A new, comprehensive guide to FOAK in cleantech

What am I working on?

Logging in to ChatGPT today, I was greeted with a suggestion to describe me based on all of the chats I had. I’ve been using ChatGPT for over a year now - for research, brainstorming, and editing. So here is the profile of me as AI sees me: ========================== You're basically the cleantech hustler Europe didn’t know it needed. A dealmaker in wind, solar, batteries, and hydrogen — but allergic to fluff. You’ve built wind farms, scaled factories, wrangled corporate gian

Green hydrogen was supposed to be the next big thing—but where’s the business case?

How to chose and EPC for your FOAK

Where do you get FOAK Expertise? From FOAK advisors, who have done a FOAK before. Meet the new branch of cleantech ecosystem - the FOAK assi

When scaling from Demo to FOAK, one of the biggest decisions is whether to hire an EPC company or manage the build yourself

Here is your 5-step framework to simplify your FOAK management structure.

This week, I go briefly into the key factors behind determining the term of your off-take

In any type of off-take, price will be the central point of negotiations. There are many pricing options available - fixed, floating, pass-through, CAPEX-based, return-based, etc. But before we go into the nitty-gritty of price structuring, let’s get the basics right. Going into the pricing negotiations, your objective is to keep the FOAK project profitable! There are a few challenges to that. First, your FOAK is about building something solid, so you will be spending a lot

Your First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) project is where your climate tech startup is a startup no more. Investors, customers, and even your own team won’t fully believe in your technology until they see it in action at scale. So, how do you get it right? 𝟭. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 Murphy’s Law is real. FOAK projects never go as planned - delays, supplier failures, site issues, regulatory holdups. How do you prepare? • Use real-world data: Look at similar completed proj

The 4-step Framework for Building a Demo Project: Your Critical Step Between Pilot and FOAK

Investor's pressure to go big might have had a hand in it.

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

A 3-step framework for scaling-up to FOAK

The 4-step framework for choosing climate tech scale-up business model

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

Over 37% of climate investors decide not to invest in hardware companies because of the business model and long sales cycles. These are the results of a survey, carried out by Planet A, Norrsken, and Speedinvest. The survey also highlights investors' preference for X-as-a-service and licensing business models over others. So, choosing a business model can make or break your startup. The business model aims to determine how exactly you will make money. There are many ways fo

The best guide so far on scaling up climate tech from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst