# INTERVIEW | Make Money by Finding Problems No One Else Will Solve with Owen Barrett

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/travis-makes-money-756579/interview-make-money-by-finding-problems-no-one-else-will-solve-with-owen-barrett
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/travis-makes-money-756579/interview-make-money-by-finding-problems-no-one-else-will-solve-with-owen-barrett.md
Podcast: [Travis Makes Money](https://stenobird.com/podcast/travis-makes-money-756579)
Published: 2026-05-13T08:15:00+00:00
Episode link: https://prefix.up.audio/s/pdrl.fm/d318d2/mgln.ai/e/211/traffic.megaphone.fm/TNM5890782717.mp3?updated=1778444569
Audio file: https://prefix.up.audio/s/pdrl.fm/d318d2/mgln.ai/e/211/traffic.megaphone.fm/TNM5890782717.mp3?updated=1778444569
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Duration seconds: 1590

## Resource

Owen Barrett is the founder of a solar company that has generated over $50 million in revenue in just three years. Before building his solar empire, Owen spent a decade in the energy efficiency space, eventually discovering a massive gap in the multifamily real estate market: operators were ignoring solar as a value-add strategy. After trying and failing to convince syndicators to adopt solar, Owen bought his own apartment buildings, proved the model worked, built proprietary software to eliminate complexity, and then sold the solution back to the industry. On this episode we talk about: Owen's journey from failed businesses (recycling, nonprofit soccer equipment) to building a multi-million dollar lighting company How he identified a major blind spot in multifamily real estate investing: solar as an untapped value-add strategy Why decreasing operating expenses by $100K can increase property value by $2 million in multifamily The technical challenge of installing and monitoring 300 individual solar systems on a single apartment building Building proprietary software to automate billing, monitoring, and maintenance for tenant-meter solar installations Top 3 Takeaways Find problems you've experienced firsthand and solve them. Owen's most successful businesses came from identifying inefficiencies he encountered personally—whether it was wasted soccer equipment in college, unused grant money in California schools, or ignored energy costs in multifamily real estate. For every dollar you increase net operating income (NOI) in multifamily, you increase property value by roughly $20. Solar installations can slash operating expenses by $100K+, creating $2M+ in instant equity without the headache of traditional unit renovations. If you can't convince people, prove it yourself fi…

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