Patrick Walsh and Anish Thakkar are the co-founders of Sun King, the world's largest off-grid solar energy company. Over two decades they have brought solar power to more than 26 million homes across 46 countries, created work for more than 37,000 field agents, and extended over $1.7 billion in financing to customers most banks would never reach.
In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Patrick and Anish trace Sun King from its origins in a University of Illinois student project with Engineers Without Borders to a fully integrated company that designs its own hardware, runs its own village agent network, and finances customers through pay-as-you-go solar. They explain how a family living on a few dollars a day can unlock a solar system for about $5 down and $2 a week, why they built their own credit process for customers with no credit score, and how the same technology now serves everyone from off-grid villages to city households enduring twenty-hour blackouts.
They also go beneath the business: the first sale in a village in Uttar Pradesh, the mentor who wrote their first check, why they consider off-grid energy access only twenty percent solved, and what has kept their co-founder partnership intact for twenty years. Anish closes with a challenge to investors, to back the next generation of founders building from inside the communities they serve.
Anish joined the Unreasonable Fellowship in 2014 and Patrick in 2017 through the Unreasonable Impact program, run in partnership with Barclays.
(00:00) Introduction
(03:53) Where Sun King Started: Engineers Without Borders
(04:47) Why Moving a Home Off Kerosene Matters
(06:35) Solar's 40x Cost Collapse, and a Bigger Mission
(08:55) Anish's Aha: A Billion People Without Power
(11:01) Patrick to China, Anish to India
(12:41) The First Check: Cornering Prabha Sinha
(15:23) The First Sale: A Village in Uttar Pradesh
(17:48) Building Trust Through a Village Agent Network
(19:35) The Third Chapter: Purchase Financing
(21:04) How Pay-As-You-Go Solar Works
(24:43) Approving Credit in 10 Minutes, No Credit Score
(25:54) Beyond Solar: Financing Smartphones
(27:53) Patrick in China: Learning to Manufacture
(31:34) Necessity Forced Full Vertical Integration
(33:01) Quality, Breakage, and Reverse Logistics
(34:56) When Physical Sun King Stores Became Necessary
(37:54) Everything In-House, and Partnering for Refugee Camps
(39:57) A For-Profit Social Business and the Envelope of Impact
(41:12) Serving Both Ends: From $5 Lights to 5-Kilowatt Systems
(43:31) Blackouts, Diesel Generators, and an Emerging Climate Problem
(46:55) Twenty Years as Co-Founders: Why It Comes Down to Trust
(49:18) How You Actually Build Trust
(52:30) Is Sun King a Platform? How Far There Is to Go
(56:13) Staying Grounded and Avoiding Burnout, 20 Years In
(59:14) How to Get Involved: "Don't Fund Us, Fund Local Founders"
(63:34) Closing Reflections
(65:24) Addendum: An Ownership Opportunity for the Next Century
