Scale Like a CEO
Join host Justin Reinert as he sits down with founders who’ve navigated the jump from do-it-all entrepreneur to strategic CEO. Each episode uncovers the key milestones, hard-won insights, and practical tactics you need to build a high-performing leadership team, overcome decision fatigue, and scale your business with confidence. Tune in weekly for quick, actionable conversations designed to accelerate your path to CEO mastery.
Scale Like a CEO
Scaling Success & Sober Buzz: An Inspiring Journey with Josh Case
When personal transformation meets entrepreneurial vision, remarkable things happen. Josh Case, CEO and co-founder of SoberBuzz, exemplifies this powerful combination as he channels his business scaling expertise into building a global recovery community that's changing lives daily.
Fresh from rehab and newly sober since July 2024, Josh and his wife Heidi transformed their recovery journey into a platform that resonates with authenticity. "We're real, raw and authentic," Josh explains, describing how sharing their most vulnerable stories has connected them with followers across 43 countries. What began as a personal hobby has exploded into a community of 90,000 followers across social platforms, supported by two podcasts that tackle the messy reality of recovery.
Josh brings unique credibility to scaling mission-driven organizations. Before SoberBuzz, he built and sold multiple energy companies, including deals with global powerhouses like EDF and Engie. The transition from solo founder to team leader taught him crucial lessons about letting go. "I had to learn to keep my fingers out of things and let the people that know more than me do things," he shares candidly. This evolution in leadership style—learning to trust specialists while maintaining the company vision—mirrors the growth journey many founders face.
Perhaps most valuable is Josh's insight into navigating conflict during high-stakes moments. When a major deal nearly collapsed due to partnership disagreement, outside mediators helped restore communication and save the transaction. This experience highlights the importance of conflict resolution mechanisms in any business relationship.
As SoberBuzz continues its remarkable growth trajectory, Josh plans to transform passion into sustainable impact through sponsorships and advertising. Connect with this transformative community on Instagram, Facebook, and X @SoberBuzzToken, on TikTok @SoberBuzz, or on YouTube @SoberBuzzPodcast to witness how business acumen combined with personal mission creates something truly extraordinary.
Welcome to Scale Like a CEO the podcast where we dive into the strategies and stories behind successful business scaling. Today we have an inspiring conversation with Josh Case, the CEO and co-founder of SoberBuzz. Josh has transformed his personal journey of recovery into a thriving online community that's changing lives across the globe. With a remarkable track record of building and scaling businesses in the energy sector, josh brings unique insights into what it takes to grow a mission-driven organization. Let's jump into the conversation.
Speaker 2:Josh, thank you so much for joining me on Scale Like a CEO To get us started. If you wouldn't mind, just give us a 90-second intro to you and the work that you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, justin, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Currently, I'm a co-founder and CEO of Sober Buzz. We're an online recovery community. My now wife we just got married about a week and a half ago. Heidi and I started it. We both went to rehab separate rehabs last year to get clean and sober, and we've been clean and sober since July 6th of 2024. And it really started as a hobby at first and then it's growing and then Heidi asked if she could be involved and start making things and we're up to about 90,000 followers and subscribers across all social platforms. We have two podcasts now and post daily on Instagram X, facebook, youtube and Pinterest and TikTok.
Speaker 2:That's great. Well, congratulations on the recent wedding and building the business. I'm curious what's the unique thing that you're solving through Soberbuzz?
Speaker 3:So we say we're real, raw and authentic. We pretty much lay it all out there. We've told some pretty embarrassing stories about ourselves and we're real and honest about what got us sober and what life is like in recovery. We also have Spreading the Good Buzz, which is Heidi and I, and we usually have guests on that show. And then we also have Swarm Up, which is Heidi, me and Cassie, and I went to rehab with Cassie and she's our director of marketing and on that show we talk about the daily struggles and highlights and wins and losses during recovery and how we deal with those things. Addicts many times leave a trail of destruction behind them. So once you get sober there's a lot of cleaning up to do and the three of us, to different extents, have cleaning up to do and we talk about those type of things. How are those things going? So it's been very relatable. We have followers in over 43 countries and, yeah, it is everywhere we like to say we cross cultures and we have no international boundaries.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. We're bored. That's incredible, and I'm sure you're doing great work in helping people kind of navigate those new journeys. Well, you're not new to founding companies. You've founded some companies in the past and one of the things I like to focus on in the podcast is just kind of scaling successful businesses, and so I'd love to talk a little bit about the businesses that you founded in the past and maybe, as you went from kind of founder to growing the business, what are some of the challenges that you faced?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I left Bank of America Merrill Lynch back in 2011. Yeah, so I left Bank of America Merrill Lynch back in 2011. Co-founded a company called Energy Capital Group it was me and four investors Developed a solar project out by the Intermountain Power Plant, a plant that powers LA, pasadena, glendale, burbank, anaheim and Riverside and central Utah. It's got an HVDC line that goes directly to California and that was bought by EDF, which is a global Fortune 500 company. And then I consulted for them for a few years and then got involved with another French company, photosol, and that's where I built the company that had a big exit. We'll call it. It was just me at first and Photosol wanted to get into the US market for solar development and I ended up partnering with them on a project called the Four Corner Solar Center, which was really three projects at three different points of interconnection. And I had some other projects in Nebraska, texas, alabama that I contributed to the JV.
Speaker 3:We decided we wanted to build a platform, so we started hiring people. We decided we wanted to build a platform, so we started hiring people and by the end, when we sold, we had 13 employees full-time and we had several independent 1099 contractors that were basically working full-time for us but they were doing consulting. We went from no employees to 13. When we sold to Engie, which is also a global Fortune 500 company out of France as well, I noticed all my business dealings typically go back to Paris, but when we sold to them it was one of the biggest pipeline deals for solar and battery storage in the industry in like the recent five years and that deal closed in March of 2022. And then we sold three projects the contracted projects that had power purchase agreements to DE Shaw Desiree, which is one of the largest private equity funds that own power generating facilities in America.
Speaker 2:That's an incredible track record that you have. I'm curious, you know, when you between these various companies as you went from founder to starting to build your team, what did you learn, maybe even from the first company to the next? What did you learn about how to successfully start building a team around yourself as a founder?
Speaker 3:about how to successfully start building a team around yourself as a founder. Yeah, so I was doing it all myself until we founded Photosol, us Renewable Energy, in May of 2019. So I had to learn to let go and let others do the work and trust that it'll be done right. And I got good at knowing a lot about a lot of things, but not in like deep. So I was hiring now more specialists in like development, specialists in interconnection, specialists in you know, biological, environmental work, which I was managing all before. But now I was in a position that I could bring on the specialists to do that. So I had to learn to keep my fingers out of things and let the people that know more than me do things, and that was, I'll be honest, that was hard at first because I did it. I didn't have the engineering degree, if you will, but I knew how interconnection worked and I know how to read a single line drawing, but now I have an expert that can make them right, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's whenever I'm talking to founders about growing a company. Especially in those beginning phases, it's really hard to let go and let others do things. I'm curious how did you, how did you figure out kind of the best way to let go of things?
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, I mean, it got to the point where I'm traveling all the time. Right, I'm going to Paris six weeks or so. I'm traveling around the country signing land deals, going back to New York for financing deals. So this thing has gotten big, right, it's not just me going out signing land, getting interconnection and then bringing in a development partner. We're developing the projects in-house, hopefully too. The goal is to COD NTP Notice to Proceed for Construction. We had 22 projects 25 if you count the SELDA, ddsha and NG together and a developer a good developer is managing three to six projects by themselves, right? So it would be impossible for me to do what I do on that scale. So I had no choice but to bring and divvy up the pipeline so we could be successful, because if I just did it then I would start messing up. There's just too many cats to corral, if you will, with that many projects. I had no choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. There definitely comes a point where you just absolutely can't do it all. I'm curious then, as you added to the team and you were hiring new team members, what were some of the key qualities that you were looking for when you were bringing new people on?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So in development you're dealing you're the face of the company with the local public. You have commission meetings, you're meeting with landowners, so you've got to have somebody that's personable, somebody that can. You're going and meeting with farmers in the Midwest Texas ranchers. You need somebody that can relate to a lot of different types of people. You don't show up in a suit when you go talk to a rancher about their land, right, you just gotta have self-awareness. You know presentation skills, obviously, because you're presenting to school boards, county commissioners, pucs, presentations to utilities, trying to get power purchase agreements. So yeah, and also people that I trust. I ended up hiring quite a few people I knew in the industry that I had formed relationships with, and then we used headhunters for a few of the positions that we were trying to fill that weren't able to with our own contacts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's funny. It makes me think about the whole kind of you can't wear a suit out onto the ranch. There was a reverse kind of experience that I've had with someone where. So I'm in Chicago, was working for a tech company at the time and we had hired a new sales person who was from Texas and was would represent that region or sell in that region, and he showed up to our office in cowboy boots and in Chicago that's just not something you see very often and we're like what he's right, this guy's wearing cowboy boots, like what the heck? But then we had a discussion about it and we said that's actually probably what his clientele is used to. Like they're going to be used to seeing people in cowboy boots, so it's all right, dress for the environment that you're going to be operating in.
Speaker 3:What's funny is at the office we had cowboy boot Wednesday. That's where you were cowboy boots to the office, and yeah so.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that you know. I'm curious if you can think about a time when you were maybe overwhelmed by decision making and you know what strategies did you implement to overcome that. You know that overwhelm that many founders get to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we were coming up the deal with Engie financial close, for the deal was coming up on a Monday and it was a Friday night and it looked like the deal was going sideways. So you know my partner Robin, he's in Paris, I'm flying home from Chicago and I got home late and there was a few issues with the. It had popped up that we had to quickly get together and resolve. And unfortunately, you know my partner Robin and I, he and I didn't see eye to eye on it. So we had a little argument Financial investment banker at BNP Paribas and one of our attorneys. You know we don't want to talk to each other.
Speaker 3:It's Saturday morning, right, we're ticked off at each other, but you know they talked to both of us and get us to agree to get on a phone call with each other and I I wanted to do the deal the way it was and not not have it change, because we were. It was a new ask on our side, so it was a new ask on our side, so it was a legitimate ask. But it was 48 hours away from closing, right, and a year earlier we had a deal fall through like the night before, so we had to start all over. So I'm worried that you know we're going to have to do this again and it's exhausting to go through due diligence and run a process with, like all these major companies around the world and all these you're doing.
Speaker 3:It's during COVID, so we're doing zoom calls like all the time, so so we get on the call and you know it's silent for like two minutes and then Thomas BNP, he goes Okay, josh, say hi to Robin. Now Robin, you say hi to Josh, and then we started talking like it was no problem. He ended up backing off. We just went with the deal we had and it closed. But that was probably the most difficult decision. Was I going to hold my ground on this or, you know, say all right, let's see what they say?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Do you think it was having kind of a you know mediator that helped you overcome this kind of blockage that you had? Or what's the one thing that got you to overcome this conflict? Because anyone who's in a partnership like this is likely going to face some kind of like stalemate in. No, I want to do it this way. What are we going to do, like what's the one key that got you past it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it was Thomas and Elliot getting involved and, and you know, we, rob and I, we had a great relationship. We never actually had a problem like this before. This was the first time we had anything like this and I think it was a lot to do with the stress of getting the deal done. And it was complicated. We had to get the contracted projects done with the Shaw first it was sequential, and then we would do the Engie deal. Then Ruby bought photo soul France. So there was a lot of the stars aligning and just a lot of pressure and in it took some cooler heads to to get us to come to breathe and and think rationally. Yeah, good, I think we're just frustrated and you know, not in the best, we just want to.
Speaker 2:Because I think we're just frustrated and you know not in the best, we just want to get the deals done. We're just stressed out, right? Yeah, well, one of the things that I want to pull out of that is something that I work with teams on. Often is talking about conflict and conflict resolution. Like how do you de-escalate something when the two parties are just not going to budge? And it's best to agree to that? And I don't know if you had done this or not, had kind of agreed who, who's the mediator? But to agree before conflict happens, like, hey, if we ever reach a point where we can't move forward, what, who, who's the person we go to to help us get unstuck, or what is the method we will use to get unstuck? Because if you hadn't had someone to help you get over that hump, who knows what would have happened on the on the other end? We probably would have yelled at each other.
Speaker 3:But I, but I, we, we had a great relationship. We still have a great relationship. So I think we would have got past it. But it would think we would have got past it, but we would have beat each other up a little bit, if you will. Yeah, if Thomas and Elliot didn't get involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so back to Servered Up Buzz. What's the future look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this has obviously turned into something that we weren't expecting at first. Now we have a podcast and we were approached by production companies to do the podcast. It wasn't. I'd thought about doing one in the future. I didn't think we'd have this many followers in two or three years. So the next step is we've got a kind of a pitch deck fact sheet. We're going to be starting looking for sponsors and advertisers, because this is turning into a full-time job for the three of us and we enjoy it. We want to keep doing it. I think we're on our 19th episode between the two shows, and 1% of podcasts get packed to the 21st episode. So we're doing pretty good. We're getting views. We're getting hours on YouTube, so that's. The next thing is to figure out how to monetize it and with selling ad space and sponsorships, great.
Speaker 2:Great Well, Josh. Thank you again for joining me. Congratulations on the recent wedding, Congratulations on the growth of Sober Buzz. If folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to reach out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, soberbuzz. If folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to reach out? Yeah, so we're on Instagram and Facebook and X all at SoberBuzzToken. We're on TikTok at Sober Buzz, and then we're on YouTube at SoberBuzzPodcast. And then I'm on LinkedIn Josh Case, easy to find, and then my email is jc at joshcasecom.
Speaker 2:Great. Well, Josh, thank you so much for the time today. I enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it, justin, thank you for having me on.