Bill Lenihan, CEO of Off Grid Electric, discusses raising a significant amount of capital ($25 million) to address energy access issues in emerging markets.
Bill Lenihan, CEO of Off Grid Electric, discusses raising a significant amount of capital ($25 million) to address energy access issues in emerging markets. He shares his experiences transitioning from banking and private equity to a tech CEO role, and the unique challenges and opportunities of fundraising for ventures in emerging markets.
you're patient to find the right opportunity that really drives you and you're driven by that opportunity, then you're going to be successful. However you define uh success. [music] All righty. Hello everyone and welcome to the Dealmaker Show. So today we're going to have a really great founder. you know, we're going to be talking about that interesting transition from the investor side of the table to really, you know, becoming a founder, being on the operator side of things, you know, the building, scaling, financing, I mean, you name it. You know, I think that you guys are going to find the conversation today quite inspiring. And without further ado, I'd like to welcome our guest today, Bill Lenny. Welcome to the show, >> Alejandro. Thanks for having me. >> So, you grew up in Southern California. Bill, give us a walk through Memory Lane. How was life growing up over there?
>> It was great. It was great. I grew up uh in Whittier, California. It was a smaller town outside of uh Los Angeles, more East LA. Um uh parents were great parents. Had two great sisters. Uh went to a rather large public high school and then uh made my way to UCLA. But it was uh Los Angeles was a great place to grow up. super diverse and uh connects well to some of the things that I'm doing now >> and quite the competitive spirit you know early on playing water polo. So uh where where did that come from? >> That came from swimming. I started swimming uh as a kid really young and then uh I found my way to a sport that actually was a little more fun uh a little more team oriented and uh started to play in high school and then took those sports to uh to college. And talking about the studies too uh on your case I mean you you ended up doing your your MBA at Wartton great
school uh but one thing that that that is true in your in your career is that you've done a couple of uh shifts or changes of gear that I think that perhaps you know may have been very helpful to on the way that you've been able to do knowledge transfer. uh you started out uh more like on the investment banking side with credit Swiss and then from there you know more into private equity via Goldman Sachs and then from there obviously you know private equity to now being a founder but but walk us through how you did that transition and and and how you used ultimately the MBA as well to to be able to switch the gears like that. >> Yeah. No, the I really kind of think about it more as just one transition from from finance um to operations. Um but but you're right, I I started as an analyst out of undergrad. Um I worked for credit Swiss and um I worked in the M&A department. Uh and
we um we we spent a lot of time with private equity firms and I really thought highly of that of that model. I was interested in in in in that business model particularly as a as a as an investor and uh um so the the transition into private equity was really catalyzed by my move to to business school at the time. There's it's different now but private equity wasn't really coming to Wall Street investment banks to find people. Um so I needed to go get my MBA. In my MBA, I focused on um I was a dual major in operations, general management, and finance. And I felt that, you know, private equity, what is private equity? It's in investing in in businesses. So, you're um you're evaluating operations, you're evaluating strategy, uh what opportunities exist, and then you're you're you're risk valuing uh companies. So, it's a really a mix between operation, as I saw it in operations and finance.
I got my dual degree at Wharton and Wharton allowed me to access to a lot of private equity firms. Um, not that they were really recruiting there, but there was a good alumni network and I leveraged that alumni network and ultimately leveraged it into a a role at Goldman Sachs where um where I was working in their private equity practice. Um, and then on the private equity side, I spent I spent almost 15 years. I started at Goldman and then I worked um at a firm called Fremont Partners. After that I moved from New York to San Francisco. Fremont Partners is a is a was run by and capital was the Becttel family, Becttel Construction Engineering. And I was really attracted to that model that that's a 100 plus year old four generation family management organization. And the way that they invested and bought companies was different. It was really more operating oriented. um um what's the risk
in the business model today? How can you build it and make it greater uh in the in the future? It was a different approach to private equity. I gravitated towards it. I did that for a number of years and then um I got an opportunity to join an operating partner from from uh Fremont Partners. At that point, three of my partners had transitioned into a company called Caller Capital. Um, uh, we had spun out into a a different entity with different investors and one of our operating partners went to work for a company called Switch, which was a technology company here where I live in the Bay Area. And uh, the CEO of the company asked if I wanted to come join. he thought maybe he saw something in me uh that maybe a lot of private equity people don't have an interest in and that's in general management and I think I was 40 at the time and I thought well what the heck if I'm ever going to try
something different um uh here this is the time and I felt there was no real downside to it I felt like I I if I went out and was a great operator it would only make me a better investor and uh maybe I come back into private rivate equity maybe I don't so I joined him and uh from there my technology operating career has now also been about 15 uh 15 years and I am uh currently um I've I've changed from being an operator from a financier investor to an operator and now to a a founder CEO of uh of Zola Intelligence >> now well one thing that you know is really interesting here is because I mean I see I see people going from one side of the table to the other. I find that in, you know, from from venture capital to to to founder, I think that it's a it's a close jump. I think that from PE to founder is is is a little bit farther, but I think it's it gives you more of an advantage
because of the the perspective and the education that you get about making and optimizing for profitability at the end because, you know, EBIT die is absolutely everything, you know, when it comes to to private equity. But I think that given the times that we're in now with venture capital where especially we've seen this you know after co where you had it was growth above everything else before. So if you were a great company very profitable and you were not you know more growing like crazy and burning then you were not as sexy and then you went you know from that to the burning and then now it's all about profitability and now the the the companies that were good you know became shitty and then the shitty companies became amazing companies. I think that ultimately that gives you a tremendous advantage to as a a founder, an operator, no, which is to really understand, you know, what
moves the needle when it comes to to to to to building a solid and profitable business. So, I think that how do you think that that that private equity, you know, experience for 14 for 15 years has really shaped the way that you tackle execution? >> Yeah. No, I I um I think of them as very different skill sets, but but also complimentary to to either um uh what what it takes to be a great investor um is uh you you have to be broad. You're almost a mild wide. You got to understand pattern recognition uh here. You got to be able to price risk and opportunity and and it is very as you as you point out it's very data oriented to be a great operator there are similar skills there you have to set strategy but so much of being operations as I've learned um is in organizational development I it's in how do you organize properly around that strategy and set targets and manage the team to
ultimately execute. Um, and so the to to your to your point, um, well, one, I will tell you I thought I when I first started on the operating side, I thought I was going to be great. I think a lot of PE people think they're going to be great operators. I would say the vast majority aren't built for it. Um, I learned very quickly uh, what I didn't know. Very quickly I learned this is a different deal alto together. But the skills that I developed uh on the operating side this sort of you know sort of organ organizational development execution to the to the strategy it was really complemented by exactly what you just said. Um you uh the the the data the facts you know here you know what is the data telling you about performance? Um just simple things like capital allocation. A lot of being a CEO is really allocating your your particularly in young companies your um your your your scarce
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