September 2023 - Scaling, Solar & Saving Time:
This month, Bounce goes international, we look at grid security and solar, as well as Finn Murphy's new fund, Nebular.
Double Nudge: A relatable guide to personal growth
The words in this newsletter are entirely our own, but the insights and ideas have been inspired by others. Our goal is to synthesise the best information we have consumed each month, and relate it to our everyday lives.
This is our attempt to get better each day, and we would love you to join us.
Quote of the Month: “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” - Albert Einstein
This Month’s Highlight - Charlie on The Entrepreneur Experiment with Gary Fox:
Here is a long-form conversation I had with Gary Fox on one of Ireland’s biggest business podcasts, The Entrepreneur Experiment.
It’s probably the most open conversation I has ever had with someone about my journey building Bounce, the highs and lows, and everything I’ve learned so far.
Have a listen, and let me know what you think ❤️
Our Challenge of the Month - Moving Bounce to London:
Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
This month, I moved to London to set up Bounce’s first international office in the UK. It has long been an ambition of mine and the company to make this happen, but now that the time has come, fear has set in.
We often allow our minds to think of all that could go wrong, instead of what could be. As I wrote about last month, having the right mindset in a start-up is critical.
This helps founders avoid this desire for what we haven’t got, and instead, to focus on where we are now, and where we are striving to get to.
Writing helps me maintain this mindset. It helps me distil my thoughts, and ground me in the reality of a situation. This month, perhaps more than any, it has helped me rationalise a significant change in my personal and professional life.
Let me take you through my thought process this month to prepare myself for the leap.
Why should Bounce move?
This part was simple, and has been known for a long time. The majority of our target clients are based in the UK, our proposition is resonating and the market is 70x the size of Ireland.
Once we brought in a senior commercial manager a few months ago to lead the team in Ireland, we were ready to go global.
Why should I move?
Alongside being a lot cheaper than hiring someone, it is difficult to replicate the authenticity of a founder-led story when building traction in a new market.
I have very few hard skills, as it is frequently joked about in the office, but if there is one thing I can do, it is to transfer enthusiasm to others.
This is a critical piece of the jigsaw to win in a new market.
What am I excited about?
I have lived in Dublin my whole life. In a professional sense, I have been out of my comfort zone for the last few years. I have experienced decades worth of learning in a very condensed period of time thanks to Bounce.
Yet, personally, I’m almost embarrassed by how comfortable I am. Everything about my personal life is settled. I would never take this fortune for granted, but I know that pushing myself out of my comfort zone is important for my growth as an individual.
It’s not quite solo travelling around South America, but moving to London on very short notice to establish a new life there while taking on the biggest challenge in my professional career to date feels like the right thing to do.
What am I afraid of?
I’m afraid of failure. The thing I love most about building Bounce is that we have no right to do what we are doing. We had no experience, no industry knowledge, no network and yet, we’ve managed to build something I’m proud of in the Irish market.
However, doing it internationally is a whole different beast. I feel the weight of expectation from every stakeholder at Bounce to deliver for them. My co-founders, the team, the shareholders and everyone that has helped us succeed to date. I can’t let them down.
That pressure is a privilege, but I would be lying if it didn’t scare me.
How do I mitigate that fear?
My confidence in succeeding comes from experience - every challenge we have ever faced, we have overcome so far. Every uncontrollable situation that set us back, we made it work. Every time I have doubted myself, my co-founders have picked me up.
Two things can be true at the same time: this is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done, and it’s going to be ok.
Instead of paralysing myself with fear, I need to energise myself through action. It's important to remind myself that what I’m about to do is what I dreamed of, and I should feel proud, excited and ready in equal measure.
Our Trend of the Month - Bitcoin Miners Enhancing Grid Security:
We are hearing and learning more about our energy systems and the grid, especially as we move towards more renewable forms of energy. Yet, beyond clickbait headlines and surface level knowledge, collectively our understanding of the grid is lacking.
Many months ago we wrote about Ercot’s (The Electric Reliability Council of Texas) experimental embrace of bitcoin mining, making their grid more dynamic and resilient.
The Texan climate is highly supportive of renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar, but for a secure and well-functioning grid their intermittency must be balanced.
At off-peak times, where demand is lower (such as at night), bitcoin miners can harness the excess power generated, meaning the energy created from renewables does not need to be turned down or off.
Similarly, at times where the grid is facing high levels of demand, bitcoin miners can unplug and sell electricity back to the grid, thereby reducing demand stresses.
This ability may prove invaluable going forward to enhance grid security and offset the intermittency of renewables or inclement weather.
Indeed, last month, over 50,000 Texas experienced power outages as extreme heat led to massive additional energy demand.
In response, bitcoin miner Riot System reduced its power use by 95%, enabling its power to be used by other Texans instead and earned $31.7m in energy credit for shutting down their operations.
New innovative solutions to energy will be needed to facilitate a continued transition to a grid with more renewable sources of energy.
So embracing bitcoin miners as a means to create a more dynamic grid with the ability to turn demand on and off might be an avenue for other areas to look into and embrace.
Start-Up / Founder of the Month - UrbanVolt, Solar as a Service:
This month, I wanted to shine a light on UrbanVolt. The company was founded by Kevin Maughan, Graham Deane and Declan Barrett in 2015 at DCU’s Alpha Innovation campus, and started out by helping companies improve energy efficiency.
Their story started with the question: “If LED lights save you so much money – then why don’t they pay for themselves?”.
The consumer LED lighting revolution had proven that there were 80% energy reductions available when you made the switch, but businesses had yet to embrace LED lights.
However, they have evolved significantly since then, raising over €200M in debt and equity financing. They have recently raised an additional €26M for European expansion, now focusing on financing, installing and maintaining solar panels.
This enables their customers to buy solar-generated electricity at 40% lower cost than electricity providers. Their offering has been coined as ‘Solar-as-a-Service’, and their model safeguards customers against volatile energy costs by locking in their rate for up to 30 years.
This transformation in their offering was born from another Einstein quote, “we can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”, and showcases the founder’s ability to continuously evolve.
Investment / Fundraise in Focus - Co:Helm, backed by Nebular:
Charlie and I have long been massive proponents of surrounding yourself with great people.
Having both received sage advice from him in the past, Finn Murphy is one of those people and we hope his new fund, Nebular, announced this week, is held in a similar vein.
During our initial years in Trinity, Finn was always doing cool enterprising stuff so it was no surprise to see him end up at Frontline Ventures and promoted to partner in what felt like record time.
Now, it is super exciting to see him raise his own find and begin deploying capital into software businesses across Europe and the US.
In particular, the recent investment into Co:Helm alongside Sequoia caught my eye (probably unsurprising given both my parents are medical professionals).
Often, instead of adulation for the critical work medics do, my mind fills with frustration given the high bureaucracy and lack of tech adoption in the medical field.
Currently, one quarter or $950m of US healthcare spend goes to admin expenses, and over half this amount lost to inefficiencies that don’t improve patient outcomes. The surge in admin staff relative to medical professionals is astounding.
However, on a brighter note, Co:Helm leverages Chat GPT to halve operations expenses and reduce the time spent on admin tasks for medics, enabling them to focus on the important business of treating patients.
It is long overdue that technology is embraced to give doctors back their time.
Content Corner:
How do you build something 100 people love? Here is a brilliant post and video about Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail. In the clip, he talks about how he built the first version of gmail in a single day and iterated his way to 100 people who loved the product. Some great learnings for founders from this.
AI Translations: Here is a ‘HeyGen’ translation from English into French and German, a remarkable use case for artificial intelligence
How Jensen Huang runs Nvidia: Here is a breakdown of how the CEO of Nvidia manages his team, one of the best performing companies in the world.
London’s land zoning pushback: Khan’s Orwellian plans for zero emissions zones in central London received fierce pushback from locals here
Central Bank Digital Currencies: The latest theme to be caught up in the culture wars here
UK Cash Usage Grows for First Time in a Decade: Although the longer term trend of less cash usage continues, UK cash usage has rebounded here
Thought Provoking Images:
Grace Beverly’s life lessons
Football transfers inflation adjusted costs
Since the Fed started raising interest rates in March 2022, a record $862 billion in bank deposits have been withdrawn (vs $70 billion in ‘08) here
Meme Corner:
How often do you think of the Roman empire?