Creating a force multiplier: cultivating super-champions for your climate startup

A champion is someone who loves your climate startup’s product, and is ready to talk about it with other people. But a Super Champion goes several notches further: they’re actually making things happen on your behalf and boosting your top line, whether that’s through marketing, sales, or fundraising. They might end up training users, advocating for you with their boss, or even speaking at conferences on your behalf – it’s all about figuring out what motivates them and rewarding them accordingly. Super champions have been instrumental in driving success at leading companies like Airbnb, driving revenue and investment for the founders at critical times.

Taylor Chapman is Principal at New Climate Ventures and previously built super-champions programs at 2 startups as an operator. We sat down with him to discuss seeking out your company’s Super Champions, the personas they tend to fall into, and how you can establish a fruitful program without it draining your time.

Where to look for your Super Champions 

Super Champions can come from anywhere, but you’ll need to have a good process to identify them – you can’t count on them approaching you. For clues about where your Super Champions might lie, look to your data. Who’s using your product the most? Who’s opening every email you send? Who replies directly to your quarterly updates with thoughtful input? Or, if you’re doing live or online events, read the room and scope out who’s the most engaged.

Reach out to these potential candidates, but remember that at this stage, it’s a numbers game – out of hundreds, only a dozen people might be a good fit. Don’t spend your time trying to convert those who aren’t.

Moving your Super Champions forward 

At the beginning, it’s OK for your relationship with your Super Champions to evolve organically and without a defined structure.  As Paul Graham famously pointed out, in the early days you SHOULD do “things that don’t scale” - and the AirBnB example he cites is a prototype of a Super Champions effort.  But as you scale, you’ll want to approach this process in a disciplined and resource-efficient way - to treat it as a program. That means creating a specific set of asks and offerings, and determining which of your Super Champions will be motivated by different things.  Ideally, you design it almost as a “game” to incentivize different types of champions. 

The power of personas

Start by figuring out three to five personas that your Super Champions will align with. Maybe there’s Helpful Helen who really enjoys helping her colleagues and customers learn and adopt something new; Tech-Bro Todd who wants to be seen as being two steps ahead on the latest tech; and Cash Calvin, who’s just interested in making more money.

Then, think about what tasks you want your Super Champions to do, which should overlap with what they’re likely to do. For instance, if they’re motivated by money, they may want to speak on your behalf at an industry event (where they can also collect sales leads), or beta-test a feature for you that allows for quicker processing of HVAC-installation payments. On the other hand, if they’re driven by a desire to be perceived as an innovator, they’ll be much more likely to write blog posts about your company to share with their online following, or be profiled on your web page. 

The right reward 

Then, you’ll need to think about what kind of perks will keep your Super Champions motivated. In some cases, it might be appropriate to reward them with cold hard cash, but in others this can be tricky, especially if they’re employed by someone else or by a customer. 

But beyond money, there are plenty of potential perks that can inspire your Super Champions. Swag – like mugs, t-shirts, or stickers – is often underappreciated as a motivator, especially for tech-forward people who will be keen to show off the close relationship they have with your business. 

Another tactic is offering your Super Champions membership to a private community – like a Facebook group, Discord, or Slack chat – made up of other members. Similarly, you can offer them an invite to exclusive Zoom calls with you and your co-founders. Or, give them visibility into the business that other people don't have – for instance by adding them to your investor update. 

Avoiding the pitfalls of Super Champions programs

1. When your personas work against you
The positive attributes of your personas potentially have a dark underside. For instance, if they're motivated by money, they might find a way to game the system in order to make more - juicing commissions to the detriment of customer experience. Similarly, if they’re recognition driven, will they move on to the next shiny thing in six months, or write a blog post unfavorably comparing you to your newest competitor? Knowing what the risks are for each of your personas will help you spot when they start to veer off course and help you address any issues quickly.

2. Don’t let it become a resource-suck 
Part of the benefit of taking a persona approach is saving huge amounts of time. Plus, hopefully your program will at least partly run itself, including if one of your incentives is joining a private community that’s populated by other Super Champions.

But throughout the process, you need to be disciplined with your time and conscious of how much resources you’re allocating to this program. Every few months, ask whether it’s working and if you’re getting back what you’re putting in.

Taylor Chapman is an operator + investor in mission-driven businesses.  At New Climate Ventures, he invests in decarbonization-focused companies, typically at the seed stage; NCV’s investments range from bioplastics to carbon management to climate-focused software. Taylor has been in the climate tech world since 2021, first as an angel investor, then as a Senior Fellow at Cascade Climate, before joining NCV.  Previously, he oversaw corporate VC and M&A at SEI, a publicly traded education conglomerate, and was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey’s NYC office.  He was also an operator at two VC-backed startups (Remind and NationSwell) in NYC and SF.