#62: Building 9-Figs in a Garage: In Depth Dive into Solgen’s Rocket Ship

The Founder Podcast

Chris Lee

Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2023

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of The Founder Podcast, host Chris Lee and his guest, Levi Ringo, sit down to discuss the early days of building Solgen from the ground up. They share colorful stories from the company's origins in Chris's home garage in rural Washington. Listeners get a first-hand look at the challenges of bootstrapping a solar installation business with no outside funding. Chris and Levi reminisce about crazy experiences like taking on an ill-advised tree removal job and facing down a potential $1 million fine in their first year. They also celebrate the divine interventions that helped the fledgling company grow, from recruiting key early employees to securing a pivotal lease. Listeners learn how the founders' relentless vision and grit kept Solgen powered through adversity. Fans of the show will enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at entrepreneurial grit in action. Business owners will gain valuable lessons in problem-solving, pivoting and building a successful startup culture from the ground floor. With humor and honesty, Chris and Levi take listeners on the wild ride of the early days that established Solgen as an industry leader in solar energy. Highlights: "Your level of belief is the biggest limiting factor that's keeping you from networking to the top." "I was just miserable. I just gotten out of like a failed sales venture. I was down I was living in my car for like six months at this time trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to do with my life." "I think it's really the power of living in the moment, right? Like, let me just take this thing, one bite at a time, because I'm gonna keep biting, right?" Timestamps: 00:00: Introduction 08:45: Importance Of Culture 16:40: Energy Crisis 26:04: Early Mistakes 36:14: Solar Business Day To Day 41:39: Tree Removal 50:24: Managing Stress 1:10:16: Personal Growth Live Links: 🚀 Join my community - Founder Acceleration https://www.founderacceleration.com 🤯 Apply for our next Mastermind https://www.thefoundermastermind.com ⛳️ Golf with Chris https://www.golfwithchris.com 🎤 Watch my latest Podcast Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=dc252f8540ee4b05 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thefounderspodcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know the early days were full of all kinds of crazy mistakes like that you know because we didn't know what we were doing we got you know backed into a million dollar fine that was coming in from the state.
0:10.7	I'm walking in I'm seeing there's some buzzing around there's a you know a couple people
0:15.0	work on some projects and I do remember it was active in there and I go and I'm like I
0:21.0	think I'm at the right place and the first thing Chris says to me he's like you know this interview is casual right and I was like nope and then I said
0:31.6	One of the biggest lies I've ever said my entire life.
0:33.8	And I said.
0:35.2	Yeah, yeah, yeah, welcome to another episode of the founder podcast.
0:39.2	Today, we are listening to the people.
0:42.4	We got a lot of good feedback. So we just had an episode release with Mr.
0:46.7	Darrell Kelly. We told a little bit of his story and a lot of people were hoping and praying that we could tell a little bit more of the
0:54.5	soldier story in regards to Darrell. And so we've also brought on a nice little
0:58.7	special guest, Mr. Levi.
1:00.3	Hello, friends. Hello, hello.
1:01.8	Finally. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Super excited to have Levi on the show. So Levi was employee
1:08.9	number eight at Solgen and in the office what employee number three I think yeah okay
1:15.6	employee number three came on February January of 2018 towards the end of
1:20.9	January oh my goodness. Almost six years. January 2018 so for context we
1:26.9	launched well we technically fired our paperwork October 2017 we started marketing November of 2017.
1:37.1	Did our first install, I think,
1:38.3	December 5th or December 6th of 2017.
1:41.6	So about a month later, Levi coming on board and so some of my my favorite
1:48.0	memories so you know one of the things we're going to do today is we're going to share just kind of some of the
	...

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