Ep. 51: Barrett Hansen -Building the System for Cash Flows in Water
Nobody has successfully built the software to help utilities manage the half trillion dollars that flows through utilities every year. Nobody until Barrett Hansen and the team at Current arrived to build a platform to solve one of the more obvious and vital workflows in utility management, aiming squarely at those under resourced utilities. Now live with 60 customers, Current is up there with the fastest growing companies we have backed and Barrett is a very smart, very humble guy. I have a soft spot for people who went to graduate school in Cambridge - Allston actually.
Please enjoy my conversation with Barrett Hansen.
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Full show notes and links to mentioned content below.
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Barrett Hansen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Current, a cloud-native utility billing and payments platform purpose-built for small to mid-sized water utilities. An innovative problem solver with a decade of experience in tech and analytics, he combines technical strengths in data analysis, predictive modeling, and visualization with operational expertise and a strategic mindset. Previously, Barrett delivered data-driven solutions in Silicon Valley across fintech, B2B SaaS, and sales operations. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
02:20 - Utility SaaS Opportunity in Water Industry
03:48 - Why Utility Billing Is Still Manual
06:43 - Finding Startup Ideas in Boring Industries
09:52 - How to Start a Vertical SaaS Business
13:31 - How to Get Your First Customers
17:09 - Pain vs Buying Triggers in B2B Sales
18:52 - Cold Calling Strategy That Actually Works
21:01 - How to Build a Winning SaaS MVP
25:31 - Founder Led Sales for Early Startups
27:37 - SaaS Pricing Strategy for Utilities
29:51 - Customer Onboarding and Retention Strategy
34:29 - How to Build Trust in B2B SaaS
37:04 - Expanding Into Fintech and Payments
40:34 - Using Data Analytics for Utility Insights
44:07 - Why Boring Startups Can Win Big
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