The transcription of the video is below.

Intro to QBi Solutions & its Origin Story

Kerim: Hi everyone. This is Kerim, Kerim Baran with SolarAcademy. Today, I am here with two key principals of QBi Solutions. Santiago Estrada, the CEO and a leader based in Spain and Madrid, and Ethan Ehlers, who is the Business Head for the US, based in Colorado. We are going to talk about a really unique software solution that has a unique story, and that is solving a big problem for solar developers and asset managers, especially on the utility side. And we’re going to hear about their journey, their products, solutions, and more. 

So with that, Santiago, maybe I should ask you about the roots of this company, how it started and why it is kind of a special start, what it does.

Santiago: Thank you very much Kerim, for having us. It is really a privilege and I’m very happy to be here, discussing with you and with my colleague, Ethan. Yeah, you mentioned it. It’s the story of QBi, I think, it’s quite a unique success story. You’re very much familiar with how startup companies scale up, and they become favorites or champions of the industry.

I think we were born with that, I would say, golden standard from day one. You know the story of the founding of QBi, back in 2018, I wasn’t part of the company back then. I joined a year and a half ago, but the founders, they were both working at the company that most of our, and the people that will be listening to us, hopefully, know about which is SunEdison.

So at the time, SunEdison was a massive company and they were facing a lot of challenges, mostly handling data and handling processes on that massive structure that the company became. So as good friends at the time, they were mandated and they said, “Hey guys, we need a solution that doesn’t exist in the market, that connects with every bit of the process, with every bit of the technology, and puts everything together, so that we can manage the development, the construction, the financing, the sellout of the products and the operational assets, once they are – all from one platform that connects with everything that we have and our collaborating agents do have. Okay, that doesn’t exist, so let’s create it.”

We know the story of SunEdison, how it ended, but that was not the end of the idea. So the founders of QBi continued to develop what they started back then. So what happened basically is that this idea that was in the garage, in a way, two guys coding some stuff, they were called from the previous colleagues that they had in SunEdison at the time. 

Most of them, they ended up in another very important and very nice company – owners, investors, asset managers and developers for solar and of solar in the US and not only in the US, but in Europe as well. 

So one of those were the Goldman Sachs friends working for renewable power and asset management company of Goldman. And they said, “Guys, we know what happens when you don’t have all these things in check from day one. We are going to invest big in the business, so we don’t want to have to make the same mistakes as we may have done in the previous. So what you guys are doing could be interesting for us.” 

So the push and the backing of no less than Goldman Sachs in the US, this is how QBi started to happen, to create what today is, and we’ll talk about in much, much more detail what QBi is, later on today. 

But I like to tell the story of how the company was created, which is  solving a real need in an industry that was becoming big, complex, and fast-growing from the eyes of the experts.

So we at QBi are experts in renewables. We were born as experts in renewables, but we are also a true digital technology-creating company, and with the help of the initial backing of Goldman and all the clients that came in while we were developing, and as I said at the beginning, it’s a very special story from us here at QBi is that the company became a commercially successful company, without the need of a marketing sales pitch or whatever. 

We were simply doing a great product backed by great sets of professionals, that the industry knew about and they wanted in. So three, four, five years in, we had a fantastic product that we have today with a very nice set of customers, but interestingly enough, we didn’t have to go through these steps that you need to think about, how to market this and how to sell this, and we need to do the pitch. No, no. We were mainly focused on the product. So it’s a very interesting story in my opinion. 

The problems that QBi solves. Ethan’s previous experiences prior to QBi and why he joined QBi 

Kerim: That makes a lot of sense because having been in the solar industry myself for 15 years, I’ve seen a lot of companies go up and down.

I mean, there’s obviously the product companies on the panel, inverter side and so on, where there’s a lot of shifts that happen on technology that can bring your company up or down, but then there are a lot of companies on the integration side of the business in terms of building assets in the world, and I’ve seen a lot of residential or commercial-focused companies that grow really fast, but then dismantled, mostly because their processes are not tight. One thing that helps tighten that process internally in companies is software because software is codification of processes, and if you don’t get that right from the first day, you can really suffer later.

And now that renewable energy development and asset management is pretty much a well-known process, most places in the world and pretty standardized having a great software solution from day one, makes a lot of sense for these large developers, and it is smart for Goldman Sachs to ask for that because they’re going to invest in that, and they want to be able to monitor all the key KPIs that make that business succeed or not from day one. So that makes sense. 

I guess, I was going to ask you guys, so what is the problem that QBi solves? But I think this little bit explains it, but if there’s more, Ethan, would you like to add anything else to that in terms of like the problems that QBi solves, from a customer’s perspective? 

Ethan: Well, I think you really hit the nail on the head and that also kind of ties in a little bit to why I first got interested in QBi and eventually, met Santiago, and over the course of the year, kind of decided to join on. 

I started my solar journey a little bit more recently than you. About eight years ago, I joined a small company that was starting to grow very rapidly and, you know, I helped them build out the operational processes that drove that sales machine. 

Kerim: Are we talking about AlsoEnergy right now? 

Ethan: Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

Kerim: Yeah, we got it. Yeah, got it. Okay. 

Ethan: As well as tie all of the sales activity and all of the activity of the company together into one single holistic view, using a very robust ERP system.

Throughout that journey, working with Also, I was always thinking, “You know, how can this apply to solar? How can this apply to renewable energy?” Because I was seeing customers coming to Also, time and time again, wanting Also to do more. And of course, Also continuously evolved the platform and continuously was able to do more for the customer, but the customers always were looking for a more holistic approach. 

“How can I have everything that I need in one place? Not just what the data is, not just alarms, not just task management, but I need to be able to see everything, my entire organization in one place.” And we had been able to achieve that at Also using our ERP system and had very, very smooth operations from early, early sales, all the way through to fulfilling that order and helping the customer to operate their systems throughout the life cycle of their assets. 

And when I came across QBi, I finally had that aha moment of, “Hey, here is a platform that really ties everything together for these renewable energy enterprises, from early stage development, all the way through long-term operation.

And it really just clicked. And then when I was able to get introduced to Santiago through a mutual colleague, we hit it off right away. I immediately saw the value, but I also saw the organization and the people behind that product and was really impressed with the caliber of people that were already in this organization, as well as of course, the caliber of the leadership and then the vision for where this would go beyond just today.

Kerim: Got it. And I’ll come to Santiago in a second, but when did you join QBi, Ethan? 

Ethan: So I joined QBi right at the beginning of this year of 2024. 

Kerim: So about eight months. 

Ethan: Yes, about eight months ago and had an interesting parallel to my first experience with Also, which was about a week into my employment, I packed everything up and went off to RE+ northeast and kind of faked it until I could make it, so to speak – networking, talking with people. And, yeah, that has been a wild ride so far and really looking forward to going to RE+ in Anaheim, shortly here and continuing on beyond that. 

Santiago’s previous experiences prior to QBi and why he joined QBi

Kerim: Great. And I was looking at both of your LinkedIns obviously before, and Santiago, you also have some really interesting background.

I mean, you have the traditional engineering MBA background, which is kind of a great fit, obviously for your role, but you’ve also had quite a few entrepreneurial experiences and also working for larger companies as well. So how did you end up here, and maybe, you can tell us a little bit about your side of the story as well.

Santiago: Yeah, yeah. I’ve been around. I had a life before renewables, and I did some crazy entrepreneurial thing. One of them is actually my wife’s business that’s ongoing. So that’s a side family business that is happily going and it has to do with cakes. So we are always well fed at Christmas and birthday parties.

But my career at renewables starts in 2007, and I’ve been a side guy, so I started in wind, building wind farms. That was, without a doubt, the funniest and most exhilarating business I did in my life, you know, lifting all these materials up in the sky. That’s fantastic. And I did it in Europe and in South America. Really nice, really cool business. 

I came back to Europe, and then I studied solar with a solar developer that was also linked up with an EPC company. So that’s where I started to manage teams, you know, on development and building and managing constructions and all that stuff in solar.

And ever since. I’ve done that business again in Europe and in Latin America because I was living in Chile and doing all South American business for some years. 

And then I came across a very interesting company, which was a technical strategic consultancy company called 3E back in Belgium, where I lived for seven years in Brussels.

And I discovered that side of the business that has to do not only with site and projects and all the stuff, but has to do with the bigger business view of what renewables are about, the value that you create as an owner, as a financier, as an investor, and all these types of movements that move the needle of the renewable business at the end of the day. 

Interestingly enough, it was a very technical strategic company that had a very smart set of people creating very nice pieces of code that the consultants were using for themselves. So we were lucky enough to have a new CEO coming in and saying, “You know, guys, the consultancy business is amazing, but the real value of the future of this company is lying on those pieces of code. Let’s put it together and let’s make something crazy with it.” So that’s what we did. So I was lucky and blessed enough to be at the position as the global commercial director for the company at the time where we were mandated to create a digital product inside the running business of consultancy.

So I got stunned by the digitalization and the SaaS business model and all the stuff. And I said, “Guys, this really is a nice thing to work myself in for the future.” So I was lucky to make that a success story. So we created a very nice competition also, by the way, a monitoring company, and then QBi crosses my path and I discovered it again, and I can really see myself on Ethan’s words saying, “Hey, the product is amazing. The people behind this are amazing, the whole story behind this thing is amazing.” I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of this kind of product is new. I wasn’t aware of something like this, and the project itself of building this amazing, I would say product company into a large enterprise in Europe and in the US is definitely a challenge. 

And it also meant me coming back to Madrid where that’s where I was born and raised. So family speaking, it was just perfect. And I’ve been really enjoying myself in this challenge and this product, and we are growing at a crazy speed and we’re having a lot of fun.

Where is QBi today? Its customers in EU & US, product roadmap, growth rate,…

Kerim: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about where the company is today? How fast is it growing? What’s on the roadmap, and who are the customers and all that? 

Santiago: Sure. Yeah. You know very well that speed is everything in scaling up software companies. So we were, as I said at the beginning, we needed to bring a lot of hands to be able to realize and make a reality all this dream that we have, which is to become the standard on the business management platform digital suites out there. So we really want people to talk about QBi in this business as the standard of what we do. 

So in order to do that, we need to grow the company size just in terms of headcount. So in a year and a half, we’ve tripled the headcounts in all sizes, in marketing and sales, in customer success, in product, in development everywhere. So we have now, north of 70 people, that work in the company and mostly here in Europe, but the US is very interesting, I would say is going to be our biggest and faster vector for growth in the future.

Nonetheless, our biggest revenue today is coming from the US. That’s where our biggest customers are. Interestingly speaking, because we are a European company, we have the largest number of customers in Europe, so we have more customers here in Europe, but it’s the largest ones that we have in the US so that sort of balancing up, is a bit of the initial step that we have. Say, “Hey, let’s grow in the US bringing more customers in, and let’s continue to grow in Europe.”

That’s why we are now, by the way, I think we can announce it already here. And we’re very happy to be able to say it already. And that’s our economy that we have incorporated the company in the US and we are really going fast on making that with Ethan leaving the sales going to grow in the US.

“Why? Because we do feel that the companies that we really can help and those are solar. By the way, I’ll just make a small pause here. Not only solar. We can help solar, wind, biomass, battery storage, hydrogen developers, even EV charging stations. Anything that has to do with sustainable energy we can do.”

So what we want to do in the US is really take the developers, the investors, and the large IPP companies, the same process that we did with our original European companies, which is to give them back the power to make the decisions across the whole process that today they don’t have. What we’re hearing, and Ethan can tell you about the story much better than I can, is that this really resonates with the U.S. customers. 

So, these guys say, “Hey, finally, someone is bringing the unification of all my processes back to me because now I have to play a game of connecting dots through spreadsheets, through Excel, that is really killing me and I need to grow.” These businesses are all about growth and growing, not only in size and not only in speed, but in complexity.

In the US, you know how difficult origination has become with all this. So I think we’re giving back the power to the companies to say, “Hey, I want to simplify and make my processes again, more efficient.” That’s why I really believe the history of QBi in the US is going to be a successful one.

QBi’s key offerings and value-add to renewable energy developers & asset managers

Kerim: Great. Well, thanks. Thanks a lot for all that background. So Ethan, when you are telling customers about the value-add of QBi, what do you usually, like from a day-to-day operational pain perspective of the customer, what do you find yourself emphasizing that they are eliminating in terms of pain of, you know, key customer pain, I guess I would pose that question as such. And how does that tie into the products that you guys are offering? 

Ethan: Now, I think at the most fundamental level, really, what we’re offering is we’re offering a layer on top that connects all of your different systems and can either replace existing software or complement that existing software, depending upon your needs, your wants, and your desires. 

And really, rather than being a connector pipeline, say, to connect your task management system with your ERP system, with your financial software, what we are is we layer on top of all of that and allow you to see all of that data in one place.

And then use the system of your choice, whether it’s QBi for your day-to-day, or if you have a best of breed system that really does one specific niche thing that you really like, absolutely continue to use that, but your manager and your manager’s manager and your C-suite executives can see the data from that and connect that data easily within QBi with all of the other information coming out of your different systems.

So really then the value-add then kind of depends upon who am I talking with? Am I talking with somebody who is the asset manager, who’s working on that day-to-day on those asset management responsibilities? Or am I talking to their VP or their C-suite person who needs to be able to oversee what that asset manager is doing?

But also tie that in with the development team’s efforts and the finance team’s efforts to see a true holistic picture of how their business is doing. And so on the – and I don’t want to say lower level, but for the more line- level employees, really what it helps them do is drive efficiency within their day-to-day tasks, as well as stay in better communication and have better understanding of what their coworkers are doing within other departments. 

So when can they expect those assets to come online from the development team, and come into the asset management team? How are those assets developing? How have things evolved and changed during the development cycle from what the original plan was?

Because we all know that there’s the original plan, and then there’s what things actually develop into when they get into the hands of the asset managers, so that they can be prepared and understand what they’re going to be receiving from their development teams, as an example. 

And so for the people who are really doing the work on a day-to-day basis, it’s driving efficiency, driving better communications, staying on top of their tasks, and having all of that information at their fingertips from all of the various different departments that they interact with, so they don’t have to rely on their email. They don’t have to rely on Outlook calendar all of the time for reminders. They can really collaborate with their teammates, both in their direct department, as well as in the other departments. 

But then of course, when I’m talking to more higher level, to the C-suite folks, to the VP level, really what the story then becomes is, you can now have a much better understanding of what all of your teams are doing and all of your associates teams are doing, and really have a good holistic picture of what the entire business is looking like at any given point in time, and then also be able to, of course, forecast and model that business, looking forward into the future, as well as do that historical analysis of, did my past year’s operations actually live up to the expectations? If not, why not? Where was that deviation? 

Kerim: Yeah.

Santiago: If I may pitch in something, which is, this reminds me of something. One of the most relevant or significant improvements that we give the customers once they live through the QBi usage and that the whole company and all the teams, they use QBi, they come back to us and say, “Hey, for the first time I can believe in the information I get and the reports I get” because very, very often the information that they got before using QBi, they knew how it was generated.

There was a lot of manual up and downs and downloads and “Hey, John how do we – I see three different install capacity figures depending on the on the system I look at. Which one is the right one, because the CFO has asked me for a board slide and whatnot.” So they change the information on the PPT and not on the system of record and that kind of thing.

So with QBi, you eliminate a lot of stuff. So when the C-suite or any management or board member receives information, they believe in what they see. They don’t need to second-guess, and they trust that the decision they’re taking is based on updated, unique information that is shared across the whole organization. This is a huge value that you get after you’ve lived your life in QBi. 

Kerim: So there’s value being created in internally, administrative functions for managing the processes internally. But I assume there are also some efficiencies gained during the timeline of development, and then also probably in asset performance, and bottom line post development as well in the ownership.

Santiago: A hundred percent. For instance, the development business is an interesting one, and it typically has been, I want to say, underserved from software companies. So these guys have typically been using a lot of Excel and their instincts. 

Kerim: And they were probably smaller companies, right, and larger companies. And that kind of to me, when you were saying you have more customers in Europe, but more revenue in the US, that kind of made sense to me because in the US, they tend to be bigger, more organized companies with more headcount, and you probably charge, you know, we’ll talk about your pricing in a minute, but you probably have a SaaS model where you also charge per user, and Europe probably, has more companies and more customers with smaller teams.

Santiago: It’s a more optimized market. Yes. Yes. But again, these developer companies tend to be small and risk-averse because their revenue is not based on operating income. It’s just picks up, I sell, or I don’t sell if I get to wherever the milestone. Exactly. 

So basically these guys, they do need to look at a lot of systems, pricing, regulation, there’s a lot of documents going up and down between the local authorities and they center on that.

So they basically have very smart people looking at the Excels and just looking at opening and closing documents to see where the hell information is. 

With QBi, what we hear is “Hey, now my smart guys, I can save 20%, 25% of their time to do something that really adds value on things ahead and things about how regulation can change instead of trying to open up and close, you know, 150 documents before I found the one I wanted to open and find to get the clause out of.

So this is the typical case for developers. For asset managers with operating assets, what we hear is and that’s a beautiful testimony that we have from one of our biggest customers. He told us once, “Hey, if you would take QBi out of my business today, the next morning, I should hire three or four more asset managers to able to manage my portfolio.” 

So that’s a huge amount of value that is already being captured because these guys don’t want to grow their size, just because they need to because their ratio of FTE per megawatt and their management sucks. They don’t want to have an army of asset managers looking at different screens. That’s not how they become efficient. So if you help them be lean and focused and give these asset managers the right tools, then they can see again, three X, four X, the time size. 

But also what they say, and it’s a bit of a tricky one to mention, but still I will go, this guy told us, “Hey, because of QBI and my asset managers can squeeze and challenge the people around me so I can get an increase or can squeeze the performance up to 5% in some cases.”

So it’s not just cost reduction. It is also increasing revenue via more performance because you can challenge and can discover losses that otherwise you would be missing out on because you would be, you know, only clicking on the most important thing that the system threw in your head. With QBi, you really know what’s going on and without needing to do anything else because the information is presented before you.

QBi’s Product, Modules, and Pricing

Kerim: Makes sense. So can we talk a little bit about the actual product, the modules, how you sell it, how you price it, how you break it down to different functions? Maybe, you know, one layer below of what we’ve been talking about. I don’t know who should take that question. Maybe you can start and – 

Santiago: So Ethan, you can ahead. 

Ethan: I can jump in and take the first pass at this. So we are modularized. To get the most benefit out of QBi, you would be fully integrated to use everything that QBi has to offer. But of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean every business model. If you’re purely a developer, you may not need advanced technical analytics, for example, on the operation side.

Kerim: I have a question here. So I’ve lived in the software industry, in the tech industry, in the earlier part of my career, starting 30 plus years ago. So I’m somewhat familiar with major software solutions. Like for example, does QBi, I don’t even know, like on the developer business, like if you’re a development shop, big one or medium-sized one, I’ve done some small size development myself. I was a pretty small team. So we didn’t really put a lot of software into what we were doing. 

But do developers even use a CRM platform, for example? Like is there a need to maybe develop, to manage, like salesforce? Is that a thing that is common in the world of development? I’m thinking maybe they could manage the land rights or, you know, all the small possibilities that might become bigger developments. Do they manage that? Do you ever see companies trying to do that on existing platforms like that? 

Ethan: So from my experience, working with some of these developers, as their vendor, and they being my customer, I’ve seen a whole spectrum of various solutions to try to track their opportunities, track their responsibilities, track their milestones. And I’ve seen everything from fairly built out salesforce instances, as an example, all the way down to, “Hey, I just have a couple of Excel spreadsheets. 

Kerim: Or Airtable or whatever. Yeah, I got it. 

Ethan: So what I haven’t seen is really a bespoke custom solution specifically for renewable energy developers.

Kerim: Yeah. 

Ethan: Until now. 

Kerim: That makes sense. And so you guys are essentially a SaaS platform and that’s how you price it and productize it. And so please go on. 

Ethan: So we are modularized, as I was saying. Fundamentally, we start at the core module, which as it implies, the core functionality of QBi, your task management systems, managing your opportunities, managing your development timelines, managing your milestones, document management, et cetera. All of the things that are really core to running that business. 

That is then priced at on a scaling basis, and it scales up with the amount of resources that you need to accomplish the tasks at hand, which roughly parallels the number of systems and the number of users you have. 

Now, we are not priced on a per user basis explicitly. So that allows you to temporarily add one additional user without having to deal with, you know, updating your contract and changing your pricing schedule. But if you suddenly say double your team, then you’ll want to increase the amount of resources. And of course, that comes with a price increase. 

Then on top of that, we have several different modules aimed at several different areas of concern. We have our technical analytics module, which is really oriented towards the asset managers, the folks who need to have a very deep and robust understanding of what’s going on from a technical level within their systems.

What events are happening? How is their performance? Is their generation on par? How does that compare with their expected generation based on weather, et cetera, et cetera. 

We then have our financial analytics, which parallels very nicely, as it might imply with the technical analytics. So this is now people who need to understand the financial health of their assets and their organization.

So it goes beyond just, are my systems performing the way that they should be performing and if not, why? To now, are my finances where they should be? Not only is my generation where it should be, but also what does that translate into dollars and cents based on my PPA, based on my other rate schedules, as well as now, how are my costs looking?

Is my EPC not only performing the way they should from a technical perspective and keeping my system online and running? But are their expenses also in line with what they forecasted, what they projected? And if not, where does that deviation exist? Are my invoices coming in and being paid on time and in full? And really taking a whole holistic look at my business. Is my business performing as it should be from a financial perspective? 

And then lastly, we have our invoicing module as well. So regardless of whether you have a fairly simple invoicing structure or a wildly complex invoicing structure spread across dozens, if not hundreds of customers, we can help you manage your invoicing on an automated basis so that you get those out on time and correctly on a monthly, quarterly, yearly basis, whatever that may be.

And then of course, track the payment status. So you can see again, you know, not only is my generation, but is my revenue coming in and are my customers paying in full and on time? The pricing scheme for the technical analytics is on a per megawatt basis. So the more assets you bring in, the cost goes up of course. But if you have, if you start with a very limited portfolio, your pricing will be much lower in conjunction with the size of your portfolio. 

Financial analytics is then priced similarly in complexity, but it’s on a per SPV per subsidiary company basis. So the more complex your financial structure is, of course, the more expensive the platform becomes, but the more value we can offer you, as you’re trying to manage a vastly more complex organization. And then the invoicing module is simply priced on a per invoice basis and it scales down as well. So the more invoices you manage with us, the per invoice cost comes down as well.

Kerim: Thanks for that. Santiago, anything to add on top of that? 

Santiago: No. I would just then say that we really gave a lot of thought to how the pricing should reflect the reality of every team behind. I mean, is there a perfect system to price? There are dozens of books and very smart people always think about how to price. Our experience show that this model works. 

The customers and the prospects we talk to today understand why we priced it like this. And then overall, what they see is, “Hey, I’m a small developer.” You mentioned it before, Kerim, “I’m a small developer and yet this helps me and yet I see the value and the price tag is linked to this.” Am I a multi gigawatt IPP, multi country, multi technology? Of course, the price tag that I’m paying every month is high, but the bang for the buck I get is extremely big because the bigger I am, the lower the per megawatt or per SPV or per whatever I am getting, so it is really well thought of but I think that the most important thing for us is to make sure that we are creating the value, and then you turn the thing, see the price, I can say, “Ah, this makes sense.”

Kerim: Makes sense. 

Ethan: I think the price and I’ve gotten very little, essentially no negative feedback on pricing with everybody that I’ve been speaking with since I started here. It does scale and correlate very, very closely with the value that you get out of QBi.

So as your organization grows, as your needs become more complex, as your revenue grows, you know, the price for QBi goes up, but of course, also the value that you get out of QBi goes up, even more so than the price for the platform itself.

QBi’s Customer Success Focus & Consultancy Services

Kerim: And one other thing that affects the value a customer gets from the software is as your software product and the platform is growing and becoming more and more complicated, obviously, there are many new functions and modules and capabilities that, you know, one might not get from day one or know how to implement into a complex organization. So can we talk a little bit about how you help the customers to integrate the software? Like your service component of your offerings in  terms of helping the customers. 

Santiago: I can maybe take up the first run on this one because I think this is maybe one of the most significant value-adding services that we can give to our customers out there. We are not just a SaaS product and company offering a platform with a customer service desk and a ticketing system. Although, of course, we are all that but otherwise, we won’t be here. 

As I said at the very beginning, we are renewable experts. We know we are the creators of our technology, and it is a comprehensive piece of software. It really is a complex structure database behind with a lot of functionalities that you might or might not know about.

What we are going to do is we’re going to ensure that day one and day 1000, since you signed up with this, the adoption of your organization within QBi only grows. We all have been there when you were very excited about this new platform that you just were worried about these guys. Yeah, what they told you is there, but then the organization lives a life.

So new teams come in, new platforms come in, new portfolios come in and out. And if you’re not careful, what happens is that the new folks coming in are going to bring their ideas and they’re going to bring it and it’s all really good. And it really adds value to the organization, but you can see yourself using less or distancing yourself from the platform that you chose on day one. 

What we’re going to be dealing with you, through our very specific customer success, back office, that’s how we call it back office service, we’re going to be on a weekly basis, working with your teams, and you decide which ones. It can be the developers, it can be the asset managers, the financing guys, the M&A fellows, whatever you want, that they need to use QBi, they’re going to come with ideas, with challenges, with problems, with situations, with, “Hey, I have onboarded a new portfolio.” Or, “Hey, we acquired a new company. So there is a new set of people that don’t know anything about QBi or renewables for that matter. And that happened to us. How can you guys help us? Again, because we are experts on the business, when you tell us that you have a problem, you don’t need to explain this, what the problem is. We know very well what the problem is.

Even so we’re sometimes, and often we like to play the challenger game. We say, “Hey, you’re telling us to create this report with these KPIs and whatnot. Fair enough. We can do it. However, with the industry, we hear from the industry, see from the industry is that they are measuring this like this instead of that way. We can do it your way. And we can also bring in the best practices of the industry to you.” 

They really like this. So not only are they going to be using QBi with the newest functionalities and the newest models that they have, but also their organization is going to benefit from everything else’s, you know, or the industry at the end of the day. That’s why we really want to become the standard. We really want to bring all this knowledge of this fantastic community and bring it so everybody gets the best practices. 

And talking about the pricing, the way we look at it, this is like a package of hours. So you can have a very small life package of hours that are going to basically be weekly meetings and all that stuff up to the point that we have customers with full FTS on our side because they say, “You know what, guys, you bring me so much value that you are my digital partner in a way so every time I need something from the digital suite, you are my go-to. So yeah, I need a lot of hours from you, of course, because I’m a big organization.” So we help them like this 

Ethan: And it’s important to note as well that you’re not locked in with that back office offering. You’re not locked into an amount of hours for the life of your contract or for an entire year.

It is changeable. As your needs evolve, as your organization scales, you can, “Hey, I’ve brought in a whole host of new people and we’ve added a whole portfolio that we just acquired. I’m going to need a ton of back office support to get these new people up and running and this new portfolio integrated.”

You can add, you can bump those hours up to, you know, a very high level for three months. And then as everybody gets settled in and everything’s squared away, okay, now we can back down to a lower level of back office, until the need arises for more. So it’s very, very flexible, very, very scalable, just as with the rest of the platform there.

Closing remarks & QBi’s asks

Kerim: Well, guys, Santiago, Ethan, thank you very much for sharing everything you did on the journey, on the story of the company, the products, offerings, services, all of that. 

As we close, I’d like to ask you, if you could ask the universe to bring you anything in the next six months, what would it be? Make a few wishes here. Maybe this video will help connect those pieces to your ship, to your business. 

Santiago: Go on Ethan, you can take the first run on this one. 

Ethan: Well, gosh, it’s a very open-ended question. So you know, world peace and an end to hunger, Kerim, would be a start. You know, more specifically to QBi, what I’m excited to share the possibilities that QBi brings to the rest of the U.S. renewable energy industry. 

What I’m really hoping for is to meet as many people as I can over the coming year here, introduce them to QBi and really introduce them to the possibilities that QBi offers for them personally, as well as for their organization. 

Santiago: Yeah. For me, I always, when I make a presentation for my team or anything, I always say, “Hey guys, how are you?” And then typically, nobody replies. So then I go and reply how I am myself. And I want to be happy and I like to be with people that are happy. 

One of the secrets of our sauce here at QBi is that we like to work with people that we like to be around, our customers. We like to be around the customer. So for me, of course, I support what Ethan said. We are on an evangelization, if that’s even a word, you know, track here. 

We want people to know us, but when we get to know each other, what I want, not in six months, but in six decades ahead of us, is to continue to have fun, to work with people that are cool, and that have fun doing what they want. Because with QBi, it will be, you need to work with us at the beginning, but then it will be working very well.

What we want is to have fun together and grow together. You will move to another company, take us with you. If you are having fun with us, that’s what we want. So for me, it is all about that. 

Kerim: All right. Happy people around customers, employees, partners, and the rest. 

Santiago. Yes. That’s right. 

Kerim: Great. Well, thanks a lot, guys. This was a great conversation, another solar conversation, and we’ll put this out into the world. Hopefully, it will serve all of us as well. Thank you. 

Santiago: Thank you very much, Kerim. It was great to be talking with you. 

Ethan: Thank you, Kerim. It was great talking with you.

Kerim: Thank you.