Sometime entrepreneurs need all the help they can get:-)

See link here for interesting take, on what 2007 has to offer in the tech world. (From Top Ten Tech Trends 2007, Churchill Club presentation.)

I’m often asked by students what’s the next “hot” area that they might consider to focus their limited entrepreneurial energies. It’s pretty much a no-brainer that anything having to do with energy and/or green will have social, technical, economic and political (my external environment “STEP”) forces behind efforts to mediate the world’s energy crisis/situation. On the West Coast, a company called Sunpower is sitting in the catbird seat. Their website states:

“SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR) designs, manufactures and markets high-performance solar electric technology worldwide. SunPower’s high-efficiency solar cells and modules generate up to 50 percent more power per unit area than conventional solar technologies and have a uniquely attractive, all-black appearance.

PowerLight, a subsidiary of SunPower, is a leading global provider of large-scale solar power systems, with over 150 million kWh generated to-date by its customers. Together with PowerLight, we apply innovative technology across the entire value chain to deliver to our customers higher-performance, superior looking and lower cost solar power solutions.”

The San Jose solar-cell manufacturer sits at the forefront of the booming renewable energy industry. The company, founded by a Stanford University professor in 1985, more than tripled its sales to $236.5 million for 2006 from $78.6 million in 2005, making it the fastest-growing company in Silicon Valley last year. The stock market has noticed their success also - they are trading at all-time highs - see graph (from finance.google.com 4/16/07) below:

This is all well and good, but not an industry a typical student of entrepreneurship has the “pockets” to successful compete in. But how about the site analysis and installation of systems? Sunpower just purchased Powerlight, which deals with this aspect of solar energy. I conjecture Powerlight is hurting for qualified individuals/companies to carry out the actual installation of solar systems. I was part of the “installation” side of the supply chain equation when networks became popular in the late nineties - a very profitable market niche, and students are in a position to get in on the ground floor.