Virtuoso Energy is on a mission: Reduce the impact of humankind by integrating sustainable solutions into everyday life.
So what does that mean? It means the team of Calgary entrepreneurs work to provide clean energy solutions like solar panels, LED lighting and electric vehicle charging stations to both homes and businesses alike.
Gursh Bal, Director of Business Development for Virtuoso, tells us that the first step in their offering often starts with overcoming the misconception that the sustainability industry and associated services are expensive, or poorly performing, or non-viable. However, they’ve found success and gained traction by focusing on why their products are effective, as opposed to trying to demonstrate how it works, which has led to the Virtuoso team becoming involved with both Porsche and Tesla across Western Canada, as a preferred partner for home charging station installs.
So how does Virtuoso continue to make headway in a business environment dominated by oil and gas and traditional energy sources? For Gursh, the answer is simple:
“One of the most important lessons that we have learned is that collaboration is more important than competition, and we have to learn how to work together with other industries.”
Gursh and the Virtuoso team are feeling well positioned for the future, where it’s estimated that 1 in 3 new vehicles sold in Canada in the near future will be electric, with that number increasing steadily in the years to come. However, Gursh tells us that the sustainable solutions industry has to focus heavily on education, “What it really comes down to is education. As soon as people understand the benefits of these different items, the longevity, the reduced maintenance, and the ability to be able to own and control your own energy source. For longer, sustainable growth, it’s the education that’s lacking. As a nation, as humanity as a whole, we need to stop thinking about short term gratification and think about long term potential growth. Instead of thinking weekly and monthly, we have to think yearly and in decades. It’s a shift in perception and it does come down to education.”
Growth and success haven’t come without a few bumps in the road. Like virtually all business leaders, Gursh and the team at Virtuoso have found themselves needing to pivot due to changes in governments and programs that were available to them. However, Gursh says they’ve learnt a valuable lesson in the process: “You can’t rely on the government to provide your business with viability. If that’s how your company is functioning then it isn’t very viable at all.”
Virtuoso’s future is focused on shoring up gaps in the sustainable energy industry. “As an organization we’ve tried to focus on those different gaps, saying how can we fix these things? Whether they are different tech platforms or different apps that we can bring into the market, even small fixes that we can help with from a governance perspective, that’s what we’re going to be focusing on in the next 5 years.”
To learn more about the Virtuoso Energy story, check out the full interview with Gursh Bal and The BottomLine team.
