The Nichole Wischoff Podcast
00:48:34 · Nichole Wischoff, Alan Chang
[00:48:34] S0: I mean, are you able to share exactly how? Or is this just a secret sauce we don't share? But that's a pretty dramatic savings. [00:48:41] S1: Yeah, it's actually not that secret. So typically there's up to 10 companies involved in building a power plant, and you don't really need 10 companies involved. So having a small team, you know, that can, you know, tidy couple and and work very closely with each other, you can squeeze a lot of savings out. [00:49:11] S0: Okay. Okay. So you've got this small and mighty team able to get moving, save 30%. So now from a consumer perspective, like, what are they... Like, I'd love to better understand just growth and go to market rate. Like, what are you advertising? Is it really just the savings? And then I... It almost seems self-service. It's, the sign on's, like, three minutes. Like, you can get them switched. So, like, what exactly does that mean for someone listening that knows nothing about Fuse and they're a consumer in The UK, for example? Like, what are they getting? How do they get
00:49:11 · Nichole Wischoff, Alan Chang
[00:49:11] S0: Okay. Okay. So you've got this small and mighty team able to get moving, save 30%. So now from a consumer perspective, like, what are they... Like, I'd love to better understand just growth and go to market rate. Like, what are you advertising? Is it really just the savings? And then I... It almost seems self-service. It's, the sign on's, like, three minutes. Like, you can get them switched. So, like, what exactly does that mean for someone listening that knows nothing about Fuse and they're a consumer in The UK, for example? Like, what are they getting? How do they get [00:49:40] S1: it? Yeah, so I think consumers... So the great thing about utility is like it's very deterministic in terms of what consumers want, right? I can't say that for a lot of b to c categories, right? So what customers care about? They care about low cost, they care about good product, and they care about good customer service. So I think we touched on low cost. In our view, the best product in the market. We spend a lot of energy and time to ensure we have the best UX. And on customer service, we're the only entry company that offers, you know, twenty four seven customer support every single day of the year, including New Year's Eve.
00:49:40 · Alan Chang, Nichole Wischoff
[00:49:40] S1: it? Yeah, so I think consumers... So the great thing about utility is like it's very deterministic in terms of what consumers want, right? I can't say that for a lot of b to c categories, right? So what customers care about? They care about low cost, they care about good product, and they care about good customer service. So I think we touched on low cost. In our view, the best product in the market. We spend a lot of energy and time to ensure we have the best UX. And on customer service, we're the only entry company that offers, you know, twenty four seven customer support every single day of the year, including New Year's Eve. [00:50:28] S0: So you've... That... Yeah. That's awesome. And then in terms of just, I guess, the the tangible growth and go to market function, how are you targeting customers? Where do you find them? Are there billboards all over The UK? I haven't been back in a while, but, like, is this all just paid marketing online? Like, how are you converting so quickly and growing so quickly? [00:50:46] S1: Yeah. So I think it's a combination of organic sign ups. We also have a paid referral program, and we also work with some affiliate partners too. [00:50:57] S0: Okay. And how big is the team now? How many employees do you guys have? [00:51:03] S1: We have approximately two fifty people. [00:51:06] S0: Oh, wow. Okay. Got it. And then you're also... You have an office in New York as well? [00:51:10] S1: We have a very small office in New York. That's correct.
00:51:10 · Alan Chang, Nichole Wischoff
[00:51:10] S1: We have a very small office in New York. That's correct. [00:51:13] S0: Okay. Fair enough. Got it. I know you, mentioned in your 2026 just sort of roadmap to expand into both Ireland, The US and Spain. Maybe walk us through those plans. And is it a similar offering? Because I know there'll be a ton of work to do in each market from like a regulatory perspective, a go to market perspective. [00:51:32] S1: Yeah. Very, very similar road map building a full stack energy company in every market we go to. [00:51:37] S0: Yep. And let's double click into what I think is fascinating, but the the network that you're building right now. I think you just announced that as a part of your plans, should be amazing to help scale the grid. But what is the energy network? [00:51:51] S1: Yeah. So let's solve the problem we're trying to solve. So globally, there's roughly $12,000,000,000 worth of renewable energy being wasted every single year. And this is excluding payments. Renewable owners get paid to switch off, right? So
00:51:51 · Alan Chang, Nichole Wischoff
[00:51:51] S1: Yeah. So let's solve the problem we're trying to solve. So globally, there's roughly $12,000,000,000 worth of renewable energy being wasted every single year. And this is excluding payments. Renewable owners get paid to switch off, right? So [00:52:15] S0: Shout out to our partner public.com, the investing platform built for people who take it seriously. On public.com, you can build a long term multi asset portfolio across stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and more all in one place. They offer advanced tools like generated assets, which lets you turn almost any idea into an investable index using AI, plus tax efficient direct indexing for long term investors. Whether you're trading options with rebates, earning income through your yield accounts, or automating your strategy with their actively trading API, Public gives you the tools to invest the way you want. And right now, you can also earn an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your portfolio from another brokerage. Check out public.com, link in the show notes.
00:53:01 · Alan Chang
[00:53:01] S1: The first concept we need to understand is basically electricity is not the same across time and space. Right? So for example, let's start with time. Setting the obvious. If let's say wind is blowing, the sun is shining, but no one's using power, this power just gets wasted, right? And if people or businesses start using power when the sun is not shining, wind is not blowing, then you need to rely on gas turbines, right? So there's basically a time mismatch, right, between usage. The second is location, right? Obviously, if you generate power miles and miles and miles away, where the demand is, it's not gonna get to where the demand is. And there's also, you have to also consider grid congestion, right? So in the old days of how we generate and consume power, we basically used to have big coal plants that can serve millions of homes or millions of businesses right, from a single power plant. And the coal plant really works kind of like a combustion engine, right? You can rev up the engine when the demand is higher, you can rev down the engine when demand is lower. It's a pretty simple system. But now as we decommission coal plants and replace them with renewables, you can't do that anymore, right? So the characteristic of renewables is obviously intermittent, but also it's distributed, right? So it's no longer in a single source, it has multiple, multiple, multiple sources, right? Even at utility scale, we used to have like 10, 100 gigs of concentrated power generation, but we're now a very distributed megawatt generation storage, right, across the country. So effectively what you need is effectively what the industry called demand response. But effectively a control system, right? Where on demand side you basically modulate demand up and down in order to effectively balance with generation. And all the times you try and match supply and demand, right? So when there's more supply you want more demand, and when there's less supply you want less demand, right? And we wanna do it in a way that doesn't really affect customer experience, right? Because obviously like when I wanna use power, like I wanna cook, wanna turn on lights, I want to be able to do that, right? So this is basically the challenge of trying to match supply and demand without affecting customer experience. So our way of solving is basically using smart devices.