I think I have never been so proud to lead a company as under-performing as ours. Lytefire is a generous bet and one that is increasingly supported by women. And the more I move forward, the more this bet embodied by our small team strengthens my conviction that generous companies have everything to create, and they’ll shape the future.
Simplicity and clarity
When we manage to structure a real and super-useful technical breakthrough while keeping it simple as a guarantee of its steadiness, we know that we are working with clarity. Sometimes there are trials and errors, of course, as with any pioneering project attempting to redefine many things while moving forward in the reality of a changing world. But in the end clarity leads. The clarity of who does what and how things are done. And it is in this clear context that exchanges, support and generosity flow best because both clarity and simplicity contribute to empowerment.
Take a close look at how toxic industries were built, their dominant model, their protectionism and their stacks of secrets, their centralization and their energies and you will immediately understand what I mean. This clarity is an important element of the low-tech spirit or of the open source mindset which inspired us and to which we contribute in our own way. These are elements that are found in all social enterprises. It seems to us that what is important is to build bridges, dialogue and cooperation, not through dogma, dreams or marketing but through the simple power of the tool.
So, Lytefire is providing clean energy without anyone overruling or dominating anyone, without trend or buzz, without techy gadgets, without centralization nor destruction of natural resources. It is a large device that provides access to clean and free energy to anyone. Our customers purchase the price of materials and labor. Our margins ensure the sustainability of our jobs, salaried or not, so that this bet is maintained in all its alignment. Because as I was saying to an inspiring woman entrepreneur, our hard-won privileges are meaningful as long as they serve the community by forging more social justice.
A poet said it very well in The Wonder and the Obscure: “Today we praise the merits of the entrepreneur, the virtues of the industrial leader. We forget too much that he who wants to reign over things must inevitably begin by reigning over the men who will make these things. To triumph in business is always to triumph over others, to enrich oneself from their defeat. » Christian Bobin
Useful to the community
We are not interested in triumph. We are passionate about service as much as cooperation. To achieve this, we must constantly align ourselves by working on our beliefs and our obstacles. But that’s what drives generous enterprise: putting all resources at the service of the common good.
Our common good, we know this so well, is our common house, this planet, the one that has been burning for so many years while we have looked elsewhere, as a French president pointed out at the 2022 Earth Summit.
This house made of water, soil, trees and plants, animals and micro-insects, bacteria, and all the energies that we are, this gorgeous house surrounded by a certain atmosphere in relation to the sun, among other factors.
So can a solar oven be a lever for change in this ecosystem currently devoured by greed, corruption and so much suffering?
This is our bet. Making a simple and powerful solar oven a tool for social justice. Each Lytefire installed and used has an impact on 11 Sustainable Development Goals. Clean energy, new ways of working, reduction in energy bills for wood, coal or electricity, more time when its use replaces wood collection, education in sustainable professions, strengthening of the local economy, local production… You can read more about our impact here.
Thus, we bring some value back where we have lost sight of it: among women, farmers, villagers, artisans and small entrepreneurs in all sunny regions. That is to say those who have long been judged as “non-performing” because they are too often invisible in all the podiums of competitive performance.
We believe that if every being has value, then every being deserves to have access to the same rights, to the same opportunities. And that includes access to an abundant clean and free energy to power an activity.
There are therefore no people from 2nd, 3rd or 4th zones. Nor countries that are fundamentally more developed or happy than others.
However, we can see “in reality” that there are rich people and poor people. More or less comfortable and happy countries. Some people who really care and some who do not. And countries that are sunnier than others.
From these observations, we draw conclusions about entire groups of people throughout the year. And often, surprise, these conclusions mean absolutely nothing “in reality”.
For example, this year again the Finns are “the happiest people in the world”, while alcoholism and suicide ravage this country like so many others. Or we learn, according to an infamous eugenics map shared by another formidable woman entrepreneur, that: “Africans have the lowest IQ in the world”, while we all know that the major obstacle to their prosperity come from colonialism. Or that: “There have always been poor people and there always will be”, whereas the wealth concentration in the hands of people who feel entitled to keep it all creates this.
There would be thousands of other examples, more or less shocking to share here. And we all live within hundreds of more or less rotten beliefs like that, with which we drag ourselves from century to century, from tradition to tradition, from family to family, from habit to habit. The belief that water necessarily comes from a tap. Or that only fuel can produce heat for cooking.
The belief that we would be superior because we perform well in a given context. The belief that we would be creative because we want to avoid being structured. The belief that we are intelligent because we create unnecessary complexities (a strong idea recently proposed by another great woman entrepreneur). The belief that we would be alone in taking risks while forgetting to see those that others have taken with us. The belief that it you who would be too sensitive when you are actually speaking to someone with no emotional intelligence. You see ?
Lytefire’s bet
The current multiple crises call on us all to urgently examine all of our acquired beliefs. It’s as uncomfortable as it needs to be. Well-designed marketing coupled with questionable performance is no longer enough. We have to reset our counters very regularly and it is essential that companies learn how to do this.
We, at Lytefire, are betting that we will succeed in making clean and free solar thermal energy accessible to the most socially vulnerable ( (check our model here). And we believe in it so much that we’ve been holding on for a decade against all the storms, with the maximum generosity and solidarity we have been capable of.
Being vulnerable is a difficult condition and never chosen. It’s difficult everywhere and for billions of people. It’s getting even more and more difficult.
But if we have a small chance of bringing value back where there hasn’t been any for a long time. If we can ensure a little more local stability. If we can pollute a little less. And if a group of women surprise themselves by not needing anyone to build their solar equipment. Then we must take this as an opportunity and embrace the dynamic of change. The stronger ones should take their responsibility and protect the vulnerable ones. It is through simplicity and generosity that we can create bridges of understanding, respect and solidarity. Let us place, for example, a Kenyan solar baker on the same rank as a French solar baker. Because although their environments are different, they share the same needs under the same sun.
To meet the beautiful and diverse Lytefire users, go here.
Eva Wissenz, April 6th 2024
