Author

Steve Ross

Clean Tech Start-Ups — How Investors Can Help With Business Strategy

As someone that is passionately involved in getting clean tech businesses off the ground I can’t help thinking that some of the businesses in this space are missing a trick or five?

For the last few months I have been working with a renewable energy business that is crammed full of engineering and proven IP excellence, they have a strong business model, off-take agreements and contracts in place – an investors dream. But it is lacking one key ingredient – and that is business soul. The emphasis on the business is – due to the background of its people – driven on a project management and large corporate structures, they are keen to debate sign-on fees, investor restrictions, pension funds, multi-layered structures and confining operating procedures based on what they know.

08/11/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Where have all the clean tech deals gone?

written by Steve Ross

I, like millions of other social network type people, have a LinkedIn account, where I can tell the world where I am currently at and where I have been. It also allows me to link up with other clean and green minded people via group networks. Without it my life would be duller to the point that I would not have got into blogging and be writing regular wibble like this. Like many others I am a member of numerous groups that my in-box can confirm, having a daily seizure with all of the discussion points raised – which I scan read over breakfast each morning as it gives me a chance to scope potential market shifts and deal opportunities as part of my regular business development mantra.

03/19/2009 2 comments

Renewable Energy

Employment of the Strongest

written by Steve Ross

With all the discussion surrounding the US economic stimulus package, which will nudge into Europe and the rest of the globe in the coming months, I have been tracking the job boards on sites like CleanTechies to see if I can spot a trend in the sort of people that are being attracted to clean tech organisations around the world.

03/05/2009 7 comments

Renewable Energy

Sending the White House back to its roots

written by Steve Ross

Amongst the hoo-ha of the US presidential inauguration I noted a small article stating that the new President is getting some pressure to turn the White House lawn into a vegetable patch all be it a somewhat large one, under the spiffy banner of eat the view. Putting aside for the moment critical considerations this would create, such as defining if broccoli was patriotic enough to be planted, and if a composter would be seen as a threat to the nation. There may be mileage in taking this idea a step further to demonstrate his by now well documented and stated clean tech commitments.

02/02/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

A would be (CleanTech) expert replies…

written by Steve Ross

Crikey!! I seem to have started a bit of a debate about the validity of the word expert and its use in our courageous clean tech world. It appears that some of you are happy in your expert skin. While others are more coy and think of the term as a passing trend, which makes sense in that if you are currently the only one with a bit of an answer then you my friend are most definitely it for the time being – whether you like it or not.

01/19/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Its Venture Capital Jim, but not as we know it….

written by Steve Ross

Business Week recently published an article on advice for start-up trying to attract venture capital and it made interesting reading on a couple of fronts.

First of all as I am sure a lot of you are aware the pool of venture funds has got smaller, a lot smaller additionally the opportunity for concept or speculative deals is near enough impossible to fund and finally on the plus side, if a business asks for less (sub 5m) and manages to succeed in a bear market, it has a very good chance of survival.

01/12/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Green Departure: Tough times for the CleanTech industry

written by Steve Ross

In the last few weeks both Shell and BP have pulled out of developing off-shore wind developments in the UK due to better incentives and support from the US government in the form of tax breaks and incentives.

The same is true for Spain where in the last few years the country has been unprecedented growth in wind farms along the majority of the eastern part of the country. Then just as the country was seeing clean and green as a way forward – they remove the tax break for further development. Almost overnight the work stops, new planned sites are abandoned and people are laid off.

01/06/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Are you a CleanTech “expert”? (Or: Thoughts on being an “expert” in a fairly new industry…)

written by Steve Ross

I was at a drinks party last night and in conversation was asked what I did so I explained that I worked with Clean Tech businesses. To which I was introduced to the next group as an expert, which got me worried, very worried.

The very definition of what is an “expert” can be is somewhat confusing, Wikipedia for example describes it as part of its definition as:

“An expert can be, by virtue of training, education, profession, publication or experience, believed to have special knowledge of a subject beyond that of the average person”

Which automatically begs the question, so who is an average person?”

12/29/2008 25 comments