#107: 💎 The Diamond List, Climate debt financing, and ChatBGT tutorial

6 bullets on climate tech, startups, finance, productivity, and leadership

May 16, 2023

Good morning, folks.

In today’s 3-minute read, we’ll cover these 6 juicy nuggets below — as satisfying as the feeling of running super hot water over a poison ivy rash. (Fellow Southerners, can I get an “Amen”?!)

Climate Startups & Investment

#1 — 💸 A climate startup’s guide to debt financing
#2 — 💎 The Diamond List: 41 climate and impact startups you should know
#3 —🏢 Climate jobs: 10 resources

Productivity & Leadership

#4 — 🤖 The ChatGPT Ultimate Prompting Guide: How to talk to robots
#5 — 🕰️ Be a Time Billionaire: 4 graphs
#6 — 😌 Seek approval: Be powerless

Onward and upward,

Chris

#1 — 💸 A climate startup’s guide to finding debt financing.

If you feel like venture capital is the only way to grow a business, please read this.

Other financing options include:

Revenue (gasp!)
Federal government grants – e.g., SBIR
Private grants – e.g., Grantham Foundation
Revenue-based financing – e.g., Enduring Planet
Debt — see examples below

As for debt, there’s one small catch — your business will need to show some profit to repay the loan. 😮

If that describes you, then consider these 32 options below as potential debt providers.

Shout out to Alex Mitchell at LACI for this deep dive in his Su$tainable Mobility newsletter.

#2 — 💎 The Diamond List: 41 climate and impact startups you should know.

Each year, this list shows high-potential early-stage climate tech startups as identified by climate tech investors.

Why does it exist?

[Many great companies are overlooked because:]
Angel investors, philanthropies, and VCs new to the space have the risk appetite to support promising, early-stage companies but smaller staffs and fewer resources to do the due diligence and keep up with all the new regulations and climate market changes.
VCs regularly turn away strong teams with high potential because of thesis fit, or the opportunity is just a little too early or too risky at that time.

What’s the history of this list?

“We modeled Diamond List after Hollywood’s Black List for under-the-radar screenplays.
Since 2005, the Black List has uncovered hidden gems such as ‘Argo’, ‘Juno’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and ‘The King’s Speech.’ Black List films have grossed over $25 billion and have been nominated for over 240 Academy Awards, winning more than 45.”

Get the full list of 41 startups here.

#4 — 🏢 Climate jobs — 10 resources

If you think you’ve seen this before, it’s because you have (last week). 🙃

But lots of you clicked on these links, so here it is again. Good luck job hunting!

Check out 1,000’s of job postings here:

How to get a job tackling climate change:

#4 — 🤖 The ChatGPT Ultimate Prompting Guide (aka, how to talk to robots).

If you’re not yet experimenting with ChatGBT, people might start asking you:

“Are your wrists hurting from frequent abacus use while working under a kerosene lamp?”

But if you’ve tried using this AI tool, you may have been stymied. 😤

There’s a trick — You have to know how to communicate with the AI.

Below are 22 tips for speaking its language.

As the creator of this list (Aadit Sheth) says:

AI won’t replace you.
A person using AI will.

#5 — 🕰️ Be a Time Billionaire: 4 graphs.

If you’ve ever doubted the merit of trying to become a billionaire, you’ll like this.

Just change the units from dollars to time.

In this great blog, Sahil Bloom builds on investor Graham Duncan’s phrase "Time Billionaire."

This is how Duncan defined it:

"A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is slightly over 31 years...I feel like in our culture, we’re so obsessed, as a culture, with money.
And we deify dollar billionaires in a way...
And I was thinking of time billionaires that when I see, sometimes, 20-year-olds—the thought I had was they probably have two billion seconds left.
But they aren’t relating to themselves as time billionaires."

But I interpret the meaning more broadly:

Do I have the freedom to choose how I spend my time, and do I have lots of it to spend?

Below are four motivating figures on this topic. The first is from writer Tim Urban, and it’s abbreviated (it runs through age 90, not 55).

“When we need the approval of others, we give our power away.”
— Source: Many wise old people who see the follies of youth (and the middle-aged)

This is great advice unless…

…we’re talking about customers.

If they don’t approve of what you’re selling, you may not be in business very long to make the sustainability impacts on which you’re focused.

👊 That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week, because it’s usually a choice.

Also, here are 3 ways I can help you grow:

Climate CEO peer groups — The #1 peer group for growth-stage startup CEOs & investors fighting climate change: Sharing best practices. Removing bottlenecks to growth. Sharpening the metaphorical axe. Learn more.
Executive coaching — I work with three types of people: (1) Post-exit entrepreneurs, (2) Executives transitioning into climate tech, and (3) Empire builders with $20M to $200M in revenue. Learn more.
Podcast — 120+ interviews with CEOs and VC investors discussing climate tech, startup finance, productivity, and leadership. Listen here.

Cheers,