[ad_1]
Consumers are increasing. Demand for sustainable products and services, and a survey by Leap by McKinsey showed that more than 90 percent of businesses plan to meet this demand in part through new-business construction. Green-energy startup Enpal is helping to tackle the climate crisis by making solar installations and energy storage a convenient and affordable option for consumers. While many people are interested in adopting solar, moving customers from interest to purchase is often complicated by technical and cost barriers. In a conversation with McKinsey’s Jerome Königsfeld, Inpal CEO and founder Mario Kohle shares his vision for solar-based climate action and reflects on his experiences in making sustainable energy-generation solutions a “no-brainer” for everyone. Kohle discusses how to tackle a big vision step by step, what kind of people to hire to lead his company, and the importance of embracing a culture of challenge and learning.
Key Insight #1: Attract customers to new technology by simplifying adoption and reducing risk.
Jerome Konigsfeld: Enpal is one of the fastest growing green technology companies in the world with over 1,700 employees. What was the motivation before starting Enpal?
Mario Coal; I did some research and realized that if we don’t install enough solar, we will be in direct climate danger. I used the “first principles thinking” method to solve this problem. I saw that solar installations and energy storage are already available, and electric cars are about to come to market. I also learned that over 90 percent of people interviewed in surveys said they support rooftop solar power plants.
However, only 10 percent of all homeowners with a suitable roof in Germany have purchased a solar installation.
Solar is a product that many people want, but few find it because there is no common sense solution, I believe. Back then, customers looking to adopt solar had to make a large upfront investment and answer a number of technical questions on their own, such as, “What’s the right inverter?” or “What is the right service provider?” They had to assume a lot of risk.
Jerome Konigsfeld: How does Enpal address these pain points?
Mario Coal; The first question we wanted to answer was, “What should a solar installation look like for everyone to want?” For example, in the automobile industry, a car loan makes the decision a no-brainer by significantly reducing the cost and risk of prioritizing the car.
Therefore, we go forward with a product package where customers rent solar panels, storage and technology with a zero euro payment as an initial investment, paying lower monthly payments compared to what they paid for energy and fuel. We also give customers peace of mind, because we take care of all repairs. And after 20 years of work, we will sell the whole load for one symbolic euro.
Key Insight #2: Achieving a vision is a creative process that requires measurable actions.
Jerome Konigsfeld: How did you prove this business concept?
Mario Coal; Resource mining is a challenge and source of creativity for startups. Instead of doing everything at once, you should go step by step.
We started by making sure that customers can buy solar panels online without having to make a direct sales contact or visit a store. Next, we switched from a buy option to a rent option, and sales accelerated. Then we added energy storage and energy contracting to the solar installation, which ensured that we could expand our service and our ability to create value in the family. We are now adding a wall box charging station for electric vehicles to our package.
Jerome Konigsfeld: Do you realize when you have proven your hypothesis?
Mario Coal; As a beginner, you face new challenges every day, so it’s easy to not notice when things are working, even when they’re dragging. Instead, you’ll realize success when you show up during day-to-day activities like a summer meeting, a Christmas party, or an employee evaluation, and you’re increasing sales and seeing that all your customers are happy. .
Key Insight #3: Hire the best people and give them the space to do their jobs.
Jerome Konigsfeld: How did you find the right skills to keep your rapid growth? Which profiles are you looking for?
Mario Coal; When you hire people, two things are important: they must be passionate about their work and its purpose, and they must be good at what they do. Once you get these people on board, you try to build teams with complementary profiles and moving in the same direction.
For example, while our leadership team is very diverse, most of us are confident and recognize that we operate from a place of self-motivation and ambition, but not because we want to be seen. As we began to expand hiring, we noticed that most of our employees, regardless of their industry background, followed the same approach to their work.
Jerome Konigsfeld: And why come to Enpal?
Mario Coal; We are an entrepreneurial-minded company. Many of our people say they want to either build a startup or work with us. They appreciate that Inpal supports their vision of making a significant global impact on humanity so that we can all live longer and brighter lives.
Key insight #4: Leadership selection is not easy. Leaders should be involved selectively from the highest level to the smallest topics.
Jerome Konigsfeld: How did you manage culture, communication, and management as you moved from the ranks with the original founders to become a unicorn company?
Mario Coal; He was educated in “Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis”. The thesis may be “I do everything myself,” which will fail. So, you move to the opposition, “I do nothing alone and delegate everything,” which also fails. Then go to the combination, “I’ll do something in between and focus on things that only I can do.”
It’s also important to be honest with yourself and others in order to respectfully and productively discuss challenges in your organization. The best way to establish this operating model is to build a truth-seeking culture. It is better to disrupt the consensus within your company than to receive feedback from the market.
Jerome Konigsfeld: What are some of the topics you cover yourself and which subjects do you represent?
Mario Coal; I do many things, and those choices are not easy. I cover everything from HR topics like the development of our partner network and our master plan to the organization of our senior team to what we call “operational excellence” but done at the nano level. One example of a nano-level concern is, “What’s the deal with Mrs. Mueller’s solar plant? How did this issue develop and how can we ensure it doesn’t happen again in the long run?
In general, I try to work on two main points: “Do what only you can do” and “Hire people who can represent your practice.” In other words, I try to work on Instead of the company in The organization.
Jerome Konigsfeld: How do you effectively manage the day-to-day business for a company with over 1,700 employees?
Mario Coal; We have monthly virtual town halls with all staff.
We also have a daily action-oriented meeting where we review our key performance indicators, including fundamentals such as customer satisfaction, solar loads purchased and shipped, and conversion rates. This approach allows us to implement improvement levers on a daily basis and, if necessary, course correct. Our philosophy is that what you don’t measure for doesn’t happen.
Jerome Konigsfeld: What is the new work model at Enpal: in-person, remote or hybrid?
Mario Coal; Hybrid is the new normal. Whenever you’re onboarding new people, it’s important to spend a lot of time in the office, embedding culture and building trust. However, once these things happen, you can get back to working remotely. A good, focused day at home is helpful when you can organize your thoughts. After that, it is good to come back to the office to meet with colleagues and share those ideas.
Key Insight #5: Beginners gain practical proficiency by continually experimenting and learning.
Jerome Konigsfeld: What are some key insights from building Enpal?
Mario Coal; To me, the core of entrepreneurship is “we make mistakes, reflect on them, and try to avoid them in the future.” The advantage of starting a company before is that I didn’t have to make a lot of mistakes and repeat them. For example, I learned that a really good person in the right situation is ten to 100 times better than a good person in the same position. That’s why I spend a lot of time finding and developing the best people for Enpal.
And we strive not only to hire the best people, but to build an environment where they can work and thrive without limitations. This does not mean that we do not provide coaching; Instead, if we want people who think they are entrepreneurs, we should give them that way of working.
If you work with the right amount of humility, you can achieve great ambitions. Projects often fail because the ambition isn’t high enough or the business model isn’t humble enough.
Jerome Konigsfeld: How do you create a culture of testing and learning?
Mario Coal; We work hard to build a culture where it is not allowed to hide or highlight mistakes, but where it is acceptable to make and accept mistakes. The best way to create this culture is to lead by example. I have long told every new employee that no matter how many mistakes they make in their first year at Enpal, it will be cheaper than all the mistakes they make in one year combined. I will continue to share my mistakes.
Key Insight #6: Growth in startups means you accelerate progress to reach your vision.
Jerome Konigsfeld: What are the next growth frontiers for Enpal?
Mario Coal; We want to be the center of power and mobility in the home, so we have developed an operating system and an application. The app allows customers to monitor and control many things, such as how much power they generate, how much and how much they feed into the grid, and the charging status of their cars. Technology will always be at the center of our innovation. We also want to explore how we interact with customers. We currently use a lot of software, such as an AI-assisted planning tool for solar installations and our own communication systems that allow our staff to connect with customers.
Jerome Konigsfeld: What is the larger, steady-state vision for Enpal?
Mario Coal; Everyone should have a solar panel on their roof, suitable with energy storage, wall box and heat pump. Our high-level vision is to connect all homes, creating one big shared energy community. To achieve this goal, we want to develop a complete power and mobility system – a virtual power plant.
With combustion engines and fossil fuel-based power plants, we want our products to be cheap, sustainable and cool. To do this, we are breaking this goal down into smaller milestones and aiming to double it every year. We also want to accelerate development. It took us two years to produce the base product, but only one year to produce the power storage product and one year to produce the wall box. Therefore, we have to develop the next product in nine months. As the climate challenge is a global problem, we expect to grow our business internationally.
[ad_2]
Source link
