Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Chapter 52Avoid Distractions

Andy Sack

Andy is the cofounder of Founders’ Co-op and the cofounder of Lighter Capital. He also cofounded three successful Internet technology companies: Kefta, Abuzz, and Firefly Network, and was the first Techstars Seattle managing director.

I became the lead investor in Tom Staples’s company, Cooler Planet, in July 2007. The company was originally conceived to do lead generation in the energy efficiency market. Neither Tom, Chris DeVore (my partner at Founders’ Co-op), nor I had experience in anything remotely related to the energy efficiency market. We didn't let that ignorance stop us; we were knowledgeable about online marketing and we thought the trend toward green energy was going to grow a bunch over the next five years.

Tom decided to focus on and win the solar market first. His theory was that energy efficiency was too broad a market to cover. Solar was narrower, and it'd be easier for us to matter to both consumers and merchants. At first, Tom thought that winning the solar market would take about six months. We were right about narrowing our focus but underestimated the time that it would take to win the solar market.

Tom spent the first two years building a series of websites that provided the backbone of becoming the key online consumer resource for solar information. The business model was simple: The company attracts user traffic interested in solar (both paid and organic) and then monetizes the traffic by selling leads to solar ...