This post by A&R Solar CEO Reeves Clippard ran in the Huffington Post.
Sitting on top of a roof one rainy winter day in Seattle, my coworker and I talked about how we would do things differently if we ran our own solar installation company.
Andy and I agreed that we’d interact with our customers differently. We’d really listen to their needs and put quality first. We’d treat our employees like family and make business decisions that aligned with our values.
Months later, we each put in $350 to pay for our incorporation fees. We started scrounging in our couches for the money to buy the equipment and tools we needed to perform our work. We’d split any money we made to buy gas to get home from site visits. Our first employee sold mattresses on Craigslist because we couldn’t pay him on a regular basis.
It took a few years to hit our stride—a lot longer than our wives had hoped to support us. In 2015, not only was A&R Solar the top solar installer in the state of Washington, but our revenues totaled more than $12.5 million, up from $5.7 million in 2014, and just $2.8 million in 2013.
But we are not, and have never been, all about making money. In 2012 after a rigorous application process, we became a certified B Corporation. We made the decision in part to keep us accountable to those promises we made on that roof years before.
Continue reading on the Huffington Post.