285 - Andrew Birch on Digitizing 20 years of solar expertise in OpenSolar

How did one of the solar industry’s true pioneers take everything he’s learned about solar in the last 20 years and make it Free and open-sourced to the world?Andrew Birch (Birchy), Co-Founder of the first company to pioneer delivering online solar designs(Sungevity), tells us what his research suggests is the answer to scaling solar by 30% per year through 2050 to address climate change.The 1st barrier - permitting.The 2nd barrier - adding 10M people to the industry in the next 10 years. The question is - How could you possibly scale with these structural barriers? The solution is a complete end-to-end software solution that wraps CRM, proposals and financing together, but it’s not just software.Birchy's software is bringing in service providers to exhibit products and essentially pulls everything into a single place. They make that bundle white-labeled to installers as well as accessible and online and completely free.That’s Open Solar, but there’s so much more to Birchy’s story. So queue it up! If you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to his contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!SunCast is proudly supported by Trina Solar.You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.mysuncast.com/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 730 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus