EP#141 Sustainability In Technology (GreenOps) with Shane Yankam

Host: Jon

Hi everybody, and welcome to the Jon Myer podcast. Today's topic is sustainability and technology, GreenOps. Our guest today is Shane Yako, who's the founder and c e O of Cloud, OPEX Shane co-founded OPEX in the Netherlands, a company building Nimbus software to help businesses financially strategize the reduction of their infrastructure, and carbon emissions. Shane was born in Cameroon and he moved to Germany at the age of 18 for undergrad studies and eventually to the Netherlands where he now resides. Please join me in welcoming Shane to the show. Shane, thanks for joining me.

Guest: Shane

Hi, Jon. Very happy to be here. It's a pleasure. It's been a pleasure. Until now. Let's hope our time together is a bit more fun.

Host: Jon

Well, this is the beginning of our time together for a long networking, a long connection, so don't worry about it. We're going to start and kick on this podcast a little bit more about you.

Guest: Shane

Oh, what do I begin? As you mentioned, I was born in Cameroon, right? And I grew up there and lived there until the age of 18. When obviously with everyone born on the continent, you start asking yourself questions about what the future holds for you. Billions of them ask themselves the same questions or similar questions in any case. And I eventually ended up in Germany because it's the only country that offered the promise or indeed free education for foreigners, right? The US doesn't, or for American citizens or anything. But Germany offers free undergrad and postgraduate education for non-German citizens. So I ended up in Germany and I studied for a few years, got my degree, and then worked in the German telecommunications industry for a bit before moving to the Netherlands and founding initially Madelin still called Madelin Technologies, but that's the trade name, and it goes by Cloudopex BV as well. Yeah, yeah.

Host: Jon

Okay. Shane, talk to me about Cloudopex and why co-founded it. Why are you the founder of such a company that's kind of geared towards sustainability, GreenOps?

Guest: Shane

Right, right. So I'm a solo founder, but a co-founder. I don't have a, it's, it's very, hold

Host: Jon

On one second. Yeah, cut that. I'll redo that section. I caught myself as a co-founder, but that's why I redid it. So hold on. So Shane, talk to me about why you founded Cloudopex. What was the whole premise behind it and sustain sustainability in GreenOps?

Guest: Shane

Right. So as with most startups, as with most small businesses, the original idea looked slightly different. It was a lot more finance leaning as, what you call it, FinOps, right? It was about helping businesses understand with a bit more strategy than the products on the market. They are cloud costs, hence the name Cloudopex or cloud operational expenditure or expenses. But then it very quickly became clear that the GreenOps market or the sustainability market offered slightly more potential. And it's one that I was very intrigued by still watching the development and everything that happened in it. Plus, at the time, I had quite a few friends who worked in the industry, and I saw that industry grows as compared to when I started my university studies. And I saw of these, this investment in that role. And, as a founder, you start thinking, okay, well, it's an interesting market.

Guest: Shane

So it's not just the Machiavellian edge in business, it's quite a natural progression of the company looking at what the market offers or the possibilities that are extended in the market and appreciating it for what it is. So we made a few changes to Nimbus, to our original proposition, and are just about helping businesses strategize around making the most of their sustainability transition. So we incorporate sustainability data on technological infrastructure as we'll get into later. But even more importantly, we are the only software in the market that puts your business first. We want you to make more money. What are you making sustainability when you're making the sustainability transition? Yeah,

Host: Jon

Okay. Your company started geared towards FinOps, but kind of started to realize its true potential towards the greens and methodology, and see how you can not only save a bunch of money because that's really what you're trying to do, but you're also trying to make money, but how you're trying to be sustainable in the long term. Is that somewhat correct?

Guest: Shane

Right, right. Absolutely. See, in Europe, the sustainability angle is much more permanent than in the United States for many reasons. As you might be familiar, there is the C S R D or corporate sustainability reporting directive coming into effect at the end of this year, and that forces businesses principally medium and large to make quite a few changes to the way they go about their business and to carry out quite a bit of reporting on the emissions that they produce. If you would like me to go into a bit more detail, I could, is that, so,

Host: Jon

Yeah. Can you jump into the reporting capabilities that are required by the end of the year by the governance body and why they're putting those in effect?

Guest: Shane

Right. Correct. So it ranges from the most social societal, I suppose you'll call them, issues, how businesses come, childhood poverty around the world, or the employment of C child labor and mining operations and the like. So they're reporting on those things. So I suppose you call it a less concrete issue, but in terms of emissions reporting, businesses have to report greenhouse gas emissions in three scopes. Scope one involves everything that you have on-premise in your business's premises to go about the production of your goods and services or goods or services. So that's on-premise service, that's machinery, that's everything on-premise or in your location that you use to produce your value, I suppose, to create value. Scope two is a principle about electricity. What the electricity that you use to run your infrastructure, I suppose, doors to the environment negatively, of course. So scope three is everything that you buy from suppliers, goods, and or services that you use to go out buy your business. So scope three involves everything from stuff like the software we're using now, Microsoft Teams, zoom, et cetera, to machinery that you buy from a third party elsewhere to then use. So you'd have to track the transport, the emissions involved in the transportation of that machine, and the manufacturing of the machine. That's scope three. Yeah.

Host: Jon

Shane, you're telling me that in scope three, scope three interests me when we were talking offline and now the companies and stuff that you're using that you're not making and you're, it's not part of your company. You have to report on the number of software and everything you're using from their emissions, from their sustainability goals, and how much it's impacting.

Guest: Shane

Absolutely. So I was in this sales call last week, or maybe a week before last, I think it was last week, with this stainless steel manufacturer, and they were asking me concretely about how to track their emissions, well, how to track and report, how our software could help them, I suppose, track and report the emissions of their nickel, which is, of course, quite helpful if you're making stainless steel of their nickel producer and supplier in Colombia. So that will mean they need to report on the emissions that were produced in getting the nickel in mining the nickel. I think they mine nickel, I'm entirely certain, and or are in the process involved in producing nickel, obviously transporting it to the Netherlands where they're based and making it available to them. So that is all scope three, and they have to report that. So yes, indeed, some considerate of a bearing, I think it is in many ways. But yes, that's what the legislation says, and I suppose in a few years, decades, we would see if the end justifies the means. Yeah.

Host: Jon

Oh, well, that's a really good question. I want to dive into it as an example. We talked about Zoom because that was what everybody was using the last few years, or at least, and by the end of the year, zoom in the Europe region, whatever the UK, you need to start reporting on not only how they're doing, but they need to have this data available to you as a company. So, let's take an example. Help me understand. I have five users, they all use Zoom, right? Yeah. How do I report on Zoom for my company and how do I get that data? I mean, I don't even know where to start. And this seems like a good time to jump in and talk about today's sponsor. Veeam, how would you like to own control and protect your data in any cloud anywhere, including aws? Veeam Backup for AWS is a native solution to protect all of your AWS data. It's fully automated, set it, forget it within one platform, centrally managed. Veeam backup for AWS is a robust solution for snapshots, replication, full recovery within aws granular file recovery, and recovery outside of aws, implement Veeam backup for AWS today before you find out that your current solution isn't working. Now, how about we get you back to that podcast,

Guest: Shane

Right? Right. So that's what we try to do in a sense because many clients could, I mean, you could Google, you could sort of Google the, I suppose the CPU cycles that your average Zoom call a few ways. You could do that very, as Germans would say, pow. And there are a few ways you could approach that, but that's what Nimbus does concerning software. It's sort of estimating based on our research and our work, how much exactly how much CPU or compute and storage and networking service like Zoom would use, and then come up with a number given your number of employees. So it's a multiplier more or less. And so that's in effect, the greenhouse gas emissions. But concretely for Zoom, as I just said, for us, what we do is it is generally the case for software. It's several CPU cycles, the storage that the average Zoom client takes up concerning. So we have, the end of that our server calculations. Cause for on-premise servers, for server installations, we do the calculation based on the components. So CPU, SSD, ram, HDD, gpu. So we have that backing. And then for Zoom, the software on top of that, we do, of course, CPU storage and networking. So that's what we try to do. And yeah, our approach is I suppose, or I think one of the best on the market. But yeah, if, I hope that answers your question. Yeah,

Host: Jon

Shane, isn't it a variable cost for your CPU, your memory? I mean, are you taking a, just a, okay, I have this on-premise server, I have this cloud server, and here's the value that I associated. Or do you dive deep into here the normal processing power or the amount of consumption for this high-performance computing that now there's a different number for it? I mean, how it seems like there are so many variables to it. Is there a standard use?

Guest: Shane

Oh, that's correct. There are quite a few variables to it. And the approach we're taking at the moment is satisfying our clients first under the legislation. First and foremost, I'm assuming in time those things would, those guidelines will become stricter and those things will have to improve. But, concerning servers, we are quite stringent. So when we say CPUs, we have the entire, database of CPUs that extend in various, we have thousands of them in various data centers, and we have the RAM and the SSDs and the various makes and models and manufacturers and this and that, and the diodes size and exactly how much CO2 was produced in the manufacturing and the usage of those components. So that all adds up to what your server produces. And then based on that, we have the usage or CPU cycles of that, the software itself users, and then from that, we estimate the carbon emissions. And we are very close to the truth. So I certainly think we are better than most in getting to that. So it's very detailed as far as that is concerned. Yes.

Host: Jon

So, Shane, you're helping companies come up with this report, or you're coming up with the data for them to utilize in their report and visualize it? Because I can assume that you have a huge database of information on the carbon emissions that each component use. Okay, here's a standard Zoom, here's a standard Microsoft Office, whatever, and here's your listing and you're able to input those. And then there are all the one-offs. How are you helping companies with this?

Guest: Shane

Well, firstly, companies only have, they have a few constants, or they have a few variables. I suppose. They have the number of employees they have, and they have the software that they use. So everything from there is what we, it's, it's us. Effectively. They also have the invoices that they receive for these things. Cause just to make clear just about tracking and reporting, I'm trying to assure my clients that if they use us, we can strategize their sustainability transition in a way that would mean they would either not lose money or would make money over the next few years. So that's our U usp. It's not just the tracking and the reporting. I find that quite boring. It's making them understand that you can make this transition and make money from it. So they have the number of employees using the software, and they have the software and they have the invoice. So the price that's, and then we take it from there based on the software that they have chosen and the number of employees that they have, we calculate, and our data, which you mentioned, we calculate their emissions and add it to effectively the organization's balance sheet or carbon balance sheet, that's what you call it. And the same goes for their machinery. The same goes for their servers, the same goes for their transportation. The same goes for their cloud environments and everything else we track.

Host: Jon

So basically it's like FinOps meets GreenOps and where you are trying to have them show full visibility in what they're using. You're not trying to reduce the workforce, but try to be more efficient around it or the software they're using. And you're like, okay, here is what you're spending now, and here's what it is reporting for carbon emissions for it, that needs to be done. Here's how we can make you more money, but spend less on the resources that are behind the scenes.

Guest: Shane

Right. Well, I'll give a concrete example with the servers we're referring to, right? Here are a thousand servers that I've come to the end of their life cycle, five years of demonetization, generally speaking in Europe. So the CapEx, it's, they're worth nothing effectively. Now you're thinking of the next batch of servers they're going to buy. That's where we come in and say, well consider the cost of this other server, but not just the cost of the CapEx, the cost of purchase, but the cost of how much it cost you in terms of carbon emissions and what that would mean for your company. Right? Because there's the entire other thing, which I haven't mentioned, the carbon credits and carbon offsets, which is a very interesting topic we could dive into if you'd like. But so there are other costs in a sense, I suppose they're grouped under cost to the environment, which should be added to the equation when you're thinking of buying or making these decisions. In other words, and I suppose another angle to it is, okay, should your servers now become CapEx as you have had until now? Should you own them on-premise or should they become OPEX and go to scope three? Right? Because they're different things, so just random them from somewhere else. So those are the questions that I like answering, that I like thinking about and helping our clients.

Host: Jon

Shane, isn't there a point in time where all this reporting and everything that companies need to do now, you need to hire more employees, you need to utilize more resources, you're creating more carbon emissions to get this done? Is there a balance between all the stuff we're doing and the reduction to improve carbon emissions?

Guest: Shane

Well, from that question, I can see you've never, it's almost entirely certain you've never lived in Europe. One of the biggest differences between the United States and Europe, or even Africa and Europe, is the amount of red tape and just regulation and legislation that you have here for everything. So this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone here. There's much worse in other respects, believe me, that's quite little. Everyone's drowning on that. This and people disagree. But in my estimation, everything here is sort of drowning under this regulation. But yes, many, many businesses that I talk to have higher SU or higher sustainability consultants these days, multiple ones. And obviously, they come with their emissions and they try to do their best to, I suppose, take out more modern than they put in. But yes, there is a reasonable argument to make. Is it all worth it? And as I said at the beginning of our conversation, we'll see down the line four years, five years from now, if it was worth it, if the emissions are reduced. Up until now, the EU claims that they're the only, I suppose, block of countries in the world that have reduced their emissions over the past few decades. So I suppose up until now, the policymaking has been effective.

Host: Jon

I imagine that we're not going to know or realize this obviously for it could be five, 10 years on how the reduction is working now. I am all for sustainability and GreenOps as if you're doing it with a purpose and to achieve the goal. And you're taking a conscious effort to do it now. And I think the company that you created, Cloudopex, originally doing FinOps and knew that there was a bigger initiative with GreenOps around it, is kind of a driving factor. It's like a calling to you to do this, and now you're able to not only save money, and make money, but also be sustainable in the long run and do your part,

Guest: Shane

Right? Right. I'm a massive, massive believer in capitalism, which is why many of my friends think I should be in the US instead of in. But I believe everything, especially coming from Africa, I've seen the Marvels that capitalism brought. I mean, it is still not very great, but any other system wouldn't allow me to move here and just based on competence, be able to do these things and start a company. And any other system that I'm familiar with would make it slightly more difficult. But capitalism is so overpowering, it's so strong a force that I don't think the approach that many people or organizations take to sustainability is the smart one. This is where they are forcing, they're asking the business to make changes that are to the detriment of the business. I think that's silly. I don't think you work long term as nothing like that ever works long term.

Guest: Shane

Really. I think the only way you can go about sustainability is getting businesses to see the benefits of it and the concrete benefits to actually, it should aid their balance sheet. And generally speaking, when you talk to the consultants to go into these businesses, the changes actually do save businesses money. So I'm just saying, okay, plan it so it saves you the most money and automate it. You don't need the consultants anymore, right? Cause the software does it for you. Consultants are, as you mentioned, expensive, but in terms of money and carbon emissions, this software produces fewer carbon emissions, and I can tell you exactly how much you save this year and how much you make next year, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah.

Host: Jon

Shane, when you do this reporting, you kind of look at it on where you can save the monies, self-report, all the stuff that you're doing within the engagement to track the work that you're doing For the carbon emissions. Yeah, for the software. I was just curious. We all this stuff or we can include our part. Darn, we need to come back.

Guest: Shane

Yeah, no, no, no, no. That's one of the first few things we thought of when we included software. So if in now you can check it out on our nimbus. cloud, apex.com, the free tier can. If you're tracking software, one of the options there is indeed. So you can include it and then you would see Nimbus's carbon emissions to what it has. So your balance sheet, I suppose. So it's there indeed. Yeah, it's there. We didn't forget.

Host: Jon

I thought I might ask. Hey everybody. We're talking with Shane Yam. He is the founder and CEO of Cloudopex. Our topic today is sustainability and technology, basically Greenops and Shane, we talked and we were jumping on you creating Cloudopex. Before we get to why you created it and the journey and some of the things that you've run into, I want to touch a little bit more on the green office and sustainability. I know several companies are going that way, and I like how your passion is actually to do it and achieve it and not look at the dollars. Let's jump on the bandwagon for sustainability. You sound like you have a true passion, not only for saving companies money but for making it money and doing it sustainably.

Guest: Shane

Yeah, I think I do. It's always been interested in the untaken by the finance, or I suppose strategic aspect of businesses, and I still do my bookkeeping myself to this day. I could afford an accountant to do that, but I still enjoy looking at my numbers and thinking about how to improve them quarter after quarter, or how to make them look less bad quarter after quarter. So it's something that drives me and motivates me. And yeah, I enjoy letting a CEO understand what it is that this market offers him. I'll give you a concrete example. So the term net zero or carbon neutral is very debatable in its semantics, right? I mean, it's effectively saying, if I produce as much carbon as I take out of the environment, I'm doing no bad for the environment. Now, anyone with any sense would tell you that's at least dodgy a concept as a concept.

Guest: Shane

So however, if you happen to be a business that is carbon neutral, I e, you produce this carbon emission, but then you've offset it by buying carbon credits, which are backed by carbon offsets, which again is the topic we'll get into. Very interesting. Then what that means is it opens up your company. If you're a business that leverages capital, again, as a German would say, or loans borrowed money as far as the cost of capital goes, then it opens up the market to entirely different interest rates to the money that you borrow. So most CEOs or CFOs aren't entirely aware of that. They just go about this without realizing that carbon neutrality is not just PR as it of course is. It's also that when you do that, you know, get money cheaper or for cheaper. So there are these things that I enjoy talking about and dealing with on a day-to-day basis, and it keeps me going. Yeah,

Host: Jon

Shane, carbon neutral or net zero I, here's my trouble with it, and I can see you laughing. All right, listen, what I hear, A company that has produced any type of carbon emissions, you're going through it. You're using software people, whatever it is, the only way to be net zero or carbon is not to produce it, to not have it that, I mean, you're producing something and I do want to talk about carbon credits because while you're offsetting it or you're trying to reduce it, the only way to be zero is not to produce it. That's just what I'm reading. But now you're talking about carbon credits. I mean like, hey, I produce 10,000 for car carbon emissions, but I purchased these 10,000, so I'm just carbon neutral, and what are carbon credits? I mean,

Guest: Shane

Right? Oh, this certainly deserves a dissertation or so, I don't doubt that there have been many and there's so much to it. It's a very interesting topic. So I forgot the terminology that I'll use here, but I'll do it in simpler terms than I suppose. So the carbon credits, effectively, companies get given a certain number of carbon credits at the beginning of the year or the beginning of any period, and they can use the carbon credits for the emissions that they produce or the carbon emissions they produce. Now, for those they don't use, they can sell off to other businesses for those, if they go above their penzu of carbon credits, they can purchase them from other businesses, hence a public carbon credit market. Now, what's a carbon credit? How does it exist? You have carbon offsets. A carbon offset is any project that could be me opening a farm, and that's the other side of Nimbus, which we're currently putting together.

Guest: Shane

It's not started yet. It's in the works. So the carbon offset is me going to Cameroon, for instance, say purchasing acres of land and planting the trees that I know would take out the most carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And then having that ratified, having that checked, having that tested, and bodies that would check this and then issue a carbon credit for that land, they would say, okay, this piece of land, this acreage would take out X amount of X tons of carbon there this year. So a business in the Netherlands can produce X amount of carbon emissions this year if they buy this carbon credit. So they purchase that happily enough for me, and then they can produce, or if they overspend or overproduce their carbons, then with that carbon credit can produce it more. So that's what a carbon credit is. It has many derivatives as well, as far as people in the finance world would know. It's an asset you can speculate on in many ways, as several people do and continue to do so. Yeah, it's very complex. Yeah.

Host: Jon

Shane, can I ask a challenging question? Of course, you went to Cameroon. Did you purchase this land for it to plant trees or did you do that? Are you using an as an example?

Guest: Shane

No, no, no. It's in the works for Nimbus, right? It's something that our clients have made clear they're interested in. So at the moment, what we do is we get them the credits from the markets where you buy credits, but why would we keep on doing that if we can also provide these offsets and provide the credits ourselves, right? It's a decent size, it's a decent-sized market. It's just the other side of the coin of nis. I haven't purchased any land, but given enough demand as we are witnessing then enough progress in the market, then it becomes an option. Yes, correct.

Host: Jon

Yeah. Okay. Let me use an example. You purchased, you can purchase this land, you can plant some trees, you can do an open farm, reinvest in it, and what about obviously solar, you can put some panels to wind all that. Absolutely. Does somebody have to physically go there to validate that you're doing this and then issue you credits that you now have as an opportunity, not only to use or resell on the carbon credit market?

Guest: Shane

Yeah, yeah. There are a few accreditors or accreditation institutes. So businesses I suppose, who do that. Now, I cannot guarantee that they have to go to the location. I wouldn't be too certain given what I know, but yes, I kind

Host: Jon

Of like how you went around that. Yeah.

Guest: Shane

But on paper, they do quite, I suppose they would say they have to go physically inspect the offset. Yeah.

Host: Jon

Okay. My challenging question was, and I'm just going to get a little bit into it, only because you have this land, this farm, this solar thing, somebody has to physically go there or validate it. Now, did I not just put in more carbon for them to come in there and check it periodically, this resource that's gone in there, how do I allocate that? Is that getting too granular in the data that I'm asking for or providing? Or is that automatically calculated into it?

Guest: Shane

Well, I would hope, and this isn't my job, that would be their job. I would hope that they would include that in their calculations. But generally speaking, there's a point of granularity at which people just sort of round up or round down, I suppose more likely. So I think they might include their first flight to the location, but I'm not too sure to include their second flight or maybe their return leg. So in terms of carbon emissions, there's a point at which people just go and it goes for everything. Even the scope three emissions. You cannot say, okay, when does my supplier, supplier, what are the emissions involved for that? You know, could in theory include that or ask businesses to include that, but businesses only have to report for the direct supplier, not their supplier, supplier, et cetera, et cetera. So at some point, people just ignore them.

Host: Jon

I think that would be a little too much for you to report on the supplier, supplier, supplier because you have to trickle down where your supplier is already reporting on their suppliers and included that data into it. Because at one point you're just spending too much resources to get this data, and then now you've just spent a lot of time and money where the data, you just have to start trusting the suppliers through the process.

Guest: Shane

Absolutely. But I suppose the counter question there would be, what if your supplier is just a mediator? What if you're just buying from a guy who doesn't even, he's not even involved in the production? He's just saying, get it from point A to point B. Now he has to report that, but oh, okay, shouldn't you report the money? So things like that. But as you rightly noted, it's a bit much. Occasionally it can get a bit too much. So it's just the one supplier who's forced to provide those emissions, which we try to facilitate because as businesses in the EU would know, getting those numbers from businesses outside the EU is very difficult. They don't want to care. They have no legislation asking them to do that. So our supply management thing, you can write them emails and automate it, remind them to send them, and then eventually we do manual research on them and call them and stuff like that. Yeah,

Host: Jon

I can imagine that it's difficult to get this information from outside, or inside if there are no regulations, no forcing nature for them to provide it. They're like, yeah, we'll get to it when we get to it, and now you have to generalize or estimate some of the information. Shane, I got two last questions that we're going into before we talk. The last one that I want to touch on and end with is actually as a founder and an entrepreneur and a soul and all the pressures that come behind it. But before we get to that, all this reporting that is being done from the EU side of it, I have these reports, what they're sent electronically. They're saying who's reading them, who's validating them, who is making sure that you're doing it? Can you imagine all the companies trying to report it, but what is the purpose of the report to them? Is it for them to improve in the long term? Help me understand that.

Guest: Shane

Well, the first part of that question, I have to say is quite brilliant. I don't think I've heard that asked before. Who's reading them? Part of it, you couldn't convince me anyone was, you couldn't convince me. Too many people were reading them anyway. Perhaps they are, I don't know.

Host: Jon

Are they just checking a box? You sent the reporting, great, we'll get to it. Is it may automated, I mean, compiled later, review later? Well, those are all,

Guest: Shane

To be fair to them, to the readers or I suppose non-readers, to be fair to them, it's the same thing with your end-of-year financial or business taxes. It's not that big a deal unless you get audited. So it's no one, it's in theory, you can get away with anything until you get audited. So I'm assuming they'll have some of audit mechanism down the line where they would come to businesses and try to see what they're doing, et cetera. But I couldn't guarantee that you have a room full of people reading these reports or that indeed there is any automation in place to process them. I don't think so. No.

Host: Jon

No, I don't. Not yet. But I think that's one of the things is now they're going to audit this down the road. I would love not another team for this because now you just hired a full resource to do it, and now there are all these emissions for them to do it and all the reporting capabilities that they have to self-report on it. But maybe there's some automation where it's vet into a system and then it over some time, say a couple of months, you're seeing the graph. And as they're increasing in certain things, that's when they're starting to be reviewed. They come back and they dig into the reports they're flagged, whatever it is. Maybe they're doing great, and instead of we're going to the negative people, we're highlighting those that are improving and others can follow suit with it. I mean, there are endless possibilities. I'm not saying we have to have the answers now, but I just want to make sure that you're doing all this time for the reporting capabilities. What is the value and what is the goal for these companies? Do you know they're looking at their trends over time, but are they the right trends? Is it a governance body for those trends?

Guest: Shane

Well, exactly the point. I think that's what I try to bring to the table with Nimbus, right? Because I don't think there's much value in, just confirming the compliance, if that makes sense, right? And look at these businesses in this space, and they're trying to, they're, what they're offering is compliance to the norms and regulations that come into place every few years or every year these days. I don't think there's much value in the business for the business in that certainly long term it's just more paperwork. More and more, to be fair, it's just yearly reporting. It's not monthly. So the graphs will have to be yearly, in which case whoever could make some and could do some analysis on that. But that's exactly what I tried to bring to the table. I think there is value indeed in compliance with these things, and people have to comply, but people also want to comply in a lot of ways. Many businesses want to reduce their carbon emissions. So I think businesses and their underlying emission should always be the principle, make money, make a profit, or at least don't make too big a loss. And that's what I try to bring in saying, okay, you can do the sustainability transition, but make money out of it. Yeah,

Host: Jon

I agree with you, and I think a lot of the companies that are doing this yearly reporting, they're going to look at this for months. Why not do it monthly to see where you're trending for the year, now you're ahead of the game because ultimately the yearly reporting will get granular into monthly reporting. You're going to have to submit these every month. Why not be ahead of it if you've got the data and it's already being automated, you have it and then it's compiled yearly. Shane, let's talk about the last part of creating Cloudopex as a solo founder and some of the challenges that you endured during this process.

Guest: Shane

Well, you might not be too familiar with the startup ecosystem and the accelerators and whatever that, and I suppose you'll call them, what would you call them? Other businesses, other advice givers in this space, I suppose you'll call them, but being a solo founder is generally frowned upon. It's not that great a deal, but with me, I've just never been very, I've tried a few other co-founders just never worked out that well. The demands I put on myself and on others, unfortunately, means that for being my fault, or the fault I suppose you'll call it, it's difficult to bring somebody on, especially because I just started and I made progress and progress and progress with being myself. So if somebody joins, it's not their idea, it's not their business. So they're sort of still just an employee difficult, it's quite difficult to bring somebody on data, but that makes me a solo founder, which is very attractive to what I investor. So other forms of capital givers, not that I've tried to raise funds yet, but I see it already in trying to prepare for that. Right. So yeah,

Host: Jon

You said it was frowned upon as a solo founder. Yeah,

Guest: Shane

Yeah, it is. Yeah, absolutely.

Host: Jon

I think that's one of the best achievements. If you're doing it yourself, I can see where you're coming from finding a co-founder. I don't think I, I'll say ever be a co-founder, have a co-founder on, but I am right there in the same boat with you. They're my ideas on how I started it, this is where it is where you're bringing somebody else on, and it wasn't their idea. Did they have the same passion as you, the same drive as you? You're getting things done. You can see yourself getting done, things done. Yeah, I don't see why it would be frowned upon. I mean, I guess getting funding would be frowned upon as a single versus two ideas. But

Guest: Shane

Yeah, I suppose they are. What Danton or what they say is, you know, should be able to convince at least one person of how great your idea is. So they come on board and you guys are quick. It's true that with two people, more gets done. But, I've seen it happen. My first venture wireless at university was a remittance application to the African continent, some sort of advanced or managed remittance you call it. And I had to go and look for a co-founder desperately, right? Because I was still under the impression. So I put everything on hold and tried it and tried it and tried to find a co-founder, right? So I got one that didn't go too far. I don't know if it was his fault or if I did this, so, but

Host: Jon

Lessons learned.

Guest: Shane

Yeah, no, but the point is, yeah, building a startup, everyone tells you a call. Everyone is talking about co-founders all the time, right? You should get a co-founder. One will be c o, the other will be c T o, preferably, and that's the way it goes. But these days I ask founders to try to run a business successful business for a year or two and just think of the power that you're losing by both having a co-founder or taking on venture capital. Taking on venture capital means it gives, I do my bookkeeping myself. I understand just how much power I have in doing this, how much I enjoy it during the year, and at the end of the year when I need to do my taxes or submit them. So bringing investors or a co-founder makes that a lot trickier, you know, need consent for everything that you're trying to buy or trying to, every investment you make, everything you do, you need a second opinion, a third opinion. So the co-founder thing is tricky, but I do, it is certainly harder when you show up alone with just my assistant, generally speaking, show up somewhere there is she a co-founder? No, she's your assistant. Okay. How does that, yeah, then it gets, it's not as fun as a co-founder, I don't think. No,

Host: Jon

I can see where that could be challenging. When I do, I'd like the comment you made where you should be able to convince one person, or one other person about your idea. And I think that with my customers, they are bought in, they understand my idea, they understand what we're doing and achieving, and I don't want to say convince them, but they ultimately, it sells itself. Now, as a co-founder, if you find a co-founder asking other people, Hey, should we invest in this? Should we do this? Almost all of the people that I work with are solo founders and we bounce ideas off each other all the time. We talk constantly where I like being able to just go and do it myself, and I don't want to say I have to do it, but there is a point where you need to have somebody else to balance or validate some of the things that you want to purchase or do because it's kind of like you're not spending too much time or spending too much money. And there could be other things you should think about within doing that purchase or that idea that you go.

Guest: Shane

Absolutely. I suppose I would say my reading of that situation, my understanding of that situation is that as a startup, you are constantly in, I suppose you call it in a David, in the David Angolia you, you're constantly trying to overachieve is what you're selling. You're not a small business. It's a slightly different concept. Small businesses can be small forever. A startup is always in a position where they are behind where they should be or they could be, right? So what that means is you need a co-founder to get bigger. You need funding to get bigger. You're constantly needing something to get bigger or to improve, right? You're not just accepting your smallness as a small business would do. So it's not just a co-founder thing that is present in every facet of the startup industry. I suppose you need too many things that I suppose that it's going to make you bigger, but then most of them, the vast majority of startups still don't go anywhere. And you wonder how much the co-founding is helping. But that's a much broader topic. Yeah.

Host: Jon

Yeah. I didn't know being a solo founder was frowned upon. I guess I always enjoyed or thought of being just myself. Yeah, I want to grow. Yeah, I want to get bigger. Doesn't from a startup perspective, some like to do it themselves and live just a nice life. They don't want to get too big for it. But then there are those ourselves who want to grow big, but being part of or being a solo thing. Are there any other challenges that you ran into or have overcome throughout this process?

Guest: Shane

I mean, a few months ago I gave an article to the Business Insider, the German aspect or part of the Business Insider Guda Center as they're called. And yeah, it was around moving from Germany to the Netherlands say the advantage of that, but also the difficulties you face as a black, or I suppose African, well, I'm not African anymore European, but as an African founder in Europe and everything to do with race and raising money and the appreciation of yourself when you show up in a meeting. And so third parties understanding of what your position is in that meeting or the organization. It's still the blank stares. It still does not understand how you could have founded a company, still not understand how you can speak Dutch or German. All of that. It takes a bit of getting used to, which is why I try to spend as much time as I can in Karo. So clear the mind and then come back refreshed with a better actualization understanding of the self. Yeah, it helps. It does.

Host: Jon

Yeah. I can understand how that's a big challenge, but it seems that you're overcoming it or still working through some of those things, but you understand the challenge and what it takes to overcome it. Shane, I'm going to wrap things up with where you want people to go. What's the action item here for them to go and find out more information about Cloudopex and the things that you're doing and achieving, maybe they want to do it, maybe they want to get started.

Guest: Shane

Well, the principal location I would say would be our website, of course, our landing page, cloud apex.com. We can also try out a free account on the Nimbus Cloud web free tier nib cloud apex.com. You could also try on LinkedIn, you could find me on LinkedIn at the local Genius, which is, I

Host: Jon

Like that

Guest: Shane

I suppose itself. I was surprised when it wasn't taken. So it's taken now everyone interested. It's

Host: Jon

Taken now, it's not yours

Guest: Shane

Or Cloud Apex itself on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter chain rights, but yeah, I have zero followers so I don't spend too much time on there. So yeah, that's it. As far as I suppose more abstract action is concerned, it would just be businesses to consider it, or European businesses principally to consider the financial to their sustainability initiatives, right? It is not entirely clear to me why sustainability has to cost you money, and that's the appreciation of it at the market at the moment. It's that, okay, I assign a budget to our sustainability initiatives, and then it just goes with that. It shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't have to hire sustainability consultants, as you mentioned, hiring a lot of staff to do that, you know, can get it done otherwise, and still make the same change in doing that. So yeah, that's what I would say.

Host: Jon

Nice, everybody. Sustainability is the long-term goal here. Our topic, is sustainability and technology, GreenOps with Shane Yank and founder and CEO O of Cloudopex. Shane, thank you so much for joining me.

Guest: Shane

Thank you very much for having me. My pleasure,

Host: Jon

Everybody. My name's Jon Myer. You've been watching the Jon Myer podcast. Don't forget to hit that, like subscribe and notify because guess what, we're out of here.