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After every natural disaster, when the grid goes down, diesel and gas generators show up everywhere. They are default, familiar, and they come with a supply chain problem: you need fuel, trucks to carry it, and logistics that often fail exactly when you need them most.

Lee Feliciano spent over 20 years in the solar industry before co-founding New Use Energy Solutions, Inc. (NUE). The company started as two startups that merged, pivoted several times, and eventually landed on a clear and focused mission: replace fossil fuel generators with solar and battery systems built for professional field use. Not for home backups, but for the jobs where power failure is a serious problem.

New Use Energy’s systems are human-portable, meaning one or two people can move them without heavy equipment. They power operating rooms in disaster zones, film productions in remote locations, and military operations where a gas generator would be logistically impossible or tactically unsafe. The company has been in the market for six years, and its approach to positioning, customer selection, and brand building offers a clear-eyed look at what it actually takes to displace an entrenched technology.

Check out the full episode.

“We want to leverage a clean energy technology in a new format”

When New Use Energy launched, the instinct was the same one most hardware startups have: make it as affordable as possible and go broad. That did not last long. The consumer portable power market was already getting flooded with cheap, price-oriented products built for occasional use.

Lee’s pivot was to go in the opposite direction entirely. Stop competing on price and chasing volume. Find the buyers for whom failure is expensive and build the product that earns their trust.

That reframe changed everything: the product design, the case construction, the serviceability in the field, the feature set, and the way the company talks about itself. It also made the sales motion much cleaner. When you are not the cheapest option in the market, you stop wasting time with buyers who are shopping on price, and you start having real conversations with buyers who care about uptime, durability, and what happens when something goes wrong at 2am in a remote location.

“Disaster response was kind of our first niche”

New Use Energy did not find disaster response through market research. The co-founder connected early on with an individual who had started an NGO specifically to offset fossil fuel use after natural disasters. That relationship gave the company its first real use case, its first customers, and the brand identity it still builds on today.

Disaster response remains the company’s largest revenue segment, split across three areas: the NGO space, government emergency management agencies, and corporate philanthropy through volunteer programs. Each comes with different procurement dynamics, but the underlying value proposition is the same. A solar and battery system that works as long as the sun is out, requires no fuel supply chain, and can be carried into places a gas generator cannot go.

The other two verticals, film and live events, and military applications, came through relationships rather than campaigns. An investor knew a filmmaker. A connection opened a door into the defense space. Lee is direct about this: it is who you know, or who you meet. The discipline is in deciding which doors to walk through and which ones to leave closed.

The company had opportunities in RVs and golf carts. Both were real. Neither was high-value. They passed. That kind of focus is harder than it sounds when you are a small company looking at any revenue that presents itself, but Lee frames it as the defining discipline of the business.

The proof of concept for where New Use Energy can go is already in their field portfolio. In Ukraine, their systems power operating rooms inside hospitals, dialysis machines, and anesthesia pumps. That is the market Lee is pointing at: not the places where clean power is a nice-to-have, but the places where it is the only viable option.

“Timing is everything”

Lee spent time as a real estate developer before entering the energy industry, and the lesson he carried forward is that a good conversation does not equal a ready buyer. Interest and readiness are different things, often separated by months or years. In a market where the buying cycle is long and the purchase is high-stakes, the job is to stay visible until their timing aligns with yours.

He describes a pattern that most B2B salespeople recognize. A great conversation at a conference. A follow-up call the next week that goes unanswered. Three more attempts, no response. The instinct is to move on. His view is that moving on is exactly the wrong call if the original interest was genuine. The prospect may simply not be ready yet, and if you disappear from their radar entirely, you will not be there when they are.

CRM discipline is the practical answer. New Use Energy is still building out its systems, integrating sales and marketing with an ERP rollout. Lee is candid that there is room to improve. But the concept is clear: maintain presence without becoming noise. Stay in the relationship long enough that when the timing finally clicks, you are the company they remember.

Trade shows and face-to-face events are central to this motion. Lee is heading to an NGO disaster relief conference the day after the podcast records. The goal is not just to find new customers. A referral from a credible organization that already trusts the product is often worth more than a direct sale, because it transfers credibility to every conversation that follows.

“We are the guys who are there”

That is the brand in one sentence. New Use Energy is not trying to build a brand around abstract clean-energy claims. It is built around proof. The message is that this gear shows up when conditions are hard and power matters.

That story gets stronger because the visuals are real. Every image on the website and social channels uses real people in real situations. No AI-generated imagery, no models posing with gear they have never used. Lee is clear that authenticity is not just a value position for the brand.Buyers in disaster response, military procurement, and professional film can tell when a brand is performing versus when it is demonstrating.

The company builds visibility through:

  • social content

  • field photos and video

  • trade shows

  • partner referrals

  • hands-on demos

The company’s most ambitious brand asset is a 24-minute short film shot in Hollywood entirely on battery power, using New Use Energy’s systems alongside a larger partner’s product. The behind-the-scenes interviews capture the cast and crew’s reactions to shooting a full production without a single gas generator.

The film premiered at Amazon Studios on Earth Week and has been circulating at film festivals since, including a Montana screening coming up in June. It is content that proves a claim most buyers in that vertical would otherwise be skeptical of.

On the digital side, the company uses AI tools to monitor the kinds of questions potential buyers are asking online, allowing the marketing team to position content where real conversations are already happening. LinkedIn is the primary B2B channel. But Lee also notes that some of their most interesting traction has come from unexpected platforms, including Reddit, where highly specific communities discuss exactly the kind of compliance-driven, mission-critical power needs New Use Energy solves.

“The lowest customer acquisition cost is for the one you already have”

The growth lever Lee is most focused on right now is deepening the relationships and channels the company already has. That includes deeper distributor relationships, stronger partner sales, and more repeat use through rentals and demos.

The company is also building out across the portable power spectrum through alliances with companies at adjacent size ranges, from trailer-mounted systems to 20-foot shipping container deployments with full solar arrays and battery banks. The goal is to be able to cover the entire spectrum of what a customer might need without competing with the partners serving different segments.

Rentals are a particular focus. They lower the barrier for a first engagement, let buyers experience the product under real conditions, and create a natural path to purchase. In a market where buyers are still learning to trust a new technology, reducing the commitment required for a first transaction is a meaningful growth lever.

So the path ahead is practical and disciplined: build on real use, grow through trusted channels, stay focused on high-value professional buyers, and keep turning field proof into broader market credibility. That is how a product stops being interesting and starts becoming standard.

Explore more ideas and practical advice on this topic.

Catch the full conversation with Lee Feliciano on The HEX-Files, HexaGroup’s energy marketing podcast for leaders who want real results.

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