Inaugural Avenger of The Month
This is a story about a group of great people doing great things together. And the Hulk.
When I joined Inspire this past summer, I was excited to join a team in order to build something that was bigger than what I could accomplish on my own. What I experienced when I joined was both unexpected and pleasant. Sort of like discovering a twenty dollar bill in a jacket you haven’t worn in a year. Everyone was hard-working, funny, and friendly. I buckled up and got to work.
Having no professional experience in the energy industry, it became clear that I was going to have a rapid learning curve in order to get up to speed with the energy concepts that were already second nature to other teammates. Coupled with learning the technology stack, my brain regularly felt bloated with all the concepts I was shoving into it. After one month, it felt like three had passed, and after three it felt like six. Like the exact opposite of Benjamin Button. But it was all interesting, all new and exciting things. I was drinking the new information kool-aid by the gallon.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that you have the power to change and improve almost everything at a startup. If you see a problem, own it. If you see something that needs to be done, roll up the sleeves and get down to it. So we did. We migrated our internal CRM from a Rails based front-end to Angular. We automated our physical mail process so we’d never have to print and fold another letter ourselves. We even hacked together a light that illuminates every time we get a new sale and when we ship code. It’s called the Inspatron, and it helps us celebrate internal ‘wins’ which noticeably boosts morale every day.
Culture is a nebulous word especially at a startup. Everyone wants it, but no one has a recipe for it. There is no ‘100 Slow Cooker Meals’ for whipping up some tasty startup culture. Our secret sauce is a blend of haunted prisons, rugby matches, cider festivals, environmental education classes, crafty happy hours, and those are all just in this past month.
Here at Inspire we have a habit of calling ourselves Avengers, because we are the team of motley superheros whose aim is to provide access to clean energy for as many people that want it. When I was selected to be the first Avenger of the Month, I was surprised, humbled and honored to be recognized. I’m just a small part of a great team who are all working their tails off. This hulk statue has been fun to have on my desk and to bring around the city, but I’m looking forward to passing it onto another amazing Avenger.
If you’re interested in joining this group of Avengers doing great things, we’re growing our team and we’d love to meet you.
