Founder story: Pete Neal from Powerpal
The Powerpal founder story
Meet Pete Neal, an entrepreneurial founder who throughout his telcos career saw a gap in the market – and when he got the opportunity to have a crack at his own business, Powerpal was born!
We supported the Powerpal business and founder Pete for over five years through significant growth stages, culminating in Powerpal’s successful exit, with an eight-figure sale to Amber Electric. We’re happy to share his journey with you here. Plus, there are some useful insights for new entrepreneurs in his story!
What is Powerpal?
Powerpal is a digital energy platform that uses and processes real time data from electric smart meters to see how energy costs can be reduced, all via a handy, user-friendly app.
Wow okay! So… what problem are you solving?
The ability to have a smart meter, and in-house display was already there, but energy prices were doubling, and I felt that consumers needed to have more empowerment to make their own educated decisions on their power usage. The existing solutions were expensive to install – requiring an electrician – and only provided a basic overview of usage. So, we developed an app that could use the existing tools, but with the chance to monitor energy data in real time. The opportunity to interpret usage over time was also there – so they could then make decisions on different heating options etc.
What was your light bulb moment?
I had spent a long time building solutions for mobile companies, and I saw very obvious problems needing to be solved. Once I left the telcos world I got the chance to lean in, and see if the issues mentioned above could be solved. I undertook over 30 prototypes in my garage at the start – and rolled it out first to friends and family for feedback. Once I had that early feedback it gave me the confidence to really go for it, so I also joined an energy lab accelerator to leverage off their contacts, and once I had a large pilot customer onboard (Origin Energy), we went from there with raising, and growing.
What stage are you at now?
I have exited Powerpal – and am keeping busy consulting to other early stage businesses. I think I’ve got another gig in me, but currently really enjoying learning about new industries and seeing what is happening in the startup world.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far?
BE AGILE! When the process starts it’s all very well to come up with a strategy, but it’s not until testing you can really see what will happen. My advice to new founders is ‘slow down to speed up’, keep the team trim and run experiments hard. Then you can see what you really need. I’d also suggest only raising what you need to get to the next milestone – get the early results, then it will be easier to raise more for the next stage.
How have we helped?
Standard Ledger has been a valuable partner, and the journey together involved meticulous financial planning, from establishing scalable financial systems, to advising on capital raising strategies that secured essential funding without excessively diluting ownership. Utilising Mike as a fractional CFO played a critical role in identifying key performance indicators that drove operational improvements, making Powerpal an attractive acquisition target. The strategic foresight in planning the exit ensured that Powerpal’s financials were structured in a way that maximised return for its founders and investors, and by negotiating the complexities of the sale process Mike was able to secure a deal that recognised the full value of Powerpal’s innovative contributions to the energy sector.
More founder stories
Thanks to Pete for taking the time to share his story.
If you’re keen for more, we have stories from other great founders we’re proud to work with like Iggy Jovanovic from Gerford AI and Nadun Hennayaka from Gaia Project.
As always, we’re here to chat if you need help with your startup. Just choose a time that works for you.
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