Lynn Jurich of SunRun Pt. 1: Origin

<p><a href="https://share.transistor.fm/s/96d27634">Listen to Part 2: Growth here</a></p><p>Lynn Jurich started her solar energy company in the depths of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, as a 26 year old with no prior experience in the industry. Now it is a $10b giant beating Elon Musk's SolarCity at its own game.</p><p>Audio source: <a href="https://socapglobal.com/2019/02/ep-17-lynn-jurich-ceo-of-sunrun/">https://socapglobal.com/2019/02/ep-17-lynn-jurich-ceo-of-sunrun/</a> (5 mins in)</p><p><strong>Transcript</strong></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Nina Bernardin: </strong>[00:00:00] What are some of the very first steps that you guys took? I mean, starting like a coffee company, I can like understand like basic elements of starting a coffee company, but starting a solar company...? </p><p><strong>Lynn Jurich: </strong>[00:00:12] Yeah. Well, so, so I used a lot of my analytical skills and experience to, to start to learn more quickly.<br></p><p>And the first thing I did was look at a network of Stanford alumni who were in the energy industry and just started calling them and interviewing them and asking questions about, Hey, how viable is solar? Is it in your plan? I was talking to utility executives, anybody who would really take my phone call out of the Stanford alumni database and what I heard.<br></p><p>Very clearly from everybody was, Oh, it'll never work. There's, yep. Solar's getting cheaper, it's getting better. But there's so many sophisticated people doing this that, be careful, implying that I wasn't sophisticated or that I was young and naive or inexperienced and energy.<br></p><p>And that it wouldn't work, but I was 26 probably, but they validated to me that there was a business opportunity. It was just, the commentary was very much like, Oh no, but it's not for you. So that also kind of gets me going, gets me motivated a little bit. And so I did that. And then we started talking to potential customers.<br></p><p>So some of the early customers that day w solar, where universities were, other publ