The document discusses New Energy Nexus, an organization that supports clean energy startups. It provides an overview of New Energy Nexus' mission, vision, and the services it offers, including Open Office coaching sessions. Open Office offers one-on-one mentoring from executives to help with areas like capital funding, cash flow, and leadership. The document then provides a transcript from an Open Office session between a clean energy startup CEO and mentors. The mentors provide advice on the best sources of funding for startups and strategies for maximizing early customer relationships through non-recurring engineering contracts and joint development agreements.

1. Open Office:
It’s Not: VC or Die!
“Financial Fuel” For
Clean Economy
Startups
Featuring Ian Rogoff
18 April 2020

2. WHAT
IS
NEW ENERGY NEXUS?
New Energy Nexus is an international
organization that supports clean energy
entrepreneurs with funds, accelerators and
networks.
Since 2004, New Energy Nexus has mobilized
$1.5B in investment, invested in over 150 clean
energy enterprises, and launched industry leading
centers for solution collaboration.
Our network includes more than 100 incubators
and accelerators, funders and development
organizations from 29 countries around the world.
We started in California and have expanded
operations into China, India, Southeast Asia, and
East Africa.
LAUNCH | FUND | ACCELERATE | SCALE

3. We support diverse entrepreneurs to
drive innovation and build equity into the
global clean energy economy.
MISSIO
N
New Energy Nexus strives towards an
abundant world with a 100% clean energy
economy for 100% of the population in the
shortest time possible.
VISIO
N
WE HELP CLEAN ENERGY
ENTREPRENUERS SUCCEED

4. • Open Office is a program of the New Energy Nexus. These are bespoke one-on-one coaching
and mentoring sessions from top clean economy executives.
• We are also developing a complete archive of digital training materials and educational
modules to improve company performance and increase success of the clean energy
solutions that we seek.
• Through these Open Office coaching sessions, we have seen significant improvements in
CEO decision making, commercial traction and emotional demeanor which increases the
organization's success rate in achieving their goals.
• Themes typically discussed during these sessions are capital fuel, cash flow and runway;
strategic relationships and networking; leadership, positive culture building and human
capital.
• We will be offering additional resources and exposure to other leaders with other tips and
tricks at our Slack community, New Energy Nexus Network.
To sign up, please email: jessica.hulstrom@newenergynexus.com
Open
Office

5. About
Speakers
Jon Bonanno
Host
CXO, New Energy Nexus & California Clean Energy Fund
jon.bonanno@newenergynexus.com
Jonathan Tan
Speaker
CEO & Founder, CoreShell Technologies
jonathan@coreshelltech.com
Ian Rogoff
Contributing Partner
Chair, New Energy Nexus

6. At Coreshell, our goal is to create a fast growing and high
impact business, which means that we need to show
non-linear returns for our investors. For companies like us
– especially in the B2B sector - what are the best sources
of cash that we should be looking for to run our business?
Jonathan’s
Question #1

7. Prioritized Clean Economy CEO
“Fuel”
• Direct revenue w/ delighted customers
• Partner revenue w/ delighted customers
• Awards, Grants, Prizes
• Non-Recurring Engineering Contracts
(NREs)
• Joint Development Agreements (JDAs)
• Non-Recourse Corporate Debt
• Private Equity

8. We have several potential direct and indirect customers in our
pipeline, but they’re all long-term developments and most are not
ready to establish partnerships, full pilot projects or write a
purchase order. In your recommendation, what is the best first
step to maximizing those early relationships and creating value
for my stakeholders?
Jonathan’s
Question #2

9. Golden Rule: there is
nothing more valuable in
any transaction than
knowing your customer,
intimately
Don’t Be Lazy, Know Your
Customer

10. Objective: advance technology/platform, establish relationships,
test product-market-fit, avoid bankruptcy, non-dilutive, put yourself
in position to create non-linear returns in the future
• An NRE is a consulting agreement
• Can be done on business unit balance sheet, with low
approval process
• Quick to sign and execute
• No IP rights of any kind (tag, co-dev, license, etc.)
• Typical single NRE size is $25k - $50k, <$100k
• NREs lead to paid pilots, commercial POs, and JDAs
• Set clear and concise Pass/No Pass criteria
• One or more of the USPs are good testing criteria
Non-Recurring Engineering Contracts
(NREs)

11. Possible Key Insight: if a company is willing to do NREs,
not-invented-here (NIH) is not culturally strong and the
business unit has budget for outside innovation
• Understand: internal or competitive bake off
• NREs are a “get” for the startup, with little ”give”
• Smart strategy: layer and expand NREs
• Start with the end in mind by establishing a Road Map for
the potential relationship
• Make your counter-party(ies) highly successful
Non-Recurring Engineering Contracts
(NREs)

12. Non-Recurring Engineering Agreements seem like the way to
go. We’ve executed some with a few potential customers.
Unfortunately, for some of our potential key customers, when I
suggest we do an NRE, they pushed back and wanted to do a
Joint Development Agreement. Can you walk me through how
to think about a Joint Development Agreement as opposed to
just NRE?
Jonathan’s
Question #3

13. Objective: advance technology/platform, establish
relationships, test product-market-fit, avoid bankruptcy,
non-dilutive, put yourself in position to create non-linear
returns in the future
• JDAs are a “give” and a “get” for the startup
• Require multiple divisions of the Big Co
• Require approvals: legal, IP, commercial
• Typically multiple agreements: legal, IP, commercial
• Slower to create and execute
• Can be great market validators
• Can improve startups performance
• Avoid a ‘backdoor sale”
Joint Development Agreements
(JDAs)

14. RULE #1: Segmentation (remember, Know Your
Customer)
• Technology
• Customers
• Field of use
• Regions
• Channels
• Industries
• Time period
Joint Development Agreements
(JDAs)

15. RULE #2: Money, Staff, Roles, Responsibilities
• Getting a royalty is key during the period to cover
development costs
• Focus less on sales minimums (which can be sticky)
• Clearly define the exact personnel who will be
involved in each activity – your staff and theirs
• Clearly define cost-sharing or cost-bearing, roles,
responsibilities, etc.
• Set clear and concise Pass/No Pass criteria
Joint Development Agreements
(JDAs)