⭐ #111: Guide to Software in Climate Tech
2-minute read: Climate, startups, productivity, leadership
Good morning, folks.
In today’s 2-minute read, we’ll cover these 4 nuggets below — as delightful as draft kombucha in a hippie university town. (Boulder, I’m talking to you, my friend.)
Climate Startups & Investment:
#1 — 💻 “Guide to Software in Climate Tech”
#2 — 🔥 $55M for zero upfront cost reforestation after wildfires
Productivity & Leadership:
#3 — ⚱️ The Japanese art of kintsugi
#4 — 🔪 Stop adding. Subtract instead.
Onward and upward,
Chris
P.S. Want more? Read 100+ prior newsletter issues here.
#1 — 💻 “Guide to Software in Climate Tech”
If you’ve ever wondered how to use software to fight climate change, then this easy-to-read 40-page guide is the (freshly ground) peanut butter to your (organic) jelly.
Their “What is the product?” section gives great analogies that relate well-known software companies (e.g., Salesforce) to climate tech startups (Aurora Solar).
That is, what might these “kids” be like as “adults.”
As they note:
Software can…
be the product
output the product
deploy the product
enable the product
or design the product
#2 — 🔥 $55M for zero upfront cost reforestation after wildfires.
This CEO raised venture capital to buy a 130-year-old company to scale reforestation after wildfires.
And their tree planting comes at zero upfront cost to landowners. 😲
🎙️ In this Entrepreneurs for Impact podcast, I talked with Grant Canary about:
Nuances of the carbon removal and carbon credits (“baby with the bathwater”)
What their new project finance capital allows them to do
Why forests often cannot regrow on their own after a wildfire
Their 100-year endowments to fund ongoing reporting on forest health
Role of buffer pools in carbon credit integrity
His favorite startup books
⛰️ Founder burnout, capital markets, and psilocybin journeys.
These were just a few of the topics discussed at our recent in-person climate CEO peer group retreat with Entrepreneurs for Impact in Boulder, Colorado.
Other sessions included:
JV versus license agreements
Role of AI in your climate tech company
Board of Directors creation and management
A live concert at Red Rock Amphitheater
Health hacks to maintain CEO energy levels
Sunk cost fallacies
How to avoid being the bottleneck to your venture’s growth
Mountain biking
If this sounds interesting to you, and you’re the CEO of a Series A to Series C venture or post-revenue company, click below to learn more.
#3 — ⚱️ The Japanese art of kintsugi.
Like that lovely porcelain bowl your kid dropped, we’re all broken in some way.
(If only “I’m sorry” could rewind time. 😑)
But 400+ years ago, the Japanese reframed this “brokenness” via “kintsugi.”
Kin 金 — “gold”
Tsugi 継ぎ — “joinery”
Broken things, when put back together with gold, can turn…
“…flaws and imperfections, into an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.
It actually highlights the ‘scars’ as a part of the design.
Using this as a metaphor, kintsugi can be a way to remind yourself that you’re not a victim of your circumstances — and to help you come out the other side stronger.”
#4 — 🔪 Stop adding. Subtract instead.
Maybe it’s human nature.
Or just ambitious founder inertia.
But we love to keep adding new products, features, customer types…
However, Bruce Lee would Jeet Kune Do us (painfully) for such thoughts.
He spoke of goal setting for achievement as follows:
“It's not the daily increase but daily decrease.
Hack away at the unessential.”
Like so many things: Easy to say. Hard to do.
That’s all, y’all.
Make it a great week, because it’s usually a choice.
Cheers,
Chris
The #1 climate CEO peer group in North America
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(As evidenced by these photos, I’m a real human. Not an AI. 🤫 I promise.)
