Collaboration — the Key to Energy Transformation

Competition sparks innovation, but collaboration builds new industries. In the early days of a large change, like the one we’re going through with the energy sectors, when companies work together and adopt a platform mindset, they move the whole industry forward faster than any one player could alone.

I’ve experienced this first hand on several occasions. For example, at ClassPass, our decision to partner with MindBody for direct access to schedules, instead of competing with our own scheduling software, enabled us to bring a stronger product to market, faster and cheaper than going at it alone. The boutique fitness industry grew rapidly as a result, and both companies benefited greatly from a revenue and valuation standpoint.

I’ve spent the past several years in the energy industry as a product leader, an investor, and now as the CEO of Texture. At the risk of stating the obvious, the energy sector is at a crossroads. Possibly, less obvious is that in many ways we’re getting in our own way. After decades of transformation, the industry is riddled with walled gardens (multiple standards and in some cases none at all) and incomplete solutions that hinder success. These inefficiencies make operations costly, slow progress, and frustrate users.

At Texture, we work directly with vertical data providers like WattTime, Arcadia, various weather integrations, and many of the largest OEMs across device categories including batteries, thermostats, EVs and more. Our core value prop is to enable communication between these systems and keep them in sync. We’re building a platform driven by partnerships. The purpose is to improve sharing and visibility, lower the lift for discovering new solutions, and reduce the cost of customer acquisition for everyone involved.

We aren’t the first to believe this. Throughout history, new categories have been accelerated by a healthy amount of collaboration across value chains, and even competitors.

How collaboration has driven acceleration in the past

History proves that partnerships are a fast track to progress. From ancient trade routes to today’s tech ecosystems, collaboration has solved big challenges, reduced inefficiencies, and created entirely new markets. Let’s take a look.

The Silk Road: Trade Meets Collaboration

The Silk Road wasn’t just a highway for goods — it was a network of alliances between empires, merchants, and cultures. Leaders worked together to ensure safe, reliable trade routes, creating a system that benefited everyone from Chinese silk makers to Roman merchants. This cooperation didn’t just boost economies; it drove innovation. Paper, gunpowder, and silk didn’t just move — they changed the world. The Silk Road’s model mirrors today’s platforms, breaking down barriers and making trade scalable and efficient.

Standard Oil: Early Industrial Partnerships

John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil became synonymous with monopolies, but its early growth hinged on collaboration. Rockefeller worked closely with railroad companies to standardize oil transportation and pricing. He partnered with smaller refineries to ensure consistent product quality.

By eliminating inefficiencies, this collaboration helped oil become the cornerstone of the modern industrial economy. Similarly, today’s industries need shared infrastructure to drive down costs and unlock new opportunities.

The Aviation Industry (Post-WWII)

After WWII, the aviation industry had to tackle safety concerns, high costs, and inefficient systems. Instead of going at it alone, airlines, manufacturers, and governments worked together to set global safety standards, build air traffic control systems, and streamline training. The result? Safer, more affordable air travel that fueled a worldwide boom in aviation.

Silicon Valley’s Tech Boom (1980s–2000s)

In Silicon Valley, competition gets the spotlight, but collaboration is the unsung hero. Open-source platforms like Linux, university partnerships, and venture capital networks laid the foundation for breakthroughs. Tech giants like Apple and Google created ecosystems where even competitors added value. For example, developers building apps for Apple’s App Store didn’t just benefit Apple — they grew their own businesses and helped their competitors thrive too. Collaboration didn’t dilute competition; it amplified it.

Key Lessons: The Power of Collaboration

What makes collaboration such a game-changer?

Standards: Shared rules make markets scalable.

Efficiency: Cooperation eliminates duplication and speeds up progress.

Shared Risk: Big ideas become achievable when the costs are spread out.

The Energy Industry: Why We Need Collaboration Now

The energy sector faces massive hurdles: fragmented data, disconnected systems, and outdated tools. These issues don’t just slow things down — they drive up costs and create headaches for everyone. Collaboration could flip the script.

Let’s explore some of the work we have to do, and how working with Texture on data harmonization, monitoring and sharing can help.

Breaking Down Software Silos: Energy companies juggle a patchwork of software systems that don’t talk to each other, causing delays and waste. Software providers can partner with Texture to reduce the cost of integrating with other providers.

Reduce Costs of Outages: Old infrastructure and extreme weather threaten grid reliability, leading to costly outages and increased maintenance. Utilities, tech companies, and regulators can team up with Texture to provide visibility to predict maintenance needs and cut repair times & costs.

Navigate Regulations: Different regions have different rules, which slows innovation and raises costs of reporting. In some cases we see companies limit projects due to regulatory challenges. Today, reporting and rules in Texture can streamline compliance, making it easier to roll out new technologies and expand clean energy adoption.

Accelerate Electrification: OEMs across the industry are focused on three simple things: deploy, deploy, and deploy. Many OEMs partner with Texture to make their data available through the platform, so they can reduce the cost of discovering new sales channels and improve the experience for their customers.

Improve Customer Experience: Customer experience is critical to adoption of new technologies. Collaborative efforts between energy companies and Texture can deliver user-friendly products that provide real-time insights, incentivize behavior changes, and promote sustainability.

The Path Forward: Embracing the Future with Texture

Collaboration isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s the key to solving the energy sector’s biggest challenges. From the Silk Road to Silicon Valley, partnerships have proven they can create efficiency, scale, and entirely new markets.

Texture is helping energy companies unify data, gain actionable insights, and deliver better outcomes. The energy transformation is here, and collaboration is how we’ll make it happen. It’s time to build a more abundant, reliable and energy system — together.

Learn more about Texture at www.texturehq.com.

Collaboration — the Key to Energy Transformation was originally published in Texture HQ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Don’t get me wrong…

I would be happy if it worked out personally
I would be happy if it worked out for the team
I would be happy if it worked out for those who financially and emotionally supported us.

I’m really thankful to the thousands of customers, the team, our families and our investors. Together we made a lot of great memories and lasting relationships.

I learned a ton as the CEO of Tulip, and many of those lessons are what you’d expect. However, I want to give a shout out to three simple things I’ll take with me.

Perspectives are more important than talent. Talent is valuable. But you know what’s even better than talent, perspective. This may require some explanation. I cofounded ClassPass, so people would meet with me… even though I wanted to talk to them about toothbrushes. That’s cool, but looking back, it made hiring a bit murky. I know, listen to the guy crying about how he had too many choices. I started star-gazing rather than trying to find people I could spend five minutes in a room with. We ended up cobbling (purposeful word choice) together people that liked each other and most importantly offered various perspectives. It’s hard to say this without the irony that things didn’t work out, but I think we elevated our game as we focused on getting people from different walks of life over resume quality.

Give news, even if it’s bad news. Founders get in this fucked up loop of hiding bad news. I get it, you promised a lot and you’re likely not delivering. The secret is that even the most successful founders feel this. You get scared, you hold on to it, then you give all the bad news at once. Nobody likes that shit and you can do better. Particularly, with investors. I agree an awkward power dynamic can develop between investors and founders. I hated the thought of telling investors I was shutting things down. But let me draw the picture this way… Instead of anger, they showed empathy. Instead of threats, they threw out encouragement. Instead of questions, they helped me identify solutions. Instead of asking me what I was going to do for them, they asked what they could do for me. Ok, you get the point. The best investors are tainted by the reputations of a few that suck.

Watch out for survivorship bias. I stopped reading about startups and founders a long time ago. I think the stories are made-up or at least remembered “incorrectly.” They make entrepreneurs self-conscious and instead of finding their north star, they start leaning into how things are “supposed to be done.” Of course, mentorship is good, but you should know the person giving you advice. We’ve all read the “7 things successful entrepreneurs do” that I feel Business Insider writes every week. Amazing how going to the gym didn’t make Tulip a success. There is no formula and it’s irresponsible for some folks to try to convince you there is. My advice is… “it doesn’t matter.” Always end with a Dwayne Johnson reference.

I’m excited for what’s next, for me and for those who joined this journey with us.

In conclusion, thank you all. I’m finalizing my next steps and will keep you all posted.