This month Lauren sat down with Bob Boyle, founder and managing director of Y ZERO.
Y ZERO serves building owners, operators and managers as a collaborative team of experienced channel partners, technical analysts and domain specialists. They work across core building resource channels to improve cost control, waste reduction and supply chain reliability.
With a focus on trust, transparency and collaboration, they work with their clients, partners and suppliers to source and improve lean supply chain practices, platforms and tools to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Waste (Y) in all its forms (e.g. Energy, CapEx / OpEx, Risk, Time, Material) over time (X) from “current state” or Present Mode of Operation (PMO) toward Y = ZERO — for a leaner, more resilient “future state” or Future Mode of Operation (FMO).
Transcript:
LAUREN: [00:00:02] Hello and welcome back to Enterprise Coworking Community Spotlight. This month, we are sitting down with Bob Boyle, Founder and Managing Director of Y ZERO. Bob, thank you for sitting down with us today.
BOB: [00:00:16] Absolutely glad to be here.
LAUREN: [00:00:18] Awesome. So let's get right into it. Why don't you let us know what you guys do, what Y ZERO does.
BOB: [00:00:25] Yeah. So we had a soft launch in 2023. We were winding down some things. I say we, myself and my partners had some various things to wind up that were also feeding into this, to this concept initially. And we were working on branding. And then we officially launched earlier this year and then I guess truly officially next week when there's an industry conference in energy and sustainability here in Denver, it's the Edison Electric Institute conference. It's one of the best in the industry. All of the utilities, all the major utilities and sort of like peripheral players and electricity primarily attend and exhibit and present. So there's a lot of great information and I'm an energy nerd, so it's just fun to go see what's new and what's cutting edge with utilities around electric vehicles and renewables and sustainability in general. And really just even where the rubber hits the road, just good old fashioned, just power production and delivery type stuff. So it's a, it's a, it's an engineering and finance focused forum and which is essentially where we're focused when we're serving clients.
LAUREN: [00:01:38] Nice. Nice. So you're pretty new in the business, right?
BOB: [00:01:43] We're we're new. We've we're 18 months in now. I've spent most of my career in energy supply chain, the building supply chain. So, you know, ultimately what we're doing. Energy is foundational to, as you're well aware, as as most of our viewers here and tenants here are well aware that energy is very foundational. I mean, but the lights on, we've got heat, we've got cooling. There's a lot going on there, kind of quietly behind the scenes. And what's been interesting about energy is, you know, I think partly because of cell phones and, you know, range anxiety with phones and now cars, people are just on a regular basis, very aware of energy and electricity and the various things that energy and electricity empower and enable. So that's that's actually been throughout my career, I've seen that's been interesting to see and encouraging to see. You know, there's a lot of expertise and interest and passion out there for energy. And there's a more and more understanding of, you know, how critical it is and the various impacts that occur in getting that energy into our homes and into our facilities and our buildings and our offices. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.
LAUREN: [00:03:00] Yeah, very important stuff. And yeah, I think there's a lot more interest around that kind of stuff. Like every year I feel like, you know, there's new, new things that come out in that industry. So it's very, very interesting. What makes Y ZERO different from other companies in your field?
BOB: [00:03:17] Well, we do take a supply chain focus. So, you know, contracts, vendor management, a lot of blocking and tackling that happens around energy that that that can easily get overlooked. It's oftentimes energy. Let's just say electricity because it's simple and easier to easiest to understand. Just kind of conventional electricity. Get the bill. You've got expense. You've got consumption. And oftentimes it's a it can be a significant line item even in our own homes. Certainly in in large office buildings, it's a big line item, and it's often treated with that kind of respect. But there's not always the deep dive to understand, you know, are we paying the right rates? Could we be doing things differently in the building to reduce our consumption or become more sustainable? You know, now there's there's there's more around risk management and reporting requirements around, you know, the actual performance, the actual energy performance of the building. And our along with our brand, we talk about building resilience. And essentially it's I guess for for the layman out there, it's sort of physical fitness for, for the building where energy is foundational to that. You know if you think about the meter on the building, we talk we, we can get really get into the weeds here. So I want to be respectful of the audience and their their level of interest and technical interest. But ultimately the meter and we talk about both sides of the meter. So there's the supply side and the demand side. So you've got the building footprint and the various things that happen in there around energy consumption and sometimes energy or increasingly energy generation. Increasingly, there's actually increasingly there are actually opportunities to generate revenue.
BOB: [00:05:01] You may be familiar with demand response programs, for example these are all things on the demand side that are that the utilities are talking about more and more promoting to help gain more. And there's technologies now increasingly that'll help tenants and owners control what's happening in the building. And even, most importantly, frankly, the users the user experience in the building is, is paramount, as you guys are well aware. And I know we'll get to talking about enterprise a little bit, but I'm very impressed with how you guys do things here in terms of the user experience. And that's critical. I mean, you can't just turn the lights off and turn the turn the heat down and turn the turn the air conditioning down automatically, right? Without understanding what the user requirements are and preferences and behavioral stuff. And it even gets into the psychology and the culture of the space that that the users are working in or living in performing in learning in, you know, so then the other side of the meter, this being the supply side generally we're in in the US, we're in regulated markets. There are a handful of deregulated markets where we can help our clients competitively source their most cost effective electricity and energy. And again, all of this is foundational to the overall health and physical fitness of the building. There are many other things that we get involved in, but energy is core and primary. So, you know, water waste trash removal right. Everybody's favorite topics. Right. Certainly you guys are doing innovative things in this building around all of the above. So I appreciate that for sure.
LAUREN: [00:06:39] Yeah. Yeah, these are all very important components to keep things going. So absolutely. Yeah. So yeah. Why did you choose Enterprise Coworking?
BOB: [00:06:50] It's funny how it came about. I didn't know that you guys were here I love Rhino. Yeah. We come down here all the time. I live in Park Hill. Raised my kids there. They all went to East High School there. Still got one over at East High School. And I have a good buddy of mine the dad of one of my daughter's friends, actually is the owner of Novo Coffee, two blocks away from you guys. And we're you know, we're friends through soccer, actually but he's the best coffee house in town. So I was I was just visiting with him. And then when we were done I was going to just stay in Rhino and get some work done, and I asked him for advice, and he suggested coming over here to check it out. So there's a coffee shop right over there. And I see you guys have Novo coffee here. Yeah. And and I. And then the tour, you know, you were generous to generous enough to take some time out of your day and show me around, and I frankly, I just I just fell in love with the place because the the energy is really good here, but the but it's fully professionalized. And I've, I've learned in the last few weeks of working over here that, you know, I'm a couple of clicks away from booking a conference room. It's a very reasonably priced. I mean, I love that as a startup that that everything here is very cost competitive to. I looked at other I had been looking at options in town. So besides this being the one of the best locations in Denver and the views from the roof it was a it was a cost effective thing for me to do in startup mode.
LAUREN: [00:08:23] Awesome. Yeah. We love having you here. So is there anything else that you would like our viewers to know about you or the company or anything?
BOB: [00:08:37] Well, I will put in a shameless plug for the soccer channel that I dropped in slack. I have no idea. I'm also a soccer nerd. I'm an energy nerd. I'm a soccer coach, a lifelong fan and player. And I found over and over again that something about soccer in this country. It's still a little bit of a curiosity, but it's always fun to find folks, you know, that that that are into the game. And there's a lot going on in town around the game. If you're if you're in the game, you recognize that. So there's a lot of cool things you can do socially with it as well. Co-ed teams and stuff like that. So I just dropped that in there. I was curious to see what would happen with it. I work with a with several of the youth clubs in the area, with the with East High School. Yeah. So that would be something I would just put out there. Are there soccer nerds? Are there energy nerds here and bike nerds? I know there's a lot of those.
LAUREN: [00:09:30] Yeah. To find your people. That's right.
BOB: [00:09:33] Yeah. And that was the other thing I could see here is the energy is really good, and it's a diverse. Very obviously clearly your mission entrepreneurial group here. So, you know, a lot of folks coming and going, there's a lot of there's a lot of action here.
LAUREN: [00:09:49] Yeah. Yeah. There is. Yes. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with us. Thank you so much for being a member here. We appreciate you. So if anybody else would like to know any more information about Y ZERO, you can check them out at yzeroInfo.com. And Bob, thank you so much for sitting down with me today.
BOB: [00:10:12] Yeah. Thank you Lauren, I appreciate it.
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