Today we’d like to introduce you to David Murray.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In 2012, my partner and I were looking to diversify our portfolio professionally with a business model that would be meaningful and exciting over a long period of time. We identified a tremendous opportunity with the inception of Greenspire to “lower the cost of living in a sustainable way”. I was in Los Angeles on a business trip for another company that I operate, but luckily met a successful General Contractor whom was making headway in the Clean-Tech space with an interesting company. I saw the opportunity immediately and within days made one hire, and explained the vision and we built from there. I was personally flying back and forth from Chicago weekly, where I was living at the time, to build the business in the Los Angeles market. We were learning about sustainability, energy consumption, utility programs, etc. Once I realized we had something that was growing very fast, I re-located to LA full time and pushed the acceleration button fast.
Initially we built a lead-generation platform, which had various marketing channels to go direct to consumer with the effort to save money on their utility bills working with various utility programs. As time progressed, we pivoted into a complete sales-origination model, predominately residential solar systems, and continued to build the business gaining more control over the customer experience. Like any business, we had the desire to operate stronger, therefore we converted the model to a contracting model where we became a licensed contractor, which sub-contracted construction services to multiple certified channel partners state/nation-wide. We are proud that we currently operate as a fully-integrated contractor employing internal construction crews managing the consumer experience starting at customer acquisition all the way through post-installation services for residential; energy efficiency, solar energy, home automation, electric-vehicle charging, and battery storage (partnered with Tesla).
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Like any business, it has had its ebbs and flows. I think we have experienced three sets of core issues that we have successfully resolved, but would transparently list as follows;
Leveraging talent while growing: Early on, we hired a lot of young talent and primarily promoted from within to create opportunity for growth. We still do this, but in the early days, our management was inclusive of this model and it created some road-blocks and operational capacities. As the number of employees and revenues increased quickly, it was clear we needed to infuse additional experienced management to keep the business growing responsibly. We did a poor job explaining this and when time came, certain team-members resented the company rather than understanding what was best for the business. Looking back, I would have made pivots sooner and explained why more directly to make sure everyone understood why they had value and empowered them. We now have become a very tech-driven business that is completely merit-based. I am so thankful for our world-class executive team that has provided so much insight and created so much change for the better for all of our team members.
Clear mission and core-values: Like any fast machine, without the proper controls and guidance, you can lose control. Once we operated over 100 employees with 70% of them remote, we found it very hard to maintain that company culture due to geographical distance and significantly less face-time with each member. The management team saw this issue as a major priority, and in 2017 restructured middle-management to focus on our 5 major core values directly with each team-member; Personal growth, Level of Excellence, Having Fun, Customer Service, and Ethics & Integrity. We have been blessed with our HR team to have the ability to measure these 5 values effectively and verify that every department at any level has these values reviewed and satisfied to keep the morale and culture of the organization at peak. This has allowed us to take so many more calculated risks and grow with the right people faster as each and every team member clearly understands their purpose and will do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission.
Unstable industry trends: Upon entrance to the industry, one of the assumptions we made was how easy it would be to service our customers with our mission. We assumed everyone would be open to solar energy and making their home more comfortable. Little did we know, hundreds of other companies aggressively and unethically surfaced the market and turned consumers off. We now had to find a way to capture an audience and then scale it. Once we were able to do so, we were hit with non-stop friction with contractors, finance companies and distributors with financial issues. Collections issues became standard and solvency of some of the partners was becoming an increasing risk. We changed our model and become the entity with the financial control and created a channel of accounts payable rather than worrying about accounts receivable. To this day, we have been able to organically build and self-fund the business without any financial leverage or debt applied to the balance sheet.
Greenspire – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Greenspire is an integrated Home Service Technology company that focuses in assisting homeowners lower their cost of living by financing, developing and fulfilling various residential products and services. We specialize in creating programs such as; Energy Efficiency packages, Solar Energy, Battery back-up storage, Electric Vehicle charging and Home Automation.
We are known for our award winning staff who is constantly recognized as a Best Place to Work by Glassdoor (#38) and Inc. Magazine (Top 50) and a Fastest Growing Company by Inc. (#9) and LA Business Journal (#3) most recently. We are most proud of the team-members that we have been able to identify, train, retain, and learn from. Our culture is second to none and absolutely stands out as the heart and soul of the organization. I have never been a part of something that has such a large amount of people that are aligned with mission and values, but furthermore, have such collaboration as team with a positive attitude and solution-oriented spirit. It is truly humbling to come to work every day and be surrounded by such aces.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
If you research the definition of “success” and you’ll read, “The attainment of wealth, position, honors or the like,” and synonyms like “accomplishment,” “prosperity” and “fame.” I personally have nothing against the word success or even its traditional definition, but let’s call it what it is, a benchmark for performance. I feel that metrics are important and have their place, specifically in business, but if you’re looking for personal fulfillment, it’s not likely that traditional measures of success are going to get you there. A big reason we entered the clean-tech space was to help people save money and we knew that if we were able to spread the mission and execute, success would likely follow. Success being happiness. Success seems to be about what we think will make us happy, but you can do everything correct in the pursuit of capturing traditional success, but happiness and personal fulfillment are not guaranteed. In my eyes, if you are happy then you are successful.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3130 Wilshire Blvd #200
Santa Monica, CA 90403 - Website: www.greenspire.com
- Phone: 310-477-7686
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenspireLLC
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/greenspirellc
- Other: https://www.inc.com/profile/greenspire
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