From Energy Innovation to Market Adoption | Steve Bravo, NYSERDA

Oh, today on the show we have Steve Bravo. Steve is the director of commercialization at Naerta. What is Naerta? Honestly, you should know, but if you don't, it is New York State Energy and Research Development Authority. In my opinion, they are a beautiful example of what happens when you have public and private entities all coming together to

accelerate the development of particular energy technologies that make the world better. And so they are a state program. They are funded by state funds. Um but they have created this beautiful ecosystem in the state of New York where a bunch of climate professionals are coming together. A bunch of uh extremely smart um uh academics, entrepreneurs, uh

service providers, a bunch of people in the state are coordinated through these uh different specific programs that Steve uh walks us through. But it's really fascinating to understand the mechanics of this program that is one of the oldest in my ignorance in the world but I think one of the oldest uh at

least in the country uh that operate in such a way and so I know that uh a number of other states I don't know to uh to what degree of success um if anyone's listening and knows anybody that can speak uh and to other states I would love to talk to them but uh as a

template of how to develop such an effective ecosystem that supports innovation in the sector So, was amazing to be able to talk to Steve. Uh, I loved it. I know you will, too. Shout out as always to our sponsors, Clean Techch Growth Lab. If you're looking to grow in clean tech, they're the people to do it

with. And as always, the producers of this podcast, Crazy Friends. And with that, I give you Steve. Oh, welcome to another episode of The Grove. 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 Steve. Welcome.

Thanks Blake. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate the the um being able to kind of join you and talk about what we're doing over at Naerta spec specifically when it comes to our commercialization efforts to help startups in market.

>> Everything about everything about this everything about the show everything I do. I wake up I breathe. clean tech commercialization. So, uh I think personally I'm a huge fan of what NAERTA is doing. I've talked to a lot of people uh about the structure that you guys have and how effective it is and it's

it's really cool. So, I'm excited to learn more about it. So, before we get into my huge list of questions, if you give a brief introduction of yourself and what you're building. >> Sure. Yeah. Uh my name is Steve Bravo. I am the director of commercialization for NAERTA, which stands for the New York

State Energy Research and Development Authority. Our overall role is to help uh bring in new tech and help guide New York and its energy system to make uh energy affordable, reliable, and and kind of meet the needs of our rateayers today and tomorrow. So, um >> So, how did you just were you running

around as a kid? You said I cannot wait to be director of commercialization at NICERA or did something happen at some point or change? >> No, I mean uh I'll give you my origin story into energy, right? So I think that's like uh >> yeah, so I I joined the energy industry back in 2013 after being in the US Navy

for about 10 years. Um so it was through my time when I was in the Navy that I got interested in energy. So uh at some point kind of midway through my career I was exposed to like operational energy which means how much the how much the military was uh using uh energy of

various various types and the kind of the the logistics tale that created and also like the national security implications that created. But uh me on a personal basis, it was more of like I did three deployments to the Persian Gulf. And throughout those deployments, one of our key missions was to do oil

platform defense. And so when you join the Navy, you're not going to you go out there and you say, "I'm going to defend my country." It's um and part of defending your country is uh defending supply chains, but it becomes really apparent to you when you're out there uh defending oil platforms, uh being away from your family or like

there's got to be a better way. So that's what kind of got me originally interested in like is there a better way that we can maintain our national defense but not have people out here defending oil platforms or having uh Marines and soldiers defending kind of fuel trains going into Afghanistan and and Iraq. And so that's kind of where I

started looking into it and kind of got turned on to energy and clean energy technologies. And so that's kind of what got me interested. So when I got out of the out of the when I was coming up to get come off active duty and get out of the military, I looked at what options

were out there and I was fortunate enough to uh land a role with General Electric, a part of a program they call the junior officer leadership program. So it's >> nice >> geared towards former military officers who are like, I want to be in this industry, but I don't know what I want

to do. So like if you if you find a lot of transitioning veterans particularly those in the in who are in the clean tech space or in the energy space in general I think you'll find a couple of things. One you know we're very miss uh energy is a very missiondriven kind of

career field. You know most people get into it partially because of the good it can do as well as like being a career to help kind of put food on the table and take care of their families. But there's also the mission aspect of it. And so that that plays very well to like

veterans who are when they kind of come out of service, they're like, "What else? What else can I do that's kind of mission driven?" I really like that aspect of the job I used to have. What fields can I do that in? And and energy is a direct correlation that people find quite a bit. So,

>> so, so were were you were you always uh because to my understanding um uh innovation which is a broad word but uh research and then uh the commercializ or the you know the funneling of that research to ultimately tangible impact in the world. Has your work always been around innovation and research or did

that start with NAERTA? it became more focused on the research more earlier stage when I when I moved to Naerta. So the majority of uh at GE I was introduced into kind of the product development uh career field and so it was more of taking technologies that were were almost commercial and pushing

that last little bit to create them into technologies and products that we could use to serve our customers. And so um that's where I got introduced into kind of the de the development aspect. Now the um as I continued on with my career I got a little bit earlier and earlier stage. So um spent about nine years at

GE doing product development both on onshore wind um and then also with their energy storage group for about two year uh alto together and then I went to a company called Fluence which is an um original equipment manufacturer and this is where it went from GE that was you know we were always kind of working with

NAS technologies like we were working with energy storage we were working with things before they were had a big market but when I went to fluence you know they were just a they were a company that had just IPOed. So the day I started there was the day they IPOed. So it was a

company that was in a space that was growing that was going from being kind of concepts and ideas to actually being commercially viable on a pretty large scale pretty quickly. So I got a little bit earlier stage of like okay so how do we start uh developing nent technologies nent um supply chains to get them to the

point uh where they need to be commercialized and then >> so you went from you went from GE and increasingly as your uh your your career went on you said you got earlier stage >> yeah yeah exactly uh I'm not sure if that's the the typical care career pro progression but that's right Blake so

Yeah. So then so then with with what you do right now I mean you're you were speaking to uh Nent supply chains and and you know new IPO and I'm sure after that like like we talked about earlier an earlier stage. So what are you doing now at Naerta that has to do with these

earlier stages? What does support look like? >> Yeah. So NAER the commercialization group. So maybe let me answer that question by talking about kind of innovation and research at NAERTA. I'll kind of work my way into that question and talk about what that sport looks like. So, >> um, at NAERTA, I'm a part of the

innovation and research group. And so, that group's made up of three separate teams. Research and development teams, our commercialization group, which I lead, and then an innovation partnerships group. And so um quickly like the research and development teams they provide support around kind of different problem statements like we need a technology that helps us uh lower

the cost of u energy for multif family buildings or increases the energy efficiency or helps with grid modernization. There's different problem statements that they work through. Um and they do focus a little bit more on the technical side of how we kind of drive those solutions from a technical perspective.

our um our commercialization group where I sit is focused a lot on the aspects of development that are are along with uh kind of the technical development. So that's things around commercial adoption. So hey, do you have a supply chain setup? Do you have an idea of what your workforce is going to need to be

when you scale this up? Do you have an idea of what your costs are going to be? >> Do you have an idea of I mean just general things. What's your market size? what's your value proposition? You know, so we're dealing with a lot of these other aspects that are not just focused

on the technical development of a technology. So to answer your question, what support looks like is helping companies understand all those other aspects that they need to keep in mind and helping provide the support they need to >> address those adoption barriers as they scale and develop. So then so so we have

I guess the the general framing of of what uh innovation research about what support means to you guys. So what are the different programs that that you implement in order to uh deliver that support? >> Yeah. So I'll talk specifically on the commercialization side. So our our our current commercialization of programming is focused on two different sets of or

types of programs. One is um cohort-based accelerators and the second is voucherbased kind of company specific support. So the cohort-based accelerators we offer in our current programming have five separate accelerators that focus on different aspects of the startup cycle all the way from founder phase all the way to uh scale up which is just prior to market

deployment. And so those five kind of separate and divide up that that they divide up that startup kind of journey into different pieces and focus on helping groups of companies in a cohort base uh to meet that next milestone.

And then and then our other set of programming is voucher based. So voucher based are kind of uh shorter term projects but there um the program we have one program that focuses on that called the climate techch expertise network but it's multiaceted and what I mean by that is it provides kind of four distinct services uh one is

kind of entrepreneur and resident support so that's uh mentors that uh that program has over 160 different entrepreneurs and residents that they can use these are some of these are former kind of energy companies CEOs, some are former CTOs, some are engineering directors, or some that focus on permitting to provide different supports uh to meet the specific needs

of a startup or solution provider. >> So, we're so across the board, we're talking about there's the obvious support of these very technical uh solutions, you know, these these people that are geniuses that need tinkering space that that need physical space, that need direction. Uh but as far as commercialization, you know, the the connection to uh

commercial opportunities or customer conversations uh that are that are typically hard to come by and like you're speaking to talent as well uh mentorship. Are there are there any other I guess uh larger uh umbrella uh areas that you would focus on >> like that we support through NAERTA to help kind of address those? Yeah, I

guess the the reason I want to know is just because uh again to me Naert is a very as as as far as ecosystems go, you know, like innovation ecosystems and specifically commercialization, which is the point of uh a lot of the content that we put out on the show. Um the the

programming is very intentional and very specific and it has a long tenure and so the design of this uh you know this beast I think is very interesting and understanding why uh you know it all works together and what is important to focus on. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I think you mentioned to it, right? Like we um there's some intentionality to how you design these programming this programming that we would have for a a large program like NAERTA. You know, we um like I said, we have five accelerators and then we have a a voucher program. So, there's a lot

of programming that we put out, but it it's not meant to be kind of siloed or disparate. So, it's meant to kind of work together as a system. And so it's not just like and through that programming we pro or through those different programs we provide development support non-dilutive funding but then there's also aspects that come

along with being a part of a nice program that we can provide that funnel down to those startups and solution providers. >> Sweet. you know, so a lot of our our programming attracts different people, advisors that can help provide support for those startups when they're as part of those programs that provide that next

level of support. Um like I uh when I kind of allude back to like uh connections with different funders, I would say one of the programs, one of the aspects of specifically that uh climate techch expertise network is providing opportunities for people from their network that are kind of somewhat attracted not uh by being a

part of a nice program to connect with kind of these vetted startups that they work through and prepare. there to kind of create that opportunity to get them in front of founders so that it's not just kind of it we provide that support so it's not just like hey I met this person at this conference and then you

have to work that angle as well but we also provide support to con uh put them in front of funders as well through that >> so as a uh uh as an unbiased third party if you could uh confirm these numbers because I think this is crazy so I I think 10 years

There's been 300 or so products commercialized through the system. Is this true? >> Yeah, through our commercialization group. That's right. So, our um >> Wow. >> our last set of funding which just, you know, ended uh what ended at 2025, we have some pro our programming is still kind of in in play for that. But that

funding that ended in that 10ear cycle was 300 projects, >> you know, like$1.8 8 billion in follow on funding through that 10 years you know and uh you know it kind of comes down to like the the the high level number is like it's from both for both the founders that it brings in but also

from like the naerta perspective to New York rate payers who you know provide that funding it's like a 50 to1 return >> so >> so so with so uh another really important thing um to get out of all these conversations are specific action advice to founders. And so out of these 300 programs to whatever degree you've

been involved in, you know, however many of those 300, uh, what do some of these companies that ultimately make it through towards an acquisition or just they, you know, they grow large or, you know, they they successfully go from this research stage to this successfully commercialized stage. What do they do that is different than companies that uh

never make it past pilot stage? >> Yeah, I think the answer to that one is, you know, there's no set like rubric that says if you do this that >> Oh, man. >> I know, right? Like if you're >> I know I I would like to have that too.

So I think what we I think from the na certa perspective of someone who's responsible for providing that support we think about like hey how can we help increase the likelihood for those companies to make it to that pilot phase to make it through those different valleys and challenges that they have to and so some of the things

that we've landed on it is part of how we structure our programs so for instance I mentioned we have accelerators that provide baseline development support and non-dilutive funding, but then we also offer supplemental support through vouchers to kind of meet those companies where they're at and provide um specific services that help supplement that

journey. providing that structure like I think you know we want to be able to provide a constant structure that startups as they go through their journey that is um they they can understand like hey this is where I can go get help to get to my next level or get to that next milestone. NAERTA can

provide me support to get through my initial funding, but then it can also provide me support to do my initial pilot and then it can provide me support to help do my commercial scale up, get my manufact uh get in uh have my design evaluated for manufacturability, introduce me to manufacturers in New

York State. And so to answer your question, this I think it's more of the challenge is with every startup with NB journey is that the market changes, policy changes, different um you know the the best idea in the world could just run into a a tough market or you know and just kind of struggle through

where in a different timeline it it could probably continue to succeed. What we want to do at NAERTA is to provide a constant structure so that it kind of is a a it's a constant opportunity or a constant support structure to those startups to help them increase those chances and and make it a little bit

predictable of what sort of support they're going to get from us. So, uh, speak speaking to, um, uh, other ecosystem builders on the show, a lot of times, um, the the examples that they will give because like you said, there's no rubric, but examples that uh, of of typical success and I think it does have

to do with um, particular stage. So I guess to ground this in uh in more specificity we could choose a stage whether it's uh you know going for that first pilot or going for the first several customers or um you know like seeking acquisition. I mean these are very very different um experiences as

far as uh running a company but I guess at earlier stages just selfishly my my interest is and I guess that's where we're at in in the curve of your career. Um, you know, uh, some other some other people say, you know, always, um, always fund raise. I mean, there are people that that aren't doing that. That's

fair. You know, like whether you want, uh, dilutive or non-dilutive funding or, uh, you know, like they're hyperfixated on customers or maybe they're they're they're hyperfixated on the market as a whole, you know, like you're speaking to. Um and uh there is like you said no rubric but I'm just curious from your

perspective if you've seen any specific attributes of you know maybe how to approach the initial um hiring or the initial fund raise or something that um effect that a founder or founding team has done or has expressed that makes um the journey you know not easier but I guess just a higher level of of success.

Maybe it's taking advantage of all the programming, you know, someone being more active inside of the naerta uh structure. But yeah, I'm just curious uh your thoughts on th those qualities of a founding team. >> Well, I definitely think there's a I mean there's a correlation to success to comp that to companies that do take

advantage of our programming and take advantage of all the aspects of our programming, right? Um uh sometimes there's it there's an ownorous to like applying for an accelerator program and going through that but and so sometimes that's a can be seen as a little bit more difficulty than it's worth. But like we have seen a a solid correlation

to someone that comes in and takes advantage of not only our programming but the network effect of being with other founders that uh is nicer brings together. Outside of that, I think you know if you're talking early stage, I am always been a big proponent of understanding you having a solid value proposition is

the most is one of the most important things that you can have as a founder early on and as a solution provider. And inherent in that value proposition is understanding what you can do but also how you're solving a customer problem.

So, it's hey, what is my team capable of or what are we trying to solve for and how do we solve it in a unique way that's that's better than anyone else in the competition out there or anything that's on the market right now. So, having that really crystal clear of hey, what are the problems that these

customers in the market I'm trying to go into are facing? So it's it those are the things that I think are the baseline of the structure of in the early phases because then that allows you once you it's kind of like once you know what you're capable of and you know how well

you're solving that problem and you could communicate it through a solid value proposition it makes the fundraising easier. It makes direction of your company a lot easier to kind of give you that north star. But then there's also the the case that as you go through that journey things will change right so you have to always like it's

one of those things you you always come back to like okay is our value proposition still fit as we've scaled right so we've like you know we've gained some traction we've had a pilot okay what do we learn through that pilot and is our value proposition still in line with what we do best and what our c

what we feel our target customers are looking at. You kind of have to have those questions in the back of your mind to be able to be like, okay, what what tweaks can we make to what we're doing to our processes or to our product to help it uh to help it either stay within

that core market we thought of originally or to adjust to the changes in the market that we feel now that we've learned a little bit more we can actually provide a unique solution for. >> Yeah. Some sometimes and I'm I'm really interested in what you think. Sometimes I've had conversations with early stage

founders and they say, "Oh, we have this technology. It's obviously awesome because the founders are awesome and they're super smart." But when they're thinking about commercialization, they're saying, "Well, we could, you know, uh we're looking for a first pilot and we we are confident that there's application in this place, in this place, and this place, and in this

place." And to you know my own opinion it's all of these can be good options but in in order to most effectively allocate resources at a small stage you know focusing on one or maybe two of the most uh viable uh directions is is is what's best at early stage. So my question is one do you see at early

stages founders having these you know oh well our techn is awesome and it can be applicable in a bunch of different ways and two if you do how do you usually direct them or or or answer a question about you know what the next few months or years should look like?

Well, I think there's I mean that is the uh appeal of being like, hey, I can be the Swiss Army solution and I can go to all these different ones because you know when you're early fundraising and you're trying to find that that that first hitch, you're you're open to anything, right? Um but I think one of

the things is that's where a lot of the adviserss and a lot of the input from our programs like the the different program administrators the different ERS are are really valuable out of NICERTA programming to provide that because they can say hey I know that you think this is where uh this is your target market

let me out let me outline what some of the challenges you're going to face in going that direction is I think you still have something here to uh so if you still think that's where you're the best like uh and you still feel like that's the journey you want to go on let's help you get there but I think at

the same time they can provide the alternative that says your technology you may not have even thought about this but your technology has applicability to doing synthetic graphite you know you set out on a journey that you wanted to do you know high quality methane that sort of thing but actually through this

process you can create synthetic rapite which is a really big thing I keep hearing from all of my other they're like oh we didn't think about that. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So it's like that's where to answer your question it's like listening to some of those advisors around you to kind of help say okay I have a really strong

idea of what my value proposition is but some of the things I have to go out and test that in the market. I've done my pilot and what I learned here is like, yeah, we have something here, but the margins are really tight >> or the supply chain's really constrained, but we we learned this that

this is actually a solid attribute. It wasn't really where we wanted to go in the original direction, what we thought about early on, but we've learned this. We've bounced this off some of the adviserss and some of the other mentors that we have, and this is the new new track we'd go to. So, it's it's coming

back to like taking advantage of those other people that have experienced before you, listening to them and then just adjusting to where the market is and being able to like not deviate away from what your core idea and team are capable of, but being open to pivoting, making small pivots as you navigate. So,

so speaking to those challenges though, I mean scaling a lot of these are hardware to my opinion or at least in my experience a lot of these companies are hard tech you know they're physical um rather and and less often is it is it software although I'd like to hear your thoughts about that when when you're

scaling these these you know between technical challenges between procurement which you're speaking to you know like establishing supply chains and things like this what are some of the biggest challenges that these these companies that you work with um face and how do they navigate those challenges?

>> Yeah, I think one of frankly one of the biggest challenges we faced early on was helping startups understand especially at the early stage of all the potential commercial challenges they might face. You know it can um when you think about it facing the technical challenges are usually a little bit straightforward. Um

there's usually a technical aspect that you're approaching this from, but it's when you approach it from the commercial challenges and understanding all of those ones that you will face that's become it's a little more nebulous or at least it has been in the past because you have the TRL scale to say hey I'm at

this TRL scale but when it comes to the commercial challenges there hasn't been a similar >> a similar aspect to say hey these are all the commercial challenges. So one of the things that we've done at NAERTA and the commercialization group is to put forward this idea of the adoption we've we've adopted the adoption readiness

level system that was put forth by the DOE um out of the office of technology commercialization to help kind of put uh put that a system around what those commercial challenges are. >> Very cool. And >> the reason that we've done that and why that's been valuable is it's because it kind of breaks down this myriad of

different commercial challenges that didn't have a structure into 17 items that you can kind of go through and even at an early early stage say hey these are some of the things that I should be thinking about as I go through to the market deployment phase and it allows you to kind of understand them and so

that's one of the things that we've use to kind of bring to bear to help educate the startups that are a part of our programming to say, "Hey, I know right now you're you're laser focused on fundraising because that's where you're at. You know, you're a pre pre uh preede company. You just need to stay alive,

but eventually, I'm assuming, and I want you all to be prepared, but down the road, you're going to need to think about kind of can you how do you deploy your solution into the market from a project development standpoint? Do you have an idea of what your manufacturing and supply chain is going to look like

when you scale to that point? So, just be aware of these challenges, think about them and just keep them on your radar as you go through because that helps complement like you have the te technical side that we're focused on people get um can really speak well to, but now you can talk about the

commercial side of it that allows you to understand the risks. It also allows you to communicate even more firmly what your value proposition is, how you're going to overcome those barriers are going to be as you scale to investors, to um offtakers, to different groups to help you kind of >> see those challenges coming down the

road and have a at least an idea and a plan to put in place for them. >> So huge piece of early stage commercialization, the pilot, we've mentioned it a few times. Um I am fascinated by this uh this hurdle. Uh the pilot is such a difficult um step in the process and there's so many aspects

to it. So uh the one thing I do want to ask is from the first conversation that uh a founder has with someone or a potential customer about a pilot and a signed pilot. What is typically the length of time between those two uh points and how can a founder uh accelerate that timeline?

>> Yeah, I mean you know that the the only answer to that question is it all depends because there's all these different technologies you know but I think to answer to get to kind of give you an answer what I would say there is it comes down to I I go back to what I

said a few minutes ago. It's understanding what your value proposition is and how that's going to serve the pilot the pilot partner, right? So, it's do you have an idea of what that pilot like what that pilot partner is looking for and can you communicate really well how your pilot and what you're going to do with your

technology is going to going to meet that. the more you're aligned, that's going to accelerate that process a lot faster because if it's if you're trying to if you're trying to convince a partner that they have a problem that your solution is going to solve for them, that's going to take a while.

>> But if you understand what their p what their problem is going into that and you you can say, I understand this is your problem. This is how my solution is going to is going to solve it. This is what I want to pilot with you. Then you kind of have like that bilateral

relationship with that pilot partner. They're going to want to they're going to want to pull as as much as you're going to want to push to get that pilot in the ground, get it running and prove it out because if that's a problem they have just at that site, they probably have at other sites and they're going to

want to scale it from there. >> Do do you do you have uh I I I appreciate this this hyperfocus on this value proposition, understanding customers, you know, all that stuff. Um, is there an example that you have of what it So, let's say there's a founder out there and they're taking in this

content. They're like, "Whoa, value prop is great. What how do I do that? What does that mean? What does that look like?" You know, what would you tell them as far as what a good value proposition looks like? Is it a word document? Is it one sentence? You know, is it a sentence and a paragraph? You

know, what are we looking at? >> The best description I've heard of value proposition is is like a paragraph. Yes. But you're gonna have to get through that paragraph pretty quickly, right? The shorter the and the more concise the better. It's just, you know, and when you a good value proposition is concise,

but it's also put in terms of value to the customer. So, not just what like it's what my product does, but it needs to be geared towards what that customer is looking at. I can save you cost here.

I can accelerate your ability to do Y. I can lower your risk here. So that's why I say it's knowing your customers and and kind of maybe tweaking that value proposition to the specific customer you're talking to at that time. So it has to be concise and it has to be written in terms that meet that provide

an idea of the value in terms of the customer uh from the customer's perspective not from the from the startup's perspective. >> Cool. Good. Actionable. I like it. If uh just quick question about um regional e ecosystem building I've spoken to uh for just top of mind uh some people from generator who's uh uh the the

accelerator program and they look at uh when when they're running an accelerator program in a region they're thinking about the ecosystem the different players the industry stuff like that uh from that perspective if there's a a person a region that is looking to develop an innovation ecosystem where where do they start? How how do

they do this? How do we understand what that means? >> Yeah, my perspective on that is if you're going to looking to kind of start an innovation ecosystem, you you need to understand what kind of your feed stock is for the innovators in that space, you know, because without those innovators, without people coming into that space,

you know, you're you're not going to be able to grow and sustain a lively ecosystem. So, do you have research universities? Do you have accelerators? do you have other ways that are working into that space uh into that ecosystem that you're looking to support? And then you know for instance in New York like

we're we're very fortunate because we have a lot of tier one universities that are producing our early stage kind of research that then kind of goes on to benefit from the ecosystem around scale up and around commercialization that we provide through NAERTA and others. So it's like do you understand what those sources are and how do you how do you t

tap into those and make it aware of like hey my accelerator wants to serve those innovators or wants to serve you then I I think I go back to it you know you you mentioned this before it's it's understanding what sort of challenges that customers in that ecos that are also a part of that ecosystem have that

can then be solved by those innovators. So if you kind kind of can match those two up because then you have solution providers with those that are needing a solution. Yeah. >> And then it all comes down to kind of building the support structures between those two of how you put them in touch

with each other. How you >> from from an accelerator or from an ICER perspective, how you make it as easy as possible for those innovators to get those solutions developed so that they can meet th those customers issues and challenges.

>> I I I see a theme here Steve. It's always uh problem problem. We need to know the problem so we can build the solutions. It's no surprise. I I mean I feel like it's your job as director commercialization. You know, >> it's a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's that and it's also I mean a

lot of times you have to look at what the goals are for the eco like essentially that's true Blake but going back to your question like the problems are kind of what needs like that's going to become the goal set for your ecosystem that you're trying to you're like it like I said before if you if

you're trying to convince an ecosystem that they have a problem and that you that you already have the solution to solve it it's much much more difficult to get support and to kind of get things humming than if you say, "Hey, I have a pretty good idea of what our challenges and problems are." And

problems are just synonymous with goals, right? Like what are we trying to solve for? What are we trying to make sure we're capable of doing? And those goals become the kind of the thing that pulls those solutions through across the finish line and through that development cycle.

>> Well done. >> Three three rapid fire questions for you. Where are we going? What's the future as far as NAERT is concerned? >> Okay, so I'm proud to I'm I'm kind of proud to announce here um we uh Governor Hokll just released on Tuesday um our latest cohort initiative. So I talked about before we have current

programming that was running for 10 years. Um our as part of our new funding cycle, we have to kind of renew our programs. So the governor just released that. That'll be $37 million that will help us stand up some renewed cohorts to support the New York market. And so, um, we'll release that programming over

three different rounds. Our first round is already open and it will solicit two different programming, two different programs, um, that will provide over $20 million of funding and then the next two will be released in 20 uh, 2027. So that new programming was kind of is going to kind of build on the structure that we

already talked about before, but it's also going to create even stronger continuum of support for startups in the New York market. So that's >> in the immediate future, Blake. Um, I also talked about the other aspect I would bring in with that announcement is that we are working to further this concept around adoption readiness levels

across all of our programming to allow us to have uh allow our not only our program administrators and our founders um to kind of communicate their commercial readiness and understand where they're at to meet those adoption milestones. So, it makes those conversations easier. So, one of the things around that renewed funding and

those renewed programming or renewed programs for the cohorts is that they'll be built on a on a basis of adoption readiness. And the language we'll use to communicate that both to the startups that are coming through it is those through those adoption readiness levels to help them understand where they're at in their development cycle, where they

need to go and then so they can use that to communicate their readiness more readily hopefully to to funders out there to follow on programs what have you. So that it kind of makes that conversation a lot easier on the commercial side.

And then the last thing I'd say is um you know our hope is with this programming as we go through we also um one thing is I mentioned before we have voucher programs. So, we've actually released earlier this year, we released an expansion of our voucher programs beyond the climate expertise network to

include some new vouchers that are focused in on permitting for New York manufacturing support and then lab space uh lab demo space support uh that are needs for startups in our space. So the future, I guess if I sum it up, is more structured programming and a commitment to provide that structure to startups

that are looking to kind of startups and founders that are looking to kind of scale their technologies, take it from that idea in the early early phase and deploy them in the New York market. Um, that structure is already being laid out. It's being funded. It's already been funded. it's going to be in place

and it's going to be there to support those startups for in the for the long term. So well Steve congrats and the second thing with all this work to be done I mean all this all these exciting announcement announcements things that you have done I'm curious what inspires you know I I got in I mentioned earlier I

got into this space because I wanted to make a difference that was mission driven you know and um when I was in the military I was surrounded by people that were mission driven by that idea since I've been in this industry, you know, it's been all the other people like I haven't come across many people

that got into into climate tech into clean tech to say like I want to I want to become a billionaire. Many of them have. That's great. I'm really happy they have because that means more people will come. But I think it's just the people that you work with that inspire me. And especially now in my current

job, it's like seeing the founders, right? I don't I'm not sure if I've seen I haven't seen the level of passion and dedication to an idea um since I was in the military from the veterans that I work with then you know I see that same sort of passion for from a founder and it just makes you want to

be like I need to do a better job for these for these individuals right >> like how do I help these people like they're going out there they're putting everything on the line you know they're like hey I I I'm not going to take a salary for two years, you know, I'm going to live as cheaply as I possibly

can because I believe this idea and I believe this idea is going to help us, you know, provide cheaper energy for people uh cheaper energy, make our grid better, you know, give us a better future to look forward to and and that's really what keeps me going.

>> Nice. Well, that's very inspiring in itself. uh what's the best way to follow along, keep in touch >> around I mean well a couple of things I think um on the NAERTA side where we kind of put out information like around our programming and and how people can apply and stay up to date with that.

It's always through our kind of innovation and research website is where we put most of that information. Uh, we also do a really good job and my team on the commercialization side does a really good job of kind of trying to get that information out via LinkedIn and and and podcasts like the Grove here, Blake, to

kind of get that information out in there. But the most up-to-date information will always be on that website. If you kind of like follow along with things that we do on LinkedIn al as well as like the nicer site, myself and other members of our commercialization team, we try to promote both those programs that we

have, but we also try to do a good job of promoting the founders that we come across and those that are um to to make sure like we highlight their success stories and their journeys as well. >> Very cool. Well, noted. Do it. Follow LinkedIn, go to their pages. Ner is doing some good stuff. Steve, this has

been extremely educational. I'm leaving with uh millions more questions than when I came in, which is a good thing, which means we'll have to do another one. But uh but I'm I'm looking forward to it. So, thanks for coming on.

>> Hey Blake, thanks a lot for your time. I appreciate it. I appreciate you getting the stories out of all these different founders. I've loved the other uh other kind of interviewees and and hearing about their stories, too. So, I I'm glad to be added to that list. So, thanks so much.

>> Absolutely.