Business Spotlight on Founder of Genous, Simon Bones

What prompted you to move from the financial sector to the energy sector?

I’d done what I wanted to do in consulting and sold my company to a buyer with whom I retain a good relationship, so I never had any desire to do more there. Equally, having made enough money gave me the luxury of doing something I wanted to and felt was important, without it needing to give a great financial payback.

I’d long been passionate about climate change, so a combination of academic pursuits (I’m also a Visiting Research Fellow in climate change science at University of Bristol) and a business in the space was logical for me.

Has your leadership style evolved since starting and if so, how?

The consulting world of yesteryear was largely populated by driven and very well-paid people who worked in a success-driven hierarchy that was structurally lucrative and where high performance was expected and rewarded. A values-driven start-up in a sector that is less financially attractive does not support the same leadership style: it’s not just about being softer, it’s about recognising different motivations and approaches are needed.

What are your non-negotiables for running a successful team?

Lead from the front, don’t tolerate people failing to live your values, and expect a lot from your team but recognise the challenges that they, like you, are working under in this type of environment.

Owning a business can be hectic and stressful, what principles do you set for yourself to balance your work and personal life?

I don’t do a great job of this. If you really care about your work – not just the doing but why you’re doing it – then it’s hard to set boundaries. And not having an office but working from home means that the desk is always there, which isn’t good for work/life balance.

Do your hobbies influence your business decisions at all, does staying active help make you a better CEO?

I really enjoyed travelling the world, and good food and drink, and buying nice stuff – all the things that really don’t support our climate mission! Of course, things like appreciation of nature, exercise, reading and spending time with family don’t fall into that camp, so those are easier, though then we hit the time issue raised above, and I don’t spend enough time on those things.

What an appreciation of climate change does do on my hobbies is make me appreciate the cost of those things: I may still do them, but I don’t do them as thoughtlessly as I once did.

What initiatives can the government implement to support green businesses in the fight against climate change?

For the most part, I just wish the government would stay out of the way; I don’t see it as a benign force, and because it tends to listen to those with the loudest voices and look for short-term opportunities where long-term decision-making is important, it has often produced poor policy rather than good.

The most helpful thing in our particular areas would be to sort planning and relative fuel pricing, keep the ‘carrots’ with minor adjustments and then stop messing about with them, introduce stronger ‘sticks’ for landlords and mortgage companies and be more holistic about how to encourage electrification on a whole system level. It’s all doable but I think we’re a long way from the ideal.

What have you done/said to customers to make retrofitting an attractive investment?

We are numbers people so we (a) use the numbers to help decide what is best to do for a given home and then (b) tell people the cost and returns of doing that and let them tweak until they get something they want.

This ‘Intelligent Retrofit’ approach means that if there is an attractive retrofit investment we will find it and, if there isn’t, the customer probably won’t do it unless they are purely environmentally motivated. The good thing is that in most cases we can find attractive investments without new technologies, which is why I don’t think trying to improve the ‘carrots’ is a good idea.

I also think that, for some people, retrofit isn’t a good idea financially and – while I know this is controversial – we should stop trying to push those people to do something that will end up costing them more; particularly as that tends to hit those people least able to pay for it.

‘Sustainability’ is a popular buzzword now, but what does it actually mean to you and your business?

If we don’t retrofit the UK’s housing stock in a rapid timeline we will miss our national targets. And the world will burn (okay, it will burn anyway, but still!)

What do you think needs to change in your industry, are you doing anything that goes against the norm?

Our industry is pretty hopeless, unfortunately. Customer service is weak, technical excellence is poor, sales practices are often sharp, price gouging is common, and advice is often self-interested. The government doesn’t understand the industry, investors don’t like the lack of patent-protected hard-tech (and pure SaaS isn’t the answer) and the energy retailers are the biggest players with the deepest pockets even though I’d argue they are exactly the wrong answer.

We are trying to change all of that: to deliver a high-quality, advice-led service that provides a great offer at a fair price and with no skewed incentives. We’re not looking for vertical integration, because we think that’s not the right approach, and we’re leading with technology and excellence.

What do you wish someone told you before founding Genous?

To be fair, I was well advised before I started out. There’s lots I’ve got wrong on the way but that was not about not being told which things were important to get right!

What is next for you? Future plans for personal/business?

We remain under-funded for scale-up, so are currently in the process of raising money from institutional investors, having been entirely angel-and-founder funded to date. And we’re trying to land contracts with lenders and local government bodies to provide retrofit at scale.