The Friction Report — Commercialization Intelligence for Cleantech Founders

*This newsletter has a new name and a sharper focus.*

Previously, this space explored emotional intelligence in cleantech marketing and sales content. That work hasn't gone away — it's now in service of something more specific.

What I kept seeing, across founders at very different stages, was the same underlying problem: real technology, real market interest, and a commercial system that wasn't built to convert either into consistent revenue.

The missing system was the actual problem. This newsletter is now built around finding it, mapping it, and fixing it — for cleantech founders who've been carrying commercialization by hand for long enough.

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Introduction

There's a room in every cleantech deal that the founder never sees.

It's the room where the champion you've been working with tries to make the case to the CFO.

Where the CFO asks the question that actually determines the outcome — not "does the technology work?" but "what happens to me if this goes wrong?" — and nobody in that room has anything designed to answer it.

Not a proof stack. Not a buyer brief. Not a single document built for the internal conversation rather than the external pitch.

Just the memory of what you said in the last meeting. And hope.

Most cleantech founders don't have a sales problem.

They have a room problem.

The room they're never in — where their champion tries to make the case to the CFO, and the CFO asks the question that determines everything:

"What happens to me if this goes wrong?"

I know this room. I've stood just outside it.

A few years ago, I was lead generator and principal salesperson for Kinect Community Solar — one of the first companies trying to make community solar work in the five boroughs of New York City.

The technology was real. NYC electricity rates were running at twice the national average. Large rooftop owners could earn up to $2 million over a 25-year lease with no upfront cost.

I brought strong prospects. Real interest. Engaged conversations.

Not one of them closed.

Six months later, the company was gone.

It took me years to understand what actually happened. The buyers were interested. But they couldn't say yes — not to me, not to each other, not in the internal conversations I was never invited to.

The champion who'd brought me in had no tools to make the case to the CFO.

The CFO had no proof the risk was manageable.

Nobody had anything designed to answer the question that actually determines the outcome.

We had a pitch. We had facts. We had marketing materials.

We had nothing designed for the conversation that happens after I leave the room.

Kinect didn't fail because community solar was a bad idea. Community solar is now one of the fastest-growing clean energy markets in the US.

They failed because the commercialization system wasn't there.

No proof stack. No buyer brief. No internal advocacy tools. No follow-up logic built around how cleantech decisions actually get made — committee by committee, fear by fear, approval by approval.

I've spent the years since watching the same pattern repeat. Different sectors. Different cities. Different technologies. Same failure mode.

Cleantech companies don't fail to commercialize because their innovation is weak. They fail because the commercial system around the innovation is incomplete.

That's what PROPEL is built to fix. Not from theory — from a very specific, very expensive lesson in a community solar start-up in New York City, and the question it left behind:

What would have had to exist for those deals to close?

If you're a cleantech founder watching good deals stall somewhere in committee — and you're not sure exactly where the system is breaking — I'd like to hear what's happening for you.

Not to pitch you. Because I've been on the other side of this. And I know what the room looks like from outside.

DM me, or tell me in the comments: where does your deal most often go quiet?

#cleantech #commercialization #climatetech