How Florrent’s Jose LaSalle (and Co-Founders) are Building Resiliency into the Energy Grid

Strong beliefs and growing awareness can be the cornerstone and vision of a new company. 

Jose LaSalle, Alex Nichols, and Joe Hastry (all UMass Amherst alums) brought that passion and experience together to found florrent. The clean energy company is working on ways to improve electrical grid resilience through the next generation of high-energy density supercapacitors.  

Startup Boston caught up with Jose to discuss florrent’s beginnings, the value of being a founder, lessons learned, and more.

Startup Boston (SB): How did florrent come to be? What’s the backstory of how you came together? 

Jose LaSalle (JL): It's really been an amazing coordination of so many people who inspired us.

The core of florrent started with the three founders: Joe Hastry, Alex Nichols, and myself. We distribute multiple responsibilities in the business, but what is consistent is that we all are co-creating the vision together and steward the culture. I carry a technical background, as well as the customer and market-facing work.Joe has a background in accounting and operations, and he keeps the fire going at florrent, contributing to all aspects of our work. Alex has a deep technical background in startups and is leading our product vision, informed by his engagement with our customers.

For me, it started with my love for engineering that I channeled into the energy space when I was fairly young. My family had a high-energy burden and there were times when we didn't have gas in the house or other amenities. That opened my eyes to the reality that many people live with, which is inaccessibility to affordable energy.

This problem is being exacerbated today with the data center growth, driving up electricity rates for a lot of people, and having its own environmental challenge as well.

But back then, I wanted to channel my passion for engineering into the energy space and create solutions that were ecologically harmonious and created a more resilient, overall better electricity system.

I went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst and developed supercapacitors. I found this market-need for adopting more renewables, lowering the cost of electricity and making electricity access widespread.

After my undergrad, I worked at a couple of startups in the Pacific Northwest. On nights and weekends, I moonlit to keep this going. I experimented with compelling results, and decided to go to my co-founders to build a company. We've been talking about it for a long time, so it was a natural transition. Over the course of the next year and a half, we ramped down from our day jobs to ramp up full time at florrent.

SB: What are supercapacitors? How does florrent help out?

JL: Effectively, what we bring to the world is stability in electricity systems.

If you think about big utility systems, our product has this function where we act as a pacemaker for the grid, if you will. The grid has a heartbeat and a blood pressure, which is the frequency and voltage. Supercapacitors plug into the grid and they keep all of this stable.

Supercapacitors serve the function of also stabilizing data centers, which is one of the fastest growing markets that we're engaging in right now. Data centers have a very challenging characteristic where they switch on and off very fast. It's like a yo-yo swing of power. That volatility, if left unstable, can actually damage infrastructure. It can even damage infrastructure in your home from power distortion. 

Supercapacitors stabilize that volatility. When it's high, they would shave off the power and when it's low, they would recharge.

As part of our product, we divert waste biomass from the landfill and convert that into what's called activated carbon, which is a similar material to what's inside your Brita filter. We use domestic nutshells and turn that into activating carbon.

SB: You mentioned before you were working full time while trying to launch florrent. How much did you know or think about what you signed up for? 

JL: I think we definitely jumped in the deep end without knowing the full extent, but thankfully, Alex and I had worked at startups. I worked at two startups before we started florrent, which gave me enough conviction to dedicate my time and resources to this.

We also were coming from fairly low-risk personal backgrounds where we didn't have families we were supporting. But if we were to go back, I believe we'd still jump into it, because it was a good time to take that risk.

SB: What’s one of the things you’ve valued as a founder?

JL: We deeply appreciate the supporters and investors who have entrusted us with the creative freedom in our work to craft the vision and execute on the mission. It's important because we want to work on things that are important to us, and we have a level of agency for driving that direction.

SB: It’s been about six years since florrent got its start. Tell me about your journey during this time.

JL: The first thing to say is we’ve had so many great mentors along the way, certainly centered in Massachusetts. We got our start in Oregon when I was living out there and we had many great people out in the Pacific Northwest and California helping out. There's a really strong network around people who are mission driven.

I think one of the biggest surprises to me was just how strong the Western Mass ecosystem is. We’ve built a nexus around UMass Amherst, and they have a wonderful venture development group there that let us stage our business out of their facilities. We’ve made many great investor connections through them, and they helped us get connected with zoning boards for getting our facilities. The network runs deep and people are incredibly generous with their time.

We got a great start from the state in terms of grants. We've received a few grants from MassCEC, which was catalytic for florrent.

I'd say I've been surprised by how generous people are with their time. Greentown, for example, is so affordable. We and many other companies gain a lot of value from Greentown. Most of our investors are from the Greentown network.

SB: What advice would you give to an early-stage founder or anyone that's thinking of going for it?

JL: For founders, spend time thinking about what your values are and why you want to do this. What motivates you? 

I've heard this from multiple investors, but this is something that they look for when they vet founders: Are you in it for money or status? That is probably not a strong enough motivation to keep you going when the times are hard. Find what drives you at your core.

And in parallel, find a good group of co-founders. When you find that good group of co-founders, write up a founders agreement or a partnership charter. It’s a document to outline what everyone's philosophy is, and how you will handle good times and bad. It’s not binding, and it's a good thing to go back to and revisit every now and then.

The other thing I would say is spend as much time as possible in front of your customer and focus less on creating a cool widget. I think that's one of the biggest problems, especially with technical founders. We get excited about an idea, want to go build a cool hammer, and go out into the world to find nails. Start from a place of deeply listening to your customer and their needs, then build your business model.

Finally, you want to hire people who, first and foremost, have humility and are good partners to work with. There's another founder in the space that says that one of their core tenets is ‘excellence without ego’. It's important to hire people who are exceptional at learning, which requires humility, admitting mistakes, and growing.

Final thoughts

The inception of florrent is a reminder that successful founders come from varied backgrounds, often bringing their knowledge and vision to solve real-world problems. Florrent’s co-founders, Jose LaSalle, Alex Nichols, and Joe Hastry, are applying their respective backgrounds and passion for clean energy to develop electrical grid resiliency. Jose’s journey also highlights some lessons aspiring founders need to keep in mind: think about your values and customers.     

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About the author: Kathleen Ohlson is a Boston-based content writer with a background as a high-tech writer and storyteller. With a passion for creating content that resonates with audiences, you can connect with her on LinkedIn.