Transcript Synced · select any line to jump ▾ 0:00 Adam Spencer: You're listening to a DayOne.fm show. 0:05 Andrew Mears: What drives you to make bold moves, to build something that didn't exist before, to live, lead, and choose life with intention? Welcome to Perspective X. I'm Pauline Fatowi, and this is not your typical business podcast. Each episode, I get to speak to extraordinary entrepreneurs and leading innovators to unpack what truly fuels their journey. Not just the wins, but the inner work, the overlooked decisions, the mindset shifts, and the personal moments that sparked something bigger. This show is about the ripple effect of choice, the kind of deep accountability that lets us respond to life rather than react to it. Because when you realize everything is temporary, and you are the creator of your own experience, you start to play the game differently. So if you're curious about how people build meaning alongside success, how they evolve through challenges and shape the world with intention, this is your invitation to listen in. Perspective X, where we go beyond the highlight reel and into the moments that changed everything. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. 1:20 Speaker C: If you've got an idea and you've got some great people to work with, then just move, go and make it happen because it's much more possible now than it was back then. 1:32 Adam Spencer: Hi, I'm Adam Spencer and welcome to Day One, the show that goes back to the very beginning to share the untold stories of incredible regional startups and entrepreneurs. Today, you're going to hear the story of Andrew Mears and SwitchedIn. 1:47 Speaker C: So I'm Andrew Mears, CEO and founder of SwitchedIn. SwitchedIn. SwitchedIn provides software and hardware solution for managing distributed energy resources. So in particular, rooftop solar, battery storage, and we connect with utilities to help them work more efficiently with the grid. 2:11 Adam Spencer: We're gonna hear all about SwitchedIn, where the idea come from, Andrew's backpacking adventures, the pivots that SwitchedIn has went through, and so much more. But for now, Let's go back to day one where this story begins. 2:24 Speaker C: So I started as a fitter and turner trades apprentice at the apprentice training center in BHP. So that's what they did with all their engineering trainees. 2:33 Adam Spencer: Today, Newcastle and the Hunter Valley where Andrew is based is a growing regional innovation and startup center driven by a variety of organizations from the University of Newcastle to smaller grassroots organizations run by passionate individuals like Nui Startups and the Lunatic Society and everything in between. Queen, but 20 years ago Newcastle was a very different town and BHP played a large part in that. 2:59 Speaker C: I was fortunate to get a job with BHP as a trainee engineer and back in the day, you know, trainee engineers also were put through the apprentice training program, so I started as a mechanical engineering trainee and I was a degree trainee So they were gonna pay for me to go through university part-time, and, but then for the first couple of years you were also working as an apprentice at the steelworks. So, you know, it was a great program actually. It gave all the young engineers sort of firsthand experience of the technical stuff that goes on. 3:43 Adam Spencer: As part of that traineeship, Andrew would get moved around to various sections within BHP. 3:48 Speaker C: So you get rotated around. I didn't stay there the whole course of things. I was taken on as a mechanical engineer, but my heart was really in electrical and computer systems. And so after a while, I sought to change over, and that wasn't going to work with BHP, so I left and went full-time uni to finish as an electrical engineer. 4:16 Adam Spencer: Why was your heart in electrical engineering? In electrical engineering. What was it about that that drew you to that? 4:22 Speaker C: I guess I'd always been a little bit, as a kid, a bit geeky, mucking around with electronics and radios and software, and, you know, that was really where I wanted to go. You know, there was a lot of interesting stuff around mechanical engineering, but right then that was, you know, that was what had my imagination. And it was back in the day when, you know, university was free. I was one of the last sort of group to go through for free education. And so, you know, you could choose, you could focus on what you really wanted, and that's what I did. So I graduated. The first job I got out of uni was with a company that was building control systems, and I managed to convince them to fund me to do my master's by research, so it was a great combo. Basically, I had a job to do my master's degree by research, and so for that company I developed them a new product, a control device. I was the guy doing the nuts and bolts work. So it was a great start, and I guess it really, for me, that whole research commercialisation area has been a consistent thread through lots of my career. So the controller that I developed, I then developed the control algorithms to improve that manufacturing process. So that was my master's thesis, and it also really got me into the whole renewable energy area. I started to think, wow, that's amazing technology. 5:54 Adam Spencer: It's like 1980s now, and in terms of renewable energy, it was— 5:59 Speaker C: Definitely early days, you know, early adopters. But, you know, about the same time, sort of certainly towards the end of my undergrad university, I started to get very interested in environmental issues. So it definitely resonated in that context. 6:14 Adam Spencer: Again, I'm just going to ask why. What drew you to that? 6:17 Speaker C: To be truthful, probably it was a girl I was trying to impress. But then, you know, something resonated and, you know, I love a good idea and a good challenge. And for example, when I finished my first year, the next thing I did was jump on a plane and go down to Tasmania and joined the protests down there for the Franklin River. Just being a part of that and getting a sense too that as engineers and sort of the whole technology, the technological aspects of our society, you know, we have such a responsibility to make the right decisions to connect with the bigger picture. And that's always characterized my work as an engineer and that's often brought me into conflict with other engineering thinkers. After that, I finished my master's and launched into my first startup. Two buddies from uni, we worked with one of the academics and took a system which they had developed for controlling radio telescopes for tracking geostationary satellites, and we we modified it to be used with much larger telecommunication satellite dishes. And we bid on some big projects. We competed against companies like Electrospace, which was a spin-off of NASA, and we, we won a couple of contracts. And it was a pretty daunting prospect. We used what at the time were new technologies, and it meant that we could do things cost-effectively compared to these older, you know, corporates. And that was, that was really the first start. 8:06 Adam Spencer: Hang on a second, did Andrew just say NASA, as in North American Space Agency, which is what I thought it was called? What it's actually called is National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I have to go deeper on that because what we have here is a Newcastle startup before startups were really a thing, going up against NASA for a job. Tell me more, Andrew. 8:31 Speaker C: Yeah, so I guess the thing that got that venture going was a project we bid on for the OTC, which used to be pre-Telstra, was the Overseas Telecommunications Corporation of Australia, and they handled all international communications and they were tendering for supply of some big new satellite communication dishes, and we bid on the control system. Now, for that, we went up against a company— our main competitor was a company called Electrospace, which was a spin-off of NASA. So— and we won those contracts. And so that sort of early heady days, you know, gave me a sense that there was a lot to be done. It gave me a new scope about how, you know, innovation— Yeah. Engineering, the sorts of opportunities you can have. 9:28 Adam Spencer: Wow. And now I just need to hit pause because Andrew has a very unique perspective in that he was part of a startup in the early '90s, then left Newcastle and Australia for 20 years basically, and has come back to Newcastle and has founded a startup in the 2010s. I wanted to get Andrew's thoughts on that. 9:49 Speaker C: I wouldn't say it's easier. I think Probably my ambitions are loftier now, whereas my gall and my naivety were higher back then, which can carry you a long way. Definitely being a— a whole lot of things have come together which enable small teams now to do amazing things. So the whole open source movement, you know, cloud-based computing, shifts in terms of hardware platforms that are available. It means now that a small group of people can really mobilise amazing technological products. Back in the day, I guess we were taking the first steps that I now realise are commonplace. So in a way it's easier now, and there's also a whole ecosystem that's built up around startup businesses. So exactly the model I talk about, small groups of people using much more scalable, fluid technologies to build products targeting mass market or high-value opportunities. 11:01 Adam Spencer: As amazing as that experience and opportunity was for Andrew, it was eventually pulled out from under him and still to this day is one of Andrew's greatest regrets that he didn't fight harder for it. And because of that, for a brief time, Andrew changed direction. He was really burnt by the experience and decided to dip his toe in medicine. He then corrected course and got a job as a biomedical engineer in a med lab, then decided to do a PhD, which was centered around solving some biophysical problems to do with how electric shocks interact with the heart. But through that entire process, Andrew stayed interested in renewables and has become an academic at UTS, the University of Technology Sydney. 11:45 Speaker C: It was a bit of a hobby. I started volunteering with an NGO that was working in developing countries, helping people get access to cleaner, more affordable electricity options. It was an NGO called APACE. They were based out of University of Technology in Sydney. At the end, I finished my PhD, got a job as an academic in engineering at the University of Technology. Found myself sort of with two streams of interest, one in sort of biotech, biomedical engineering, and the other in terms of renewable energies. Both those areas sort of crossing over in the developing country context. 12:27 Adam Spencer: And this would just be the beginning for Andrew. Andrew went on to work for various organizations all over the world. Solomon Islands into South Africa, then Papua New Guinea, where he spent a year and a half going to every single province working on new electrification strategies. Then Botswana, where he was the UN's chief technical advisor on renewables. And after that, still with the UN, Andrew was based in Cambodia. And during this time, Andrew worked on a variety of projects. It was during this time when Andrew would periodically fly in and out of Brisbane that Andrew met his wife. 13:02 Speaker D: Hello. 13:03 Adam Spencer: Andrew officially returned to Australia in 2011 and took off a year after working for many years overseas. But that wasn't quite the end of Andrew's overseas adventures. 13:14 Speaker C: Sort of initially I started consulting back to the UN and the World Bank as well as a couple of governments. I had some great projects in that time. I helped Uzbekistan with their low emission development strategy. I did the renewable energy policy for Sierra Leone. I did rural electrification strategy for the Philippines. I did a whole bunch of fantastic projects. A lot of travel again. I was away for like a third of the year, which didn't help. And in the end, you know, it wasn't going to work for the family. 13:49 Speaker D: Ha! 13:49 Speaker C: And so, I mean, that's what tends to happen with me. You know, I get to this point and something jolts me into thinking about what the next step is. And ever since Botswana, I'd had this burning idea for a business. And that was really what led to SwitchedIn. 14:07 Adam Spencer: Ever since Botswana, Andrew had an idea for a business. The business that would eventually become SwitchedIn. What exactly was it in Botswana that planted the seed? 14:18 Speaker C: So in Botswana, we, you know, the main project there was in setting up this off-grid utility. So solar and batteries for low-income households and Yeah, these are small systems. Really, they just power a few lights and radio, but that was enough to really transform people's lives, reduce their cost and what they're spending on energy, and enable a whole lot of other services. So, but the barrier was how do you effectively monitor and support this? What's the business model that's gonna work? In the end, it came down to us basically putting a little cellular modem chip in the system so that we could remotely monitor and manage that system. Now that meant that we could make much more use of scarce technical resources. It meant that we could cut down the time that it took people to travel into town to pay their bill. It meant a whole lot of things which, which made the whole business model viable. So I guess the takeaway for me was that Data and control are at the core of how we build effective businesses to deliver distributed energy services. 15:29 Adam Spencer: Data and control are at the core. That's what SwitchDIN does— integrate multiple systems and monitor and control those systems. So Andrew has the idea, but he hadn't done any real engineering for a while. So Andrew— 15:43 Speaker C: I went searching for some co-founders. You know, I've been away for 20-odd years. I've been out of the country for 15 years, you know, so a lot of my networks weren't really up to date anymore. So yeah, I tried to connect with some of the startup events that were happening around town, and I spent a day or two a week in Sydney, just sort of, you know, rented an office in a coworking space and, you know, just to sort of meet people and try to build networks. In the end, I found— I met up with two guys here in Newcastle. That didn't really work out. They hung around for 3 months and then decided we hadn't raised a million bucks, so they weren't going to stick it out. Oh, it's completely— I mean, it's completely deflated. I mean, I put a lot of money on the line to make it happen, you know. I hired them and paid them out of my own money. And look, there was a few times when, yep, nearly walked away. I remember one time, for example, it was almost our last couple of thousand dollars, I decided to go to a trade show and test where we were. And I got some really good feedback and a couple of really good leads on customers who definitely understood where we were going. And that sort of pushed me along. And so just getting that objective reference from the market— 17:04 Adam Spencer: Yeah. 17:04 Speaker C: You know, that really helped me, helped me keep going. 17:08 Adam Spencer: There will always be tough times. 17:10 Speaker C: You've got to work as hard as you ever have to be able to build a business. 17:15 Adam Spencer: But Andrew had seen the difference that his technology could make due to his years of experience and having seen the technology he was looking to develop work in other countries and the impact it could make. That really helped keep Andrew going. 17:30 Speaker C: Somehow you do have to You've got to believe. I guess the core is because I had seen in other contexts how these technologies can really transform people's lives. Coming back to Australia and seeing the amazing untapped potential, there just has to be value here. There just had to be value in it. And so really, I felt like half the battle was done. I wasn't really looking to dig up value. It was sitting there staring me in the face. There was a problem to solve. To solve. The first version of SwitchDIN was we were looking to be a B2C. We were going to sell to customers this little box which they plugged into their solar and their batteries and their power meter, and it gave them good visibility across their system. And then we had some fancy algorithms which would optimize the way it worked. At the moment, there's a problem because if you buy a solar panel and solar inverter, that'll come from one manufacturer. And that'll probably, these days, back then it didn't, but these days it'll come with a nice webpage and you can log on and see what's going on with your solar. You then go and buy yourself a battery, chances are it comes from a different manufacturer and they'll give you a website as well. You'll have two websites you gotta log on and seeing how it all comes together. And of course then with your power meter, well you don't get any visibility on that. That comes once a quarter in your power bill and you might get a few bar graphs if you're lucky. Yeah. But really no other visibility on that data. So what we did was we integrated all those things together onto the one platform. But then, but then we also had the capabilities of controlling the battery, and that meant that we could do some smart optimization of the system to help you manage costs. So look, the first version of Switched-in was about providing that B2C opportunities for customers. Later on, we pivoted away from that model. We moved away from pitching that directly to end consumers because there is a whole lot of other value that comes from being able to connect lots of small systems, and the channel for that value is not the end consumer. The channel is the fleet manager. Now, that might be an electricity retailer or the, the utility. And so we took a pivot, um, sort of a couple years in, or a year and a half in, to really focus to become a B2B So the focus then became around delivering a platform that would enable utilities or community energy groups or microgrid operators to manage fleets of these small batteries and solar to improve the way the grid works and to improve their engagement with the end consumer. The end consumer is still the ultimate value recipient here. 20:25 Adam Spencer: Yeah. 20:26 Speaker C: But we provide the tools that enables the fleet manager to give more value for the end consumer. 20:33 Speaker D: Yeah. 20:34 Speaker C: So really, it's about channels, and it means that we're much more scalable. Since sticking my own money in, and then I was able to get some great support from a group of angel investors for my first round of investment. So we've had to raise capital. Bootstrapping would have been a great option, but you've got— we've got to move fast. Things are happening quickly. It's always that trade-off. I mean, bootstrapping is a great way of growing a business if you've got the time. About half that money came from the Hunter Angels here in Newcastle, but the main thing there was that that's just such a supportive group that, you know, I've also had a lot of mentoring and a lot of guidance from that group. So connecting with those local angel groups has been fantastic. Glen Turner, he was the chair of Hunter Angels, he was the chair of HMRC here in Newcastle, he's done lots of great stuff. 21:38 Speaker D: Glen Turner is my name and I was the inaugural chair for the first 8 years of Hunter Angels, and previous to that, I was involved in many industries, but particularly construction and mining services. 21:53 Speaker C: He and I started having coffees, you know, 6 months or more before the raise, and my first question to him was, well, how do I ready this to raise capital here in Australia? 22:09 Adam Spencer: And because Glenn was the chairperson of Hunter Angels,, he was in an excellent position to help Andrew and his startup. 22:16 Speaker D: Well, Hunter Angels was established to add seed funding to emerging and startup businesses in the Hunter. I had my last meeting with Andrew earlier this week. 22:26 Adam Spencer: Oh really? 22:27 Speaker D: In terms of, yeah, some issues which he's currently got, which pleasingly are all about growth. He has good opportunities, both that are global and in nature. 22:39 Adam Spencer: And growth is where we are going next in Andrew's story. SwitchedIn is really one of the great successes that have come out of the Hunter, and it's all up from here. So what's next for Andrew and his team? 22:51 Speaker C: We've grown the team now, we're 17 people now. We're hiring people to do sales, and we're formalizing our board and governance arrangements to get ready for new types of investor. So we're just about to do a Series A raise, and we'll be looking for corporate investors who are, who bring more than just money, they bring customers. So for now, the focus is very much on growth. We grow on the back of batteries, and that's still an early market. We've also got to build a very technical product. What I've realised is that the company goes through phases of growth, and the types of investors you're looking for and the types of customers change as well as you go through those phases. We're working with most of the utilities in Australia. I mean, for a 3.5-year-old startup to be getting those types of customers, it's pretty, pretty cool. We launched in Europe in July with one of our partners. We've had tentative steps in North America, but we will be launching with another 2 partners in April in North America. Australia is sort of the test market for the world for batteries at the moment, so a lot of A lot of our competitors and our customers are here looking for those early experiences because it's ripe to take them to the world. 24:11 Adam Spencer: Let's wrap up the SwitchedIn story with some advice from Andrew Mears. The man who was a bit of a geeky kid, started as a fitter and turner at BHP, has a degree in electrical engineering, had a startup in the '90s that competed against companies like Electro Space, a NASA spin-off, has a PhD, Joined the Franklin River Dam protests. Worked in the Solomon Islands on a community hydro project. Worked in East Africa setting up renewable energy programs. Backpacked through every province of Papua New Guinea setting up community-driven energy projects. Got malaria. 24:45 Speaker D: Twice. 24:45 Adam Spencer: Become the UN's Chief Technical Advisor on Renewables covering Southern Africa. Helped Uzbekistan with their low-emission development strategy. Did the renewable energy policy for Sierra Leone and the rural electrification strategy for the Philippines. A man who loves dark ale, is a husband and a father of a 12-year-old girl, and eventually started the company SwitchedIn. Let's hear his advice for new founders. 25:12 Speaker C: Yeah, choose something you're really passionate about. Just do something because you never know what doors that'll open for you. Don't spend too much time navel-gazing. Just get on and do something because you'll learn, you might fail, but you'll learn and then new doors will open that you never imagined and the thing that's gonna click with you will emerge. 25:34 Adam Spencer: Thank you for listening to the story of Switched In and Dr. Andrew Mears. I hope you enjoyed it. Everything that was mentioned in the episode today is on the show notes page on welcometodayone.com. Next time on Welcome to Day One, Joss Kesby from Diffuse Energy. 25:50 Speaker E: I've developed a method that can really quickly look at the interaction between the diffuser and the turbine blades because they each impact on the other, and that's a really quite a difficult aerodynamic system to model. 26:03 Adam Spencer: Ratings and reviews help to keep us going, and they help more people discover our stories. You can rate the show on most podcast platforms by going to Ratedayone.com. That's Ratedayone.com to leave a rating on the podcast. And thank you for giving this episode of Welcome to Day One your attention. This episode was created by me, Adam Spencer, interviews conducted by me, Adam Spencer, and a big thank you to Andrew Mears from SwitchedIn and Glen Turner from the Hunter Angels for taking the time to be involved. The script was written by me, Adam Spencer. Music by Lee Rosavere, full attribution on our website at welcometodayone.com. This episode was produced by me, Adam Spencer, and edited by Natalie Holland. Thank you, and see you next time. 26:47 Andrew Mears: Goodbye.
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