Rejection, Resilience & Reinvention: Troy Helming’s Billion-Dollar Founder Playbook (S2:E14)

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About Troy Helming

Troy Helming is a serial entrepreneur, clean energy pioneer, and the founder & CEO of EarthGrid — a next-gen infrastructure company using plasma-powered technology to revolutionize underground tunneling. Nicknamed the “Solar Ninja,” Troy is a former NCAA All-American athlete turned renewable energy visionary, having founded two of the largest clean energy companies in North America. His ventures have contributed to over $30 billion in energy infrastructure.

He’s also competed on American Ninja Warrior four times, proving his philosophy of failing forward and living with radical purpose. 

Reference Links: 

• Linkedin
• Green Ridge Wealth Planning
• BobbyMascia.com
• Instagram - Bobby Mascia
• Instagram - Business Unchained

EarthGrid Social Media

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram

Troy Helming Social Media

• LinkedIn - Troy Helming
• Troy Helming - Facebook
• Troy Helming  X

Episode Highlights:

Getting rejected by investors over 2,400 times would break most people. For Troy Helming, it was just another rep in the gym — a mental ninja course no different than the one he trained for when competing on American Ninja Warrior.

Before founding EarthGrid, a tunneling tech company powered by literal lightning, Troy was grinding through the renewable energy space — building wind farms, launching solar companies, and even constructing a biodiesel plant with his bare hands. 

(09:10) “So that muscle of falling and getting back up and trying again, failing, getting back up and trying again and again and again and again. And it got to where it was just part of who I am” — Troy Helming

In this episode of Business Unchained, host Bobby Mascia sits down with Troy to explore how grit, biohacking, and staying curious can lead to billion-dollar ideas.  

He shares how watching his mom battle cancer changed his view on health, how being “unemployable” pushed him into his first business, and how one wild story from a former Navy SEAL sparked the invention of a technology that could redefine global infrastructure.

Whether you’re in a fundraising season, rethinking your work-life balance, or dreaming up your next big thing — this episode is packed with perspective, power, and plenty of plasma.Let’s dig in.

 In this episode:

• (00:00) Welcome to Business Unchained
• (06:07) Intermittent fasting, wellness hacks, and biological age
• (10:19) Quitting AT&T and launching his first company
• (16:40) How a Navy SEAL's story led to a plasma-powered business idea
• (21:58) Breaking down EarthGrid’s tunneling tech
• (26:46) Work-life balance and why Troy takes one day off per weekend
• (29:25) How he built his team and structured equity + advisors
• (37:45) Core principles: purpose, balance, no-asshole policy, and focus
• (40:55) “A wolf that chases two rabbits goes hungry.”
• (45:37) National grid vulnerability and the EMP threat
• (49:06) Troy’s son, plasma tunnels on Mars, and building a family business
• (53:38