Letter to Potential investors
Dear future shareholder of Sunland America,
I’m building a new company.
A company that aligns with my unique skill set and the gale force tailwinds behind an entire industry.
What business am I starting?
A Solar farm development company.
I’ll get into the details and the reasons why, but first, a quick story…
The year was 1965, and 35-year-old Warren Buffett had just acquired a controlling stake in a New England textile manufacturer called Berkshire Hathaway.
For 3 years, Warren bought shares in the struggling company because he thought he could turn it around.
He put everything he had into it. Cash, resources, and talented management.
20 years of intense struggle followed.
He worked daily to improve the business.
But nothing seemed to work right. Revenue, profits, and cash flow kept decreasing.
Eventually, he shut down the textile business in 1985.
Rising labor costs, competition, and overseas manufacturing were too big to overcome.
Twenty years of grind…for nothing.
Warren calls this his $200 billion mistake.
The lesson: The right industry or opportunity is the most critical factor in business success.
Warren Buffett, the most successful investor ever, couldn’t make a business work in the wrong industry.
But the right industry? This was his secret sauce.
Insurance, consumer goods, and financial services created unimaginable wealth for himself and his investors.
It’s easy to see what worked in the past. But how do you know the right opportunity NOW?
It’s staring us in the face.
Businesses make money by solving problems. And we have a BIG problem in the US.
Roughly 60% of our electricity comes from coal and gas.
We’re continuously digging up stuff out of the ground and burning it to produce electricity.
It’s expensive, dirty, and pretty bad for the environment.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Solar farms can replace dirty fossil fuels.
Solar energy is renewable and produces electricity when the sun shines.
Install panels in a large field one time, and it produces electricity for decades.
Each year, solar panel costs go down, and efficiency goes up.
Solar is now the cheapest way to produce electricity.
And we’re going to need a lot of cheap electricity to power our modern economy.
Things like electric cars, AI data centers, robots, and more will be powered by electricity.
We need more power. That power should be renewable.
The federal, state, and local governments understand this.
And they’re not just talking. They’re using legislation to coerce developers and investors to build solar farms.
In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law which gives massive incentives to develop solar farms.
What incentives, you ask?
Anywhere from a 30 to 60% tax credit for the cost to develop a project.
This means that the cost to build a solar farm is immediately discounted by 30-60% for simply breaking ground.
These tax credits are tradeable and can be sold to investors at nearly full value.
But that’s not all. You can depreciate the project over 5 years, furthering its appeal to investors.
The states want these projects happening within their borders. These programs make a huge difference and are hard to ignore.
These factors combine to serve up a once-in-a-generation business opportunity on a silver platter.
Federal and state governments are yelling at us with a huge megaphone saying: “build solar here”
The legendary investor Ray Dalio once said, “When the government hands out subsidies and tax incentives, it’s like placing signposts pointing investors toward the future.”
I see the signposts, and the signals are clear.
There’s an enormous opportunity to develop solar farms.
But there are a few ways you can do this.
This business model with the biggest potential return is called early-stage development.
As an early-stage developer, we’ll get the project approved but won’t build the project.
There’s a huge pent-up demand to buy these shovel-ready projects.
And we’re poised to take advantage.
For the past 4+ years, I’ve been building an industry-leading land investment business.
We’ve bought and sold thousands of acres of land in over 25 states.
We’ll plug in our proven land acquisition system to find land for solar projects.
Then we go through the steps to get these properties approved for a solar farm.
When the project is fully approved, we’ll sell it to a developer who will build the project.
In the right states, shovel-ready projects are sold for millions of dollars (without even breaking ground).
How do we get the projects approved?
Hire the right people who have been there and done that.
They know exactly what it takes to get a project approved.
We’ll offer great incentives such as remote work, a desirable salary, and company equity to attract the right people.
I know what you’re thinking, “If this is such a great idea, why isn’t everyone doing it?”
Companies are doing this. And some are doing very well.
But there’s a big barrier to entry to starting a solar development company.
It generally takes 12+ months before you bring in ANY revenue.
This means you’re paying for employees, overhead, engineers, attorneys, application fees, land deposits, and more for a year without getting anything back.
In other words, you’re spending a lot of cash.
Unless you’ve got deep pockets or funding, it’s a non-starter.
While cash can be a roadblock, it also presents an opportunity.
An opportunity to build a valuable business, share the ownership and the tremendous upside potential.
We’re building a company of substantial value with the plan to sell in 3 to 5 years.
The $2 million in seed funding will allow us to hire great staff and fund the development of many projects.
These funds will build a professional company with a large pipeline of lucrative projects.
As projects are approved, we’ll sell them for considerable amounts.
This will fuel further growth of the company and the pipeline.
The bigger the growth, the bigger the exit.
The opportunity is clear to me.
Maybe you can see the vision, too, and are willing to take a calculated risk.
Interested?
Let’s talk.
Just book a call here, and we’ll meet to see if it’s a good fit.
Best Regards,
Pete Reese
Founder Sunland America
P.S. Thanks for reading my thoughts. If you want some more insight into how I am building Sunland America, see the following articles I wrote:
How I am building a team of A players
How we’re building a company with the intent to sell it.
The modern company structure
My competitive advantage in solar development
Why Illinois is a great place for community solar farms (gardens)
Solar farm development tax credits, depreciation, and incentives that can’t be ignored
What’s my role in the new company I’m building?
