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CleanTechies
#198 Fleet Charging, Max Charger Utilization, Digitizing Electrification, Being Scrappy, & More w/ Kieran White (Curo)
Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬
Today, we are speaking with Kieran White. Co-Founder of Curo.
At Curo they help EV Fleet owners secure reliable charging without the need to build their own infrastructure.
This has the double benefit of allowing existing infrastructure owners to maximize their assets.
Today’s call is super fun. We discuss:
- How he hustled his way into a job with Tesla at 18, even tho they claimed to only hire 21 and older
- The effect this exp had on him and how it led to him launching Curo
- How they help fleet owners find reliable charging without building infrastructure
- And how they help existing charging owners maximize their infrastructure
Enjoy the show!
Topics:
**01:56 Intro
**04:23 Journey to Entrepreneurship
**06:20 The Problem Kero is Solving
**08:22 Challenges and Ops in EV Charging
**17:05 Policy, Incentives, and the Future of the Industry
**19:33 Navigating Ideas / Staying Focused
**23:52 Growth Hacks
**27:07 Tracking Progress / Systematizing
**30:17 Dealing with New Ideas
**32:57 Climate Startup Ideas
**34:26 Future of EV Charging
**38:38 Fundraising Advice & Closing Thoughts
Links:
**Kieran White | Curo
**Connect with Somil on LinkedIn | Connect with Silas on LinkedIn
**Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn
**@Silas & @Somil_Agg on X
This podcast is NOT investment advice. Do your homework and due diligence before investing in anything discussed on this podcast.
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Reach out to Goodwin Law today; the law firm of choice for hundreds of ClimateTech Entrepreneurs worldwide. They have you covered from funding docs to offtake contracts to IPO and M&A support. GoodwinLaw.com (and tell them CleanTechies sent you!)
Kieran White (00:00:00):
I joined with the premise of being like,
Kieran White (00:00:02):
I'm going to be Elon's personal project manager within two years and he'll fund it
Kieran White (00:00:06):
and everything will go great.
Kieran White (00:00:07):
I think the biggest challenge we've had there time and time again is like, what is our goal?
Kieran White (00:00:12):
Is the goal to fundraise?
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:14):
Welcome back to Clean Techies, the number one podcast for climate tech entrepreneurs.
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:18):
I'm Somil.
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:19):
And I'm Silas.
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:20):
Each week,
Silas Mähner (00:00:20):
we publish the secrets to success from investors,
Silas Mähner (00:00:23):
founders,
Silas Mähner (00:00:24):
operators,
Silas Mähner (00:00:24):
and experts in climate tech around the world.
Silas Mähner (00:00:26):
Building a startup is hard.
Silas Mähner (00:00:28):
Building a climate tech startup is even harder.
Silas Mähner (00:00:30):
but we make it a little bit easier.
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:31):
We put a lot of effort into these shows, so we hope you enjoy.
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:35):
Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who you think we should have on next.
Silas Mähner (00:00:40):
With that, let's get into today's episode.
Silas Mähner (00:00:47):
Today,
Silas Mähner (00:00:47):
we are speaking with Kieran White,
Silas Mähner (00:00:50):
the CEO and co-founder of Kiro,
Silas Mähner (00:00:52):
a company helping fleets find reliable charging in a manner of days instead of weeks.
Silas Mähner (00:00:58):
They do this by understanding a fleet owner's need.
Silas Mähner (00:01:02):
then finding a place with existing underutilized chargers, and then they broker an agreement with them.
Silas Mähner (00:01:08):
So it's basically a virtual charging depot.
Silas Mähner (00:01:11):
So Kiro's clients can use the chargers when the owner is not.
Silas Mähner (00:01:16):
And this benefits them by saving their clients money from having to spend on
Silas Mähner (00:01:20):
building their own upgrades,
Silas Mähner (00:01:21):
or perhaps they don't even have the
Silas Mähner (00:01:24):
real estate to build their own charging infrastructure.
Silas Mähner (00:01:27):
And it also helps the owners of that infrastructure maximize their returns on their
Silas Mähner (00:01:33):
investment for their own charging infrastructure.
Silas Mähner (00:01:35):
So we've known Kieran for a bit.
Silas Mähner (00:01:37):
So this was quite a fun one.
Silas Mähner (00:01:38):
We have a lot of rapport.
Silas Mähner (00:01:39):
And today we get into the tech and the story of Kiro,
Silas Mähner (00:01:42):
as well as some more,
Silas Mähner (00:01:43):
let's call it internal game items,
Silas Mähner (00:01:45):
like how to stay focused,
Silas Mähner (00:01:46):
among other things.
Silas Mähner (00:01:48):
Before we start, we do want to give a huge shout out to Goodwin Law for sponsoring this episode.
Silas Mähner (00:01:52):
More about them later.
Silas Mähner (00:01:54):
All right, let's get into it.
Silas Mähner (00:01:56):
All right, man.
Silas Mähner (00:01:57):
Welcome to the show.
Silas Mähner (00:01:57):
How are you doing?
Kieran White (00:01:59):
Awesome.
Kieran White (00:01:59):
Great to be here.
Kieran White (00:02:00):
I'm good, Silas.
Kieran White (00:02:00):
How are you?
Silas Mähner (00:02:01):
I'm good.
Silas Mähner (00:02:02):
It's good.
Silas Mähner (00:02:02):
It's good to see you again.
Silas Mähner (00:02:03):
Obviously,
Silas Mähner (00:02:03):
we've had the chance of connecting before during Climate Week and have spoken a few times,
Silas Mähner (00:02:08):
so glad to finally make the pod happen.
Silas Mähner (00:02:11):
I guess we know you,
Silas Mähner (00:02:13):
but tell everybody else who doesn't know you a little bit about who you are and
Silas Mähner (00:02:16):
what you're doing.
Kieran White (00:02:17):
Yeah, totally.
Kieran White (00:02:18):
Well, thank you again for having me.
Kieran White (00:02:19):
I'm Kieran.
Kieran White (00:02:20):
My background's like very briefly in climate started by doing a bunch of stuff at
Kieran White (00:02:24):
Tesla when Model 3 went to Europe.
Kieran White (00:02:26):
And one of the projects I worked on was how we got cars from Fremont in California
Kieran White (00:02:32):
to some of the countries in Europe and then distributed them.
Kieran White (00:02:35):
And the big problem we had was trying to park and charge them overnight.
Kieran White (00:02:39):
So like fast forward through like a recycling startup we did,
Kieran White (00:02:42):
and then we started a company that ended up becoming Kiro.
Kieran White (00:02:46):
We now do Kiro, which is essentially we help fleets to park and charge their vehicles overnight.
Kieran White (00:02:52):
So yeah, that's me and excited to be here.
Silas Mähner (00:02:55):
Yeah, very nice.
Silas Mähner (00:02:56):
Tell me more,
Silas Mähner (00:02:56):
like how did you,
Silas Mähner (00:02:57):
I guess,
Silas Mähner (00:02:57):
get your start in entrepreneurship and how did you end up working at Tesla?
Silas Mähner (00:03:00):
Because I think that if I remember correctly from your background,
Silas Mähner (00:03:03):
you have like a relatively interesting or I guess you say non-traditional journey
Silas Mähner (00:03:06):
to get in there.
Kieran White (00:03:08):
I guess so.
Kieran White (00:03:08):
Yeah.
Kieran White (00:03:08):
So I didn't do so when I was 18, graduating high school.
Kieran White (00:03:13):
So for those of you that don't know,
Kieran White (00:03:14):
in the UK,
Kieran White (00:03:14):
you have sixth form,
Kieran White (00:03:15):
which like the last two years of high school.
Kieran White (00:03:17):
And my dad ran a sixth form.
Kieran White (00:03:19):
So his whole job was to put people into college.
Kieran White (00:03:22):
And so I think by subsequently like big bias against not going to college.
Kieran White (00:03:29):
So I was like, right, no college.
Kieran White (00:03:31):
So I basically just applied to Tesla like ten times because Elon was my idol.
Kieran White (00:03:37):
And I basically got denied every time I was 18.
Kieran White (00:03:39):
They wouldn't hire anyone under 21.
Kieran White (00:03:41):
So I just went into a showroom, the local showroom in the UK.
Kieran White (00:03:47):
I was like, hey, I think I could do this.
Kieran White (00:03:49):
Give me a chance.
Kieran White (00:03:50):
So they hired me the next day.
Kieran White (00:03:51):
So I potentially made me one of the youngest Tesla employees, although completely unconfirmed.
Kieran White (00:03:58):
And so I did that for two years.
Kieran White (00:03:59):
I joined with the premise of being like,
Kieran White (00:04:02):
I'm going to be Elon's personal project manager within two years.
Kieran White (00:04:06):
And he'll fund it and like everything will go great.
Kieran White (00:04:10):
And didn't quite turn out like that.
Kieran White (00:04:11):
I did email him a lot and ended up being good friends with his assistant because of that.
Kieran White (00:04:17):
And actually got to pitch them one idea, but it didn't quite land.
Kieran White (00:04:20):
But yeah, that was the unconventional route to Tesla.
Silas Mähner (00:04:24):
Yeah, I like that.
Silas Mähner (00:04:25):
I mean, I think that it's really great to see people just kind of like following a different path.
Silas Mähner (00:04:29):
Like I skipped college, so a similar thing.
Silas Mähner (00:04:32):
It wasn't as intentional.
Silas Mähner (00:04:33):
I kind of got a little bit lucky, I'd say.
Silas Mähner (00:04:35):
But I love seeing people who go a different route.
Silas Mähner (00:04:38):
What were the key things that you learned through that experience that you would
Silas Mähner (00:04:41):
say kind of informed the rest of your entrepreneurial journey?
Kieran White (00:04:45):
Awesome question.
Kieran White (00:04:46):
I think...
Kieran White (00:04:47):
sort of something you i couldn't avoid is that the tesla mindset is very much like
Kieran White (00:04:53):
the company above yourself and so if you do not like subscribe to the mission it
Kieran White (00:04:59):
becomes very difficult to work in that environment um and so i think probably the
Kieran White (00:05:04):
biggest thing that i've taken away like working through to where we are today is
Kieran White (00:05:08):
just like
Kieran White (00:05:09):
the dedication and selfishness that you need in order to put company goes fast and
Kieran White (00:05:17):
whatever needs to be done is done.
Kieran White (00:05:19):
I remember when I was at Tesla,
Kieran White (00:05:21):
the people who ran Europe and some of the executive people from the US all came to
Kieran White (00:05:28):
this one showroom to deliver cars because that was the number one important thing
Kieran White (00:05:32):
for the whole business to operate,
Kieran White (00:05:34):
to meet end of quarter deadlines and then hit share price prediction.
Kieran White (00:05:39):
So everything was just geared around doing that.
Kieran White (00:05:41):
I think that's definitely something we've taken forward and something we try to
Kieran White (00:05:45):
preach at Kiro is when all hands are on deck,
Kieran White (00:05:47):
it doesn't matter who you are,
Kieran White (00:05:48):
you just go above yourself and do the thing.
Kieran White (00:05:51):
I think that's probably the biggest takeaway.
Silas Mähner (00:05:54):
Yeah, no, I think that's, it's quite interesting.
Silas Mähner (00:05:56):
And it's actually,
Silas Mähner (00:05:56):
I mean,
Silas Mähner (00:05:57):
obviously it's coming back,
Silas Mähner (00:05:58):
it feels like,
Silas Mähner (00:05:59):
but it was for a while,
Silas Mähner (00:06:00):
not actually the Collingwood culture with a lot of startups,
Silas Mähner (00:06:03):
unfortunately,
Silas Mähner (00:06:04):
but it's,
Silas Mähner (00:06:04):
you know,
Silas Mähner (00:06:04):
it's made a comeback.
Silas Mähner (00:06:06):
So,
Silas Mähner (00:06:06):
you know,
Silas Mähner (00:06:06):
tell me more about,
Silas Mähner (00:06:07):
we've obviously,
Silas Mähner (00:06:08):
I've been able to see kind of your journey as you guys were figuring out what to do
Silas Mähner (00:06:11):
with Curo and kind of pivoting.
Silas Mähner (00:06:13):
So tell us what exactly is the problem you're solving today and why is it important that you solve it?
Silas Mähner (00:06:18):
Give us some data points.
Kieran White (00:06:19):
Yeah.
Kieran White (00:06:20):
So we we've ended up sitting in this interesting place in the market where we solve two problems.
Kieran White (00:06:24):
Our customers, we define as fleets.
Kieran White (00:06:26):
And so commercial fleets typically distributed,
Kieran White (00:06:30):
um,
Kieran White (00:06:30):
where a fleet would benefit from having vehicles in two vehicles in 50 locations
Kieran White (00:06:36):
versus 500 vehicles in two locations.
Kieran White (00:06:39):
Um,
Kieran White (00:06:39):
and so their big problems lie in like,
Kieran White (00:06:42):
as you're electrifying the fleet,
Kieran White (00:06:43):
um,
Kieran White (00:06:44):
installing charges is difficult and time consuming and sometimes not possible.
Kieran White (00:06:50):
Even if you can do that, just the time ends up being too long.
Kieran White (00:06:55):
If you're not doing that, there's public charging, but it's unreliable.
Kieran White (00:07:00):
And then you have home charging,
Kieran White (00:07:01):
but there's a lot of things to figure out there and drive a turnover simply every
Kieran White (00:07:05):
nine months.
Kieran White (00:07:06):
And so you end up being in this weird position where
Kieran White (00:07:09):
very specific types of fleets just don't have alternatives.
Kieran White (00:07:12):
And so for them,
Kieran White (00:07:13):
we basically bring forward what we're calling a virtual depot,
Kieran White (00:07:16):
where we say,
Kieran White (00:07:17):
get all of the functionality you would in a depot,
Kieran White (00:07:20):
a private space,
Kieran White (00:07:22):
a charger,
Kieran White (00:07:24):
sometimes a daytime parking spot for a driver vehicle,
Kieran White (00:07:27):
bathrooms,
Kieran White (00:07:29):
very different for every different type of fleet,
Kieran White (00:07:31):
but in short,
Kieran White (00:07:32):
that is the product that they get.
Kieran White (00:07:34):
And then vice versa,
Kieran White (00:07:35):
like we work with a lot of private EV charging and parking owners who either have
Kieran White (00:07:42):
unutilized sites or just have sites where the operating model lines up with fleets.
Kieran White (00:07:46):
Like a big focus for us has been tech campuses where employees are there in the day
Kieran White (00:07:50):
and they're not there at night.
Kieran White (00:07:52):
Fleets typically dwell at night and are out during the day.
Kieran White (00:07:54):
So that ends up being like really interesting connections.
Kieran White (00:07:57):
And so we do a lot of work on the supplier side.
Kieran White (00:08:00):
who are our site hosts to really work on like how can we make it safe and secure
Kieran White (00:08:05):
and comfortable for a private owner to share their infrastructure and so like tying
Kieran White (00:08:09):
all of that ecosystem together is a lot of what we do day to day um so yeah we the
Kieran White (00:08:15):
problem we're mainly solving is just like availability of charging but in a private
Kieran White (00:08:20):
sort of structured return to base way
Silas Mähner (00:08:22):
Yeah.
Silas Mähner (00:08:23):
So let me just try to make sure I summarize this properly and see if I got it.
Silas Mähner (00:08:27):
So there's certain fleets out there where,
Silas Mähner (00:08:30):
and just to clarify,
Silas Mähner (00:08:31):
you're saying that there's some that you guys work with that have a couple of cars
Silas Mähner (00:08:35):
in many locations or many in a couple of locations.
Silas Mähner (00:08:37):
And you're trying to help those companies, those fleets.
Silas Mähner (00:08:41):
You're going out and identifying people who have charging infrastructure,
Silas Mähner (00:08:44):
who have downtime at a certain point of the day,
Silas Mähner (00:08:46):
and you're going to basically say,
Silas Mähner (00:08:47):
hey,
Silas Mähner (00:08:48):
we'll help you connect with people who need to charge,
Silas Mähner (00:08:50):
and then you can make some revenue for it.
Silas Mähner (00:08:51):
But then it also gives the fleet owner the stability of having a regular place they
Silas Mähner (00:08:56):
can charge their fleet.
Silas Mähner (00:08:57):
Is that correct?
Kieran White (00:08:58):
Exactly that, yeah.
Silas Mähner (00:09:00):
Cool.
Silas Mähner (00:09:00):
So I guess one thing I'm curious about, sorry?
Kieran White (00:09:02):
From now on, Silas is our pitcher.
Silas Mähner (00:09:06):
Yeah, well, it's always helpful to regurgitate, right?
Silas Mähner (00:09:08):
So what I'm curious about is,
Silas Mähner (00:09:12):
is there just already a ton of demand for,
Silas Mähner (00:09:14):
because obviously you're focused in California probably initially,
Silas Mähner (00:09:16):
right?
Silas Mähner (00:09:16):
Is there already a ton of demand to electrify fleets?
Silas Mähner (00:09:19):
Is that just mainly because people are interested in it?
Silas Mähner (00:09:22):
Is it actually the ROI they're after?
Silas Mähner (00:09:24):
Why are they focused on that already, even despite the challenges of finding infrastructure to charge?
Kieran White (00:09:30):
from what we see in regulation,
Kieran White (00:09:31):
but by the end of 2024 and then 2025,
Kieran White (00:09:34):
a certain portion of your fleet needs to be electrified if it's in California.
Kieran White (00:09:38):
It's about 10%.
Kieran White (00:09:39):
And so these fleets have to now electrify.
Kieran White (00:09:44):
And some had been early adopters and gone out of goodwill and good PR, but
Kieran White (00:09:49):
Mainly it's around sort of complying.
Kieran White (00:09:50):
And so for them,
Kieran White (00:09:52):
it ends up not being like,
Kieran White (00:09:54):
how do we build the solution that we need for the next 20 years?
Kieran White (00:09:57):
It becomes like, how do we just launch?
Kieran White (00:10:03):
And to launch, it takes infrastructure that currently we don't feel is available.
Kieran White (00:10:08):
That's where we come in.
Kieran White (00:10:11):
So maybe through compliance.
Somil Aggarwal (00:10:12):
You know that feeling when you meet someone who shares your vision for the future?
Somil Aggarwal (00:10:16):
It just clicks like two peas in a pod.
Somil Aggarwal (00:10:19):
Well, that's exactly how we felt when we met Goodwin, who we are proud to have as our sponsor.
Silas Mähner (00:10:24):
Being the first major law firm to set up a climate specific startup and venture
Silas Mähner (00:10:28):
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Silas Mähner (00:10:32):
They realize that there are a plethora of challenges to building climate tech startups.
Silas Mähner (00:10:36):
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Silas Mähner (00:10:40):
investors and entrepreneurs in the space.
Silas Mähner (00:10:42):
They even offer several tailored pricing methods.
Silas Mähner (00:10:45):
And guess what?
Silas Mähner (00:10:46):
It doesn't matter where you are listening to this.
Silas Mähner (00:10:48):
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Silas Mähner (00:10:52):
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Silas Mähner (00:10:53):
they've got you covered.
Somil Aggarwal (00:10:55):
Go to goodwinlaw.com and tell them Cleantech is setting you to get exclusive access to startup resources.
Somil Aggarwal (00:11:01):
All right, back to the show.
Silas Mähner (00:11:03):
And I guess,
Silas Mähner (00:11:04):
do you view this as being like a pretty standard approach to charging for a lot of
Silas Mähner (00:11:09):
these fleets for a long time?
Silas Mähner (00:11:10):
Or do you foresee as infrastructure gets built out further that it will evolve in a different way?
Silas Mähner (00:11:15):
Like, is this going to be more of a temporary patch or like a long-term solution for a lot of companies?
Kieran White (00:11:21):
see this long-term solution a lot of our customers seem to as well i think where
Kieran White (00:11:25):
there is very specific example like each fleet has its own sweet spot and for some
Kieran White (00:11:30):
fleets typically like the larger blue chip fleets who who like a last mile delivery
Kieran White (00:11:37):
and like need need need need a depot with that in mind like a depot is the best
Kieran White (00:11:42):
option for that um but there's this like large middle group
Kieran White (00:11:46):
who maybe don't own the land of their depot so they can never install charging,
Kieran White (00:11:53):
can't find bookable charging another way.
Kieran White (00:11:55):
And so it becomes the only way that exists right now to park and charge your
Kieran White (00:12:00):
vehicle overnight in a structured way for years at a time that you know can be there.
Kieran White (00:12:07):
And so we see it as a long-term solution for the right type of fleet.
Kieran White (00:12:11):
We have a few customers who we've done a few sort of like stopgap solutions until
Kieran White (00:12:15):
their depot has been live.
Kieran White (00:12:17):
But we really honed in on those who need it long-term.
Silas Mähner (00:12:21):
Yeah.
Silas Mähner (00:12:22):
Are there any,
Silas Mähner (00:12:23):
I would assume,
Silas Mähner (00:12:24):
especially if a lot of these are charging overnight,
Silas Mähner (00:12:26):
there's maybe not as much of a need for curtailment issues like when the energy
Silas Mähner (00:12:32):
demand is high?
Silas Mähner (00:12:32):
Are you guys interfacing with a lot of these other softwares or is that typically
Silas Mähner (00:12:36):
just not too much of a concern because the energy demand is low at the time?
Kieran White (00:12:42):
It's not a massive concern right now.
Kieran White (00:12:44):
I think we have taken a very software light approach where we are just like getting
Kieran White (00:12:49):
fleets at chargers,
Kieran White (00:12:51):
no matter what the CMS,
Kieran White (00:12:52):
no matter what the charging operator,
Kieran White (00:12:54):
no matter what the company of hardware.
Kieran White (00:12:57):
Load balancing and stuff is useful,
Kieran White (00:13:00):
although typically a lot of our fleets dwell from probably like 6 to 7 p.m.
Kieran White (00:13:04):
through like 6 or 7 a.m.
Kieran White (00:13:06):
the next day.
Kieran White (00:13:07):
Like 6 to 9 is typically the big bottleneck when we try some load balancing.
Kieran White (00:13:12):
A lot of our stopgaps just been like pausing a charge until 9 anyway, because a lot of them...
Kieran White (00:13:17):
like at e-transits with probably like 100 kilowatt hour battery uh probably 60
Kieran White (00:13:20):
kilowatt hour battery um and can charge in eight versus 12 hours so um so like yes
Kieran White (00:13:27):
but it's from what we've seen that's a future benefit versus like a necessity today
Silas Mähner (00:13:33):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Silas Mähner (00:13:34):
I guess one thing,
Silas Mähner (00:13:35):
because you've poked around in different parts of this area for a while,
Silas Mähner (00:13:39):
how would you break down the market when it comes to this charging infrastructure,
Silas Mähner (00:13:46):
the different types of fleets?
Silas Mähner (00:13:47):
How do you, in your mind, separate each part out?
Kieran White (00:13:51):
A few of our team,
Kieran White (00:13:53):
we've been creating this charging stack internally where you have depot providers
Kieran White (00:13:58):
who have raised large infrastructure funding to build depots.
Kieran White (00:14:01):
Typically,
Kieran White (00:14:02):
it's for very large fleets or heavy-duty fleets because that layer only makes sense
Kieran White (00:14:09):
with large infrastructure funding when you have a large amount of kilowatts going
Kieran White (00:14:12):
through a site,
Kieran White (00:14:13):
which only heavy-duty or an autonomous fleet can do.
Kieran White (00:14:17):
um so there's that layer who is like struggling with timing right now there's
Kieran White (00:14:23):
you're building an advance sort of where you need a fleet commitment or like an
Kieran White (00:14:27):
anchor tenant to build a site so yeah the funding from your that you've been
Kieran White (00:14:32):
committed from from various property groups um which is very hard to do the way
Kieran White (00:14:36):
fleets are today so there's like depot providers who are trying to build out depots
Kieran White (00:14:41):
Then you have a lot of the in-between,
Kieran White (00:14:43):
like you have public charging,
Kieran White (00:14:45):
which is basically just a game of how many charges can you deploy?
Kieran White (00:14:48):
You have home charging,
Kieran White (00:14:49):
which is again,
Kieran White (00:14:50):
how many charges can you deploy and how can you streamline management of those
Kieran White (00:14:55):
charges and rebates?
Kieran White (00:14:56):
One of our fleets,
Kieran White (00:14:57):
they have a portion of home charging and our executive sponsor goes home every
Kieran White (00:15:01):
night and for two hours reimburses driver charges at their homes.
Kieran White (00:15:05):
And so there's reimbursements is a big problem with home charging.
Kieran White (00:15:08):
So you have this in between of various charging techniques.
Kieran White (00:15:12):
Through that,
Kieran White (00:15:12):
you have mobile charging as well,
Kieran White (00:15:15):
which we consider more of a stopgap solution because it's quite expensive.
Kieran White (00:15:18):
So there's all of those little segments.
Kieran White (00:15:20):
From the fleet side,
Kieran White (00:15:22):
we're seeing a lot of it's been like a heavily built for area,
Kieran White (00:15:26):
which was an interesting one as we were diving in because we're trying to evaluate
Kieran White (00:15:30):
why the problem was still there and why a lot of software companies have gone the way they did.
Kieran White (00:15:37):
I think our rough thesis to date is that a lot of things can be software enabled,
Kieran White (00:15:42):
but the way fleets operate right now,
Kieran White (00:15:43):
sometimes,
Kieran White (00:15:45):
especially in EV and specifically EV charging,
Kieran White (00:15:48):
software seems to build far ahead of market need.
Kieran White (00:15:52):
Um, trying to more so meet it where it's at a little bit.
Kieran White (00:15:54):
Um, but you have a lot of like, you have routing software for fees to find charges.
Kieran White (00:16:01):
You have, gosh, you have everything else of like managing an EV fleet.
Kieran White (00:16:06):
Um,
Kieran White (00:16:06):
that's been,
Kieran White (00:16:07):
been largely and widely built for in terms of like the type of fleets that there are,
Kieran White (00:16:10):
um,
Kieran White (00:16:12):
so many different segments,
Kieran White (00:16:13):
but typically you have those who.
Kieran White (00:16:17):
dwell overnight, and those who dwell during the day, most dwell overnight.
Kieran White (00:16:21):
So that's anything from service and maintenance to last mile delivery to XYZ,
Kieran White (00:16:26):
and then you have the large ones and everyone else.
Kieran White (00:16:28):
A brief brain dump,
Kieran White (00:16:29):
but that's sort of how we've been thinking about mapping the market and how we play
Kieran White (00:16:34):
with it.
Silas Mähner (00:16:35):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Silas Mähner (00:16:37):
I guess, how do you guys go about... You mentioned incentives earlier.
Silas Mähner (00:16:41):
Maybe it's a little too early to dive into this, but I kind of want to get to it is
Silas Mähner (00:16:47):
If the administration changes in November and if any of the incentive structures
Silas Mähner (00:16:53):
are kind of going away or might be at risk,
Silas Mähner (00:16:56):
how do you guys look at that?
Silas Mähner (00:16:57):
Is that going to affect your business?
Silas Mähner (00:16:59):
And at large, do you think it's going to have too much effect on the industry as a whole?
Silas Mähner (00:17:03):
Because I know that there are also,
Silas Mähner (00:17:05):
like you mentioned,
Silas Mähner (00:17:05):
a lot of these regulations are actually California regulations.
Silas Mähner (00:17:07):
So what are your thought processes broadly when it comes to policy plus incentives
Silas Mähner (00:17:12):
versus your business model and others?
Kieran White (00:17:14):
Yeah, and I'd love your thoughts there too.
Kieran White (00:17:16):
I think the way we've been thinking about it is if a lot of the incentives to build
Kieran White (00:17:22):
charging goes away,
Kieran White (00:17:23):
that would be a detriment to the industry.
Kieran White (00:17:26):
probably be quite good for us because we like to think that we create this new
Kieran White (00:17:30):
incentive to financially justify smaller charger installations versus large depots
Kieran White (00:17:35):
or large public charging sites.
Kieran White (00:17:38):
The California regulations about electrifying fleets definitely will affect us.
Kieran White (00:17:44):
Our thoughts are that hopefully the way that California is set up,
Kieran White (00:17:47):
it will remain versus a lot of the larger federal stuff.
Kieran White (00:17:53):
But I guess we'll have to see.
Kieran White (00:17:55):
But definitely,
Kieran White (00:17:55):
I think the way it goes and the way the EV or electrification is treated,
Kieran White (00:17:59):
it's definitely going to
Kieran White (00:18:02):
effect because I think the way that EV as a general as an industry has gone, it went super, super hard.
Kieran White (00:18:08):
And then there's been this sort of like pause or dip where a lot of not bad press,
Kieran White (00:18:12):
but a few heavily funded players sort of went out of business or had to sell.
Kieran White (00:18:16):
And we had the whole Tesla debacle with all of their charging team leaving.
Kieran White (00:18:21):
And so there's definitely some movement.
Kieran White (00:18:25):
And so the more support, the better.
Kieran White (00:18:26):
But as a brief, I would love to hear your thoughts there.
Silas Mähner (00:18:29):
I guess I'm not super,
Silas Mähner (00:18:31):
super plugged in to the EV space,
Silas Mähner (00:18:33):
but I would say that my general read on the vibes in the room is that it seems like
Silas Mähner (00:18:38):
a lot more people want EVs now.
Silas Mähner (00:18:40):
It's become a very common thing, even here in Wisconsin, where there's not that many client people.
Silas Mähner (00:18:45):
You start to see Teslas everywhere.
Silas Mähner (00:18:47):
There's EVs a lot, even some of the newer ones.
Silas Mähner (00:18:50):
I'm a big fan of the Hyundai Iconic 5.
Silas Mähner (00:18:54):
I think it's sick.
Silas Mähner (00:18:55):
But I think that generally the sentiment is like this is going into the,
Silas Mähner (00:19:00):
I would say it's going into the mass adoption curve at this point.
Silas Mähner (00:19:02):
And I don't think you can change that.
Silas Mähner (00:19:04):
Like even if the administration isn't necessarily like pro incentives,
Silas Mähner (00:19:08):
I think there's going to be ways to figure this out because people want it.
Silas Mähner (00:19:11):
And it's too late to go back, right?
Silas Mähner (00:19:13):
Like a lot of people are going to stick with their cars.
Silas Mähner (00:19:15):
So there's going to need to be infrastructure.
Silas Mähner (00:19:17):
That's my thought.
Silas Mähner (00:19:18):
But I'm definitely not an expert.
Kieran White (00:19:20):
No, I think I sort of got to this point where it's hard.
Kieran White (00:19:24):
Like you say, it's just so hard to stop.
Kieran White (00:19:26):
So either you like support that or just like let it drag you kicking and streaming.
Kieran White (00:19:30):
One definitely seems more favorable, but.
Silas Mähner (00:19:33):
Yeah.
Silas Mähner (00:19:35):
I want to ask you about how you navigate understanding this.
Silas Mähner (00:19:41):
You've changed directions a couple of times as you were figuring this out.
Silas Mähner (00:19:44):
What is the general principle of a mindset you need to have as you're going in to
Silas Mähner (00:19:50):
figure out where do we want to go?
Silas Mähner (00:19:51):
How do we find product market fit?
Silas Mähner (00:19:53):
What is the core thing that grounds you?
Silas Mähner (00:19:55):
Because I'm assuming it's very confusing at times.
Silas Mähner (00:19:57):
You don't know exactly what's going on.
Silas Mähner (00:19:58):
You're
Silas Mähner (00:19:59):
kind of trying not to be too biased based on your past research and like you're figuring things out.
Silas Mähner (00:20:04):
Like, how do you go about that?
Kieran White (00:20:06):
Yeah, it's probably similar to something they have like a complete
Kieran White (00:20:10):
figured out thesis for.
Kieran White (00:20:11):
But so when we started, Cura used to be called Return.
Kieran White (00:20:14):
And when it was called Return, we started as like blockchain carbon markets.
Kieran White (00:20:19):
And we've gradually over time, like we did that for a couple of months.
Kieran White (00:20:22):
Well, for six to nine months, actually realized that blockchain wasn't quite where we wanted it to be.
Kieran White (00:20:26):
And so sort of like defaulted to just carbon markets.
Kieran White (00:20:29):
Six months doing carbon markets.
Kieran White (00:20:31):
I was so invested in carbon markets.
Kieran White (00:20:33):
I had like this super well articulated, like 300 people inputs, like this
Kieran White (00:20:38):
this complete market segmentation and the way everything operated.
Kieran White (00:20:42):
And it's really painful to walk away from.
Kieran White (00:20:44):
I think the way that me and Andrew, my co founder, have gone about it is
Kieran White (00:20:50):
Like naturally with a pivot, like one foot is planted.
Kieran White (00:20:52):
We defined that that one foot is planted is like software for a climate or environmental benefit.
Kieran White (00:20:58):
And so that let us like sort of go around it.
Kieran White (00:21:01):
Another big one that we started to let influence us that I think upon reflection is
Kieran White (00:21:07):
okay is like,
Kieran White (00:21:09):
what are you interested in?
Kieran White (00:21:10):
Like, what are you good at?
Kieran White (00:21:11):
And I think naturally, like we were interested in that good at charging because I'd done it before.
Kieran White (00:21:16):
And that was something that I think we put off for quite a while because we wanted
Kieran White (00:21:20):
to find this really natural thing where it's like this picture book moment where
Kieran White (00:21:26):
you have the perfect customer call and everything comes into fruition.
Kieran White (00:21:29):
And it ended up not being like that.
Kieran White (00:21:31):
We came to Kiro because we went through
Kieran White (00:21:35):
we started in like energy and distributed energy and we ended up back in EV
Kieran White (00:21:38):
charging and we tried to sell this deployment software to CPOs and they said no but
Kieran White (00:21:42):
utilization is a problem and then we eventually came to it but I think
Kieran White (00:21:47):
We probably the biggest thing is that as we have tried each iteration,
Kieran White (00:21:52):
each one we probably felt like was product market fit when you're on a high from a
Kieran White (00:21:55):
sales call.
Kieran White (00:21:57):
But only now do I think we sort of understand what product market fit feels like
Kieran White (00:22:01):
even starting to because like we as a team now just fulfill fleets.
Kieran White (00:22:06):
We don't like do like we find it hard to do anything else other than just like procure like.
Kieran White (00:22:13):
procure sites and hosts to become virtual depots and then provide it to fleet
Kieran White (00:22:16):
demand that we already have far in excess that we can handle.
Kieran White (00:22:20):
And that's been having something pulled from you in that way we hadn't had before.
Kieran White (00:22:26):
But I think upon reflection, every time we said that we did.
Kieran White (00:22:30):
And so being honest with yourself was also quite hard.
Kieran White (00:22:33):
So definitely no thought out.
Kieran White (00:22:36):
distinct formula, but I think it was being honest with ourselves.
Kieran White (00:22:40):
That's what we wanted as founders more than anything really stayed us the right way.
Silas Mähner (00:22:43):
Climate tech founders are taking on a huge challenge.
Silas Mähner (00:22:46):
Not only do they need to know how to build a startup,
Silas Mähner (00:22:49):
but they also need to deal with hardware,
Silas Mähner (00:22:50):
have a strong handle on climate policy,
Silas Mähner (00:22:53):
know how to fundraise from diverse investor types.
Somil Aggarwal (00:22:55):
It's a lot.
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That's why we made Clean Techies, the number one podcast for climate tech entrepreneurs.
Somil Aggarwal (00:23:00):
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Silas Mähner (00:23:17):
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Silas Mähner (00:23:20):
start supporting us today by going to Substack and clicking upgrade to paid.
Silas Mähner (00:23:24):
Thanks for helping all the climate tech entrepreneurs like you.
Silas Mähner (00:23:27):
Yeah.
Silas Mähner (00:23:28):
I think it's easy to want to do something different when you're in a space.
Silas Mähner (00:23:31):
You don't want to, oh, if I had done this, it's kind of boring.
Silas Mähner (00:23:33):
I want to go do something more fun.
Silas Mähner (00:23:35):
And I think it's something that's easy to fall into.
Silas Mähner (00:23:37):
So I appreciate the honesty there.
Silas Mähner (00:23:40):
Knowing you enough,
Silas Mähner (00:23:41):
I have a feeling you guys have some really scrappy methods of trying to land
Silas Mähner (00:23:44):
clients and stuff.
Silas Mähner (00:23:45):
So I'm kind of curious to hear some of the growth hacks or the scrappy things you
Silas Mähner (00:23:48):
guys have done to get going or to land clients,
Silas Mähner (00:23:51):
etc.,
Silas Mähner (00:23:51):
right?
Kieran White (00:23:52):
Yeah, so we have high-vis vests in the office.
Kieran White (00:23:57):
And we'll actually put them on.
Kieran White (00:23:57):
I made fake badges.
Kieran White (00:23:59):
And we bought these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle walkie-talkies from Target.
Kieran White (00:24:02):
And we zipped them in a pocket so you couldn't see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle part of it.
Kieran White (00:24:07):
And we literally just put it on and just go to parking garages.
Kieran White (00:24:09):
And that's how we got our first few sites, was making up that we were meant to be there.
Kieran White (00:24:13):
And sort of just like...
Kieran White (00:24:16):
Dressing up was the rough part.
Kieran White (00:24:18):
I love it.
Kieran White (00:24:19):
We've done that to like,
Kieran White (00:24:21):
I've gone on foot with my electric scooter around a whole like city region to like
Kieran White (00:24:27):
figure out this one site that we needed.
Kieran White (00:24:29):
Our first site, the launch was with a scrapyard owner and he had to,
Kieran White (00:24:36):
clear out a large part of his yard, put up this canopy.
Kieran White (00:24:41):
I had to install the charges and by God, they won't get charged.
Kieran White (00:24:46):
But yeah, we've done everything under the sun just to get stuff ready.
Kieran White (00:24:49):
And from the fleet side,
Kieran White (00:24:50):
I mean,
Kieran White (00:24:52):
we've done a few corporate sales cycles that we largely didn't have a right to be in,
Kieran White (00:24:57):
but just got through because
Kieran White (00:25:00):
at a day's notice would fly to the other side of the country just to have breakfast.
Kieran White (00:25:04):
And that sort of thing has put us in good stead.
Silas Mähner (00:25:07):
Yeah.
Silas Mähner (00:25:08):
I guess what is the biggest challenge?
Silas Mähner (00:25:10):
Is it usually finding the fleets that need the help or finding the virtual depots?
Kieran White (00:25:17):
Virtual depots that match.
Kieran White (00:25:18):
I think we've not had a problem.
Kieran White (00:25:20):
We have proactive and reactive virtual depot supply.
Kieran White (00:25:24):
Um,
Kieran White (00:25:24):
reactive is when we have fleet demand for an area,
Kieran White (00:25:27):
we have the characteristics,
Kieran White (00:25:28):
it's sort of like a,
Kieran White (00:25:29):
an exchange request.
Kieran White (00:25:31):
So we then have to go and fulfill it.
Kieran White (00:25:33):
Um, like that is all that we do because we've had a lot of them.
Kieran White (00:25:36):
Um, the proactive side is more so like.
Kieran White (00:25:41):
launching in a city a little bit like Uber used to do,
Kieran White (00:25:44):
where you would batch a whole lot of drivers,
Kieran White (00:25:47):
batch the routes,
Kieran White (00:25:49):
do some pre marketing and go.
Kieran White (00:25:50):
And we've done that once and it sort of worked.
Kieran White (00:25:55):
But we need both.
Kieran White (00:25:57):
So, yeah, by far the biggest thing it takes our time.
Kieran White (00:25:59):
The biggest challenge is just like, how do you up?
Kieran White (00:26:01):
Basically, how do you cross that problem and bootstrap a network of virtual depots?
Kieran White (00:26:07):
And as soon as we do that quicker and quicker,
Kieran White (00:26:09):
that's what we really see as our secret sauce to,
Kieran White (00:26:13):
like,
Kieran White (00:26:14):
up fit.
Kieran White (00:26:15):
onto into an entire platform versus just like little dots here and there um so yeah
Kieran White (00:26:20):
because like we said at the start like the layer of depot providers it takes three
Kieran White (00:26:24):
three to four years from start to finish sometimes we like to think we can do it in
Kieran White (00:26:29):
like two weeks um so that's what we're what we're trying to to place ourselves
Kieran White (00:26:35):
within
Silas Mähner (00:26:36):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Silas Mähner (00:26:38):
So you've been at entrepreneurship for a while.
Silas Mähner (00:26:41):
And one thing I'm always curious about is how people...
Silas Mähner (00:26:46):
determine what to and what not to track and what to like basically reflect on
Silas Mähner (00:26:50):
because as you're going you're iterating a lot of things you're changing different
Silas Mähner (00:26:53):
things but at some point once you figure it out you need to basically systematize
Silas Mähner (00:26:58):
it all so how do you have do you have any particular methods of saying okay i'm
Silas Mähner (00:27:02):
trying to track these things so that later on when i recognize we're in the right
Silas Mähner (00:27:05):
bucket i can go back and just look at my system and then make adjustments from that
Kieran White (00:27:12):
Yeah,
Kieran White (00:27:12):
and I think the biggest challenge we've had there time and time again is what is
Kieran White (00:27:16):
our goal to where agreeing is the goal to fundraise?
Kieran White (00:27:20):
Is the goal to build for three fundraisers time or is the goal just to build for six months in advance?
Kieran White (00:27:28):
And every time that we figured out the goal,
Kieran White (00:27:30):
the metrics come quite quick and usually the metrics are just tied to the goal.
Kieran White (00:27:35):
And then it becomes fairly easy to see
Kieran White (00:27:39):
okay we want to fundraise in six months at these metrics like that would get us the
Kieran White (00:27:42):
valuation we wanted okay like we need to get backtracked to today so i do this and
Kieran White (00:27:47):
i think the execution of methods we've probably let come too naturally i think one
Kieran White (00:27:52):
learning we've had as a team is to more intentionally build out preliminary
Kieran White (00:27:57):
processes that we can iterate versus just like
Kieran White (00:28:01):
my natural inclination is just to like just go crazy doing everything for two weeks
Kieran White (00:28:05):
then hoping something will happen which usually it does but it's like not in a
Kieran White (00:28:08):
thoughtful way that you can repeat um so i think having a starting point versus
Kieran White (00:28:14):
just going crazy is something that we've that coupled with like having a goal i
Kieran White (00:28:19):
guess sort of just having like a point a and a point b always make it much for us
Kieran White (00:28:23):
at least has made it much easier to point out those metrics like for us it's
Kieran White (00:28:28):
It used to be virtual depots on the platform.
Kieran White (00:28:31):
Now it's just vehicles plugged in.
Kieran White (00:28:32):
It's vehicles plugged in,
Kieran White (00:28:34):
and then our second metric is time from fleet request to initial proposal,
Kieran White (00:28:39):
because that's the time of,
Kieran White (00:28:40):
like,
Kieran White (00:28:40):
reactively getting a site,
Kieran White (00:28:41):
or proactively reactively getting a site.
Kieran White (00:28:43):
So...
Silas Mähner (00:28:46):
So basically you're saying that even though you're going to write out like a kind
Silas Mähner (00:28:49):
of an outline of a system,
Silas Mähner (00:28:50):
and even though it's going to be wrong,
Silas Mähner (00:28:51):
it's better to have something that you're referencing for the future,
Silas Mähner (00:28:55):
because then you can be like,
Silas Mähner (00:28:55):
okay,
Silas Mähner (00:28:56):
we need to change this and we know it now,
Silas Mähner (00:28:58):
but then it's like a blueprint for the future.
Silas Mähner (00:28:59):
That's a, that's actually pretty, I like that a lot.
Silas Mähner (00:29:02):
That's a, that's pretty thoughtful.
Kieran White (00:29:04):
Yeah.
Kieran White (00:29:05):
And we would,
Kieran White (00:29:06):
we've only started doing that recently and it's ended up working really well versus like,
Kieran White (00:29:10):
yeah,
Kieran White (00:29:10):
just going wild,
Kieran White (00:29:12):
having like six months into the future,
Kieran White (00:29:13):
like a natural process that's arisen,
Kieran White (00:29:14):
but yeah,
Kieran White (00:29:16):
I'd largely forgotten what we had before.
Kieran White (00:29:18):
And so, yeah, how that structure makes sense.
Silas Mähner (00:29:21):
Yeah, that's what I'm always, I like to think about the kind of the inner game of the startup.
Silas Mähner (00:29:25):
It's really hard to figure out what to do because you don't want to get too bogged
Silas Mähner (00:29:28):
down with writing things down.
Silas Mähner (00:29:30):
I tend to,
Silas Mähner (00:29:31):
with building my recruitment business,
Silas Mähner (00:29:33):
want to make a list for every potential possible type of candidate.
Silas Mähner (00:29:37):
It's like,
Silas Mähner (00:29:37):
okay,
Silas Mähner (00:29:38):
I could do this,
Silas Mähner (00:29:39):
but I'm going to spend so much time every week categorizing every single candidate.
Silas Mähner (00:29:42):
Whereas if I just figure out, okay, here are the core things later on,
Silas Mähner (00:29:46):
that I know I need to be tracking for,
Silas Mähner (00:29:47):
I'll then make 10 core lists instead of 100 because otherwise I'm gonna spend all
Silas Mähner (00:29:52):
my time just updating my information.
Silas Mähner (00:29:55):
I have a tendency to wanna collect things.
Silas Mähner (00:29:59):
One thing I'm curious about is you,
Silas Mähner (00:30:02):
We've talked before, and you have a lot of ideas for things.
Silas Mähner (00:30:05):
I'm kind of curious how you approach,
Silas Mähner (00:30:07):
once you've committed to something as an entrepreneur,
Silas Mähner (00:30:09):
I mean,
Silas Mähner (00:30:09):
the whole idea of being an entrepreneur,
Silas Mähner (00:30:11):
often you want to start something,
Silas Mähner (00:30:12):
you want to build something.
Silas Mähner (00:30:13):
How do you suppress those ideas that you want to build?
Silas Mähner (00:30:16):
Or how do you go about dealing with the mentality of, hey, I've got another idea.
Silas Mähner (00:30:22):
Maybe this one's better than what I'm working on.
Silas Mähner (00:30:23):
Should I go pursue it?
Silas Mähner (00:30:24):
How do you think about that?
Kieran White (00:30:25):
It's an awesome question.
Kieran White (00:30:26):
That was one of my biggest weaknesses.
Kieran White (00:30:29):
Even when I was at Tesla,
Kieran White (00:30:31):
I sort of worked at the startup in the interim before return Kuro was like,
Kieran White (00:30:36):
I was really bad at doing one job more than three months.
Kieran White (00:30:41):
Yeah, I just couldn't do it.
Kieran White (00:30:45):
And then similarly,
Kieran White (00:30:47):
especially when we were in peak pivot mode,
Kieran White (00:30:50):
I think I just enjoyed not being tied to something.
Kieran White (00:30:55):
But I think similar to defining the business that you want to build,
Kieran White (00:31:00):
what I found useful was just sitting down and really distinctly writing down a journal.
Kieran White (00:31:06):
In this journal, what is the type of founder that I want to be?
Kieran White (00:31:09):
And after a little bit of reflection and writing, it very much was like,
Kieran White (00:31:14):
someone who can build and scale something that is recognizable.
Kieran White (00:31:18):
I would love to be able to say for people to be able to say,
Kieran White (00:31:21):
Curie really built incredible tooling and processes that got them to that point.
Kieran White (00:31:28):
And that was not what I was practicing.
Kieran White (00:31:31):
So I think just being very intentional,
Kieran White (00:31:32):
like what I want,
Kieran White (00:31:33):
who I wanted to be as a founder,
Kieran White (00:31:35):
which was one of the honesty parts I didn't love.
Kieran White (00:31:38):
So I think,
Kieran White (00:31:39):
like you say,
Kieran White (00:31:39):
it's really nice not being tied to something,
Kieran White (00:31:41):
not having metrics that hold you accountable and also being able to like see friends,
Kieran White (00:31:45):
like founder friends in different industries,
Kieran White (00:31:47):
having hard times,
Kieran White (00:31:48):
being like,
Kieran White (00:31:49):
it's okay,
Kieran White (00:31:49):
I'm in no industry.
Kieran White (00:31:51):
Like you're sort of in like this safe haven,
Kieran White (00:31:54):
which gets addicting,
Kieran White (00:31:55):
but is,
Kieran White (00:31:56):
yeah,
Kieran White (00:31:56):
no progress is made,
Kieran White (00:31:57):
I guess.
Kieran White (00:31:57):
Same question to you, same thing.
Silas Mähner (00:32:00):
Yeah,
Silas Mähner (00:32:00):
I would say for me,
Silas Mähner (00:32:01):
the point being is it's very easy for certain personality types to not want to have
Silas Mähner (00:32:06):
to be tied to something like to be kind of like,
Silas Mähner (00:32:09):
oh,
Silas Mähner (00:32:09):
like I'm just going to do something new.
Silas Mähner (00:32:10):
Like this is the whole my kind of thought process when I got into around the time
Silas Mähner (00:32:15):
that I got into into recruitment within renewables was like,
Silas Mähner (00:32:19):
oh,
Silas Mähner (00:32:19):
at some point I want to have a business of building businesses.
Silas Mähner (00:32:22):
Like I don't want to have to build a business and stick with it.
Silas Mähner (00:32:25):
I want to build multiple businesses and just like launch them and have like minions go,
Silas Mähner (00:32:29):
you know,
Silas Mähner (00:32:29):
take it from one to 10 or something.
Silas Mähner (00:32:32):
I'll just do zero to one.
Silas Mähner (00:32:34):
But yeah, that's not necessarily realistic.
Silas Mähner (00:32:37):
I think it's something that each founder is different.
Silas Mähner (00:32:40):
They have different, you know, kind of a...
Silas Mähner (00:32:42):
ways they look at things,
Silas Mähner (00:32:43):
but on the topic of ideas,
Silas Mähner (00:32:44):
like if you,
Silas Mähner (00:32:46):
what are some other things that you like areas of the market where you see ideas
Silas Mähner (00:32:49):
for other people to go build and you say,
Silas Mähner (00:32:51):
Hey,
Silas Mähner (00:32:52):
in climate,
Silas Mähner (00:32:52):
there's this really light touch.
Silas Mähner (00:32:53):
Like it doesn't actually, it could be a sweaty startup.
Silas Mähner (00:32:55):
It could be something software.
Silas Mähner (00:32:56):
Like what are some of the things that you see in climate or ideas for people to build?
Kieran White (00:33:02):
There's so many, I mean, like,
Kieran White (00:33:04):
in carbon market specifically we left on the table like five ideas that all had
Kieran White (00:33:08):
customers the reason we left them at the time was that nothing we really struggled
Kieran White (00:33:12):
to gain conviction of like all round i guess like all round industry venture scale
Kieran White (00:33:19):
in the medium term like we really struggled to get like i really struggled to get
Kieran White (00:33:22):
that conviction and so like to name a few and these have started to be worked on
Kieran White (00:33:27):
since we we left but like
Kieran White (00:33:29):
automated PDDs,
Kieran White (00:33:30):
like the way that GPT-4 I think was the first model that let you do that with the
Kieran White (00:33:34):
number of pages it took.
Kieran White (00:33:35):
So like automatic writing and reviewing, like that gets super easy.
Kieran White (00:33:40):
Anything to do with providing payment
Kieran White (00:33:45):
sort of processes and then tracking that payment amongst carbon market participants
Kieran White (00:33:50):
like i spent six months making this huge like diagram and being able to track and
Kieran White (00:33:54):
enable people to pay and distribute payments from one person to another and then
Kieran White (00:33:58):
for the end buyer to like certify that the payment has got back to the right person
Kieran White (00:34:02):
and like we had a few developers wanting to pay for that pretty immediately those
Kieran White (00:34:06):
were two things that came up that was super interesting
Silas Mähner (00:34:08):
What do you,
Silas Mähner (00:34:09):
I guess,
Silas Mähner (00:34:10):
in the space within back to EV charging,
Silas Mähner (00:34:12):
what do you see as the general direction of the space broadly?
Silas Mähner (00:34:17):
Are there any core trends or things that you say,
Silas Mähner (00:34:20):
hey,
Silas Mähner (00:34:20):
I believe that in five or 10 years,
Silas Mähner (00:34:22):
this is where we're going to be because of these macro things?
Kieran White (00:34:26):
I think what really attracted us to it was that EV charging on a whole,
Kieran White (00:34:29):
even though so much money has gone into it and it's like,
Kieran White (00:34:31):
I think like 10,
Kieran White (00:34:32):
20 year old industry,
Kieran White (00:34:33):
like
Kieran White (00:34:34):
A lot is still up for grabs.
Kieran White (00:34:35):
Like a lot of the charge point operators who, who build and not build, but.
Kieran White (00:34:40):
deploy and operate the public charging networks,
Kieran White (00:34:43):
they largely still don't have a business model that makes sense.
Kieran White (00:34:47):
They've gone public,
Kieran White (00:34:48):
they've SPAC,
Kieran White (00:34:49):
they've done all of the things,
Kieran White (00:34:50):
but still really struggle to make money.
Kieran White (00:34:53):
And I'm like, yes, maybe that's a problem with the utilization of more people driving EVs.
Kieran White (00:34:57):
I feel it's more of the way the industry has been structured thus far,
Kieran White (00:35:02):
I don't think quite fits the way that the EV drivers and fleets and everyone in
Kieran White (00:35:07):
general wants to use things.
Kieran White (00:35:09):
And so I think the model that people have been trying to draw is like just gas stations,
Kieran White (00:35:13):
but electric and like trying to to pace that business model.
Kieran White (00:35:17):
And the reason we want to cure and I think in five to 10 years,
Kieran White (00:35:20):
we'll probably look back and I like to think say that a lot of the business models
Kieran White (00:35:25):
and practices that were here today had iterated so much just because it hadn't
Kieran White (00:35:31):
quite found the right fit nor scalability nor sustainability of like keeping
Kieran White (00:35:36):
operating business.
Kieran White (00:35:37):
And so like
Kieran White (00:35:39):
The reason I say that is there's so many,
Kieran White (00:35:42):
like even just in our like small little fleet segment,
Kieran White (00:35:44):
there's so many unsolved problems,
Kieran White (00:35:47):
um,
Kieran White (00:35:48):
that alone probably aren't a startup,
Kieran White (00:35:50):
but you can see over time,
Kieran White (00:35:51):
like forming interesting stuff.
Kieran White (00:35:53):
So I think a lot is up for grabs.
Silas Mähner (00:35:57):
Do you fundamentally think that just like the kind of the petrol pump station
Silas Mähner (00:36:02):
analogy with just electricity will work?
Silas Mähner (00:36:04):
Like,
Silas Mähner (00:36:04):
is there actually enough margin doing that to pay for the infrastructure on a pure
Silas Mähner (00:36:09):
infrastructure plan?
Kieran White (00:36:11):
No, unless you have insanely high usage, which some places you do.
Kieran White (00:36:17):
But we're going to see this interesting thing in the next few years where a lot of
Kieran White (00:36:21):
the low hanging fruit,
Kieran White (00:36:23):
like sites with large electricity capacity,
Kieran White (00:36:27):
easy to build,
Kieran White (00:36:28):
cheap to run and operate and get up and running have probably been taken or the
Kieran White (00:36:33):
land grab has sort of happened or is happening.
Kieran White (00:36:36):
And so it's going to get to the point where
Kieran White (00:36:39):
There'll be this interim where the utilization that you can get does not match up
Kieran White (00:36:43):
to how much the site costs and the return.
Kieran White (00:36:48):
And subsequently,
Kieran White (00:36:49):
where the financing is coming from,
Kieran White (00:36:51):
no infrastructure investor will sign off on that site.
Kieran White (00:36:55):
So we're reaching this interesting in between of that.
Kieran White (00:36:59):
And a lot of fuel card providers, for example, who just make margin on gas
Kieran White (00:37:06):
via their fuel card in EV charging, that's not a business.
Kieran White (00:37:10):
And so we're going to see interesting innovations and pivots.
Kieran White (00:37:14):
I've already started seeing a few of some of the larger fuel card providers who are
Kieran White (00:37:17):
branching out really just rapidly trying to innovate or acquire startups and build
Kieran White (00:37:22):
an offering.
Kieran White (00:37:25):
So I don't think a lot of industry people quite,
Kieran White (00:37:27):
even though I think they say they do sometimes,
Kieran White (00:37:29):
I don't think anyone quite knows where it's going and who will emerge at the end of
Kieran White (00:37:34):
the day.
Kieran White (00:37:34):
I think like a few will have emerged thus far, but in my, in our opinion, like not in a sustainable way.
Silas Mähner (00:37:43):
Well,
Silas Mähner (00:37:43):
I mean,
Silas Mähner (00:37:44):
I would imagine that the way to actually make this work would be if you have other offerings.
Silas Mähner (00:37:49):
Like if you're,
Silas Mähner (00:37:50):
you know,
Silas Mähner (00:37:50):
I don't know,
Silas Mähner (00:37:51):
like a multiplex building and you have a lot of tenants,
Silas Mähner (00:37:55):
you can install the infrastructure.
Silas Mähner (00:37:57):
They'll maybe pay for the electricity kind of like at the rate they would by some
Silas Mähner (00:38:01):
ID card or whatever when they plug in.
Silas Mähner (00:38:02):
But because you're renting like this more green space or this place that has that
Silas Mähner (00:38:08):
infrastructure for your car,
Silas Mähner (00:38:09):
it's
Silas Mähner (00:38:09):
you then you make up the margins as a developer from the rents not from the
Silas Mähner (00:38:14):
electricity itself right which i think then it makes it a better case for it
Silas Mähner (00:38:18):
because you're just charging a premium and again whether or not that would work
Silas Mähner (00:38:20):
forever because if everybody has ep chargers eventually it won't it won't make a
Silas Mähner (00:38:24):
difference but
Silas Mähner (00:38:25):
I would assume it's going to be models like that based on what you've said.
Silas Mähner (00:38:29):
Like I don't have necessarily opinions until some of these things you've said.
Silas Mähner (00:38:31):
So that's kind of where my mind goes.
Silas Mähner (00:38:33):
But cool.
Silas Mähner (00:38:35):
Well, this is really helpful.
Silas Mähner (00:38:36):
I guess any core advice or tips on fundraising from your experience?
Kieran White (00:38:43):
Gosh, that's a good question.
Kieran White (00:38:44):
The one thing that comes to mind that one of our most trusted amazing angels told
Kieran White (00:38:51):
us or told me was like,
Kieran White (00:38:52):
you dig the well before you're thirsty.
Kieran White (00:38:55):
And that was the number one thing that I think sort of typifies fundraising in that
Kieran White (00:39:01):
either you have like a really strong round and then I don't think it matters so
Kieran White (00:39:05):
much or you build the well before you're thirsty,
Kieran White (00:39:07):
like build the relationships and then have people who you know that you like
Kieran White (00:39:13):
Internally, we call it a vibe check.
Kieran White (00:39:15):
You know you've just done the vibe check and you just both vibe.
Kieran White (00:39:18):
And I think that becomes even for us,
Kieran White (00:39:21):
when we did the pre-seed,
Kieran White (00:39:22):
a few of our investors and everyone's been amazing and amazingly supportive,
Kieran White (00:39:27):
but not everyone you vibe with completely.
Kieran White (00:39:30):
And so I think by working with people and digging the well before you're thirsty,
Kieran White (00:39:34):
I guess you won vastly increased the chances that you raised money.
Kieran White (00:39:39):
and like already have like after that in mind of having to work with these people
Kieran White (00:39:42):
for the next 10 years um because that's like amazing and like build theses with you
Kieran White (00:39:47):
which has been super helpful for us um but treating them as more than money i'd say
Silas Mähner (00:39:52):
has probably to typify that yeah awesome man well this has been great i i really
Silas Mähner (00:39:58):
appreciate you coming on any other things that you want to talk about that we
Silas Mähner (00:40:01):
didn't get a chance to or any closing thoughts
Kieran White (00:40:03):
Not at all.
Kieran White (00:40:04):
I mean, like a brief plug.
Kieran White (00:40:06):
If you have existing EV charging and parking infrastructure, we'd love to talk to you.
Kieran White (00:40:10):
And likewise with fleets.
Kieran White (00:40:12):
But always happy to jam any thoughts.
Kieran White (00:40:15):
And I'm always on LinkedIn if anyone wants to reach out.
Silas Mähner (00:40:19):
Absolutely.
Silas Mähner (00:40:19):
Just to clarify, you guys are working across the whole US, not just California, correct?
Kieran White (00:40:23):
Yeah, across the US.
Silas Mähner (00:40:25):
Nice.
Silas Mähner (00:40:25):
Very nice, man.
Silas Mähner (00:40:26):
Awesome.
Silas Mähner (00:40:26):
Well, it's a pleasure to have you on.
Silas Mähner (00:40:27):
This has been a long time coming.
Silas Mähner (00:40:28):
I'm glad we made it happen.
Kieran White (00:40:30):
Yeah, likewise.
Kieran White (00:40:31):
Thank you, Silas.
