The Energy Industry Still Runs on Excel | Alon Mashkovich, CEO & Co-Founder @ enSights

Today's episode is with Alain Mashkovitz. Alain is a CEO and co-founder of a company named insights.ai. And what they do is they aggregate information from a bunch of different places in mainly solar developments to give managers the ability to bring down the cost of operations and make these projects, renewable energy projects more

viable. Uh he has a very interesting story with uh pivoting from the consulting sector to coming up with an idea to validating the idea, getting the first customer, um using that experience to iterate on the product, uh first hires, a lot of stuff, a lot of really useful things that we talk about as far

as going from zero to one to two. Very interesting time in the company's life to be speaking with him. So I learned a lot from the episode. Thank you as always to uh partners clean techch growth lab. If you're looking to grow in clean tech, they are the people to do it with. And the producers of this podcast,

Crazy Friends. And with that, I give you along. Oh, welcome to another episode of The Grove. A shout out to our sponsors mentioned just before this, but without them, it would not be possible to interview awesome people doing awesome things like Han. Welcome.

Thank you. Happy happy to be here. That's right. So, I'm very interested. I I've done some research about Insights, uh, what you guys are building. Very interesting to me, you know, the the scale at which you guys do business, like we were just talking about your travel schedule.

But for anyone that doesn't know yet, uh, if you give a brief introduction of yourself and what you're building. Pleasure. Um, so I'm leading NSITES and NSITE is here in order to uncover and make sure that all the renewables that we are building around us are producing as much energy as they should and much

beyond in order to power all these demand for electricity, energy, data centers, AI. Um, so we are the infrastructure that helps to really empower and make sure that this energy is available. Is this uh your first company? At this global scale, I would say yes.

Before that, I've built uh a local consultancy firm focusing also in energy mainly in our local market which is still doing a great stuff and have shifted the focus and also producing and uh doing some products around energy tech. Uh but insights is really the one that uh we're scaling and working globally.

Gotcha. Okay. Well, before we get into uh the software that you've built and the passion that you have for energy, is there uh have you always known that you were going to start a company or was there a point where you said I'm going to I want entrepreneurship. I want to do it.

Um so I think it was really in my blood. Um I think many of the examples that I took is from my father which eventually also from the days that I remember he have been building his own path. Um and as a child I remember myself also doing some entrepreneurship uh stuff um like selling different

things in the on the street or going to our brabery store uh on the street and suggesting him to do more advertising and putting flyers um on people homes. Um and then yeah I've done some stuff as a child.

So I think it was really from the beginning is there. Nice. So then at what so then at what point at what point did you make the transition to energy? Also a funny story that I remember that my grandpa have been running over the house every time that we have been living. um the lights on. So energy I

think is also something that was close to my heart. But um I've studied first degree at law, second degree MBA majoring in finance and even then um we wanted me and my co-founder to deal with energy. So I think it was the decision was was made back in back then 2008 maybe even earlier but the

actual real activities that we started to work around energy it was 215 2015 that we left everything that I'm doing and focused only on this stuff. Okay. So then so then if if uh I believe what what you had said is this uh insights has been around five years now that you've been building it

endless to anyone cor so so what happened between uh 2015 and 2021 that that led you to believe that there was a place in the market for something like insights and I've been working as strategic um business strategic consultant in a company who have been focusing on cost reduction and helping our organizations

become much more efficient and usually when I have been trying to choose my clients uh my partners and the projects that I've took as a consultant I've tried to identify the ones that have high energy expenses uh again because it was kind of a passion so working as a consultant identifying different uh um

operations and helping businesses to be efficient focused on energy started to be much more expert in this field really to learn and understand what can be done better I'm not an engineer so I've been taking consultants from every specific area of experts professionals but what I think was important is to bridge the gap

from identifying the opportunity for efficiency and also deploy blowing and doing the stuff and the the bridge or the connection between the financial economic understanding. This is what brought me more and more into issues and identifying inefficiencies in this market which led me and my co-founder Roy build our own consultancy and focusing specifically on renewables and

energy efficiency and while working with different type of customers and many of them have large portfolios complex um assets it was kind of inefficient and it's still inefficient processes using CSVs excels eventually everyone going back to Excel and this was the point I think 201 18 that we saw so many things happening

and so much opportunities and technology that client and adopt by different different companies all the digitalization journeys and yet all of us came back to Excel. So this was the point where we try to see if there is an other way to manage all these complex portfolios eventually bringing us to 21 um and really establishing insights from

our own real pains of ours and our customers that we have been working with for years. Amazing. That was very well done. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. So that I think that sets up a lot of really good context to put us in 2021 where where you just landed.

How would you describe what your your product, what Insights was then, you know, the the first months, the first few months that you decided to uh start a company and build it. How would you describe what the company was and what the product was that you were selling?

I think pretty pretty around the same main um anchors let's say um usually I've started by asking or taking journey to the late 80s ' 90s that have been so many computers out there but there was not one operating system that have been standardizing all these fragmentation across computers so this is where our

space was in and still in there are so many OEMs providing of um renewable um equipment, solar storage, batteries, there is tons of fragmentation and there is no standard that provides really a one simple way to aggregate to manage and be efficient. So then it was kind of a windows into the world the operating

system that runs on all the computers. So, Ensites was built to be this operating system for the energy uh space uh focusing on distributed assets. Um so, it started mainly around solar. This is where we started with where was the real very big pain. I think back then we didn't imagine that the storage and the

batteries will be evolving so fast and become so cost effective and also adopting from solar to storage so fast. So the number of assets that we support really increased and also the understanding that back then it was dashboards and today we see all the revolution of AI. So dashboards it belongs to the past and

there is another way to engage by prompting by talking with the assets in order to really optimize. So yes there is the bit difference where we were what we where we are going uh but the core is still there is to be you we I I learned it as a consultant to kiss everything

you do keep it simple um so really keep it simple and provide the most efficient way to produce and manage energy assets so that's again wow look at this maybe you should run your own podcast I you're just leading right into all my questions. But u you know before we got into the details about you know the

acquisition of customers how the different things went what you just mentioned how is insights different now than it was when you started as far as where you're going. Great question. I think that we need to ask our partners, our team, uh the people, uh because I want to believe that the main principles

are staying the same because it's everything eventually around people that's supporting and building and enabling all these um technology, let's say. So many things evolve but I think the anchors should stay because if the basics are fundamental fundamentally uh solid so everything else is coming. So great question. I think that we are

a bit more matured but still I want to believe and this is one of the things that we trying to keep into our DNA still be flexible and agile in order to operate fast and concise. So I think we can see the maturity of us of the product but still I think the main anchor is we

need to try to keep them and focus on that because eventually it's all about what we're doing around it and the basics. Yeah. Okay. So so then so then you feel the the core of your product is mostly the same as as it was when you started.

It's not the same the but the principles or the what the guidelines that guides us oh I see okay are around the same standards to be simple to operate to be easy to deploy to be fast to act to be fast to identify and so tons of things have been evolved I think there is endless and especially

with these days of AI that is so accessible and things that you have been doing yesterday that took you tons of time now are much faster. So the product evolved but the principles that allow everything to happen I think are around the same because it's the core.

Okay. So so at the at the very beginning when you were just getting started I mean you had a good network uh of uh people in this industry from your consulting work. So um you know that could be where you where you started uh outreaching for uh for business. But at the very beginning how did you get your

first uh your first customers and how did that go? networking, learning from experts, understanding um it's not about selling. It's really to about trying to understand what are the real challenges that these people that you are trying to work with are facing and hearing them uh asking the right questions, establish the relationships.

a lot of in-person work that eventually AI cannot replace. So really talking, listening, more listening, h approaching to executives but also to the actual users and operators um really inerson interactions. Nice. So was so we we had we had said that there were uh there are basic principles that that stayed the same

which I think is awesome. Uh but you know in the last 5 years which is uh you know as it happens the the the product has evolved a lot has changed. So from the perspective of um understanding how companies grow because five years is is uh awesome you know I mean it's it's

it's a really it's a it's a great thing to be uh you know operating for 5 years it's a long time you know in the in the small in the entrepreneurship world. So let's just take uh let's just start with one. If you have um one experience with a customer or a client, you know, it

could be one that uh ended up not being the right fit or one that you're still working with, you know, any any way you want to take it, but what's a what's an experience with insights uh with a client that really impacted how you decided to continue growing the company or evolving the product after that?

This is a key principle because we are very customer centric. So I think every input that we get we're really trying to dig into and understand what's behind it in order to be able to improve our offering. So, and I'm very very very sensitive to our partners and customers because it's really about

relationships and how you support uh them when they need you the most. Even small feature requests eventually if you understand what stands behind it, it provides you a better understanding how the product should serve them. Um but if take to an example I think one of our very very early customers had tons of issues that we

thought and try to solve them all. Eventually um we have identified the basics um in order to start and really provide with what hurts them the most and from there to evolve. So building a real road map together to understand how they will utilize it and again it was the early days so they really had a huge impact on

how we have progressed over the time and and also understand that there are even other use cases that we never thought about and if we have not been listening to what they have to say how they struggle because today they are the operations behind all the product. We provide the infrastructure, we provide

the capabilities, but eventually our users working with the solution every day, every minute. So it's really listening and understanding and and following this pattern. Um so it's not to become a project company that develops every feature, but really understand behind it and by that provide with the solutions. And this is the kiss

um example around Nsight and what we've do what we do because today the solution is provides lots of offerings and yet it's simple to operate and to provide tons of solutions without the need even to develop another features because it's so flexible and and composable that are able to adjust to different use cases.

Oh, so that's that's something interesting that you said, which is uh you've evolved to be able to serve uh other customer segments that you never thought you'd be able to uh to service. Uh what have you learned about where is insights going and what have you learned about uh the energy sector in these

different spaces after working with your clients? Trust. I think trust is the key between people and I think trust is also a key between trust I think it's the basic fundamentals because especially in a industry in a legacy industry that was used for years to several technologies or certain technologies the ability to

showcase a new capabilities and Yet um build this trust is something that takes time but is very important for the successful implementation on both both sides of the uh on both sides. Yeah. So so you so you said you you started out servicing uh distributed uh distributed energy resources things like solar. Um

where where else are you uh are you are you operating in now? Solar still a huge market and finally everyone is looking into improve their performance. So and understanding that the data must to be real good and trustful. So and it's the same as all these assets are evolving into integration with storage batteries which

is a key in order to enable uh the flexible grid that we all talking about to support the increased consumption that coming because of different effects um and also the rise of the AI and this also brings us to data centers because many of the data centers are attached to renewable sources especially

batteries behind of the meter and more more use cases. So solar key driver storage very impressive um and very fast um increased market demand and also the data centers rush um because of all the AI is happening here.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so how in in the five years that I mean you spoke to a lot of these these things but in the five years that you've been working in solar are there any other uh ways that the market has developed that has made uh you know ends sites because you guys are still

around that has made ends more important and what are what do you see that uh solar developers are doing now uh that is a misconception or inefficient relative to what insights provide. It's two complex questions. So for the first one, I think the maturity of the market as well. In the past, everyone have been running and

building more and more and more and more and not looking at the performance. Now these assets needs to generate energy and questions started to get asked asked by the board by the investors why these assets are underperforming. Okay you say to me that this is because 1 2 3 provide me the report how you fix it how you

improve it. So there is a huge revenue leak uh because of the because not many have been focusing on really performance of these assets operations maintenance and today there is a more interest because of all the losses around it and we are able to identify these losses very fast even in the onboarding that

can take click of a button and we can onboard dozens and hundreds of assets. And this is I think important thing that we are still here and we are here to stay in order to improve and the attention is only rising. And the next uh second question the technology moved forward and all

these assets have connectivity capabilities. So in the past all of them have been installing additional hardware pieces. What makes all these projects more expensive? the equipment today already have these connectivity capabilities. So there is another way to communicate with these assets and reduce the project costs and to be agile on your operations to be fast on your

deployments. And I think the industry is still not seeing these new capabilities. And when it connects to cyber, all these assets are connected to the grid. No one talks about all these cyber issues by controlling all these assets and most of these devices.

No one talks about the threats behind it. So I think this is also not taking a lot into consideration and there is another way to do these things and enable connectivity while keeping them securely. Do you do you see uh the security aspect is very interesting. Do you do you see these um

uh these the the level of security the connectivity or uh the revenue models that you were speaking to are people still using Excel? Yes. Even and and you will never believe but even the most technological companies in the world that are really controlling all this consumption many of them also still depending on

CSVs sheets and all these great tools but I think we have much better tools today but before that we need to make sure that the data is structured the data is correct that you can trust the data and the data acquisition pieces very important in order to make all the other uh functionalities on top of that.

So this is this is something you had mentioned earlier. Where is insights going? We covered the beginning of it. We covered the journey how to get here. Where are you going? I think as I started to be the standout and then the new way how to run and operate energy business because it can

be very profitable. It can be very good to the environment and it can be very efficient and you need to deploy the right solutions out there that will enable you to operate these businesses in a good way, in an efficient way, in a simple way and it is possible because we see tons of siloed solutions

within these organizations and we see the energy demand only growing especially around AI and we talked about data centers. So the need to know their energy and to manage it in a wise way in order to make sure that you still can support the grid and the demand and make sure that you utilize the maximum of

your assets um insights should be the standard and provide that. All right. So so with with uh with all the I got two more questions for you. Um, one is with that uh with that as the direction with that as what you're building towards to be uh the standard what is the biggest hurdle in your way as as it

as it relates to uh customer acquisition or growth uh you know we didn't even talk about um the growth of your team you know managing people that's something that you had mentioned that next episode we should get into but what's the biggest hurdle uh in your opinion And how is it also an

opportunity? I think as an emerging technology market and when new players come to the market there is a level of trust or understanding that there are other ways and even it's not large brand but it has a good reputation and can provide the value that it brings. Um so as a newcomer it takes time

and bridging or shortening this time this is something that takes takes time. Yeah. So um Got it. I think this is one point especially in the market that was used to certain tools for years decades. Um so definitely growth scale and and the ability to do things in in a new way.

Well, so with that Alain, what inspires you? I will answer it in a different perspective. What keep what helps me to go out of the bed every day in the morning? So I think it's my kids and family and the understanding that we are really doing something that makes an impact for them.

So I have three kids and are my life eventually. Uh so family and the ability to do something good um that will stay here for for a long long long time. That's right. Well, thank you. Thank you for doing what you're doing. If anyone else is inspired uh to follow along or get in touch, what's the best way to do

so? Website, LinkedIn. I'm very accessible. LinkedIn is a great tool, email, wherever it works. But I think today with all the connectivity, LinkedIn is the better best way to to get in charge. Awesome. Well, thank you for telling your story. I'm excited about where you guys are going. The technology is very needed, very useful, and uh look forward

to the next one. Thank you very much.