Selling Sunshine: The Rapid Rise of Simple Solar with Moe Falah | Digital Social Hour #44

So you're growing the company rapidly.

It was number 44 on Inc., fastest growing companies.

How do you balance that with family and relationships?

You don't.

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

You don't.

I remember just one time I was in class and the professor brought up, you know, you're going to graduate soon, you're going to get your degree, and then you're going to go and get a job.

And when he said that, it was just like,

literally at that moment, I was like, what the f am I doing here?

Don't take advice from people you wouldn't trade places with.

What do you think of Andrew Tate though?

Because that's a whole nother law.

I think he's a dumbed down version version of Jordan Peterson.

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour, guys.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my guest today, Mo Fala.

How are we doing?

Doing well, man.

How are you?

I'm good.

I'm in your city.

You're in my city.

305.

You just moved here, right?

A couple months ago.

How is it?

It is the best.

Yeah?

Yeah.

I lived here in 2018 and I left because I went to go build my company.

So, but I've ever literally since the day I left, I've wanted to come back.

And we opened up an office here recently.

So it gave me the good opportunity to make it here.

Absolutely.

Let's dive right into it.

So was this company your first journey in the entrepreneur space or were you doing stuff before?

So I've always kind of been entrepreneurial before it was cool, before I even knew what it was.

The idea of like getting a job and getting paid to do something never made sense for me.

What always made sense to me was if I could buy something for 10 and sell it for 15, I can make that five.

That always made sense to me.

Growing up, like when I was asked, like, what do you want to be when you grow up?

There was never a job description.

It was never an idea of it.

It was just like, I just want to be like successful.

That's it.

So,

and I just found my way, always winning on margin.

Yeah, dude, you've come a a long way.

When I first met you, you were one year into the company, and I think you had 20 million in sales.

Yeah, 28 and a half.

28 and a half, and now you're at over nine figures, right?

Yeah.

It's insane.

I mean, how did you,

I guess let's take it year by year.

The first year, how did you even get to 28 million?

I mean, belief.

It was when COVID hit.

So it was 2020, when COVID hit, and everyone was panicking.

And it was like, you know, Grant Cardone is a big mentor of mine.

And something he said that I told my team is like, when everybody contracts, you expand.

It's like the perfect opportunity for you to expand when everyone's contracting.

And at that time, there wasn't like a crazy amount of leadership in the United States.

Everybody was kind of cowering and contracting.

And I was like, we're not going to let this thing get in our way.

First of all,

I was three months into starting my company.

And I was like, I'm not going to let this thing fall because of some virus.

You know, I'm just not going to allow.

that to be the reason why I fail.

And so I just pushed, I pushed heavy, and I kind of ignored everything.

And I was just getting loud.

I was like, hey, like, has your job displaced you?

Have you not, do you, do you not have work?

Do you not like working in your office anymore?

Are you having to relocate, find new work?

And

I just kept on pushing and promoting, like a ton of promotion of opportunity and freedom and earning great income.

And a lot of people got attracted to that.

And I just kept pushing despite everybody else was kind of contracting.

I just kept pushing and making a lot of noise and promoting the company.

And

yeah, I mean, it's all door-to-door.

We've never spent a dollar on ads.

We've done over 100 million, 100% organic door-to-door.

Crazy.

And this is solar, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So from year two, you went from 28 to how much?

72.

72.

So you doubled pretty much second year.

And was that just more of the same thing you were doing?

Yeah, it was more of the same thing.

Bringing great people, you know, having great leaders.

We expanded.

Now we're in four different markets.

So LA, Houston, Tampa, and Miami.

Having great leaders that actually care about the vision and are aligned with you.

And them, you know, really, really just caring about the company caring about you know a great I think I think you don't have to wear like have a C title to be an executive and an executive is somebody who's competent can see things through to an end and cares about

not only themselves or the employees, but also the company.

And so like, you have to be able to care about both and you can't be too one-sided on either way.

And if you care about the growth of the company and you care about the growth of the people both collectively, you make for a great executive.

And I think that anyone who can run and manage a team has the qualifications and abilities to be an executive.

And so we empower the team leaders in our organization to really treat it like it's their business.

They get to make, you know, we don't micromanage the way that they do things.

They have authorities on being able to make decisions for themselves.

you know, we give them guidance on, you know, what to do, what not to do.

But we let them go out there and we let them try and fail.

And if they fail, we come in, we provide coaching and correction.

But we really let them treat it like it's their own business.

And they get to plug into our platform and we provide all the support and resources.

So

I think bringing in really, really great people and

after the first year we were like, holy crap, like we did something pretty big.

We just kept on adding more power into that.

And

I think that's what helped us grow even bigger.

I like what you mentioned about caring about people because I feel like a lot of solar companies are just a numbers.

It's a numbers game for them, but you really care about your team.

I see you doing team building activities all the time.

You even just went on a yacht and took them all out, right?

And last year, I I think you went to Colombia or somewhere with them?

So we did Peru.

We did a charity trip to Peru.

Peru.

Went, built an orphanage there, took 15 team members, made the donations on their behalf, took them there.

We've done the Virgin Islands, we've done Tulum, we've done Cabo, we've done,

you know, where we Breckenridge, we just did Breckenridge, we did Yosemite, we've done a bunch of things because, you know, bringing the team together and, you know, it's not like making money is freaking, it's cool, right?

But it's like, if you don't have great people that you can spend time with and

enjoy enjoy those moments with, it's like,

you know,

having relationships is just so freaking important.

And when you're able to not only make money, but also have great relationships and experiences with people, it's like, dude, nothing tops that.

It's like, I'd rather, like, I'd rather have a great community around me and less money than a crap ton of money, but nobody to.

to spend my time with.

Interesting.

So where would money rank on your list?

And what's the list?

Let's say like family, friends, food, whatever, like important things in life.

I mean, the reason I make money is for food.

Facts.

I love food, man.

Yeah.

No, I'm kidding.

You know, money is very important.

It is really important.

But

I think relationships probably is number one.

Relationships is number one.

I think family is...

probably number two.

And when I say family,

I don't necessarily mean like your parents, your brothers, your sisters.

I think more of family that you create, which would be your spouse your girlfriend your husband wife okay and then your children like so you put relationships friendships before your significant other

um

relationships they kind of fall in they fall in together got it got it yeah it's just it's relationships that you have with people yeah okay um and then family like the family that you create um but relationship i mean they they they're all kind of it's similar yeah it's kind of similar but you know if i if i had a family today if i had children today and a wife and all that that that'd probably rank first But right now I don't have that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're growing the company rapidly.

It was number 44 on Inc., fastest growing companies.

How do you balance that with family and relationships?

You don't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

You don't.

You can't.

You know, balance comes after, right?

Temporary imbalance to create long-term balance.

Right.

So you're sacrificing your time now to get it back later.

Yeah.

Trading, you know, it's the same thing that I do with money.

So like, you trade your time now for more time later,

and you trade your money now for more money money later.

So the further I can push my money out into the future, the better it ultimately is, because money tomorrow is worth more than money today.

What do you mean by that?

Like, you know,

if I can take $200,000 today, you know, it serves me $200,000 today.

But if I can go invest that and place it somewhere where in maybe, let's call it five years, comes and spits out, you know, $350,000, that's more valuable.

Got it.

Have your money work for you.

Of course.

So you went to college i'm curious what your experience was like and if you would go back knowing what you know now um you know i i went to college for a couple years i dropped out i think like three years in uh full ride um

tuition my father was a professor so he was an academic yeah so didn't have to pay for my tuition or anything like that um

there was a there was a period where i don't remember what kind of class that i was in but um

There was I was already making good money.

I was in real estate.

I was doing wholesaling.

I was flipping cars.

Anything I could get my hands on, I was doing to flip.

And I was making like, you know, I was probably like 19, 20 years old, and I was already making a six-figure income.

And there was a professor that brought up,

I remember just one time I was in class and the professor brought up,

you know, you're going to graduate soon, you're going to get your degree, and then you're going to go and get a job.

And when he said that, it was just like, Literally at that moment, I was like, what the fuck am I doing here?

I was like,

I'm not interested in getting a job and going and working for someone.

And I'm already making a six-figure income at this point, just scrambling around trying to flip whatever I can.

I was already doing fairly well for a 19, 20-year-old.

And

I was making more than some of the college professors.

And

there's this other line that sticks with me.

And it's like, don't take advice from people you wouldn't trade places with.

And a lot of these individuals were just not people who I would want to trade places with.

Like, I have huge goals and aspirations.

And if they've never done it before,

why would I listen to them?

Right,

interesting.

And when you were doing solar door to door, I mean, you're getting denied all the time.

Was that like

a toll on you mentally?

Or were you just embracing it?

No, no, I mean, it's all part of the numbers, right?

Like,

let's say it takes you 50

no's to get a yes.

And

that yes pays you 10,000 bucks, for example.

Every time someone says no to you, you're getting paid 200 bucks.

So I was just, I was like calculating every time someone said no to me, be like, yeah, 200 bucks.

If I knock on the door and they open it, not interested, close it, I'm like, fastest 200 bucks I ever made.

So it's, it's, there's safety in numbers, right?

Like the more numbers you do, the more cold calls you make, the more people you interact with,

you're safe.

But if you're if you keep your numbers low, you're just you're unsafe.

You're you're playing way too much of a risky game.

So the thing for me it was never

it was never any like crazy talent that I have I'm not you know some some I'm not super great at technology or software or really understanding things I I'm a super super hard worker I don't give up and I think it's my grit is what ultimately allowed me to go like I just I just work so freaking hard I wish you know I wish I had the talent of of you know

Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk like I wish I had that type of talent for me I don't have what they have.

I just can freaking work.

You got the work ethic?

That's it.

It's really, it's the work ethic, it's the grit, and like never letting anything get in your way.

So,

yeah, I mean, like, no,

it's not even really rejection.

It's just, it's just part of the game.

That's just it.

What was your go-to line when you were doing door-to-door?

Yeah.

What was my go-to line?

This was a while ago.

I'll knock on the door.

So we use software.

We use software that tells us the name of the home really yeah so

yeah so it's um it's public record public information okay so so you click on the home it has the address shows their credit score their income

yeah everything wow so we knock on the door and it says the last name so like you knock and you step away and you go hey is this the uh

is this the Jones residence and you know when you communicate like that and your tone is a certain way it sparks curiosity so curiosity one and two it's like there's authority figure there how do I know that their last name is Jones I'm not just just some random door-to-door knocker right right i if i know this person's last name it's probably something important why i'm there i'd be like yeah so the reason i'm stopping by is just a little bit different that's just my opening line it's just a little bit different because what it does is it just captures their attention i know their last name

I'm here for something a little bit different, and I'm just, I'm trying to capture their attention and spark curiosity.

If you can keep somebody curious about something, you can keep them engaged.

Like, you know, if that's why, that's why, you know, you think of an animal, you think of a cat.

If there's a loud bang that happens in another room, your cat's going to get up and it's like, gonna try and figure out what the heck is that?

It's because curiosity is what sparks people to move forward down a path.

And so my whole entire goal is to keep them curious.

Interesting.

Yeah, that's crazy.

If someone pulled up to my house and knew my name, I'd be definitely curious.

Yeah, is this a Kelly?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, what are you doing here?

Yeah.

And I like, who are you?

I like solar because it's a win-win, honestly.

You're helping them save money.

The only people who lose are the utility company.

Yeah.

The only people who lose.

And I don't mind them losing.

They already have a ton of money.

They do.

I mean, like,

you're giving power back to the people.

You're giving money back to the people.

There's no possible way that when someone signs up that you can hurt their situation unless you lie to them.

Right.

Like,

if you keep, if you just tell the truth,

they will buy.

Right.

If you lie, like, you know, they'll probably buy too, but then they'll end up in a worser situation.

you don't have to lie.

Yeah, it's an easy sell.

I mean, you're saving the money in the long run.

After how many years would you say they're breaking even?

Most of the time, year one.

What?

Like day one.

Oh, that's a no-brainer.

Yeah.

So it's like, because we finance it, right?

We'll finance it over 25 years.

They don't have to put any money down.

If they're paying 200 bucks a month for their electricity, or they'll pay $150 to own the solar.

Yeah, it's a no-brainer.

Day one savings, they own the asset.

Payments never go up.

It's equity.

If they sell the house, they transfer it just like they transfer the utility bill.

Increase the home value.

Doesn't increase your property taxes.

It's like, there's no way you can possibly hurt someone's situation.

And they're saving money immediately.

Yeah, one of my best friends in Jersey growing up had solar panels, and he was like the only one in my town, and everyone thought he was crazy.

I didn't know you're from Jersey.

Yeah.

That's cool.

You from there?

No, Ohio.

Oh, okay.

Well, I was born in Toronto, but I grew up in Ohio.

Okay.

Yeah.

What states excite you for solar?

Like any upcoming states?

Are you sticking with the four you got now?

Yeah, well, we're in the we're in the top three states.

So so Florida, Florida, Texas, and Cali for the last four years in a row were the top three.

That's where we're at.

There's a lot of inventory, a lot of sunlight.

Those three are really great.

I think that the Northeast is super underrated and untapped.

Like the tri-state area, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island.

Those three right there, I think there's a ton of promise.

You know, the government provides SREX, which is

solar renewable energy credit.

And basically, for every, so solar is measured in kilowatt hours, right?

So for every thousand kilowatt hours your system produces, and I think there's like 15 states that offer them.

So every thousand kilowatt hours your system produces, the government will pay you about like, let's call it 250 bucks for every thousand kilowatt hours you produce.

So average system there produces,

let's call it 10,000.

And that goes to the owner?

Goes to the homeowner.

And it lasts for 10 years.

So homeowner going solar, they're going to get $25,000 from the government, paid in $2,500 a year.

Wow.

And then they're going to get 30% tax credit.

So the government's going to pay them, you know, let's call it $25,000.

So you're going to get $50,000 back, literally, just for going solar, and your system is going to cost you, I don't know, like $55,000 to $60K.

Dude, that's a no-brainer.

Yeah, and

it's ridiculous.

That's crazy.

Like a $60,000 system, a homeowner is getting it for $10,000.

Wow.

Nevada's got to be a good market, right?

I think Nevada Nevada was better than it is now.

The utility company doesn't buy the electricity back at the same rate.

Oh, Southwest Gas, yeah.

They got a monopoly out there.

Yeah.

They're like the only energy company there.

Yeah, Envy Energy as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You sold the company, right?

I did 60% of it.

What was that process like?

Probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

Really?

Tremendously difficult, yeah.

How come?

You know, it took me...

From start to finish, it took about eight months to go through.

All the due diligence.

And the hard thing is, is like, you know, going through M ⁇ A, it was my first time ever doing, and thankfully, you know, I had a really great team to support me.

It's like a full-time job just going through M ⁇ A and having to collect everything and be in conversations and communicate with investors and explain why certain things are happening.

And while I'm doing all of that, it's very emotional too, because at any moment, they could just be like, oh, no, pull out.

And you're so invested in getting something done and you're so excited.

And it's like, there's so much emotional turbulence that goes through that.

But on top of having to navigate that, I also have to consistently make sure that the company's producing and going up stack month over month over month because anytime it could go down, it could raise a flag.

That's like the valuation.

Of course, absolutely.

And so, so I had to continue to push my company for a nine-month period to just keep doing better every single month while also, and that's, I mean, that's hard alone.

It's very hard.

I mean, I've got 130 people in the company.

So it's very difficult to do that on top of putting all of your attention.

I was just doing two full-time jobs at once.

And two.

And two very

mentally draining, mentally exhausting full-time jobs at once.

But it probably ended up paying off.

It was great.

Yeah,

we were the first solar sales-only org because we were sales-only, right?

We don't do our installs.

So we're the first solar sales-only org to get acquired.

Wow.

Did they approach you or did you approach them?

I approached them.

Interesting.

It was at the, what's it called?

Avengers, you know, Avengers Mastermind?

Yeah, I was at the Avengers Mastermind.

I saw this guy speaking on stage.

It was in Carlsbad, and he was just a broker, and he talked about, you know, buying and selling businesses.

And he said, you know, well, you know,

you come in,

you can get an investor, and that person knows how to do things better than the current CEO.

And that person can take the company to way higher levels.

And at that moment, just something that had a cognition in my head, I went to Dan Fleischman afterwards, and I was like, hey, man, I'm going to sell Simple Solar.

And he's like, that's cool.

And, you know, Dan is very like, yeah, that's cool.

He's always so level-headed.

And he's like, he's like, I'll connect you to a couple people if you want.

Just the super connector.

I know a few companies he's helped sell.

Yeah.

Big ones.

Yeah, so I hit it.

Yeah.

And I just had that cognition of doing it.

And we brought a new CEO, which is awesome.

So

no longer the CEO.

I just focus on what I do best, which is sales.

And so I just get to work with my sales team pretty much all the time.

That's awesome.

It's a better fit for me.

Yeah, because you were probably juggling so many hats as CEO.

probably doing everything.

And I could do everything, but not everything really well.

Right.

You know, I was doing just enough to be acceptable as CEO.

Well, that's amazing.

That just shows the power of masterminds.

I mean, you just sold a nine-figure company by attending a mastermind.

That's incredible.

Literally, yeah.

I mean, would have never just had that thought unless I saw somebody talking about it.

And I was like, huh, let's do it.

And that guy helped you find the buyer?

Dan.

The guy that spoke on stage?

No, no, no.

Do you know DoWealth?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So I hit them.

They manage all my stuff.

Oh, sick.

Yeah.

So I hit them up and I was like, hey, I'm thinking about selling the company.

And then they went and built a pitch deck for for simple solar They went and pitched it to a bunch of different people and then they're like hey I think we found someone Wow, and that's insane Yeah, you invest a lot in your education in your networking You've also paid Grant Cardone half a million dollars to be mentored by him Would you say that was a good move?

It was yeah, I mean like this is the thing like whether you know whether it's a good move or not it's like Every decision that I made got me to where I'm at.

And I'm super happy and grateful for where I'm at.

So it's like, you can't, I don't think you can really look back and be like, oh, it was a bad decision.

Because if you're happy with where you're at in your life,

then,

you know, how could something be a bad decision?

If it got you to somewhere, if it got you a different result that you never had before.

And so, yeah, I mean,

I'm happy about it.

I've made a great connection.

I've learned a ton.

I've learned a lot about myself.

And it has got me to think bigger.

That's awesome.

What were some key things Grant Cardone told you that you you really opened your eyes?

You know, there was a time I lost

I lost 50% of my company overnight.

Just I had some people in my company that

I think ego got in the way.

And

aside from ego getting in the way, there were things that I could have done better as a leader that I neglected to do.

And I wasn't able to get on common common ground with some people.

And they ended up leaving.

They ended up leaving, starting their own thing.

And it was my first time ever losing that many people.

It was like, you know, it was like 50 people overnight.

Wow.

And literally overnight.

I was like, whoa.

Reality check.

And I hit him up and we got on a Zoom call.

And he said, he's like, yeah, he's like, you know, one day, one day you're going to lose 500 people overnight.

He's like, you just got to have 10 extra problems.

He's like, you just got to have bigger problems.

He's like, the problem is that you had was that he's like, you just don't have enough people.

He's like, if you had enough people, he's like, losing 50 wouldn't matter to you.

And so it just got me like thinking bigger.

There was a time where there was a time where I was like really concerned about tax.

I was spending a lot of time on taxes and trying to figure out best plays for taxes.

And

he's like, dude, he's like, you don't have like, he's like, you don't have a $500,000 tax problem.

He's like, you need to be thinking like,

how do you pay $5 million in taxes?

And I was like,

I'm focused on the wrong target.

I'm putting my attention on the expenses and the taxes.

And I'm not putting my attention on the income.

Because, I mean, I'm sure a lot of people would rather spend $5 million in taxes than $500,000.

It means you're doing quite a bit more.

Making way more, yeah.

You're doing way, way more.

That's crazy.

I liked what he did with the jet purchase to write off the taxes I heard on December 31st.

Yeah, that was genius.

He was like the first person that I saw do that.

And now everyone's doing it.

Yeah.

He's great.

He's a good dude.

What do you think of all the hate he gets?

It's required.

It's required.

Yeah, it's required.

There's this quote that, there's a quote that I saw.

It's like, if you want to,

you probably know it.

I can't think of it exactly, but it's like,

if you don't want anyone to talk shit on you, then

say nothing, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

It's like, yeah,

if you want to avoid the hate, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

But as you grow, you're automatically going to get people.

It's just,

it's like a prerequisite to success.

Yeah, you're not successful unless you get some hate, yeah.

Yeah, and the more hate, I mean, and hate's just like a twisted version of love, and they're not hating on you.

They're more so hating on themselves that they gave up.

It's a problem that they have with themselves.

It's not a problem with you at all.

It's never a problem about you.

It's a problem about themselves that they're angry that they just didn't do it themselves.

And they don't know how to accept responsibility for that.

And so they like to shove and push blame onto others.

That's deep, bro.

Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but that's facts.

Like, they don't have a problem with you.

No.

They don't know you.

No.

Not at all.

And

if you probably met them, they'd probably really like you.

Probably.

There's guys I meet online or in person that have that persona online of flexing and stuff, and they're always the nicest dudes.

They're just doing it for branding.

Like they're flexing the cars, flexing the jets.

But when you meet them, they're a good dude.

They're family-oriented.

Still, like, yeah.

Yeah, I've noticed that.

What do you think of Andrew Tate, though?

Because that's a whole nother level.

I think he's, I like him.

You like him?

I do.

He just got out of jail.

Yeah.

I mean, I think

I think he's good.

I think he's going to bring out some fire content.

Yeah.

You have, you got three months alone in a single room.

You're going to, especially if you're a guy like that, you're going to think of some stuff to say.

You know, he says it how it is.

He says it how it is.

He's very direct.

He doesn't care.

He doesn't care about the opinions of others.

And I think he inspires a lot of people.

I mean, he's...

I think he says a lot of really, really great things.

He inspires a lot of, especially in this world that we're in today, I think there's a lot of suppression around

individuals going out there and just like making it for themselves.

And people are often put in a position to think smaller, to do less, to

create justifications for their failures and not accept responsibility for them.

And I think what he does is he kind of

just

says it as it is, that it's not acceptable to be in that position.

If you want to change your life, it's up to nobody but you.

And

I it's funny.

I think he's

I think he's a dumbed down version of Jordan Peterson.

I see similarities now that you've said that.

Jordan Peterson is very sophisticated in his communication and not everyone can understand him.

Like you have to have a certain intellect level to understand him.

But he says

very similar, if not the same things that Andrew Tate says.

But Andrew Tate just dumbs it down so everyone can understand it.

And

that's why Andrew Tate

is bigger.

And more people know him because it's easy to understand and comprehend.

But him and Jordan Peterson say the same exact thing.

Very similar.

I would love to see them on a podcast together.

That'd be hilarious.

What do you think of Jordan Peterson getting canceled right now?

I'm Canadian.

And I've seen a lot of things happen in Canada that makes one not super proud of the country.

They shut down everything more severe than almost any country in the world.

And, you know, it's like somebody who was very well respected and well admired

and was

placed on a very high rank was

was brought down because of his beliefs.

And it's like, you know,

everyone's entitled to their own beliefs.

You know, somebody can believe what they want to believe.

And they should have the right and ability to communicate about what they believe.

Because it's like

if you believe in something and

you know it to be true and you know it's for the betterment of society but you you refrain from communicating that

and you withhold that information for fear of what other people will think it's like you're doing a detriment to society because if enough people

There are way more people that think the same way that Jordan Peterson think that just don't speak up because they're afraid of what other people are going to say.

But I really think that you're doing a detriment to society if you're not speaking up and

just being very real about what's happening.

Absolutely.

I agree.

Mo, it's been a pleasure, man.

Any closing comments?

None, man.

I appreciate you having me on here.

We got to do some badass dinner sometimes.

Absolutely.

Where can people find you?

Instagram.

FollaTheLeader.

My last name, The Leader.

All right.

You heard it here, guys.

Digital Social Hour.

Thanks for tuning in.

See you next week.

See you.