We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jesson Bradshaw a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jesson, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I was fortunate to get into the energy industry fairly early as it was opening up at the federal, and then, at the state level in Texas. A lot of what we decided to build at Energy Ogre came from solving problems people experience. In many businesses that move us forward as a society, the real changers are about becoming more efficient or solving a big problem. With Energy Ogre, we were looking at something that seemed to be a solution that people may have recognized, but couldn’t figure out how to do it at scale. It’s technically challenging and different from other things in the electricity space. It also comes with its own challenges.

We saw the problem that a lot of consumers don’t have the right information when it comes to Texas electricity plans. They may not know what makes each plan more or less cost effective for them. We saw that problem, and we were unique in trying to come up with a structure that could be implemented using newer computational technology. I don’t think we could’ve built Energy Ogre a lot earlier than we did, because we needed that advancement in tech. It was a confluence of technology coming together with industry knowledge, at the right time.

Jesson, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a native Texan. I’m a husband and father, and those are the most important roles in my life. I did not expect to be in the energy business growing up. I was fortunate to get into the business at a time of great change and innovation. Early on in my career, I was lucky to be in a company that was more concerned about capability rather than seniority. It allowed for creativity and innovation. It was a blessing in as many ways as you can count.

While electricity has been around for a while, the technology around the generation of electricity and the structure of open competition is very different from the past. I’ve been fortunate that almost every turn, I haven’t been simply learning something from someone else, but I’ve been learning from a new situation. It’s been a fun ride for me to learn new things, not be indoctrinated from something in the past. Every day over the last 30 years in the industry, it’s been a different experience!

With Energy Ogre, the focus from the very beginning was to help Texans when it came to electricity for their homes. With a deregulated electricity market, consumers get to pick their electricity plan and provider. It can be really great as long as they know how to take advantage of it. When we saw that our expertise could truly help people, it felt like a win-win. We help people save money, and we stay on top of the market prices to keep them in great plans throughout each year.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Sadly, the focus of customer interaction and customer satisfaction has become a lost art. I understand that it’s very challenging to maintain a culture that puts customer satisfaction over all things, because at times it can run counter to profitability. For us though, it’s imperative.

There are many services where you put trust into an expert, using their knowledge to help make good decisions. That’s how we see our business. People can learn about the electricity space, but there’s a lot to keep up with on a day to day basis. There’s also a lot of counterintuitive things that people may not wrap their arms around. It’s something they can learn, but is it worth their time? That’s a different animal.

A lot of businesses aren’t set up so that their customers’ interests are first. Energy Ogre is always focused on our members. We operate as a fiduciary. What that means is we always put their interest above our own. I think that’s helped us develop a great reputation. It’s a major reason why so many of our members have referred us to family and friends. We’re really fortunate.

In addition, we try to zealously guard our reputation. That can be hard though, because again, there’s a lot of industry things people don’t often understand. We try to explain those things as best we can, while still keeping them in competitive rate plans. And as time goes on, they stay in advantageous plans.

The fact that almost 10 years after we started, we’re helping more people than we ever had before is a testament to our commitment to the customer.

Have you ever had to pivot?

In the competitive power space, there’s been some big inflection points. One of the biggest ones in my personal career was seeing a competitor, Enron, implode and the effects it had on the industry. That set me on the path of becoming an entrepreneur as opposed to being a senior executive in a large company.

Enron’s implosion sent massive shockwaves through the industry, like a huge earthquake. The landscape had changed. The participants in the marketplace changed. The types of things done changed. There were a lot of people left holding the bag. All that chaos upended the trajectory I thought we’d be going on. At the same time, it opened up a whole new set of opportunities. There was room for people with technical expertise to assist, where in the past, larger companies would’ve run you out of businesses.

It was eye opening for me. There was a large problem, and I thought about having the idea, skill and want-to for solving that problem, so that we could create something out of nothing.

I’m appreciative that I got to start something new, take primary responsibility, develop a team and grow careers. It was a huge inflection point for me personally.

Contact Info:

• Website: energyogre.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/energy.ogre
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/energyogre
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/energy-ogre
• Twitter: twitter.com/EnergyOgre
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/EnergyOgreElectricitySimplified