From Bright Ideas to Hard Lessons: Insights from My Cleantech Startup Journey

In the early 2000s, I worked as a mechanical engineer developing solar trackers and concentrators for a startup. Our goal? To build a commercially viable rooftop tracking solar concentrator. We had a team of tremendously smart and talented people who devised some clever and innovative designs. In our eyes, we were poised for success.

The only problem was that all that shine made us go a little blind. We didn’t realize we were about to stumble into some hard lessons—all of which I’m about to share.