Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us. We're super happy here to join here with Scott Maskin of Pineapple Energy and now SUNE of SUNation Energy. It's wonderful to chat with you here, Scott. It is a true pleasure to have you on the line and be able to reconnect here about all sorts of things going on in your world. Obviously, residential solar's been dynamic and never fails to deliver in novel storylines. Scott, you have seen a lot of change at your company here. Let me just take a quick second to let you introduce your company.
Then over the course of this little conversation, we'll take comments and questions back from the audience here, principally in the form of chat, Bloomberg chat and email, but also at the end, we'll have time for folks on the line here as well. But with that said, Scott, let me turn it over to you 'cause we really gotta take a step back, walk through some of the recent history and explain how we got here with SUNation Energy.
Yeah. First of all, Julian, thanks for jumping on with me. I know that Pineapple is a small piece of the big picture, but I appreciate the effort that you put in with Pineapple over the years. And I think you'll be, Jefferies will be covering us, you know, in the next year if all goes according to plan. So I appreciate that. And also to all the shareholders, the analysts, the employees, everybody that's on today, I hope this is meaningful. When we get to the end, being mindful of time, my email will come up. I make it a point to talk to every shareholder, every person, answer every question. If I can't get 'em all today, I can promise you I will email or call every single person that has a question and get on with them.
So Pineapple Energy, like, first of all, it's been a crazy week, right? Like in the, you know, from my standpoint. So last Monday, we were fortunate, and we'll go through the whole history of Pineapple, what the good, the bad, the ugly, very transparent and, you know, very raw. So we'll get it out there today. But, you know, listen, last Monday, my shareholders overwhelmingly voted to do some cool stuff. I mean, we're changing the name from Pineapple to SUNation Energy. The ticker's going from PEGY to SUNE. These are all necessary things to do to kind of shed the bad juju and have a restart and a reboot. We also were able to redo our charter that we were inherited through our reverse merger way back when with a 50-year-old company that was archaic. But it's a new day. It's a new dawn.
And we redomiciled to Delaware. So it's a new day. It's a new dawn. And I'm feeling good. So shoot, man, I'm here for you. Pineapple Energy is Pineapple Energy. It's more than just a solar company. We believe solar battery storage is essential for the future. It's not the; it's not it, but it's a big part of it. I came out of the electrical industry, which is, you know, do the most cheapest, fastest and found solar. And it's been great for the employees, for the community. It's just been fun. You know, 21 years ago when we started, we didn't think it would, you know, morph into what it has, but there's a huge future happening. We already, you know, have a lot of loyal customers. We're doing all the right things.
You know, 21 years ago, we kind of saw how the rollup strategy of strong regional EPCs was gonna win. And we see it more and more every day as the nationals keep coming in, raping the cornfields and leaving, right? So we believe that the Pineapple strategy of rolling up regional players and I'll probably morph back and forth between Pineapple and SUNation, but it's, it's all us. It's just, we're in such a transitionary phase. But we think that, you know, we've already started the process of the rolling up with SUNation, which I founded in 2003, Hawaii Energy Connection, which is a, an insane market there. In 2000 and 2022, we brought them into the family, but it's just the tip of the iceberg.
You know, the reality is we've seen national players like SolarCity, NRG, Vivint, and even most recently SunPower pull up stakes. So I think local companies grouped together are gonna outlast them all. And I wanna be leading that mission.
That's awesome, Scott. Thank you so much. Look, let's talk about maybe a little bit of the past, right? How did we get here? What happened with Pineapple? Let's talk about what happened in terms of mistakes, and decisions made. And then what, where are we here now? How, like, did we get here? If we can try to pass and move forward to, like, where we go from here, let's just talk about how we got here, what the thought of the company was at the outset and really, you know, level setting of what's just happened here more discreetly in the last few months.
Hey, thanks, Julian. You'll hear me say that, you know, I feel the pain with the shareholders. Not only am I the owner, you know, remember that commercial, Hair Club for Men? Well, I'm also a customer. You know, we, you know, my family was impacted, you know, through the dilution of the share prices as well. So, you know, every time there's pain, I feel it also. I lost $5 million, you know, on Pineapple. So when I answer these emails, believe me, I get it. But, you know, it's easy to point fingers at who did or didn't do what in the past. The reality is that the company was conceived on a capital stack and it discouraged future investment. The leadership was good and had a great plan.
But, you know, the one thing, as you know, and this is called a solar coaster for a reason, right? This is not a, you know, a static business. You know, and I don't know if the cash on hand and the leadership didn't understand how, you know, what the solar coaster is like and how turbulent it is. But for the cap stack to work when it was the inception, kind of everything had to work, right? Like every tooth, like the back of a watch had to fall in it. That's just not, that's just not the reality of what we went through. Certainly not in the last two years. The dip in the last 18 months was extreme.
I don't think anybody in the industry, I'm 21 years, has ever seen what we've, you know, gone through, but I also think that, you know, to lead a company like this, you gotta have some boots on the ground experience. You know, you can't run a business like this just out of, you know, a book and a degree, but you know, fundamentally, most solar companies are construction businesses, and you surround yourself with an incredible group of people, so but like I said, the cap stack of Pineapple, it sort of left the company over-leveraged. We weren't able to attract more money to execute on more rollups, and the focus was a little too short-term. On top of that, again, you know, we had some inefficiencies. We were struggling to adapt as the solar market really faced significant headwinds.
Again, like I said, the last 18 months, aside from our internal problems, man, the external problems were pretty wild. Being a micro-cap company traded, you know, without the resources to effectively execute on the rollup strategy, well, that's kind of what led to the leadership change. I lost you on camera, Julian, but yeah.
No, no, no. I'm, I'm here. I'm, you know, just in terms of, you know, so what steps have you taken, right? Let's, so you've level set us on where we are here today, right? In terms of past tense, what steps have you taken to address the challenges? Like, what are you doing now? What's sort of different under your leadership versus past? And let's start to take a step forward here. Like, what's going to happen here, right, on the company, right? I mean, you know, I think it's, you know, we talk about like building this company back down to the core. What's about to happen?
Yeah. So that's a big deal. You know, certainly I wanna, you know, spend some time, you know, of what happened Tuesday with the election and give you what I think. But, you know, the short answer is I think that we're gonna be just fine. And I'll go into those reasons later. But, you know, again, you know, I've been in charge now for five months or so. And, you know, this is a big deal. It's been a team effort though. You know, when the board made the leadership change, they were inheriting a really good team of people. My COO, Jim Brennan, we had a CFO change, but everybody, the business units, the general managers stayed and just keep grinding away.
So, but we've made some tough, necessary decisions to rip the band-aid off and focus on the company's survival during this crazy turbulent period. First and foremost decision that, you know, we had to talk about was, well, is this company worth saving? I mean, listen, if you look at when SunPower, you know, filed for bankruptcy, you know, they said, you know, in print, we just couldn't make it past leadership's decisions, right? So we said, and that's backed by Total. So we said, you know, is this company, is this business worth saving? And honestly, that was like a two-minute conversation because unlike a lot of smaller companies and people in the space, we have two incredible core business units, SUNation and Hawaii Energy Connection. They have fantastic market presence. They're well-run, loyal customer bases. They were just being suffocated, basically OpExed into oblivion.
So, trying to cover corporate overhead and the cost of being a public company just really, really put a pounding and a gut punch into those companies. And you, you just, you know, you're either gonna have a massive bankroll or you don't, you don't justify to be public. So the old Pineapple had neither. In the past month, we've taken some extraordinary steps to not only avoid bankruptcy, but to completely reposition the company for long-term success. And you know, when I talked to the shareholders, you know, and they, you know, a lot of 'em, listen, they've been diluted and it's been painful and, and they've bled. But, you know, the alternative was you get nothing, right? You get zero. If we hit that button, you get zero. Now there's a really high likelihood that we can increase shareholder value, you know, over the course.
But this is a marathon. This is not a race. And that's how our industry operates. We have to pivot when things are given to us. But in the last five months, we avoided two Nasdaq delistings. We converted our, at which is most important, we exited our complete cap stack. So we are a clean company with a very small piece of debt. And very liquid. We paid down a lot of debt. You know, we were left with a lot of AP, but, you know, we also, we raised some cash. And we cleaned up a lot of the balance sheet. So it, but it's been a team effort, you know, to answer the accomplishment. You know, we transitioned all the corporate leadership to our New York office and eliminated a massive load, you know, on the company.
We have a completely new board of directors, you know, which was necessary. Again, we moved to Delaware. We changed. There's been so much that we've done in five months, more than was done in three years with $32 million of initial investment we've done in five months. But at the same time, our business units have been streamlining, relentless focus on efficiencies and, you know, what differentiates us. We've enhanced our customer service side and our product offerings. You know, in short, you know, we didn't just survive. We've now, in five months, positioned SUNation to thrive in the next upturn. That's something I'm really proud of. We're already in the next upturn now. That's super cool.
Yeah, absolutely. Look, thank you again for those responses. Let's talk a little bit more about a forward-looking outlook, right? What is to come here, right? Let's lean into this a little bit more, right? I mean, you've got a backdrop here where the company's repositioning itself. What is the strategy here, right? I think maybe that's a nice way to start talking about it a little bit of like, what is next, right? You've gone through these challenges, you've reset, you got folks in place. What's about to happen here, right? I just wanna make sure, and again, I love the format of doing this webcast because we really can talk about what is to come, right? How would you describe what the strategy is at this point?
We see, you know, some of these other larger residential solar companies, their positions, the challenges they've gone through. What's to come for you guys? What, what are you guys gonna look like?
Yeah. Well, you know, again, the last 18 months have been brutal, right? Like, I, I think it started with the Silicon Valley thing and we had to transform our business, you know, from an M1 milestone and, you know, both Hawaii and, and New York into not having M1 milestones, right? That's kind of where it's, you know, the, the financial industry changed. One of the reasons why I joined Pineapple in the, in the beginning was, you know, cost of, cost of capital, you know, pro, you know, procuring more equipment at better prices. And really I wanted to build a FINCO. You know, none of that really happened, but that's all on the, on the table right now. I would say in the next three years, next two to three years, we will execute on the rollup strategy.
We are well positioned right now to attract cost-effective capital to get the next two LOIs, which we already, you know, the next two LOIs are being very careful with the MNPI because our queue is coming out today. So I certainly don't wanna lead anybody to any unpromised stuff until the queue is out for sure. But in the next two or three years, we already started to see, you know, clearer skies, right? The election cycle is behind us. Likely the major players, or, you know, in the industry are in deep discussion about post-election landscape, especially regarding tax credits and domestic content. As these conversations unfold, we're positioning ourselves to capitalize on the opportunities. SUNation's already a significant player, but we have a very distinct advantage. You know, our portfolio companies will grow while remaining regional. You know, we're not trying to put one label.
You know, regional companies is the core here. They know how to deal with their state issues, their utility issues. And I know some people have tried it in the past, but they don't have 21 years of experience and they aren't run by operators like me. So, you know, probably a good, you know, segue into, you know, the political landscape, right? You know, let's touch what people don't wanna touch. You know, like I said, in 21 years, we've survived and thrived through Bush, wars, Obama, you know, Biden, Trump, we've every, you know, the federal level is always interesting, but it's not the end of the industry. People don't panic. Relax. Let's see how this kind of plays out. The IRA, is it, you know, could it be changed? I suppose, but why would it be?
You know, we've had bipartisan support for, you know, through, again, my 21 years and we've always grown through it. I think for SUNation specifically, the nomination of Lee Zeldin, who is literally a New Yorker that lives 20 minutes away from SUNation, has been in our offices. And where you can make the argument, where does solar fit into the political landscape? You know, we create jobs. You know, SUNation alone, without layering on HEC, SUNation alone in 20 years has offset $25 million annually of ratepayer dollars that don't go to the utility and get, you know, spent in local restaurants and you know. This is exactly what Lee is about. So I think that there is some vulnerability, but I'm not too worried about it. I think that it's gonna play out.
I think some of the larger companies, you know, some of the larger people are probably more vulnerable than our rollup strategy and our individual, you know, ideas about that. I also think that everybody needs to just take a breath, right? You know, if you look backwards for a second, you know, the trade tariffs that Trump put in on China, you know, during his tenure, like it added to a whole bunch of companies coming and building solar products in the United States, which never happened before. You know, billions and billions of dollars of manufacturing was lost to the United States. So a bunch of these guys came and started building, you know, and then all of a sudden, you know, Biden comes out with the Investment Recovery Act and domestic content.
Those companies that actually moved over here are the ones profiting or will profit off domestic content. If domestic content goes away, we'll figure it out. This industry is just so resilient. Our mission's pretty sound and pretty clear. We're gonna execute by acquiring strong, diversified companies in really key growth markets where utility and state policies align with our work. We're way more vulnerable from state policy and utility policy than federal policy. We're gonna do this at a very deliberate pace, maybe acquiring one or two companies annually. We wanna be able to integrate in the right way and connect the dots at the right companies in the right states. Again, you know, depending on the availability of the capital, you know, there's still mergers that are a possibility.
There's a ton of companies out there that are small cap companies that are in this space struggling with the, you know, with PubC o costs. Also, you know, I tried to do this a year ago with somebody, but, you know, maybe the right move is also to merge some of these smaller PubC o and to get to scale. There's a lot of opportunity for SUNation slash Pineapple to grow. And every day new opportunities come our way and new people reach out for us, not just companies that wanna be part of the family. They're just waiting, you know, for what's gonna happen. And I think that it's a great opportunity to size up stuff. So again, in the next two to three years, I see Pineapple, we're gonna be at the forefront of this resurgence. We're doubling down on commercial solar.
You know, any of the portfolio that we bring in, they're gonna be very diversified between residential, commercial, and especially service. Again, you know, these companies, you know, these systems in Hawaii and New York, man, some of these are aging out already. You know, they're ready for replacements. The service is a massive opportunity, and we'll be expanding our regional footprint, you know, all over the place, but it's gonna be the right companies at the right place with regional presence. These are the people that, again, you know, they're in the communities. They contribute, they're part of it. They're trusted. Their brands are trusted. When we did the Pineapple thing, you know, one of the things that did work out was we decided we were never gonna be Pineapple all over the country. You know, it would be SUNation by Pineapple, Hawaii Energy Connection by Pineapple.
You gotta leverage the local side. That's what nobody's doing. That's what we're gonna do.
Awesome. Excellent. Hey, by the way, thank you, thank you for all this thus far. I mean, you, let me just pull back, on one thing you said here. I mean, what are you guys doing to mitigate the risk or how do you guys think about the election risk here, right? I mean, there's a lot of questions out there. Are you guys doing anything differently at this point? Or again, I, like, I know there's a lot of, the word is probably uncertainty more than anything tangible here, but I'm just curious, you know, are you seeing your customers doing anything? I mean, you could say the customers are concerned and maybe they're accelerating orders. Are you seeing anything on that front right now? Just to kind of talk to that a little bit.
Yeah, I think in New York there was a nice steady increase in residential on the residential side. On the CNI space, we're seeing, you know, explosions. We're seeing a lot of good stuff, right? People are trying to accelerate the decisions. You know, maybe there is a little bit more fear. You know, one of the other, you know, distinct advantages of SUNation and HEC is that, you know, we have a philosophy that if our trucks are rolling, we're making money, right? Like if they're sitting, we're going broke. So we build for a lot of national developers. Our core competency is in the construction side and operations side. We know our utility. Same thing in Hawaii. So, you know, when you have a diversified portfolio of work coming in and we're seeing it grow every day, on the CNI side.
You know, we're seeing it in Hawaii. I have some other colleagues, my Wolf Pack, you know, is also in, you know, in Hawaii and we're seeing the carnage, you know, in California. We're seeing the carnage, you know, of the NEM three thing. We're seeing the carnage in Hawaii of the battery bonus program. So, you know, there's always gonna be challenges, right? It's how do you pivot, right? How fast can you pivot and make lemonade outta lemons that are handed to you? So I'm not too worried about. Call me naive. I'm not too worried about the federal side of what's gonna happen.
I think that we, the team here at SUNation, every day we go to work and we sell solar and we process solar, we install solar, we service solar in Hawaii and New York. And if you keep your head down, because fundamentally what we do is good, right? It saves people money. People like it. You know, we're done with the early adopters. These are people that are making good, strong financial decisions. And I'm not worried about the federal side. What will come down, we will deal with, and the industry and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on this industry are gonna move forward.
So are you seeing an acceleration? I mean, forget the election quickly. I mean, what are you seeing in terms of sales trends overall, right? I mean, let's talk about the business. What are you thinking about 25 here? Any sense on how to frame expectations here? I mean, 'cause there's so many questions we've got, we continue to get.
You know, my colleague from California said, you know, it's survive till 25 and then thrive, right? You know, that was the mantra through the whole industry. That was. That phrase is coined pre-election when nobody knew what was gonna happen. It hasn't changed from our standpoint. We're a little concerned, you know, but we, you know, we see orders coming in. We see our national developers accelerating. We see a lot of capital to do this kind of stuff. I'm developing a project right now on Long Island in the second largest industrial hub in the country that has 20 million sq ft of. I just wish the utility could take everything that I could build and connect into it. So we're not overly concerned. We're ready to tackle it as it comes.
That's how we've done it for 20 years. So I could be wrong. I haven't been wrong yet.
I mean, what do you see? Or actually, you wanna talk about the business between CNI and residential super quickly here? I mean, just 'cause you talk about some big sites versus residential here. How do you think about, you know, the priorities there on that front?
Yeah, listen, you know, we have separate buckets, right? You know, Pineapple slash SUNation. We have a residential bucket that also spills into every one of the people that we serve on the residential side work somewhere, you know? So it inherently drives opportunity in the commercial space and vice versa. Every time we finish a megawatt on a rooftop, there's 400 employees that are exposed to SUNation. I see that in the next year or two or three, you know, whereas maybe a year ago we were 80% residential, 20% CNI space, you know, that's gonna change. It's already started to change in 2024. We're probably 70%-30%. We're gonna go to 60%-40%, you know? Resi is, you know, a great stake to have.
If you think about the old TV dinners, you know, resi’s the Salisbury steak on that silver plate, right? But commercial is coming more and more into that plate. So I also see that the diversification of our company is so relevant because I can, you know, give you a list of commercial-only companies that can't handle the lumpiness of the cash flow and the delays and the studies that have to be done, and I could show you, you know, a hundred residential companies that don't do any commercial or any service that, you know, when their milestone payments were done or, you know, when they beholden to only one finance company, they're done, right? We've seen 'em all go bankrupt.
So that is, you know, one of the distinct differentiators for Pineapple slash SUNation that is gonna take us well into the future. And no company that we acquire is gonna be just, you know, solely focused on res or solely focused on commercial.
Yep, absolutely, and how do you think about the acquisition strategy here? I mean, how do you think about financing and how do you think about just, you know, executing that over the next, you know, frankly, years ahead? I mean, any particular geographies or focus or strategy?
It's not years ahead. It's, it's months ahead, right? Like, so, you know, now that we, now that we successfully cleared out our cap stack, and we really, we have some great people working for us and we will raise the capital quite soon. And now it's a decision which one we wanna do first, right? Like, you know, it's not just about, well, this, this company has great revenue and great EBITDA 'cause you know that, you know, a year from now, some state policy could change. And, you know, we, we watched it, you know, one of my brothers in, in North Carolina, you know, had a horrible 2023. Boom, Duke comes in with a battery program and he's off to the races with 80% attachment rate, right? So, you know, it, it's, it's almost, it's not just throwing the dart at the board.
You kind of have to know where on the board you're throwing that you're aiming the dart to. Where is the state policy? Now we're gonna look a lot at, you know, what are the results of the election, you know, from a state level, you know, what, you know, where's policy gonna change more on a state level and a utility level than on a federal level? And that's gonna guide a lot of the forward inertia for the acquisition strategy. Or again, as I said, you know, there's a lot of merger, you know, discussion on the table.
There's a lot of, you know, people that are struggling with the PubCo costs that don't have the revenue, but they have cash or they don't have the revenue and they have EBITDA that it makes all the sense in the world to work together, and be more efficient that way.
Yep, absolutely. Well, look, I mean, let's talk a little bit more about the end market here. I mean, if we can, if you don't mind, I wanted to continue on this 'cause I'm getting asked inbound. So I feel, I think I just love to hear, I mean, what geographies are working out for you? I mean, where are you seeing sort of the best opportunities emerge, if you will, right? I mean, I think that's people are really curious to hear. I mean, given, you know, the diversified footprint of your network and business, how do you think about where there is real excitement here and how you think about what the, you know, the financing industry environment is doing to how you think about the business model itself?
Yeah, and Southeast is pretty interesting to us, you know, the Tampa, you know, the Southeast is also interesting. We already did an organic expansion into Tampa, you know, and like any organic expansion, you know, I describe it like a runway, you know, first it's gravel, you know, first it's dirt, then it's gravel, then it's pavement, right? So, you know, but I think that's, you know, the Florida area is really cool, especially with all the storms that go through there. You know, we're not really looking at just solar anymore, right? Like, I think that, you know, again, without getting too political, you know, the fact that we have, you know, relief for New York, you know, that's a good thing.
But you know, I'm really, I'm curious as to the Elon Musk factor, you know, and, and the efficiencies of government that he brings in. I know I saw like a blurb yesterday that he just did like a $500 million bond roll for residential solar financing, you know? So, so, you know, there's a lot of weird indicators there, but, you know, we look at the ecosystem of a house or a building. It's not just throw solar up. It's Elon's right. Solar storage, EV charging, these are all part of it. And I, I love the fact that he's sort of, you know, involved in whatever capacity in Washington also. It's funny, you know, we were talking yesterday about that, you know, people, well, Elon this and Elon that. And you know what?
The reality is none of us even operate on the same mental wavelength as Elon Musk, right? So to think, you know, how he operates is just wrong. You know, I also, but you know, listen, there are more and more acquisitions that are gonna come into play. I think my, you know, my partner Jim has, you know, when he was doing this specifically in the beginnings of Pineapple, I think he had like a list of 84, you know, relevant companies that we've had meaningful conversation with. It's 84 companies, you know, that are strategic targets that are waiting to see, what am I gonna do now? Is this the right company to go with? You know, is there a future? So, and listen, it's been bloody, man.
You know, I wanna spend some time talking about the shareholders and, you know, it's been bloody for them. So the acquisitions are gonna look at that like, okay, where are we now? Where are we in the future? Right? Are you gonna see another reverse split? Are you gonna see this? Are you gonna see that? And again, I gotta go back to the fact that the easiest path would've been steer the ship right into the iceberg, right? Wipe out the debt, screw the shareholders, screw the supply houses and rebuild. And a lot of people took that route. We immediately took the other route, right? So, I lost a ton of money. Shareholders were diluted.
We took in the last five months, we took all the necessary steps as bloody as they were to get this company and the ship headed in the right direction, and we're there, right? So, you know, the two years have been tough, right? I understand our shareholders' concerns, myself included. We've always been transparent, very accessible. The shareholders have been diluted. I, you know, while that's certainly not something I'm proud of, it's important that the shareholders know that when they feel the pain, so do I. But here's what I know from two decades in the industry. I've seen and thrived through many cycles. The solar industry is set for the next, probably the best chapter in the solar industry as far as I'm concerned, and we've laid out a really cohesive, strong, achievable set of goals. Slow and steady wins the race.
We've cleaned up the balance sheet. We've enhanced operational efficiencies, made a lot of strategic investments, that is gonna prepare us not just for the present, but for the future. So I'm not overreacting to this. We're gonna come to work every day. You know, the funny part is my board was so specific about making sure that my partner Jim and I were, you know, are invested for the long term in the company when I really saw it for me retirement happening in, you know, here's my countdown clock. I had 46 days to retire and that's just not happening anymore. So I'm in for the long haul. I, I guess what I hope is that the, the shareholders believe in, believe in me, believe in the company and believe in the plan, and I get on the phone, I'll get on the phone with anybody.
You know, if you're a day trader, you know, there's different traders, right? And what I've learned in my very small tenure as the CEO of this company is we don't control the share price. All I can do is go to work every day, sell jobs, deliver on, perform, okay? And the traders really decide what the stock price is gonna be that day and what it's not, right? I just have to keep working forward, keep cleaning things up and keep sending good messages out there. And that's what we're doing.
Awesome. Excellent. Well, I'm really glad to hear that. You know, from my vantage point, look, I think, you know, there, there's a bunch of questions that have come in. Since you bring up Elon, let's talk about Tesla super quickly, right? I mean, you know, we've seen an equipment evolution here. I mean, just can you talk about what you're actually selling today, what that looks, you know, what that could look like over time, and then more importantly, how that differs maybe to the extent to which it's evolved over the last six, 12, you know, two years even?
Yeah. So, you know, we've always been. We were a huge dealer for SunPower, right? I think, you know, anybody that has a lot of experience, a lot of people left SunPower. They got very arrogant. They changed their business model. So we've become, when we left SunPower, we became very module agnostic, especially at the kitchen table. And when I say agnostic, meaning that, you know, when our reps sit, you know, on whatever coast, they're gonna sit there and they're gonna say, well, let's talk about, you know, you went on the internet, you found REC, you found this, or you found that panel. So let's talk about that. You've heard of Sanyo, Sharp, Mitsubishi, British Petroleum, LG, Panasonic. You heard those names, right? Boom. In the industry, out of the industry, we're still here, right?
So we're gonna use high quality Tier 1 modules. And that's it, right? You know, obviously there's been a lot of downward pressure on module pricing, thank God, because inflation has definitely, you know, the biggest impediments were inflation and interest rates to the adoption of solar, you know, over the last year or last two years. So from the electronics, which is the vulnerability, we've transitioned, we do a lot of Enphase work, we do a lot of Tesla work. I believe in the Tesla brand, right? Like they've never failed, even though they're having their struggles now with fulfillment, right? Because their product is so good, you know, it's a sizzle to Tesla, but Enphase has been a great partner for us, you know, being the boots on the roof, right?
Like it's really important that the way we install solar, we provide, you know, in New York, a lifetime workmanship warranty, which we think any of the companies that we acquire, that's gonna be the model. You have to stand behind what you do. That's what creates lower cost of lead acquisition. It creates loyalty. It creates commitment. All the good stuff about business is done regionally and locally, right? So it's how we install so that we don't have service problems. That's really critical and making sure the electronics are gonna be there and protected. You know what? You know, we've talked about this before, like in the early days of Enphase, if you, you know, jumped on the Enphase bandwagon, you would've replaced every single microinverter, right?
And it's the same thing with SolarEdge, you know, if you jumped on the SolarEdge bandwagon in 2016, you know, they had their own problems. So you just gotta pick a solid company. We believe in the Tesla product. We believe in Enphase, module agnostic, and making sure that the customers, whether it's at a boardroom table or, you know, at a kitchen table, understand that it's us you're buying is more important than what you're buying. And for most people, you know, it's about return on investment and making sure that we can deliver on those promises trouble-free for a long time. So that's the answer to your product, stuff. I lost you, buddy. Your mic's out.
All right. One second there. Sorry about that. All right. Cool. All right. Now I'm good. Hey man. So look, another question that a lot of people are talking about is, look, let's talk about financing and how that's evolving. Lease, loans. I mean, how are you guys thinking about adapting your business model around the different permutations and new offerings that are coming out there? How do you think about that strategy here?
Yeah. So in New York, we're probably a 98% loan company, you know, 95% loan company. But you know, I'll. I'm gonna. You gotta put the financing incomes. It's either cash. It's local credit, local finance market there. That's not to say that, you know, it's another the core competency, you know, we first start out, right, and eliminate all vulnerabilities. On the community solar, which we're actively, you know, on the CNI side, we're actively engaged in. We not only house, we see a lot of uptick on that side, you know. Running systems. But you gotta put the right butt in the right seat. You saying, hey, when my trucks are rolling, I'm making good money. So there's the opportunity to go, hey, two options. Which one is right for you?
Either way, you're gonna get a SUNation installation or an HEC installation. Which is the right way to pay for this? You know, and then don't do is predatory stuff, you know, and, you know, the idea of selling, you know, the 80-year-old people with tubes in their nose is the oxygen tubes as we've.
No, I, I really do, I really do hear you. I mean, maybe just to take it a step forward then, when you think about the ability to grow here, I mean, any kind of milestones or kind of targets you're talking about? I mean, you know, some of these other industry forecasters like to put out targets about, you know, teens growth or, you know, high single digit or what have you. I mean, have you thought about how you guys are thinking about, you know, 2025 preliminarily in terms of, you know, putting volumes on and, and, and any sort of terms? I get that you guys are mixed between CNI and RESI too.
Yeah. So I would say that what I'd like to get the company back to in 2025 is where we were in 2023 between or all this transitionary stuff. You know, we will be able to do that because we wiped out all the bad juju, right? We're able to, you know, we have to have capital to operate a business. You have to have employees that have raises and are current and happy to come to work. You have to have trucks that are out there rolling that don't have things.
So the 2025 model is to get back, not have to worry and be in harm's way as an entity and to take it from the verge of bankruptcies where we are now in five months to where we're gonna be in another seven, in another 12 is gonna be a complete transition, right? We're gonna be completely out of harm's way, restoring confidence and doing all that stuff through acquisition, through merger. Or, listen, you know, we're gonna raise the capital. The capital is coming to us. You know, one of the things that I glossed over that we were able to do, we were able to raise $2 million a month ago, being mindful of the share price, but raise it off our own equity.
That's never been done in the history of Pineapple is to make a dime on equity, you know? So we were able to navigate once we cleared out our cap stack to actually use our currency to build this business. And I think that is also a really important step forward for the company. So that's kind of like, you know, from a cadence standpoint, the cadence standpoint is gonna be, we're gonna trudge through the end of the year, and then we're gonna have everything in place for Q1 in 2025 is gonna be a meaningful news month, I believe a meaningful news quarter for us, that'll set the stage for, a really significant 2025 through acquisition. I'll leave it at that. All right.
I don't wanna give you, it's like if this is like a horror story, you gotta know where the guy with the chainsaw is standing, right? Like I'm not gonna tell you where the chainsaw guy is, but we're in a good place.
Nice. Excellent. I appreciate that.
I'd love to get to someone if there's anybody live, you know. I wanna first of all express gratitude to the investors, my leadership team, the board of directors, our employees in New York and Hawaii. Julian, thank you for your confidence. You've, you know, I hope we deliver value your way also. You know that, like, I'm in the trenches every day, man. We let you know what it looks like from the trenches, not from the spreadsheets and not from the balance sheets and not from the Excel formats, right? But, you know, I wake up now with a different purpose. I have to deliver, right? You know, there's a meaningful conversation here when we made the name change from Pineapple to SUNation. The SUNation brand is me.
I grew that. So if my legacy in this industry is hinged on that, and that's why I pushed so hard for that, because if SUNation fails, Scott Maskin fails, and I have to live with that the rest of my life. And that's just simply not gonna happen. The simple, we're gonna build, we're reimagining the company. And I'm just, I'm incredibly grateful for the trust people have put. You know, I get a lot of letters of support. I also get some, some interesting comments. I'm live on chat boards. I've had some stalkers. I've had people send stuff to my house. So, but I'm up for the fight, you know, and we're creating, we're up to the challenge of creating value for the shareholders and getting this back on track.
Look, let me ask you this, man. How do you think about differentiating yourself in a world of different residential solar installers? I mean, how do you think about saying, look, this is what we're gonna do differently to succeed?
We do it differently.
If there's something that stands out.
Brother, we do it differently. We, we do it differently already. You know, our customer, you know, our customer approval rating is off the charts, like Apple-ish. You know, it's not just a sale and a solar system. Like we build raving fans. This is a family, you know, that's kind of what has always been the secret sauce of HEC and SUNation is that we bring people into the, and we make a family, right? So now what we're seeing, like there's an amazing company, you know, an appliance company that we modeled after. Like it's not just the grandparents, you know, we're not selling solar just to the grandparents. They're buying it for their kids that are buying houses. The grandparents are leaving us, right? Like you're building it. No, you don't. It's SUNation. You're gonna use SUNation.
You're gonna use HEC. That's who you're gonna use, right? And that's something that you can only get at a regional level. National people, people that are sitting at Home Depot, hey, do you want to, you wanna save $30 on your bill? That's not the message, right? This is, we have the right message. I will go to my grave believing that when you do the right thing by the customer, everybody wins. Everybody, the shareholders win, the finances win. Splash. Everybody is entitled to win on this. And that's, I'll go to my grave with that one. So if you wanna take some live, I, you know, again, I wanna be mindful.
Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Let's operator, let's see if there's any questions here, if you don't mind. I know I've already satiated a bunch. So let's see if there's anything left.
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Also, Julian, I'll, if you have to drop, I'll stay on and answer. We have a lot of questions queued up that I'm happy to answer also.
We got some live.
Yeah. We got no, there's a glitch on the live stuff. So start hitting the list if you want. Instead of live, just going forward and hitting the list of some of those questions that are up there also.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, let's so look, I'd love to get your opinions here. I mean, what do you think about the state of the industry then? Let's just come back here and, you know, what you know, people are really concerned here. There's a lot of different nuances. What are your concerns and what do you think is an overblown concern?
No, I'm not concerned. I got, like, I have 21 years of solar, you know, we're more vulnerable at the state level than anything. I have no concerns that my business is gonna open tomorrow. People are gonna keep, you know, filling out queue cards. People are still gonna buy solar. Businesses are still, school districts are still gonna go solar, right? I have no questions about that. I think that we have to be super aggressive on making sure that we deliver the value, deliver on the promises, maintain operational expertise and efficiencies, and drive profitability. And you know, that's gonna come out in the 10-Q, that's gonna be released later today. I also have my state of the company address for employees that are, you know, spread out all over the country right now, the end of the day today.
That's good. That's always fun. But like I said, I have no concern about the industry. I just don't, man. I've seen worse downturns before. I think that we've hit the bottom in the last 18 months, right? And I think that we're gonna be a major, you know. I think there's gonna be growth in other sections. Like if the federal government has its way, they're gonna do other oil and gas and stuff like that. I think wind could be vulnerable, but, you know, the idea of people taking control of their own energy consumption and owning that is something that is really attractive on buildings.
When you look at a building and you say, hey, listen, I, you know, I can give you $100,000 a year in income for, you know, your roof or give you a new roof or something like that. You know, these are meaningful discussions that we have. So I'm not worried about it at all. It's just gonna keep moving forward with or without tax credit. You know, I mean, tax credits are a big deal. Hopefully they stay where they are. But if interest rates and inflation goes down, look at what just happened to module pricing since COVID, right? What I used to pay $0.80 a watt for, I'm paying $0.25 a watt for, you know? So.
I mean, what, I mean, you wanna talk about costs in the business real quickly? I mean, 'cause you just talked about, you know, panel pricing here. I mean, where is panel pricing there? How have costs evolved for you? And when you think about, you know, this inflation deflation trend here, I mean, you know, I'm very curious to see what you're seeing on the ground here.
All right, well, give and take here. We're tuning in Pineapple SUNation and into Jefferies. I got you. So what I see is, I think that we've seen a lot of efficiencies on modules. I have not seen tremendous, tremendous changes on the electronic side. You know, we pretty much install as efficiently as possible as it is. So I don't see any major breakthroughs with racking, but again, you know, for every, for every penny we save on a module, we're spending it on finance, right? So it's a net neutral. We, you know, we have our margins that we work with in Hawaii and New York and every other business that we'll be acquiring. We have our margins that are our minimal operating margins. Oh, and we're not afraid to walk away from work, right?
But again, in the ownership model, you have to deliver on those things. It's not just about a monthly payment, right? It's you have to deliver on a lot more than just a monthly payment. So, you know, it's always a give and take, you know, during, you know, when interest rates were down, equipment was up, you know, labor is always gonna consistently go up a little bit. It's important, you know, that happens, but save you more, you know, keep your margins where they are. Don't be afraid to walk away from work, you know, if it's not profitable. We don't really compete. We don't compete a lot because our customers that are calling us, and that comes with years in Hawaii and New York of developing relationships with these customers.
You know, it's not just, you know, an internet and yeah, you know, we're starting to adopt some AI stuff in the business, which is super cool. You know, I'm 61 years old, man. A I would just, they were just two vowels when I was growing up. Now it's like how you run your business, right? But so that's kind of fun. And it's helped me as a leader to word things a little bit differently. I haven't, you know, kudos. I haven't dropped an F-bomb or a curse in 56 minutes. Okay. Which, you know, is not, I'm not used to doing. But, you know, that's really what, again, you're buying into the, the Pineapple people are gonna buy in one way or the other, right? But we have to perform to make that happen.
People that are gonna get in early are gonna, you know, win the race. And I just wanna, I'm just gonna keep doing what we do as a business every single day. And as soon as something comes up, which comes up every day, we squish it, we figure it out, we move on, we squish it, we grow with it, we celebrate the wins, we work through the losses, and we do it as a team. And again, that is the differentiator with our company versus so many other companies. And you sort of lose that, right? Like that's what I don't wanna do. Like when you go from a mom and pop, you know, $10-$20 million EPC, you know, and you join into a Pubco, you know, it's easy to lose sight of who's important.
You know, I made a real, you know, when I took over the reins, first thing I did, I got out to Hawaii and who hadn't seen any leadership in 14 months, right? And, you know, and let them know, you know, there's a new sheriff in town, things are gonna be done differently. But my idea is that shareholders are super important. Invest. Everybody's important. If the core business units are succeeding, everything upstream works itself out. If the core business units are failing, everything upstream follows suit and goes down also. So it's really important to make sure that the core business units are operating at, you know, maximum efficiency, doing things the right way, doing things that, you know, it's funny, like, you know, in our business, you want old, you want one, but if one lady, you're done.
[audio distortion]. whole community. So that's safe from 10 million to 100 million and knows where their core competency is. And we're just gonna be, we're just gonna be the group that puts it. Do their thing regionally, throws the dart. To go get better, right? We watched, you know, Vermont was, it was a tough market, was a go from zero to hero. So we'll see what happens with California. I'm not really interested in going that far. There are a lot of cool markets right now with great EPCs that wanna be part of something like this and, and deliver tremendous value. So that's our model. That's where we're headed. And that's what 2025 is gonna bring. And I hope everybody jumps on board.
Any other final comments here? Otherwise, we'll call it there. You tell me.
Nah, man. I appreciate it. You know, I don't know the OpenExchange people. If you want me to stay on, if you can post like my email address, any questions that I didn't get to, please submit at smaskin@sunation.com, or go to the Pineapple Energy website, submit that stuff, give me your contact information. What I commit to you. I don't care where you are in the world. I will get to you. I will talk to you. And to the people that have stuck it out, continue, stick out and watch this, watch what's about to happen. I got a lot of confidence and, you know, I appreciate you sticking it out with me. All right, brother.
Excellent. Well, hey, Scott, always a pleasure, sir. I wish you all the best. All right. Good luck. I'm a new one.
In Hawaii, we call you Ohana. Your family, Julian. Thank you, brother, and anything I can do for you, I appreciate it.
Hey, likewise. All the best, man. Take care. It's been a pleasure.
Talk to you guys.
Cheers.
Talk to you later.
Take care, Scott. Ciao, man.