Two years ago, Justin Lopas and Zach Dell founded Base Power. In the summer heat, they started knocking on doors, hauling batteries up driveways, and convincing homeowners to let an unknown startup install power systems in their homes. In just the last month, Base installed over 20 MWh across 3 markets, opened a Next‑Gen factory in Austin, Texas, and raised $1B to advance their mission.
Base was our first investment at Terrain. Since then, we’ve worked both as investors and close partners. What we’ve seen up close is a natural rhythm born of ownership, constant learning, and a distinctive pride in work that we now refer to as Base Pace.
Base Pace is not performative speed or “locking in,” it is a constant baseline. Organizations with high Base Pace learn faster and accomplish more. Here’s how to achieve it:
1. Start with the end state
At Terrain, we work with founders who call their shot. They start by asking: when all is said and done, what should the world look like? Base’s answer is foundational for America’s future: abundant energy for all.
When talent can choose between seven-figure packages or putting humans on Mars, your mission has to matter. Base’s end state is ambitious enough to attract the best, tangible enough to explain at the Thanksgiving table, and specific enough to guide daily choices. It’s lived every day, not filed away. A north star that stays fixed while tactics evolve.
2. Break the end state into ambitious parallel paths
Base deconstructed this vision into three equally important tracks: residential energy, grid-scale solutions, and regulatory transformation; each owned by a leader who could found a company. Alumni of SpaceX, Tesla, Starlink, and Anduril run their domains like parallel ventures aimed at one finish line.
3. Ship the smallest unit of progress possible
Inspired by SpaceX’s cadence, Base focused on the smallest atomic units of learning, for each path: one installation, one conversation, one kWh traded. They refused to let planning theater or perfecting slide decks delay field time.
Early on they installed systems one by one, learning through hardware misses and regulatory friction. When a major storm opened Houston, they launched quickly while others would have waited for “readiness.” They shipped to learn, not to look perfect.
The results are that while similar companies would likely just be launching their first product, Base is already on Gen 3, incorperating all of their learnings along the way.
4. Leaders set strategy and get in the weeds
Fast organizations preserve information fidelity top to bottom. Leaders reviewed site surveys, sold door‑to‑door, drove trucks, and installed hardware. The people deciding what to do also touched how it actually worked—so context stayed warm and decisions sharp.
The early team worked from a converted house that doubled as an install site and lab. It was scrappy, the lights sometimes flickered, but it kept everyone close to the ground. Hands-on work builds intuition: servicing customer needs, wiring systems, and working alongside crews.
Stay in the weeds as long as it meaningfully improves the quality of your bets, and the quality of delegation with intact context.
5. Create organizational pressure through parallel execution
When multiple teams build toward one end state, no one wants to be the bottleneck. Base made the pressure visible: a small turtle figurine sits with the team most likely to slow the chain. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows why. It’s lightweight and memorable accountability.
Each function feels the others’ pull. Sales can’t overpromise what operations can’t deploy. Operations can’t deploy what supply hasn’t secured. Trading can’t optimize what isn’t installed.
That tension drives outcomes. Marketing, where Willem has worked closely over the last year, shipped campaigns that teams 10x the size struggle to match. In parallel, regulatory turned compliance into an advantage; Texas retail energy licensing became a moat through speed.
The compound effect
Roughly two years ago, Base was notes and spreadsheets. Today, they’ve put 100+ MWh into the ground, passed meaningful state legislation, built U.S. manufacturing capacity, established utility relationships, and created a brand competitors struggle to match.
Fast companies attract fast people. When your organization learns in weeks what others learn in years, the highest performers want in. And when you’re running next to top performers, you naturally pick up the pace. Ultimately, in markets with constant change, a culture of learning faster than everyone else is a durable advantage.
A challenge to the next generation
Every ambitious founder should study Base. Not to mimic tactics, your atomic unit of progress will differ, but to challenge the conventional wisdom of how long things “should” take.
Base is proving this is possible. They’ve shown that a two-year-old company can shape markets, influence policy, and compress cycles from years to weeks—not by moving fast and breaking things, but by learning and building at Base Pace.
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Watch out interview with Base Power CEO Zach Dell here and view the entire newspaper and the JOIN THE CHARGE announcement at BaseAmerican.com.