September 4, 2025 • 32 mins
How do you go from NASA strategy rooms to disrupting HVAC and building decarbonization?
On this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr sits down with Jordan Sotudeh, CEO and cofounder of Venaera, a startup redefining HVAC with modular, intelligent heat pump systems. With deep roots in science, policy, and innovation—from NASA to JPL to the Department of Defense—Jordan brings an unmatched systems-thinking approach to solving some of the most significant climate infrastructure challenges of our time.
This conversation explores how technical brilliance meets entrepreneurial grit, and what it really takes to lead a mission-critical venture that marries sustainability, technology, and market execution. If you’re a founder, consultant, or leader in the AEC, energy, or technology sector, Jordan’s insights into policy-informed innovation and her vision for scalable decarbonization will challenge your assumptions and inspire smarter action. What You’ll Learn:
Jordan is the CEO of Venaera, where he leads a team reinventing HVAC systems for a sustainable future. Previously, he served in leadership roles across NASA, JPL, the Department of Defense, and top aerospace firms, supporting strategy, innovation, and emerging technologies. A certified PMP with a Master’s from GWU, she also advises UCSB’s Engineering Leadership Program.
Website: https://venaera.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordansotudeh
About the Host
David W. Carr is the founder of Steward Your Business and host of the Business Roundtable Podcast. He helps leaders and firms align people, process, and purpose for confident, scalable growth.
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help amplify leaders like Jordan doing transformational work in mission-critical sectors.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
On this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr sits down with Jordan Sotudeh, CEO and cofounder of Venaera, a startup redefining HVAC with modular, intelligent heat pump systems. With deep roots in science, policy, and innovation—from NASA to JPL to the Department of Defense—Jordan brings an unmatched systems-thinking approach to solving some of the most significant climate infrastructure challenges of our time.
This conversation explores how technical brilliance meets entrepreneurial grit, and what it really takes to lead a mission-critical venture that marries sustainability, technology, and market execution. If you’re a founder, consultant, or leader in the AEC, energy, or technology sector, Jordan’s insights into policy-informed innovation and her vision for scalable decarbonization will challenge your assumptions and inspire smarter action. What You’ll Learn:
- How Jordan’s experience in aerospace and government shaped his entrepreneurial mindset
- The mission behind Venaera—and how it’s solving outdated HVAC inefficiencies
- Why decarbonization must be modular, adaptive, and resilient
- Lessons on leadership, clarity, and scaling technical teams
- How to navigate the “builder’s paradox”: fast growth vs. long-term impact
- Why founders must think in systems, not silos
Jordan is the CEO of Venaera, where he leads a team reinventing HVAC systems for a sustainable future. Previously, he served in leadership roles across NASA, JPL, the Department of Defense, and top aerospace firms, supporting strategy, innovation, and emerging technologies. A certified PMP with a Master’s from GWU, she also advises UCSB’s Engineering Leadership Program.
Website: https://venaera.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordansotudeh
About the Host
David W. Carr is the founder of Steward Your Business and host of the Business Roundtable Podcast. He helps leaders and firms align people, process, and purpose for confident, scalable growth.
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help amplify leaders like Jordan doing transformational work in mission-critical sectors.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I'm your host,
David Carr, founder of Stewart Your Business, where we bring
people together to accomplish great things. And this week we
have another great episode with Jordan Soto where we're going
to talk about some of the challenges of a startup,
living purpose driven lives, you know, going through the messy,
(00:53):
getting to the meaningful of innovation, personal alignment, building mission
first businesses. That's where we're going to be getting into today.
Welcome to the podcast, Jordan.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thanks David, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Absolutely absolutely, we're gonna get into You're you're at the
startup phase, you're in the funding phase, you're in a
unique position. Well, we haven't had a lot of guests
on here, but you have come from you have a
solid background. Jordan. I'm excited to have you on here.
I would love to have some folks listen a little
bit to your journey and your story about what got
(01:27):
you to the NARRA today and hopefully pocuses you're listening,
whether you're a business owner or an entrepreneur, what does
it take to step out in faith, to feel to
live out your purpose, what your calling is? And I
love you just to take take us back a little bit.
Jordan too, Before you started Vanera as as CEO and
(01:50):
co founder, where did where did this idea? Where did
you come from? And you got inspired in this space
to really help in a unique way. So I'm gonna
I'll let you just take us back a little bit,
give us a little story about your journey as a
business owner and founder.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Sure, yeah, we might have to go quite a ways back,
but I hope that from listening to this, anybody out
there who has any doubts realizes that if I can
do it, absolutely anybody can do it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
There you go, there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So you know, back in college, I lived by what
everyone said, right, do what you love, do what you love,
and you'll never work a day in your life. Turns out,
I love too many things. I ended up with three majors,
a minor, a certificate, and I didn't know what to
do with my life after that. And so you know,
I flipped the question around what would I do if
(02:41):
my happiness for guaranteed? And the answer seemed kind of
obvious at that point. I would do something that I
thought would benefit humanity that would matter after I died,
not because it brought me a name or meant anything
like that, but because it contributed to something bigger than myself.
And that's why I got into the space sector at
the time. At the time, it didn't have the kind
of attention it has now. At the time, space was
(03:04):
relatively quiet in the news. It seemed like something that
we just hoped would grow. Right and as soon as
we exist anywhere else, you know, our chance of extinction
goes way down when it comes to the solution we're
trying to help mitigate climate change and the effects of
the environment. Here, space is kind of the only answer.
(03:24):
As long as we have industry on Earth, it's going
to be polluting. It doesn't matter how you power it.
You know, that's throw more to Amax right there. However,
over time, you know, after twelve years in the space industry,
I started to realize that all these things I thought
other people had covered needed more help and attention than
it turned out I thought. And you know, the climate
(03:48):
solutions are out there, but they're not getting adopted, they're
not getting used. And over time, as I followed, one
of my mentor's advice is to say, get closer to hardware.
You know, I moved from policy and NASA and strategy
at Bryce over closer to JPL, which is, you know,
right next to hardware, right there's there's all kinds of
(04:11):
fascinating geniuses. They're building all kinds of amazing technology. And
I kept a little notebook right write down my ideas,
and anytime I had something I thought was good, i'd
look it up. And if I saw that somebody who
was more qualified than me, or who was already further
along than I could be, was doing it, you know,
I just crossed off the list and say this is covered.
(04:31):
And then at one point I noticed that when it
comes to energy use, when it comes to emissions, there
is one sector that dominates the world that is heating
and cooling. Up to eighty percent of our emissions and
energy use go to heating and cooling. And as the
world becomes more prosperous globally, and as heating becomes more ubiquitous,
(04:56):
that that's only going to grow exponentially. This was a huge, huge,
which piece of the puzzle to buying us more time
on planet Earth before we mess it all up. And
when I looked up this idea that I had about
making a modular adaptive solution it. It didn't seem like anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Was doing it.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You know, I went through patents, I went through research.
There's nobody doing this. And the more I looked into
the industry, the more I realized it was just like
Launch was back in the day. Launch was an industry
right for disruption. A lot of legacy players who didn't
want to invest in R and D didn't want to
innovate or disrupt themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah wow, so so you you So what I what
I encourage other people as I'm hearing you Jordan's say,
is there's plenty of opportunities out there. It's just paying attention.
You were just taking notes and you're saying, look, you know,
where where is something that's being neglected? And you saw, Hey,
there's an opportunity, and you know, like you said, you know,
(05:58):
addressing energyfficiencies and screen it's like, well, it's not necessarily sexy,
but it's something that's absolutely needed. And it's, like you said,
it's something across the world. And so sometimes I think people,
I love that you're coming in this way, Jordan, because
this is I feel like it's going to sustain you.
I think people that get into business simply to make money.
(06:20):
Is that that's a result of providing value and creating it.
But it's if if it's that solely it, you're going
to be hurting. In my experience, it's it's yes, we
need money, you're you're raising funds and things like that. Absolutely,
but the goal ultimately is that you're creating positive change
in the world. And you're saying, where can I help?
And and I think you know you could. You could
(06:41):
have stayed. I mean you've been working at NASA or
RICE or JPL, which is you know, many people say, hey,
that's a that's a great job, that's very prestigious, and
really what you're saying right when you say those names,
people are like, oh, that's awesome. I think that's that's great.
But you you felt even a greater calling. It wasn't
I heard it, But you say it's not just about me.
(07:02):
It's like I could stay there and feel good about myself.
I'm doing good things, they're doing great things, something that
somebody is there. But you've had the call in personally
that I heard and said, hey, I got to take
the lead.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, if nobody else is, you know, that's there's no
reason why you shouldn't step up and do it right.
And I'm not going to stand here and judge anybody
else's passions at all. But whatever you do, there has
to be something that sustains you through the difficulties because
there will be so many of them.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yes, well, and here's what I found. You know, in life,
there's a tendency to Jordan, I think drift and sometimes
we just kind of fall into things and it isn't
Instead of being you're being very intentional and saying, look,
I'm going to design a path forward. And yes it's
going to be costly, it's going to take some time,
but it's worth it. It's worth it because I see
the greater when I say compelling vision of what could
(07:52):
be that's driving me, and I think we don't have
a compelling vision, whether it's in our current job as
an employee or an entreprer, it's very it's it's we're
left lacking or we're left like, man, I felt like,
what did I do? What kind of legacy am I leaving?
What kind of impact am I having? Really? Am I
just leave them for myself? Right? Jordan? That's what I
(08:13):
hear you saying is looking to have a greater impact
in the world.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know I can share an exercise
that I do that that might be helpful to people. Yeah,
trying to figure this out. I'll do kind of like
a personal portfolio review every once in two years. I'll
go way back to the beginning. What are my fundamental
assumptions about the universe, It's nature, about the reality of
being a human being, about my experience, my lived experience
(08:38):
in life. And then from there you can draw out
what your values are and then compare it to the
actions that you live by in your life. Are they
aligned or not? Where do you need to make changes?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah? And I love that you do that, Jordan. I
do the same, similar, similar thing, and I surround myself
with similar people that will hold a mirror up to
me and say, well, that's what you said your values were,
that's what you said you were committed to, but your
life doesn't necessarily reflect that. So is that really important
to you or not? And having people in your life
that surround yourself like that, and I know you've created
(09:10):
a team with you that sees the greater vision. And
what I found is a business owner working with business
particularly Jordan. I think I think at this stage of
the game. You're a great spot because it's very you
have to be crystal clear, why do you exist, why
is Vaniara there? What are we trying to accomplish there?
Running feed funding and other things. But what happens over time,
I found Jordan, as you grow, is if it diffuses
(09:34):
and it can get like you said, we can get
lost in the organization and then you're like, why aren't
people like they don't see it because we haven't communicated
it well, right, And I mean you've got to get
really really crystal clear and communicating what Vanera stands for,
why you're why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, and you know I'm happy to dive
into that at anything. Yes, yes, it is very important
though to also consider that if you want to jump
into something like this, you have to let go of
any inclination to shift blame anywhere else mm hm, even
if it's somebody else who did something. If you're the
(10:13):
person who founded the company, if you're the person who's
nominally leading it, it falls on you no matter what
it is.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Right. So, so to get to that point, you know
you said, like you know each fact, the heating the element,
like you saw okay, there's there's a root problem here.
How did you break that down? What were you doing
to say okay, there's enough here? Like, how did you
just state this is the fact that break that down?
(10:42):
Jordan say, okay, I'm going to make a move on
that cause I'm saying I want other people to understand
We're to talk about specifically what Venera does, but I
want them to think about, like what's the thought process
I need to be looking at and then of course
talk about what you saw with with what you're doing
with Venera.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah. So a lot of people, and you know, there's
no right or wrong way to approach this. A lot
of people will find innovative products by the personal experience
of using the product. That is a super valid path,
That is a great path. Absolutely, you have depth of
experience with this particular product and you see where things
need to go because it's not working for people. I've
(11:16):
always looked at things from a macro scale. You know,
I was executive support in policy, strategy and business management
at multiple organizations, you know, supporting executives at DG, NASA,
Bryce Tech and others, JPL as well. Of course, so
I look at things macro right. If you look at
the larger trends affecting society right now, there is a
(11:39):
bunch of stuff that is tapping our energy usage, everything
from data centers to AI to what I already mentioned
with the growing use of heating and cooling. These things
are going to cause exponential strain on an already aging
grid infrastructure system. Through twenty thirty five alone, the US
is going to need two point five trillion dollars to
upgrade it's a grid systems. And that's not accounting for
(12:02):
a lot of these exponential growth factors, right. Nobody's accounting
for the growth of AI and the data centers and
how power they are in order to power that, right,
that's going to be a whole other set of investment
systems required. And if we keep using the HVAC systems
that we have, it's going to be game over, man like,
it's just not.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Going to work.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And the more you dig into it, the more you'll
see for it. Right, HVAC systems. If you look at
the California Public Utilities Commissions reports on this, up to
twenty to thirty percent in efficiencies are caused by you
in correct installation, improper maintenance, the rigid design of HVAC systems.
You add to that that when you don't take care
(12:44):
of these systems, they don't perform anywhere nearly as well
as they do on paper. So all of that amounts
to fifteen point two billion dollars annually that we rate
payers pay in unnecessarily utility bills. So the more you
dig into it, the more you see that this something
that just has to change. And the more people I
spoke to, you know, we've had one hundred and thirty
(13:06):
plus customer discovery conversations with people who are utilities, governments,
retrofit companies, developers, real estate, you name it. We've covered everybody,
and of course you have to keep doing that absolutely,
but we have huge validation, you know, we have we
have all the validation we need to know that this
(13:27):
is a real problem and that our solution can address it.
You know, by modularizing the HVAC system, the heat pump
in this case, because heat pumps are already so much
better than legacy systems. But by modularizing it, putting sensors
at the inlet and outlet of each of those components,
tracking that data, you open up so many things. Not
(13:48):
only has our technical our fantastic technical team developed a
way to cut energy usage fifty percent over other heat pumps.
You know, this design also enables life cycle savings on
emissions from no no longer needing to repair things by
throwing away the whole unit. You know, you end up, yeah,
on every single metric that you could possibly think of
(14:09):
for for the longevity and the holistic approach of what
is the right way to build things?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Mm hmm. Well, I like how you said this. I
mean you're seeing that you're looking so forward and we
need voices like yourselves, Jordan, that are i'll call a
pine a voice seeing what is coming down in the future,
or our creative voice and understanding and saying, look, you
you you talked about the numeric value billions and billions
(14:35):
like of like, hey, and this isn't even including any
experience expanse on this, So how can we do this
and and try some things? And I think sometimes we're hesitant.
I know some folks are hesitant, are like, oh, it's
not it's not quote unquote broken, and nt how to
fix it? And I'm seeing you're you're saying, look, I'm
willing to go out there and try and yes, you
(14:58):
were just before we I think we record you're saying, hey,
the models are looking good, but we don't know that
and we have to be willing. I think speak a
little bit to this willingness of and what you've been
seeing as you've been going forward of like prototyping, trying things. Hey,
that didn't work, go back to the drum because some
people they don't they don't want to quote fail, but
talk about the journey of what you've been learning in
(15:20):
this process.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Jordan, Yeah, absolutely, there's a quote from a poem. I
really like that. Uh, for for those who feel like
broken things can't be fixed, We're we're all broken. That's
how the light gets in.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So just because you feel like something is broken, or
maybe that you feel like you're broken, that doesn't mean
that there isn't so much more for you to give.
The way to approach this, I think is to try
to thicken your skin as much as possible, especially if
you're gonna do hardware. Let me tell you hardware. Hardware
is unforgiving. And that's that's why you know, that's why
(15:57):
why one of my mentors said, get as close as
you can to hardware, because it will humble you. And
and that is that is something that I have found
very valuable.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
It teaches you that you don't get to decide anything
really know you you have to work with it. You
have to really really work with it and be prepared
for surprises constantly. And you can look at them as setbacks.
If that's something that helps you think more constructively about
how to move forward, that's okay, think about it as
a setback and build on that. But really they're not right. Really,
(16:31):
it's part of the process. You have to fail in
order to move forward. And you know, that's something that
I think a lot of people I've I've worked with
agree with, even if they work in organizations that don't
accept that anymore for cultural reasons.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Mm hmmm hmm. I mean, I would imagine talk a
little bit about assembling your team at venerat Jordan and
like getting people that get that vision and like you said, hey,
failing as an opportunity. You know, it's a way of
like you said, maybe we're a challenge. They share this
mindset of this can do this innovation angle that you're
(17:08):
coming up with Jordan, because not everybody has that, you know,
how how did you, you know, find those people, bring
them on and get them on to your team and say, hey,
this is I I catched caught your vision Jordan, and
really had that same mindset, and you speak to that
of creating that team and that space.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I mean I got lucky. Oh, come on, I
got lucky. I mean honestly, honestly, I got lucky. Like
with so many things, there's so many entrepreneurs and successful
people that come out and yeah, sure they had a
part to do with it, But I think people really
discount how much luck has to do with it. Luck
has so much to do with it. You don't get
to decide who you run into most of the time,
(17:47):
even if you're seeking them out. You don't get to
decide that. Right. In some ways, it feels like nobody
gets to decide that, right.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It just kind of happens.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So I've known our co founders for a very long time.
Julian was he was there at the hospital as a
baby when I was born. I have known wildlife. He is,
you know, he and a couple of other people are
the closest things I have to a brother. Alvan Is
is also just a fantastic individual, just personally professional. You know,
(18:19):
they're they're both the best of the best. There's there's
no no questioning that. Frankly, we were all you know,
we were working on this for years on top of
very demanding day jobs, and we all still you know,
despite the you know, you can't avoid having having you know,
being over taxed in a situation like that. But despite that,
(18:40):
all of us we're still you know, performing really really
well in our day jobs, you know, getting accolades and
and all the things that you would expect from my performers.
I think for the most part, the.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Fact I want to say, you, so you grew up
with two of your co founders. Is that what I'm hearing, I.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Grew up with one of them?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh cool, great, I don't like if I let my
lary go celebrate.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Nice. Yeah, that's right, Yeah it is. It is worth celebrating.
It is worth celebrating. Yeah, it is amazing to have
those those kinds of long term friendships.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Well, I agree. I'm gonna agree with you and that one, Jordan,
I would say it may have been happenstance or if luck,
however you want to say it, that you happen to
just be at the right place at the right time
where you guys are literally growing up or making those connections.
But I do think to your point, Jordan, building relationships
over time seeing I'm sure you guys have seen each
(19:32):
other through lots of different life circumstances and right and
building relationships so that you can be more authentic and
real with each other as opposed to maybe trying to
be something different, but just be your authentic self. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, you know, that's that's a really great point. That's
a really great point. Something that did have to do
with it is is when you care about people and
you put them first and you can suspend whatever you
need an interaction to think about. Eight, that's how you
build relationship over time. That's that's how you build a
network of people that you know you can do anything with.
(20:08):
Right And at the same time, you have to be
vocal about what you want to do. If I didn't
talk about what I was trying to do all the time,
nobody would have heard it and said.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Hey, I want I want to do this with you,
right absolutely, So you know, so just to I want
to go back and clarify Vaniera where you're at, so
those people hear this. You assemble this team and you're
talking about heap. What's the ultimate At the end of
the day, when would you say Vanera is successful? How
would you say we did our job successful? What what
(20:41):
is the goal there? So when people say and they
remember Vanera and they say what what what is that
that ultimately you're looking to solve. I mean, we talked
around it, but I want to hear like, if a
Nara can do this, this is contributes to this? What
what would that be a win for you?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
A win for us would be seeing our product and
the marketplace. That's our earliest win. The long term vision
is that this entire industry is transformed and it becomes
focused on having the level of efficiency and comfort that
all of us deserve to be able to live the
longest and best lives that we can on this planet.
(21:19):
The product that we're building now is already going to
save you fifty percent on energy. It's going to caught
your your maintenance costs by you know, ninety percent and
the emissions by sixty to seventy percent over the lifetime
of the product.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Is this going to be just so I clarify to you, George,
is this going to be both? Is this for the
both the in like home user or is this gonna
be commercial or is it kind of a combination of both.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, down the line, it'll it'll be all them. We
hope to license it to every mature manufacturer out there
because it doesn't make sense for us to keep something
so get to ourselves. Everybody should be doing it this way.
We need the solution out there as fast as possible,
affecting as wide as wide swath of the economy is possible.
It's going to buy us more time, it's going to
(22:03):
save us more money. It's just a better way of
doing it, like we really need to do it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, absolutely well. And so part of what I found
in the marketplace Jordan, and I think you know getting
what you're saying is I find people have great products
or services and they make an amazing transformation. However, it's
it's also getting that and why I have you on
the podcast candidly is because it's also how do we
(22:30):
make that message break through the rest of ways out there? Right,
there's a lot of things out there that people say,
yes that that's I do want to do that because
one of the things I mentioned, I had another podcast
guest on you where were talking about return on investment,
and a lot of people who is modeling are like, well,
I just don't want to spend that kind of money.
I'm only going to do this in the short time.
So they have to have a bigger picture of like
(22:52):
what you're saying, Jordan, to take action, right, especially if
the paint isn't big enough. How are you guys getting
that message out there?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, so that's something that's evolved, and I'd love to
talk about how that's evolved so that people can get
an understanding of how to work through this.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So at first we were going to do residential because
all of us were like, that's what we understand best, right.
We understand that, you know, we know people with houses
right absolutely can connect with that, right, And so we
broke down the pricing decision, like how do you decide
what you're going to buy? When does it happen? How
often does it happen? You know, all that data is
out there, you just got to dig into it and
(23:30):
if it doesn't exist, you just go out and talk
to people and you can get it like that. Eventually, though,
we realize that the life cycle benefits where our product
really shines isn't going to be a huge draw on
the residential market. Consumers don't pick that way. Consumers are like,
what is this going to cost me now? And even
(23:51):
with all these huge tax incentives, how many people are
getting solar? You know what I mean? It's it's only
when people feel like they get an immediate benefit that
they make those kinds of choices. And that's you know,
we can get into behavioral psychologies on another way.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But which verticals do care about that?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Commercial institutional and these larger purchasers will look at our
product and assess it in a life cycle scale. And
when you do that, it stands out by by miles.
That drastically lowers our customer acquisition costs. It ends up
giving us a ton of other benefits for the business.
It just makes sense.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, I think it's important, especially early on. Like you said,
who are those clients customers that have the money can
invest see the value now? And like you said, the
long term vision is, yes, we do want to help
residential and others. As the company grows and the other
preach I think that's a great perspective. I hope because
(24:54):
they're listening that you understand and I have to do
the same thing with my own business, looking at that
and evaluating too to be successful. So it's you're you're
pulling a lot of things together, you know, your and
all the ones of these things, and keeping your finger
on the pulse of all of those things. How do
you do that on a day to day basis? What
does that look like for you as a founder moving
(25:15):
between all of these things?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, organized chaos, organized chaos, Yeah, yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I mean, it's challenging. I think that's where you want
to have good you know, mentors or coaches or folks
that have been ahead of you. I mean we were
talking another colleague actual who was on this podcast a
while back. Other people that can help speak into you,
that can help guide you because we don't know what
we don't know what time right, and so it's like,
oh I didn't know. Oh I don't want to step
into that, you know, pull So, you know, again, surrounding
(25:51):
yourself with, like you mentioned earlier, good mentors so that
you're focusing on what's most important, what's going to make
the big greatest impact different if you will.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, And you know, I'd also like
to add to that that you have to take care
of yourself. I've spoken to a few other people who
have been going through the same thing, and I know
we realize these things multiple times of our lives, right,
But for most of your early career, every single problem
(26:26):
you run into can be fixed with hard work and time.
Every single problem you just pull an all nighter. You
got it, you know, whatever it is, you can solve
it that way. But at a certain point that is
no longer an option. In fact, at a certain point
that works against you. That that hurts you more than
it helps you, And then you have to do all
(26:47):
this recovery stuff. So you end up finding out that
you have to rely on people more than you've ever
been used to. Even if you were a manager. You know,
managers jump in and help help their team with all
kinds of things all the time, they have to rely
on people. It goes even beyond that, you know. I
think Ben Horwoods in his book The Hard Thing About
(27:09):
Hard Things, says that the only thing that prepares you
for being a founder is being a founder.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, well, sometimes, you know, I have two children. Sometimes
some people say when you have kids, they could tell
you all about it, but tell you have kids, You're like,
I don't really truly know, or same thing being married
or whatever the case might be. A life experience. People
can tell you about it to a certain degree, yes,
but to your point, going through and actually living it
out day by day it's so important. But I do
(27:39):
I want to echo what you I want to reaffirm
what you said, Jordan, of like you know you can't
do it all, and in fact, you try to do
it all, like you said, it's going to go against you.
I just recorded another podcast with another gentleman from the
environmental space and we're talking about subcontractors and relationships and
how important that is because there's a lot of people
that are specialists and they do that much better than you,
(28:01):
so why not leverage have them in as part of
your team. And I find that's the difference between people
that really are successful, Jordan. What they're doing is that
I know what I do best. I'm going to focus
in on that and I'm going to get other people
that do best. Not because you can grind if you
want before, but it's gonna take you longer, and it's
gonna not the best not best use of your time.
And then what's our most valuable asset is the time right, So,
(28:24):
like you said, yeah, you may want to do that,
but you might want to rethink that in the long term.
And your point, I think the urgency what I hear
you saying, Jordan, is like, hey, we've got a plan.
We've got to get the same to market. We've got
to you know, we could take longer, but I really
want to make sure that we get this with the
right people and move it on. I don't want to
be the bottleneck MODELO. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Absolutely, And I can't you know, I can't put stump
on your point enough that it is about the people
that go along with you, you know, and you can
point to any other self aggrandizing entrepreneur out there and
see the same thing, right, Like I like to say
that SpaceX proves that anything is possible when you hire
(29:05):
enough NASA engineers.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, there you go, you know. I mean, so, I
know we're getting it into the podcast is just because,
but we're going to make sure that everybody can you know,
find Venia. You guys connected. You and I are connected
on LinkedIn too, so if they if you guys want
to connect with Jordan there, I think you're what you're
doing is so important. We haven't talked about this specifically,
(29:29):
this area of what you're doing. I mean, it sounds
in some ways mundane, but when you think about it,
think everybody think about this. I live up in here
in southern California. When we get snow, and you know,
if we don't have heat or you know, it's it's bad,
and so you know, think about the quality of life
you're living. And we're very fortunate here in space, but
(29:50):
think about what that looks like for everybody going through
the world. And you know the difference that you can make.
In this case, Vanera is coming up with a unique
way of their product. And so I'm excited about this, Jordan,
because again I want your showing what's possible. And I
think we need more folks what I call, you know,
(30:11):
entrepreneurs stepping out there being innovative. We need more Jordans
in the world seeing the problem, checking it out, looking
at that and saying, you know what, nobody's really addressing this,
and then come alongside and you help each other. For Jordan,
you and I were talking earlier before we started recording
the podcast, because I've had a number of different folks
on the podcast, and I said, let's find synergy. My
(30:33):
way of helping is bring introducing people, connecting people, you know,
that's what I do. But find whatever that personal why
is what drives you to be successful and when I
meeting successful, like you said, making an impact, making the
world better than you found it, leaving it in a
better place. And so I so appreciate you sharing and
coming on the podcast with us. Jordan, last thoughts or
(30:56):
things that you want to share with our audience as
were I was wrapping up today.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, absolutely, A couple of quick things. One is that
David's amazing. You know, He's introduced us to a bunch
of people, all of them say how great he is.
That is a ever of that being actual, you know.
And then also for people thinking about this, if you're
in the US, you have a huge opportunity for this.
(31:21):
There are so many organizations out there that want to
help you get out there and start something for yourself.
Our first accelerator we founded with the Google Search and
they are so aligned with us in values, Los Angele
Cleantech in They're an amazing organization and there is going
to be one like that for you, whatever your business
idea is.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, I love that Jordan, you got out there, You're like, hey,
we started researching there's an accelerator. That's another one. I
was mentioning in your brook that we're going to have
on something. Get out there. But I think it just
takes you. Jordan. You saw, hey, there's there's an area
in this in this heating HVAC area that's not being addressed.
It needs help, and they're like, boom, you nail, let's
get this thing. Take care of us, work on this.
(32:04):
And so I so appreciate you stepping out being a
leader in that way, and that's why I wanted to
bring you onto the podcast today and feature you and
Vanerain what you're trying to do and make a difference
in the world. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Thank you David, it's been great.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, all right everybody. Well, as we're wrapping up the
podcast this week, once again I want to encourage you to,
of course like and subscribe. We always love that. Will
you leave your comments so we can pass those on
to Jordan. Of course connect with him. We'll have all
in our show notes. And if you found this valuable,
share it with others, inspire others by.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
What you've learned and.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Listen to you today. I'll come back for our next episode.
Until then, do well, Thanks everybody for listening.
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I'm your host,
David Carr, founder of Stewart Your Business, where we bring
people together to accomplish great things. And this week we
have another great episode with Jordan Soto where we're going
to talk about some of the challenges of a startup,
living purpose driven lives, you know, going through the messy,
(00:53):
getting to the meaningful of innovation, personal alignment, building mission
first businesses. That's where we're going to be getting into today.
Welcome to the podcast, Jordan.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thanks David, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Absolutely absolutely, we're gonna get into You're you're at the
startup phase, you're in the funding phase, you're in a
unique position. Well, we haven't had a lot of guests
on here, but you have come from you have a
solid background. Jordan. I'm excited to have you on here.
I would love to have some folks listen a little
bit to your journey and your story about what got
(01:27):
you to the NARRA today and hopefully pocuses you're listening,
whether you're a business owner or an entrepreneur, what does
it take to step out in faith, to feel to
live out your purpose, what your calling is? And I
love you just to take take us back a little bit.
Jordan too, Before you started Vanera as as CEO and
(01:50):
co founder, where did where did this idea? Where did
you come from? And you got inspired in this space
to really help in a unique way. So I'm gonna
I'll let you just take us back a little bit,
give us a little story about your journey as a
business owner and founder.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Sure, yeah, we might have to go quite a ways back,
but I hope that from listening to this, anybody out
there who has any doubts realizes that if I can
do it, absolutely anybody can do it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
There you go, there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So you know, back in college, I lived by what
everyone said, right, do what you love, do what you love,
and you'll never work a day in your life. Turns out,
I love too many things. I ended up with three majors,
a minor, a certificate, and I didn't know what to
do with my life after that. And so you know,
I flipped the question around what would I do if
(02:41):
my happiness for guaranteed? And the answer seemed kind of
obvious at that point. I would do something that I
thought would benefit humanity that would matter after I died,
not because it brought me a name or meant anything
like that, but because it contributed to something bigger than myself.
And that's why I got into the space sector at
the time. At the time, it didn't have the kind
of attention it has now. At the time, space was
(03:04):
relatively quiet in the news. It seemed like something that
we just hoped would grow. Right and as soon as
we exist anywhere else, you know, our chance of extinction
goes way down when it comes to the solution we're
trying to help mitigate climate change and the effects of
the environment. Here, space is kind of the only answer.
(03:24):
As long as we have industry on Earth, it's going
to be polluting. It doesn't matter how you power it.
You know, that's throw more to Amax right there. However,
over time, you know, after twelve years in the space industry,
I started to realize that all these things I thought
other people had covered needed more help and attention than
it turned out I thought. And you know, the climate
(03:48):
solutions are out there, but they're not getting adopted, they're
not getting used. And over time, as I followed, one
of my mentor's advice is to say, get closer to hardware.
You know, I moved from policy and NASA and strategy
at Bryce over closer to JPL, which is, you know,
right next to hardware, right there's there's all kinds of
(04:11):
fascinating geniuses. They're building all kinds of amazing technology. And
I kept a little notebook right write down my ideas,
and anytime I had something I thought was good, i'd
look it up. And if I saw that somebody who
was more qualified than me, or who was already further
along than I could be, was doing it, you know,
I just crossed off the list and say this is covered.
(04:31):
And then at one point I noticed that when it
comes to energy use, when it comes to emissions, there
is one sector that dominates the world that is heating
and cooling. Up to eighty percent of our emissions and
energy use go to heating and cooling. And as the
world becomes more prosperous globally, and as heating becomes more ubiquitous,
(04:56):
that that's only going to grow exponentially. This was a huge, huge,
which piece of the puzzle to buying us more time
on planet Earth before we mess it all up. And
when I looked up this idea that I had about
making a modular adaptive solution it. It didn't seem like anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Was doing it.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You know, I went through patents, I went through research.
There's nobody doing this. And the more I looked into
the industry, the more I realized it was just like
Launch was back in the day. Launch was an industry
right for disruption. A lot of legacy players who didn't
want to invest in R and D didn't want to
innovate or disrupt themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah wow, so so you you So what I what
I encourage other people as I'm hearing you Jordan's say,
is there's plenty of opportunities out there. It's just paying attention.
You were just taking notes and you're saying, look, you know,
where where is something that's being neglected? And you saw, Hey,
there's an opportunity, and you know, like you said, you know,
(05:58):
addressing energyfficiencies and screen it's like, well, it's not necessarily sexy,
but it's something that's absolutely needed. And it's, like you said,
it's something across the world. And so sometimes I think people,
I love that you're coming in this way, Jordan, because
this is I feel like it's going to sustain you.
I think people that get into business simply to make money.
(06:20):
Is that that's a result of providing value and creating it.
But it's if if it's that solely it, you're going
to be hurting. In my experience, it's it's yes, we
need money, you're you're raising funds and things like that. Absolutely,
but the goal ultimately is that you're creating positive change
in the world. And you're saying, where can I help?
And and I think you know you could. You could
(06:41):
have stayed. I mean you've been working at NASA or
RICE or JPL, which is you know, many people say, hey,
that's a that's a great job, that's very prestigious, and
really what you're saying right when you say those names,
people are like, oh, that's awesome. I think that's that's great.
But you you felt even a greater calling. It wasn't
I heard it, But you say it's not just about me.
(07:02):
It's like I could stay there and feel good about myself.
I'm doing good things, they're doing great things, something that
somebody is there. But you've had the call in personally
that I heard and said, hey, I got to take
the lead.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, if nobody else is, you know, that's there's no
reason why you shouldn't step up and do it right.
And I'm not going to stand here and judge anybody
else's passions at all. But whatever you do, there has
to be something that sustains you through the difficulties because
there will be so many of them.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yes, well, and here's what I found. You know, in life,
there's a tendency to Jordan, I think drift and sometimes
we just kind of fall into things and it isn't
Instead of being you're being very intentional and saying, look,
I'm going to design a path forward. And yes it's
going to be costly, it's going to take some time,
but it's worth it. It's worth it because I see
the greater when I say compelling vision of what could
(07:52):
be that's driving me, and I think we don't have
a compelling vision, whether it's in our current job as
an employee or an entreprer, it's very it's it's we're
left lacking or we're left like, man, I felt like,
what did I do? What kind of legacy am I leaving?
What kind of impact am I having? Really? Am I
just leave them for myself? Right? Jordan? That's what I
(08:13):
hear you saying is looking to have a greater impact
in the world.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know I can share an exercise
that I do that that might be helpful to people. Yeah,
trying to figure this out. I'll do kind of like
a personal portfolio review every once in two years. I'll
go way back to the beginning. What are my fundamental
assumptions about the universe, It's nature, about the reality of
being a human being, about my experience, my lived experience
(08:38):
in life. And then from there you can draw out
what your values are and then compare it to the
actions that you live by in your life. Are they
aligned or not? Where do you need to make changes?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah? And I love that you do that, Jordan. I
do the same, similar, similar thing, and I surround myself
with similar people that will hold a mirror up to
me and say, well, that's what you said your values were,
that's what you said you were committed to, but your
life doesn't necessarily reflect that. So is that really important
to you or not? And having people in your life
that surround yourself like that, and I know you've created
(09:10):
a team with you that sees the greater vision. And
what I found is a business owner working with business
particularly Jordan. I think I think at this stage of
the game. You're a great spot because it's very you
have to be crystal clear, why do you exist, why
is Vaniara there? What are we trying to accomplish there?
Running feed funding and other things. But what happens over time,
I found Jordan, as you grow, is if it diffuses
(09:34):
and it can get like you said, we can get
lost in the organization and then you're like, why aren't
people like they don't see it because we haven't communicated
it well, right, And I mean you've got to get
really really crystal clear and communicating what Vanera stands for,
why you're why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, and you know I'm happy to dive
into that at anything. Yes, yes, it is very important
though to also consider that if you want to jump
into something like this, you have to let go of
any inclination to shift blame anywhere else mm hm, even
if it's somebody else who did something. If you're the
(10:13):
person who founded the company, if you're the person who's
nominally leading it, it falls on you no matter what
it is.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Right. So, so to get to that point, you know
you said, like you know each fact, the heating the element,
like you saw okay, there's there's a root problem here.
How did you break that down? What were you doing
to say okay, there's enough here? Like, how did you
just state this is the fact that break that down?
(10:42):
Jordan say, okay, I'm going to make a move on
that cause I'm saying I want other people to understand
We're to talk about specifically what Venera does, but I
want them to think about, like what's the thought process
I need to be looking at and then of course
talk about what you saw with with what you're doing
with Venera.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah. So a lot of people, and you know, there's
no right or wrong way to approach this. A lot
of people will find innovative products by the personal experience
of using the product. That is a super valid path,
That is a great path. Absolutely, you have depth of
experience with this particular product and you see where things
need to go because it's not working for people. I've
(11:16):
always looked at things from a macro scale. You know,
I was executive support in policy, strategy and business management
at multiple organizations, you know, supporting executives at DG, NASA,
Bryce Tech and others, JPL as well. Of course, so
I look at things macro right. If you look at
the larger trends affecting society right now, there is a
(11:39):
bunch of stuff that is tapping our energy usage, everything
from data centers to AI to what I already mentioned
with the growing use of heating and cooling. These things
are going to cause exponential strain on an already aging
grid infrastructure system. Through twenty thirty five alone, the US
is going to need two point five trillion dollars to
upgrade it's a grid systems. And that's not accounting for
(12:02):
a lot of these exponential growth factors, right. Nobody's accounting
for the growth of AI and the data centers and
how power they are in order to power that, right,
that's going to be a whole other set of investment
systems required. And if we keep using the HVAC systems
that we have, it's going to be game over, man like,
it's just not.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Going to work.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And the more you dig into it, the more you'll
see for it. Right, HVAC systems. If you look at
the California Public Utilities Commissions reports on this, up to
twenty to thirty percent in efficiencies are caused by you
in correct installation, improper maintenance, the rigid design of HVAC systems.
You add to that that when you don't take care
(12:44):
of these systems, they don't perform anywhere nearly as well
as they do on paper. So all of that amounts
to fifteen point two billion dollars annually that we rate
payers pay in unnecessarily utility bills. So the more you
dig into it, the more you see that this something
that just has to change. And the more people I
spoke to, you know, we've had one hundred and thirty
(13:06):
plus customer discovery conversations with people who are utilities, governments,
retrofit companies, developers, real estate, you name it. We've covered everybody,
and of course you have to keep doing that absolutely,
but we have huge validation, you know, we have we
have all the validation we need to know that this
(13:27):
is a real problem and that our solution can address it.
You know, by modularizing the HVAC system, the heat pump
in this case, because heat pumps are already so much
better than legacy systems. But by modularizing it, putting sensors
at the inlet and outlet of each of those components,
tracking that data, you open up so many things. Not
(13:48):
only has our technical our fantastic technical team developed a
way to cut energy usage fifty percent over other heat pumps.
You know, this design also enables life cycle savings on
emissions from no no longer needing to repair things by
throwing away the whole unit. You know, you end up, yeah,
on every single metric that you could possibly think of
(14:09):
for for the longevity and the holistic approach of what
is the right way to build things?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Mm hmm. Well, I like how you said this. I
mean you're seeing that you're looking so forward and we
need voices like yourselves, Jordan, that are i'll call a
pine a voice seeing what is coming down in the future,
or our creative voice and understanding and saying, look, you
you you talked about the numeric value billions and billions
(14:35):
like of like, hey, and this isn't even including any
experience expanse on this, So how can we do this
and and try some things? And I think sometimes we're hesitant.
I know some folks are hesitant, are like, oh, it's
not it's not quote unquote broken, and nt how to
fix it? And I'm seeing you're you're saying, look, I'm
willing to go out there and try and yes, you
(14:58):
were just before we I think we record you're saying, hey,
the models are looking good, but we don't know that
and we have to be willing. I think speak a
little bit to this willingness of and what you've been
seeing as you've been going forward of like prototyping, trying things. Hey,
that didn't work, go back to the drum because some
people they don't they don't want to quote fail, but
talk about the journey of what you've been learning in
(15:20):
this process.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Jordan, Yeah, absolutely, there's a quote from a poem. I
really like that. Uh, for for those who feel like
broken things can't be fixed, We're we're all broken. That's
how the light gets in.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So just because you feel like something is broken, or
maybe that you feel like you're broken, that doesn't mean
that there isn't so much more for you to give.
The way to approach this, I think is to try
to thicken your skin as much as possible, especially if
you're gonna do hardware. Let me tell you hardware. Hardware
is unforgiving. And that's that's why you know, that's why
(15:57):
why one of my mentors said, get as close as
you can to hardware, because it will humble you. And
and that is that is something that I have found
very valuable.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
It teaches you that you don't get to decide anything
really know you you have to work with it. You
have to really really work with it and be prepared
for surprises constantly. And you can look at them as setbacks.
If that's something that helps you think more constructively about
how to move forward, that's okay, think about it as
a setback and build on that. But really they're not right. Really,
(16:31):
it's part of the process. You have to fail in
order to move forward. And you know, that's something that
I think a lot of people I've I've worked with
agree with, even if they work in organizations that don't
accept that anymore for cultural reasons.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Mm hmmm hmm. I mean, I would imagine talk a
little bit about assembling your team at venerat Jordan and
like getting people that get that vision and like you said, hey,
failing as an opportunity. You know, it's a way of
like you said, maybe we're a challenge. They share this
mindset of this can do this innovation angle that you're
(17:08):
coming up with Jordan, because not everybody has that, you know,
how how did you, you know, find those people, bring
them on and get them on to your team and say, hey,
this is I I catched caught your vision Jordan, and
really had that same mindset, and you speak to that
of creating that team and that space.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I mean I got lucky. Oh, come on, I
got lucky. I mean honestly, honestly, I got lucky. Like
with so many things, there's so many entrepreneurs and successful
people that come out and yeah, sure they had a
part to do with it, But I think people really
discount how much luck has to do with it. Luck
has so much to do with it. You don't get
to decide who you run into most of the time,
(17:47):
even if you're seeking them out. You don't get to
decide that. Right. In some ways, it feels like nobody
gets to decide that, right.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It just kind of happens.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So I've known our co founders for a very long time.
Julian was he was there at the hospital as a
baby when I was born. I have known wildlife. He is,
you know, he and a couple of other people are
the closest things I have to a brother. Alvan Is
is also just a fantastic individual, just personally professional. You know,
(18:19):
they're they're both the best of the best. There's there's
no no questioning that. Frankly, we were all you know,
we were working on this for years on top of
very demanding day jobs, and we all still you know,
despite the you know, you can't avoid having having you know,
being over taxed in a situation like that. But despite that,
(18:40):
all of us we're still you know, performing really really
well in our day jobs, you know, getting accolades and
and all the things that you would expect from my performers.
I think for the most part, the.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Fact I want to say, you, so you grew up
with two of your co founders. Is that what I'm hearing, I.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Grew up with one of them?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh cool, great, I don't like if I let my
lary go celebrate.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Nice. Yeah, that's right, Yeah it is. It is worth celebrating.
It is worth celebrating. Yeah, it is amazing to have
those those kinds of long term friendships.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Well, I agree. I'm gonna agree with you and that one, Jordan,
I would say it may have been happenstance or if luck,
however you want to say it, that you happen to
just be at the right place at the right time
where you guys are literally growing up or making those connections.
But I do think to your point, Jordan, building relationships
over time seeing I'm sure you guys have seen each
(19:32):
other through lots of different life circumstances and right and
building relationships so that you can be more authentic and
real with each other as opposed to maybe trying to
be something different, but just be your authentic self. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, you know, that's that's a really great point. That's
a really great point. Something that did have to do
with it is is when you care about people and
you put them first and you can suspend whatever you
need an interaction to think about. Eight, that's how you
build relationship over time. That's that's how you build a
network of people that you know you can do anything with.
(20:08):
Right And at the same time, you have to be
vocal about what you want to do. If I didn't
talk about what I was trying to do all the time,
nobody would have heard it and said.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Hey, I want I want to do this with you,
right absolutely, So you know, so just to I want
to go back and clarify Vaniera where you're at, so
those people hear this. You assemble this team and you're
talking about heap. What's the ultimate At the end of
the day, when would you say Vanera is successful? How
would you say we did our job successful? What what
(20:41):
is the goal there? So when people say and they
remember Vanera and they say what what what is that
that ultimately you're looking to solve. I mean, we talked
around it, but I want to hear like, if a
Nara can do this, this is contributes to this? What
what would that be a win for you?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
A win for us would be seeing our product and
the marketplace. That's our earliest win. The long term vision
is that this entire industry is transformed and it becomes
focused on having the level of efficiency and comfort that
all of us deserve to be able to live the
longest and best lives that we can on this planet.
(21:19):
The product that we're building now is already going to
save you fifty percent on energy. It's going to caught
your your maintenance costs by you know, ninety percent and
the emissions by sixty to seventy percent over the lifetime
of the product.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Is this going to be just so I clarify to you, George,
is this going to be both? Is this for the
both the in like home user or is this gonna
be commercial or is it kind of a combination of both.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, down the line, it'll it'll be all them. We
hope to license it to every mature manufacturer out there
because it doesn't make sense for us to keep something
so get to ourselves. Everybody should be doing it this way.
We need the solution out there as fast as possible,
affecting as wide as wide swath of the economy is possible.
It's going to buy us more time, it's going to
(22:03):
save us more money. It's just a better way of
doing it, like we really need to do it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, absolutely well. And so part of what I found
in the marketplace Jordan, and I think you know getting
what you're saying is I find people have great products
or services and they make an amazing transformation. However, it's
it's also getting that and why I have you on
the podcast candidly is because it's also how do we
(22:30):
make that message break through the rest of ways out there? Right,
there's a lot of things out there that people say,
yes that that's I do want to do that because
one of the things I mentioned, I had another podcast
guest on you where were talking about return on investment,
and a lot of people who is modeling are like, well,
I just don't want to spend that kind of money.
I'm only going to do this in the short time.
So they have to have a bigger picture of like
(22:52):
what you're saying, Jordan, to take action, right, especially if
the paint isn't big enough. How are you guys getting
that message out there?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, so that's something that's evolved, and I'd love to
talk about how that's evolved so that people can get
an understanding of how to work through this.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So at first we were going to do residential because
all of us were like, that's what we understand best, right.
We understand that, you know, we know people with houses
right absolutely can connect with that, right, And so we
broke down the pricing decision, like how do you decide
what you're going to buy? When does it happen? How
often does it happen? You know, all that data is
out there, you just got to dig into it and
(23:30):
if it doesn't exist, you just go out and talk
to people and you can get it like that. Eventually, though,
we realize that the life cycle benefits where our product
really shines isn't going to be a huge draw on
the residential market. Consumers don't pick that way. Consumers are like,
what is this going to cost me now? And even
(23:51):
with all these huge tax incentives, how many people are
getting solar? You know what I mean? It's it's only
when people feel like they get an immediate benefit that
they make those kinds of choices. And that's you know,
we can get into behavioral psychologies on another way.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But which verticals do care about that?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Commercial institutional and these larger purchasers will look at our
product and assess it in a life cycle scale. And
when you do that, it stands out by by miles.
That drastically lowers our customer acquisition costs. It ends up
giving us a ton of other benefits for the business.
It just makes sense.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, I think it's important, especially early on. Like you said,
who are those clients customers that have the money can
invest see the value now? And like you said, the
long term vision is, yes, we do want to help
residential and others. As the company grows and the other
preach I think that's a great perspective. I hope because
(24:54):
they're listening that you understand and I have to do
the same thing with my own business, looking at that
and evaluating too to be successful. So it's you're you're
pulling a lot of things together, you know, your and
all the ones of these things, and keeping your finger
on the pulse of all of those things. How do
you do that on a day to day basis? What
does that look like for you as a founder moving
(25:15):
between all of these things?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, organized chaos, organized chaos, Yeah, yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I mean, it's challenging. I think that's where you want
to have good you know, mentors or coaches or folks
that have been ahead of you. I mean we were
talking another colleague actual who was on this podcast a
while back. Other people that can help speak into you,
that can help guide you because we don't know what
we don't know what time right, and so it's like,
oh I didn't know. Oh I don't want to step
into that, you know, pull So, you know, again, surrounding
(25:51):
yourself with, like you mentioned earlier, good mentors so that
you're focusing on what's most important, what's going to make
the big greatest impact different if you will.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, And you know, I'd also like
to add to that that you have to take care
of yourself. I've spoken to a few other people who
have been going through the same thing, and I know
we realize these things multiple times of our lives, right,
But for most of your early career, every single problem
(26:26):
you run into can be fixed with hard work and time.
Every single problem you just pull an all nighter. You
got it, you know, whatever it is, you can solve
it that way. But at a certain point that is
no longer an option. In fact, at a certain point
that works against you. That that hurts you more than
it helps you, And then you have to do all
(26:47):
this recovery stuff. So you end up finding out that
you have to rely on people more than you've ever
been used to. Even if you were a manager. You know,
managers jump in and help help their team with all
kinds of things all the time, they have to rely
on people. It goes even beyond that, you know. I
think Ben Horwoods in his book The Hard Thing About
(27:09):
Hard Things, says that the only thing that prepares you
for being a founder is being a founder.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, well, sometimes, you know, I have two children. Sometimes
some people say when you have kids, they could tell
you all about it, but tell you have kids, You're like,
I don't really truly know, or same thing being married
or whatever the case might be. A life experience. People
can tell you about it to a certain degree, yes,
but to your point, going through and actually living it
out day by day it's so important. But I do
(27:39):
I want to echo what you I want to reaffirm
what you said, Jordan, of like you know you can't
do it all, and in fact, you try to do
it all, like you said, it's going to go against you.
I just recorded another podcast with another gentleman from the
environmental space and we're talking about subcontractors and relationships and
how important that is because there's a lot of people
that are specialists and they do that much better than you,
(28:01):
so why not leverage have them in as part of
your team. And I find that's the difference between people
that really are successful, Jordan. What they're doing is that
I know what I do best. I'm going to focus
in on that and I'm going to get other people
that do best. Not because you can grind if you
want before, but it's gonna take you longer, and it's
gonna not the best not best use of your time.
And then what's our most valuable asset is the time right, So,
(28:24):
like you said, yeah, you may want to do that,
but you might want to rethink that in the long term.
And your point, I think the urgency what I hear
you saying, Jordan, is like, hey, we've got a plan.
We've got to get the same to market. We've got
to you know, we could take longer, but I really
want to make sure that we get this with the
right people and move it on. I don't want to
be the bottleneck MODELO. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Absolutely, And I can't you know, I can't put stump
on your point enough that it is about the people
that go along with you, you know, and you can
point to any other self aggrandizing entrepreneur out there and
see the same thing, right, Like I like to say
that SpaceX proves that anything is possible when you hire
(29:05):
enough NASA engineers.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, there you go, you know. I mean, so, I
know we're getting it into the podcast is just because,
but we're going to make sure that everybody can you know,
find Venia. You guys connected. You and I are connected
on LinkedIn too, so if they if you guys want
to connect with Jordan there, I think you're what you're
doing is so important. We haven't talked about this specifically,
(29:29):
this area of what you're doing. I mean, it sounds
in some ways mundane, but when you think about it,
think everybody think about this. I live up in here
in southern California. When we get snow, and you know,
if we don't have heat or you know, it's it's bad,
and so you know, think about the quality of life
you're living. And we're very fortunate here in space, but
(29:50):
think about what that looks like for everybody going through
the world. And you know the difference that you can make.
In this case, Vanera is coming up with a unique
way of their product. And so I'm excited about this, Jordan,
because again I want your showing what's possible. And I
think we need more folks what I call, you know,
(30:11):
entrepreneurs stepping out there being innovative. We need more Jordans
in the world seeing the problem, checking it out, looking
at that and saying, you know what, nobody's really addressing this,
and then come alongside and you help each other. For Jordan,
you and I were talking earlier before we started recording
the podcast, because I've had a number of different folks
on the podcast, and I said, let's find synergy. My
(30:33):
way of helping is bring introducing people, connecting people, you know,
that's what I do. But find whatever that personal why
is what drives you to be successful and when I
meeting successful, like you said, making an impact, making the
world better than you found it, leaving it in a
better place. And so I so appreciate you sharing and
coming on the podcast with us. Jordan, last thoughts or
(30:56):
things that you want to share with our audience as
were I was wrapping up today.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, absolutely, A couple of quick things. One is that
David's amazing. You know, He's introduced us to a bunch
of people, all of them say how great he is.
That is a ever of that being actual, you know.
And then also for people thinking about this, if you're
in the US, you have a huge opportunity for this.
(31:21):
There are so many organizations out there that want to
help you get out there and start something for yourself.
Our first accelerator we founded with the Google Search and
they are so aligned with us in values, Los Angele
Cleantech in They're an amazing organization and there is going
to be one like that for you, whatever your business
idea is.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, I love that Jordan, you got out there, You're like, hey,
we started researching there's an accelerator. That's another one. I
was mentioning in your brook that we're going to have
on something. Get out there. But I think it just
takes you. Jordan. You saw, hey, there's there's an area
in this in this heating HVAC area that's not being addressed.
It needs help, and they're like, boom, you nail, let's
get this thing. Take care of us, work on this.
(32:04):
And so I so appreciate you stepping out being a
leader in that way, and that's why I wanted to
bring you onto the podcast today and feature you and
Vanerain what you're trying to do and make a difference
in the world. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Thank you David, it's been great.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, all right everybody. Well, as we're wrapping up the
podcast this week, once again I want to encourage you to,
of course like and subscribe. We always love that. Will
you leave your comments so we can pass those on
to Jordan. Of course connect with him. We'll have all
in our show notes. And if you found this valuable,
share it with others, inspire others by.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
What you've learned and.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Listen to you today. I'll come back for our next episode.
Until then, do well, Thanks everybody for listening.
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