[ 00:00:00 ]You have to really be naive and also a bit full of yourself to make it past the first 100 no’s because only then you’ll find one yes. What were they thinking? The stories behind Europe’s most promising clean mobility startups. Hello, my name is Dan Sobovitz, and in this new podcast, I’ll be talking to some very successful startup entrepreneurs. Women and men who are disrupting mobility as we know it. They’re making it more sustainable and more inclusive, both for their passengers and for their employees. In this podcast, I won’t be asking them about their pitch decks or their growth rates or their shareholder models. I’m much more interested in what were thinking. How did it feel to go the lonely road of an entrepreneur? Did people follow them easily or did they think they were crazy?

[ 00:00:46 ] Was it fun all along or mostly frustrating? And deep down, did they really believe they were going to make it this far? In this episode, I have with me in the studio Alexander Sohl, founder and CEO of Me Energy, which offers off-grid fast transport. Charging stations as a service. First of all, hi Alex. Hi Dan. Let me ask you where you were when the idea hit you that it was your time to take the entrepreneurial road. I was in a car on a test drive on the Swabian Alps. And it’s a fairly rural area in Germany. And I ran out of battery. It was one of the first electric cars. And back then, there were no charging poles around. So the question was, where do you charge?

[ 00:01:29 ] So I had to knock on random doors, households, and ask the people there whether they would share the electricity with me. Just a regular household plug. Luckily, I found a nice couple, elderly, who was looking at me weirdly when I came in an electric car. Because back in the day, it was like the future arrived. When was this? 2016. And it was the first electric car BMW made them. And they looked at me as future arrived. And I was like, ‘Can I have your household plug for a while?’ They invited me for coffee and tea. How old were they? 60, 70, around that age. And a really nice couple. But as Germans are, they’re, let’s say, a bit reserved.

[ 00:02:12 ] But nonetheless, I mean, I stayed there for seven hours because that’s how long it took to recharge a car for 100 kilometers on a regular household plug. So it was enough time to not only talk to them, get to know their story, but also to think about why is there so few charging outlets? Why? Why are there so few charging points in Germany back then and even now? And what were you doing professionally back then? I was a research and development engineer at Bosch, a large automotive supplier. So how long it take from the seven hours with an elderly German couple in the Alps to you announcing to your boss at Bosch that you’re taking time off? Around nine months. So after I had the idea in the car, I also filed an internal innovation program.

[ 00:02:54 ] So I pitched internally at Bosch for the idea. But sadly, the company decided against pursuing it because it is, let’s say, too innovative and too far from the actual product line of Bosch. So then I still had the idea in mind when I went to Berlin and got to know my co-founder. And she was really, from the first day, she was really passionate about the idea and had also a lot of history in the automotive sector. So we then decided to both pursue the idea. And that’s when I also decided to quit my job around nine months later. So, first, you met her. Then, you told her about the idea. You told her the same story about the Alps, seven hours with some stranger people.

[ 00:03:33 ]So, what was the solution that you put forward? So it’s off-grid fast charging.

[ 00:04:14 ] Charging is mainly limited by the power grid because when we built a grid a hundred years ago, nobody thought about electric cars. Electric cars fast charging takes as much power as 50 households. So it’s a 20-story building you would set up somewhere or one charging station. This is crazy. And that’s not what a power grid was laid out for. And this is why we said, OK, if the grid is the bottleneck, we have to do it without the grid. And that’s how we sort of arrived at the idea of producing power on site with off-grid fast charging stations. So it’s basically portable batteries and not strong enough to charge entire cars that are going to reach the car wherever it needs it. It’s a similar principle, but it’s not batteries.

[ 00:04:53 ]To go back from the technology, which I won’t presume to fully understand, to your story, how old were you when you decided to leave Bosch for this adventure? Twenty-seven.

[ 00:05:39 ] So fairly in the beginning of your career. Barely in the beginning of the career, yes. During my studies, I was also had a previous startup. It was an e-commerce, so nothing too special. But that was also why I was, let’s say, more likely to leave a secure job at a large corporate. Which my parents loved, my grandparents loved. It’s funny because I had this conversation with a previous entrepreneur who is Israeli. Especially in Israel, I think it’s very difficult to escape the startup mentality and the startup nation. And I was telling him that when I lived in Berlin, I was surprised that in Israel working for a startup is kind of the dream of the parents. Whereas in Germany, it’s like, don’t do that because it’s unstable and it’s risky.

[ 00:06:21 ] So from your smile, I get the impression that they were not so keen about the idea of you leaving a major German corporation. No, and it’s also until my grandma passed away. I never told her that I actually started my own company. She thought I was working at Bosch. But my parents, well, I broke to them from the very beginning and they were like, okay, well, you do your thing, you try. And then, I mean, I think secretly they thought after one or two years, I’ll go back to work at a corporate because it wouldn’t work out. But luckily, it did. This was how long ago? So I started. I started in 2017 with my co-founder. And then, two years later, we got our first funding in 2019.

[ 00:07:04 ] So that’s where the actual well, I knew, okay, this is going to happen. So it’s been a few years now. And where do you stand now with your company? We’re a scale-up. So we have over 60 charging points live in Germany and now the first in Poland. We’re ramping up production to increase the number of charging points by 10 to 15 a month. And now it’s also again a critical phase where we are raising another round of capital to bring more e-mobility to other countries, not only Germany and Poland, but to expanding throughout Europe, France, Spain, the UK, to name a few. What do your parents think now? They’re really proud. I mean, everything really changed when we had the first articles live, TV reports showing. And also, I mean, this summer, we had a visit from our Chancellor to the company. Wow.

[ 00:08:08 ] And that was really, I mean, my parents, they don’t use social media, but WhatsApp is a thing there. So they post everything and repost everything that we do so that I have the feeling they’re really proud. But, well, they’re German, so they don’t really show it. Tell me about the visit from the Chancellor. It was quite an honor and also a lot of effort. It just happened to us by accident because I got to know one of the heads of the parties at an event and he was like sort of testing me in a way. Then, after all, I guess he thought I’m a nice guy and I could handle such a visit. It’s not only that you’re a nice guy. I mean, you’re running a successful company and it is part of the German Energiewende.

[ 00:08:50 ] I mean, it fits into the political agenda of Germany, of an energy transition. Yes. And also we’re based in Eastern Germany, which is also a special focus. Brandenburg-Wildau, which is right outside Berlin. However, in Germany, there’s a special focus on Eastern Germany because of the voting behavior. And that’s why during the summer tour, they were actively looking for places where there is the Energiewende happening, where there was successful change. And that’s also how we fit into the summer tour of the Chancellor. They were vetting me a bit and then it was a lot of preparation, security-wise, because it’s the Chancellor – because it’s the Chancellor. And I mean, I never had so much, have been in contact with so many policemen and special forces, and everything, but it was a really great experience.

[ 00:09:36 ] And it was, I mean, only 45 minutes. It was so quick. But you have around 50, 60 people just surrounding you all the time – security, press, and everything that attaches. So it was quite an experience; I’ll probably never forget. A lot of impact, though. A lot of press coverage, a lot of press coverage. We made it to the eight o’clock news in Germany, which is a big thing. And concretely, for your business, this coverage generated business? It generated business. Everybody we talked to over the next two, three weeks; the first sentence said, ‘Hey, I saw you on TV.’ The chancellor was there. So it lifted our visibility a lot and also has it, let’s say, a lot of credibility because once such, I always said to the team, it was like, OK, imagine it’s the biggest influencer in Germany is coming to the company.

[ 00:10:34 ] And that’s really what happened. So there was a lot of reach, especially in old-school areas, because our customers are large corporations and they don’t really follow social media that much. So for them going or looking at the eight o’clock news and then seeing a startup, that’s something special. Once everybody gets on stage, the vice president… All right. So as everybody’s making their way to the stage. Thank you, jury members, evaluators. And at this point, I should also mention that all the startups participating in this podcast are those who won this year’s edition of the European Startup Prize for Mobility, which is Europe’s largest acceleration program for clean mobility startups. The Startup Prize is a private-public initiative which brings together all major EU institutions, national authorities, philanthropies, and multinational companies who jointly scout, rank, and boost Europe’s most promising clean mobility startups.

[ 00:11:25 ] This year, the prize received over 700 applications from all across Europe. And you went through a very rigorous selection process, both written and in front of a professional jury, to have won among the top 10. You’re now part of the acceleration program, which brought you; we’re recording this conversation in Helsinki as part of the winner’s European tour. So, we just visited Slush. But also, part of your prize is being in touch with the prize partners for investment and business partnerships, presentation to VCs and CVCs. So, there’s lots happening for you, with the other nine startups, all across Europe. I should mention to the listeners that if you want to learn about all the other startups, you can visit Startupprize.eu. Have a wonderful evening and see you all at the sixth edition of the European Startup Prize for Mobility.

[ 00:12:12 ] So, you’re definitely in a very positive trajectory, Alexander. You’re telling me that from the starting point of jumping from a very stable environment to the crazy idea that you had, now you’re a scale-up, the Chancellor is visiting you. I presume you have an entire team working for you. What are you mostly proud of? I’m mostly proud of that we didn’t lose the corporate culture we had in the beginning. How many are you now? 34, plus some freelancers, around 40 is team size. So, 34 who are based in the same place? Yes, in the same place. We only have one office. What do I mean by this? So it’s more a group of friends. So everybody that comes to us stays for a long time. So we still have all of the employees we first onboarded in 2019.

[ 00:13:01 ] Nobody left. Nobody left. They’re still with the company. And it really became a family. This is something I’m really, really proud of because I get motivated going to work not only because I’m doing something good for society and trying to reduce impact of emissions in the mobility sector, but also because I like working with the people. And even if I let’s say we’re in a bad place or something, if there’s some challenge coming up, part of the motivation is also doing it for the team, doing it for the family, and also knowing that I can fully rely on them when I’m not there or to also take care of me when there’s something happening. I used this expression of like ‘a family’ in one of the previous episodes.

[ 00:13:43 ] And somebody said to me, don’t say that because it’s all about work-life balance. So, work is work and family is family. So, yeah, but I guess different companies have a different understanding how you meant it. It’s a family in the good sense, and not in terms of blurring the boundaries. And let’s be honest. I mean, all of the people working for us, they mostly have technical backgrounds. They could earn way more in the industry for large corporations. So for them, there has been has to be a different motivation to go somewhere. And that’s what I meant about the case of Germany, at least versus Israel, whereas in Israel, as far as I know, startups, even in the risky phases, they compensate for the risk by paying more.

[ 00:14:19 ] They burn more money even if they don’t have it because they understand that they need to compensate for the risk. Whereas in Germany, I hear that it’s not the case. So, you have both the risk and not-as-good conditions, and you’re there for the thrill or for the impact or for believing or having more influence, etc., but you don’t have that offset, which you find in other not-sure-about-the-American-market, by the way, if it’s. They also pay well. I mean, so I guess we have a saying: ‘You come for the idea, but you stay for the people’, and that’s with everything. I mean, if you think back, it’s not really the money you make, at least if you are, let’s say, at a short-term level and let’s say also sustainability starts with salary.

[ 00:14:56 ] So we’re not paying; it’s not this bad, That’s not bad. Do they get equity? Some get. Yes. It’s part of the risk for them. They don’t get well paid, but they know that if you make it, then they will also be compensated. Yes, but that’s also not the biggest motivation. The biggest motivation is not the compensation. It’s that they are part of something bigger, that they are part of the family and they feel like it’s their company. Maybe to speak of, and we conclude with something bigger. So you mentioned that the chancellor came to you because you’re based in Eastern Germany, and indeed in the public debate, there’s always the feeling of the winners and the losers of the transition. We close coal mines.

[ 00:15:34 ] There are certain jobs that are disappearing, both because of digitalization, but also because of energy transition. And I guess you were kind of the brochure case of looking, we’re creating businesses and good jobs here in Eastern Germany. Do you feel like you’re fitting that that narrative of, you know, energy transition can also create good jobs? And cater for people, not only for the environment? Yes, definitely. And it’s it’s the truth. The problem is that statistics don’t count and only stories count. So that’s why you have to have faces. You have to have names behind those stories. And that’s where we’re a good fit in that narrative. And it also opens a lot of doors because, also what we are doing is in a bit, also controversial because it’s for immobility.

[ 00:16:16 ] We’re not the poster boy on the first page. So, we’re a problem solver. And that’s why, for us, it’s really important to to play that role in the political agenda and to have access to those political channels. Being located in Eastern Germany, and slightly remote from Berlin, is it also a challenge for you to find talent? Yes, and no. How far are you from, let’s say, a major station in Berlin? Major station, half an hour by train. It’s OK. It’s a suburb, basically. So, it’s not really remote. No, it’s not really remote. So it’s the poster boy in terms of being Eastern Germany, but it’s still close enough to Berlin, which is a poor city by itself, but it’s not really the typical East German. Yes.

[ 00:16:53 ] I mean, the good thing about Berlin is there is young talent motivated to work for climate change or fighting climate change. This is really good thing. So everything or all the people working in software, marketing, and R&D jobs, most of them live in Berlin, but since we’re also a hardware company, we have a workshop, and you also need to employ skilled workers. And those you don’t really find in Berlin; you find them right outside. So this is why there’s a yes and no. I mean, yes, it’s hard. You have more diversity outside the city. Yes, you have. Let’s say the city, all the software engineers – it’s hard to convince them to travel half an hour outside the city.

[ 00:17:32 ] But at the same time, if you hire for a workshop, it’s way easier to find them half an hour outside the city and not in the city center. So this is why there is a yes and no to this answer. And in the end, it’s all about being able to get across the mission and to onboard them to the family. Because also to give them a picture, they work for something bigger than their own salary. And this is what we have been fairly successful with. And nowadays, also with remote work, it’s not that you have to be present 24/7 in the company. Alex, what should I wish you for 2024? In one year from now, we want to be able to operate in four to five European countries. Which ones?

[ 00:18:11 ] Germany and Poland – we’re already active, but we’re going to start with France, Spain, and the UK. So this is something we want to bring e-mobility and sustainable mobility to all fleets across Europe, and we want to save a lot of carbon. So next year, the target is over 10 kilotons. So this is something we actively pursue. And we also have a counter effect in the company that on a daily basis. So, two European countries now at the end of 2023, four by the end of next year. And you keep growing all across Europe. Yes. And then someday the US, maybe not next year, but 2025. Keep us posted. Congratulations once again on the success and on winning the European Startup Prize for Mobility. Once again, thank you, Alex. To learn more about any of the startups on our podcast, visit Startupprize.eu. This was What Were They Thinking? The stories behind Europe’s most promising clean mobility startups. Brought to you by the European Startup Prize for Mobility. You can find all episodes on your favorite podcast platform. I’m Dan Somovitz. Drive carefully and sustainably. See you next time.