Making Solar Simple

Radhika Choudary is the few of the fewer women to have stepped forward to set up an enterprise in the clean tech biz. The co-founder of Freyr Energy has been recognised with the Femina World Women Leadership Award for excellence in the power and energy sector, Women Entrepreneur Quest - Top 10 award and the Standford Seed Transformation Programme Plan.

An entrepreneur who works by ‘Result than Reason’, holds a Masters in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University, has worked on a research project for NASA, interned as the youngest women engineer at the US HQ of GE and worked for Lanco as the youngest woman Deputy General Manager.

Speaking with The Hans India, she says, “My philosophy that has driven me towards my achievements is Reason and Result. If you want results you can’t give reasons, even when I come to justification mode, I stop myself because, if you keep giving reasons you can’t expect to get the result.” 

A national level sportsperson, she has represented the state in basketball, swimming, tennis, and has also played with the ace Sania Mirza. The leadership quality innate within her and the travel across India to participate in various sports has mirrored the politics breathing in a system, which she says helped to understand people’s capability and mind set, in turn making her able to lead Freyr.

After having expanded the footprint for Sun Edison the largest US-based startup in India, Radhika was at the cross-roads post her maternity leave. A tough call between returning back to corporate life or to set up a business, however led to founding Freyr Energy (means God of all in Nordic) in 2014. 

As she says, “During that period (2014) there was a thrust for solar and made sense for me to start a viable business without relying on the government for subsidy. The market price had come down, and the timing was perfect. Though not an easy journey, we are successfully completing five years this May 2019.”

Having worked for different organisations, she feels has helped build networks and made her realise that in a startup; every hour a founder has to face a good news and bad news. The dynamics in a startup has taught about ‘how critical sustainability is’. 

“Growth is important but sustaining the growth is even more critical. I also, understood the value of a mission statement and every day we live by it. These experiences have helped maneuver under difficult circumstances,” she adds. 

As the co-founder of a startup, she had to ponder over financial repercussions, and assess risk. Recently, having raised funding of Rs 27 crore in Series A -- debt and equity included, Freyr has 50 employees across India, with plans to add on 25 jobs and expand their footprint from the current three countries to 20, through product or technology. 

With a tagline -- Making solar simple, Radhika intends to make installation of solar panels easy through their App, Sun Pro and educate customers to invest in a revenue generating asset like solar energy. 

The most rewarding experience for her to have founded Freyr, as she says are the 100 tribal habitations, they electrified in Paderu Village, Andhra Pradesh, for which they received the Smart Village Award.

Being a woman entrepreneur in a male domain, hasn’t been any different, as sharing an experience she says, during recruitments, candidates mistook her to be from the HR department. Her advice for the women -- they should stop doubting themselves, as women are designed to deliver, they have to just be more confident. It is always possible to make things happen and if you cannot, it means that work is not important…