How to Job Search in Climate
How to Job Search in Climate
It’s all waves, dude
Team Coral has always intended these posts to be tactically useful to builders, allocators, and general dreamers wanting to work on the climate problem. Are we consistent about this? Not really, but that’s largely because there is so very much cool shit to write about, and we enjoy following our curiosity. This week, we were thrilled to get guidance from our readers, when one of you emailed the following question;
“Hey Chris & Nicole - Love reading your substack! I’ve been working in tech for six years, most recently at [[redacted]]. This last year I’ve felt compelled to work in climate, but I don’t know how to find the right company. I have talked to a few companies here in Colorado, but I’m having trouble really picking out which are the good solutions and who is going out of business or not going to grow. Any suggestions of how to pick companies to work at?”
Quick note before we dive in; PLEASE SEND US MORE QUESTIONS or stuff you’d like us to cover. Again, we want to help.
Ok, this is an excellent topic and one that we think is a common source of confusion for folks trying to flip their careers into climate. It’s true and unfortunate that there’s a lot of bullshit in the space, and we continue to think that nobody really needs to work at, fund, or signal boost the 3,547th voluntary offset trading platform.
We’re protecting the reader’s identity at her request, but can share that she’s a very smart business generalist and accomplished tech operator, has worked at two late-stage startups that many of you have heard of, and is supremely employable in traditional tech. Also worth noting that she does not have formal training in the hard sciences and is not a coder.
Here’s the framework we’d use to pick companies, in approximate priority order;
Waves
It is theoretically possible to outsell a bad market thesis. We’ve just never seen it done. Great climate-positive tech businesses are, and we know this hurts to hear, businesses first. Identify 2-5 large-scale theses or problem sets in climate that you find appealing to work on, that have favorable economic trendlines for the next 36 months, and that are politically antifragile. A few that we’re currently tracking as examples;
Efficient agronomy, including data to optimize crop rotation, irrigation, and robotic automation
Stormwater mitigation, capture, and purification
Wildfire prevention and post-fire reforestation
Green building materials, especially carbon-negative sequestration materials
D2C air conditioning and air purification
This is nowhere near a comprehensive list. Every business is a climate business.
Align Skills to Narrow the List
Look, we would -love- to go work at a fusion company, #callusmaybe. The only complication is that neither of us happens to be a nuclear physicist or expert mechanical engineer, which are the two primary functions needed in that profession.
Take a look at the list you came up with in step 1, and think through the core functional areas the companies playing in that space need in order to scale. A great hack here is to go on Linkedin, and review the job postings that market leaders are hiring for.
You want a wave that’s inviting you to come surf, not one that you have to drop into from a helicopter.
Example; I (Chris) have extensive experience in IOT, SaaS and big data, as a go-to-market leader. Looking at our list above, I’d lean toward efficient agronomy as the best transferable fit for my skill set; There are several terrific companies in the space that drop sensors into soil, gather data around crop conditions, soil health, irrigation etc, then bundle and sell the data as a SaaS predictive solution. IOT + SaaS + data, with an overlay that said companies are generally following a low-margin, high-volume economic model and so need to get customers paying quickly.
This is the wave we want to ride.
Pick companies
You should now be left with a statement, something like “I want to work on the climate problem by scaling GTM at a company in the field of modernized agronomy, especially one that’s working on helping farmers optimize their practices in a warming and inconsistent climate.”
Hit google and find 5-10 companies that fit your thesis. Now we dive deep. A few of our favorite questions when researching;
Who is most efficient, as expressed by raising a lot of money, keeping headcount low, and putting funds back into R&D?
Every tech company has a page of “happy clients we serve'' or some such on their website. Which are most impressive? Look carefully for case studies in which a SVP+ executive is giving a positive quote to the startup. Exec-level attention and impact means solving big problems.
Who has never done a layoff?
How detailed is the published product roadmap, if available?
Does the CEO and a considerable portion of the founding team have a personal connection to the problem?
Is the company based on peer-reviewed academic research? How good is the pedigree of the researchers? Are they involved in the company at all?
We are not trying to eliminate any companies here, simply to rank order.
Get in Touch
We recommend a cold email to the CEO or senior leader of your functional area. Job portals are useless. It could look something like this;
“Hi {{name}} - I’m writing to tell you how much I’d love to join {{company}} if and when you’re hiring for someone with my background and skillset. I’ve spent the last decade scaling GTM across a variety of startups in IOT, SaaS, and data, with two exits and over $1bn of enterprise value creation. I’m also laser-focused on building the next chapter of my career in a climate-positive business, and {{company}} looks like far & away the market leader in {{their space}}. Thanks for reading and let me know if you’re ever open to a short conversation.”
Interviewing
You now have 3+ interviews lined up. A few more questions to ask during the process, feed into your scorecard of companies, and feel even more confident in your decisions;
What’s your revenue to date, and how much of that was this year?
If pre-revenue or the number is small; How is commercial traction, and how many potential clients have signed an LOI or similar document?
What’s the climate impact of the business at scale?
What was the moment that led to you knowing you needed to start this particular company?
Odds
Nothing is perfect, and working in early-stage, science-risk businesses is not the most stable of career paths. But, it’s vital. The world needs these companies to exist, and needs you working on them.
We hope this piece helps bring rigor to your search by consistently scoring and measuring opportunities, and maximizing the odds of success.
If we can ever help in this process, by email or over a zoom, reach out anytime.
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https://www.coralcarbon.io/