February Venture Spotlight ft. Trevor Bruce, Co Founder & VP-Sales of Cambridge Energy Partners

This month we spoke with Trevor Bruce, Co founder and VP-Sales of Cambridge Energy Partners (CEP), a solar company that is making energy simple and flexible. Taking solar to new frontiers, CEP is partnering with vetted companies to provide reliable solar energy solutions – reducing cost, risk, and complexity along the way. Here's what Trevor had to say:

What's new with Cambridge Energy Partners?

Last fall we closed a major supply agreement with Scatec Solar, one of the world’s largest solar energy companies. Scatec is using our prefabricated and re-deployable solar energy hardware as the backbone of a revolutionary new ‘rental solar’ business that will serve industrial companies across developing regions. The deal was a watershed moment for Cambridge Energy Partners because it finally allowed us to bring solar energy to a large segment of our target market, namely industrial operators in remote regions. We know that solar can add value to these customers, but many can only do so on flexible and short-term rental contracts.

How has your experience as part of entrepreneurship@UBC help to inform your journey with Cambridge Energy Partners today?

Our year in the HATCH Accelerator program was instrumental in helping us establish a structured and repeatable sales process. Like many other start-ups, our founding team was highly skilled, but we lacked experience in Sales or Marketing. It was incredibly helpful to work closely with Michele Wallcraft and the other EIRs on all aspects of our sales process. Many of the tools we learned are still used on a daily basis and have resulted in a noticeable acceleration in our sales.

What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

Make sure that you build a team with the broadest set of skills possible. Even the most tech-heavy companies won’t survive on engineering and technical talent alone. It is essential that your team also has skills such as financial analysis, operations, leadership, sales, marketing, and many more.  

-----

This interview was taken from our February 2020 Venture Spotlight. Read it in full, here

The Venture Spotlight is a monthly series sharing the latest news coming out of the entrepreneurship@UBC community. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop for all things entrepreneurship@UBC, from upcoming events and announcements to venture success stories and ways to get involved, here