Emin Askerov
Cleantech FOAK Advisor

Your FOAK supply chain doesn’t start when you place the first order — it starts when you design your pilot. Miss that moment, and delays, overruns, and “unavailable parts” will follow. In my new post, I go through five steps to build your supply chain before your FOAK becomes real.

Cleantech startups usually sell to mature industries, and these don't like new stuff. How can founders overcome change inertia? Ports, especially municipally owned ones, are notorious for resisting any change to how they operate. Here is a story from Polina Vasilenko on how to sell floating solar to municipal ports.

Alternative business model for a battery factory

How diverse teams are really built.

Image is AI-generated. Scaling up sustainable aircraft is like scaling up nuclear power—a comparable challenge in terms of regulatory obstacles, timelines, and the weight of responsibility. At least, that’s how it seemed to me, looking from the outside. I was sure that the climate tech community could learn many lessons from the aviation startup experience, so I’ve asked an expert. I’ve just finished recording the next episode of WattsUpWithStartups with Dirk Singer, aviation

The humble transformer is at the heart of the electric grid. And for decades, it’s been a tailor-made marvel. Engineers loved the craft, utilities loved the high price that they passed on to consumers, and factories loved having “just the right” unit. But times changed, and the transformer industry didn’t. Until now. Meet One Power, a U.S. company taking the most boring, glacial, and conservative part of the grid… and flipping it on its head. Not by reinventing the tech, but

My full breakdown is now live: What’s working, what’s missing, and what scaleups, especially in cleantech and manufacturing, can do today without waiting for Brussels.

How to transform from project to product.

Off-takes are the holy grail of climatetech FOAKs. Conditional off-takes are the norm. Is there another way?

Hear Olivier Mussat, the CEO and founder of ATOME, about the role of fertilizers.

Airbus just quietly moved the launch of its hydrogen-powered plane from 2035 to 2045. In corporate speak, that’s not a delay—it’s a polite way of pulling the plug without admitting failure. After €1.7B spent, even Airbus is starting to realize that hydrogen aviation may be a science project, not a business. I called this a year ago, when Universal Hydrogen filed for bankruptcy after burning through $100M. That was a 20-minute or $100M crash course in hydrogen physics. Airbus

Data shows that 10x returns are extremely rare in the climate tech

In 2020, I was scrambling to get chips for our battery modules . Lead times had jumped from 2-3 months to over 9 months . Chipmakers prioritized gaming consoles and automotive giants, leaving cleantech startups like ours at the back of the line. That experience taught me just how fragile and unpredictable supply chains can be —and how they can make or break a scale-up. I was reminded of this while listening to The Green Blueprint  podcast episode, How Supply Chain Chaos Sank

Review of Breakthrough Energy and Cleantech for Europe report on the state of European manufacturing competitiveness

A Pilot is your first real-world test—where you prove that your technology works outside the lab.

Turkey's EV startup is ramping up sales.

What Canoo failure can teach cleantech scaleups?

De-icing a frozen water tower in the middle of nowhere is not on anyone’s job description. However, this is a reality that you can come up against when you are scaling up your climate tech and building your FOAK.  Most climate podcasts focus on finance, policy, or shiny new tech. But real stories of scaling climate hardware? Rare. That’s why The Green Blueprint episode, “𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱’𝘀 𝗕𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗔𝗖 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆,” caught my attention. Host L

A year ago, I launched ETR , a startup aimed at disrupting sustainable heating and cooling. Today, I’m closing it. This wasn’t an easy decision, but in hindsight, it was inevitable. What went wrong? Let me break it down. 👨🏼‍💻👷🏻‍♂️ Losing a Co-Founder = Losing Momentum My engineer co-founder, who was critical to our core idea, left the project. I tried to find a replacement, but I couldn’t. VCs always stress the importance of the team—and now I fully understand why.  Take

Here is my 4-step framework to determine if your tech is a drop-in solution