Perhaps most people understand or that air conditioning is 2 things.

It's cooling and dehumidifying.

So the difference in comfort, a larger humidity has a larger impact on the way we feel comfort.

You live in North Carolina, you have a lot of humidity there.

Same temperature, North Carolina humidity and you go to Arizona with the same temperature but lower humidity and you feel different, you feel more comfortable.

So humidity is what makes a difference in our comfort.

High humidity is really not very pleasant.

So if you can address humidity first and foremost, you can make an air conditioner much more efficient.

So that's the the inside here and not necessarily our inside.

I mean, this has been known for some time, but if you can, with technology address the dehumidifying portion of air conditioning, then you can achieve some amazing results.

32100 What if the next 45 minutes or so could unlock the business strategy, funding, playbooks and mindset to scale climate solutions?

Welcome to entrepreneurs for impact.

We're EFI.

As the cool kids say, this is a master class for builders who turn ideas into impact for planet and profit.

I'm Chris Wedding, ACEO coach, investor, founder, and professor.

Each week I interview CEOs and investors in climate, tech and clean energy.

If this sounds good, hit follow on your podcast app and never miss an episode.

All right, let's get started.

My guest today is Serene Grama, CEO and Co founder of Trancera.

Trancera is developing A groundbreaking air conditioning solution using proprietary solid desiccant materials to remove moisture before cooling, thereby boosting efficiency and reducing energy use and carbon emissions.

It's designed to be a plug and play upgrade across residential and commercial HVAC systems.

Serene is an MIT trained engineer, inventor and serial entrepreneur.

He's also the Co founder of Greentown Labs, a lecturer at MIT, and a Climate CEO fellow with us in our EFI peer group program.

In the podcast we talked about a bunch of stuff including topics like the following mindset and he.

This is a quote from Serene.

Don't get too romantic about the tech, be obsessed instead with the customer problem.

Love that number 2 lessons from Co founding Promethean Power Systems where he built a cold chain technology for rural dairy farmers in India #3 metal organic frameworks for the science behind this technology #4 how the following books shape his views as a leader.

The hard thing about hard things, perhaps the most recommended book on this podcast and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Finally, his five minute journal practice and the power of slowing down to think clearly.

Please give Serene and Trancera a shout out on LinkedIn Slacker X by sharing this podcast with your people.

Thanks.

All right, before we hop in, I've got a challenge and I guess an invitation for you all.

First, the background.

My goal is to empower 250,000 entrepreneurs, investors and university students to tackle climate change through start-ups, finance and personal growth.

Is that enough?

I don't know, it's a lot.

Maybe it'll grow anyway.

The podcast is one way to do that.

To that end, the sector needs more inspiration, tools, and tips from CE, OS and investors in this space.

Conveniently, as you may guess, these folks are precisely my guest on this podcast.

So here is the challenge.

If you and five of your friends rate, review and follow this podcast on Apple and Spotify and share your efforts with me at LinkedIn or in response to my newsletter on Sub Stack, I'll hop on Zoom and brainstorm a climate tech, business or investment challenge or opportunity with you.

Now, Is that a reward?

Is that punishment?

I don't know, there it is.

This is the best way for new folks to learn from the CEOs and investors on this podcast.

The process is unclear as it was to me.

In the show notes you will find a link explaining how to do this.

I read every single review.

So please tell me and all of us which guest insights you like the most.

Thanks so much, hope you enjoy it.

All right, Serene Rama Co founder and CEO Trancera, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Chris.

We've been talking about this for a while.

You're here.

Indeed, part of me wishes we were recording this in person at your cabin in the forest up in New England.

But we'll we'll take Zoom for now.

We'll take zoom for.

Now Zoom and we should, you know, you and I bonded over that this the space so we can go reflect and, you know, do your best, best work.

And yeah, I, I, I share with you that same the feeling of having a place in the woods and, and place that you could kind of disconnect from the daily routine, You know, especially as Aceo, you kind of, there's a, there's a lot on our minds and, and having a place to, to reset and recover is really, it's great.

Yeah.

And I'm, I've been doing that for a few years now actually.

And I'm thinking about, I was thinking about it because when I go there, I absolutely don't have, don't think about work.

You know, I have projects.

I've, I get my, my needs to build stuff.

So I, I do a lot of projects around the cabin.

Might, some people might not call it relaxing.

It's just like I'm busy, busy.

But, but it is a way to relax.

It's a way to disconnect.

So that mental load goes away, the mental load of the, of the CEO goes away and I just become a, a builder, a handyman.

So it's a, it's a, it's a nice switch of yeah, roles there.

Well, I've heard it said, I think in a book by Mark Nepo that sometimes we need to live with their hands, not with their heads, which is a little bit along those lines.

Well, let's get to exactly what trends there is.

Your technology can reduce the the energy required for certain types of air conditioning by up to 40%, which is a big old number.

I don't know how are you getting there?

So what makes that?

What makes that possible?

Well, it's not magic.

It's it's really makes a lot of sense.

So perhaps most people understand or that air conditioning is 2 things, it's cooling and dehumidifying.

So the difference in comfort, a larger humidity has a larger impact on the way we feel comfort.

You live in North Carolina, you have a lot of humidity there, same temperature, North Carolina humidity.

And you go to Arizona with the same temperature but lower humidity and you feel different, you feel more comfortable.

So humidity is what makes a difference in our comfort.

High humidity is really not very pleasant.

So if you can address humidity first and foremost, you can make an air conditioner much more efficient.

So that's the the inside here and not necessarily our inside.

I mean, this has been known for some time.

But if you can, with technology, address the dehumidifying portion of air conditioning, then you can achieve some amazing results.

OK, so you you, you rightly point out this, this idea around tackling humidity versus just temperature to get the human comfort is not new.

So what is new about year olds realization to get to for more cost?

So what is new is material science.

So bring us a new material science to bear and to solve this problem.

In this case is a, a class of materials, absorbent materials that will absorb moisture, naturally absorb moisture from air.

You can think of it like a desiccant.

It's it's a type of of material that absorbs moisture really well.

And then crucially, the material doesn't hang, doesn't hold on to the moisture very tightly and you can release the moisture out of the material and get rid of it.

So think of it as a sponge, but at the molecular level, right?

So it's sort of a, it's a, it's a material that that traps moisture, water molecules really, really well, but it doesn't hang on to it very, very tightly.

So you can with a little bit of energy, meaning heat, put a little bit of heat, you dry it and, and you get the moisture out.

So that those materials, class of materials called metal organic frameworks, MO, FS or moths have only been researched for the last say 2025 years.

They have not been put in practice in a commercial or practical product.

And, and this is what Trans Era is trying to do, become the first commercially scaled application of these materials.

And how did you come upon the particular moth that is being used in your technology?

Yeah.

So their moths are a class of materials.

So they're many, many different flavors and types of moths that are tuned or can absorb different chemicals.

So some are tuned for CO2 capture, others for water molecules.

Ours is a water absorbing moth.

Initially I was not aware of these materials until someone introduced me to a professor at MIT who's subsequently became our Co founder of professor Mircha Dinka.

And he has been researching these moths as part of his PhD in postdoc and had a lab focused solely on these materials at MIT.

So in 2017, I was working at MIT as a entrepreneur, residents and one of my advisors, you know, knew that I was kind of maybe thinking about starting a new thing, said, hey, you should meet this professor.

These materials can be really good at, at for air conditioning.

And, you know, papers had been written and academic papers had been written and shown that there's promise in them, but nobody had put him in practice.

So he said, you should meet this, this fellow, his name is Mircha.

And I, I recognize immediately the name, it's a Romanian name.

And so I'm Romanian myself.

Serene is a, is a typical Romanian name.

Mircha is too.

So the two of us kind of bonded over that shared background and that became the seeds.

The you know, Nietzsche, I had the the idea of these materials that could solve a problem.

I had a understanding of the problem from my previous startup and put the two together and later added a third Co founder, Ross Bonner.

And that's how transit I got started.

So long winded answer to your question, but the material was something that that Mucho was was researching at the time.

It was a particular material we were intrigued about.

Later we discovered some other formulations that were even better.

So, you know, in the end we, we developed our own recipe, let's say, for these materials to make something that really works well for our application.

You alluded to the lessons or influence of your prior startup on creating this startup.

What's that relationship?

Well, very critical relationship.

I think the lots of lessons learned from that previous startup, which I'm able to apply to this second startup, both of them in cooling space.

The first company I started is a company called Promethean Power Systems.

And this was a labor of love, social impact, startup venture to address the problem in India.

And this is basically cooling milk for Indian farmers, you know, stumble upon that problem.

Nobody was working on it naively, you know, went into it took many, many years to solve the problem that we did solve it.

In the process, we developed a refrigeration system that can keep milk fresh and chilled at village collection centers in rural India.

And so in developing that product, I was the CTO and CEO of the company for many years.

You know, I have to understand cooling and, and, you know, living, I lived in India for nearly four years.

And so living in a hot, humid location, working with refrigeration systems, I, I understood how critical cooling is, how difficult it is.

You know, you're from a physics perspective, cooling is a, is a very difficult proposition.

You know, you're reversing the natural flow of, of heat, right to, to cool something.

So it takes a lot of power and the hotter it is outside, the, the harder it is for a refrigeration system to work.

So understanding the, the challenges of cooling, but also living in a place like India where you could, you know, I couldn't live and work productively without some kind of form of cooling air conditioning.

And when I, when I came back from India, I, I was able to sort of apply this background to the new startup and, you know, quickly understood that novel materials or new material science could, even if it makes a small difference, could have a big impact in, in, in solving a large problem.

Yeah, exciting.

You've got investors and mutual friends like Energy Impact Partners and Clean Energy Ventures and others.

What do you think got them so excited in both the Seed and Series A around the potential for this these moths to have big impacts?

I think cooling is the imperative.

It's, it's becoming no longer a luxury, but a necessity in many places.

I think what our earliest investors saw, and I'm grateful for them that they took a, a chance on, you know, something new like this, but they saw the, the larger opportunity.

I mean, the world is just only getting warmer.

More and more air conditioners are being purchased every day.

You know, there's a statistics that RMI put out there that 10 new air conditioners are sold every second throughout the world.

Like that's how the demand for air conditioning is, is exploding, especially in hot and humid places around the tropics.

And even here in the United States, in our own backyard here, you see places that didn't have or didn't need air conditioning before that now need it more and more.

So I think, you know, it's only it's a wave that's that's coming.

And I think, you know, astute investors see that kind of wave or predict that wave and and invest in it.

So, so our earliest investors, energy impact partners and clean energy ventures, I think saw that.

And then, you know, took the chance on on a new material, new science perhaps to the chance or definitely took the chance on a on a team, but maybe a a more seasoned team since I'd already done a start up.

So yeah, I think that put together we're able to, to close the initial funding.

However, just to kind of as a corollary, our, our first funding came all from government grants.

So I don't want to, you know, it took us a while to really figure out if these materials could work effectively or not.

And so before we went to, to the venture capital community to raise money, we secured our first funding from government grants, SBIR grants, phase one and phase two National Science Foundation, a bunch of local state grants here in Massachusetts.

So that really I want to 'cause, you know, in this day and age, there seems to be a lot of pushback on, on federal funding.

But for us that was critical.

And I think it's before any investor is willing to put their money in, they they want to see something working and we're able to get that done with with the initial federal funding.

Well, just to kind of build on that, I mean, it isn't like these government grants just go in and there's no other positive outcome for kind of public health or the economy, right?

I mean, the solutions that you're commercializing that do have real public health benefits, right, preventing mortality, morbidity as heat increases, especially in certain areas, as you said, they didn't have heat concerns before and the jobs from selling, making and selling these kinds of devices in the future.

You know, we also know that investors like we referenced love giant markets, right, large Tams.

And I think you got one here.

Talk to us about the size of maybe the AC market beyond just units sold, but maybe the the GHD relevance perhaps of of HVAC.

The air conditioning in general releases about 4% is responsible, 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, 4% is that's twice as much as aviation alone.

So you know, a lot of people were very familiar with aviation.

We fly everywhere and we think aviation has a big impact.

Yes, it does, but air conditioning has even larger impact.

So it is a significant number, if we can make even a small dent in that, it could have significant positive effects, societal effects.

And so we're very much driven by that.

We, you know, that's sort of the, the larger, larger impact.

But also another part for us that I think early on we, we understood is that air conditioning needs to be efficient and also affordable.

You know, if the growth in air conditioning is going to happen in, in places outside United States, we have to figure out a way to make this super not only efficient, but also affordable.

So whatever solution we developed needs to be very cost efficient, low cost.

And so you know, having that experience in India and developing products for the Indian market allowed us to focus early on on this, this part of the, the solution.

So what we've, what we're developing currently, it's not a scale for cost, but it would become a very cost effective solution down the road.

So, yeah, the, the, the impact is, is very large in, in terms of greenhouse gas, but also just thinking about the number of people, billions of people that could potentially access this technology in 20-30 years.

Talk to us about the customers you're targeting today and how you reach those customers.

Yes, it took us a long time to figure out the best for beachhead, where to start this deploying these this technology.

Our first market that we investigated was indoor farming.

So industrial for industrial applications.

Indoor farming, you're growing plants inside a confined space where you use artificial light.

So that produces heat.

The plants produce humidity.

So you've got the double effect of heat and humidity in a very close space and you need a lot of air conditioning.

So all these indoor farming places run air conditioning 24 hours a day.

So that's that's a huge energy consumption part of the cost for indoor farming.

So we looked at that initially it.

Turned out that indoor farming itself was kind of a risky market.

So we did not we ended up not pursuing it.

That market has gone through its own ups and downs.

And we, we next focused on residential cooling and that was primarily sparked by the global cooling prize, which is a global competition to develop a affordable, but twice as efficient air conditioner as today's today's air conditioner.

So that put a spotlight on the needs of the residential market.

And we pursued that for a couple of years.

But then I realized that market is, you know, it's, it's a massive market and a global market, but is a very cost conscious market and requires some going head to head with some of the major, you know, the, the well known brands of air conditioning, which we, we didn't think we had the, the, the power to do yet.

So we ended up working on commercial market, cooling market.

So commercial building.

So that's where we are now.

So Transera is, is developing a type of rooftop unit cooling unit that you might see on a commercial building, maybe a office building, a warehouse, a hospital.

These are, you know, if you when you fly from into an airport and you look at top of the building, you see this big Gray boxes in, especially in in the South there in the southeast.

Yeah, those are the commercial rooftop units that are everywhere and we're developing a version of those so.

Two questions on the cooling price.

You mentioned the goal is to double AC efficiency.

How you measure that?

So you mentioned that in, it's a, you know, in many of it's something called coefficient of performance.

So it's how much cooling power you're delivering per unit of electricity you consume.

So it's, it's a fairly easy equation and, and measured in in most of, in all air conditioners.

So you might see it as energy efficiency rating EER or S EE R or C EE CER.

There's a number of of, you know, all of them have that that label on them if you go to to buy a residential air conditioner.

So it's somewhat something related to that, but it's, it's ultimately is, is the kilowatts of cooling power versus per kilowatts of electrical power you're consuming.

So what the global coin prize try to demonstrate is that there is possibility you could develop a air conditioner that's twice as efficient as today's best in class.

Question is, can you make it affordable?

Like, you know, twice as efficient and high efficiency everything you see, you hear a lot that a lot, but it comes at a price and and that's not going to that does not that will not win in the marketplace.

So can you make an A high efficiency unit but also affordable?

Now that's really interesting.

So we put our heads together and actually developed a prototype for that and, and proved that that is possible to do it.

We are part of that competition and we're finalists in it, in this is about 2021, right, doing a pandemic, we're a finalist.

We're the only start up to actually deliver a prototype for testing in the field.

So we're even proud of that.

But yes, it is possible.

The question is, can you, can you make it affordable?

So you know, with scale, with time, we think that could be that would be affordable.

And what one last question on the cooling price and I'm going to get back to the customers here for your current go to market, but affordable, I mean how is that defined?

Is that you know X percent, you know higher than the average or whatnot, that there are other bounds there.

Yeah.

The global coin price defined it as not more than twice as expensive as today's air conditioner and for the Indian market.

So this was actually targeted to the Indian market.

So it was priced at the, you know, Indian market price, which an air conditioner there would cost $500 today.

They said, you know, global cooling price said, you know, if you can make this and sell it for $1000, that would be acceptable.

We think it can be even less than that.

I mean, we, you know, the, the price should not be double.

I think it's possible to make it even even lower than, but it will probably be a little bit more than the conventional unit.

The today's unit you have to, there's going to be some price premium, but it shouldn't be that much.

The the energy savings should more than would more than pay for itself for any premium that might be needed for a for a high efficiency product.

So so yeah, that's how they usually measure it.

So let's let's take that that, that logic to your current customers, the commercial building owners.

What's that message sound like?

Are you selling, you know, you know, units like an OEM?

Are you selling kind of a service as as like third party owned?

What's what's that look like?

So we we're selling units, we're selling the complete units.

It is, you know, at least initially as we prove the technology we have to build the entire system even though our innovation is only one element of their complete system.

We are building a complete system and the proposition is 2 fold.

1 is that the energy savings, you know, 40% energy savings, proven energy savings, especially in hot and humid conditions is what brings commercial building owners to the table.

But are there other factors that are just as important?

And one of them in this industry is how easy it is to install and maintain.

This is an industry, you know, 100 year old industry, tons of air conditioners are installed.

You know, with the new technology, you don't want to completely upend the entire infrastructure.

You need to be able to plug into the existing building infrastructure and so not only that, also be able to use the same skill set that are currently available to maintain the air conditioner.

So what Transera is developing is not only a high efficiency product, but also one that can be installed and maintained with the same infrastructure that exists today.

And that's a huge thing.

That means size, similar size, similar weight as a conventional unit, similar maintenance schedule and skills needed to maintain it.

All of that makes it practical and and increases the adoption of of the product.

So finally the the last thing I would say is that what creates an incentive for our customers is that because this is a heat pump and heat pump means it can do both cooling and heating.

So cooling in the, in the summer season, heating in the winter season, you don't need natural gas anymore to provide the heating.

Most, most air conditioners, rooftop air conditioners today will have a gas unit to generate heat during the winter.

We can eliminate all that and just generate the heat as part of this heat pump mode that that the system, our system operates in.

So ultimately it means that it's a easier infrastructure.

You can get rid of the natural gas infrastructure, the piping and and just deliver a nice clean heating and cooling, all electric based.

Are there limitations around, you know, kind of how cold winters are, let's say for that heat pump?

On your unit.

To be the choice for for heating or not, not so much.

Not so much, you know, today we haven't installed yet in the in the coldest regions.

But yeah, there's, you know, there's some corner cases you can think of, you know, a few like super cold days of the year and which you can address in other ways.

But yeah, generally it shouldn't be a problem to work in a cold climate.

Is it called cold?

Cold climate heat pump, Yeah.

And back on the customer types, so you talked about hot and humid areas, how about the type of business?

What what sectors in the commercial sector are ideal kind of adopters of this AC solution?

So a lot of places that require cooling and ventilation, it's not just cooling.

So there are two types of just to get into more detail in the building.

You also need you, you're not only cooling these inside air, so kind of recirculating inside air, you're also bringing outside air in to refresh the air.

So that's what keeps the indoor air quality standards high is that you need to constantly refresh the air.

You take out old air, stale air from the building and replenish you with outside air.

So in doing so, you also want to bring conditioned air.

So if you bring in outside air and you're in Florida, you don't want to bring in hot humid air into the building.

You have to condition it, you have to cool it and dehumidify it.

So, so that's particular application of where ventilation loads are very high, where they need a lot of ventilation.

Think of labs, hospitals, restaurants, things like that, where there's a constant need for outside air, any place that generates heat and humidity inside that they need to expel out and then you bring in new air in.

Those are always great applications for it.

So yeah, in general, those types of buildings and manufacturing facilities that require constant fresh air.

So we'll look for those and we'll look for building owners that really care about the testing the OR adopting a new technology and and in the process eliminating the use of fossil fuels from their operations.

Let me ask you one more question and then we'll switch to the kind of person's side of the podcast here.

So you're developing a new AC solution.

These are large businesses that will buy from you.

How do you how do you de risk a purchase of a new tech for them?

You know, that's, it's, it's tough because a lot of businesses, you know, they, they need to run your business like they don't, they don't want to take risks on, on new technologies.

Fortunately, we've seen a lot of customers that have appetite for, for testing new technologies.

They have a, they typically might have a sustainability group that looks at new technologies and scouts that they market for new technologies.

And at least they will do a pilot.

You know, they might have a building where they could test it out.

They allocate some funding for it.

They put some resources people on it and they'll do, they'll do at least a trial.

What's what's also helped us, there's funding available to do field trials, pilots like these.

So whether that comes from a sometimes a utility, sometimes a customer themselves, sometimes the state government has some funding available to try these new technologies.

So depending on the case, we're able to put together enough funding to yeah, to test the technology once once the technology pilot is is running, he's on the roof.

Then the, for us, it's, it's pretty straightforward.

We we can show the savings immediately and then the the then it sort of sells itself.

So yeah, that first one, that first pilot is the is a critical 1.

And I think because there's, you know, the outside of the third party funding just to, you know, ease that that pain a little bit makes a big difference.

Yeah.

Yep, got it.

Makes sense.

OK, super exciting.

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All right, back to the show.

Let's move to the person side of the podcast.

Got three questions.

First one is air.

Conditioner they on your left over there.

It is an air conditioner, which I've had continual trouble with.

Yeah, I, I tried to install a, a mini split, a heat pump.

This is only a like a 12 by 12 kind of, you know, cabin to work in.

And they wanted, they were going to charge like 4 grand.

And I was like, look, this is like partially used.

I mean, come on, guys.

Anyway, I'll, I look forward to the day when there's a better solution than what's off the off the market.

I'll be it.

I'll be it efficient.

So yeah, three questions here, Serene.

The first is talk to us about advice you'd give your younger self or, you know, emerging professionals around building a career of impact.

Advice I would give myself, I mean, I think I've learned over the years that this is a this is a marathon, not a Sprint.

You need to be able to take care of yourself to sustain it for years.

I have, you know, my previous company, Promethean started that in 2007.

It's still going 17 years later.

I'm no longer involved in the day-to-day operations.

I'm I'm a on the on the board and a shareholder, but that's still going and, and it's a marathon.

It's a, you know, it's a new generation of management there.

That's that's keeps running it.

And even with, with Transera, I think, you know, I see this.

This is not a problem that's going to be solved overnight.

This is going to take years.

It's already been a few years.

We've already been a few years at it.

It's going to take a few more years after this and it's fine.

That's the way these, these tough infrastructure problems are solved is, is you need to be patient.

You need to give yourself enough time and, and space to do it.

And, you know, don't expect a quick return or quick exit.

So I think for me personally, I'm, I'm trying to, you know, maintain a balance life, whether it's family life, personal, you know, just take care of myself and make sure I can, I can sustain this for as long as needed.

Yeah, I think it's nice to I mean, there's, there's a blessing to being naive for sure started to start a business.

I think if we if we all knew how hard it would be, if your businesses would be started for sure.

It's also true what you said, but to kind of go in eyes wide open.

These are typically kind of 10 year overnight successes, if you will.

So don't be surprised by that.

You talked about, you know, if you if you know, it's a marathon, not a Sprint, you know, we we can build schedules, whether it's daily, weekly, quarterly, annually to have a, to have more balance.

What are some of those successes you've had to kind of build in habit routines and so forth to kind of keep you healthy standard focused on the on the marathon.

Sorry, yeah.

You know, some of the things that I do that I keep this going for me, I have a very good, I feel like I have a very good network support network here where I live in in the Boston area, particularly in Cambridge.

We have a really good climate tech community here, you know, center around Greentown labs.

When I friends there, I was part of Green Town labs until about four months ago.

We just we just graduated finally and moved into our new our own space.

But having that community is super important and within that community, friends that I meet with on a regular basis.

So I have like at least once a week, if not two or three times a week, we meet and just, you know, have a beer or dinner and talk about our successes and failures or, and, and sort of commiserating with fellow entrepreneurs is really important.

So sometimes we, you know, when 1 is down and the other one is up, we help each other that way.

And so I think the community is really, really helped me sustain this.

Also my own family, like I think having the, the support of my family, my, my wife is very supportive.

She's been through this journey.

Now this is, you know, we've been together for 1718 years and she's seen the first start up and now the second one and she knows what to expect and she's very supportive.

So having that family support is really important, having the space to do it.

I always tell, you know, younger entrepreneurs that that this is a, this is a team effort.

You know, you need to be fully, your family has to be fully on board with it and supportive of it.

So yeah, so in summary, that's I think family and community really makes it easier for me to sustain it.

How do you make sure you have the the family time for your wife and son despite the, you know, the challenging hours?

Sometimes, Yeah.

I mean, the weekends obviously try to keep the weekends free to do that, you know, be home for dinner as much as possible and things like that.

So, yeah, it's, you know, I have a young son.

He's he's nine years old.

And so making time to be with him and, you know, taking the soccer games and all that stuff is, is really important.

So I, I'd make us whatever time I need to, to do that, but it's definitely a challenge to, to maintain that.

And I have to rely on my, my spouse a lot for some of these, you know, childcare activities.

But, you know, we, we manage.

Yeah, it's a, it's a team effort for sure.

And sometimes one is the one is doing more work inside versus outside the roles.

Can the roles can change?

Yeah.

How about how about some books, Serene Books quotes podcast that that have inspired you or the team at Transera Alumni journey?

Yeah, the most.

So we're talking about the cabin earlier.

So I, when I go to the cabin, the cabin is about 2 1/2 hours away.

It's just north of here in New Hampshire.

And that's the really the only time in the week or whenever I I to actually focus and listen on A to a podcast.

So I've been listening to the acquired podcast.

I think most of your listeners probably familiar with it.

These are like massively long stories.

They're, you know, 3.

Hour 4 hour.

Podcast in some cases.

So I get to, I get to hear most of the story on the way up and then the rest of the story on the way down.

So, so it's been really good that I like that.

There was, for example, there was a recent 1A Steve Ballmer interview, former CEO of Microsoft, of course, and that, that was super, super interesting.

I just, I really like that.

And, and so they, they dive into the story, the history of a, of a company like Microsoft or, or Tesla.

And and so understanding the history also helps you.

You know, you could predict the future.

I guess so, so you know, I I see a lot of parallels between my journey and and other entrepreneurs journeys and and try to take some lessons from those.

Yeah, I think one nice thing about acquired or other, you know, kind of sector agnostic, you know, entrepreneurship podcast, maybe Founders is similar.

Is.

You know, we can learn a bunch from founders from other sectors outside of climate and clean energy to bring over to this to the sector.

I think the others to, to, to hear about the larger companies, their early days or even just kind of, you know, beyond the headlines and you're like, oh, wow, that there there was a hot mess there as well.

I feel, I feel like my hot mess for the week is also just, it's just normal versus I'm broken, I think.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

It's it's really the deer.

And then you know, the other, I mean, there are other a few other similar podcasts, How I Built this with Guy Raz that also interviews a lot of entrepreneurs.

For a while he had a series on climate tech, so very related.

I knew, I know some of the entrepreneurs he interviewed.

So it's always good to hear their stories.

So yeah, I do a lot of that.

It's it's easier for me to do the podcast and listen to two things on online while I drive.

I have less time to read these days.

And when I read, I usually read the news or, you know, yeah.

So, you know, occasionally I, I pick up a book and almost never finish it.

So I have like.

I I think you're, I think you're giving a lot of permission to listeners who may believe, Oh, if I, if I'm, if I'm building a company, leading a company, I've got to read whatever 50 bucks a year.

No, not not necessarily right.

You can still be a great leader without all that consumption.

Now better if you can, but we'll we all have different information diets for sure.

Actually, Speaking of a book that I really enjoy, that I think you like Michael Pollan, A Place of My Own.

Have you read that one?

It's on my shelf.

I've read, I've read part of it, part of it as I was thinking about building this, this kind of cabin structure here.

Yes, exactly because of that.

And that was very, you know, I was, I was building my cabin.

I, well, I already built it.

But, you know, it was really interesting to see his journey in building that cabin and sort of the, the whole research behind it, behind the architecture, behind the materials and all that stuff.

You go so deep into all this.

I really enjoyed that.

I was like a, a, a force of Tour de force to kind of understand all the decisions that go behind a, a building in general.

And in this case for him, it was just a small cabin.

But you know, the much, the amount of research, background research he did, it was incredible and I, I enjoyed that one.

That's another book that probably I'd pick up again and read again would have some.

Yeah, I repeat.

Well, maybe, maybe it was a closer.

I would just say that on this kind of personal reflective side, you know, if if listeners, listeners are intrigued by, you know, you your cabin in your hamster as an example, I think one thing I've tested out is look, just go on Airbnb or hip camp or some other website, find a tiny home in the woods somewhere.

Go, go spend 80 bucks, 100 bucks, whatever or more per night.

Go there in the spring and fall for, for two or three nights and maybe maybe not bring electronics, but I know some of our, our fellow, you know, CEO peers in the VFI community have done that and said, man, I had some of the most productive business ideas during those two or three days.

Just filled notebooks with, with, with ideas.

So you don't, you don't have to build a cabin necessarily.

Go rent one on Airbnb twice a year for for three days to get a lot of the bang for the buck.

If possible, make it an off good cab and that's even more interesting, but the place I have is is off grid, but it has plenty of my wife laughs 'cause it shows you it has Internet, really good Internet, solar panels, no water, but the good Internet.

So.

Very important.

Priorities lie, but yeah, the it's great to.

And for me, like I said, it's more disconnect and I, I try not to think about work so much while I'm there or I can't because I'm too busy building stuff.

So maybe maybe that's that's better that way because then I can just like we talked to the beginning, sort of be able to let my mind just wander and not think about work so much and.

Yeah, but both for sure serve a purpose, you know, while we're in the woods, even when we're not working on work, our subconscious has more more space to process perhaps harder to hard questions.

Hey Serene, that great stuff.

Exciting to to hear about a company you're taking deep tech research out of MIT on on moths that by that very few folks have heard of.

Listen to the podcast.

I've never heard of it before.

2 Romanians uniting to raise money from top shelf venture capital investors to to lower the cost of AC by by 40%.

Hey man, rooting for real success.

Thank you and you know, just a shout out to the to the group that you've built, the entrepreneurs for impact.

I I feel like that's part of the other community that that I'm part of that's helping me kind of sustain this.

You know, just I love the in person gatherings.

You know, that's where we that's another place that I, you know, I'm very I, I tell my team is like I it's, it's bit of a luxury.

If you can think of it.

You know, I was like, Hey, I get to go some fun place once 1/4 and but it's really important because that's how that's how I maintain.

That's how I, you know, get new ideas.

I refresh my my own thoughts on the business.

I I gather new ideas.

I connect with people, like minded people that are, are going through the same, same ups and downs as as I am.

And, and so I think that's super important and I hope you know this, this grows and continue to do that.

Here, here.

Yeah, a luxury in the same way that taking medicine or vitamins, you don't take it.

There's bigger problems down the road.

Hey, Yeah, glad you're a part of the EFICEO peer group.

Serene.

Until next time, our meet up our quarterly.

Meet up, see you then.

All right.

Sounds good.

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