Innovating in the PPA market

In this episode, Jon talks with Kristina Rabecaite, founder and CEO of PPAYA, a company helping renewable generators get the best price for their power. Jon and Kristina explore the market for PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements), as well as what it takes to start a new business in this dynamic part of the energy transition.

Episode transcript

[00:00:00.090] – Jon Slowe

Welcome to Talking New Energy, a podcast from LCP Delta - the new energy experts. In the podcast, we'll be exploring how the energy transition is unfolding across Europe through conversations with guests from the leading edge of the transition.

Hello and welcome to the episode. Today I'm talking with Kristina Rabecaite, founder, and CEO of PPAYA. Some listeners will already realise a clever play on letters, PPAYA focuses on power purchase agreements, PPA, and helping renewable generators get the best price for the power they generate. Now, PPAYA is a relatively young company founded only in 2021, and I'm excited today to be exploring both the role that PPAYA is filling in the energy transition and Kristina's own experience in founding and growing PPAYA. Hello, Kristina.

 

[00:00:58.710] – Kristina Rabecaite

Hi, thanks for having me.

 

[00:01:00.470] – Jon Slowe

And welcome, Kristina. Let's start with the role that PPAYA is filling in the energy transition. Why did you start PPAYA? And tell us a bit about the gap or opportunity or problem that you saw.

 

[00:01:16.090] – Kristina Rabecaite

Yes, so I've been working in the energy industry for nearly ten years now, and not as long as you or a lot of people in the industry.

 

[00:01:29.300] – Jon Slowe

But you're making me feel old, Kristina.

 

[00:01:33.710] – Kristina Rabecaite

But I've obviously focused on one thing mostly, which is the power purchase agreements. And after you've structured and executed and signed a good thousand power purchase agreements, you start to see how certain steps of a process could be made better. And I guess that's what encouraged me to set up PPAYA. So, there was sort of one of the things about the energy industry, although we are innovating quite a lot on the flexibility side with the battery side, there's not been much innovation on sort of the more basic products, which is the power purchase agreements for wind, hydro and stuff, solar sites. It's all done manually.

 

[00:02:22.820] – Jon Slowe

So, tell us a bit about those for listeners that aren't familiar or don't work in the world of power purchase agreements. Just some basics like who are your typical customers and what are they signing?

 

[00:02:36.850] – Kristina Rabecaite

Every power renewable power generator needs a contract that will allow them to sell their renewable power onto the market. And there's only a few licenced suppliers that can buy that electricity and then sell it into the market. So, I think what people don't understand or don't know is that if you build a wind turbine in the back of your garden, you can't just plug it in and sell it to the national grid. You need somebody like guys like EDF or Total or Angie to purchase that electricity and sell it on your behalf. So, somebody with a licence that will do that. So those agreements are called power purchase agreements.

 

[00:03:22.700] – Jon Slowe

Okay. And from what you're saying, there's some technology innovation or process efficiency. Is that the right sort of words? Tell us a bit more about that.

 

[00:03:32.550] – Kristina Rabecaite

That's right. So, I guess because I worked for a utility and I was purchasing renewable power in their behalf, and I've done it all manually and all in email. And what I guess I realised doing that, which was the best time to actually learn the process, is that 80% of those executions are completely the same. And technology is brilliant at doing one thing a thousand times correctly. So, I guess what we're trying to do with PPAYA is take the exact same process that exists right now and automate some of the steps to help to make that process as fast and as error free as possible. And that's what PPAYA steps in. And that's how we set up to act as a platform, the marketplace in the middle that will connect the people that are generating electricity and those that are buying it, and to make it the process as smooth as it can possibly be.

 

[00:04:37.210] – Jon Slowe

And by being as smooth as it can be, undoubtedly that makes it a nicer experience for generators and suppliers. But presumably that drives out cost and enables either generators to get a better price or suppliers to save money, I guess.

 

[00:04:55.850] – Kristina Rabecaite

Naturally. So, first of all, we're trying to remove, and I guess one of our big focus is to sort of take as much pressure as we possibly can from the utilities, because what happens now, especially with the market consolidating, right? Nearly, well, not nearly. Over 30 utilities, 30 suppliers, licenced suppliers have gone under. So, the competition in the market is not what it used to be. So, what happens now is that generators are having to compete for prices. So, utilities are being completely overwhelmed and what we're trying to do is take some pressure off of them so they can serve more customers. And if we're removing some of the load, hopefully they can pass better prices on to the end customer. So that's the point.

 

[00:05:44.990] – Jon Slowe

And as we get more and more distributed generation, so I guess renewable generation, some of it will be huge wind farms, offshore wind farms, for example, huge solar farms. But are you seeing as well a continued rise in a farmer with a wind turbine or these smaller distributed sites? Or your customers tend to be across the board in different types of renewable generators.

 

[00:06:10.710] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, we work with everybody with any size generator, from rooftop solars to the very large transmission connected sites up in Scotland. In terms of the rise of generators, since the subsidies worst of cut, there was very little action in the market in terms of new build sites and subsidy free sites. And what made sense was scale. That's why a lot of larger sites have been built. So, the funds with a lot more cash continued, not as fast, but they are the only ones that continued to build subsidy free sites. But unfortunately, farmers and the smaller scale people and generators were not able to do that up until very recently, until obviously the crisis lifted up the prices quite a lot and it started to make sense. So even the smaller generators started to scramble to get connections and try and put as much as they can to fill the gaps that they had. So, we've seen a definite rise in more all-size generation assets, but we'll see as the prices come down, it might fade again.

 

[00:07:24.720] – Jon Slowe

Yeah. Okay, so marketplace for generators, big and small alike, connecting the generators with the buyers, the utilities. Can you bring it to life a bit for our listeners and just give an example of part of a step that inefficient process and what you're doing to make that more efficient or help listeners see what this marketplace looks like and how it drives efficiency.

 

[00:07:54.000] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, I guess one of the key features, one of the key things that I wanted to achieve with this marketplace is to adapt to the changing market conditions. So, one thing we know that is sort of happening is that we're going to see and are seeing a lot more volatility than we did five years ago. So, one thing that I want PPAYA to be able to take advantage of and support, and that's how we really add value, support the generators is we built a few features that basically allow the generators to run themselves a quote without having to go to any utilities, so they don't have to wait a week or two to know what they can earn. So, they can do it on PPAYA's platform. Then they can use another tool that I call the slider. I probably should think of a better name soon, but what the slider allows to do is for them to set a calculated target price for the electricity. So, let's say they can earn 100 pounds today, but it's not quite enough to cover their costs, so they need £110. So, the slider will tell them the probability chance of that price being achieved given how many months they've got until their renewal.

So, although it's an estimated guess right, because nobody knows what the market is going to do, it's still the most calculated guess you can take. So, they set themselves a target price and then they leave it with us. What we've done instead of so the normal process in the industry is to hold a tender once or twice a year. So, you will hold a competitive tender. Five or so suppliers will bid, you'll pick the top supplier and then job done, done and dusted, you've got contracts for the year. But the problem is when a generator sets a date when they want to tender for their power purchase agreement, it might not be the right day in terms of power price, right, the most competitive party that day, but you might have not chosen the right day to do it.

 

[00:10:00.560] – Jon Slowe

So, they're locking in that particular price rather than being able to take advantage of the volatility in the market.

 

[00:10:06.870] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, the whole point of PPAYA is that across every single customer and some customers set several targets because they've got larger assets, they can split them. They set different targets for different seasons. So, what we tend to do is what not tend to do, what we do is we track the market for them every single morning. So, we will run prices across every single asset, every single target price and see where they are. And as soon as that target can be achieved or we're getting close to achieving it, we'll issue them a firm offer that they can accept that same day.

 

[00:10:42.720] – Jon Slowe

Okay.

 

[00:10:43.630] – Kristina Rabecaite

Instead of tendering once or twice a year, we now can do it every single day.

 

[00:10:51.730] – Jon Slowe

Presumably the direction of the market. I saw on LinkedIn a great graph the other day which was the price for a megawatt hour over the hours of the year. And it showed a large number of hours where the price is very low and a small number of hours where the price can be very high. So, we're moving much more in that direction where volatility the days of baseload, mid, merit and peaking are sort of probably not gone, but a much more volatile market. So, presumably this is going to become more and more important to be able to lock in at different times and capture the benefits of that volatility well exactly.

 

[00:11:35.810] – Kristina Rabecaite

And I think to do that you need technology to help you. There's no way that anybody can track this manually or inform you when you have to get a computer to be able to look at the power prices and match them against hundreds and thousands of generators and trigger the ones that are ready to sign up. And people just don't have the time to… not even let alone farmers. So, farmers, they've got 1020 other jobs to do. They're not going to sit at their screen and watch the power markets go up and down every day. They need somebody like us to make sure that we capture the price at the right time.

 

[00:12:13.600] – Jon Slowe

Well, I did talk to someone in the Netherlands where there's a lot of gas fired combined heating power and greenhouses. And some of the greenhouse owners apparently were making more money on the energy exchange than they were growing flowers or tulips or cucumbers. So, some of them were spending more time looking at the energy market than tending to their crops and the greenhouses. But I'm sure that's not typical change.

 

[00:12:41.540] – Kristina Rabecaite

Soon with prices coming down to normal levels again.

 

[00:12:49.510] – Jon Slowe

How do you help generators avoid the trough? So those large number of hours where the prices are really low, is that.

 

[00:12:57.610] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, I guess our generators, the whole point is that we fix them in before their contract goes live. So, they're not exposed to hourly prices or half hourly prices. They get a fixed contract, and they know exactly what they're going to earn for every megawatt hour in advance. And that's just the security and the certainty that they have.

 

[00:13:25.480] – Jon Slowe

So, they're avoiding fixing a trough, basically.

 

[00:13:29.090] – Kristina Rabecaite

Well, exactly. I don't know if you saw news from the bank holiday weekend, we had a very sunny and windy weekend and a few hours on Sunday we got –£150 per megawatt hour prices. So, if anybody was on a system price where they were taking half hourly prices and having fixed it in advance, they would have been paying the national grid £150 per megawatt hour to generate. We try and make sure that our customers never get exposed to that by locking them in an advance and securing them a price.

 

[00:14:10.770] – Jon Slowe

And Kristina, are there others doing what you're doing or elements of what you're doing?

 

[00:14:18.290] – Kristina Rabecaite

There are a few other platforms if you want to have a chat with them as well. Yes, there are. I think Zeigo was one of the platforms and they're sort of different because they looked at more stuff, corporate side of things, renewable exchange, so they do a similar stuff offering. They're also a brokerage that have a platform, e-Power so that's one of the oldest platforms in the market and I think they've been running for an odd 20 years or so and they've started and kicked off the whole platform for PPAs. The market is evolving. Competitors like PPAYA asked if we just come in and improve on everything that's been done in the past to keep the process evolving.

 

[00:15:14.510] – Jon Slowe

And how are you doing in terms of, I don't know what stats or picture you want to share of customers or growth curve or give us a feel for employees or whatever the right metric is.

 

[00:15:29.510] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, as we discussed in Chat before, PPAYA is growing organically. So, we're not trying to be one of those companies that's the hiring for the sake of it to spend money, too much money or to have artificial kind of growth. We're growing organically but still in the last three years we started with just three of us. It was me and two developers two and a half years ago and now there's 13 of us. So, we have grown pretty quickly, and we processed about half of gigawatt of renewable volume by the platform already. So, it's been a pretty busy last couple of years. But as you can imagine, although it's a new company, we didn't start fresh. I've been in industry for a long time. I've got plenty of friends in the industry that have come on to support or believe in the project. Although it's a new company, we've sort of got an established team that's been around for a while.

 

[00:16:37.390] – Jon Slowe

Okay. Thanks, Kristina. Let's move on to the second part of the discussion and that's around your own experience in founding and growing PPAYA. So not many people start businesses, I did, as you've pointed out a long time ago you have but has it always been something you wanted to do or was there a spark that a moment that you look back on and said this is what I want to do.

 

[00:17:07.370] – Kristina Rabecaite

So interesting. If you told me about five years ago that I would start and run my own business, I wouldn't have believed you because I guess you just as you said, not many people start their own businesses. It's a massive risk, it's terrifying, it's very stressful, it's very rewarding as well, but it's a big step to take. But I'm very grateful to one of my now investors, Chris Walker. He is an entrepreneur, and he probably doesn't know that, but he's a bit of a mentor as well. We had one of those meetings, he's built a lot of wind sites up in Scotland. We had a conversation at a pub when I was 23 years old, and I was trying to organise and structure one of his wind PPAs and he planted the seed. And he said, Kristina I was with him and his lawyers and a few other friends that were involved in the project. And he said, Kristina, you know, if you ever, you know, have an idea and you can pull a team together, you know, there's a lot of cash in this room. And he said, literally, there's a lot of cash in this room and we'd be able to pull something together and help you.

I was like, Me, I'm 20 and it was really weird, but he said it and I just completely brushed it off, thinking there's no way I would ever do that.

 

[00:18:36.810] – Jon Slowe

Presumably that stuck and at some point, you thought, Well, I could.

 

[00:18:42.010] – Kristina Rabecaite

Well, exactly. So, I think two or three years later, again, I wasn't much older, I was 25. As I told you before, I worked for a small startup called Limejump, and then we got acquired by a big corporate Shell. And I've really enjoyed my journey at a startup. And obviously when we got acquired by Shell, it was brilliant in many, many ways because we had so much security and knowledge and everything that came with it. But it wasn't the environment that I loved, which is the startup environment. And then I guess Chris Walker's comment that he made three years prior to that came back to me, and I was like one of the things that I said to myself is that Chris Walker is going to be one of the investors, and he is now he's one of the majority shareholders. And he's been very good. And you know what? He probably doesn't even remember it, but it stuck with me, because if he didn't mention it there and then, I don't know if I would have done it. Because this of belief when I was this young, to say that we'll back you and we'll help you, and they did, which is amazing.

 

[00:19:51.930] – Jon Slowe

And does it need is there something about your personality, do you think, or for people listening that might be thinking, oh, could I do that? Maybe that's the wrong question. Could I do that? But is it something about you, or what would you if you're sitting with someone in a pub in 20 years and you're having that conversation, you're on the other side of the table, what do you think it takes to actually turn that into reality? What is it about you?

 

[00:20:26.090] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, I guess I'm not scared to fail. That's one of the things, and I've seen quite a lot. I was brought up in a very competitive environment when I was back in Lithuania. I basically started doing ballroom dancing when I was five, four or five. And you can imagine Lithuanian / Russian kind of atmosphere where you're pretty much dancing to save your life. I don't know how to put it in proper words, but Lithuanians take things very seriously. So, like, my family took ballroom very seriously. It was, like, into competitions, training every single day since age of five, sometimes twice a day, would send me to camps for, like, where I would train three times a day, competitions every weekend. So, I've had I don't know, that work ethics. And obviously with ballroom, it taught me that you do need to work really hard to get what you want.

 

[00:21:30.430] – Jon Slowe

You're very driven.

 

[00:21:32.120] – Kristina Rabecaite

I think that's it. Driven and I think that just very competitive. I enjoy being under pressure and I don't mind failing because it's just part of the journey and I guess that's what helps.

 

[00:21:48.940] – Jon Slowe

Yeah. Anything else you'd bring out?

 

[00:21:51.060] – Kristina Rabecaite

I mean, we talked about me leaving Lithuania at the age of 15, which was interesting, because I decided that I wanted to be a famous actress and I was already getting old at the age of 15 and I needed free my wings.

 

[00:22:07.090] – Jon Slowe

You were in a hurry.

 

[00:22:08.640] – Kristina Rabecaite

I was in a hurry. I always felt like I'm getting old really fast, and I need to hurry up to achieve what I need to achieve. So, I persuaded my mum to let me go and leave the country by myself at the age of 15 and start a new life in England. So, I think becoming quite independent at a very early age. So, I was preparing myself for school when I got home. I used to cook and eat, and I even had a job at a pub where I was washing dishes after school and everything. I sort of had to completely look after myself from a very young age, and I think that helped as well.

 

[00:22:47.110] – Jon Slowe

I think it's interesting. I think there's something in bravery in what you just said. And I remember talking to a person who was a board director of SSE, and he worked with us before LCP Delta. When we were Delta-EE in our early years, he worked with us, and I remember asking him, what did you do to what was it about you that enabled you to get on the board of SSE? And he said, Jon, every position I had, I just worked out how to do it well. And I just stuck at it, and I did it well, and people said, okay, you've got another job here, and got promoted. And he just kept on doing that, looking at what was needed at the time and working out what to do and getting on with it. And that sounds quite similar to you in a way, you could see that's incredibly brave, but maybe at the time just thought, well, I need a job. Where do I get a job? I'll get on with it.

 

[00:23:41.350] – Kristina Rabecaite

Yeah. I think one thing that I always tell my employees and my team is that when they have to do a job they didn't like, or things are hard. I've done so, so many jobs before I got into the energy industry. I worked as a waitress, I washed dishes, I worked like Zara as a sales, I worked as a chef at Uni, and I loved and enjoyed every single job that I did. And I wanted to be the best at every single job that I did. I went with an attitude where I wanted that golden star at every single end of the day. I think it's the attitude, you can love anything that you do, and a job doesn't have to be a burden and it doesn't have to be hard, any job. And that's why I loved working at Zara, long hours, kitchen as well. You learn so much. And I think it's just one thing I kept, even though things got quite tough at times, because being on your own at the age of 15-16 in the UK, the food is different, the culture is different. I didn't speak very good English at all.

I had to translate most of the books I've read to be able to do my homework. It was tough. But I think one thing, it's always a positive outcome, and I just kept reminding myself how good this is, what I'm doing, and just keeping it positive. And I think that's what got me through and to where I am now. So just keeping it positive.

 

[00:25:23.100] – Jon Slowe

Yeah. Attitude. I think mindset attitude and Mindset is a great summary of that. Can I ask you one last question before we bring up the talking new energy crystal ball? So, from a gender perspective now, the energy sector is still quite male dominated, as many sectors are. Has being a woman in a male dominated sector been a hindrance? Has it been a challenge? Or tell us a bit about that.

 

[00:25:52.450] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, I think there's a couple of barriers that you have to overcome. So, one of the things that and I've mentioned it before is for me to especially if you can imagine it's, not even being a female. I think it's an age thing as well for me, because starting at Limejump when I was 22, I believe. And then when you're at the startup and you get exposed to some quite large deals pretty early on in your career and having to go into a room of 50 plus year, old men that have been in the industry for, like, 20 plus years and persuade them that you know what you're talking about can be a challenge. And I did find it challenging. I did feel like my male colleagues would walk in and they would immediately have the respect.

 

[00:26:45.450] – Jon Slowe

So, you had to work harder to get that.

 

[00:26:47.030] – Kristina Rabecaite

And I had to work a little bit harder. It would take me ten to 15 minutes to persuade the room that I know what I'm talking about. And I guess one thing is I couldn't really afford not to know something, so I had to work extra hard to be able to answer all the questions that are going to be thrown my way. But it's also a positive thing being a young female because you stand out yeah. And people, you know, tend to come up and talk to you and you know, sometimes it makes business easier.

 

[00:27:23.150] – Jon Slowe

So, any advice you give to other women who are starting out their careers.

 

[00:27:27.110] – Kristina Rabecaite

In the energy sector, don't get put off by anything. If you get any comments, which I did as well, and still do, be vocal and call it out at the time. Don't be shy about stuff, saying anything. It happens less and less. It's been such a change in the last ten, five years. But just one thing is just knowing your stuff and keep going and you will get wherever you need to be. Nothing's going to stop you. I don't think there's a glass ceiling necessarily. Anything can be achieved with hard work and dedication and the confidence. I don't think anything will block or stop you if you've got that, set your mind on.

 

[00:28:16.820] – Jon Slowe

Thanks, Kristina. Now let's bring up the talking new energy crystal ball and look into the future. Setting the dial this week to 2030, seven years away. And question for you in 2030, what does PPAYA look like in 2030? And can you give me three ways the market for PPAs has changed between now and 2030?

 

[00:28:46.330] – Kristina Rabecaite

Very hard question.

 

[00:28:48.650] – Jon Slowe

They always are the crystal ball ones.

 

[00:28:52.250] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, one thing we will probably see in the next five to seven years, and we're seeing that now, is that we're going to have to learn to work with the Volatility a lot more than we are now, as we're seeing now already with the negative prices, and that wasn't the case five years ago. So, we're going to have to start to know how to manage the renewable power with more and more offshore wind coming online, it's going to be very hard to get the new projects off the ground unless there is some sort of guaranteed support there and it might not come from the market. It might have to be stuff corporates, or it might have to be CFD (Contract For Difference) or government support to encourage the build, because the prices might not support those kind of technologies. More batteries. What we're going to have to do, I don't think we'll be allowed to necessarily build more intermittent generation unless it has some sort of flexible support to be able to manage it.

 

[00:30:02.520] – Jon Slowe

And that could be physically with the asset, or it could be commercially with the asset.

 

[00:30:06.140] – Kristina Rabecaite

I guess that's right. You could either put a battery together with a wind turbine or you know, wind is going to be going to have to be pretty flexible about being turned off across the entire country, and not just transmission connected.

 

[00:30:25] – Jon Slowe

Or demand side response or electrolysers or some form of storage that can smooth it out.

 

[00:30:30.410] – Kristina Rabecaite

We're just going to have to really be a lot more flexible about how, because if you can imagine with all these offshore wind sites coming online the next five to ten years, it's going to be really drastic change on the system. And it's an intermittent change.

 

[00:30:51.860] – Jon Slowe

Yeah.

 

[00:30:52.510] – Kristina Rabecaite

So, so, battery storage is going to be absolute key and you can imagine what it's going to do to prices. The negative will be exaggerated. When the wind is not blowing, the positives will be exaggerated. There's going to be a lot more merchant opportunities that we're stuff hoping for as well, and we're going to need technologies to take advantage of that.

 

[00:31:15.460] – Jon Slowe

So, volatility batteries, coping with the highs and the lows. What about PPAYA? What's your vision for PPAYA by 2030?

 

[00:31:27.960] – Kristina Rabecaite

Take over the world.

 

[00:31:32.740] – Jon Slowe

Internationalise or how? Big or what's your dream?

 

[00:31:35.270] – Kristina Rabecaite

Well, exactly, I think we want to I'm trying not to put too much pressure and think too big, but obviously we've got worst of I'm trying to take it one step at a time, but of course we'd want to expand internationally. We've already entered Ireland, which we're very excited about, and with obviously solar being very popular in Spain and Italy as probably the next markets, and us and everywhere. Yeah, the world's our oyster. We're hoping to obviously expand the products that we're going to be offering as well, because the energy market is big.

 

[00:32:15.870] – Jon Slowe

And looking back from 2030, what was the most important thing to achieving that vision?

 

[00:32:22.030] – Kristina Rabecaite

Keep the culture as good as it is right now and keep it, make the journey as fun as it can possibly be. As soon as we're not having fun, it's not worth it anymore. So that's what I'm trying to do, to get every person to enjoy themselves during this journey. And that the end goal. Doesn't really matter what I realised, and I think you might know that as well, from your experience of still growing a business. And then when you sell, you sort of sat there ten years ago thinking, what's my end goal? Oh, I want to become rich, I want to sell the company and retire. And then you look back and think, you know what, achieving something at the end doesn't matter at all if you didn't have a good time doing it. In that ten years’ time, so, what I want to make sure and I always tell my team, and I loved my time at Limejump, I loved it that Eric and Ning, the co-founders, they made it so fun for us. We were the closest team and I wanted exactly the same, because, really, cash doesn't matter. The multinational growth, yeah, its good fun, but it's really about having that really close friends and community within the business and just having the best time you possibly can.

And trust me, when you enjoy what you do, it's going to be successful anyway. So that's what I'm still trying to do with the team. And I keep telling them it's a game, I keep telling myself that as.

It's a game. We can't get stressed about this kind of stuff. Will it matter in five years’ time? Of course, we want to be big and successful, and only time will tell. But we're obviously heading for that, and we've done really well so far. And my brain keeps spinning about different products we're going to introduce, about different things we're going to do. But really, I just want to keep it fun and exciting and positive and not too stressful if I can.

 

[00:34:21.250] – Jon Slowe

I think the words I used often is having a spring in your step on the way to work, and whether that's actually on the way to work these days, or on your way to wherever you work at home,

 

[00:34:34] – Kristina Rabecaite

Spare bedroom.

 

[00:34:36] – Jon Slowe

Yeah, you want to look forward to that. You want to think, yeah, I like the work, I like the people I have a laugh for. Some people that form their best friendships, relationships at work, others, it will just be nice people to hang out with. So, I agree. I think having that spring in your step, throwing yourself into something you love, probably, I would say, having that broad, that long term ambition, the mountaintop you're aiming for, the lighthouse that's guiding you, the big hairy audacious goal, whatever it is that you're aiming at as well.

 

[00:35:10.230] – Kristina Rabecaite

No, I agree. And when do you think for you, because obviously you grew a business quite a lot. When did you start to sort of when the culture started to change a little bit, how many people did you hit?

 

[00:35:26.070] – Jon Slowe

I heard a phrase culture is really fluid when a company is young, but then when you reach a certain point, it sort of solidifies and gets harder to change. So, while that's true, I think the culture evolves a bit with size. I think the time when you're 13, everyone knows each other, can go to the pub together, gets to know each other quite well, where you get to a point when you just become a size that not everyone knows each other to the same degree. But I think if you've got that culture of supporting each other, respecting each other, helping each other, that collaborative, nurturing, fun culture, then that can survive any numbers. That's my experience so far.

 

[00:36:10.620] – Kristina Rabecaite

I think for me, end of the day and how we work and what I promote with customers as well, it's just stay kind and stay reliable. I think reliability and kindness takes you quite a long way. People think that some people will take advantage of that, and you learn as you grow. But you know what? That's why PPAYA has been successful. And people that worked for me in the past, people that I helped in the past, like even the customers that ended up investing in PPAYA, I think they just trusted me as a person and believe in me as a person. Because I made sure that even when I couldn't deliver something, it was done with transparency and with sort of kindness is probably not a good word, but it's more care.

 

[00:37:02.470] – Jon Slowe

I think it is quite a good word. Treat other people like you'd like to be treated. Be open. Avoid a blame culture. I think kindness sounds like that up.

 

[00:37:12.170] – Kristina Rabecaite

No hot potatoes.

 

[00:37:14.330] – Jon Slowe

Well, Kristina, we could talk a lot more about experiences, but we better draw it to a close there. Thanks so much for your time. Really enjoyed the discussion and hope everyone listening. Enjoyed the episode and taken something from it. If you've got ideas for future episodes, please send them to talkingnewenergy@lcp.com. And you can also follow us on social media and rate us as well. If you'd like to rate us, thanks for listening and talk to you next week. Bye bye.

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