How to Build a Product with 10 Customers and a Boring Tech Stack | Gravity Climate

Summary

The transcript discusses the journey of Gravity, an industrial decarbonization platform, led by CEO Salah. Gravity helps companies manage carbon emissions and energy usage, focusing on scalable solutions for climate change. The CEO shares insights on building products efficiently, the importance of boring yet reliable technology, and how their pilot program quickly generated revenue and feedback. The video highlights key startup lessons, including customer obsession, solving problems over building solutions, and the value of creating a high-speed, product-driven environment to meet real-world business and climate needs.

Takeaways

• 🚀 Startups evolve through different phases, initially selling on vision, then on presentations, and finally building software in response to customer feedback.
• 💼 Gravity helps businesses manage their carbon emissions and energy use, offering practical tools to reduce emissions while aligning with business goals.
• 🌍 The founders of Gravity were driven by the opportunity to make decarbonization attractive to energy-intensive industries, not just from an environmental standpoint but also as a business advantage.
• 👩‍💻 The importance of using 'boring technology' to avoid wasting resources on experimental tools is emphasized, allowing small teams to move quickly and focus on innovation.
• 📈 Gravity rapidly grew, achieving 4x growth in its second year, with plans to grow by 3.5x this year, driven by customer feedback and market demand.
• 🔑 Key product-building insights include staying customer-obsessed, building a product that solves a clear problem, and avoiding the pitfall of trying to create something that serves everyone.
• 🛠 Building products should focus on solving problems for users, and startups should prioritize rapid execution and customer value over cutting-edge technology.
• 🌱 Gravity’s mission is to accelerate decarbonization by making climate action both economically attractive and aligned with regulatory requirements for large energy-intensive companies.
• 🤝 The pilot program Gravity ran involved a three-month commitment to help companies measure emissions, with over 50% of participants converting into paying customers.
• 💡 Founders stress the importance of defining your company by the problem you solve, rather than a specific solution, allowing flexibility and scalability as you refine the product.

Q & A

What is the name of the company Salah is the CEO of?

Salah is the CEO of Gravity, an industrial decarbonization platform.

What does Gravity specialize in?

Gravity specializes in helping people manage their carbon and energy, tackling climate change in a scalable way.

How did Gravity perform in its second year of existence?

In its second year, Gravity grew about four times and was on track to grow by 3.5 times in the following year.

What was Salah's educational background before joining the workforce?

Salah started studying physics, but graduated with a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics.

What was Salah's first job after college?

Salah's first job after college was as a software engineer at Salesforce.

What did Salah learn from his experience at Salesforce?

At Salesforce, Salah learned the importance of building prototypes and working with physical products.

Why did Salah leave Salesforce to join Samsara?

Salah left Salesforce to join Samsara to spearhead a product line called Safety, which was expanding into dash cameras and safety monitoring.

What was the main focus of the thesis Salah developed at Eclipse Ventures?

The thesis focused on actions and technologies that energy-intensive companies could take to be carbon reductive and aligned with competitive business metrics.

How did Gravity approach its initial product development?

Gravity approached its initial product development by conducting a pilot program with a cohort of customers, building software, and answering questions around measuring scope one and scope two emissions.

What was the goal of Gravity's pilot program?

The goal of the pilot program was to find 10 customers, measure their emissions efficiently, and generate a report that could be shared with stakeholders.

What was the outcome of Gravity's pilot program?

Over 50% of the pilot program cohort converted to paying customers, providing revenue and case studies for further growth.

What advice does Salah give for startups when choosing technology?

Salah advises startups to pick boring technology to avoid wasting resources on unproven solutions and to focus on innovations that are meaningful.

Outlines

00:00

🌱 Founding Gravity: A Journey from Vision to Execution

Salah, CEO of Gravity, an industrial decarbonization platform, discusses the early stages of a product's lifecycle, emphasizing the transition from selling a vision to a tangible presentation. He shares his personal journey, starting with his academic background in physics and computer science, moving through his professional experiences at Salesforce and Samsara, and culminating in his role as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Eclipse Ventures. Salah's narrative highlights the importance of starting with a clear vision and the strategic use of technology that is not only effective but also scalable. He underscores the rapid growth of Gravity, its focus on reducing carbon emissions, and the company's approach to product development informed by customer feedback. The narrative also touches on the importance of choosing reliable, 'boring' technology to avoid wasting resources on unproven solutions.

05:00

🚀 Accelerating Growth: The Pilot Program and Customer Feedback

The narrative from the second paragraph delves into the specifics of Gravity's pilot program, which aimed to help customers submit reports in real-time, focusing on measuring scope one and two emissions. It outlines the company's strategy of rapid product development in response to customer feedback, the importance of early revenue, and the conversion of pilot customers into long-term clients. Salah emphasizes the value of hiring individuals with a sense of urgency, agency, and customer obsession. He also discusses the pitfalls of becoming too attached to a specific solution too early and the importance of defining a company's identity by the problem it aims to solve, rather than the solution itself.

10:01

🛠️ Building for Impact: The Role of Technology and Product Mindset

In the final paragraph, Salah reflects on the role of startups as a force for good and the power of a small, motivated team. He stresses the importance of creating an environment that fosters a clear understanding of objectives and a relentless pace of execution. The discussion turns to the challenges of decision-making in a startup, the need for 'boring' technology to ensure efficiency, and the benefits of a simple tech stack that allows for rapid iteration and problem-solving. Salah encourages a shift in mindset from being a software engineer to being a product person, with the goal of solving problems through software development. He concludes by reiterating Gravity's mission to accelerate decarbonization and make climate action attractive to energy-intensive organizations.

Keywords

💡Decarbonization

Decarbonization refers to the process of reducing the amount of carbon, particularly carbon dioxide emissions, to the atmosphere. In the context of the video, the company Gravity is focused on industrial decarbonization, which means helping industries reduce their carbon emissions. The script mentions that Gravity is 'tackling climate change in a scalable way' and 'helping people manage their carbon and manage their energy', which underscores the importance of decarbonization in their mission.

💡Pilot Program

A pilot program is a trial run of a project or system to evaluate its effectiveness before full implementation. In the script, the CEO describes a pilot program where Gravity offered to help clients submit reports on their emissions for a trial period of three months. This program was designed to test their software and gather feedback from early users, which is a common approach in startups to refine products based on real-world use.

💡Scope 1 and Scope 2 Emissions

Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are categories of greenhouse gas emissions as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, while Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling. The script discusses Gravity's focus on helping companies measure these emissions, which is crucial for their carbon management services.

💡Carbon Footprint

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases produced directly or indirectly to support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide. The video's narrative revolves around Gravity's mission to help companies measure and reduce their carbon footprint. The script simplifies the process of calculating a carbon footprint, emphasizing Gravity's role in making it easier for businesses.

💡Startup

A startup is a company or project that is in the initial stage of development or funding. The script is a narrative from the CEO of Gravity, a startup in the industrial decarbonization space. The video discusses the challenges and growth of a startup, including the rapid development of their product and the strategy of focusing on urgent problems rather than getting attached to a specific solution too early.

💡Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on Investment (ROI) is a financial metric used to evaluate the benefits of an investment relative to its cost. In the context of the script, the CEO advises against spending resources on experimental technologies when the ROI is unknown, which is a prudent strategy for startups with limited resources. This concept is tied to the broader theme of efficient resource allocation in early-stage companies.

💡Technology Stack

A technology stack refers to the combination of software products and programming tools used to create a software application or a website. The CEO mentions Gravity's 'boring tech stack', which allowed them to focus on product development rather than getting bogged down by complex or unproven technologies. This choice reflects a strategic decision to prioritize stability and efficiency over cutting-edge but potentially risky tech.

💡Carbon Accounting

Carbon accounting is the process of tracking and reporting an organization's carbon emissions. The script describes the 'math of carbon accounting' as simple but emphasizes the importance of the inputs and outputs in building a good carbon counting product. This concept is central to Gravity's service offering, as they help companies accurately measure their emissions.

💡Revenue

Revenue is the income generated from the sale of goods or services. The script highlights Gravity's rapid revenue generation, which began within the first four months of their existence. This is significant as it indicates the market validation of their product and the company's financial viability.

💡Customer Obsession

Customer obsession refers to a business philosophy that prioritizes customer needs and satisfaction above all else. The CEO stresses the importance of hiring individuals with a customer obsession, as it drives a focus on creating value for the user. This mindset is integral to Gravity's approach to product development and customer service.

💡Sustainable Economy

A sustainable economy is an economic system that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The script mentions Gravity's ultimate mission to accelerate the transition to a sustainable economy. This reflects the company's commitment to long-term environmental stewardship and social responsibility.

Highlights

Gravity is an industrial decarbonization platform that helps manage carbon and energy.

Gravity focuses on scalable solutions to tackle climate change.

The company grew four times in its second year and is on track to grow 3.5 times in the third year.

The CEO's background combines physics, computer science, and mathematics, influencing Gravity's approach.

Gravity's early phase involved a pilot program to help companies submit reports on emissions in real-time.

The importance of picking 'boring technology' to focus resources on meaningful innovation.

Gravity's rapid growth is attributed to its focus on solving the problem of carbon emissions for energy-intensive companies.

The CEO's experience at Salesforce and Samsara shaped his approach to product development and market strategy.

Gravity's thesis is centered around making climate action attractive to energy-intensive organizations.

The company's early success was due to its pilot program and the feedback from the first cohort of customers.

Gravity's approach to product development is to build quickly and adapt based on customer feedback.

The importance of hiring for urgency, agency, and customer obsession in a startup environment.

Gravity's tech stack is intentionally 'boring' to allow for rapid development and scalability.

The CEO emphasizes the need for startups to focus on problems, not just solutions.

Gravity's mission is to accelerate decarbonization by making climate action attractive to the most energy-intensive organizations.

The company's success is measured by its ability to drive revenue and ship code rapidly.

The CEO encourages software engineers to think of themselves as product people focused on solving problems.

Transcripts

any product kind of goes through a few

phases first one is like selling on

Vision the next one is really selling on

a presentation the pilot program was

somewhere between those two we went to

people and we said for 3 months we will

do X in this case was help you submit a

report to a requesting body in real time

we were basically building software and

answering the questions that they had

around how to measure their scope one

emissions or their scope two emissions

completely informed by this first cohort

as a startup you have so few resources

and you really can't afford to spend

spare calories trying to pursue unknown

return on investment experimenting with

powerful new databases in my opinion is

a luxury for people who have more time

and money to burn it's important to pick

boring technology hi my name is Salah

I'm the CEO gravity an industrial

decarbonization platform we help people

manage their carbon and manage their

energy gravity is tackling climate

change in a scalable way and then

identify plan and execute real world

projects to reduce those things last

year was our second year in existence

and we grew about four times and this

year we're on track to about 3 3 and

1/2x again which is really

[Music]

exciting in college I started off by

studying physics I ended up graduating

with a degree in computer Science and

Mathematics computer science to me was

the application of math in software

while physics was the application of

math to the physical world and uh I

would say that was kind of the beginning

of marrying Adams and bits for me so

fresh out of college I went to a company

called Salesforce I landed as a software

engineer there on a team called the iot

cloud I fell in love with it but my

favorite times were when we were

building prototypes and we actually had

the physical products in our hands and

so I knew that I wanted to get closer to

it and so in leaving Salesforce I looked

to a company called samsar one of the

most incredible sales machines and go to

market machines and I them to spearhead

a product line they called Safety Safety

was expanding Beyond fuel efficiency and

GPS tracking and a number of other

classical telematics offerings into dash

cameras and safety monitoring in leaving

samsara I joined an industrial Venture

Capital firm called Eclipse joined them

as an entrepreneur and residence

incubating a number of different ideas

but the thesis that I really started to

obsess over was one that centered around

the ground swell in both actions and

technologies that energy intensive

companies could take that were carbon

reductive but also incredibly aligned to

competitive business metrics and so

there was a lot of opportunity for them

to take action that was aligned to

climate what really itched me though was

that increasingly these entities were

being pressured to disclose or even

lambasted for being carbon intensive by

a lot of people who were eagerly pushing

forward the climate agenda they had this

incredible opportunity to participate uh

and weren't doing so I had known solid

socially for several years he was always

somebody that I had wanted to start a

company with and then in late 2021 he

called me from a very crowded hostel in

Glasgow he was out there for cop 26 the

climate conference he told me about how

he had been an entrepreneur in Residence

at Eclipse Ventures and at Eclipse he

had been incubating a thesis about

pragmatic decarbonization he walked me

through his thesis and it was like

getting struck with a bolt of lightning

I knew that if I didn't leave to pursue

this opportunity with him I would

probably come to regret it I learned how

to code when I was seven around senior

year of high school interned at a

company called ibata which is B Toc a

consumer couponing application and it

was 20 people in the basement of a

firehouse in Denver that was the summer

that iata hit a million users and it was

just intoxicating seeing us build

something put it out there watching it

grow in real time and then I went to

college for a year I actually dropped

out of college after freshman year I

think because I had such a good

experience at ibata when my friend

called me and said hey I want to drop

out of Stanford and start an analytics

company I said that sounds awesome so

both my parents are Educators and I

remember talking to them and saying hey

I have a once in a-lifetime opportunity

to move to California and work on this

company and my mom said you're 19 what

do you know about once in A- lifetime

opportunities which I think is a very

fair point company that I joined after

freshman year of college was called

clear graph clear graph was an analytics

company so we built a natural language

search tool kind of like Siri but for

structured data worked at that company

for several years and got an acquisition

offer from Tableau so we sold that

compan to Tableau in 2017 and then I

stayed there for a couple years one

thing I learned was that it's very

important to Niche down for a Target

customer at Clear graph I think one of

the challenges we had was the long-term

ambition was to make data accessible to

all manner of business users who

couldn't currently access it but because

of how broad that ambition was we ended

up building a product that was quite

horizontal it wasn't specialized in the

ways that it needed to be specialized

and because it was trying to be

everything to everybody it ended up

having a lot of trouble adding value

whatsoever and so if I could go back I

would have niched down earlier for Clear

graph we also learned a lot about the

right way to build software at an early

stage company we made some decisions

that really slowed us down like

splitting the codebase into

microservices and that sort of thing and

having the learnings from Clear graph

definitely influenced the way that we

operate engineering and product here at

gravity gravity was born out of the

thesis that a lot of this growing meure

that energy or carbon intensive

companies were feeling to disclose or

participate in the climate transition

was rooted in software not being built

to make that process easier and business

dots not being connected to make that

more attractive there's got to be some

Missing Link rather than having an arm

twist to pull these people into the

climate transition we could incentivize

it it could be attractive we help

companies measure their carbon footprint

and energy usage and then identify plan

and execute real world projects to

reduce those things the actual math of

carbon accounting is quite simple you

need to figure out all the things that a

business does and then you need to

figure out how much carbon they Emit and

then you multiply the quantities by the

emission factors and then you sum it up

and that's a carbon footprint but the

art of building a good carbon counting

product actually has mostly to do with

the inputs and the outputs how do you

get the right data in from the Myriad

sources throughout a business throughout

a business's supply chain where it needs

to come from how do you output it and

report it in the format that is useful

that lets a business accomplish its

goals we built the first version of the

product really fast uh we were in the

Market within a month or two of getting

going we've been generating revenue from

about that time as well and I think that

has done really well for us because more

important than the early Revenue has

been the feedback and The Real World

customer Pain any product kind of goes

through a few phases before it ends up

becoming the actual costed and sold by

many sales reps effort first one is like

selling on vision and that is often to

new hires that's often to investors that

next one is really selling on a

presentation to an extent and so you

actually go to a buyer and you share a

slide deck of could be features but you

pitch them as existing and you try to

attach some sort of a cost to it the

pilot program was somewhere between

those two we went to people and we said

for 3 months we will do X in this case

was help you submit a report to a

requesting body we'll come measure your

missions efficiently we'll do it through

the software powered experience and

we'll generate a report that you could

share with either your shareholders your

largest customers or if you were in a

regulatory Market you could share it to

a regulatory so the pilot program was

minimally finding 10 customers is what

we wanted to do we wanted them to be a

mix of different organization sizes and

a mix of going directly to those

Industrials as well as some private

Equity firms just to get a feel for like

the two-sided Market that we were

starting to see for during that time

I'll be honest we had only a few lines

of code and a lot of hypotheses but in

the spirit of if they come we will build

it we wanted to be very reactive to the

initial demands of these organizations

in real time we were basically building

software and answering the questions

that they had around how to measure

their scope one emissions or their scope

two emissions thinking about what

Integrations what automations we wanted

to actually build completely informed by

this first cohort of course there's risk

there that if you choose a cohort that's

not representative of the rest of the

market you've built something tailored

to them and no one else but we tried to

figure out the lowest common

denominators that were highly useful and

at the end of those three months as was

kind of communicated early on to those

organizations we said you have the right

to walk away there's no kind of

commitment to purchase or if you'd like

to continue with us here's a highly kind

of discounted early partner rate um we'd

love to work with you and over 50% of

that cohort converted and so the pilot

program ended up being really impactful

for us we got revenue in the door within

the first four months of our existence

which was astonishing and we built the

product rapidly in reaction to explicit

customer feedback and had all these case

studies that we could use to then

evangelize not only to net new customers

but to sales reps who wanted to know

that they were joining a company that

was drisk from a selling perspective uh

and so we started hiring and growing the

team when hiring I think it's really

important to look for urgency agency and

customer Obsession the urgency in the

agency are because you need people who

can take a high level objective and

relentlessly get after it and drive

results double quick the customer

obsession is because you also need to

pair that with a level of self-awareness

or Focus that lets you see when you're

going down a rabbit hole and getting

sucked into something that isn't

actually going to be valuable to the

user asking people about speed of

execution is important you want people

where when there's a problem they act

fast and I think to a degree that can be

learned for some people it's innate

looking for times that people saw a

problem on their own or were very close

to the customer and actually took a

problem into their own hands deviced a

solution implemented it and got it out

the door is important and that is

inherently a high agency Endeavor a good

reason to start a company is if you fall

in love with the problem or the people

who have that problem I think a big

failure mode is getting attached to a

specific solution too early a lot of

companies want to build something but

they don't want to solve something and

if you build something and it doesn't

actually solve a problem then your whole

identity can crumble rather rapidly so I

think it's important to Define your

identity by a problem and not by a

solution especially when you're in the

pre-ra hunting for the solution

especially the scalable solution days

that you can bring to Market I do think

startups are a potent Force for good it

is perpetually astounding how much can

come from the work of a small focused

motivated group of people and as a

Founder I think it's your job to create

an environment where people know what

their Charter is and then to drive

Relentless tempo of execution so that

you can capitalize on the

vision as a startup you have to make so

many decisions you have to pick the

right database pick the right Tex stack

build your software in a certain

architecture

and the sheer number of choices presents

a lot of surface area to get things

wrong but it's important to pick boring

technology because as a startup you have

so few resources and you really can't

afford to spend spare calories trying to

pursue unknown return on investment so

experimenting with powerful new

databases in my opinion is a luxury for

people who have more time and money to

burn it's important to pick

wellestablished databases keep it very

simple so that you can spend your

calories on the innovations that are

actually meaningful at gravity for

instance we have a very boring Tech

stack it's allowed a very small team of

Engineers to scale to somewhat comical

amount of data and to drive significant

Revenue it does allow us to ship code

dozens of times per day and if problems

come up we can fix them in minutes not

hours and if we want to build features

we can do it in a really predictable way

because we're never Fighting Tools we're

never breaking out of a prison of our

own creation which does sometimes happen

I think of engineer as a skill set but I

think that engineering as a sense of

identity can be limiting for individuals

as a startup your job isn't to build

software your job is to build a product

and that product needs to be useful for

people the job is to make decisions that

allow you to maximize the rate of change

of your product so that you can get the

most revs so that you can have the

highest shot of building something

useful so I would encourage software

Engineers to think of themselves as

product people where the way that they

build product is by using software and I

think that's an important mindset shift

because a product person falls in love

with the problem and the person who has

the problem in that sense almost every

problem can be really interesting if you

get in the weeds enough with it carbon

accounting somebody would reasonably

call it dry and a little bit boring but

if you're really serious about solving

the problem and if you're really serious

about building software to solve the

problem then of course you need to

understand the problem and the way it's

laid out the terminology the language

the people who have it in order to begin

to create Solutions I think like many

other companies in the climate space our

ultimate mission is accelerating

decarbonization and the transition to a

sustainable economy but our particular

contribution is to do so by succeeding

in making acting on climate extremely

attractive to the most energy intensive

organizations more attractive fiscally

more attractive from a labor perspective

and easier to comply with the growing

needs from a regulatory perspective

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