Building energy coordination for food manufacturers.

Underscore is a technical founder (that's me) with a clear hypothesis about a massive market opportunity: food manufacturers in emerging nations lose enormous margins to unreliable electricity, expensive diesel, and zero visibility into energy availability. I've identified the technical approach to solve this. Now I need to bring it to life.

I'm not hiring employees. I'm recruiting co-founders. Two roles that are equally critical: an operator who can navigate industrial markets, build deployment partnerships, and shape the business; and a domain expert from food manufacturing who understands the problems deeply and can validate our solutions with customers.

This is early-stage. We'll prove the concept with the first bakery, mill, or cold storage deployment. We'll learn from that. We'll refine based on what we discover. Then we'll scale. If you want to build something from the ground up—with meaningful equity, real influence on direction, and the chance to solve a problem that affects millions—let's talk.

If you want to be a co-founder on this, let's talk.

The Two Co-Founder Roles I'm Recruiting

I'm seeking two co-founders to join me:

  • Co-Founder & Operator—experienced in scaling tech products and operations; lead business growth, partnerships, and food manufacturer market expansion (see role details below)
  • Co-Founder & Domain Expert—deep expertise in food manufacturing, bakeries, milling, cold chain, or production operations; shape product strategy and validate deployment opportunities (see role details below)

Co-Founder & Operator

The problem is brutal: food manufacturers in emerging nations face 10-15 hours of daily grid cuts, diesel costs 3-5x grid electricity, and zero visibility into energy availability. No software exists that solves this. We've identified the technical approach—constraint-based production scheduling that coordinates energy demand across multiple facilities. Now we need to prove it works in the real world.

We're seeking an experienced operator to join our technical founder and lead the company through its proof-of-concept and scaling phases. Your role: identify deployment opportunities with bakeries, mills, and cold storage operators; build partnerships that unlock early learnings; shape the commercial strategy that turns energy coordination into a platform with genuine network effects. You'll combine tech-sector scaling expertise with the ability to navigate complex industrial stakeholder ecosystems and learn rapidly from real deployments.

Who We're Looking For

  • Proven track record scaling tech products—you've taken something from proof-of-concept through multiple customer deployments
  • Real operating experience in hard markets—you understand how to navigate emerging market infrastructure, build partnerships with industrial operators, work around constraints
  • Stakeholder management—comfort navigating complex multi-party ecosystems (bakery operators, mill owners, energy providers, financing partners)
  • Think in systems and networks—you understand how network effects compound and why early deployments unlock value for all subsequent ones
  • Can recruit and build teams—you can attract exceptional people around a vision, not just a guaranteed paycheck
  • Comfortable with uncertainty—you know this is early-stage, unproven, and will require adaptation; you thrive on that, not despite it

Co-Founder & Domain Expert

You understand food manufacturing. You've worked inside bakeries, mills, or cold storage operations. You know how energy constraints destroy margins, how production schedules interact with power availability, how operators make impossible choices between running diesel at peak cost or accepting failed orders.

We've identified the technical approach to coordinate energy across these facilities. Now we need someone who understands the problem deeply—who can validate our hypothesis with real customers, shape product strategy based on operational reality, and guide us through the complexity of actual deployments.

You Might Be Right for This If

  • You've held roles like Energy Manager, Plant Engineer, Utilities Manager, or Process Engineer in food manufacturing
  • You've dealt with load scheduling around tariff structures and demand charges
  • You understand backup generation, power factor penalties, and consumption profiling
  • You've built business cases for efficiency projects or capital upgrades
  • You've navigated unreliable grid supply—and know how manufacturers adapt

Bonus If You Have

  • Experience with energy auditing, demand forecasting, or consumption analysis
  • Networks in African industrial markets (East, West, or Central Africa)
  • Understanding of generator dispatch and hybrid power systems

What You'd Be Building Together

  • A first deployment that proves the architecture works with a real bakery, mill, or cold storage operator in an emerging market
  • The operational playbook for deploying energy coordination systems across different food manufacturing types
  • The energy forecasting and optimisation engine, built and validated against real production data
  • Early customer relationships that become reference deployments and unlock the next round of growth
  • A company with genuine network effects—bakery data improves mill optimisation; each deployment teaches us how to scale faster
  • A defensible position in food manufacturing energy optimisation as the network compounds value

What We Offer

  • Meaningful co-founder equity—you own what you build
  • A clearly defined technical direction that addresses a real, unmet market need
  • Immediate access to a massive market: food manufacturers across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia facing the same constraints
  • A problem with genuine network effects—early deployments teach us how to scale; bakery learning improves mill optimisation; cold chain data informs facility networks
  • The opportunity to build a platform that compounds in value as the network grows
  • A chance to build the software that protects food manufacturer margins and enables reliable production through energy volatility

How to Apply

If you're interested in this opportunity, reach out:

Email: hello@underscore.ai

Tell us about yourself, your background, and why this problem matters to you. Short messages are fine—we care about the person, not the polish.