Founder's Story - Solar Is Already the Answer and the Market Is Finally Forced to Admit It | Ep. 394 with John Witchel CEO & Co-Founder of King Energy

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Daniel Robbins sits down with John Witchel, co founder and CEO of King Energy, to explore the economics behind today’s energy headlines and why solar plus storage is already the most practical answer for most businesses. John shares why the real bottleneck was never technology, it was incentives and deal structure, especially in multi tenant commercial buildings where landlords pass energy costs to tenants. John explains how King Energy rents roofs, installs solar, and sells discounted electricity to tenants, creating a win for landlords, tenants, and the platform. Key Discussion Points John argues solar and batteries are already here as the solution, because cost per megawatt hour is now cheaper than fossil fuel generation and avoids global supply chain shocks. He explains why solar became “boring,” subsidies mattered less as costs fell, and adoption shifted from political to mainstream economic logic. John shares the founding insight for King Energy: the split incentive problem in multi tenant buildings prevents anyone from installing solar, even when rooftops are perfect sites. King Energy’s model is simple: rent the roof from the landlord, then sell electricity to tenants at about ten percent below retail with no capex or operational burden for them. He explains go to market: do not sell climate change, sell rent to landlords and savings to tenants, using their language and solving their job. John discusses why 25 year contracts are normal for real estate owners, and why credibility comes from financial backing, $45M in venture capital and $350M in project capital. He shares the biggest growth tailwind: energy bills rising 7–9% year over year, making solar the fastest practical relief for small businesses and corporations. John reflects on entrepreneurship whiplash, how wars, crashes, and rate hikes hit companies even when the business is executing well, and why those external shocks are exhausting. Takeaways The best startup ideas live in big markets and can be explained in one sentence, if it takes five minutes to explain, keep refining the product. Solar did not need better tech, it needed a model that aligns incentives for landlords and tenants. Great go to market is empathy: speak the customer’s language and make their decision easy, rent for landlords, savings for tenants. Energy inflation is a forcing function, and solar plus storage is the only scalable solution available now, not ten years from now. Longevity in entrepreneurship comes from tolerance for external shocks and the ability to keep building through cycles. Closing Thoughts John Witchel makes a simple case: the energy answer is not theoretical, it is already deployable on rooftops across America. King Energy is a lesson in incentive design, speak to what people actually care about, remove friction, and let economics do the persuasion. If you want a founder story about solving a national problem without selling politics, this episode is a blueprint. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Most parts of the country are seeing 7, 8, 9% year-over-year price increases for energy. That does not work for a small business. That is not acceptable. Oil and gas prices spike today. Everything that's happening in the Middle East is impacting us. And the answer to how do I solve the cost of high energy today is... So you've been doubling every year. Last year, $10 million in revenue.

Don't explain to them your business. Talk to them in their own language. The most important things that you look for in a startup is number one, you want to be in a... John, I have to say, if I look at the topic that's been talked about the last few months, everyone is talking about energy and where is the best energy? There are companies saying that they will put data centers in space that will use solar because these data centers require so much energy on top of energy costs rising. So I'm curious from your perspective, is solar?

are still a viable thing. I get asked the same question every day, every time I go out to lunch or dinner with friends, they want to talk about how everything that's happening in the Middle East is impacting us, how data centers are impacting us, is there new technology coming out that could save the day? And the answer is already here. It is solar. It's solar and batteries. And really, if you look at energy, it boils down to a couple of things.

how much does it cost to generate and deliver a megawatt hour of energy? And where is that energy coming from? And today, a huge amount of that energy is coming from fossil fuels generated energy, whether that's coal or natural gas, but we can generate a megawatt hour of energy more cheaply than any fossil fuel-based energy generation. and we don't have to deal with the global disruptions in the supply chain. And we don't have to worry about war or shipping lanes and those kinds of things because the energy that we generate locally on site just makes sense.

Everyone was like solar, solar, solar. I know California was giving out things. There was federal things that were happening. I'm not trying to get too political in this question. But why do you think solar kind of got put on the back burner? Well, it didn't get put on the back burner. happened was that the cost of solar kept coming down over the last 10 years. We didn't really need the subsidies anymore. In the early days, you know, in the sort of the 2010 time frame,

solar was expensive and it didn't really pencil. It didn't really make sense without subsidies. Today, that's not true. Today, it's just as good, if not better, source of energy than any fossil fuel generation that you can find. And so when we look at the idea that nobody's interested in solar, nobody cares about solar, it's not political, it's not in the everyday news, that's because it is in the mainstream now. And whether you're a large commercial business or you're a property owner, solar just is going to make a lot of sense for you to either rent the roof and install solar, which is our business, or if you're building something or manufacturing something and you want a lower cost of energy, which will be able to make you more competitive in the marketplace.

Or frankly, if you're just a yoga studio and you have a very high energy bill, you look around, you go, what are my options? Well, as a yoga studio, space-based AI driven satellite is not an opportunity for you, right? What will help your business is putting a couple dozen panels up on the roof. And you can have that today. I don't know about all this satellite-based energy generation. You have a very unique business model. It's very different than what I've seen when it comes to solar. So going back to the beginning, when you started in 2020, what was the problem that you saw that made you want to solve it?

Yeah, great question. So I started looking around to do a startup. This is King Energy is my 10th startup. I've been doing startups since I was right out of college. I started with the, my first company out of college was part of the dot com boom and then eventually the dot com bust. And now in the year 20, when I started looking around to do another startup, I really wanted to be in renewables.

I really wanted to be on the right side of history. I thought if I can build a business that can help the environment, create jobs in my community, and I can have it make economic sense for all the parties involved, then that would be a great way to grow a business. And so I was looking around and like I said, renewables made economic sense at the time for homes and very large businesses. But what nobody had solved was what was called the split incentive problem. And the split incentive problem exists in multi-tenant commercial buildings

and apartment buildings. And the split incentive problem goes like this. A landlord has no incentive to install solar on a multi-tenant building because they're just passing the energy costs on directly to the tenants. And the tenants have no incentive to install solar on a building they don't own. So no one does. If you could find a solution to that problem, then you would activate all of these big, flat, beautiful rooftop.

that you see all over the country as you fly into LAX or you fly into Phoenix or you fly into Newark and you look around and you see all these giant commercial and industrial properties. They look like perfect sites for solar. Why aren't people installing solar on these big flat, beautiful roofs? The answer is the split incentive problem. King Energy was designed to solve that problem. And the way that we do that is by approaching the landlord and say, hey, you know what, we'd like to rent your roof. Don't worry about solar. Don't worry about how we make money. As long as we make our rental payments, maybe we'll put solar up there.

Maybe we'll put some lawn chairs up there. We're just going to rent your roof and it's plain and simple. The landlord says, hey, that's found money for me. I wasn't renting my roof before. I'd love to rental income. So let's do it. And then we take that space. we install solar on the roof, and then we turn around and we sell the energy to the tenants

in the building at 10% below the retail rate of energy, which is a great offering, whether you're Starbucks or Panda Express as a corporation, it's real easy for you to work with King Energy. We work large corporations all the time. But again, if you're just the noodle shop in town, you get to save money too. You don't have to spend any capital. You don't have to think about the engineering of solar, you just get a lower rate. And that is a really nice thing for both big, large corporations as well as the everyday mom and pops. Everybody gets to save money. The landlord gets to make a little more rent. And King Energy has a business. So when you thought about the go-to-market strategy for this back six years ago, was your focus

on the people that have the largest roofs or the people that can make the decisions faster? Because I imagine it's like a no-brainer. You're saying to me is a no-brainer. But I think you're and I know, some companies require a lot of decision makers to make a decision. So what did you see in the beginning in order to really make a big splash quick? So that's a great question. And the real insight on go-to-market for us was don't talk about climate change. Talk about the penguins. Don't talk about melting icebergs. Nobody wants to hear that stuff. Who would be motivated to spend money to help climate change had already installed solar. Like that was it.

And whether you were a do-gooder or maybe you were of a certain political banter or you were just highly motivated, that was all in the rearview mirror. So what we set out to do was say, hey, we want to go to market with a message that has nothing to do with climate change. It's all about does it make economic sense? And the best way to tell that story is to go to your perspective. customers and use their language. Don't explain to them your business. Talk to them in their own language. And for landlords, that language is rent. And so we talk to landlords about earning more

rent, rent rolls, their cap rate, talk about questions that they're going to care about, which is not what kind of tax incentives do we get for installing solar. What those guys care about is, are you going to take care of my roof? What happens if you accidentally damage the roof? What are you going to be here in 25 years? Because you're asking for a 25 year lease. What happens at the end of the lease? Are you going to decommission and remove all of this equipment off my roof and leave it swept? What happens if I need to put some more HVAC equipment on the roof sometime over the next 25 years? These are the questions that landlords want to talk about. And we came prepared to answer those questions with a great solution for each and every one of the questions that landlords really want to talk about.

And so then they look back on that and say, hey, these guys really understand our business. These are the kind of people we want to work with. You're looking at these people that have empty space that can add extra money. I think anytime somebody can make a business that makes people more money or saves people money overall, I think it's always a fascinating business. Like you're helping these people over a 25-year period basically make money. That's a no-brainer. You even talk about this how software is looking at five-year contracts, you're looking at 25-year contracts. Do you think having something like a 25-year contract makes the conversation harder or easier when you're talking to somebody?

In general, landlords, people who own large commercial properties, which is really where our focus. focuses, own assets that are, you know, these are buildings that have been built to last 50 and sometimes 100 years. So the time horizon of a 25-year lease is, is uncommon when compared to say, oh, I want to, you know, I want to open up a, you know, a pizza parlor. A pizza platter doesn't ask for a 25-year lease. They usually ask for a five-year lease. But in terms of a 20-year lease, but in terms of a 25-year time horizon for a landlord, particularly a large landlord, like a reet who deals with tens of millions of square feet, it's pretty normal. It's more for them about whether or not if you're, they'll look at you and they'll look at you and say, well, are you legit? Right. And at this

point, King Energy has over 250 buildings that we are working with that we are either live or in some stage of construction. We're, you know, we started our business in California and within a couple of years we expanded and now we're in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois. These people look at our business and think, yeah, these guys are, these guys are legit. And then they'll often ask us questions, not so much about the lease, how long is the lease, but what kind of financial shape are you in? Does it make sense to work with you?

Are you going to be around? And we've raised quite a bit of money. We've raised over $45 million in venture capital. And we've raised over $350 million in project to build these systems. And so when people see that level of support and that level of financial backing, what they think is, yeah, this is the real deal. I think a lot of people don't realize how important it is that you have to speak the language of the person you're selling to your client base because you don't want to lose them speaking some sort of other language. The lingo that they don't care about, you had mentioned this earlier around understanding their pain points and being able to speak that versus talking about something that is not at the forefront of what they care about.

You have had multiple exits across multiple companies, yet it seems like you go back to the. fundamental problem with energy and infrastructure. Do you just find that there's broken things and you can fix them? Or is there another reason why? Personally, I just, I love the renewable industry. I mean, I'm just into it at an engineering level and at a business level. And honestly, you know, part of my personal motivation is I want to be on the right side of history. I want to, there's a lot of problems in the world that you can work on.

Some of them are a regional and local and regional and some of them are national and some of them are international and and I like working in a business that the the fruits of my labor and the fruits of my team's labor is going to be enduring. I find the idea that you could build something that's going to be helpful to the world at large to both small businesses locally as well as globally for the next 25 years to be it's just an attractive space to work in and if I compare that to the software space which I also really like. And I've done, I've done well in the software industry. In the software industry, time horizons are quite short. You sign a three or a five-year contract with a new customer

and to install some software and help them manage whatever their internal business process might be. Five years is a long contract in software. And you basically are going to take that sales rep out to drinks that afternoon. If he or she signs a five-year contract in our business, sort of the minimum duration is 20 years. And I mean, I plan to be alive then, but there's actually a decent chance. I might not make it to the end. And I love that idea of there actually being legacy in the work that I'm doing today. Why would you want to do blood, sweat, and tears as an entrepreneur? If you don't have some sort of legacy and good that you're bringing to the world, what else does that mean to you, legacy? When you think about it, beyond just helping the environment or being on

the right side of history. Well, just to sort of talk about the idea of, you know, the motivations, it's, it's never just your personal motivation. That's always an important part of the founder's story. Why are you personally doing it? You always have to pay attention to what your, your customer's motivations are. And the truth is, is that the yoga studio doesn't care about energy at all, right? He or she cares about yoga. right and the pizza parlor doesn't care about where their energy is coming from they care about pizza and they care about their families and their community and sending their kids to college and if you come in to their restaurant and sit down and start talking to them about your big ideals and high-minded

thinking around you know what you want to do for life you're going to get a pizza in a Coke and you're going to get walked out the door. But if you come to them and you talk to them about what's important to them, and you say, look, I don't want to spend a lot of time here because you got your own customers to take care of. What I can offer you is a lower cost of energy today. And sometimes they're curious. And they're like, well, how do you do that? And let me understand your business.

But it's a genuine curiosity. What they care about is their own business. So come to them, talk to them about their motivations, talk to them. talk to them about their objectives. And that's also true. Large corporations, when you're talking to Dollar Tree or a large reet that owns tens of millions of square feet, you know, the person in that office building, they have a job to do. And their job isn't your job. So help them do their job efficiently.

Help them understand their motivations. And you're going to find a partner. And in America, that is, like you said, is almost always predominantly. make money and as we say in the industry you want to do well by doing good. So you've been doubling every year since 2020. Last year, $10 million in revenue. What is one or two things that you feel has really been able to move that needle beyond the things that you've mentioned? There is a lot of tailwind right now in our industry because of the dramatically rising costs of energy.

So 10, 12 years ago, your electric bill was fine. Like, it wasn't nothing, but it wasn't, you know, the year before it was about the same. It was maybe two or three higher this year than it was last year. It was maybe two or three percent higher than it was the previous year. That is not true anymore. In the United States, most parts of the country are seeing. being 7, 8, 9% year-over-year price increases for energy. And that does not work for a small business.

That is not acceptable for corporations with razor-thin margins. That is not okay for you and me as consumers. Energy burden, how much of your monthly paycheck goes to just energy heating your house, running your life and and and people are looking up and saying i got to figure this out i got to do something here i got to keep this this price low what are my options and then you open up the wall street journal and they're talking about run building a nuclear plant in 10 or 15 years as a pilot project that doesn't solve my problem today like i got to solve my problem today and the answer to how do i solve the cost of high energy today is solar and storage. It is the only answer that is

actively in play today and is smart, thoughtful business people look around and they say, what are my options? They rapidly conclude the same thing, which is, okay, if this energy is too expensive for me, I got to find a solution. That solution is going to be solar. Do I want to own the solar. The answer to that question is usually no. I don't want to own solar. I don't really know much about solar. And then that's where companies like King Energy become extremely valuable to them. We come in, we say, hey, we'll just start saving you money each month. You don't have to own it. We'll own it. We'll operate it. We'll take care of everything. The only thing that's going to happen here is your energy is going to be cheaper. And they say that sounds great and they can get back to

to making pizza. I like that. So I think we always hear about the people. that are early investors, early advisors, I know for you that that's been the case. For example, credit karma. What is it that you see early on? Because I think we always hear the story of this person was early investor, early with these 15 different things. But what is it that they are seeing and you are seeing when you evaluate and you see these diamonds in the rough? The most important things that you look for in a startup and when I was designing King Energy I was designing previous companies or I'm advising other startups is number one, you want to be in a big market, big market, all right? You want a lot of people to have the same problem.

And you want your product to intuitively and viscerally solve their problem. And we call that product market fit. If I give you the classic elevator pitch, what, what problem are you solving? and how do you solve it, right? You can't spend five minutes explaining the problem. You can't spend another five minutes explaining how your solution is making people better. It's just got to be in and out, one or two sentences. How does your business work?

Well, we rent the roof from landlords. They make a little bit of money on rent. We sell the energy at 10% below. Does that sound good to you? And everybody goes, yeah, that sounds pretty good. I'd like to hear more, right? And then you can have a longer conversation, but if you can't get your business rolled up into one sentence like that, you should keep working and keep ideating on your product until people viscerally react in a very positive way and say, yeah, that could be a fit

for me. I'd like to know more. And then you need millions of people who have the same problem. And in our case, those millions of people are every single commercial building in the United States. So obviously we see the successes from the outside. But I'm sure you've had times where you were just like, this is it. I'm going to go get a job. Like this entrepreneurship thing or I want to exit. I want to get out. I want to retire on the beach.

I want to do something else. What was the moment like that for you? Yeah. I keep having that moment. You know, for me, I live through the dot com bust. in the 2000-2001 time frame. I lived through the 2008 market crash. I lived through the 2012-14s.

I lived through the 22 rate hikes. The thing that is so dispiriting in entrepreneurship is when these large externalities that have nothing to do with your business come crashing down on your head. So you're running your business. Things are going well. your customers happy, you're happy, your employees are happy.

And then all of a sudden, America's at war in a part of the world that has nothing to do with your business. The stock market takes 50% wipe out because of nothing to do with your business. And then your customers call you and they say, well, it may not have nothing to do with your business, but it has something to our business. And we need to tighten up these contracts or, you know, we need new. pricing and and and the thing that has been allowed america to be so successful over the last 200 years, 250 years is this has consistently been a place of economic stability of stable laws that the rule of law has existed in america for 250 years this is a great country to do business in and when

And we have these whipsaw events nationally and globally, it's exhausting. And that's not just me and that's not just King Energy. It's a lot of men and women like me just look around and be like, really, are we really doing this again? And if we just stopped some of that behavior, I think companies like mine could grow. Companies, you know, all over the United States would just be, and the world, frankly, would be happier if we just had to be. a little more stability in the day-to-day operations of the business, Monday to Friday, and then we can all get to what we really want to be doing, which is have a barbecue on Saturday and Sunday, which is my true love.

In the future, we might not even have to work. So we might just be doing barbecues all the time. Who knows at that moment? And that could happen in our lifetime at this point with how fast things are moving. But, John, great conversation today. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot. I'm going to take this away because I think there's there's so much opportunity right now to do.

But this has been great, John. If he would again touch with you, how can they do so? Yeah, we have a website at kingenergy.com. And of course, my email is the CEO's email is Jay Wichel at kingenergy.com. And I'd welcome any emails or if anybody just wants to chat or think big picture. I'm always available to anybody who cares about solar. Well, John, thanks again for joining us today. Terrific. Thank you so much. I really enjoy the conversation.