Ramsay Siegal is a partner at Earthshot Ventures, a $94 million climate tech venture capital firm investing across the climate spectrum, and she has some advice for sustainability professionals and founders. In this episode, Ramsay shares lessons she’s learned from her time in both the energy sector and venture capital that can be applied to roles across the sustainability sector.

Here are the key takeaways from our conversation:

Leaders can uncover insights by thinking like a salesperson and engaging directly with customers

Ramsay emphasizes the value of communicating directly with customers. “You're getting feedback. You're incorporating that all, bringing it back to the office, improving the way that you message and position yourself, and talk about the product, improving the product itself, and thinking about creative ways to sell.” She goes on to say, “This comes into play, particularly in our industry with founders who are technical and see many of the sales activities as being a little bit frivolous…the most successful companies are the ones where the founders lead sales at the beginning.”

The correlation between impact and revenue

“This concept of ‘you can make money and do good at the same time’ is a big idea.” Ramsay goes on to explain, “this idea that you are making an investment in something that's doing good for the world and that it's concessionary is a concept that might exist in some corners of this universe, but for climate tech investing and in VC, what I'm seeing is, if you’re financial return-focused first, your portfolio is also creating outsize impact because the deployment is directly correlated to the impact.” 

The value of prioritizing good design

“The way that any organization presents themselves to the world is like opening the door of a business” she says. “So if you have an unprofessionally produced deck by someone who doesn't have experience in graphic design, it leaves a different impression than if it is polished and inspiring and really thoughtfully crafted. But I think in terms of analyzing the successes in climate over the last 15 years that I've been in the industry, the [climate tech businesses] that stand out, interestingly enough, have invested in design.”

For more takeaways from Ramsay, listen to the full episode.