Next Level Pros - #62: Building 9-Figs in a Garage: In Depth Dive into Solgen’s Rocket Ship

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

In this episode of The Founder Podcast, host Chris Lee and his guest, Levi Ringo, sit down to discuss the early days of building Solgen from the ground up. They share colorful stories from the company's origins in Chris's home garage in rural Washington. Listeners get a first-hand look at the challenges of bootstrapping a solar installation business with no outside funding.  Chris and Levi reminisce about crazy experiences like taking on an ill-advised tree removal job and facing down a potential $1 million fine in their first year. They also celebrate the divine interventions that helped the fledgling company grow, from recruiting key early employees to securing a pivotal lease. Listeners learn how the founders' relentless vision and grit kept Solgen powered through adversity. Fans of the show will enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at entrepreneurial grit in action. Business owners will gain valuable lessons in problem-solving, pivoting and building a successful startup culture from the ground floor.  With humor and honesty, Chris and Levi take listeners on the wild ride of the early days that established Solgen as an industry leader in solar energy. Highlights: "Your level of belief is the biggest limiting factor that's keeping you from networking to the top." "I was just miserable. I just gotten out of like a failed sales venture. I was down I was living in my car for like six months at this time trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to do with my life."  "I think it's really the power of living in the moment, right? Like, let me just take this thing, one bite at a time, because I'm gonna keep biting, right?"  Timestamps: 00:00: Introduction 08:45: Importance Of Culture  16:40: Energy Crisis  26:04: Early Mistakes  36:14: Solar Business Day To Day 41:39: Tree Removal  50:24: Managing Stress  1:10:16: Personal Growth  Live Links:  🚀 Join my community - Founder Acceleration https://www.founderacceleration.com 🤯 Apply for our next Mastermind https://www.thefoundermastermind.com ⛳️ Golf with Chris https://www.golfwithchris.com 🎤 Watch my latest Podcast Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=dc252f8540ee4b05 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thefounderspodcast

You know, the early days were full of all kinds of crazy mistakes like that, you know, because we didn't know what we were doing. We got, you know, backed into a million dollar fine that was coming in from the state. I'm walking in, I'm seeing there's some buzzing around. There's a, you know, a couple of people work on some projects. And I do remember it was active in there. And I go and I'm like, I think I'm at the right place. And the first thing Chris says to me is like, you know, this interview is casual, right? And I was like, nope. And then I said, one of the biggest lies I've ever said in my entire life. And I said, Yo, welcome to another episode of the founder podcast. Today, we are listening to the people.

Got a lot of good feedback. So we just had an episode release with Mr. Daryl Kelly. We told a little bit of his story. And a lot of people were hoping and praying that we could tell a little bit more of the SoulGen story in regards to Daryl. And so we've also brought on a nice little special guest, Mr. Levi. Hello, friends. Hello. Finally. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Super excited to have Levi on the show. So Levi was employee number eight at Solgen and in the office. What employee number three? I think. Yeah. OK. Employee number three came on February, January of 2018, towards the end of January. Oh, my goodness. Almost six years, January, 2018. So for context, we launched, well, we technically fired our paperwork, October, 2017. We started marketing November of 2017, did our first install, I think December 5th or December 6th of 2017.

So about a month later, Levi was coming, coming on board. And so, um, some of my, my favorite memories. So, you know, one of the, one of the things we're going to do today is we're going to share just kind of some of the nostalgic, some of the pains, the different stories that we went through. Um, but you know, let's, let's talk Levi's hiring real quick. Oh gosh. So Levi, Levi responds to to what what kind of ad was it so at that time i was selling cars at a used car dealership and i was high quality it was low the lowest of low qualities of you i mean we talk we're talking like a used car dealership like two to five thousand dollar type used car like the they like two to $5,000 type used car. Like the,

they're like, Hey, we'll do in-house financing. Yeah. Yeah. Almost lemons. If you know anything about used cars, you know, that no bueno there, a lot of, you know, shady stuff here and there, but, uh, I was just miserable. I just gotten out of like a, uh, a failed sales venture. I was down, I was living in my car for like six months at that time, trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to do with my life. So I stumbled upon a used car dealership and I worked there for a few months and I hated it. And so I was so desperate to get out that I was just on Craigslist because I couldn't find anything else here. I just recently moved to the Tri-Cities area. I popped onto Craigslist and i saw an ad it said startup company need help now call me and that was pretty much the whole ad it was just chris solid solid i'm pretty sure though this is like everyone's story like i was in a job i absolutely hated i was desperate and i applied for your yeah otherwise there is no way i was showing up to that place

you know you i uh it's the same way I found my wife as I found her at her lowest point in time and I'm, I'm married up. So, I mean, smart, smart. So yeah, I, I called the number ended up being Chris's number and he's like, yeah, come out to our office. And I was like, all right, yeah, I'm doing it. Let's go. I'm not from the area of tri cities. I'd only lived in the area for a few months at this point. And I'm a city boy at heart. I love cities downtown. I grew up in downtown or suburbs of downtown for most of my life.

He always likes to say that he's like from the ghetto of St. Louis. St. Louis 314 represent. If you know, you know. But we drove out. I'm going out to what was, I thought, an office into Deep Pasco, which is just countryside farm life. Not for me. I'm like, what the heck? I'm running out of signal.

I pulled to this house and I distinctly remember calling the number. I was like, hey, I'm sorry. I'm going to be late. I showed up at some person's house. I don't think I'm at the right place. I just want to give you a heads up. I'm going to be late. You're like, well, is there a shop in a house out here? And I was like,'t think i'm at the right place i just want to give you a heads up i'm gonna be like you're like well is there a shop in a house out here and i was like

yeah you're at the right place and he made me found sound stupid that i was at the wrong place he like gas lit me into coming inside of this shop so i go inside the shop and uh chris can share his perspective what he saw oh baby showed up so we're sitting in that 400 square feet mind you we're not you know we got a wall ac heating unit all right so this is like middle of winter so it's probably keeping us up at like a high 62 you know everybody's got their coats on we're chilling and you know uh probably probably some relaxed lulu gear something and in walks my guy with a three-piece suit whoa three-piece suit ladies and gentlemen i don't know if i've ever worn a three-piece suit except for to like prom but i'm desperate you know i need something bad

uh so he comes in and like i'm pretty sure initially i started making fun of you yeah no the first thing i heard so i I walk in, I see this garage. It's, I mean, Chris described it perfectly. I mean, you're talking about concrete floors. There's like three half-made cubicles. There's one desk. And then you have Chris's desk in the corner that took up like a fourth of the room. Big executive desk.

Big desk. So let's back up. The reason I had a big executive desk is this thing had been sitting in storage since the days of Five Diamond, right? So failed business. The one thing that we did scrap up from that thing was a few pieces of furniture. That's what we had sitting in that room. So I'm walking in, I'm seeing there's some buzzing around. There's a, you know, a couple people work on some projects. And I do remember it was active in there. And I go and I'm like, I think I'm at the right place. And the first thing Chris says to me is like, you know, this interview is casual, right? And I was like, nope. And then I said, one of the biggest lies I've ever said in my entire life. And I said, don't worry, I like wearing wearing suits it's not that big of a deal and that could not be farther from the truth i could not but i

needed the job bad i hated my life at the time oh so we do the interview i like levi you know he seems like a go-getter seems hungry and we call him up and we offer him a fat 13 bucks an hour actually i i give it off to crane I give it off to Crane. I give it off to Hayden Crane. I'm like, hey, dude, make an offer to this guy. I think he's worth it. Let's go with 13. Minimum wage, I think, is $12.50. No, you offered me $12.

And I remember because the only reason I remember was because I left the interview. The interview was a working interview. I wasn't ready for that. I remember Crane sat me down and made a proposal. He made me make a proposal for solar design at the time and then i leave and i was like okay that interview went great like seems dope and chris had called me while i was driving and you're like hey we like you i think we're ready to move fast and i was like well i got a couple other job interviews lined up i think i'm gonna go to that point i did add uh two

mcdonald's and yeah pretty much it was like a it was uh for a secondhand store for like a management position there like uh some other like it was like a retail marshals or something and i was like hey i'm gonna go to these interviews and chris did the pull away and he was like well you know i'm going out of town i think you're going to sri lanka i was getting ready to go to sri lanka like soon like hey we're looking to make a decision fast so if you're not ready no worries we'll move on i was like all right well i'll tell you by the end of the day today and then you text me or crane texted me like hey we're gonna offer you 12 bucks an hour i was like i'll take 15 and you're like we could do 13 and i was like done i felt like i had won then for whatever reason got that extra dollar dude yeah but what was even funnier that crane uh makes fun of me to this day

was he always says that was really sus once you guys hired me because he was like all right cool you can start tomorrow but i was like well i still want to go to these interviews. So I had said something to the extent of like, oh, well, tomorrow, like I got to go to the bank and move some money around or something, some sort of like stupid excuse. I was lying at that time. And because I wanted to go to these interviews because one of them had offered potentially $15. And I was like, oh, that's a couple more bucks. And so I was like, yeah, I'll come couple more bucks. And, uh, so I was like, yeah, I'll come in fresh. I think Thursday or whatever. I'll just come start fresh Thursday. I'm going to those interviews. Didn't like them. So I came in the Thursday, but crane, I think

myself, the text to this day, I was like, dude, you're so weird. Like when we hired you, dude, like what was even worth it. But it was crazy. By the way, Levi ended up being one of the best hires that we ever had. Just a grinder. The thing I've always appreciated about Levi is he bought into the culture. He was a purveyor of the culture. And so really, from a culture standpoint, was always my right-hand man in the business, whether it was running podcasts. So it's actually fun to be on a podcast again.

Me and Levi for years ran the sales and marketing podcast for the company, the internal podcast, where we highlight and recognize different people. And so we've definitely got comfortable on the set over the years. And Levi held a bunch of different positions. We'll go into that in a little bit. But so going back, a lot of people have asked, hey, into that in a little bit. But so telling, going back, a lot of people have asked, hey, can we get a little bit more of the backstory and kind of the building of Solgen from your and Daryl's point of view? And so jumping into that, you know, you really can't tell the story of Solgen without telling the story of Solgen Renewables. And Solgen Renewables was what we kindly refer to as the magic generator. And tell me about the magic generator because it's a crazy story.

The magic generator, I mean, that was at a time. So we were doing solar with Legacy and then, yeah, Cole Farmer. We were working with him. He brought it up and we were looking into it and it just like was checking so many boxes that like this thing was magical i mean you're talking about you were the use cases for it was was for countries to help like solidify their electrical grid for large businesses to to use renewable energy that was and let me give you let me give you a like a like a physical description of this thing we're talking about like an eight foot by eight foot box right and inside this box are these neodymium batteries and it's what the the six they're motors right but or sorry batteries i meant i meant

motors but uh the they're they're neodymium magnets and so these magnets are the rare earth uh on the uh what's called the scale like the hydrogen what what is that name of that thing yeah thank you periodic table it's like number 60 on the periodic table. So Neo 60 is one of the websites that we bought and neo60.com. So neodymium is like rare earth magnets, super strong. Some people utilize it for like fridge magnets, tiny little fridge magnets that are like super strong. Anyways, they are powerful. And what it was is a motor created out of these magnets and it was essentially got started by a solar panel and like three solar

panels inputting into it and got the engine running and then it created essentially perpetual energy and so for everyone obviously we've been taught since we're little there's no such thing as perpetual energy right you can't create energy out of thin air. And so where Nikola Tesla is said to have claimed or claimed to have created free energy and other things, people have been pursuing this for a long time. So there's this model down in Southern California and it's a functioning, it's a functioning prototype. We go in, we take a look at it. We bring in engineers, everybody's saying, man, this checks out, you know, got people flying in from all over the world. Like, dude, this thing's sweet. The guy that supposedly invented it is

like, yeah, we're going to, you know, we can, uh, we got a hundred being manufactured right now out in South Carolina. There's always a story, right? There was always a story. We got some in South Carolina. We got some in Asia. They're being manufactured. All you guys have to do is line up some sales and line up some financing.

And we're like, done. So we go in, we negotiate an exclusive deal where we can go and build a sales force, right? And so this all happens. It's about August, September of 2016. We start poking around with this thing, taking a look at it, having a few people come in. And at this point, when I was working for Legacy, I was ready to make a move.

I had worked my four and a half years working for the man and kind of learning everything I did. So I was like, you know what? This seems like a good thing to jump. So I was the first one to jump. Daryl and Cole kind of hung back and kept their jobs. But I was like, man, I'm going all in on this. And so it was.

But yeah, like the level of networking that this thing provided and to like daryl's point it like solved the grid scale problem like the whole issue with solar is if i want to go and build or create a bunch of power i need space right like one box this magic generate generator could supposedly produce as much energy as five acres of solar right and so like five acres versus eight feet by between you know eight or was that 64 square feet completely different and so all of a sudden it was solving problems for like skyscrapers hotels inner dense cities providing off the grid solutions for that could run around the clock. It wasn't dependent on the sun, right? Like we saw this thing is like, Oh, it solves so many problems. And one thing that, so when you, when you talk about these

neodymium magnets, I remember, um, Paul, one time he's the, he was the inventor and he came in with these two. So he had two of them. They're like about the size of a, of an iPhone. And they have these, um, these boards in between to keep them separate and he's sitting there talking to us and he's talking to us he's kind of like playing with them or just like holding his hand and like one of the boards like snaps out and it smashes his finger in between the magnets and he i mean his finger popped out of it like it didn't like get stuck inside there but the guy just flipped out so here we are we have these people from africa visiting and we're like sitting down he's talking about these met these met you know these magnets the motor how it all works and he's like pinches his thumb and then

he's gone we're sitting here like okay now like he leaves like he's gone yeah he just starts cussing walks out the room and we're like uh okay. He comes back, you know, probably 15 minutes later. But it was just the weirdest thing because like we didn't know what we were doing. Like we knew the solution and the solution was needed, is needed everywhere when it comes to the energy crisis and what, you know, a lot of companies and countries are facing. We learned a few crazy lessons, though, during like one, energy is controlled by the mafia right throughout the world like just i mean there are people ready to murder when it comes to like screwing with energy so like we had to tread lightly anytime that we started approaching new governments or whatnot, because if you were taking over the grid or some other potential energy source, right? Like, I mean, we're talking about competing with oil and

we're talking about competing with the grid system. We're talking, you know, and these are the most powerful human beings on the planet own the energy sources. And so, you know, we quickly learned like one, everybody's got to have a, their hand in it. And it's like, okay, what's legal? What's not legal? Who can I give kickbacks to? Can I not give kickbacks to what point what's, what's legal in this country? What's illegal in the United States? Like, like, I mean, dude, there was just all kinds of crazy things. And, you know, so, so we're doing this. And then it, because we believed in this product so much, like we were hook, line and sinker on this. We were going to solve the world's

problems. We were going to solve the world's problem. We believe so much in it. Like I have never been able to network faster, recruit faster, sell faster in my life. Right. And, and the, the thing that I realized that like the biggest lesson I took from this whole thing was that wasn't dependent on a product. It was dependent on me, right? The fact that I was that convinced I was that sold, I could do that with any product or service. And that's really what set us up for the success with SoulGen. And it's just like, we had this fantasy product, but we believed in it so much, right? We recruited, it was like, we had a sales force within six months of like 150 contractors. We had done over were going to go in like Buckingham Palace. We were going to be covering all the safe ways in Albertsons throughout the world.

Like, dude, it was one of the wildest. Like we had a big contract with Panama. What was like the craziest thing from that? So there's a couple. One, I remember like having this meeting in Tijuana. And I'm like down down there like we go to this building and i walk in and it's just like lined with all these people i'm like okay who are all these people and it's like well he knows this guy and that's his sister and then that's

their brother and then that's their cousin and then and it was like a line of people who all wanted a piece of the pie in order for us to like get this contract. And we had to get this contract in order for us to like be able to sell this product, right? You had to have like the license or whatnot to anyways, I didn't know that the inner workings other than I knew everyone there was there to get lined, like get something out of the deal, get paid to just get the contract. So it wasn't even like to close the deals, like you have to pay all these people and then we'll, we'll set you up with the person who can give you the contract. I'm like, yeesh. And then the other one was, so I was over on the East Coast and we met with the prime minister of the DRC.

So Congo in Africa. The Democratic Republic. Yeah. That one was interesting because, so first we met in this like hotel room. There's an oval office though inside of it. And you had news crews in there recording this. It was in French. You had, um, you know, the prime minister, you had his son, who was awesome guy. Um, we talked to him quite a bit. You had his lawyers and, uh, they're sitting down talking to us about this project that we were going to put together for them. And I think what was crazy about that was not even that meeting, but what I observed after the meeting. And anyways, that was

interesting. So basically, what happened was our introduction to the prime minister, so he had done a lot of work in the country. And in the cell phone industry. Yeah. And so he was there. I mean, he's done some other ventures there and the government had some money to, to, to pay him or that they owed him. And so once we were done with our meeting, we were all asked to leave. So we got up, we leave, and then he stays behind. He talks to the prime minister and we're like, so what, uh, what'd you talk about? Like what's going on? He's like, Oh, it's just a, it's, you know, they owe me some money. And you know, I was, I was, um, trying to figure out how to, how to get paid. Like, okay, well, did you figure it out and stuff? He's like, yeah.

Wasn't it like, it was like $15 million. No, it was, um, I remember it being like, I want to say it was 45 is what comes to my mind. It was a big deal. $45 million. I think 15 was the kickback. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it was like 30%. So, so basically what it was, was like, was a big deal 45 i think 15 was the kickback yeah yeah yeah that's right yeah and uh yeah it was like 30 so so basically what it was was like he's trying to get this money he's like okay i can get you paid but i get you know i keep 15 isn't that crazy like literally this prime minister of a country says hey i'll pay you the 45 million but But in turn, you got to mind my personal pockets with 15 million. But that's what we were finding out all across the board. It was like, anywhere you

go, it was like, it was like, if you want this, I get this. And it was like, you're just doing like you had to do like, everyone had these deals that were like structured. And it was it's not I mean, first off, it's like illegal to do business like that in the United States. But like everywhere in the world, that's how they do it. Right. Was there ever, I mean, you guys are going through all these meetings with, you know, like you're saying that some of the most powerful people in the world, politicians, like just public figures, whatever it is, was there ever a time or like a meeting that you guys were like, or we might be biting off more than we can chew. Like this is kind of scary or kind of sketchy or anything like that. You know, you know dude we were we were so like just running by the seat of our pants but we had so

much confidence what we were doing is like you know what even if 10 of what we're doing goes through like we're gonna be chilling um but as far there i think there was a few times that we were scared like um we might be getting into some circles that you know like and so like we would we either have this conversation me daryl and cole is like bro like are we sure we want to do business with this type of person or whatever and so like there was a few deals that we we walked away from because we thought we might get murdered right like if if uh if that if that type of thing uh took place and you know there was just like there's so many fun experiences like um i can't remember if i've shared this on the pod

before or not but during that time it was like beginning of december 2016 i flew down to florida for the world boxing council convention uh the wbc it's like the, the largest, uh, league for boxing and boxing is one of world's last global sports. You got like soccer, you got boxing and things like ping pong or something. Right. And I think tennis, uh, but, but yeah, so I go to this world boxing convention and it's literally just the best boxers in the world. And the whole reason I went to this thing is the president of the WBC is super connected. He knows like out of 185 countries in the world, he knows like 160 of the kings, prime ministers, presidents. And so just because he's a sports icon, sports figure, and they do deals with them. And so I'm like, dude, this guy can get us in.

And so I go like, dude, this guy can get us in. And, uh, and so I go to this thing, I meet this guy, hang out with him, do, do a couple meals with him. I'm hanging out with like Evander Holyfield. I'm hanging out with like all these like boxing legends, Floyd Mayweather shows up. We get a, we hang out for a couple minutes, get a picture like, and this is all behind the scenes. Like there's not a crowd for this. Like this is a WBC event. I think like there was like maybe 50 media that showed up, but then it was just like boxers and me. And like, dude, it was, it was like one of the craziest three days I've ever spent. Got some really cool autographs. But, but yeah, like those were just like some of the autographs. But yeah, those were just some

of the crazy things. Now, to back up, the reason why it was called Solgen Renewables was for this generator. It was a solar generator renewable, right? It was based off of the solar generator. And so we had so much confidence in the thing. The biggest mistake that we made, though, was that we didn't have product number two in our pockets. We came with one product. And when that didn't work out, it was like everything we had done, built, talked about was like bridges burned on. And so I think, yeah, I think if we would have come with other products, I mean, there's there's there's massive products across the world. There's projects always going on.

They're trying to build, rebuild, build bigger. And we just, we came with a one trick pony that didn't even have a trick. And, you know, the interesting thing, if I could go back and do it over again, like if I was in a position where we had not brought the one product, I wouldn't have just let the relationships burn. Yeah. Right. I would have come back and be like, hey, guess what? This product doesn't work. We're going to find you another solution.

Right. But I was still so naive in business and young in business and not like knowing what I know now. Right. Seven years later, I would have come back and mended those relationships instead of literally just letting them burn. And by letting them burn, I just walked away and stopped communicating with these people. I'm like, idiots. Like, dude, so well connected and we missed out on it. I think what was cool, too, we realized, like, if you have a product that can solve that big of a solution, or if you have a product that can solve that kind of issue, like the ability to go and connect with people is easy.

Right. You know, everyone comes with a product that like you know changes things a little bit but man if you're able to say i can i can change your your dependency on energy like you can go talk to world leaders like that and that was that was what we solve rich people's problems yeah right like you you can solve rich people's problems you can get there but even even more important like yeah you you've got to have that is like the belief that you have in it. Right. And so like your level of belief is the biggest limiting factor that's keeping you from networking to the top.

And that's really what we learned and really what was the springboard and the foundation to Solgen. And so a lot of you guys know kind of like that guys know kind of like the, that, that happened. And meanwhile, we hate living off of savings. So we were running some like dealers with installers in the solar world. Uh, Daryl and I went in February of 2017, we went and spent a month out in Rhode Island while Cole was still kind of pursuing the magic generator, uh, just to generate some cash. i think we both made six figures in one month uh working just knocking doors it was pretty crazy they had this crazy incentive going on um that that was that was kind of fun how many how many dudes did we have

piled into that thing um well the first house yeah oh my gosh i think we i think we had like 16 or 17 and and we so we rent this airbnb it literally has like we're in the second story of a home right it's got its own private stairwell it's got this big open like finished attic is essentially what it is like it's got you know like a vault like this and there's just like bunk beds lining that and then there's like three bedrooms it's super old it's got this little ghetto kitchen a little ghetto living room i still remember watching the super bowl that year uh there we had like got some lobsters yeah that's where you go to the grocery store you just pick out your lobsters fresh lobster right out they cook it for you right took took that thing home but dude we we were out there for like 30 days piled in this

group we're all married dudes right and uh still remember just like so many just incredible experiences it was like a bond that was created from those guys you know we had guys that ended up uh working with us uh you know robbie clyde uh helped uh found uh soljan uh randy munoz came on and sold with us later hayden crane uh came uh johnny mandolino who's now part of our group like there were so many different uh just cool uh cool relationships that we forged out there you know being away from your your spouse in like a foreign land because dude rhode island's a foreign land did you hear something crazy my like so when we started k2k alarms yeah that's when my wife had uh live yep and then when i moved to california like transitions out of alarms that's when we had

our next kid then when we start soldiering that's when we have the next mary wow that's great so it's like every time there's like this big transition we were having a kid at the same time yeah yeah it was always a trying point for our wives right like yeah yeah when i when i was going through bankruptcy it was literally right as we had our third child right like losing everything getting it all the same thing with with soljan right as right as we had our last kid uh so it is it is pretty wild how that goes that's stressful for i mean like i remember coming on and i remember like three babies getting popped out like within the first month like because you had you're having mary you're having and you're in utah at that time

you were having bruin crane was having madden pretty soon like was that just not like oh shiz like we got this has to work or i think for us at least from my perspective it's just like i mean that that was life man always put family first and like finances will take care of itself like i i've always been an overly confident person that, uh, whatever I'm going to do is going to be successful, you know? And because of that, I'm probably high, high in the night. Most people look at me as like some crazy person because of that, but I've never, I've never been too worried about that. I mean, I think it's, uh, yeah, I think it's definitely challenging, you know, like my wife, like she's pregnant, you know, at the end of her her pregnancy and I'm gone a lot.

I'm traveling. So, yeah, it definitely wasn't easy. Then we have a baby. We're moving, you know, so now we're transitioning and moving while. So to get to get clear on the whole situation, I'm living in Washington state. I just recently purchased my now home. Uh, we had, we had got it from a, uh, almost foreclosure. It was about to go to the bank. Uh, the previous owner was selling poppy, poppy flowers. I don't know if I've ever told this story on the podcast, but, uh, the previous owner of my house, um, they, uh, they were selling poppies by the pound, decorative poppy pods. They were number one on Google.

Him and his son were running this operation. They made a million bucks on like three acres of selling this stuff. And then the house gets seized by the FBI, all this different stuff. Long story short, he dies during the trial. His son dies during the trial. Kind of sketchy, to be honest, when you're involved in the drug trade, um, wife gets the house, never worked a day in her life, can't afford the taxes. And so before it actually gets foreclosed on by the state, um, I, I come in

and buy, buy the house. And so I'm living there remodeling this house while we're like working out in, uh, Rhode Island. I took time off to go out, uh, to Rhode Island. And then I come back and I continue doing this remodel and we're managing all this stuff. We're trying to start Solgen later that fall. I'm, I'm learning Facebook marketing, buying my first ever course, spending 2,500 bucks that I probably didn't probably didn't have or not to allocate towards something, but investing some of my last dollars into myself. So I live in Washington and Robbie comes to us and got this bright idea like, dude, we should start in Washington. There's this great incentive, got all this stuff. And I'm just like, dude, I'm the only one that lives in Washington.

And so I'm like, I'll run run it and so we we make a pact the four of us me robbie daryl and cole that you know we're gonna make a work in washington daryl and robbie are both willing to move at that point cole's not and so like these guys are working remote i'm launching it i'm doing interviews in my, my tiny office in my house that is missing a closet door where I keep all my guns. Uh, you know, and like literally interview, he's come in and I'm throwing a blanket over my guns to make sure that, yeah. So you think about it, right? So like Chris is living up here, we're traveling. I can't remember the schedule, but I remember, so I remember we started in November.

We're like, okay, by December, we need to have like X amount of sales, right? We didn't even think we'd have installs going in by then. And then I remember like thinking like, we don't have a clue how to do these installs. And there's just so many things we were trying to solve for. But it's also amazing how everything kind of came together too. Like looking back, it's like, oh, that worked out so well. Because, I mean, we came from the sales and marketing side of the business. We had never, ever even attempted installs or surveys or anything else.

And we're like, dude, we've got to hire somebody that knows what they're doing. But then it was like, we get a call. I get a call from Rick Fry. And he's like, hey, what are you guys doing? I'm like, well, we're trying to start this solar business. And it worked out. He came up and helped us get things started. And it was like he called me out of the blue. We had we had magic generators where we connected. And anyways, that was that was what helped us get started. And so, you know, he he had a background at being an electrician. And so he,

he started going down that road and we slowly began to figure out the game of like how surveys work, how installs work. Uh, we were showing up to jobs. Daryl and I were, uh, you know, we bought the first couple of box trucks that we were, we would go and pick up the equipment and we would take it to the jobs for the guys or, you know, we were the guys running back and forth. So we're doing office work. We're doing, we're taking equipment to, to job sites. We're doing sales in the evening, uh, because that was the only way that we were getting paid was a commission check. I mean, besides the sales, we didn't know what we were doing. Like we just didn't know we were figuring it out as we go. We had people to help us, but it was like, I can, I can attest to that too, from the early days. Like I can say in this, I'm hate kissing some butt, but I'm, I'm so good at it right now. But, uh, like, I don't know if a lot of, a lot of people like really understand, cause we've hired so many people over the years at Solgen. We've been able to work with so many great people. And a lot of, I mean, you're looking at 80% of the people who worked at Solgen

came from when we were in, we finally moved into our headquarters building. They didn't see the fruits of like your guys's labor in the early days. And one of my most distinct memories of like, wow, these guys are down and they're not just kind of hands-off owners. Like they're in it. There was this really upset customer. I know because I took the call in the office. I have core memories of the early days from this specific customer. Tell me it's Penny.

No, it wasn't penny sky man but uh this this customer was upset because we had to trench do some trenching from like her shop to her home or some something with her meter and all of all of our two crews at the time were doing stuff and we had promised her we'd get out there and we were dealing with so many issues at that time that we're trying to solve because we didn't know what we were doing i mean the guy running the office was pretty much me and i don't know what i'm doing levi's what 19 20 years old 20 years old at the time with a man bun at that time like i'm still figuring out my life and i have no idea what interconnection is or like what net metering is and so i'm trying to my best facilitate these calls and i'm like guys we got to figure something out like this customer's upset we've promised like help me help you and I remember it was Chris and Daryl

and Crane they go out to this customer's house and they backfill this trench for this customer just to make them because she was worried that her dogs were going to fall in this trench and stuff like that I still I still actually remember house. I remember the video that we took out there. I've actually used it on my social media of like us out there. When, when you're hearing these guys like talk about buying the box trucks and driving themselves, like I can witness as one of the first employees like there that I, that was one of some of my most core memories where i was really bought in because i knew that my ownership team was also out there doing the work with us i'm just shaking

my head thinking about we had like what was what was the number 18 or what was it 26 26 26 to complete oh i can see i still have that paper where we had all of them printed out on this giant piece of paper we didn't really have a crm that was really working at all so this is our first 26 customers and we had issues with every single one of them oh yeah and we had it took us months to get these all done with let me let me give you an example of some of these issues we had a lady by the name of penny sky mirror shout out to penny if you're watching um penny has three giant oak trees hold on let me start let me let me start this one off so this one was i remember chris calling me saying hey uh so-and-so's got a customer is one of our first customers so we're excited

yeah he's like it was uh who was the sales guy that used to distribute our leads what was his name um jason jason so let me give you even more backstory jason calls me and he's like hey i got this customer she's got some huge trees and um you know she says she will pay cash today and if anybody knows what cash today means in a new business, it's like you literally start salivating. He says she will pay 50% today if we will take down her three oak trees. Massive. Massive. I mean, we're talking like trunks this big, right? And so I'm like, huh.

Let me, I can't commit to that yet. So then I call up Daryl. And what? So you call me, you're like, hey, we got this deal. But we got three massive oak trees we cut down. And I don't understand what massive means at this moment. No, neither of us. We just know they're oak.

We just know they're trees. They're oak trees. They're big. Accordingly, they're supposedly covering the whole south side of our roof so like solar won't make sense without it so we're like immediately like okay cool let's solve the problem so we're problem solving and in the way i justify i'm like hey we want to become a full-fledged solar installer we've got to find solutions for everything we're gonna have to have our own in-house roofing we're gonna have our own in-house tree removal we're gonna have to have x y and z and it's like why no better time than today to start removing trees so i go and take probably

half of what we have in our bank account maybe not quite maybe 20 of our bank account go down to griggs uh hardware store and i'm like give me your two best saws actually before this this happens i call up uh who our lead installer is at the time his name is blaze i blaze dude do you know anything about cutting down trees well it just so happens i used to work for a tree removal company what you used to work for a tree removal company dude you think you can take these things down well let me take a look at it boss yeah oh yeah man i can get i can get those down but he had gear he had like he had like stuff to like climb the tree and cut him down like he was he had stuff where i'm like he's legit problem solved problem solved so we tell jason

dona uh we're like jason yeah dude sell it give us that 50 we need that cash we get the cash i go down to griggs i buy two huge chainsaws and i'm like blaze do your thing so yeah okay so so that's where so we had like this first off we buy this brand new enclosed trailer oh yeah right it is it is 3500 of most of the dollars that we have so that's what we use to like help like transport this wood that thing gets destroyed hold on let's back up guys when we talk bootstrap we're talking bootstrap we're talking credit cards not a lot of cash in the bank everything like that So like what that means is like we didn't buy trucks. We didn't lease trucks. We convinced new employees to use their own trucks, right?

So like Blaze has a truck, right, at this point. And he's like, dude, I'll put a Solgen power sticker on the back. Awesome. Dude, we will pay for your gas. And we're going to provide this sweet $3,500 trailer that we spent every dime to get. Right? Like, we don't have a box truck. We don't have any of this stuff.

Like, this is it. Yeah. And so then, so yeah, he cuts these things down. We go out to see the progress of it, right? It's like, okay, cool. And then he's like, done, right? Bro, when we get there uh no we we saw when it was like halfway done and we get there that's when we realized i was like dude these trees

are enormous huge i mean what in the world did we think we were doing blaze cut those things down you realize that he got them all to the ground those are heavy trees. Like, anyways, it was incredible what he did. But lesson learned. We spent, I think, close to $15,000. So this lady's system was $40,000. She had given us $20,000 up front. We spent close to $15,000 repairing her property. Okay, so this is how it went. So here she is.

Like, she's calling up. She's like, guys, there's, like, all this damage. You guys have ruined my roof. There's furniture that's been destroyed. My like she's calling up. She's like, guys, there's like all this damage. You guys have ruined my roof. There's furniture that's been destroyed. My fencing's been destroyed. My gates. We're like, man, you're being a little dramatic. Come on.

Yes, she was being a little dramatic, we thought. So she was calling the office constantly, right? She was pretty pissed, pretty upset, rightfully so. Hence why we still know her name, because we've literally had like 20,000 customers and we know this one. So finally, I'm like, you know what? I've got to solve this problem. It was just too hairy. So I go out there and I'm like, all right, let's make a list. I can take care of everything on this list. Then we're good, right? Because we still wanted to get paid. Oh, yeah. She still owed us the last $20,000 and she was holding that back.

Yeah. Right. And we had already invested in equipment, saws, removal. We'd already done some repairs, but we still needed to finish off this list just to get our last check. So I went, I sat down with her. I said, let's go through this list. You know, I started to realize how much damage we'd actually done. I mean, there was quite a bit. And so we made this list and I said, okay, I need to know that if I can, if I can take care of this list to your satisfaction, that we are good. There's nothing else that's going to be added. Like we were good.

And so we signed off on, I remember having her sign that piece of paper and then I just went to work. I built, I remember doing a fence, I had to build. So she had these, these, um, gates and she had, uh, she had four wooden gates or she had three wooden gates. They're all identical. We got destroyed.

We had to match it. So then I made, I made four cause the first one sucked, but I ended up making them, uh, in the shop. Cause of course we can't hire this crap out, dude.

Like we, so I made those. Then I like had to rebuild, had a calf of her shop, paint the shop. Then then i had to rebuild like we had someone else do it but we had to fix the roofing then we had to like there was just a list of things and and honestly like i really appreciate her after the fact because like realizing what she went through and the fact that she was able to work with us to to get it done but because we didn't know what we were doing man, we caused a,

there was a lot of challenges. But, you know, it showed early on, like, we were committed to taking care of our customers. Like, we loved our customers. Even though she was a giant pain in our butt, I would have probably been the same way if I was a customer. Anybody would have been the same way. Right, anybody. And she also taught us to say no to things, right?

Like, then on, we're like, no more tree like then on we're like no more tree removal if we're going to do tree removal it's always done through a third party that they're going to take the total like they're they're going to take the total liability this isn't on us solgene is not a tree removal company but i can still remember when i went to the bank to meet her to get the final check i remember like saying goodbye to a friend it was like talked to her so many times i was like well we probably won't see each other anymore but and you know you know here we are six years later talking about her on a podcast it's it it's amazing like how life happens but you know there's just like and you know the early days were full of all kinds of crazy mistakes like that, you know, because we didn't know what we were doing.

We got, you know, backed into a million dollar fine that was coming in from the state because one of the agencies was telling us that it was OK to do electrical this one way. And then in the same agency, but from a different location was telling it it wasn't. And so all of a sudden we're in a hard rock and a hard place. They're coming after us. It was like $5,000 for every proposal that we had generated. It was, it was pretty nuts. And I remember like the level of anxiety, but Daryl and I were feeling at this time.

Incredible. I've never had hot flashes. I literally experienced hot flashes where I would be like, my body would just like it was just like i'm like on fire i'm like like dude a million dollars a million dollars might have been a might as well been a billion dollars but this is where i'm at like i'm in utah i've been traveling right we're on credit cards paying for stuff i'm like ready to move the family and then it's like they shut us down right like we're talking to hard stop you guys show up

to another job site we will remove every license and never let you get it and they would like follow us around with trucks they were hunting us they were hunting us so we're shut down we know they're after us like we feel like we're being hunted and we have our employees that we're still paying because we got to keep them active, but there's no job, no income coming in. It was like, it was just one of those times. I'm like, my mind's about to explode. I do not understand how we're going to get through this. And when we talk hunting, like we're literally talking about guys going and asking people to perch on their roofs so they can look at us from two to three blocks away with binoculars to see how

we're doing this thing. I mean, like you're dealing with Gustavo whenever you're breaking into a new industry, right? You got a lot of, it's a good old boys club. People don't want to see you successful, especially when you're young, dumb and hungry. You're coming in, you're blowing things up with online marketing that nobody's doing, right? You're doing all these things. So all these like small mom and pop electricians, small mom and pop solar companies are like, we've got to get these guys out of business. They are coming in. These guys are out of towners. You know, I remember all the, all the different things that were floating around about us. Like these guys are from out of state. They're from California. They're from this. Like, dude,

I grew up in Connell. Get off me. Like, this is my hometown as much as yours and probably lived here longer. And, and so like, it was this crazy thing. We get slapped with this fine. And I remember we sat down with this guy over, over at a HVAC company. And, and he says, guys, just relax, relax like chill like everything's gonna be okay i'm gonna help you like so he helped us get through this and and this was another time where i just i was quickly reminded like the power of a mentor the power of somebody that's been through it yeah right and that's like the reason why like our founder acceleration program that we do is like so uh important it's like we've been through things and we can tell people that are going through things like calm down. This is a clear path forward. That's what this guy did for us. Like it was it was straight up like, hey, look, you can

use my license for the next couple of weeks. It's going to be painful. You're going to pay me a bunch of money, but you're going to be able to get through this. This is how you negotiate with L&I. It's laborers and industries in the state of Washington. This is what you can do. You're going to be able to get through this. This is how you negotiate with L&I. It's laborers and industries in the state of Washington. This is what you can do. You're going to reduce the fine. It's not going to be a million bucks. I just remember sitting down in his office and like just this calm came over me. I don't know if you remember this experience.

I mean, I had that experience and it was like one of the best lessons I ever learned because you hear people like, what keeps you up at night? I'm like, nothing keeps me up at night. And everyone's like, well, if nothing keeps you up at night, like, I don't know. I heard someone say something like that on your podcast. I'm thinking, I remember going through this experience where like it was so stressful and it was so like taxing on me mentally, emotionally. I remember my wife, like I couldn't even talk to my wife. I just like, didn't know what to say. And then afterwards, I'm like, I'm the biggest idiot. Like, like, I just worked myself up for nothing. Like, we survived, we lived another day. And it's like, we create these big

monsters. And they just they tax the heck out of us. And I don't like taxes. You know, I'm like, there's no reason to like, put that pressure on yourself. And so I realized, like, I'm gonna wake up every day with my put my boots on, I'm gonna I realized like, I'm gonna wake up every day with my put my boots on, I'm gonna go to work, I'm gonna figure out and solve problems. But I'm not going to carry that with me when I don't need to. I think it's really the power of like living in the moment. Right? Like, let me just take this thing one bite at a time. Because I'm going to keep biting, right? Like the sun's gonna come up tomorrow there's no reason like over emphasizing what good is gonna happen tomorrow or over emphasizing what bad is gonna happen tomorrow and same in the

past right like the past is the past i can't change it i can i can control this next bite this next step this next breath right like and and that's where when i get like really in the moment that's when i enjoy life and i experience less anxiety less stress so what's interesting is i used to like i used to have this like mechanism i'd say where i was like i would try to avoid confrontation or things that i knew like could be uglier or i don't know whatever i'd create there and then after that experience and maybe a few others i just decided you know what like i just want to get deep into whatever it is and so now like one of the things i do if i ever hear like a rumor about someone like oh yeah did you hear like levi's doing this this this like and usually they're like something

negative i'll just go ask like levi are you doing this like get it out of my way like it's either true or it's not true and i'll just hear from the source and i move on because there really is nothing worse than like dwelling on something and like it literally creates like a physical pressure in your brain and it hurts and it like stresses you out and like it's interesting because when something like that happens and then i forget like what caused me to be in that mood later in the day and i'm feeling i'm like dude what put me in this state of mind and i have to like go and root it out and like deal with it like in the moment so that i can like move on it's which is which is interesting because like how do you how do you share that with somebody like how do you teach that like do you have to experience that in order to

learn that lesson or is there a way to like hey don't stress out like how do you do that i don't think you can teach someone that i i think you can mentor through it but i'll think you can like teach it without yeah going through an experience is definitely i think there's two ways to learn a lesson go through an experience like you got to pay for it with time energy or money right like you can pay to go to learn these things it's learned a little bit differently but but it can be learned right or you got to put the energy in it or you got to experience the actual time going through it and so but i think for me like someone there, because I even remember your brother, just like calm down, guys. And then Kyle as well.

And it's like having people there to like just kind of remind you of where you need to be. And yeah, that's definitely been very helpful. So it's interesting. Like it's interesting. It's crazy. And I think a lot of people can relate that are business owners that are listening to this of how stressful it is to bootstrap and to get something off the ground, especially with it's not even just like a small business. This is a business business. I don't even know if that makes sense to people, but you're paying payroll already pretty quick into the business. You know, I don't even know if that makes sense to people, but like you're building, you're paying payroll already pretty quick into the business. Right. This wasn't a solopreneur.

Yeah, exactly. It's not just me creating a cookbook and selling. It's like you got people counting on you from an employee perspective. I have distinct memories of just observing like third party, not really knowing you guys very well at that time. Like even up to like the first year, like a lot of that year was just so crazy. There's so many things and deadlines we had to hit. And I, you guys talking about the million dollar fine. I remember watching you guys come in after some of those meetings. Cause if I, it was like multiple meetings you guys had. Oh yeah. Yeah. We had to to we had to go through like negotiations and then like like a court hearing that was like over the phone was we had to provide evidence of things that we

were doing and then like negotiate it down and like just hearing you guys come in and at that point you know four to six to eight months in the business like i don't have the relationship at that time with you guys that i do now so i didn't have as much to contribute but from employee house stressful made me because it's a new business. We're still working in our owner's garage. And I got these guys coming in that I barely know that promised me, you know, the world of the future. And, uh, they're coming in stressed now and I'm hearing them talk because we only had one room. It's not like you could have a private conversation. I'm minding my business, making proposals and how much that stressed me out here. like oh well shoot this l and i thing like

like it's stressing me out too i got a million dollar fine on so so actually before you jump in daryl tell me so this would cause you stress but you also talked about like the vision we were painting like how was that like how much did you believe in what we were doing so i had it's a great question i get i've gotten asked that before with like other employees because i think what is i i've been a part of a few other startups before so i had some experience i would consider myself relatively entrepreneurial too like i love like creating you know, I'm not working for the man or whatever. When I joined and you're pitching me about solar, I had, I grew up in Missouri where solar at that time was a figment of imagination. Like it wasn't a real thing. I am also coming back from a couple other failed, you know, personal sales ventures, entrepreneurial ventures.

I'm beaten up at this point. And when you're painting this picture of vision, it was I was really hesitant because I'd already done that to myself personally so many times like, oh, it's just going to be another failed one. Personally, when I signed up, when I was like, all right, let's do this. I was like, they got three months. That's how it always ends up. It's three months and you're out. So what kept you around? What I hate saying is how good, especially you, but our whole leadership team was at Painting Vision. Like there was something special. I think anybody who's worked at Solgen at some point, whether they had a great experience

or not, at some point they probably had belief because especially in the first, I would even say three years, we're still fighting a lot of battles. Like we didn't even get out of the garage for two to almost two and a half. Yeah. And to even convince somebody to come work in a garage is hard. And so I think like for me, what kept me going was it would be like, we called it the solar coaster, you know, like I'd be, I'd see the vision and for three months I'd be like, yep, I get it. I'm seeing the vision. The incentives are good. And then three months in, well shoot, the federal tax incentive might go away. What do we do? How do we pivot? Or the state incentive is going away. Crap. We don't

have a million dollar fine. There was always something where I'm like, well, I probably should keep my options open, but then there would be a conversation or like we'd have an office meeting and, or Daryl would come back from a Tony Robbins event or something, something would happen where we have a conversation and they were always very honest and very humble to the point where like, hey, look, this is just how it is, guys. If you want to stay, great. I promise if this works out, we'll take care of you. And if you don't, I don't blame you.

And I think that transparency for me of, you know what? We don't expect you to be here forever. And I think that bled through from you guys to me and what other like mid-level leadership was able to bleed into their employees and stuff there was a it's true there's a book i read i can't remember the book it had it is like a guy with a military background i want to say but anyways is is about business and how like your employees like are going to change jobs and even if that's changed jobs inside your company like they're going to change jobs. And even if that's changed jobs inside your company, like they're going to change, they want to grow. And it's like, you've got to help understand like,

where do your employees want to go? And can you get them there? Whether that's in your company or outside your company. And I remember thinking like, man, that's such a real conversation. It's like, what do you want to become? You know, and it's like, okay, if I can't get you there in my company, I'll get you there in someone else's company. To get there, though, you've got to develop these skills. And then all of a sudden, you know, now you're bought into developing these skills in my business, which brings me value. And I'm willing to help you develop those skills so that you can then move up to where you want to go, whether that's in my company or outside the company. So now we have a real relationship, a real conversation around what you're in it for and what I'm in it for.

Yeah. So, I mean, which which goes to actually in the culture guide that we sell for twenty nine bucks on my Instagram. It talks about like a culture of transparency and a culture of trust. Like ultimately employment is purely a a balance of trust, right? We've got to eliminate this culture of like a slavery mindset where like, I own you as, as an employee and you have to be loyal to me, right? Like this is family. This is it. Like, no, like at the, at the end of the day, like if I'm not earning your trust as the employer, right. Or vice versa, then we've got to end the relationship and really when you operate from that level of like i've got to continue to provide opportunity and value for an employee and vice versa they got to be paid in money in culture in opportunity and everything else

and that continues to be an equitable trade right like people will stay loyal like they then then you actually create real trust and and and and and eliminate this this whole like ownership and and the the beauty of it is like because of it we never really lost any star players yeah like trust is i think is the core word that sticks out to me with what you just said, because I think it goes both ways. Like, obviously, from an employee perspective, I have to be able to trust my leadership that they're going to take care of me. They're going to lead me down to the promised land, you know, whatever. But what you're kind of to speak on what you're saying about trusting both ways, like for whatever reason, you guys trusted me. Like, I'm a child. I'm a baby. I was 20 years old, three months into the

business. And I remember exactly how my career progression started was my first role at Soldier was to make proposals. That was the only thing really. I had put on my resume that had a social media and marketing background, which is true. And I remember in our interview, Chris was like, hey, we're going to start you up proposals, but it seems like you're passionate about marketing, social media and whatnot. We're going to eventually get you there. Cause Chris is like, I'm doing it all right now, but I'm going to have to pass the torch off at some point. I was like, cool. So I had some career progression. I'm like, I understand if I kind of suck it up for a while, I just do a good job. I can eventually get to something where I'm more passionate about. So I was like, all right, I'm going to just be the best proposal designer

I can be. And I, I was, I mean, to this day, I will die on this hill than I was. And I still am. And we, and you know, it's funny whenever we got in like a pickle, it'd be like, bring in the Southpaw. Levi, I know you're running this whole division, but we are backed up on proposals. Dude, proposals. We need you to do another four hours. I've had to do that too many times. But I remember I'd always compete with – we had several other proposal designers that would come in and out. And I would always be like – it was a pride thing that I was like, nope. I was their first full-time proposal designer.

I refused to not still be the best. But that was my job. And a couple months into the business, and I would always clear the queue every day. There was never a doubt that the queue wasn't cleared when I was doing it, that it freed up time for me. And Jake Ellsworth walked in, and it was just me and one of our other employees back at the time. He was like, I need help with something.

And I won't get into the politics of the situation, but Becca looked at me and I was like, I'll do it. Because I knew at that point, nobody else was going to. And it was to help figure out inspections for L&I. And I was like, I don't know what L&I is. I just barely moved to Washington. What is an inspection? What is electrical?

Like, what is any of this? I know proposals. And that I've figured that piece out and kind of helped bring some value there and it just compounded where they're like well he figured this out so i guess we'll dump on interconnection i remember that conversation i'm filling out electrical permits and inspections and you daryl rick jake crane all in. It's just me in there. And you're like, all right, we're buying brew cheese for everybody. Brew cheese. Levi, you need to help us figure out interconnection.

And I was like, what's interconnection? You guys were like, we don't really know either. We're going to figure this all out together. And I'm calling these utility companies. I'm like, yes, I'm Levi. I'm an engineer here. You're like, you know, I need to figure out your interconnection process. What's interconnection?

I'm like holding the mute button. I'm like, guys, I don't know what they're talking about with freaking 240 volt, you know, 400 milliamp panels and like, what's going on here. So anyways, that compounded over time to where like, I never felt like you guys didn't trust me to get something done. And I think that's so important from an ownership to an employee or leadership or management that I felt like I belonged. I felt like I brought value. And that's a huge key reason to like why I stayed for so long and why I enjoyed my time. I mean, if you want to know the truth, we didn't have an option. I think one of the things that we realized, right, there's like three directions anyone goes, right?

You either grow with the business, the business outgrows you or you outgrow the business, right. When you outgrow the business, like you're, you're looking for another job, right. That could be, you outgrow the culture, you outgrow the position, you outgrow the pay or something like that. Um, well, we realized we saw a lot of those people like you growing with the business where it was like, we don't know the next step. Can you help us figure it out? And we had so many people. That's where you really connect with people and you start to build trust because you're like, okay, I can see how this person reacts in a situation that they have no clue.

It's when you have no clue and you have to figure things out, you start to see true colors of people. And that was one of the things we saw with you. I mean, we moved you around so many times i i think that's a good point too it it i i worked like my first official job when i turned 16 i was a cook at bob evans and if you know about bob evans man bob evans is a midwest staple um that's just like a restaurant so I was a cook there when I turned 16. That was my first like official like legal job or whatever. And they pitch you on like this vision of okay, over time, you'll eventually be the top chef in 10 years or whatever at the restaurant. Like this expectation of we want you here forever, like you're saying like this undying loyalty that

wasn't ever earned for whatever reason. But you guys were always very clear with me and other people. Like, we want to teach you whatever and you get out and you go chase your dreams. And it was always really hard because my position had changed so many times. With any startup, it's like that. And from an employee perspective, like if you're a part of a startup, you just have to kind of swallow that pill and realize like if this is where you want to be, you believe in the vision. You have to be OK with it, even if you don't want to. And over time, like I thought I was going to be VP of operations and this was my path. And three months that changed, you know, then I was in sales and I moved over here. And by the end of my soldiergen career, I'd eventually moved on

to what Chris had originally promised me. Visionary baby, let's go. Down the road, it came true where I was able to find a home in marketing where I thought I was able to really excel, bring a lot of value and kind of fit into my niche. But it goes back to you guys were able to trust me and trust of other trust of others of many other key players that were at solgen um that found a lot of success love it dude what what are some of you guys's uh like biggest core memories like i have different things written down here like uh you know the spike ball that we would play on a regular basis or even like the Christmas party. There's some controversy over that.

There is some controversy. The actual winners of the championship. Let's go. Come on. Let's go. Actual winners. Actual winners. Daryl likes to make up rules when he plays.

He literally will make up rules like, oh, we're playing best of five. I know you beat us best of three, but... Let's just say, if you believe in loser's brackets, you're a loser. Man, you guys sound like Seahawks fans over here. In what real sport is there a loser bracket? Never.

Never. I have no idea what you guys are talking about. We won the championship. You came through the losers rackets. And then that's how we played. It's cool. So the fact that you lost to us. Well, you shouldn't have been there because you lost first.

No, but off off spike ball. So we used to we used to play all kinds of spike ball. Like it got like uncomfortably like distracting from a standpoint of like sometimes the installers would show up after a job and we'd be up all the whole office we'd be playing spike ball um but yeah my wife got tired of it because we had like worn rings in the yard of where we would just go and there would just be a constant flow of like four people out of the office but it's also part of like the culture that we created of like do your work have some fun do your work yeah and and so like you know there was stuff there was stuff like that was awesome i mean for me is like the potluck parties the christmas parties going through covid like there's so many parts were fun so fun uh moving out of the garage

that was a core memory these fetchers like okay so i'm in paris i'm speaking at an international entrepreneur event it was pretty cool and i got me and my wife and like at this point we're two and a half years in in the garage we had bought land to build our national headquarters i think eight months into the business. So we had already we already had like engineered plans. We were still working on kind of finalizing stuff, but we knew that it wasn't. I think we'd already broken ground at this point. Yeah, we had because because the build for the headquarters took about a year and a half.

And so we had already built we already broken ground and everything. And so we were trying to squeeze out every last day we potentially could in the headquarters, at least so I thought. And it was extremely hard to find a short-term lease. So I'm off in Paris, having a good time speaking. I'm gone for like five days. Meanwhile, these fetchches go and negotiate a lease and and start moving out while

i'm gone and like it was a pretty quick turnaround too if i remember when you guys started kind of shopping around a little bit no let me let me explain the the the perspective over here so yeah it's a different perspective than mine for sure so chris if we could spend the night every night and then stay and work chris would have it like chris wants to party and work to never stop yeah it's true and so like i mean everyone should have a bed at the office and so like i just like are the buildings getting packed with people and then i walk in and they're talking about putting together a um or buying like um mobile homes or like oh yeah we were gonna do like a single wide in the parking lot of my house oh my gosh yeah so so that we had more space the minute i heard that i'm like i'm done with this like i'm not i'm not standing for this anymore

this is ridiculous and the story that i kept getting told was like we can't find short-term leasing and i'm like dude all right i'm looking i'm gonna find a spot and that was the case for for a long time well i found one pretty quickly like i didn't know what they were looking for but what was actually really cool was you know we had what's really cool is looking at some of the spots we looked at right we always drive by these buildings like remember we thought we could fit in that and we ended up finding i found a spot that we could move into and it worked perfectly with like us um having to move out in a few months or like in nine months or something and initially so it had a upstairs and downstairs it was 8 000 square feet upstairs 8 000 down initially released upstairs and then and for the last few months we we did both so it was it was

it was such a great setup i think we ended up like we signed 11 month lease ended up being there 13 months so chris you can thank me because that's that allows no it was it was it was a good it was a good thing like the the reality was is i was just like emotionally attached to the garage right like um i had i had i was infatuated with the idea of like, Apple built out of a garage, Google built out of a garage. And, and frankly, it was just great walking across the street to see my wife in any moment of the day. But, but yeah, we ended up moving out of the garage. And it was like, one of my two most depressing points in my life, like, where it was just like, I didn't even want to go in

the garage anymore like i i there was a year span that i didn't step inside the garage at my at my own house um because like it made it would it would cause for like uh tears to well up in my eyes just uh just like all the memories that we had created there. And, and, uh, and so it was like, it was like a mother giving birth and, and like, it was gone. And my baby that, that, uh, that I'd like sacrificed so many years for, and so many nights and weekends of my life. And like, because I, I would be out be out there you know 12 hours a day and uh so yeah it was it was it was tough it was it was an emotional time for me here's what's cool though right if you think of like how things play out right so we we we're still in the garage and

that's when we started to build the sales floor right and then we move i'm trying to think when did we move what month was that it was february yeah february february and then we move. I'm trying to think, when did we move? What month was that? It was February. Yeah, February. February, and then COVID happened right after that. No, it didn't. A year later. It was a year later?

Yeah, a year later. It was a year later. Oh, no, no, no. It was a month later. You're right. It was a month later. So we started the call center. We moved in a spot. Sales floor.

It's not a call center. Sales floor, sorry. And then COVID happened, right? And what was crazy about covid was the the all the changes all the changes with the sales floor how fast that blew up right and we just had the space for it it was like immediately we started no it was it was divine it was for sure by divine nature for perspective for those to understand the real growth of physically why we had to move. We started like we've, you heard 400 square feet concrete, one room, we had a utility closet that

had a fridge in it. And that was our office. From there, we eventually in the shop had like kind of two other hubs in the shop. It was like, it was like two open bays that were studs and everything nothing finished so one finally after you know six months or so down the road we're like okay we gotta expand out maybe we should put some carpet in here you know stuff like that we turned the utility utility closet into a conference room and then we now we had a place to do interviews now we yeah a real place and then we turned in the bay right next to it to additional office space. And I think we got up to like 22 people between those two. And we were like, dude, this is crazy.

That was the first time we had felt like, I think, real growth. It was like tangible at that point that we were growing. I think I think what's cool about the garage was just how like we had a spot. I mean, that's that's not your normal garage. Right. I was like, we were able to start with this one small office space, expand into another, expand into another. And we just like building. Yeah. It was interesting. So the shop is 3,500 square feet. 400 of it was finished ish. You had cement floor with drywall.

Eventually we finished off all 3,500 and we did a little addition um and if any ellen i people are watching it was permitted um we we did a we did an addition uh that uh had two little bathrooms in a kitchen right like that was the only expansion we made to the garage when i tell you guys that we didn't have any bathrooms any place place to put our food, we were going into Chris's personal home to use the restroom. The day we had our own bathroom in the office in the kitchen in there, we thought we made it. That was a year and a half in, right? So literally for the first year and a half and especially like the last six to 12 months, it was a constant stream of employees just walking over my wife, a saint we had. So then finally we finished out the next day and then, uh, the kind of like back

garage part. So it was fully finished at this point in February of 2020. And we had over 50 people in that place and it was tight. We started our sales uh floor is loud in there you can't take any customer calls because it's so loud you can't take any you know sales calls because it's so loud we can't have interviews because i mean because it's all so tight together that it was a it was a need we had to get out of there some point yeah i remember i remember thinking like chris is i was like i could just see you guys building like putting trailers in and then adding on to that. All I saw was this like massive compound. Legos on Legos.

But here's the craziest thing. So me and my wife were actually out by the shop in our car last night and my phone connected to the shop internet and it was being slow and i look at her last night and i'm like babe can you believe that this internet supported 53 computers and 53 cell phones and a full virtual video sales floor like how like dude that is divine intervention like i don't know whatever else miracle in our whole company it really is like dude that was god looking down and like i'm gonna give you more bandwidth because this 40 a month uh residential internet that you're getting through some ghetto satellite thing from the neighbor from the neighbor like like dude that there's no other explanation than god like i don't we are in such deep pasco like farm fields no if you the moment you stepped

outside the shop no internet no calls no nothing um it was crazy what really really is wild like you think you think about all that um man i mean just so many men best memories like some of my favorite memories were like you know we as we slowly engineered the the uh the picture of the new building right we'd post it on the wall and be like hey this is what we got to look forward to i remember it's sitting above six months six months that's what we'd always say it'd always be six months away um but eventually we got there we finally got there i have a a pretty funny core memory memories uh all of our years that i could remember um up until maybe like our last year or two we had always had city league sports that we would sign up for and we'd always joke that well yeah

what was what i what did i always tell the people chris would always say that the only reason we started a company so we could recruit for city league sports that's kind of flag football softball and stuff and we were good and our first year we weren't we were so bad well it's because we had to recruit installers yeah so uh but i i do remember i think one of my favorite memories of when i think i actually earned probably daryl's respect was i can't remember it was the first season or the second season i think it was the first but uh we were like okay we had done these practices for flag football. And all this stuff. We'd done workouts together, like we're ready to go. And in one of the games, Robbie, I think

was playing quarterback. So it would have been our first or second year, he would throw it to you, he would dump the ball out to you. And you kept throwing it to me. And the throws were either too short or not quite there. Oh, easy, easy. No, no, no. I got to tell you how it is. Because the play just won't work out ever.

And I remember at one point, I was so fed up because we were getting smoked in that game. I was so fed up with the extra pass. I was like, Chris, you got to stop throwing me the ball. And Chris was yelling back. It works. What else am I supposed to do here in this moment? And me and Chris are kind of like yelling at each other, like in that in a couple of those moments. And then we end up losing the game, I think. And the other team was like clapping. They're like, Oh, yeah, they're fighting with each other, whatever. And then we lost and it was no big deal and then i'm driving home to go back home and daryl calls me on the way home and he's like he's like dude good game out there i was like what are you talking about he's like no when you yell that chris that was dope he's like most people are scared to yell at chris or like tell him how it is and you're a 20 year old kid you yell that chris for for making that so he's like that's respect good work he's like that was awesome he stood up for yourself because i was like i was getting so tired of like even even robbie like robbie's like a

phenomenal quarterback in high school but he needs like a line he's a pocket you know like receivers like we're playing scrap you know that's not like scrap is like you're just running around with your head cut off and you're trying to like make a play, you know? And so I remember it was just like, it was fun. Those are so fun. Those games are so much fun together. You had so many good memories. You know, I think about like some of like the pivots and the, that made soldiering great, like November, November, or sorry, October,

2019. I still remember. I give, I give a map priest a call. I'm like, November, or sorry, October, 2019. I still remember I give, I give Matt Priest a call. I'm like, Matt, I got this great idea. We need to create a virtual sales floor. We had somewhat talked about it. I'm like, dude, no, we need to go all in on this. Like I'll go recruit my brother. I'll go keep bringing some people in. Let's do this.

November, 2019, we launched the sales floor. You know, four months later, COVID hits. Like that's divine intervention yeah the fact that by that point we had already built like a sales floor of 20 guys in in a matter of like four months and the other the other interesting thing is that the same year december of that same year matt comes to us matt's involved in a lot of divine intervention the guy needs to listen to spirit more i guess but uh uh he comes he comes to us he's like guys um i i know this is probably not anything big i remember we're sitting in the conference room in the shop and he's like i know this is

probably nothing but there's like this disease that's happening over in china right now this is december 2019 like covet 19 is called because it actually started in 2019 that nobody knows about right like they didn't hit the u.s until march 2020 matt comes to us in december he's like it's probably nothing but it might impact the way that we're importing product well shipping right because you have the chinese new years and then we have this so he was like trying to like figure out like what do we got to do right he's like he's like i think we should actually stock up on panels like what he's like yeah like let's spend like three quarters of what we have in our bank account to bring in more panels like dude that doesn't

make sense but dude if you feel inspired let's's do it. Dude, we do it. And we get three to four months ahead of every single other person in this whole supply chain. And if you guys remember, supply chain during COVID, disastrous. Like ships weren't shipping, containers weren't, like there was no available containers, ports were shutting down. Those four months saved us so much in the middle of COVID of actually being able to get panels on the roof for most companies in the solar space were not able to participate. We had two things, right? The call center, which you mentioned in like inventory. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?

The sales floor. Thank you. Like the thing that thing is crazy is like the timing on both of those were so looking back, you couldn't have done it a different time. And it's just like miracle after miracle happened in our business. And, you know, some could say it was God. Some kids say it was luck. Some could say a bunch of different things. And like the, the reality is God is involved. Uh, when you're,

when you're looking for success, you're constantly looking for that red car, you're going to find it, you know? And, and so like for us, we'd gone through so many different things in our lives of failure after failure, after failure that like different things as they lined up, like it was because we tried so many things because we, and then, you know, and I mean, it was one of the wildest experiences and we can go into deep and I think we should probably kick this to another episode, but cause we've, uh, we're, we're a lot deeper in this episode than most, but guys like, um, pleasure, like, thanks. Thanks Levi for giving us your perspective, man, for, for the years that you, you, uh, you know, worked your butt off over at SoulGen.

It's been a lot of fun. I'm super excited for you to be a part of the new venture. It's dope. I'm excited, too. So Levi is coming in as an equity partner in the Founder Project, which is pretty awesome. I mean, this guy is scrappy. He knows his stuff. For those of you guys that haven't dove deep into what the Found project is we run a what's called founder acceleration three times a three times a month

the first second and third tuesday of every month we get together with entrepreneurs we do hot seat we do consulting we share experiences we bring in outside guests this last uh one we had richard parker on who's a direct consultant for the Ray Dalio family. Like, I mean, we're talking top, top, top, top tier for 500 bucks a month. You can't get a cheaper consulting group out there. Also, we do masterminds in the very back end. We do consult for equity. So if anybody is looking to bring on top tier consultants, most of our focus is in the home service, home product space.

So go ahead to my link tree on Instagram. You can find more there. But guys, appreciate your time. Thanks for being a part of it. Until next time.