Dan Bates & Rebel Energy - From Near Disaster to 1,000 Customers a Week

Grow My Business Or Sell It

Dan Bates is part of a very exclusive club – he’s the CEO of an alternative energy provider who survived the carnage in the market caused by the wholesale price explosion in late 2021. In fact the company he founded, Rebel Energy, has come out of the energy crisis in better shape than ever and is winning more than 1,000 new customers a week. He’s on a mission to end fuel poverty as well as restoring the planet while making great returns for the small band of private investors who funded the launch of Rebel Energy.

Dan is something of a gamekeeper turned poacher as he gave up a senior role in BP to launch Rebel Energy. He tells us about his corporate life and how things changed when he decided to jump ship and start a new company from scratch after 18 years.
I suggest it's a bit unfair that companies like BP are being demonized simply for providing the energy that the Western world needs to sustain its economy and all of our lifestyles.

Dan describes the process he went through to take Rebel from the germ of an idea to a business ready to take on its first customers.

He very quickly decided that technology was going to play a key role in the Rebel Energy back office. He tells us why did and how he made it happen.

One of the more bizarre elements of the Rebel Energy story is how Dan and I met and how Beaufort Society became fundraiser-in-chief for Dan's company
They seemed to have done everything right. Great brand. Timely mission. Strong management team. Solid funding from a small cohort of private investors. Then they launch in August 2021 and all hell breaks loose two weeks later. Dan explains what happened and why was it so devastating for the newer players in the energy market.

I’ll never forget the phone call I got from Dan and the letter he was going to send the next day telling staff and investors that you were going to close the company. Dan talks us through what happened and how we turned the situation around.

Rebel re-entered the market in February 2022 with 50% fewer competitors and a lot of people who are disgruntled with the treatment they’ve been receiving from the Big 6. Dan talks about how the chain of events has left Rebel stronger than ever and winning almost
1,000 new clients every week.
Key to Rebel's growth is a scalable but cost effective infrastructure. Dan explains how this has been achieved without huge capital expenditure or staff recruitment.

What also impresses me about the Rebel Energy business plan is the holistic view they’ve taken of an energy provider's role. Dan talks about some of the partnerships Rebel has entered into and how they are even attracting attention at government level.

Looking two or three years out, Dan describes Rebel/s planned transition from energy provider to energy service provider.

Rebel’s a young company but one that has already had bigger players sniffing around. Dan discusses the likely exit strategy as Rebel goes from strength to strength.

Dan has packed a decade of business experience into a couple of years. I ask him to share the three most important lessons he's learned from this roller coaster ride.
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