Inevitable Turning Students into Founders at Stanford Climate Ventures
Apr 15, 2026
Dave McColl, Executive Director of Stanford Climate Ventures, runs a project-based program that helps students build climate startups. Carla Pinzon, founder of Expand Power, builds solid-state transformers for modern grids. Raj Tilwa, co-founder of Focal, designs AI-enabled localized heating for commercial spaces. Nico Pinkowski, founder of Nitricity, makes decentralized organic fertilizer from air, water, renewables, and waste. They discuss discovery-driven company building, market pivots, and long paths to product-market fit.
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Fun Presentations Predict Founder Stickiness
- Two strongest predictors of a team's durability are discovery volume and team enjoyment.
- Fun presentations signal team cohesion and obsession with the problem, which sustains long hard journeys.
Engineer Pivoted To SSTs After One Validating Call
- Carla Pinzon pivoted from modular power electronics for offshore wind to solid-state transformers after SCV customer discovery showed no market for her original idea.
- She dropped her PhD, bootstrapped, became an Activate Fellow, and signed an LOI for $13M units/year.
Transformers Are The Modern Grid Bottleneck
- Transformers are central chokepoints: aging fleet, lack of observability, and incompatibility with growing DC loads create a major retrofit opportunity.
- Solid-state transformers add monitoring, control, and DC compatibility, shortening lead times and improving power quality.
