807: He Exited His Company Than Invests $1m Into Energy Company For Operations Roll

Christopher Engman, the founder of companies like Vendemore, Retain24, TaxiSystem and many others and he’s also an active investor. One of his companies, which he’s now active and an investor in is called Climeon. He’s also involved with Proof Analytics, Trigger Bee and many others.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Inside the Tornado
• What CEO do you follow? – N/A
• Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Put learning fast in front of prestige”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:38 – Nathan introduces Christopher to the show
• 02:14 – All of the companies Christopher founded are profitable and are growing companies
• 02:50 – Christopher’s biggest exit was Vendemore
  • 03:04 – Christopher ran it for 9 years
  • 03:12 – Vendemore was initially bootstrapped and raised funds
  • 03:51 – The exit was three years ago
  • 04:42 – Christopher and his wife owned 75% of Vendemore
• 05:40 – Christopher took 50% of his Vendemore exit to start Climeon
  • 05:53 – It has 350 shareholders
• 06:11 – Christopher believes that Climeon will be the next dominant player in mechanical engineering
• 07:13 – It is easier to raise funds if you have a number of shareholders
  • 07:28 – The next round for Climeon will be a big round
• 08:08 – Christopher shares how Climeon works
  • 09:50 – The process of energy transformation inside the Climeon
• 10:37 – Christopher believes in the potential of Climeon
• 11:24 – Team size is 40
• 11:41 – Climeon has less than 10 customers
• 12:10 – Climeon’s target clients are steel plants, cement plants and those in geothermal energy
• 12:36 – Christopher runs sales and marketing
• 12:42 – Climeon’s founder is in CTO side
• 12:54 – Christopher shares how he found out about Climeon
  • 13:20 – Christopher’s shares in the company is quite big
• 14:05 – The starting contract value of Climeon
• 14:40 – Climeon is getting several hundreds of millions of dollars per client
• 14:51 – Christopher doesn’t get commission from the sales
• 16:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Building companies isn’t always about revenue, but the value you bring.
2. If you believe in something, go for it.
3. Turning heat into electricity is the future of energy.

Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives