Graduation Day….MBA

14th May – 2010 at Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA. Can’t remember what life was like before the MBA – free weekends, no baby …..what did I use to do?? Am happy to get a chance to think about such things now ??

(aaahhh…..I am missing a facebok integration with wordpress here….)

Yup, I am done!

As of December 2009, I officially am an MBA graduate from the Haas School of Business. Yay!!

It’ll be rather hard to verbalize what I feel…..so am not going to attempt it.
It’s bittersweet to be done.
It was an incredible, tiring, fulfilling and successful 2 1/2 years journey. I got everything and more that I expected from the program. I am going to cherish the experience and the new friendships throughout my life.

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Go Bears!!

Switching to Renewable Energy – Part III

I am still looking for that elusive full-time gig in the renewable energy industry. I have been at it for last 7-weeks since we got back from India. Things are looking up – but it has been far from easy. In this post I wanted to share a couple of observations about the job market in cleantech for bizdev (post MBA, non-technical aspirants).

Demand and Supply of Job Seekers
Doing a general search for solar/renewable/cleantech jobs would get many open positions throughout the country. These are not as many as software (the industry I compared with) – but again the sector is not that big yet. So for the infancy of the sector – there seem to be decent number of jobs. It could be better more into 2010. The companies are just coming out of their stringent 2009 financial conditions and seem very cautious about hiring.

It seems there is an increased supply of candidates who want to enter the sector. There are many very qualified people who are either genuinely interested, interested due to bleak prospects in other industries or are unemployed. In the last few months, I have spoken to numerous friends/acquaintances, who are unexpectedly interested in the sector. For the companies looking for candidates – there is a huge pool of candidates for any bizdev position. So the competition is quite fierce – and you also have to compete with free (people willing to do unpaid project work). It also means that it’s taking longer to hear back from them and to complete the interview process.

Fit
I shared some ideas on this earlier in this blog post. Fit is a big deal one for anyone making the switch. Here is a more specific example. If you are wanting to work for a solar installation or a renewable energy project development company (quantitatively there are seem more companies in the deployment area) – the skills that are needed are construction management, financial analysis and sales. Only for larger, more established companies are marketing, channel development, product or process improvement skills needed. That’s a pretty narrow scope of skills really.

Location, Location, Location
I have been looking in and around Bay Area. It might help to be geographically flexible. But there are only few hot spots for renewable energy activity in US – Bay Area certainly is the leader. So if you are not located in the vicinity – make a couple of trips to increase your network. Knowing companies in the Bay Area would be more bang-for-buck eventually for making the shift.

Switching to Renewable Energy – Part II

I went to a Haas Energy Club (BERC) event yesterday. I suddenly realized that I am on the other side of the table now – instead of talking to people “in the industry”, I belong to it and was supposed to impart wisdom to students who are still trying to make a switch to renewable energy

In one of those chats, I was questioned about the profiles that would be a good fit in renewable energy. This is important to know since most of us do not come from a power engineering or a semiconductor background to make an “obvious fit”. Knowing your transferable skills is key to be able to tailor your resume and highlight projects that reflect those skills, so it makes sense to a recruiter in renewable energy. Four such profiles are:

Sales: If you have done sales, you can always sell something else. Most sales people know this – so I will not belabor the point. It’s easier though if you have done B2B sales since many non-residential sales are a multi-week/month sales process and knowing how to navigate through the sales cycle and the organization is key skill.

Technical Application: I seem to be getting pushed into this direction because of my technical background. I don’t remember when I had to last use laws of thermodynamics in a professional setting. Interestingly, I remember more than I ever thought from those classes in undergrad that I never paid any attention in. I am sure that is the case with many ex-engineers. Understanding the technology helps in competitive analysis, market analysis and even speaking to prospects. These are typically bucketed in “biz dev” but instead of talking in pure $ or cost-benefit, if you can tailor your experience to demonstrate that you can understand and apply new technology – that would be useful.

Financial Modeling: All renewable energy needs money and most companies selling technology have none. So money needs to come from outside – venture capitalists, private equity, banks, government, etc. All these institutions need to see models highlighting the assumptions that the renewable energy company is making to claim the “low-cost energy source” that they make. So if you can highlight any excel or deal structuring skills – that would be useful. The two companies that I have worked in have separate departments for the financial modeling for cost/benefits of the technology.

Regulatory/Policy/Government: I am clubbing these together – and I am sure there is a lot of difference in each of these, but the idea is that in renewable energy the macroeconomic context matters – unlike software or other non-regulated industries. So if you have had an opportunity to work with government officials, any policy issues within external organizations, telecommunication which is semi-regulated or perhaps a regulated industry in another country – then those skills can be useful in renewable energy.

3 Tips for Switching to Clean Energy

I wanted to share a few things that helped me in my search to switch to clean energy. Broadly, I’ll consider them three twists to well-known strategies.

1) Long-term focused networking: I attended events, conferences and talks pretty regularly in the last couple of years. These days I am running into the same people on multiple occasions. This is likely to happen in any city – since the sector is in its toddler stage and the number of people involved from an area is finite. Somehow “networking” gives the perception of maximizing the number of contacts and cards exchanged per event. This did not work for me, since in a 45-min “networking session”, I could often only muster up 4-5 conversations. And if at the end, I had 5 new cards that meant, 5 more follow-ups with bleak prospects. So I started speaking to the same old-faces that I was seeing and might have already met in the past. Meeting them over and over again, and getting an update from them – firstly, made them better contacts (even friends) over time. Secondly, the information exchange was free flowing. So if they were able to work-up an opportunity, they would be willing to share it with you more readily.

2) Volunteering: can’t say enough good things about this strategy. It prepares you in so many ways – expertise, networking, feeling good about devoting your time, credibility…..and perhaps many more. These days there are numerous opportunities to volunteer for clean-tech related events. I would also suggest to not optimize too much on the perfect event, technology or location- just go out and spend some hours volunteering for any clean-tech opportunity you get. If you are in the Bay Area, you could check out non-profit solar installation orgs or business plan competitions or numerous conferences and symposiums. A short starter list:
a) Grid Alternatives
b) Clean Tech Open Business Plan Competition
c) Berkeley Stanford Speaker Series or other Univ. of California clubs like BERC. Thee university events do not restrict volunteers to a university affiliation very strictly.

3) Building your knowledge: Nothing speaks better than true knowledge that prospective employers hear in an interview. I have had the opportunity to work on many projects while at Haas, to build knowledge (even if theoretical) on many clean-tech business aspects – solar PV, solar-chemical storage technology, natural ingredient supply chain, energy regulations as well as business plans, pricing, licensing and others. In my recent interviews I mostly talked as much about these projects in the last 2 years as my professional life before that.
As a student there are many structured ways to build this knowledge, but even if you are outside (non-student) – helping a student team with their business plan, reading, blogging, etc would be equally good. If you can take a course in this field, that would give you immense credibility boost and perhaps some good contacts. Many solar PV companies themselves are providing training sessions or webinars, which would be good to subscribe to. I mentioned attending conferences already. Subscribe to energy related groups and mailing lists in your area or even outside.

Another thing I have noticed is that clean-tech companies and start-ups are seeking part-time people (due to budget constraints, lack of perfectly fit/inexperienced candidates). Try to get a 5-10 hour part-time gig (even if you have to work for free) and help out a clean energy company and get something on your resume (and again get contacts)

Obviously, there are thousands of paths to this destination. So feel free to comment with what might have worked for you. I feel there is good job demand in the clean-tech sector (although fewer for business development people than on-site green-collared jobs) but there is also a good supply of potential employees (unemployment at 10%)— so anything that you can do to become a better “fit” in this environment will pay good dividends. Good luck.

“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”

This is a widely circulated video and speech – Steve Jobs speaking at Stanford commencement in 2005. I recently saw it again. Just thought I’ll share with any visitors who might not have seen it. It’s one of the most inspirational speeches I have heard. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Switching to Clean Energy

Starting next week, I’ll be interning with a company exploring concentrated solar thermal technology. To say that I am excited would be a massive understatement….but I’ll say anyway “I AM EXCITED!!!”

I have been wanting to get into clean energy or more like environmental businesses since let’s say since I graduated from IITB. But the desire just got more intense in the last couple of years. This was one of the reasons to attend Haas…and it seems to have paid off. I attended a great conference earlier this week and it turned out to be more engineering than I have seen in a while. But I felt at home finally.

Here’s to doing something that you love, make a difference and hopefully get rich in the process.

Conferences and Presenters

I was at a solar thermal conference today (why? …well later about that…), and was thoroughly annoyed by some things about presentations and the conference. Listing them down here……to get them out of my system…

1) Cellphones…….why can’t people turn them off, even after constant repetition?? Why are they always on for the people whose ringtones have a lot of “personality”. Perhaps there should be some way to send phones on auto-vibrate or something…

2) Slide-zero — This is a trademark of my Entrepreneurship profs. But some people take it to the limit . One of the speakers spent half his time on the cover-page and then scrambled through the rest of it.

3) When someone starts saying “I want to get through this really quickly”….you can bet on long, winded explanations which have nothing “quick” about them.

4) Reading from the slides ….PLEASE????

5) I still have to hear an interesting presentation by a lawyer. I think they are so worried about ‘caveating’ and exceptions…..the main point is always lost.

6) Organizers should do some due diligence on the quality of speaker especially the ones after lunch. Good biodata =! good speaker!

7) Having 25 slides for a 7-min company overview.

8′) Conversational tone and fillers in the speech. Don’t get me wrong….I love when speakers can be casual but still drive the point home. But to come into a room with 150-people, to see your slides for the first time in the room and blabber silly jokes does not qualify.

9) Showing diagrams in your slide which have labels that only you could read is not acceptable.

10) Lastly, using the product-codes and formulae from your technical reports….which only you understand. I don’t want to explain more.

This stuff bothers me……..because many of the power point best practices are so well known now. How can people just miss it….or not care when presenting in such large audiences? It also bothers me more, because many of the presenters are pretty senior guys in their field and I might be working for one of them one day. My respect for them might have just gone down a notch…

Pricing

OK, so here’s a belated post.

I took the Pricing class with Prof. Azhar during the summer break. I write about it now, because I highly recommend taking “Pricing” before finishing your MBA. It’s an elective, and some people tend to think its for folks pursuing marketing/entrepreneurship concentration. But irrespective of the major, it is one of the most useful courses you could take.

I have used the frameworks and the general fundamentals like three-tier pricing, razor-blade method, loss leader product in numerous other courses. Most important though has been the attempt to put a number on your “value proposition”. It’s not an easy exercise but gives a great framework to identify what you could be offering your customers. It also helps to understand how you want to split the economic surplus with the customers.

With Azhar, the course was case based. It was very well taught. Prof. Tek Ho is the other professor who offers the course and my understanding is that he has a different approach to it. The latter is a more sought after class. But I would recommend taking it one of the two before graduation.

Pink and Blue – An Operations Management Perspective

So I was at Target today (the first set of baby clothes – gifts from parents, shower, etc seem have run out). I was in the isle which had the bulk infant clothes sets like 6 pairs of socks, 3 onesies, 4 pants, etc. I noticed how neatly the isle was split into pink and blue to make it easier for customers to select their items.

The arrangement made me wonder if this pink and blue tradition was propagated by an operations management guru or clothing manufacturers & merchandisers like Target, BabiesRus, etc. Operationally, this is almost nirvana. Your inventory, designing, orders, raw material, printing batches …everything reduces from hundreds – to two. Fixating parents in the name of tradition/culture to two colors also ensures that the demand does not change from one season to another. It probably started with clothes, and now has propagated to all parts of a kids life. All manufacturers saw the same benefits and switched to the same strategy. This to the parents (customer) reinforced the tradition…making all those who defy having to explain….”why not?”.

Aaarrgghhh it’s sickening!