Introducing: The Real Deal

We won’t lie - we’re nervous. We are are aggressively pursuing an idea - one that is very big and challenging - in a space we are just now learning. But we are working hard, applying our knowledge and skill and experience and “stick-to-it-iveness”. And we’re confident.

Let’s GO.

Welcome to our newsletter: “The Real Deal.” If you’re receiving this, you either already know us, or you met us somewhere this year at a Boston-area climate/energy/ technology/startup event.

First off: Everyone receiving this has met us in person or online. Thank you for your time and willingness to allow us into your busy lives for just a few minutes each week.

Introductions.

We’re Melissa and Tony Belden, and we wanted to do something new and different. We wanted to pursue our dream to build a business, and make an impact.

You likely met us under the “working” business name: Zengo Tech Holdings. Since forming that company and getting involved in another venture, we’ve decided to pursue a new idea we’ve developed:

GetReal.Earth.

The short story: We bought into a tech company helping heat pump installers design better residential systems and price them in the home. This fed our enduring yet uninformed interest in clean energy and climate tech, which began to mature over the last 18+ months.

Thirsting for more, we went to MIT, Tufts, New York, South Carolina, Florida and events all over New England in the last year, meeting experts in all areas of Climate and Energy. We learned a lot. Here are our three main observations:

1. This market is maturing rapidly. New inventions are born and companies are forming every day. There is LOTS OF ENERGY AND OPTIMISM!

2. Awareness is growing but knowledge is lacking about how to combine resources and create opportunities for people to solve problems while earning a living (the ultimate balance).

3. The only thing sparser than resources is the time we have to make a difference.

We concluded that we seem as a collective society to have crested the “awareness” wave and we’re starting to find ways to take “action.”

Getting Real = Turning awareness into action.

People need access to information, resources, knowledge, money…

That’s the issue we want to help fix.

And in September of 2024, we changed our name legally to GetReal.Earth LLC. 😀 

Since this is our very first newsletter, and we aren’t assuming that everyone reading this just wants to hear us talk about ourselves, we’ve decided to structure the weekly publication this way:

1. First, we’ll provide a brief but salient update on our progress (this section you’re reading), including observations, what we’ve learned and seen, and how we’re applying it to what we’re doing.

2. A brief update with our takes on something relevant in the space (this week we provide a brief synopsis of Tesla’s “big reveal” of the Robotaxi, which had a lot more to do with Elon Musk’s vision than any products he showed).

3. We’ll tie together and share some other interesting info we’re seeing, doing, working on, reading, listening to…

Our aim is to be crisp and resonate for those who want to progress beyond hand-wringing and find solutions to problems, get involved, learn.

I have about eight subjects listed out for the first two months. I’m very excited.

Moving on to section 2. 🙂 

It Happened This Week: WOW — Elon Musk Is Not Selling Us Cars

Tesla announced some new products this past week. In case you didn’t know about it or see the Robotaxi video, here’s my take.

There is no doubt that Elon Musk evokes, lets say, mixed responses, but he does have a certain way of saying things that can jar people awake. And many of them he seems to deliver by mistake. Here’s what he said on Thursday, 10 October, during Tesla’s Robotaxi reveal, called “We, Robot.”

“THE FUTURE SHOULD LOOK LIKE THE FUTURE”

I loved that.

Under our feet, right now, Elon and people like him are creating a new future.

(TL;DR “too long; didn’t read” - Elon is really a futurist laying out his vision, not someone just selling products. He is less concerned about clean energy than modernizing society, which he seems to view as a means to an end. But he is a visionary, a pioneer, and someone who understands the American spirit, which we sometimes forget. We do stuff and we don’t give up. We solve problems. We dream. We build. Can we again?)

Tesla’s events are… just different. Years ago, the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer decided to market through digital advertising and word of mouth. Only in recent years have they begun to spend on digital advertising – about $6.4 Million in 2023, a year they raked in $96.8 BILLION in revenue.

To help to help put this in perspective, General Motors’ marketing budget was $6.5 Billion.

What Tesla knows: Electrification, AI, solar, automobiles and robotics… As for PR and events… watch the video for yourself, but if you don’t have time, here are some quick takeaways.

• The car itself is essentially a simplified EV that is driverless. You can see it here.

• At one point in his disjointed 15-minute presentation, given at Universal Studios in LA on a made-over futuristic city set, Elon shared some “before and after” aerial images of urban icons. One of them was Dodger Stadium:

• Elon shared little beyond the basic specs and pricing (about $30K per car – available for private sale “by 2026”). He stuck mostly to altruistic or even idealistic views of a robot- and self-driving-filled future. Spoiler alert - the cars have no pedals or steering wheels…

• Stop me if this sounds familiar: A tech mogul speaking to his fans about a better life, showing off his new products in front of an adoring audience. It really was like watching Tony Stark (aka Iron Man, if you’re not into Marvel movies).  Fewer cars on the highways and in garages, more time to spend Not Driving, deep thinking, talking to friends, or reading. Less fossil fuel consumption. Fewer parking lots. Life is better. You know… The Future.

• It is apparent that Elon is not currently selling cars. I’m not even sure if he ever was. Oh - there was also something called the Robovan (he pronounced it Rub-OH-vin).

• At the end, a column of about 12 real Optimus robots walked into the theater, danced to club music, and served drinks to the crowd. There are rumors that the bots were controlled remotely, but no matter – the point was made.

Despite all the disappointment and next day’s massive Tesla stock drop…it seems like folks might be missing Elon’s point. Opinions, politics, delivery, how he spends his time, etc. aside, Tesla is a very profitable company. He’s not making what he is doing a secret. He doesn’t talk about clean energy. While the execution of the event was lacking, it is apparent that Musk is begging anyone who cares to remember that America builds. It’s in our DNA. He is trying to remind us of this.

We should be getting behind this optimistic view, because reducing carbon emissions is the goal, it’s not the means. WE GET THERE THROUGH INNOVATION. The future needs to look like the future. (See that? 😉)

Quick rundown on the video timeline (hint: advance the video to 52:45…before that point it’s graphics and music):

A Little More About Us

I’ll call myself “science adjacent.” Before last year, we had a lot of interest not much knowledge - which is what drove us to rent an AirBnB in Plattsburgh, NY six months in advance of the 2024 eclipse. We wanted to be in the Path of Totality, so that we could take this picture with my since-upgraded iPhone 12 Pro Max:

We stopped in Burlington, VT on the way home and grabbed a bite to eat:

We tend to notice things now that we didn’t before. On that day, the signs by the shore of the lake educated us about cyanobacteria blooms that are more prevalent when the lake doesn’t fully freeze - a problem affecting Champlain and lakes like it all over the northern US.

Lake Champlain has only “iced-in” three times in the last decade. This used to happen three out of every four winters.

After all our travels and Teams/Zoom/phone calls, we followed up with many of you, asking why the resources, tech, and ideas often do not come together. This sparked deeper conversations about overcoming these hurdles, and we’re excited to continue exploring these challenges with you.

And we knew for sure we were on to something when at least 30 people we spoke to said, “You’re on to something.”

That’s good enough for us. We hope you continue with us in our journey. We’ll keep you informed, try to keep things shorter and relevant.

In 2025, Getreal.earth will accelerate solutions for a changing planet through the power of human connection and collaboration. And — we’ll enable people to INNOVATE.

And do what society needs to do. Dream. Build.

Peace and Gratitude!

(PS: If you have any friends, colleagues, family who’d be interested in hearing from us about these things, we’ll be reaching out every Thursday and they can sign up here).