Eco stands for economy as much as for ecology

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Pitch

EnergyVision helps companies with energy efficiency and renewable energy, from installing solar panels to installing LED lighting. But at the same time we realize that companies are not always willing to pay more for sustainable solutions. That is why we carry the investment and then share the energy savings with the customer.

 Facts & Figures

EnergyVision was founded by Maarten Michielssens in October 2014. In the span of three years, revenues rose from €500,000 to €42 million at the end of 2017, with 400 projects netting €3.6 million profit. The company has ISO certified offices in Belgium, China, and Morocco and 68 FTEs on the payroll.

More well-known customers include Airbus and Picanol, but EnergyVision also works for the Belgian authorities, Flemish SMEs and a university based in Fez. In Belgium, we are the largest builder of solar panels even though one year ago we were practically inoperative. In the summer of 2018 alone we have hired 20 people, including recently, 12 refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. They are educated and competent people but are unable to find appropriate positions because their diplomas and qualifications are not recognized in Belgium. We teach them Dutch and help them get a driver’s license. Our employees act as a mentor on a voluntary basis. Solve migration and integrate efficiently, that is impact—and great fun to do, too.

Entrepreneurship is top sport. A marathon with a lot of sprints in between.

Solar panel hype

I am not an engineer. I started my career as a sports journalist. But the photographers who were looking for the ideal light with a light meter during a soccer match next to the field, gave me an idea: what if you can build a smart dome that redirects sunlight in order to save energy? I put my savings together and asked Ghent University to develop a prototype. The outcome, LightCatcher, proved to be a breakthrough. EcoNation was born.

We were in the middle of the solar panel hype. So we thought we had gold in our hands and expected to gain a huge market share. We were wrong. There was a financial crisis; companies did not want to invest. As we headed for bankruptcy, we changed our business model.

Business devil

Imagine: an ordinary skylight costs €500. A skylight from EcoNation costs €1,500. The ordinary skylight does not yield anything, the EcoNation skylight saves €3,000 in energy over three years. Yet the customer says: €1,500 is too much. The additional cost remains a barrier. Okay, we thought, let’s remove the barrier. We switched the messaging to our customer: you do not have to invest anything. We pay and install the skylight. But of the €3,000 you save over the next three years, €2,000 will go to us. The customer is satisfied: one saves €1,000 without doing anything. We are satisfied because we earn €2,000 instead of €1,500. It turned out to be a hit: suddenly applications poured in. We won prizes from the City of Ghent, Bloomberg, the World Economic Forum, the European Commission and even the United Nations. But we had also made a big mistake.

When I set up EcoNation, I had put together €50,000 with the other two founders. That money went almost completely into development. But then, of course, we needed money for marketing. Then we sold part of our shares (25%) to a business angel. In retrospect, it turned out that not only had we sold too early and too cheap, but we also sold to a huge troublemaker. After two years, he had eliminated the other two founders and received a majority of the shares, that is when things went completely wrong.

We wanted to move forward; he wanted to cash in. It was old style versus new style, it did not work. I wanted to internationalize and reinvest the profits, but he wanted to stay in Flanders and sell skylights. Together with all the employees, we scraped together €1 million to buy him out. But he refused. So we walked away. I literally left everything in the summer of 2014. I didn’t have one euro left. Even my salary from the last months was not paid. I was 32 and had no idea how I would pay next month’s rent. Painful. But the people–EcoNation’s real capital–left with me. I had to borrow EnergyVision’s start capital from my parents, two retired civil servants who went to bed full of worries about what was going to happen.

Remove the investment angle

I started EnergyVision based on an important insight: every company wants to save on energy, but few want to invest in it. Some are not genuinely motivated—they just want the green image. Others have limited budgets and would prefer to spend on their core business. Let’s simply remove the investment angle, I reasoned. EnergyVision takes over the entire energy process from the customer: from financing, purchasing, and installation all the way to maintenance. We stay away from the core business and processes, are hands-off with their machinery, but ensure that operations are managed in an energy-friendly way. The customer does not have to invest, sees the energy bill drop and simply pays a part of that savings to us.

Our business model has three parts. On the one hand, we offer sustainable technology expertise. We invest in and do our own product development, plus, we have project management knowledge, but most important is the third aspect: cutting-edge financial technology. We close contracts that last 20 years, both with SMEs and with multinationals, which involves a lot from the legal and financial side.

You have customers who want to pay in euros and customers who want to pay in local Moroccan dirhams or Chinese yuan. Nobody can predict the price of those coins for the next 20 years, so we have to be well-protected against exchange risks. Further, we must ensure that we do not have to wait 20 years for profit, and already receive cash. In other words, our financing model must be well-structured.

My way

Our unique business model, combined with the high demand allowed us to scale quickly. In 2014, our start capital was €6,200. By 2017, we had a turnover of €42 million. This is once in a lifetime, I understand that well. There is no need for an external investor. I will not rule it out in the future, but I will never give up my majority again. This time it happens my way.

Recruitment, however, I take very seriously. When I open a new office, I have to attract 15 to 20 new employees. That is a big responsibility. What if I cannot give these people security? For me, it’s not an option to up and decide: that country does not interest me anymore, we are gone. I cannot do that. I do not have the heart to fire people. When I hire someone, it’s forever.

People are crucial to a company. Take Hassan, someone whom I recruited years ago at EcoNation as a skylight installer. It was his idea to also expand to Morocco. We gave him a budget and a year's time. If he failed, he would be back on the roof in Belgium. If the project succeeded, he received half of the shares of our Moroccan subsidiary. He succeeded. Here, he was “the Moroccan,” someone who was not allowed to enter a café in Ghent because he supposedly “wore the wrong sports shoes.” In Morocco, he reinvented himself as an entrepreneur. Today, he leads a team of 25 people, has 25% of the shares of the entire EnergyVision group. But here in Belgium he remains “the Moroccan.” That really makes me angry.

In Morocco, five of our employees are former world, European champions, or European record holders in athletics. That is no coincidence. Entrepreneurship demands top-class mentality: keep going and going for the customers, the team, the project. Motivation and dedication are character traits required in a start-up. Entrepreneurship is a marathon, with a lot of sprints in between.

Low-hanging Fruit

For entrepreneurs sustainability and saving energy often sound like a vague or difficult task, but it’s not true. You don’t have to search far if you want to save energy—so much is low-hanging fruit. Today we can easily eliminate 15% of our energy consumption with minimal effort.

Recently, I was at a company in the Port of Ghent. The company has only been there for five years. During the week, work takes place on both the ground floor and first floor; during the weekend only on the ground floor. They only have one button to regulate the lighting, a cost-cutting measure. That means in the weekend all the lights are on (and they are not even LED). It is an area of 20,000 square meters which is a waste of  €150,000. And that same company then must fire people every three years to save money. Incomprehensible.

Don’t get me wrong, governments should not impose sustainable measures on companies. I do not believe in subsidies either. The issue is that the energy wastefulness is intangible. You will not see it when your heating is two degrees too warm or when the lights are on unnecessarily. The real task of the government is awareness and education. Everyone wins from sustainability: not just the planet, but also our economy.

International

Our most important countries are Belgium, China, and Morocco. Three countries on three continents and three motivations. If things go wrong abroad, we still have our Belgian home market to fall back on. Belgium is an interesting market, but very slow in terms of decisions. That is why we looked abroad from the beginning.

Selecting China and Morocco is a coincidence: we did not have much start capital and we already had a network in those countries thanks to EcoNation. The interest rates there are quite high: companies pay 10-12% for a maximum of three years. We offer them not only high-quality Belgian technology, but also up to 20 years of financing at European interest rates. For our customers, sustainable technology is cheaper. That is the beauty of sustainability, it is not a crunchy granola story. Eco is not only ecology, but also economy.

China is the largest market in the world. Solar energy is very important in order to tackle the smog problem. In Morocco, 92% of the energy is imported. The King wants to make his country energy-neutral within one generation. In just one generation, he wants to be an energy exporter—so there is a big need for high-quality projects.

Moreover, they are virgin markets and their economy is not based on subsidies. In markets others look down on, we can benefit. We want to deepen these three markets and be the market leaders. Being steadfast is important. You cannot follow projects for 20 years if you jump from place to place. Now we operate in enormous markets. In China, for example, we are in the fourth largest port city in the world. We will first deepen those markets before we throw ourselves into something else—which is also sustainable. We think we can only open one new office and country every two years.