service leader 11 00:00:33,439 - > 00:00:36,640 with deep expertise in quality and engineering, known for 12 00:00:36,640 - > 00:00:40,159 building gigafactories, scaling multi-site operations, and 13 00:00:40,159 - > 00:00:43,759 turning technical complexity into execution that delivers. 14 00:00:44,000 - > 00:00:45,119 Mark, welcome to the show. 15 00:00:46,560 - > 00:00:47,119 Thank you for having me. 16 00:00:48,079 - > 00:00:52,240 Now you started in racing and vehicle engine development, then 17 00:00:52,240 - > 00:00:55,840 moved into heavy-duty trucking, advanced instrumentation, and 18 00:00:55,840 - > 00:00:57,280 eventually energy storage. 19 00:00:57,439 - > 00:01:00,399 What through line connects all those chapters and what pulled 20 00:01:00,399 - > 00:01:02,640 you into clean energy in the first place? 21 00:01:03,119 - > 00:01:05,680 SPEAKER_00: So there's a c a couple pieces that are that are 22 00:01:05,680 - > 00:01:06,719 through lines there. 23 00:01:06,879 - > 00:01:10,959 So one is that when I even started with my bachelor's 24 00:01:10,959 - > 00:01:14,159 degree at the Western Washington University Vehicle Research 25 00:01:14,159 - > 00:01:17,200 Institute, there were batteries involved in a lot of the 26 00:01:17,200 - > 00:01:20,079 projects that we worked on that, you know, were technology 27 00:01:20,079 - > 00:01:23,359 demonstration projects for uh folks like NHTSA sort of thing. 28 00:01:23,519 - > 00:01:27,439 But you know, they were always either hybrid or natural gas 29 00:01:27,599 - > 00:01:31,200 hybrid or pure electric vehicles uh that we were working on. 30 00:01:31,280 - > 00:01:34,879 I mean, all the way back in, you know, so you know, my freshman 31 00:01:34,879 - > 00:01:37,599 year was in '99, uh, to give you some scale. 32 00:01:37,760 - > 00:01:40,560 So there was there was there was always the batteries involved. 33 00:01:40,719 - > 00:01:43,920 And then the other the other part of it is if you kind of 34 00:01:43,920 - > 00:01:48,319 look at what the end product that we I was always working on 35 00:01:48,319 - > 00:01:51,120 at various companies, it was it's all considered capital 36 00:01:51,120 - > 00:01:52,079 equipment, pretty much, right? 37 00:01:52,239 - > 00:01:54,560 So, you know, you think about the engines, the engines for a 38 00:01:54,560 - > 00:01:58,239 race car, a semi-truck to trucking company, uh, an 39 00:01:58,239 - > 00:02:01,280 electron microscope to somebody like Intel or Samsung. 40 00:02:01,519 - > 00:02:04,319 And then when you actually get to, you know, battery energy 41 00:02:04,319 - > 00:02:10,000 storage at ESS or Core Power or or uh US Bess, um those are 42 00:02:10,159 - > 00:02:12,800 those are all considered pieces of capital equipment to someone. 43 00:02:12,960 - > 00:02:16,240 So the business environment, the main manufacturing process, um, 44 00:02:16,319 - > 00:02:19,439 you know, all kind of winds up uh being adaptable through 45 00:02:19,520 - > 00:02:22,080 through through all of that, ultimately making batteries. 46 00:02:22,319 - > 00:02:24,879 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah, making batteries right at the 47 00:02:24,879 - > 00:02:25,520 heart of it all. 48 00:02:25,840 - > 00:02:28,240 You've described your career as getting lucky while wonder 49 00:02:28,560 - > 00:02:30,560 wandering around lost at the right moment. 50 00:02:30,800 - > 00:02:34,159 Looking back, what intentional choices actually created that 51 00:02:34,159 - > 00:02:37,120 luck, skills you built, risks you took, or patterns you 52 00:02:37,120 - > 00:02:37,439 followed? 53 00:02:37,680 - > 00:02:40,800 SPEAKER_00: Big part of it was I just happened to be working with 54 00:02:40,800 - > 00:02:44,240 some of the best people in the given industry that I that I was 55 00:02:44,240 - > 00:02:44,479 in. 56 00:02:44,639 - > 00:02:48,639 And I got to learn a lot about how to do things and how not not 57 00:02:48,639 - > 00:02:50,080 to do things along the way. 58 00:02:50,240 - > 00:02:53,199 You know, when talk about you know the clean energy business 59 00:02:53,199 - > 00:02:56,000 and you know stationary batteries kind of being a newer 60 00:02:56,240 - > 00:03:01,199 thing, there are lots of aspects of them that you can take bits 61 00:03:01,280 - > 00:03:03,680 bits and pieces from other more established industries. 62 00:03:03,759 - > 00:03:06,000 I mean, you have the automotive industry that's been around for 63 00:03:06,479 - > 00:03:10,400 140 years or so, um and you know they they know how to make 64 00:03:10,400 - > 00:03:10,719 things. 65 00:03:11,120 - > 00:03:15,120 And uh and and so when you you you know can translate some 66 00:03:15,120 - > 00:03:19,599 things from an industry like that to uh what what we're doing 67 00:03:19,599 - > 00:03:25,280 with uh uh stationary BES tends to be a way to find out the best 68 00:03:25,280 - > 00:03:27,919 way to manufacture BES systems. 69 00:03:28,159 - > 00:03:31,120 I mean they're they're while BESS has some of its own new 70 00:03:31,120 - > 00:03:35,840 nuances, um you know, being able to apply some of that experience 71 00:03:35,840 - > 00:03:40,560 that that have gained to the new thing, air quotes, uh is is kind 72 00:03:40,560 - > 00:03:41,360 of one of those deals. 73 00:03:41,599 - > 00:03:44,240 Now, what when when I say you know, I got lucky wandering 74 00:03:44,240 - > 00:03:48,080 around lost was the clean energy space is you know a great great 75 00:03:48,319 - > 00:03:52,159 great example of you know best like plans don't necessarily all 76 00:03:52,319 - > 00:03:55,120 all always translate into massive positive results. 77 00:03:55,199 - > 00:03:58,080 I mean if you look at ESS thing, at some point in time they've 78 00:03:58,080 - > 00:04:01,280 run it or at least a maybe multiple times, have essentially 79 00:04:01,520 - > 00:04:04,080 run out of money, and then in which case operation slows down. 80 00:04:04,159 - > 00:04:06,479 But same same thing, same thing happened with core power a 81 00:04:06,479 - > 00:04:06,879 little bit. 82 00:04:07,039 - > 00:04:10,319 Yeah, and uh, you know, and and so when I was saying lost, you 83 00:04:10,319 - > 00:04:12,560 know, those weren't necessarily plant planned choices. 84 00:04:12,800 - > 00:04:15,120 Always the point uh for opportunity. 85 00:04:15,360 - > 00:04:19,040 When that opportunity arrived, I knew the right people and was at 86 00:04:19,040 - > 00:04:21,759 the right place in the right time with the right skill set to 87 00:04:21,839 - > 00:04:24,399 you know basically go on to the next big thing. 88 00:04:24,560 - > 00:04:27,439 So yeah, that but what when I say that, that's that's sort of 89 00:04:27,519 - > 00:04:28,319 sort of what I'm getting at. 90 00:04:28,560 - > 00:04:29,759 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: So basically, like you've been 91 00:04:29,759 - > 00:04:33,600 early at in multiple companies and it's a roller coaster 92 00:04:33,600 - > 00:04:36,079 industry and technology's evolving. 93 00:04:36,319 - > 00:04:39,279 So, what did those experiences teach you about the difference 94 00:04:39,279 - > 00:04:42,399 between great technology and a company that can survive at 95 00:04:42,399 - > 00:04:42,560 scale? 96 00:04:42,800 - > 00:04:44,720 SPEAKER_00: ESS is a great example of that because it I 97 00:04:44,720 - > 00:04:47,839 mean, if you would have talked to me in you know the 2015-2016 98 00:04:47,839 - > 00:04:50,160 time frame, I would have thought that you know long duration 99 00:04:50,160 - > 00:04:53,120 energy storage was the right thing at the right time and 100 00:04:53,120 - > 00:04:55,199 everybody was ready for it, and it was going to give you a 101 00:04:55,199 - > 00:04:57,680 traditional power generation experience when paired with 102 00:04:57,680 - > 00:04:59,680 renewables, and and you know, here we go. 103 00:04:59,759 - > 00:05:01,600 This was this was the big big thing. 104 00:05:01,759 - > 00:05:05,519 And then, you know, we look at where we're at now here in 2026, 105 00:05:05,759 - > 00:05:09,600 and now it's just now that the long duration energy storage 106 00:05:09,600 - > 00:05:12,480 stuff is really kind of getting gaining traction and moving 107 00:05:12,639 - > 00:05:13,279 moving forward. 108 00:05:13,439 - > 00:05:16,399 And so it felt like we were at the right time and the right 109 00:05:16,399 - > 00:05:19,600 place, and it was an amazing opportunity all the way back 110 00:05:19,600 - > 00:05:19,839 then. 111 00:05:20,000 - > 00:05:22,959 But you know, with hindsight being where it is, we were 112 00:05:22,959 - > 00:05:24,319 actually quite quite early. 113 00:05:24,399 - > 00:05:27,120 Um, and you know, and so early for the industry, but also you 114 00:05:27,120 - > 00:05:29,920 know, early for the tech technology and maturity of that 115 00:05:29,920 - > 00:05:30,560 as well. 116 00:05:30,879 - > 00:05:33,040 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah, and I suppose that gives you an 117 00:05:33,040 - > 00:05:34,160 advantage though, as well. 118 00:05:34,319 - > 00:05:35,839 I mean, being early to the game. 119 00:05:35,920 - > 00:05:39,199 And while it's maybe not time where it it actually blossoms 120 00:05:39,360 - > 00:05:42,079 and you know, there's still a long road ahead, you're still 121 00:05:42,079 - > 00:05:44,879 gaining that insight and knowledge, and you're there for 122 00:05:44,879 - > 00:05:46,399 the evolution of the products. 123 00:05:46,639 - > 00:05:49,600 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and if you've picked the right technology or 124 00:05:49,600 - > 00:05:52,480 right company to be with, all the stars align with you know 125 00:05:52,560 - > 00:05:55,040 the pivoting that needs to happen and the commercial 126 00:05:55,040 - > 00:05:57,600 success that needs to happen along the way, you know, maybe 127 00:05:57,600 - > 00:05:58,720 you'll eventually get there. 128 00:05:58,879 - > 00:06:01,680 However, sort of the common thing that happens in the clean 129 00:06:01,680 - > 00:06:04,800 energy industry is somebody has a great idea, gets it to a 130 00:06:04,800 - > 00:06:07,040 certain point, runs out of money, yeah, and then that's 131 00:06:07,199 - > 00:06:08,160 sort of where it fizzles. 132 00:06:08,399 - > 00:06:12,160 A lot of the operations, planning, budgeting, that's the 133 00:06:12,160 - > 00:06:14,720 thing that really backs up the fundraising to sort of you know 134 00:06:14,879 - > 00:06:15,759 keep that on track. 135 00:06:15,839 - > 00:06:18,480 Um, and you kind of kind of got to marry marry all of that stuff 136 00:06:18,480 - > 00:06:19,040 together. 137 00:06:19,360 - > 00:06:19,680 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah. 138 00:06:19,920 - > 00:06:23,360 Well, and I think that's common in pretty much any innovative 139 00:06:23,360 - > 00:06:23,839 industry. 140 00:06:24,000 - > 00:06:26,800 You know, it's like you run out of money at some point. 141 00:06:26,959 - > 00:06:30,160 So, right, it's keeping funding going and it's finding new 142 00:06:30,160 - > 00:06:33,439 rounds of funding and uh to keep that innovation alive and going. 143 00:06:33,759 - > 00:06:37,360 SPEAKER_00: And you know, for an early technology company, before 144 00:06:37,360 - > 00:06:40,879 you actually put your product out in the field and manufacture 145 00:06:40,879 - > 00:06:43,920 onesies and twosies of it, you need to make sure the technology 146 00:06:43,920 - > 00:06:44,160 works. 147 00:06:44,399 - > 00:06:47,680 Because that's that's sort of one of the big trapdoors is you 148 00:06:47,680 - > 00:06:51,279 get get get your thing done, you know, and what whatever you've 149 00:06:51,279 - > 00:06:54,319 decided the minimum viable product that that's you know 150 00:06:54,399 - > 00:06:58,800 commercially viable is, you get it out there and then it doesn't 151 00:06:58,800 - > 00:06:59,040 work. 152 00:06:59,199 - > 00:07:03,759 Or you now have signed yourself up for this never-ending circle 153 00:07:03,759 - > 00:07:07,439 of repair and modification and improvement and whatever, and 154 00:07:07,600 - > 00:07:10,480 you spend a lot a lot of money and time doing that, all the 155 00:07:10,480 - > 00:07:13,680 while you're not really advancing your reputation or you 156 00:07:13,680 - > 00:07:16,560 know, kind of your reference project portfolio in the 157 00:07:16,560 - > 00:07:17,920 actually out in the market. 158 00:07:18,240 - > 00:07:18,560 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Right. 159 00:07:18,720 - > 00:07:22,000 Well, and not only that the technology works, but that you 160 00:07:22,000 - > 00:07:25,519 have buyers, that you have technology that's actually, you 161 00:07:25,519 - > 00:07:27,360 know, commercial viable. 162 00:07:29,519 - > 00:07:31,759 SPEAKER_00: You know, whatever that is, if it's energy storage 163 00:07:31,920 - > 00:07:35,040 or power generation or what you know, whatever it is, it has to 164 00:07:35,040 - > 00:07:36,879 do what it says it's supposed to do. 165 00:07:37,279 - > 00:07:37,519 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah. 166 00:07:37,759 - > 00:07:41,360 Now you've repeatedly built operations functions from near 167 00:07:41,360 - > 00:07:45,120 zero manufacturing quality, supply chain service systems. 168 00:07:45,279 - > 00:07:48,639 What's the first operational foundation block you put down 169 00:07:48,639 - > 00:07:49,920 when you walk into a new build? 170 00:07:50,240 - > 00:07:52,800 SPEAKER_00: The first thing that we we try to do is we try to 171 00:07:52,800 - > 00:07:54,480 seek to understand what's going on, right? 172 00:07:54,639 - > 00:07:57,680 So if this this is an early technology company that's just 173 00:07:57,680 - > 00:08:01,120 getting ready to make its first commercial commercial product, 174 00:08:01,279 - > 00:08:03,600 you need to understand the product, you need to understand 175 00:08:03,600 - > 00:08:06,480 where it comes from, you need to understand some of the nuances 176 00:08:06,480 - > 00:08:06,800 of it. 177 00:08:06,959 - > 00:08:10,000 And then you can kind of start planning your roadmap for 178 00:08:10,000 - > 00:08:12,160 scaling to whatever your scale is going to be. 179 00:08:12,319 - > 00:08:14,399 I mean, if we're talking about some of these things where 180 00:08:14,560 - > 00:08:17,759 maybe, you know, talking about 100 units a year, maybe. 181 00:08:17,920 - > 00:08:21,040 If we're talking about, you know, sell gigafactory, you're 182 00:08:21,040 - > 00:08:24,000 potentially talking about millions of battery cells a 183 00:08:24,000 - > 00:08:24,160 year. 184 00:08:24,319 - > 00:08:26,720 And so you you kind of need to understand what that is, and 185 00:08:26,720 - > 00:08:30,959 then focus on figuring out what that minimum commercially viable 186 00:08:30,959 - > 00:08:33,759 product is and get it out there and do a good job with it. 187 00:08:33,919 - > 00:08:37,360 So then and then what flows along in that in that is with 188 00:08:37,360 - > 00:08:40,399 your your ops guy, your CFO, and your engineering, you need to be 189 00:08:40,399 - > 00:08:41,519 working the financial model. 190 00:08:41,679 - > 00:08:45,360 Like it has to be a a living, a living model, you your source of 191 00:08:45,360 - > 00:08:48,080 truth for where you're at now and where you're good where 192 00:08:48,080 - > 00:08:48,960 you're gonna be. 193 00:08:49,120 - > 00:08:51,679 And you need to plan for real things, right? 194 00:08:51,759 - > 00:08:55,120 So it's not just the cost of a building, for example, it's the 195 00:08:55,120 - > 00:08:57,679 cost of making that building do what you want it to. 196 00:08:57,840 - > 00:09:00,559 Essentially, when you especially a young company, double your 197 00:09:00,559 - > 00:09:02,320 budget for that more than you think it's gonna be. 198 00:09:02,399 - > 00:09:05,279 And and and again, continue to evolve that roadmap, right? 199 00:09:05,440 - > 00:09:08,320 Is that where you think you start with your minimum viable 200 00:09:08,320 - > 00:09:11,679 product now is on day one of trying to be commercially 201 00:09:11,679 - > 00:09:15,759 viable, might not be the thing that you ultimately wind up 202 00:09:15,759 - > 00:09:16,879 producing in volume, right? 203 00:09:16,960 - > 00:09:20,879 You either may make technical changes, the market may tell you 204 00:09:20,879 - > 00:09:23,440 that you know, this thing needs to be bigger, needs to be 205 00:09:23,440 - > 00:09:26,960 smaller, you know, what what whatever that is, and and 206 00:09:26,960 - > 00:09:29,919 continue to plan for that and and blend that into whatever 207 00:09:29,919 - > 00:09:31,919 your research and development roadmap is too, right? 208 00:09:32,000 - > 00:09:33,519 So when are you gonna have new products? 209 00:09:33,679 - > 00:09:35,120 What's gonna be involved with them? 210 00:09:35,360 - > 00:09:38,639 Budget for that because new equipment, new facility, 211 00:09:38,879 - > 00:09:39,600 cha-cha-cha. 212 00:09:40,480 - > 00:09:42,480 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: I mean, yeah, you make some really good 213 00:09:42,480 - > 00:09:43,200 points there. 214 00:09:43,360 - > 00:09:46,720 The road never ends up looking like you think it will, right? 215 00:09:46,799 - > 00:09:48,639 There's lots of twists and turns along the way. 216 00:09:48,720 - > 00:09:51,759 And so you need to like over budget, like you said, probably 217 00:09:51,759 - > 00:09:54,720 even double or triple what you expect it to be because you 218 00:09:54,720 - > 00:09:56,720 don't know what's gonna come up along the way. 219 00:09:56,879 - > 00:09:59,279 Things are gonna take longer than expected. 220 00:09:59,440 - > 00:10:03,279 And so you have to have a a good amount of agility as well in 221 00:10:03,279 - > 00:10:06,480 order to pivot if you need to, if something doesn't work out, 222 00:10:06,559 - > 00:10:09,279 or if you learn something new, or if somebody else comes up 223 00:10:09,279 - > 00:10:12,080 with something similar, and then you have to, you know, change up 224 00:10:12,080 - > 00:10:13,279 your technology. 225 00:10:13,840 - > 00:10:16,000 SPEAKER_00: Or something geopolitical happens and all of 226 00:10:16,000 - > 00:10:18,639 a sudden your supply chain and the market changes, or something 227 00:10:18,639 - > 00:10:18,879 like that. 228 00:10:19,039 - > 00:10:21,120 I mean, it there's there's there's a there's a there's a 229 00:10:21,120 - > 00:10:23,759 bunch of ways to kind of get in a get in a space that you 230 00:10:23,759 - > 00:10:24,720 haven't planned for. 231 00:10:24,879 - > 00:10:28,639 That's sort of the the root of all of this is that you want to 232 00:10:28,639 - > 00:10:32,080 have gamed out the many different things that could 233 00:10:32,080 - > 00:10:34,080 happen to you before they happen to you. 234 00:10:34,399 - > 00:10:34,720 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Right. 235 00:10:34,960 - > 00:10:36,480 Or a pandemic can hit you. 236 00:10:37,120 - > 00:10:37,759 Exactly. 237 00:10:38,000 - > 00:10:38,320 Right. 238 00:10:38,480 - > 00:10:42,320 So US Best was formed to address growing demand for domestic 239 00:10:42,320 - > 00:10:45,840 content and cybersecurity in the North America best market. 240 00:10:46,240 - > 00:10:49,840 What forces made that demand explode and what are buyers 241 00:10:49,840 - > 00:10:52,000 really asking for beneath the buzzwords? 242 00:10:52,320 - > 00:10:55,360 SPEAKER_00: So you kind of have to look at that from uh two two 243 00:10:55,360 - > 00:10:58,159 lenses, because we we, you know, as you know, we kind of talked 244 00:10:58,159 - > 00:11:01,840 about as US Best was just acquired uh in December by by 245 00:11:01,840 - > 00:11:04,399 Veriti, who is uh you know a much, much larger, much more 246 00:11:04,720 - > 00:11:05,519 established company. 247 00:11:05,840 - > 00:11:09,679 But we had significantly different product lines, and 248 00:11:10,320 - > 00:11:14,240 there are some features and benefits of of both of those 249 00:11:14,240 - > 00:11:16,879 that address different aspects of the market. 250 00:11:17,120 - > 00:11:21,600 And so for US Best, for example, it's it's larger battery storage 251 00:11:21,600 - > 00:11:24,720 systems that are you know the Honda Cord or you know Toyota 252 00:11:24,879 - > 00:11:27,360 Camry of LFP stationary storage. 253 00:11:27,440 - > 00:11:30,080 You know, the the our largest building block is five megawatt 254 00:11:30,159 - > 00:11:31,679 hours and a 20-foot container. 255 00:11:31,840 - > 00:11:35,120 Um it's Bloomberg Tier 1 UL listed product. 256 00:11:35,200 - > 00:11:38,480 It is not Fiat compliant at the moment, although you know, 257 00:11:38,559 - > 00:11:40,639 potentially in the future it it will be. 258 00:11:40,799 - > 00:11:44,559 However, it meets up meets a price point with the large-scale 259 00:11:44,559 - > 00:11:46,960 energy storage people, whether it be you know utilities or 260 00:11:46,960 - > 00:11:49,679 large, you know, commercial and industrial users, and for the 261 00:11:49,679 - > 00:11:53,279 time people that are kind of in the time to power space, meaning 262 00:11:53,279 - > 00:11:56,879 that they need us a solution now, it needs to make meet the 263 00:11:56,879 - > 00:11:58,480 cost stack, and it has to work. 264 00:11:58,639 - > 00:12:02,320 It's not necessarily about incentives or tax credits or any 265 00:12:02,320 - > 00:12:05,120 of those things, then that that that that tends to make sense. 266 00:12:05,279 - > 00:12:08,559 Now, if you look at the Verdi line, they're super safe 267 00:12:08,559 - > 00:12:11,679 batteries that are all made in the US, so that that's a big 268 00:12:11,679 - > 00:12:11,840 deal. 269 00:12:11,919 - > 00:12:14,720 So 100% fiat compliant plus domestic content compliant, 270 00:12:15,200 - > 00:12:18,799 little smaller build building block, but because of the safety 271 00:12:18,799 - > 00:12:21,519 aspect of the batteries, they can actually be installed in 272 00:12:21,519 - > 00:12:22,000 buildings. 273 00:12:22,159 - > 00:12:26,000 And so one of Verdi's claims to fame and probably difficult to 274 00:12:26,000 - > 00:12:28,559 actually prove, they have the world's largest battery in a 275 00:12:28,559 - > 00:12:33,039 building um in New York, um, in basically the basement of a uh a 276 00:12:33,039 - > 00:12:34,240 multifamily apartment building. 277 00:12:34,399 - > 00:12:37,120 Um it's using being used for peak shaving, arbitrage, that 278 00:12:37,200 - > 00:12:38,320 that that sort of thing. 279 00:12:38,480 - > 00:12:40,480 But it you know, it can actually be in the building. 280 00:12:40,720 - > 00:12:41,279 It's that safe. 281 00:12:41,440 - > 00:12:44,320 Whereas you look at you know the larger US best systems, you 282 00:12:44,320 - > 00:12:47,039 know, they got to be 150 feet away from a building, and it's 283 00:12:47,200 - > 00:12:48,240 just a little different product. 284 00:12:48,399 - > 00:12:52,799 Now, Variti does make some larger systems, but then those 285 00:12:52,799 - > 00:12:56,559 wind up being more attractive to the people that need the uh 286 00:12:56,559 - > 00:12:59,759 build American, buy American compliant systems, they need to 287 00:12:59,759 - > 00:13:02,960 absorb tax credits and incentives, um, those those sort 288 00:13:02,960 - > 00:13:03,200 of things. 289 00:13:03,279 - > 00:13:06,080 And and and so those systems still make make sense for those 290 00:13:06,080 - > 00:13:06,320 people. 291 00:13:06,480 - > 00:13:09,440 But when you start talking about uh, you know, hey, I need to you 292 00:13:09,440 - > 00:13:13,519 know put 105 megawatt hour containers on a site somewhere, 293 00:13:13,600 - > 00:13:16,480 um, that's where you US best sort of kind of takes over there 294 00:13:16,480 - > 00:13:16,879 a little bit. 295 00:13:17,120 - > 00:13:21,200 And so as far as you know what forces make the demand explode, 296 00:13:21,279 - > 00:13:25,600 so for Riddie, it's the safe and USA made thing that you know 297 00:13:25,759 - > 00:13:28,960 really makes them stand out, you know, kind of kind of on a thing 298 00:13:28,960 - > 00:13:30,080 on their own to a certain extent. 299 00:13:30,159 - > 00:13:32,720 When you start talking about who can actually make fiat 300 00:13:32,799 - > 00:13:35,919 compliant, domestic, content compliant battery systems in in 301 00:13:35,919 - > 00:13:37,919 North America, there aren't that many other people. 302 00:13:38,000 - > 00:13:42,080 Um and then from the US best standpoint, it well well-priced 303 00:13:42,080 - > 00:13:46,240 systems delivered by a US company and by a a team of uh 304 00:13:46,240 - > 00:13:49,279 significant industry veterans, you know, it as far as far as 305 00:13:49,360 - > 00:13:52,159 you know, again, the Honda Court of Energy Storage System, it 306 00:13:52,159 - > 00:13:56,399 lands on your site, it works, um and uh and you know it's it's 307 00:13:56,399 - > 00:13:57,840 price competitive with everybody else. 308 00:13:58,000 - > 00:14:00,639 So that's that's sort of what brings the brings the demand for 309 00:14:00,639 - > 00:14:01,279 for US best. 310 00:14:01,679 - > 00:14:03,279 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Two different value propositions, so 311 00:14:03,279 - > 00:14:06,240 it really depends on the right the values or what the 312 00:14:06,240 - > 00:14:08,799 priorities of the Yeah, and and when you think about like 313 00:14:08,799 - > 00:14:11,600 energy, the energy storage or clean energy industry overall, 314 00:14:11,679 - > 00:14:11,919 right? 315 00:14:12,000 - > 00:14:15,840 SPEAKER_00: It's one solution isn't the only solution, right? 316 00:14:16,000 - > 00:14:18,320 Depending on what you're doing, whether it be a storage plus 317 00:14:18,399 - > 00:14:21,200 solar site being paired with wind, I mean ultimately the 318 00:14:21,200 - > 00:14:24,480 batteries don't care where the electrons were generated, right? 319 00:14:24,559 - > 00:14:26,960 They they could come from a nuclear plant, it could come 320 00:14:26,960 - > 00:14:30,240 from falling water, you could look at it from a distributed 321 00:14:30,240 - > 00:14:32,480 energy storage and generation sort of model. 322 00:14:32,639 - > 00:14:34,720 There's lots of different applications for the batteries 323 00:14:34,799 - > 00:14:37,360 for you know different storage lengths, different chemistries, 324 00:14:37,600 - > 00:14:38,480 that sort of thing. 325 00:14:38,639 - > 00:14:42,320 And while lithium ion phosphorus has got to been one been one of 326 00:14:42,320 - > 00:14:45,039 the things that the industry settled on from a chemistry 327 00:14:45,039 - > 00:14:48,000 standard, that doesn't necessarily work for every 328 00:14:48,000 - > 00:14:50,159 single application that somebody's come up with, right? 329 00:14:50,240 - > 00:14:52,240 It's that you know, if somebody's trying to do a 330 00:14:52,240 - > 00:14:55,200 traditional power generation experience with say solar long 331 00:14:55,360 - > 00:14:58,720 duration storage product, may it may also be the thing that fits 332 00:14:58,720 - > 00:14:59,440 in there somewhere. 333 00:14:59,600 - > 00:15:02,240 And that may be paired with some lithium-ion as well. 334 00:15:02,480 - > 00:15:05,919 There's lots of ways to get to where where we need where we 335 00:15:05,919 - > 00:15:06,559 need to get to. 336 00:15:06,639 - > 00:15:10,240 Between Verdi and US best, we cover a big part of the catalog, 337 00:15:10,320 - > 00:15:10,639 as it were. 338 00:15:10,879 - > 00:15:10,960 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah. 339 00:15:11,120 - > 00:15:13,840 So in your first year, you built corporate infrastructure, 340 00:15:14,000 - > 00:15:17,440 recruited teams, implemented systems, launched multi state 341 00:15:17,440 - > 00:15:20,320 facilities, and deployed customer systems ahead of 342 00:15:20,320 - > 00:15:20,960 benchmarks. 343 00:15:21,200 - > 00:15:24,000 What were the two to three decisions that created momentum 344 00:15:24,000 - > 00:15:24,480 fastest? 345 00:15:24,799 - > 00:15:26,879 SPEAKER_00: So on the on the US best side of things, one of the 346 00:15:26,960 - > 00:15:30,000 one of the biggest things that created the momentum was working 347 00:15:30,000 - > 00:15:34,240 with a tech partner that already had the UListed Bloomberg Tier 1 348 00:15:34,240 - > 00:15:38,399 product and that was in many manufacturing that we were uh 349 00:15:38,399 - > 00:15:41,120 essentially going to be able to you know domesticate the 350 00:15:41,120 - > 00:15:41,759 assembly of. 351 00:15:41,840 - > 00:15:44,879 And so getting that an agreement arranged with that tech partner 352 00:15:45,039 - > 00:15:48,159 for the technology transfer and that sort of thing was a key 353 00:15:48,159 - > 00:15:48,320 deal. 354 00:15:48,399 - > 00:15:50,559 Because there aren't there aren't very many shortcuts in in 355 00:15:50,559 - > 00:15:52,159 doing this, unf unfortunately. 356 00:15:52,399 - > 00:15:55,440 Having done this a few times, I'd like to say that there's a 357 00:15:55,440 - > 00:15:58,080 couple of secrets that like all of a sudden unlocks all of this 358 00:15:58,080 - > 00:16:01,519 stuff, but ultimately it's you know some some pretty basic 359 00:16:01,519 - > 00:16:04,639 stuff, which is get a product out in the field that you can 360 00:16:04,639 - > 00:16:08,080 point at that works at a credible site as soon as you 361 00:16:08,080 - > 00:16:08,320 can. 362 00:16:08,559 - > 00:16:12,080 And and if you're not inventing the technology yourself, doing 363 00:16:12,080 - > 00:16:14,240 that with somebody that's current that's credible and can 364 00:16:14,320 - > 00:16:16,720 you know speed things up is is really a valuable thing. 365 00:16:16,879 - > 00:16:19,360 And then back to you know, we were talking about getting the 366 00:16:19,360 - > 00:16:22,480 operation side of the house figured out sooner than later, 367 00:16:22,639 - > 00:16:25,200 get your plans in place, get your roadmap in place, get all 368 00:16:25,200 - > 00:16:26,320 the all of that stuff done. 369 00:16:26,480 - > 00:16:29,440 That that's that's another decision that you know you take 370 00:16:29,440 - > 00:16:32,480 up take on at the formation of the company is the one you're 371 00:16:32,480 - > 00:16:33,120 gonna do that. 372 00:16:33,200 - > 00:16:37,039 Um and you know, again, do do that earlier, and then uh spend 373 00:16:37,279 - > 00:16:39,759 eighty eighty percent of your time working in the business, 374 00:16:40,000 - > 00:16:42,480 20% of your time working on the business. 375 00:16:42,639 - > 00:16:45,919 And so that's business systems, that's procedures, sort of 376 00:16:45,919 - > 00:16:46,240 thing. 377 00:16:46,399 - > 00:16:48,960 And that that kind of prevents you from going too far into 378 00:16:48,960 - > 00:16:52,720 technical debt when you get down the road and are successful, and 379 00:16:52,720 - > 00:16:55,519 now all of a sudden have to be start beh really behaving like a 380 00:16:55,519 - > 00:16:57,200 professional manufacturing organization. 381 00:16:57,360 - > 00:17:00,240 You're not starting from scratch when the volume was already 382 00:17:00,240 - > 00:17:00,720 happening. 383 00:17:01,120 - > 00:17:01,519 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Sure. 384 00:17:01,679 - > 00:17:02,799 Yeah, that makes sense. 385 00:17:02,960 - > 00:17:06,160 Now you've negotiated strategic agreements with cell partners 386 00:17:06,240 - > 00:17:08,640 shifting toward domestic gigafactories. 387 00:17:08,880 - > 00:17:11,920 What should leaders understand about the real constraints and 388 00:17:11,920 - > 00:17:13,279 best supply chains right now? 389 00:17:13,519 - > 00:17:16,799 Cells, controls, certification, integration, or something else? 390 00:17:17,279 - > 00:17:18,799 SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a fairly big topic. 391 00:17:19,039 - > 00:17:22,240 So there's probably probably a little history to be discussed 392 00:17:22,240 - > 00:17:25,440 here in that you know, if you you transit back to the 393 00:17:25,440 - > 00:17:29,440 2019-2020 time frame and you were trying to be a stationary 394 00:17:29,440 - > 00:17:33,759 best manufacturer, everybody who was already making battery cells 395 00:17:33,759 - > 00:17:36,960 was making them for the EV industry for the most part. 396 00:17:37,200 - > 00:17:41,279 And so you had a hard time securing the proper cells and 397 00:17:41,279 - > 00:17:44,240 basically putting your whole system together without without 398 00:17:44,240 - > 00:17:44,400 them. 399 00:17:44,640 - > 00:17:47,839 And so back then, if you were doing that, you were sort of 400 00:17:47,839 - > 00:17:50,880 forced to come up with your own gigafactory for the cells. 401 00:17:51,200 - > 00:17:55,200 Now, with geopolitics changed and the industry having evolved 402 00:17:55,200 - > 00:17:58,559 with you know capacity and whatnot, it's a little easier to 403 00:17:58,559 - > 00:18:01,519 come up with cells, whether they be fiat compliant or not, 404 00:18:01,680 - > 00:18:03,519 there's some more more options there. 405 00:18:04,079 - > 00:18:07,519 And so given that you know the real the real real barrier for 406 00:18:07,519 - > 00:18:11,359 entry these days for a cell gigafactory is billions of 407 00:18:11,359 - > 00:18:13,599 dollars that you have to put together. 408 00:18:13,759 - > 00:18:17,920 The secret sauce behind them isn't as complicated as it used 409 00:18:17,920 - > 00:18:18,240 to be. 410 00:18:18,480 - > 00:18:23,759 And so now being a company you know like we are, we have the 411 00:18:23,759 - > 00:18:26,640 point of evaluating does it make sense for us to make our own 412 00:18:26,640 - > 00:18:32,160 cells right now, or are there you know fiat compliant cells 413 00:18:32,319 - > 00:18:35,119 available from another source that's you know highly reputable 414 00:18:35,279 - > 00:18:39,119 and everything that we can enter into a long-term agreement with 415 00:18:39,119 - > 00:18:41,519 that will you know carry us three to five years in the into 416 00:18:41,519 - > 00:18:44,160 the future with cells that will work for us from a domestic 417 00:18:44,160 - > 00:18:47,440 content fiat standpoint, and then we maybe we don't have to 418 00:18:47,440 - > 00:18:50,319 make that multi-billion dollar capital investment in a cell 419 00:18:50,400 - > 00:18:51,119 factoring app. 420 00:18:51,279 - > 00:18:54,319 Now, I'm not saying we won't do that in the future, but you 421 00:18:54,319 - > 00:18:57,359 might not have to do it now as part of your your immediate 422 00:18:57,359 - > 00:19:03,519 operations roadmap, which that opens up some more possibilities 423 00:19:03,519 - > 00:19:05,519 for you know comp companies in this space. 424 00:19:05,599 - > 00:19:08,799 I mean, certainly time time in the market and experience sort 425 00:19:08,799 - > 00:19:12,559 of win win the race here a little bit, but you don't have 426 00:19:12,559 - > 00:19:16,160 to basically start from scratch with saying, hey, I'm gonna make 427 00:19:16,160 - > 00:19:16,720 best systems. 428 00:19:16,880 - > 00:19:19,839 Oh, when boat, by the way, I gotta have the second facility 429 00:19:19,839 - > 00:19:23,200 over here that's multi-billion dollars and you know 3,500 430 00:19:23,200 - > 00:19:24,880 people you know making sales for me. 431 00:19:25,200 - > 00:19:27,200 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah, so it makes more sense a lot of times 432 00:19:27,279 - > 00:19:30,559 just a partner instead of making that capital investment and yeah 433 00:19:30,720 - > 00:19:30,960 creating. 434 00:19:31,519 - > 00:19:33,119 SPEAKER_00: And you have to be careful with the partner too, 435 00:19:33,200 - > 00:19:35,599 because they're those are those are definitely not all created 436 00:19:35,599 - > 00:19:36,000 equal. 437 00:19:36,160 - > 00:19:39,200 I mean, we have a fantastic one in a cut in a couple different 438 00:19:39,440 - > 00:19:43,039 areas uh of the business, but at the same time, you can wind up 439 00:19:43,039 - > 00:19:46,960 with someone who's disconnected and doesn't deliver on time and 440 00:19:46,960 - > 00:19:50,160 has quality issues and all of those things, and then that 441 00:19:50,160 - > 00:19:51,920 really really affects your product too. 442 00:19:52,000 - > 00:19:57,599 So yeah, there there's a uh partner beware uh aspect to some 443 00:19:57,599 - > 00:19:57,839 of that. 444 00:19:57,920 - > 00:20:00,400 And and again, you can look at the clean energy space and see 445 00:20:00,400 - > 00:20:03,440 all these like partnerships uh you know between solar, battery, 446 00:20:03,680 - > 00:20:05,519 whatever that just haven't worked out. 447 00:20:05,599 - > 00:20:06,240 Yeah, watch out. 448 00:20:07,200 - > 00:20:08,559 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Good good tip there. 449 00:20:08,640 - > 00:20:11,359 Yeah, definitely watch out and make sure that you're partnering 450 00:20:11,359 - > 00:20:14,720 with the credible and reliable source because that will impact 451 00:20:14,720 - > 00:20:15,279 everything. 452 00:20:15,519 - > 00:20:18,799 Now, Mark, you led development of the first US designed and 453 00:20:18,799 - > 00:20:20,400 manufactured best controls. 454 00:20:20,640 - > 00:20:23,680 Why are controls so critical, not just for performance, but 455 00:20:23,680 - > 00:20:26,319 for trust, risk, and long-term serviceability? 456 00:20:26,720 - > 00:20:28,880 SPEAKER_00: So battery controls are kind of an interesting thing 457 00:20:29,039 - > 00:20:31,839 in that below a certain level of the system, meaning, you know, 458 00:20:31,920 - > 00:20:34,559 kind of meeting in the top, like power system and energy 459 00:20:34,559 - > 00:20:37,759 management system control, uh, they they can be quite 460 00:20:37,759 - > 00:20:38,319 complicated. 461 00:20:38,480 - > 00:20:41,839 And so a lot of what's out in the market has been developed 462 00:20:41,839 - > 00:20:44,960 iteratively by multiple companies, a lot of them 463 00:20:44,960 - > 00:20:45,759 offshore. 464 00:20:46,319 - > 00:20:50,319 And with some of the things that we've seen with there's a recent 465 00:20:50,319 - > 00:20:53,039 case where there were some rogue devices founded found in 466 00:20:53,039 - > 00:20:55,759 inverters or something like that, the cybersecurity aspect 467 00:20:55,759 - > 00:20:58,480 winds up being a big part of the conversation. 468 00:20:58,720 - > 00:21:01,519 And you start thinking about you know who some of our customers 469 00:21:01,519 - > 00:21:01,680 are. 470 00:21:01,920 - > 00:21:05,519 Sometimes, certainly, uh, we do have have some defense projects. 471 00:21:05,680 - > 00:21:08,240 We also have some utility projects who, you know, these 472 00:21:08,240 - > 00:21:12,319 days utilities operate on nearly the same sort of security 473 00:21:12,319 - > 00:21:14,480 standards as the defense department does. 474 00:21:14,720 - > 00:21:18,640 Um and and then and then you also start looking at large CNI 475 00:21:18,640 - > 00:21:21,279 users that have operational security aspects to them as 476 00:21:21,279 - > 00:21:23,839 well, whether they be data centers, you know, an Amazon 477 00:21:23,839 - > 00:21:26,799 warehouse, you know, and something like that, where they 478 00:21:26,799 - > 00:21:31,519 can't have loss of control of their energy systems for a 479 00:21:31,599 - > 00:21:35,039 either foreign or just broke actor, you you have to start 480 00:21:35,039 - > 00:21:38,559 digging into all right, where did the software code come from? 481 00:21:38,880 - > 00:21:40,160 What is what is in there? 482 00:21:40,319 - > 00:21:41,440 Who has control of it? 483 00:21:41,599 - > 00:21:44,240 Um who has access to the outputs from it? 484 00:21:44,400 - > 00:21:47,920 There's lots of ways to skin that cat, but the Belt and 485 00:21:48,079 - > 00:21:52,640 Suspenders approach is to have USA made software running on USA 486 00:21:52,880 - > 00:21:53,759 made hardware. 487 00:21:53,920 - > 00:21:56,799 So, meaning that you've got chipsets coming from you know 488 00:21:56,880 - > 00:21:59,440 Texas, you've got circuit circuit boards being assembled 489 00:21:59,440 - > 00:21:59,759 and delivered. 490 00:22:00,079 - > 00:22:01,599 Delivered to you out of Idaho. 491 00:22:01,680 - > 00:22:05,440 Um, and then you got software that's developed in New York or 492 00:22:05,519 - > 00:22:07,279 or Oregon for that matter. 493 00:22:07,359 - > 00:22:11,599 Um that you what if you have that those things in place, you 494 00:22:11,599 - > 00:22:15,039 won't necessarily have to question hundreds of other ways 495 00:22:15,039 - > 00:22:17,920 that somebody could be doing something to you or your product 496 00:22:18,079 - > 00:22:19,440 somewhere in the future, right? 497 00:22:19,519 - > 00:22:21,039 It might not be an immediate thing. 498 00:22:21,200 - > 00:22:23,519 It you know, you gotta remember some of these best systems are 499 00:22:23,519 - > 00:22:26,480 made to live 25 years on a site somewhere, could be something 500 00:22:26,480 - > 00:22:29,680 that you know it is is tucked away and used later. 501 00:22:29,839 - > 00:22:33,680 Um, and if you don't have the full control over that, meaning 502 00:22:33,680 - > 00:22:36,640 you're buying the software from somebody else or you're having 503 00:22:36,640 - > 00:22:39,440 the circuit boards made, you know, somewhere overseas, you 504 00:22:39,440 - > 00:22:39,759 don't know. 505 00:22:39,920 - > 00:22:42,160 I mean, you could do it, you can do a lot of testing, and there's 506 00:22:42,160 - > 00:22:44,799 some after-the-fact information security stuff. 507 00:22:45,039 - > 00:22:48,720 The basis is all it is, you know, have the have USA made 508 00:22:48,720 - > 00:22:50,799 stuff and and have modern current current stuff. 509 00:22:51,039 - > 00:22:53,599 I mean, that's the that's the other thing, is it while you you 510 00:22:53,599 - > 00:22:56,160 know still have to do all the testing and due diligence on you 511 00:22:56,160 - > 00:22:59,279 know what what you what you're licensing, you don't really have 512 00:22:59,279 - > 00:23:02,079 control over the the the engine room there. 513 00:23:02,319 - > 00:23:03,200 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah, true. 514 00:23:03,359 - > 00:23:04,720 Very yeah, good points. 515 00:23:04,880 - > 00:23:08,640 Now you said operations is often undervalued in early stage 516 00:23:08,640 - > 00:23:11,039 companies, strategically and financially. 517 00:23:11,200 - > 00:23:14,480 If founders only fix one operations mistake early, what 518 00:23:14,480 - > 00:23:14,799 should it be? 519 00:23:15,039 - > 00:23:18,400 SPEAKER_00: It's usually under budgeting for the manufacturing 520 00:23:18,400 - > 00:23:19,359 ramp up process. 521 00:23:19,519 - > 00:23:22,400 And one of the things that, you know, it's kind of an indicator 522 00:23:22,400 - > 00:23:26,559 that you've not done that correctly is while you're in the 523 00:23:26,559 - > 00:23:30,480 manufacturing ramp up process, if engineering and operations is 524 00:23:30,880 - > 00:23:33,279 consistently coming to you and going, hey, I need to buy this 525 00:23:33,279 - > 00:23:37,039 $40,000 thing we didn't budget for over here, I gotta get the 526 00:23:37,039 - > 00:23:40,720 electricians in here to do $20,000 worth of power drop 527 00:23:40,720 - > 00:23:43,119 work, I need a new transformer over here. 528 00:23:43,279 - > 00:23:46,160 All of a sudden that stuff adds up real quick. 529 00:23:46,319 - > 00:23:50,079 And you start looking at, well, maybe I've got a shortfall 530 00:23:50,079 - > 00:23:52,000 between now and my next fundraising step. 531 00:23:52,160 - > 00:23:53,200 What am I gonna do about that? 532 00:23:53,359 - > 00:23:55,440 Am I gonna cut corners in what I'm doing here? 533 00:23:56,000 - > 00:23:58,720 Am I gonna slow the slow slow the process down? 534 00:23:59,039 - > 00:24:02,720 Like all of those things kind of wind up being self-imposed 535 00:24:02,720 - > 00:24:06,400 barricades if you didn't budget correctly in the first place. 536 00:24:06,640 - > 00:24:06,880 Yeah. 537 00:24:07,039 - > 00:24:10,000 You know, very and sometimes you're not gonna know what some 538 00:24:10,000 - > 00:24:12,319 of those things are that you're gonna budget for, but you do 539 00:24:12,640 - > 00:24:15,440 need to do, you know, the classic, well, that needs to be 540 00:24:15,440 - > 00:24:17,599 20% more because I don't know what I don't know. 541 00:24:17,680 - > 00:24:19,599 Um, I need to set something aside for that. 542 00:24:19,920 - > 00:24:20,160 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah. 543 00:24:20,319 - > 00:24:23,200 So adding that cushion in there to make sure that you're covered 544 00:24:23,200 - > 00:24:26,640 for those incidentals or yeah, unexpected extra costs. 545 00:24:26,799 - > 00:24:27,039 SPEAKER_00: Yeah. 546 00:24:27,519 - > 00:24:27,839 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah. 547 00:24:28,079 - > 00:24:31,599 So you're a believer in implementing ERP, MES, and 548 00:24:31,599 - > 00:24:34,400 operational systems earlier than most teams think they need. 549 00:24:34,559 - > 00:24:36,640 What's your Excel expiration date? 550 00:24:36,799 - > 00:24:40,079 The signal that the company is accumulating dangerous 551 00:24:40,079 - > 00:24:40,960 operational debt? 552 00:24:41,279 - > 00:24:42,160 SPEAKER_00: That's a great question. 553 00:24:42,319 - > 00:24:45,920 The real crude measure that I I use for that is, and you know, 554 00:24:46,000 - > 00:24:49,599 again, I've been part of some companies that kept after the uh 555 00:24:49,599 - > 00:24:52,400 the Excel do-it-ourself thing way too long. 556 00:24:52,640 - > 00:24:56,799 Was once coming up with your manufacturing metrics and data 557 00:24:56,960 - > 00:24:59,839 and and maintenance of said things becomes a full-time job 558 00:24:59,839 - > 00:25:03,839 for someone, you waited too long to put business systems in place 559 00:25:03,839 - > 00:25:04,720 to help with that. 560 00:25:04,880 - > 00:25:07,759 It may still wind up being a full-time job for them, but then 561 00:25:08,400 - > 00:25:10,640 that position you're in is actually scalable. 562 00:25:10,880 - > 00:25:14,319 Whereas if you continue with the Excel sheets, you're just gonna 563 00:25:14,319 - > 00:25:16,799 have to add more and more people working on Excel sheets. 564 00:25:17,039 - > 00:25:19,839 That it sort of becomes a self-licking ice cream cone 565 00:25:19,920 - > 00:25:20,559 somewhere in there. 566 00:25:20,799 - > 00:25:25,119 So having the manufacturing execution systems, having the 567 00:25:25,119 - > 00:25:29,440 ERP systems forces you to also set up processes and procedures, 568 00:25:29,599 - > 00:25:31,839 figure out what your supply chain is and get that off 569 00:25:31,839 - > 00:25:35,680 another Excel sheet somewhere, and also allows you to start 570 00:25:35,680 - > 00:25:39,039 doing one of my favorite things is future planning and budget 571 00:25:39,039 - > 00:25:39,839 forecasting. 572 00:25:40,160 - > 00:25:43,599 Um, plus you you're also then able to get better views of what 573 00:25:43,599 - > 00:25:46,240 you're actually producing, you're actually able to manage 574 00:25:46,240 - > 00:25:49,119 your quality information um that you know you build into the 575 00:25:49,119 - > 00:25:51,359 manufacturing process and the supply chain. 576 00:25:51,519 - > 00:25:53,119 Um, you can start tracking all of that. 577 00:25:53,359 - > 00:25:56,880 If it's in Excel sheets, you know, you wind up with a couple 578 00:25:56,960 - > 00:25:59,759 like key people that know where everything is. 579 00:26:00,319 - > 00:26:03,839 And you know, if somebody all of a sudden runs in the front door 580 00:26:03,839 - > 00:26:07,680 and says, Hey, I got a purchase order for a hundred of whatever 581 00:26:07,680 - > 00:26:12,640 we make, all of a sudden somebody's gonna go, Oh, oh my, 582 00:26:13,039 - > 00:26:16,400 let me go get my Excel sheets out and see what we can do with 583 00:26:16,400 - > 00:26:16,559 that. 584 00:26:16,720 - > 00:26:19,839 Whereas if you have the systems that you already have kind of 585 00:26:19,839 - > 00:26:22,000 the dashboard or the overview of what's possible. 586 00:26:22,400 - > 00:26:24,400 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah, so there's that inefficiency. 587 00:26:24,559 - > 00:26:27,759 So basically, rule of thumb, when one person is spending 588 00:26:27,759 - > 00:26:31,119 their entire, you know, 40 hours a week managing and running 589 00:26:31,119 - > 00:26:34,000 these Excel sheets, it's probably time to put a system 590 00:26:34,000 - > 00:26:38,319 into place that takes that over and it's a crawl walk run thing, 591 00:26:38,400 - > 00:26:38,559 right? 592 00:26:38,720 - > 00:26:41,359 SPEAKER_00: You can get pretty far on QuickBooks, especially if 593 00:26:41,359 - > 00:26:44,079 you're baking cookies as opposed to making complex battery 594 00:26:44,079 - > 00:26:44,400 systems. 595 00:26:44,640 - > 00:26:44,799 Sure. 596 00:26:45,119 - > 00:26:48,240 But there's a point at which you need to go to an actual real 597 00:26:48,240 - > 00:26:49,759 frontline ERP system. 598 00:26:49,920 - > 00:26:53,200 And then soon being if your your manufacturing process has some 599 00:26:53,200 - > 00:26:56,160 automation or some complex routing workflow kidding for, 600 00:26:56,240 - > 00:26:58,640 you know, say the systems integration, or you know, so the 601 00:26:58,640 - > 00:27:01,279 battery's in a container part of the show, that winds up being 602 00:27:01,279 - > 00:27:02,960 pretty pretty pretty hard to track. 603 00:27:03,119 - > 00:27:05,359 And that's where the manufacturing execution system 604 00:27:05,359 - > 00:27:05,599 comes in. 605 00:27:05,759 - > 00:27:07,759 And you wind up with kind of efficiencies across the 606 00:27:07,759 - > 00:27:09,680 organization once you actually get that implemented. 607 00:27:09,839 - > 00:27:13,519 Now, the the other side of it is there's more capital cost, and 608 00:27:13,519 - > 00:27:16,400 you actually have to dedicate some of your people to working 609 00:27:16,400 - > 00:27:18,559 on the business for implementation and that sort of 610 00:27:18,559 - > 00:27:18,960 thing. 611 00:27:19,200 - > 00:27:23,839 But that's an investment that's easier to make earlier on than 612 00:27:23,839 - > 00:27:26,640 when all of a sudden you're, you know, a thousand people and 613 00:27:26,960 - > 00:27:30,160 definitely who knows how many million dollars of capital 614 00:27:30,160 - > 00:27:33,119 deployed toward towards your operation, and you're still 615 00:27:33,119 - > 00:27:35,359 trying to drape it together with Excel sheets is tough. 616 00:27:35,839 - > 00:27:36,640 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: No, absolutely. 617 00:27:36,720 - > 00:27:39,920 There's a lot of inefficiency and risk is introduced at you 618 00:27:39,920 - > 00:27:41,039 know, if if that's the case. 619 00:27:41,200 - > 00:27:41,839 So I agree. 620 00:27:41,920 - > 00:27:44,400 The sooner you can get a system into place, the better. 621 00:27:44,559 - > 00:27:47,599 So then you have those standard processes and procedures. 622 00:27:47,759 - > 00:27:52,400 There's that consistency across the board and it's available to 623 00:27:52,400 - > 00:27:55,039 more people, and yeah, so a lot of benefits for that. 624 00:27:55,359 - > 00:27:57,839 SPEAKER_00: It also helps to remove single points of failure 625 00:27:57,839 - > 00:27:59,599 in in the manufacturing process, right? 626 00:27:59,680 - > 00:28:03,039 I mean, if you if you have the one ops leader guy that wins the 627 00:28:03,039 - > 00:28:07,200 lottery and and does you got two weeks and then he's sexually 628 00:28:07,359 - > 00:28:07,920 retired. 629 00:28:08,319 - > 00:28:08,960 Yeah. 630 00:28:09,279 - > 00:28:12,000 If you don't have that stuff built into systems and you're 631 00:28:12,000 - > 00:28:14,079 still working on tribal knowledge and that sort of 632 00:28:14,079 - > 00:28:17,119 thing, that can be a very destabilizing event that can 633 00:28:17,119 - > 00:28:17,519 happen. 634 00:28:17,759 - > 00:28:20,319 Whereas if you have the process procedures and the systems in 635 00:28:20,319 - > 00:28:23,519 place, certainly big loss, but not not wheels falling off. 636 00:28:23,920 - > 00:28:24,880 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: No, no, right. 637 00:28:24,960 - > 00:28:27,359 Somebody else can pick up where they left off and you have all 638 00:28:27,680 - > 00:28:31,119 the data and it's it's easy to track and understand and get 639 00:28:31,119 - > 00:28:31,920 back on top of. 640 00:28:32,160 - > 00:28:35,680 Now, when you're scaling quality and standards across multi-site 641 00:28:35,680 - > 00:28:38,319 facilities, what are the non-negotiables that keep you 642 00:28:38,319 - > 00:28:39,119 from drifting? 643 00:28:39,359 - > 00:28:42,400 Process discipline, supplier qualification, testing 644 00:28:42,480 - > 00:28:45,359 validation, training, culture, or all of it. 645 00:28:45,680 - > 00:28:48,400 SPEAKER_00: Well, uh it it it all it all starts out with with 646 00:28:48,400 - > 00:28:51,039 the culture and the employee engagement, right? 647 00:28:51,119 - > 00:28:54,720 So especially in a in a in a young small company, you want to 648 00:28:54,720 - > 00:28:57,599 have everybody know what the mission is, what the important 649 00:28:57,599 - > 00:29:00,880 parts of the aspects of what we're doing are to you know to 650 00:29:00,880 - > 00:29:03,519 the customer, to the manufacturing, um, you know, and 651 00:29:03,599 - > 00:29:06,319 and to the actual technology that you that you're working 652 00:29:06,319 - > 00:29:06,559 with. 653 00:29:06,720 - > 00:29:10,480 Um and then and what once you have you know that engagement 654 00:29:10,640 - > 00:29:14,000 kind of understanding with the contributing population to 655 00:29:14,000 - > 00:29:16,160 quality, which you know ultimately winds up being the 656 00:29:16,160 - > 00:29:18,720 whole company in in some aspect or another, you know, so very 657 00:29:19,039 - > 00:29:21,920 like sales, everyone's involved in quality in the company as 658 00:29:21,920 - > 00:29:25,680 well, even if it's uh you know messaging or controlling 659 00:29:25,680 - > 00:29:28,960 documents to customers all the way down through manufacturing, 660 00:29:29,279 - > 00:29:29,839 all of that stuff. 661 00:29:30,000 - > 00:29:34,000 All of that leads to what your out-of-box quality perception 662 00:29:34,000 - > 00:29:35,920 and score actually winds up winds up being. 663 00:29:36,079 - > 00:29:39,440 And so with the culture in place, it winds up being much 664 00:29:39,440 - > 00:29:43,519 easier to implement quality procedures, testing procedures, 665 00:29:43,839 - > 00:29:47,039 because everybody is engaged in making that quality product. 666 00:29:47,200 - > 00:29:50,319 Ideally, they care they care about it, and they're willing to 667 00:29:50,319 - > 00:29:54,400 expand and adjust what they're doing to meet the next level of 668 00:29:54,400 - > 00:29:57,039 quality that's required as you move down your you know road 669 00:29:57,200 - > 00:29:59,200 roadmap to commercialization. 670 00:30:00,240 - > 00:30:00,559 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Right. 671 00:30:00,720 - > 00:30:03,200 So it's really hiring the right people, bringing the right 672 00:30:03,200 - > 00:30:06,000 people on board that align with your your company values. 673 00:30:07,039 - > 00:30:08,960 SPEAKER_00: And being and being transparent with them, right? 674 00:30:09,119 - > 00:30:11,599 Because I mean, if if you're if you're in a younger company, 675 00:30:11,839 - > 00:30:14,400 often there's a lot of uncertainty as to you know, when 676 00:30:14,400 - > 00:30:17,359 is the next order coming in, and are we gonna be in business six 677 00:30:17,359 - > 00:30:19,680 months from now, and you know, all of that stuff, all of that 678 00:30:19,680 - > 00:30:22,799 young company stuff, and being able to kind of you know at 679 00:30:22,799 - > 00:30:26,319 least be on the same general page with your employee 680 00:30:26,319 - > 00:30:28,319 population, as you know, especially like on a quarterly 681 00:30:28,319 - > 00:30:30,400 basis, you have all hand meetings and all that. 682 00:30:30,559 - > 00:30:32,880 And while you might, you know, you might not talk about the 683 00:30:32,880 - > 00:30:35,920 nitty-gritty of the fundraising, you might talk about, you know, 684 00:30:36,079 - > 00:30:39,200 here's the orders, here's how we delivered on them, here's the 685 00:30:39,440 - > 00:30:42,000 the new orders that are coming in, here's kind of the timeline 686 00:30:42,000 - > 00:30:42,480 for that. 687 00:30:42,640 - > 00:30:45,680 You know, if there's a new you know, product change or anything 688 00:30:45,680 - > 00:30:48,240 that we're talking about that gets included in that 689 00:30:48,240 - > 00:30:48,880 conversation. 690 00:30:49,039 - > 00:30:52,079 If all of a sudden you know our automation line is gonna come 691 00:30:52,079 - > 00:30:54,480 online, you you're able to kind of give a little bit of 692 00:30:54,640 - > 00:30:57,279 overview, a preview of what that's gonna look like and how 693 00:30:57,279 - > 00:30:58,000 that's gonna change. 694 00:30:58,079 - > 00:31:00,880 And then I and ultimately that would you results in a higher 695 00:31:00,880 - > 00:31:04,079 quality of work and again bet better engagement upstream and 696 00:31:04,079 - > 00:31:05,359 downstream of each employee's job. 697 00:31:05,599 - > 00:31:05,759 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah. 698 00:31:06,000 - > 00:31:09,519 So with that level of transparency, how do you uh 699 00:31:09,519 - > 00:31:13,200 manage and mitigate flight risk of employees and keep them 700 00:31:13,200 - > 00:31:16,160 motivated and not, you know, in fear that their position might 701 00:31:16,160 - > 00:31:16,559 go away? 702 00:31:16,799 - > 00:31:18,960 SPEAKER_00: Uh the hope and confidence in the organization 703 00:31:18,960 - > 00:31:19,839 needs to remain there. 704 00:31:19,920 - > 00:31:22,559 And then that's where being transparent, where we're saying 705 00:31:22,559 - > 00:31:25,119 what we're trying to do, how we're how we're actually doing, 706 00:31:25,279 - > 00:31:28,960 and where we're gonna go from there, like that winds up being 707 00:31:28,960 - > 00:31:31,759 a thing that you know engages and retains employees. 708 00:31:31,839 - > 00:31:34,720 It makes it you feel like you know what's going on at work, 709 00:31:34,880 - > 00:31:36,240 but you know what to expect. 710 00:31:36,480 - > 00:31:40,559 It's not uh a CFO showing up once a year saying, you know, 711 00:31:40,640 - > 00:31:43,519 everything's fine, or you know, gee, we're short some money this 712 00:31:43,519 - > 00:31:46,240 year, uh, and and then just kind of moving on. 713 00:31:46,400 - > 00:31:49,200 I think as a kind of kind kind of a tenet of some of you know 714 00:31:49,279 - > 00:31:51,599 the clean energy industry is there's a lot of that 715 00:31:51,599 - > 00:31:54,559 uncertainty and churn that happens, whether it just be 716 00:31:54,559 - > 00:31:57,279 geopolitical stuff in the news or whatever, that that can make 717 00:31:57,279 - > 00:32:00,720 me think about the you know, blue-collar manufacturing guy, 718 00:32:00,799 - > 00:32:03,359 that might make him nervous if he doesn't know really what's 719 00:32:03,359 - > 00:32:06,559 what's going on in in the context of his company, the job 720 00:32:06,640 - > 00:32:08,160 and the product and that sort of thing. 721 00:32:08,319 - > 00:32:10,480 And so, you know, being able to you know talk about that with 722 00:32:10,480 - > 00:32:13,599 your employees at a level that you know is appropriate and they 723 00:32:13,599 - > 00:32:16,000 understand winds up being a really, really powerful thing. 724 00:32:16,079 - > 00:32:18,559 And then when you start talking about, oh, gee, we need to do 725 00:32:18,559 - > 00:32:21,119 continuous improvement projects or something like that, you'll 726 00:32:21,119 - > 00:32:23,920 have more people on board willing to you know pitch in and 727 00:32:23,920 - > 00:32:27,359 look at look at issues, not you know, assign blame or anything 728 00:32:27,359 - > 00:32:30,480 like that, but actually you know work to resolve resolve things 729 00:32:30,480 - > 00:32:31,599 that are meaningful in the company. 730 00:32:31,920 - > 00:32:32,799 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah, got it. 731 00:32:32,960 - > 00:32:36,400 Now you've managed greenfield and brandfield automation, 732 00:32:36,559 - > 00:32:39,759 improved profit margins and scaled operations in volatile 733 00:32:40,079 - > 00:32:40,559 markets. 734 00:32:40,720 - > 00:32:43,440 What's your playbook for maintaining margin while quality 735 00:32:43,440 - > 00:32:46,319 expectations increase and timelines compress? 736 00:32:47,119 - > 00:32:49,680 SPEAKER_00: Well, the the the the first the first part of that 737 00:32:49,680 - > 00:32:51,519 is is you gotta know your numbers, right? 738 00:32:51,599 - > 00:32:54,480 So you got you really got to know what stuff's costing you 739 00:32:54,480 - > 00:32:56,880 right now, because I mean ultimately the quality part, 740 00:32:56,960 - > 00:32:58,480 there's there's a cost to that, right? 741 00:32:58,640 - > 00:33:01,200 Is that yeah, you can make something super cheap, but if it 742 00:33:01,200 - > 00:33:04,240 doesn't work, then you either can't sell it or you're you know 743 00:33:04,480 - > 00:33:05,920 fixing it for 25 years. 744 00:33:06,160 - > 00:33:09,440 Finding where your sweet spot for that is a big deal. 745 00:33:09,599 - > 00:33:13,279 Again, also being honest with yourself about what your minimum 746 00:33:13,279 - > 00:33:16,480 commercially viable product actually is and when it is time 747 00:33:16,480 - > 00:33:19,119 to go through various stages of manufacturing. 748 00:33:19,279 - > 00:33:22,640 Because a lot of the companies you you you you think of as from 749 00:33:22,720 - > 00:33:25,680 from a startup standpoint may go on a bit of a journey. 750 00:33:25,759 - > 00:33:28,000 They're starting from you know like a small business 751 00:33:28,000 - > 00:33:31,839 accelerator sort of program to their first like commercial 752 00:33:31,839 - > 00:33:34,480 building that's you know probably more of like a flex 753 00:33:34,640 - > 00:33:37,119 space or something like that, where maybe they make you know 754 00:33:37,279 - > 00:33:40,319 product number one, but then when that's successful, then you 755 00:33:40,319 - > 00:33:42,720 start talking about, oh gee, I gotta make hundreds of these 756 00:33:42,720 - > 00:33:43,119 things. 757 00:33:43,279 - > 00:33:46,160 Now that that's another facility, and that may be one 758 00:33:46,160 - > 00:33:48,880 that isn't something that already exists that I can move 759 00:33:48,880 - > 00:33:49,759 in and repurpose. 760 00:33:49,920 - > 00:33:51,839 Maybe I've got to build that one from scratch. 761 00:33:52,079 - > 00:33:56,480 And and so kind of having that honest look at those things and 762 00:33:56,480 - > 00:34:00,880 being able to model along a roadmap, that that's sort of the 763 00:34:00,880 - > 00:34:02,640 secret sauce to all of that. 764 00:34:02,799 - > 00:34:06,400 Because I've I've certainly been involved in organizations where 765 00:34:06,400 - > 00:34:08,320 we didn't understand our margins very well. 766 00:34:08,400 - > 00:34:11,760 And so we we went out and sold sold a bunch of things, but then 767 00:34:11,760 - > 00:34:14,880 wound up fairly making reasonable real revenue with net 768 00:34:15,039 - > 00:34:16,159 net at the end of all of that. 769 00:34:16,320 - > 00:34:18,960 And and so then that that also winds up being a hurdle for you 770 00:34:18,960 - > 00:34:22,079 to scale up even more since you can't apply revenue back to the 771 00:34:22,079 - > 00:34:24,320 business if you you know didn't make that much of it in the 772 00:34:24,320 - > 00:34:24,960 first place. 773 00:34:25,440 - > 00:34:28,239 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: So know your margins, and the same thing 774 00:34:28,639 - > 00:34:31,039 on the manufacturing operations side of things, right? 775 00:34:31,280 - > 00:34:33,519 SPEAKER_00: Is is if all of a sudden you you know move to 776 00:34:33,679 - > 00:34:36,800 commercial operations and you find out that there's 48 hours 777 00:34:36,800 - > 00:34:39,360 of labor in each one of your battery modules and there's 50 778 00:34:39,360 - > 00:34:44,239 of those in each system, all of a sudden your actual cost versus 779 00:34:44,239 - > 00:34:47,119 what you know was being modeled for you know the bill of 780 00:34:47,119 - > 00:34:50,000 materials items and everything else winds up exploding. 781 00:34:50,079 - > 00:34:51,760 And then you gotta figure out what to do with that. 782 00:34:51,840 - > 00:34:54,719 And so that also can kind of wind up being a fairly large 783 00:34:54,719 - > 00:34:57,199 roadblock for somebody who's trying to scale their 784 00:34:57,199 - > 00:34:58,880 manufacturing at the same time. 785 00:34:59,199 - > 00:34:59,519 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah. 786 00:34:59,760 - > 00:35:00,320 Yeah. 787 00:35:00,639 - > 00:35:04,400 So you called 2026, 2027 huge growth years. 788 00:35:04,639 - > 00:35:06,960 What's the next operational milestone you're building 789 00:35:06,960 - > 00:35:07,280 towards? 790 00:35:07,599 - > 00:35:10,559 SPEAKER_00: So uh I mean for us, it's a it's a little bit of a 791 00:35:10,559 - > 00:35:14,159 scale with discipline type type scenario, right? 792 00:35:14,320 - > 00:35:19,280 So we want we want to uh very very significantly expand our 793 00:35:19,280 - > 00:35:22,639 manufacturing capability and volume for the products that we 794 00:35:22,639 - > 00:35:26,960 have, but we don't want to do that by averaging money left and 795 00:35:26,960 - > 00:35:31,360 right and and basically being able to meet the market required 796 00:35:31,360 - > 00:35:35,039 volume that that we have and then be able to build upon that 797 00:35:35,039 - > 00:35:36,880 to grow your year year over year. 798 00:35:37,119 - > 00:35:40,400 Right now, right now for us, that's a lot of effort on you 799 00:35:40,400 - > 00:35:43,679 know the customer care and sales side of things, but then it's 800 00:35:43,679 - > 00:35:46,880 also you know, us spending some of our time working on the 801 00:35:46,880 - > 00:35:47,280 business. 802 00:35:47,440 - > 00:35:50,480 So whether it be you know improving our automated battery 803 00:35:50,480 - > 00:35:54,079 manufacturing lines, whether it be improving how we do the 804 00:35:54,079 - > 00:35:54,880 systems integration. 805 00:35:54,960 - > 00:35:57,760 So again, the batteries in a container thing, those are gonna 806 00:35:57,760 - > 00:36:01,840 be key to you know essentially match the uh the the the big the 807 00:36:01,840 - > 00:36:03,599 big sales that we're gonna experience here. 808 00:36:03,840 - > 00:36:04,000 Yeah. 809 00:36:04,159 - > 00:36:06,000 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: And you've worked in organizations where 810 00:36:06,000 - > 00:36:09,119 external events reshaped everything, like T line, 811 00:36:09,199 - > 00:36:11,920 IRA-driven acceleration, acquisition shifts. 812 00:36:12,079 - > 00:36:15,039 How do you build an operating model that can absorb shocks 813 00:36:15,039 - > 00:36:16,800 without derailing execution? 814 00:36:17,199 - > 00:36:19,199 SPEAKER_00: Well, that that's an interesting point that you bring 815 00:36:19,199 - > 00:36:22,000 up, is in the in the clean clean energy industry, I guess it's 816 00:36:22,000 - > 00:36:24,480 kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing, but we sort of refer to 817 00:36:24,480 - > 00:36:25,760 ourselves as a solar coaster. 818 00:36:26,000 - > 00:36:28,480 You know, and then and that and that and that goes back even 819 00:36:28,480 - > 00:36:31,440 before the 2009 nine time frame. 820 00:36:31,840 - > 00:36:34,239 You know, what what that's really talking about is there's 821 00:36:34,400 - > 00:36:38,159 you know, boom years and there's busted uh for for all that 822 00:36:38,159 - > 00:36:38,320 stuff. 823 00:36:38,480 - > 00:36:43,199 And and a lot of it is driven by geopolitical things, which you 824 00:36:43,199 - > 00:36:47,599 can kind of throw the IRA uh and O Triple B things things into 825 00:36:47,599 - > 00:36:47,760 that. 826 00:36:48,000 - > 00:36:51,199 So, you know, for the bat from the battery industry, but we 827 00:36:51,199 - > 00:36:56,079 went from not having much outside of some foreign EV 828 00:36:56,239 - > 00:37:00,719 capability and whatnot in the US for actual you know battery and 829 00:37:00,719 - > 00:37:05,199 cell manufacturing to now incentivizing anybody that had 830 00:37:05,199 - > 00:37:09,360 anything viable to come and set up manufacturing in the US. 831 00:37:09,519 - > 00:37:12,400 And you know, and that happened with the with solar as as well. 832 00:37:12,559 - > 00:37:14,800 Um, and then you know, once we got some of those things 833 00:37:14,800 - > 00:37:17,920 started, then all of a sudden the rules changed a little bit. 834 00:37:18,079 - > 00:37:21,840 So now you now you couldn't have foreign entities concerns 835 00:37:21,840 - > 00:37:23,679 involved and still get tax credit. 836 00:37:23,840 - > 00:37:26,239 You had domestic content requirements that you didn't 837 00:37:26,239 - > 00:37:26,960 have before. 838 00:37:27,119 - > 00:37:30,880 And so, you know, depending on how your company was set up set 839 00:37:30,880 - > 00:37:35,280 up, you may have some work to do to either be able to have your 840 00:37:35,280 - > 00:37:38,559 product maintain eligibility for tax credits or rearrange your 841 00:37:38,559 - > 00:37:42,079 business to you know address you know the non-fiat compliant part 842 00:37:42,320 - > 00:37:43,599 of part of the market. 843 00:37:43,920 - > 00:37:47,760 And that also kind of involved you know a capital market shift. 844 00:37:47,840 - > 00:37:50,559 So you know, not only was it the product that you were selling 845 00:37:50,559 - > 00:37:53,920 and what incentives you could get, how easy was it to get your 846 00:37:53,920 - > 00:37:56,960 private equity capital that enabled you to do all the things 847 00:37:56,960 - > 00:37:58,400 and scale up and do all that thing? 848 00:37:58,559 - > 00:38:01,840 So the question then winds up winds up being not not just how 849 00:38:01,840 - > 00:38:04,320 do you build a company and how do you build manufacturing, how 850 00:38:04,320 - > 00:38:08,159 do you build something resilient and compliant and uh flexible 851 00:38:08,159 - > 00:38:11,119 enough that when you guaranteed the next thing's gonna happen, 852 00:38:11,280 - > 00:38:13,840 what whatever that winds up being, that you're still able to 853 00:38:13,840 - > 00:38:14,639 be be relevant. 854 00:38:14,719 - > 00:38:17,199 And so right now, what what a lot of that's been is 855 00:38:17,199 - > 00:38:20,400 domesticate, domesticate, do it yourself, do it on this 856 00:38:20,400 - > 00:38:24,079 continent, and do it with you know pro proven technology 857 00:38:24,159 - > 00:38:26,400 that's another personality in the in this industry. 858 00:38:26,480 - > 00:38:29,519 I steal the term from, you're not making a magic box, meaning 859 00:38:29,599 - > 00:38:32,239 you're you know, it's not proven out and who knows what's inside 860 00:38:32,239 - > 00:38:35,920 it and how it works, so if you build built a business with a 861 00:38:35,920 - > 00:38:38,079 foundation like that, you're actually going to be able to 862 00:38:38,079 - > 00:38:41,360 deal deal better with with some of that stuff than if you have a 863 00:38:41,360 - > 00:38:43,920 business with a foundation that's heavily tied to an 864 00:38:43,920 - > 00:38:47,679 offshore something or other, it's heavily tied to a supply 865 00:38:47,679 - > 00:38:50,880 chain that isn't necessarily from here or subject to a bunch 866 00:38:50,880 - > 00:38:54,480 of you know tax tariffs, forced labor, anti-circumvent dump, 867 00:38:54,559 - > 00:38:55,840 plus a few other things. 868 00:38:56,000 - > 00:38:58,960 If you don't if you don't have those stones in your foundation, 869 00:38:59,119 - > 00:39:01,760 you've got a pretty good shot at weathering whatever, what, what, 870 00:39:01,920 - > 00:39:04,719 what, whatever comes down the pipe as far as new geo 871 00:39:04,880 - > 00:39:08,320 geopolitical risk and you know just the industry risk in 872 00:39:08,320 - > 00:39:08,639 general. 873 00:39:08,960 - > 00:39:10,400 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Yeah, right, good point. 874 00:39:10,639 - > 00:39:14,639 Now, outside of energy storage, you run a sports fishing charter 875 00:39:14,639 - > 00:39:15,039 business. 876 00:39:15,280 - > 00:39:18,639 So you clearly understand risk preparation and conditions you 877 00:39:18,639 - > 00:39:19,280 can't control. 878 00:39:19,679 - > 00:39:23,199 What leadership lessons from the water show up most in how you 879 00:39:23,199 - > 00:39:23,840 run operations? 880 00:39:24,159 - > 00:39:26,239 SPEAKER_00: We kind of touched on this a little bit before, but 881 00:39:26,239 - > 00:39:29,920 it it it's sort of, you know, basically having a game plan for 882 00:39:29,920 - > 00:39:31,280 potential outcomes. 883 00:39:31,440 - > 00:39:34,320 And so when we start talking about the fishing thing, so 884 00:39:34,400 - > 00:39:37,519 we're primarily known as an Alba Core tuna charter, which means 885 00:39:37,519 - > 00:39:41,039 that we're charging 50 miles offshore one way every trip to 886 00:39:41,039 - > 00:39:42,480 go find to go find the fish. 887 00:39:42,719 - > 00:39:46,079 And that that's on the open Pacific Ocean where Mother 888 00:39:46,079 - > 00:39:48,480 Nature doesn't really care what your plan is. 889 00:39:48,559 - > 00:39:51,440 Um and uh, you know, she's executing hers, right? 890 00:39:51,519 - > 00:39:54,320 And so you know, 50 miles offshore takes a couple hours to 891 00:39:54,320 - > 00:39:55,599 r run out that far. 892 00:39:55,920 - > 00:39:58,239 Weather ocean conditions can change a lot. 893 00:39:58,400 - > 00:40:01,840 And if you get stuck out there 50 miles offshore and you know 894 00:40:01,920 - > 00:40:05,440 the weather goes bad bad on you, if you've never ever thought of 895 00:40:05,440 - > 00:40:07,840 that before and what you're going to do, you're gonna have a 896 00:40:07,840 - > 00:40:08,400 bad time. 897 00:40:08,559 - > 00:40:12,719 Um and so the same thing with manufacturing batteries is you 898 00:40:12,719 - > 00:40:17,039 know, if the OCB regulation changes with re regard to, you 899 00:40:17,039 - > 00:40:20,719 know, again, the domestic content and fiat concerns, like 900 00:40:20,800 - > 00:40:23,519 if right now is the first time that you've ever thought of 901 00:40:23,519 - > 00:40:26,639 needing to figure out how that affects you and what you should 902 00:40:26,639 - > 00:40:30,079 do about it, you're about a year too late and uh and you're gonna 903 00:40:30,079 - > 00:40:30,719 have a bad time. 904 00:40:30,880 - > 00:40:34,400 And one one one of the other things is the the customer 905 00:40:34,400 - > 00:40:35,119 service aspect. 906 00:40:35,360 - > 00:40:39,840 Ultimately, 50% of what your charter customer walks away with 907 00:40:40,000 - > 00:40:41,840 or the experience they had with you. 908 00:40:42,000 - > 00:40:44,639 Um, you know, some of it has to do with the boat and how the 909 00:40:44,639 - > 00:40:46,960 fishing was or whatever, but whether they had a good time or 910 00:40:46,960 - > 00:40:49,840 not really has to do with how well you took care of them and 911 00:40:50,719 - > 00:40:54,400 transferred knowledge and what responded to their vibe, right? 912 00:40:54,639 - > 00:40:57,760 And and and that's it's the same thing on on the bat battery side 913 00:40:57,760 - > 00:41:01,840 of things, too, is that there we have varying kinds of customers 914 00:41:01,840 - > 00:41:04,639 with varying levels of experience and technical 915 00:41:04,639 - > 00:41:06,320 expertise and all of that. 916 00:41:06,639 - > 00:41:10,320 And you know, it's our our job not only to you know make a good 917 00:41:10,320 - > 00:41:13,840 working product, but also to make sure that it's the right 918 00:41:13,840 - > 00:41:16,880 product for you, it solves your problem, and that you're if 919 00:41:16,880 - > 00:41:19,679 anything ever goes wrong with it, you're taken care of by 920 00:41:19,679 - > 00:41:22,239 people that are in a relevant time zone that speak your 921 00:41:22,239 - > 00:41:24,800 language and are you know actually you know set up and 922 00:41:24,800 - > 00:41:27,760 knowledgeable to like work work with the product because again, 923 00:41:27,840 - > 00:41:31,360 in both in both in industries, whether it be offshore fishing 924 00:41:31,360 - > 00:41:34,559 or the manufacturing and and selling of batteries, a lot of 925 00:41:34,559 - > 00:41:38,079 the decision making really comes down to I don't like that guy. 926 00:41:38,239 - > 00:41:40,880 Um really, really, really does. 927 00:41:41,039 - > 00:41:43,679 And if you don't take care of the customer and make sure that 928 00:41:43,679 - > 00:41:46,480 they have an amazing experience all the way through sale and 929 00:41:46,480 - > 00:41:48,800 after sale, you're probably not gonna get that customer to come 930 00:41:48,800 - > 00:41:49,199 back again. 931 00:41:49,360 - > 00:41:52,320 But two, also that that customer is probably gonna tell everybody 932 00:41:52,320 - > 00:41:54,239 about what their experience experience was gonna be. 933 00:41:54,320 - > 00:41:56,639 And so you gotta you gotta be as close there and tight there as 934 00:41:56,639 - > 00:41:56,960 you can be. 935 00:41:57,199 - > 00:41:58,239 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: Right, great insight. 936 00:41:58,320 - > 00:42:00,880 Uh, it's not just about the products, it's about the people, 937 00:42:00,960 - > 00:42:03,920 it's about their experience taking care of them because at 938 00:42:03,920 - > 00:42:06,639 the end of the day, you might have a great product, but if you 939 00:42:06,639 - > 00:42:09,599 don't do good business, if you don't treat your customers well, 940 00:42:09,679 - > 00:42:12,320 they're not gonna want to come back because they don't feel 941 00:42:12,320 - > 00:42:14,400 respected and they don't like you. 942 00:42:14,880 - > 00:42:16,320 Yeah, that's true. 943 00:42:16,880 - > 00:42:17,119 Yeah. 944 00:42:17,280 - > 00:42:18,960 Well, Mark, thank you for joining me. 945 00:42:19,119 - > 00:42:22,480 It's been a a great conversation and a true masterclass and what 946 00:42:22,480 - > 00:42:25,440 it really takes to scale energy storage with discipline. 947 00:42:25,679 - > 00:42:28,960 Where could listeners learn more about you and US Best Corp? 948 00:42:29,199 - > 00:42:32,079 SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in uh Veridia and US Best Corp, 949 00:42:32,239 - > 00:42:35,199 both have amazing websites, which is kind of what we try to 950 00:42:35,199 - > 00:42:36,320 drive everybody to. 951 00:42:36,400 - > 00:42:40,559 And so that's Veridiforente.com and USBSCorp.com. 952 00:42:40,719 - > 00:42:43,679 Another way to kind of stay a little bit more live in touch 953 00:42:43,679 - > 00:42:46,639 with all the things going on at both companies and the people is 954 00:42:46,719 - > 00:42:49,840 uh, you know, to make sure you follow follow both companies on 955 00:42:49,840 - > 00:42:52,719 LinkedIn, friend me on LinkedIn, a few of our other principals 956 00:42:52,800 - > 00:42:55,360 like Alcorin, who's our head head of development. 957 00:42:55,519 - > 00:42:58,159 We're we're you know, we're out in the the industry space, 958 00:42:58,400 - > 00:43:00,719 either at events or at customer sites. 959 00:43:00,880 - > 00:43:04,400 And if you already do follow me on LinkedIn, you know, I try to 960 00:43:04,400 - > 00:43:08,719 at least do something insightful or entertaining, um, at least 961 00:43:08,719 - > 00:43:10,079 about once a week. 962 00:43:10,239 - > 00:43:13,280 Although uh I think one of the more famous things and maybe a 963 00:43:13,280 - > 00:43:15,440 little not a little embarrassing, but sort of 964 00:43:15,440 - > 00:43:18,239 interesting, is that I've had this long-running series of 965 00:43:18,239 - > 00:43:21,039 posts that basically titled Where in the World is Mark 966 00:43:21,039 - > 00:43:21,519 Hagadorn? 967 00:43:22,159 - > 00:43:24,320 In previous roles I traveled a lot. 968 00:43:24,480 - > 00:43:28,559 Um customer sites or you know it was Giga Factory things, that 969 00:43:28,559 - > 00:43:29,039 sort of thing. 970 00:43:29,199 - > 00:43:32,320 And so if you look at my LinkedIn metrics, my Where in 971 00:43:32,320 - > 00:43:36,159 the World is Mark Hagadorn posts, get way more impressions 972 00:43:36,480 - > 00:43:39,760 than even some of the really, really cool articles that I've 973 00:43:39,760 - > 00:43:40,000 written. 974 00:43:40,320 - > 00:43:40,639 Dr. Leeanne Aguilar: All right. 975 00:43:40,719 - > 00:43:43,840 Well, to our listeners, check out Mark's LinkedIn so you can 976 00:43:43,840 - > 00:43:47,039 find out where in the world he's at and follow along. 977 00:43:47,280 - > 00:43:48,800 Thank you again, Mark. 978 00:43:49,039 - > 00:43:52,880 And to everyone listening, subscribe and follow Industry 979 00:43:52,880 - > 00:43:54,960 Ignited and tune in to our next episode. 980 00:43:55,119 - > 00:43:58,719 Until then, stay bold, stay curious, and keep igniting 981 00:43:58,960 - > 00:43:59,280 industry.