3 Minutes on a Park Bench with Chris Blevins of Pick My Solar

Patch partner Chris Blevins of SolarUP San Gabriel tells us how he first get involved in the renewable energy industry and recommends great books everyone should read.

Patch: The brilliance of Pick My Solar is that you compare bids from top solar companies to find the best price, making renewable energy more affordable. How did your company first come up with this idea?

Chris Blevins: I met my business partner, Max Aram, who had the brilliant idea of making the Expedia for solar. A simple process for a homeowner to spend 15 minutes on the phone with one of our reps, and then receive multiple bids on our website from only the top rated solar companies in the area.

Patch: Pick My Solar's website is very sleek and easy to use. Can you tell us a bit about what went into the design of the site?

Chris Blevins: We had one main goal in mind when creating our website -- to provide as much value as possible for free. We wanted homeowners to be able to come to our site and immediately find estimated costs and savings for a solar system. So we built a solar calculator. Simple inputs of zip code and electric bill amounts allow us to determine what utility the user is in, and based off of that determine what size system they need and what the associated costs and savings would be. After adding value, ease-of-use was a core focus. A great user experience will lead to a happy customer.

Patch: If you had to recommend someone three books, what would they be and why?

Chris Blevins: I listen to a lot of business books fighting the L.A. traffic. Currently, I’m listening to "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr." So far, so good. It’s an eye opener to how the oil industry was formed through Rockefeller streamlining processes. As the planet starts to move away from oil dependency, I try to see correlations of how similar basic practices can help streamline solar. Aside from this recent read, Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors. The outside the box logic and ideas are always fun to explore.

Patch: How did you first get involved in the renewable energy industry?

Chris Blevins: Senior year of college, as I was working toward my Mechanical Engineering degree, I took a technical solar energy course that explored where solar was today and where it would be in the future. We did some modeling of off grid houses. When I graduated college a few months later, I packed a duffle bag and moved to New Zealand where I spent a good amount of time living off grid. Being a rather desolate island nation with limited natural resources, the environment becomes a special part of life. It becomes almost required to figure out ways leverage as much renewable energy as possible. From that point forward, I knew renewable energy would be a big part of my life.

Patch: What's the best business advice you've ever received?

Chris Blevins: First and foremost, to remember that it is just a business. With the amount of time you invest into it, it feels as if it is your whole life. You need to be able to step back sometimes. You need to enjoy the experience of building something that can help change the world. And secondly, you need to treat people right.

Patch: What are questions people should ask themselves when evaluating a solar energy provider?

Chris Blevins: Will they be around in three years to service the system if something goes wrong? Are they honest? Are they quoting you the right size system and are they giving you a fair price? Are they experienced? They are installing a system that is meant to be on your roof for 25 years -- they better know what they’re doing.

Patch: How are you involved in the community?

Chris Blevins: Although our offices are located in downtown Los Angeles, we are very active in the San Gabriel Valley community. We have a huge customer base in SGV and we’ve recruited quite a few of our employees from the Claremont Colleges. We’re partnered with local non-profits and we work directly with a few local businesses. That all lead us to the decision to launch our SolarUP group buy program for the San Gabriel Valley. We wanted our neighbors to get the first shot at literally the best solar pricing we have ever seen -- and we’ve seen a lot.

Patch: Tell us a bit more about SolarUP. We all understand the advantages of shopping at Costco. Is this solar group buy a similar concept?

Chris Blevins: That’s definitely the right train of thought. A whole community going solar at once has some obvious advantages; bulk discounts on the equipment, lower labor and transportation costs through clustered installations, and offset marketing costs by the community spreading the word. It brings the ultimate value to the community by going solar together.

Patch: How can readers contact you to learn more about Pick My Solar and the SolarUP group buy?

Chris Blevins: The easiest way to find out more about the program, to enroll, or find the next workshop, would be to visit www.SolarUpSanGabriel.com.