Loom Solar, an Indian startup that manufactures popular solar equipment, founded in 2018, is simplifying solar systems for Indian households.
When were you founded & What is the product/service you provide?
Loom Solar journey began in the year 2018 with an intention to make each home energy-efficient using solar energy.
We started our journey by launching a highly efficient monocrystalline panel for residential homeowners across India.
Today, we stretch across the country and are considered one of the most trusted and leading brands in the solar industry.
What is the company’s long and short-term vision? Where do you see your industry going in the next five years?
Our long-term vision is to be the leader in residential rooftop solar by gaining a market share of up to 30% by 2030.
In the short term, we want to be a popular brand in online and offline mediums.
This industry is growing rapidly and as per MNRE, 280 GW is to be installed by the year 2030 and almost 100GW from rooftop solar.
How did you get inspiration for the Company? How did you go about researching and validating the idea?
Since we had no prior experience in business and we wanted to do something unidentical, we came to know about solar energy in our research.
We also knew that the government has been pushing hard to install this solar energy in government projects, so we thought this solar energy would also be popular in the residential and commercial sectors.
Is the company funded? Are you open to funding?
Not yet. It’s a bootstrapped company managed by customer’s funds.
But yes, we are looking for funds to expand further to create more awareness about solar energy, innovation, and building distribution network and branding.
How does the product work & What problems does it solve?
So, there are two major components in the product- solar panel and lithium battery, and the rest are small accessories.
Solar Panel is used to generate electricity and lithium battery is used to store power which is used when needed during power interruption hours.
Besides, it reduces electricity bills and exports excess generation to the grid.
What are your USP and innovation? How are you different from others?
Loom Solar believes in the latest technology and high-efficient products.
Therefore, from the beginning, we are ahead of the market in introducing a new product.
It helped us build our identity (brand). Besides, we offer replacement warranties and services to customers across India.
Being a new brand, we charge premium from our customer to deliver innovative and high-efficient products.
Also, while arranging engineer visits to our customers, we charge a certain amount. Whereas, established brands offer at FREE of cost. Such initiatives helped us to grow multi-fold in the last few years.
What are some of your competitors & what advantages do you have over them? & Briefly explain your revenue model?
If we take a few names such as Waaree, Vikram, and Adani, which are large domestically established companies, are our competitors who offer products at a very low price which is not practical with us.
We have lithium enabled home storage system with the latest technology bi-facial module that our competitors don’t have.
So, we have the latest technology product advantages. Our revenue model is simple.
We work on the Capex model where we take 100% advance payment from the customer while order booking and then we dispatch and install the product at the customer’s premises.
What difficulties did you encounter when you started the company & Were you impacted by the Covid outbreak?
Being a bootstrap company, we faced challenges of experience team, consumer awareness about the products, and heavy product transportation, especially when we also had the challenge to reach the public for the same reasons.
As for the impact of the COVID outbreak, it obviously did affect us in our sales somehow. But we soon were able to get back to our feet, especially after so much of emphasis on the solar industry by the government as well.
What are your future plans & launches?
We are working towards building a well-stretched distribution network of 1,00,000 dealers in 3 years.
Besides, we are working hard to launch an IOT enabled device to monitor an off-grid solar system. Other than that, we aim to build a brand(trust) by introducing a brand ambassador.
Current company size, work culture, Hiring Funda
We at Loom Solar are a team of more than 100 members.
Most of them have been hired through the internship program where we educate and train our people, who later join our company.
Our work culture is self-ownership. Implying, if they think that their decision is right for the organization, they can go forward with it.
There’s no such need for any further approval.
How did you launch your company when you had just 0 users. Which channels/ tools/strategies worked the most for acquiring the first 100 users?
Largely, we focussed our approach on educating, spreading awareness, and converting.
It means, we created content regarding our brand and products. Some of them, who watched this content, became our early customers.
Therefore, we focussed more towards digital video platforms such YouTube and Facebook seeing their huge popularity among the masses to generate more market value and potential and actual customers.
A piece of advice for the readers.
We would provide just one simple piece of advice to not just the readers, but also everyone who wishes to build a business “empire” of themselves.
‘In business, growth is everything. So, if we focus on growth with profitability, we can build a sustainable business which can last for many decades.’