Camus Energy’s Playbook: How to Build Trust and Win Deals in Conservative Industries

“Stay away from utilities – they’re too conservative.” That’s the warning Camus Energy co-founder Astrid Atkinson heard repeatedly when starting her company. In a recent Category Visionaries episode, she revealed how ignoring this advice led to securing seven major utility customers by turning perceived obstacles into strategic advantages.

Reframing Industry Resistance

When Astrid first explored the utility space, the feedback was unanimously negative: “I heard a lot of concern that folks in the utility space were pretty slow moving, very conservative, very resistant to change, perhaps not very much fun to work with.”

But where others saw roadblocks, she recognized opportunity. “Any moment when you’re looking at really transformational change in the industry that you’re working within is a really interesting moment for a startup to engage,” she explains. The key was understanding that conservatism often masks untapped potential for innovation.

Finding Your Blue Ocean

Early advice shaped Camus Energy’s entire go-to-market strategy: “You don’t want to build software that you’re selling to utilities. That’s a bloody ocean… go find a blue ocean space, find a way to do this that doesn’t involve fighting tooth and nail with incumbent vendors.”

Instead of competing directly with established players, Camus Energy positioned itself as an enabler of future transformation. This approach resonated particularly well with investors: “When we talk with investors… it’s automatically and straight away a different conversation than many of the other companies in our kind of broader space will be having.”

Aligning with Core Values

Perhaps most crucial was understanding and aligning with utilities’ fundamental values. As Astrid discovered, “the utility industry is very focused on the idea of serving the broadest community… that obligation to do so in an even handed, generalized and universal way is like kind of something close to a sacred duty in their minds.”

This insight transformed how Camus Energy approached customer conversations. Rather than positioning their solution as disruptive technology, they framed it as an enabler of utilities’ core mission.

Building Trust Through Early Adopters

Instead of trying to convince conservative players to change, Camus Energy focused on forward-thinking utilities ready for transformation. “Our current customers are generally early adopters but they are so creative and so dedicated to demonstrating models of dramatic change in some of the areas we need it most around decarbonizing our energy supply.”

These early relationships proved invaluable for building credibility. As Astrid notes, these customers are “willing to put their money where their mouth is in terms of adopting new technologies and really pushing the envelope. They’re really responsive to the needs of their community.”

Creating an Ecosystem

Rather than viewing other startups as competition, Camus Energy took a collaborative approach: “Success for us isn’t whether we beat out another fledgling software company, it’s whether we can grow the market enough for all of us to be successful together.”

This ecosystem mindset extends to partnerships. “I pretty much always say yes, I would like to have a conversation about that,” Astrid explains, because success comes from growing the entire market, not just capturing market share.

Leveraging Technical Gaps

Conservative industries often present hidden technological opportunities. As Astrid points out, “almost all utility software is on prem today. So there’s really not a lot of maturity around like cloud scale technologies or really big data approaches or cloud scale machine learning or AI type approaches.”

This technological gap means even industry giants are “starting from nearly as much of a blank slate as we are” when it comes to building next-generation solutions.

The lesson for founders targeting conservative industries? Don’t try to fight the system’s natural resistance. Instead, understand its underlying values, find the forward-thinking players, and position your solution as an enabler of positive transformation rather than a disruptive force.