For the first episode of this series I am joined by Harish Pesala, the co-founder and CEO of SmartResilience, a climate analytics platform helping organisations predict, prepare for, and reduce the impact of extreme weather and other physical risks. Harish launched SmartResilience to close a critical gap between climate science and real-time decision-making.

The company has won Innovate UK’s Young Innovators Award, been shortlisted for the edie Awards and National Sustainability Awards, and is already working with major clients from supermarkets to insurers, to make adaptation both practical and actionable.

2:52 - What led you to focus on adaptation and why is this critical to the climate crisis?

4:51 - How did you work through your career from British Army Reservist to entrepreneur?

7:45 - What were the early days like, especially as it was in 2020?

10:50 - How did you secure your first clients?

12:27 - How did you adapt from having been a technical co-founder to picking up other skills around sales etc.?

15:09 - How has user feedback influenced your product as it’s evolved?

18:21 - Where are you seeing risk on the corporate agenda now and who within large enterprise businesses is owning it?

20:27 - As the world has changed, have you changed how you position SmartResilience?

22:28 - How important have industry recognitions and awards been to you?

24:12 - How was your fundraising journey?

29:57 - How did you go about building your team, initially with angel investor money and then with higher investment later on?

32:02 - How do you know whether someone has the grit and resilience they have to work in a startup?

33:47 - How has your team grown?

36:31 - How did you decide which roles to hire for and when?

40:16 - How has your role adapted since the business began?

43:05 - Where have you found your mentors and angel investors?

44:38 - How do you see the climate resilience and adaption environment evolving in the future?

50:29 - What is one key lesson that has been crucial to your success as a founder?

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