Ten years ago, I made a decision: the global problem I would devote my professional life to solving would be climate change. My way of contributing would be to help scale credible, proven, and economically viable climate technologies. Looking back, I have been fortunate to play a role in scaling wind energy and lithium-ion batteries. These are now mainstream industries. But in my private life, the story was different. I kept driving a diesel car. I ruled out solar panels for my country home. I kept flying. The income I made was never enough to justify switching to cleaner alternatives. The only real personal change I made was ditching my car after moving to Turkey. This gap between the professional and the personal is telling. Solar panels have become cheaper, but most climate technologies still look like toys for the rich. Heat pumps are efficient and climate-friendly, but their rollout has been slowed by high upfront costs and low spark-spreads. EVs are finally approaching mass affordability — even European manufacturers are now selling decent models under €30K — yet something still feels out of sync. Belief vs. Agency Public attitudes have shifted. Ten years ago, climate change was not real for many. Today, most people I speak with acknowledge that it is. But they don’t see how they can help avert it — or even adapt to it. Instead, conversations quickly slide into myths about “toxic batteries” or “solar panel landfills,” while remaining blind to the tangible health and pollution effects of coal and cars. On the global stage, this disconnect is even sharper. Climate action has taken hits from every direction: Anti-climate rhetoric, especially in U.S. politics. High European energy prices, wrongly blamed on renewables. Decades of subsidies channeled into technologies with little or no climate impact. Scandals around ESG reporting and carbon credits, which have undermined trust. Crossing the 1.5°C threshold, while the movement clings to a maximalist, all-or-nothing narrative. The credibility of climate action has been severely damaged. Time for a Reset The climate movement needs a new narrative. Less moral superiority, more pragmatism. Less “green premiums,” more “resilience and savings.” We should consistently show that climate technologies not only reduce CO₂ but also deliver immediate and tangible benefits: cheaper energy bills, cleaner air, and healthier homes. I like to stress two points: 1. Focus on the 80%.
We already have the technologies that can decarbonise the majority of emissions quickly and at competitive prices. Solar, wind, batteries, and heat pumps. These are proven and scalable. Hydrogen, SMRs, fusion, e-fuels, and long-duration storage may have a role, but they will not move the needle in the next decade. 2. Be pragmatic about the last 20%.
The hardest-to-abate sectors should be evaluated purely on economic grounds. If decarbonising the final 20% costs more than it delivers in benefits, we should acknowledge that. A Reset in Practice For me, the “pragmatic reset” means scaling technologies that make economic sense, fast. It also means being honest about trade-offs. Climate action must be credible, not performative. I still wrestle with the personal-professional gap. But I am convinced that the only way to bridge it — for me, for industry, for society — is to focus on climate solutions that people actually want to adopt because they improve their lives, not just because they are told they should. This post was inspired by Michael Liebreich’s recent provocation on the Pragmatic Climate Reset. It raises many important points. One that stood out to me is that the climate movement has lost credibility by clinging to maximalist narratives while failing to deliver practical benefits. If you haven't read it yet. read it here: https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/liebreich-the-pragmatic-climate-reset-part-ii-a-provocation/

Every few weeks, I see news on long-duration energy storage—compressed air, flow batteries, thermal, and hydrogen. Yesterday, a post by Ilja Pawel made me think harder about LDES. So let me distil my thoughts in this post, and come back to it in 10 years, to see how it plays out: Today, there is no real market for LDES. There is a market for up to 4 hours of storage—and lithium-ion rules there. The actual LDES market will only emerge when renewables consistently push past ~60% of generation in a grid. Until then, the cheapest way to back up renewables remains… natural gas turbines. LNG can be stored indefinitely, and gas plants are proven, fast to build, and relatively low-CAPEX. 📊 The chart below compares LCOE in Denmark, 2025 (Europe’s most renewable-heavy grid): Natural Gas CCGT: €90–105/MWh is still the most cost-effective option Flow Batteries: €165–177/MWh, currently the best LDES option Other LDES (hydrogen, thermal, CAES): higher costs today, and maybe some strategic value The gap is clear: natural gas is cheaper, but it comes with emissions and carbon costs, which I think we can perfectly tolerate. So my bet? Next 10 years: Gas + lithium-ion will dominate. Beyond that: As renewables rise and LDES costs fall, flow batteries, thermal storage, and hydrogen might gradually take the role that gas peakers play today. But that’s far from certain. This analysis was done with the help of Claude AI - https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/e5fdb64a-7ae6-4178-a5ee-1b0c5cbfc36f If you want more insights into cleantech and decision-making frameworks for cleantech scale-ups, follow me and stay updated! I regularly publish tips and tactics on scaling up climate technologies, taken from my own and other founders' experiences!

A head of procurement at one of Europe’s largest lithium-ion battery manufacturers once told me: “I got this email from a guy in India with a PowerPoint deck laying out his startup’s technology. The idea seemed interesting, so I forwarded it to our R&D department. Three months later, I was signing a contract with this guy.” A cold email, sent to the right person, turned into a contract. It happens. But you can’t build your entire commercial strategy on luck. Every climate tech scaleup finds its own way to clients. Some founders put up a website and wait for inquiries. Others rely on countrymen working in their target companies. Some hire top commercial executives with established networks. Over the years, I’ve distilled these patterns into a five-step framework for finding your clients—tailored to the realities of FOAK and climate tech. Step 1. Know your client type: hungry, cautious, or indifferent Not all clients are equal. In climatetech, you usually meet three types: The hungry - industries that are undergoing disruption or facing regulatory pressure. Think of the automotive sector racing to electrify. LeydenJar, the Dutch solid-state anode startup, secured three of its top five customers through a simple website contact form. The cautious – stable, high-margin businesses like utilities, ports, or steelmakers. They could benefit from innovation, but the risks outweigh the rewards. LineVision had to re-engineer its software to meet strict US grid cybersecurity rules before grid operators would even talk. The indifferent – businesses that use your product but don’t really care which supplier it comes from. Ports buying power. ATOME, a maker of green ammonia, knew this well, as for fertiliser plants, price is king, not how “green” your ammonia is. Recognising which group you’re selling to will shape your strategy and your patience. Step 2. Hire your chief commercial officer from the client’s world One of my former bosses took charge of a thermal power plant that served steel companies. His first move was to hire salespeople straight from the steel industry. Within months, sales rose, debts fell, and the plant reinvented itself around customer needs. Why it works: They know the real pain points. They bring warm contacts and a reputation. They understand internal politics—whether to pitch the CTO, CSO, or a head of particular department. Sometimes, the cultural dimension is even sharper. JR Energy Solution, a Korean lithium ion electrode manufacturer, landed early clients thanks to its access to a global network of Korean professionals working in client companies. In industries dominated by one country—like batteries dominated by China—your sales chances multiply if your lead seller knows that world inside out. Step 3. Leverage your investors’ networks Investors aren’t just capital providers, they’re connectors. Many growth-stage climatetech investors are ex-corporate managers from the very industries you’re targeting. Impact funds like Breakthrough Energy have built ecosystems where portfolio startups and corporates regularly intersect. And introductions can also come laterally—from startups in unrelated fields who share investors with you. Corporations rarely stick to one vertical. The key is simple: ask. Step 4. Master the cold introduction If your client is “hungry,” they may find you. But don’t rely on chance. Pitch sessions and accelerator demo days can work, but only with clients actively scouting for innovation. LinkedIn outreach is cheap and scalable, but don’t expect miracles. What really works in the B2B space is personal presence. Research your target company, identify the right decision-makers, and find out which conferences they attend. Reach out beforehand and then show up regardless of their reply. Hand them a hardcopy pitch. Suggest a meeting. Do this consistently, and the first “technical discussion” will eventually become a “commercial discussion.” Step 5. Be visible in industry media Interviews, podcasts, and panel talks may feel tiring, but they cut through barriers. Familiarity breeds openness. If someone has seen your name once, they’re far more likely to take your call. And don’t overthink it. This isn’t a PhD thesis defence — it’s a show. Get your most charismatic person on stage (often, but not always, the founder). Public speaking and media presence are jobs in themselves, but their payoff is massive. Final remarks The effort it takes to land first meetings depends heavily on your industry. Some sectors have an acute hunger for new tech. Others will resist until you’ve used every tool available. Either way, your best marketing asset isn’t a fancy marketing agency - it’s people: the CCO with the thickest address book, the investor with the right boardroom access, the advisor with the credibility to open doors. Once you’re in the room, the real work begins.

As the news broke last week, Natron Energy’s bankruptcy sparked a flood of commentary in my feed. Everyone seemed to have their culprit: “Greedy, impatient investors” – after 12 years of bankrolling, they wouldn’t bridge one more. “Foot-dragging UL certification” – the safety stamp that took too long to arrive. “The Chinese, of course” – lithium price collapse and competition from across the ocean. “Overambitious management” – jumping from a 0.6 GWh line straight to a 24 GWh gigafactory. Of these, the last one feels closest to the mark. The rest are not causes but symptoms – or simply the risks that come with this industry. I guess that even Natron’s own team might struggle to name one or two decisive reasons. Scaling up manufacturing is never about a single failure point. It’s about the accumulation of dozens of small ones: shaky supply chains, technical glitches, hesitant customers, cautious investors. What matters is the reminder: scaling hardware is far more complicated than most think. And there is still no universal playbook for it. At least not yet. For a glimpse of what such a playbook might look like – check this link and subscribe to my blog.

In the end, it had to be a political decision. After half a year of sifting through more than twenty locations and countless meetings with local officials, our future 8 GWh factory came down to two options. Tatarstan: a highly industrialised region east of Moscow, with a strong industrial park, permits ready, and—most importantly—right next to our main customer, Kamaz. Kaliningrad: a Russian exclave in Europe, wedged between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea, on the unfinished site of a nuclear power plant. Every rational criterion pointed to Tatarstan: customer proximity, supply chain, logistics, readiness, taxes, and even seasonal conditions. Kaliningrad won, and on the face of it it was for one reason: money. The regional government offered to fund over 20% of the project. But the deeper truth was political. The abandoned nuclear power plant site belonged to Rosatom, our sole shareholder. It had become a political liability, too expensive to complete and too costly to abandon. Repurposing it for a lithium-ion factory was a convenient way to write a new story. That decision came at a price. The location was far from our customer, the site was incomplete, workforce relocation was inevitable, and logistics were riskier. I signed the agreement in September 2021. Six months later, Russia invaded Ukraine, and every hidden risk of Kaliningrad was realised at once. Me, (on the left), signing an agreement with Kaliningrad region governor, 2021 The FOAK Location Selection Framework Your demo or FOAK (First-of-a-Kind) site is one of the most consequential choices you will ever make. Costs, operations, timelines, and sometimes survival depend on it. Politics, investors’ agendas, or personal bias can tip the balance away from logic. My advice: use a structured framework and watch for irrational influences. Here’s the FOAK location selection framework I wish more teams followed: 1. Stay close to your primary customer Lower delivery costs: your FOAK prices will already be high. Faster iterations: constant feedback and site visits save months of emails and Teams calls. Visible commitment: being near your anchor customer builds trust in the riskiest stage. 2. Balance against supplier proximity If inputs are easy to ship, prioritise customer proximity. If inputs are heavy, hazardous, or hard to move - consider suppliers first. Factor in CBAM, tariffs, and carbon footprint. Stress test for geopolitical risks, lockdowns, and trade disruptions. 3. Run a complete logistics risk assessment Quote current costs, then check historical spikes and their causes. Map transport bottlenecks, political choke points, and customs delays. Think of tail risks: blocked canals, fragile bridges, and sanctions. 4. Test the physics and infrastructure of the site Weather windows for construction works (snow, heat, floods, storms). Site topography and environmental restrictions. Power, water, wastewater, roads - are they already built or just promises? 5. Check labour and living conditions Is the workforce available locally? If not, what’s the cost of relocating and housing them? Don’t forget families: schools, healthcare, recreation. 6. Understand local politics Meet officials early to learn pain points, local factions and rivalries. Map potential blockers (farmers, NGOs, NIMBY groups). Look for incentives: land, permits, training centres, financing. 7. Move quietly and fast Don’t signal commitment too early — land prices spike, ownership shifts, and projects stall. Stay in stealth until the lease or purchase is signed. Only then go public. Conclusion Industrial parks can sometimes shortcut many of these steps—premade infrastructure, pre-cleared permits, eager local officials. But even then, walk through the checklist. It is always cheaper to catch a mistake on paper than halfway through pouring concrete. And remember: not every decision will be rational. Some will be political. Your job is to know the difference, and to push logic as far as it will go before the politics take over. 👉 I’m writing a book: “The FOAK Framework”, on how to scale up climate hardware. This story, and frameworks like the one above, are part of it (they come in an expanded version in the book). If you’d like early access to draft chapters, drop me a note!

Photo by Abby Chung: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-ship-docked-1079946/ There’s something rarely acknowledged in cleantech sales: often, the main obstacle isn’t price, policy, or even technology. It’s change inertia. During my podcast with Polina Vasilenko, founder of HelioRec, she shared a story that quietly reveals one of the toughest barriers for any climate tech company trying to sell into traditional industries. To build her floating solar startup, Polina spent two years doing what many founders skip: she spoke with over 150 port authorities and operations teams across Europe. Not a few friendly leads. A full campaign of face-to-face conversations, exhibitions, and follow-ups. Here are the most common responses she got: > “Looks interesting, but call us next year.” > “What if a ship hits it?” > “We’d love to—if someone else pays for it.” No active objections. But no movement either. Because, as Polina put it, “Ports don’t exist to do energy. They exist to do cargo.” That’s the mindset you’re up against when you bring innovation to legacy infrastructure. Even when the solution is technically viable, economically reasonable, and aligned with their public sustainability goals, taking action still feels like a risk. Not because of the panels or the floaters, but because of what it asks of the organisation: a break from business as usual. And it’s not limited to ports. I’ve seen this in wind energy, in batteries, in district heating. The further your product is from what your customer already does, the more work you’ll need to do to reduce perceived risk. This is what Polina has been doing since day one: — Mapping out the operational objections — Building installation and emergency response plans — Speaking their language: timelines, layout constraints, insurance coverage — And critically, identifying the people within the port ecosystem who are motivated not just by compliance, but by progress For early-stage founders working on hardware climate tech, I think there’s an important lesson here: Don’t just validate the problem. Validate the willingness to change because that’s the real bottleneck. And it doesn’t show up on your pitch deck. I am curious - what’s been the most persistent form of resistance you’ve faced when trying to introduce a new solution in a legacy industry? #energytransition #cleantech #climatetech #floatingsolar #founderstory #inertia

According to PitchBook’s Q2 2025 data, overall clean energy VC deal value dropped 6% from Q1 and is on track for a second consecutive annual decline. Yet beneath the surface, important shifts are taking place: 🧠 Fewer deals, bigger bets The number of deals is down 22% year-over-year, but median deal sizes have jumped 65%. Investors are concentrating their firepower, targeting nuclear, grid software, and datacenter-friendly energy tech. ⚛️ VCs’ can’t get enough of Nuclear Four of the seven largest deals this quarter went to nuclear startups. TerraPower raised $650M, with Nvidia’s VC arm participating. Fusion spinouts like Proxima Fusion and TAE also closed large rounds, riding the AI infrastructure wave. 📉 Solar, wind and lithium cooling off Segments like solar PV, lithium-ion, and (finally!) green hydrogen saw steep drops in deal volume and value. Wind was the only intermittent segment with any notable momentum—led by startups like PhysicsX and Aerones. 🌐 Grid infrastructure is the new darling With interconnection delays plaguing every market, investment in analytics, VPPs, and non-lithium batteries is rising fast. Base Power, Mainspring, and Natron are examples of this shift toward grid-enabling tech. 🏛️ Policy uncertainty casts a shadow In the U.S., the rollback of IRA tax credits and sourcing rules introduced by the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” are shaking confidence in solar and wind. Developers are rushing to meet revised deadlines—but exits remain weak. So while the capital tide has receded, the strong swimmers are clearer now. Nuclear and grid tech are getting the spotlight. Grid investments are long overdue, and I applaud their resurgence. VCs' fascination with nuclear puzzles me. Any investment in nuclear should have an investment horizon of 20+ years. Last time I checked, VCs aimed for 10 years at most. An investment by the government or a big strategic investor would not have elicited any comments on my part, but with so much VC money thrown down the reactor core, we are witnessing the birth of another bubble. For more on investment in nuclear energy, check out my dedicated blog section here .

A car is never just a car. It’s independence. It’s private space. It’s memory and identity. For many, it’s also an emotional anchor. No wonder car brands invest billions into shaping not only technology but also cultural image. Toyota equals reliability, Volvo equals safety, Porsche equals speed—and fun. Renault? Value with a French twist. These identities sell far more than specs or pricing tables ever could. And that’s exactly why we should be careful when we start treating EVs as just a hardware commodity. At the EcoMat conference in Istanbul, the discussion kicked off by Hakan Dogu wasn’t just about batteries and motors. It was about meaning, ownership, identity—and what might be changing forever. Tech ≠ Trust Chinese EVs are here. They’re not just cheap—they’re very good. Superior range, seamless software integration, fast charging, and high automation. BYD is now one of the top global players by volume. And yet, would I buy one? Not even at half price. Because it’s not just about price or tech, it’s about trust. And today, when you buy a car, you’re also buying a data pipe that constantly streams your location, driving habits, and even conversations. So if I have to choose between feeding my data to an overregulated EU bureaucracy or to the Chinese Communist Party, I’ll choose Brussels every time. China has built an impressive technological machine. But brand image is not something you can scale with a CAPEX injection. It’s decades of meaning, of alignment, of cultural fit. Unless China becomes a democracy and remains one for the next fifty years, I’m not letting its EVs into my garage—or my metadata stream. (That’s why I’m not on TikTok, I don’t use DeepSeek, and I get slightly nervous when my Xiaomi robot vacuum follows me around the flat - so I keep a baseball bat handy, just in case.) Will Brand Loyalty Survive In The Age Of Electric Mobility? This emotional power of car ownership might hold. Or it might collapse. None of my three grown-up kids has a driver’s license. I got mine the moment I turned 18. For them, cars don’t signal freedom—they signal congestion, cost, and climate guilt. Urban Gen Z prefers walkable cities, ride shares, and maybe e-scooters. That’s where the battle is shifting—from owning a car to using mobility. If that happens, brand loyalty becomes harder to maintain. It’s easy to love Porsche when it sits in your driveway. It’s harder to feel the same about a shared Tesla robotaxi that smells faintly of wet dog. Autonomous vehicles and mobility-as-a-service could upend the personal meaning of cars entirely. Or at least dilute it. Infrastructure Reality Check Let’s assume we do want everyone to switch to EVs. Can we? Not without pain. European cities were built before the car, let alone the charger. Narrow streets, dense layouts, and heritage buildings don’t mesh well with rapid EV infrastructure rollout. Strengthening the local grid to support mass charging is technically possible, but economically painful and politically slow. So we’re likely to see a multi-modal future: more trains, trams, buses, bikes, walking—and a niche but persistent segment of private EV owners. The car becomes more of a “subscription object” or luxury good. Less mass, more margin. That’s where brand still matters. Europe: Tech-Late but Brand-Rich Europe doesn’t make most of the EV supply chain. Not the motors, not the batteries, not the inverters. Over 90% of all battery-grade materials, cell manufacturing, and EV components are sourced from China, and a bit from Korea, or Japan. So if Europe wants to catch up, it will have to pay. In my previous roles localising wind turbine and battery production, I’ve seen this up close. Our made-in-Russia products were always more expensive than Chinese imports. We improved, localised, and optimised, but we never caught up on cost. Europe will likely follow the same pattern: local EV and battery production that is 20–40% more expensive than Asian imports. Can this be justified? Yes, if two things happen: 1. Friendly shoring: Europe can offset some costs by building upstream capacity in strategically aligned, lower-cost nations like Morocco. 2. Brand premium: “Made in EU” still means something. Look at the comeback of the Renault 5. Nobody’s buying it for specs. They're buying nostalgia, identity, and the comfort of knowing who gets their data. Asia + Europe = Necessary Partnership At the same time, reshoring without Asian partners is wishful thinking. While China has most of the technological and resource cards, Korean and Japanese firms already understand Europe. They are geopolitically safer, commercially reliable, and looking to expand. Collaborating with them is less about dependency and more about co-creation. Europe offers the world’s largest, most stable car market. Asian players bring the tech and the know-how. A partnership of equals is possible—if we treat it that way. The Chinese case is trickier. Many European players are already working with Chinese firms. That cooperation is not going away. But public sentiment, political optics and geopolitical risks will make these partnerships harder to scale or sustain. What Comes Next? I don’t believe car ownership will disappear. But it will shift—from mass-market to a more curated, value-driven choice. EVs won’t just be appliances. They’ll remain symbols of values, identity, and trust. Brand, once again, will make or break the deal. So the race is not just about cost, nor even technology. It’s about meaning. And meaning takes time to build. 👋 Want help navigating this new mobility landscape? I advise companies and investors on how to scale cleantech businesses in a way that balances technology, market, and trust.

Battery factories as a franchise? Sounds strange. Until you look closer. What if scaling battery manufacturing didn’t mean raising €100M? What if, instead, you could license a smart factory — equipment, layout, software, SOPs — and run it like a franchise? This is where JR Energy Solution is headed. They already built their first factory in 8 months. They already manufacture electrodes as a service — with real customers and revenue. Now, they’re getting the same question from clients again and again: “Can you help us build our own version of this?” And the answer is: yes. A smart-factory-in-a-box — not theoretical. Not on slides. Already tested. Duke Oh, the founder of JR, is building this model step by step: First: Offer production capacity to startups that can’t build factories Then: Co-develop and co-invest in new lines with strategic clients Now: Package the whole thing into a replicable platform (ERP, MES, AI optimisation tools, equipment specs, training) Think of it as battery manufacturing infrastructure as a product. Less like Tesla, more like McDonald’s — but with cleanrooms instead of fryers. The bottleneck in cleantech isn’t innovation. It’s deployment. And this model — factory as a service, factory as a franchise — might just help speed things up. If you're developing new battery tech and planning your scale-up strategy, don't assume you need to own the factory. Sometimes it’s better to borrow execution, and then scale it. #Batteries #SmartFactory #ScaleUp #Cleantech #EnergyStorage #Electrodes #FOAK #ManufacturingAsAService

Picture credits: The Boys, TV Series “Emin, this is bullshit! It’s never gonna work!” I often heard these words from my deputy. And I was grateful for them. I tend to come up with wild ideas, and I needed someone sceptical and independent-thinking who could stress-test them. And stress tests there were! This diversity in opinions and views allowed me to avoid many mistake When Polina Vasilenko started building her team at HelioRec, she did what many technical founders do: She hired people who were highly capable, experienced… and strikingly similar to each other. At first, it felt like a strength. Everyone got along. Everyone came from the same kind of background. No one questioned the basics. But soon, that surface-level harmony became a drag. The team moved slower than expected. Designs stayed inside the same conceptual box. And when execution problems showed up, they showed up everywhere—because no one had looked at the work from a different angle. Eventually, she realised the issue wasn’t individual competence. There was a lack of difference. “I had to restructure the team. Not because they were bad, but because we were all thinking the same.” It’s a common trap, especially in hardware-heavy fields like cleantech. You look for people you can trust quickly, who share your technical language and who seem aligned from day one. But aligned doesn’t always mean complementary. What helped HelioRec move forward was precisely what made it harder to manage at first: Hiring across cultures, sectors, and personality types. Bringing in a COO with deep oil & gas operations experience. Letting go of the comfort of easy consensus. It wasn’t smooth. But it unlocked real progress. From my own work with cleantech teams, I’d add this: diverse teams don’t just outperform because of values. They outperform because scaling requires friction. And friction only happens when different ideas collide. If you want to build a product that scales in the real world, you need more than people who agree with you. You need people who see what you don’t. For early-stage founders building technical teams: Are you hiring for comfort, or for perspective? #cleantech #engineeringteams #diversity #scalingup #leadership #climatetech #team

“I thought building floating solar would be the hard part. It wasn’t. Managing people was.” That’s how Polina Vasilenko described her early days at HelioRec. She had already done the impossible: left oil & gas, invented a floating solar system for ports, raised over €1 million. But once she started hiring… things started to get much harder. "When you do your business alone, you know more or less how to do everything, and once you hire people, they do it in a different way, and you need to understand if it is right or wrong, if they're making mistakes. You need to find out, you need to educate them, etc, etc. So more people, more problems, but you cannot grow without people .” On top of that, her first team all came from the same background. It lacked diversity. The product improvements stalled. Deployments slowed. So, she did what smart founders do—admitted the mistake and fixed it: ✔ Hired a COO with 20+ years in operations ✔ Brought in people with different perspectives ✔ Built clear onboarding, clear roles, clear mission As a result, she got a stronger, more diverse team that could actually scale HelioRec beyond “garage mode.” Here’s the lesson for hardware founders: 🛑 Tech alone won’t scale your startup ✅ The right people, with different skills and viewpoints, will If you’re building a cleantech company, ask yourself: Is your biggest bottleneck the product… or the team? Picture credits: HelioRec | BCorp Watch the full interview with Polina here: https://youtu.be/moPYTdvsPOE?si=VkOzgCSBmPdmGLfE Listen to the full interview here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ehsvHpxLWdVTuUWAfFaMm?si=H8FB3-MMRZqQ6AwgkR9oeQ #founderstory #teamculture #cleantech #scalingstartups #leadership

When you're racing to bring a FOAK (First-Of-A-Kind) cleantech project to life, corporate governance feels like a distant concern. You’re busy with technical de-risking, hiring your first team, maybe even finding space for a pilot line.   But governance? That sounds like something for big companies with CFOs and audit committees. Not for startups trying to survive.   Until it is.     What Duke Oh Learned the Hard Way   Duke Oh, the founder of JR Energy Solution, didn’t build a new battery chemistry. He built a factory — a 500 MWh/year smart manufacturing facility for electrode production. In just 9 months.   He and his co-founder raised $40 million, largely from strategic partners: equipment suppliers, materials vendors, and future customers.   But here’s what caught him by surprise:   “As a startup founder, I didn’t really consider governance. We were focused on execution. But once institutional investors got interested, they started asking who controlled what. They needed to know that leadership had the authority to follow through. That’s when we had to catch up.”   By that point, it was harder to reshape the cap table. JR Energy had multiple shareholders. The founders were no longer majority owners. They had influence, but not automatic control. As Duke’s share of capital went down, his responsibilities stayed the same. He couldn’t just come up with a decision and go straight to execution. He now had to “align interest” and “communicate with stakeholders”.   What Is Governance, Really?   Governance isn’t just about compliance. It’s about power, control and continuity.   •    Who approves major capital investments? •    Who decides whether to raise again, sell, or IPO? •    Can founders be replaced? •    What happens if one of your strategic investors has competing priorities later?   These are all governance questions. And if you’re raising money for hardware — a FOAK plant, a pilot line, or commercial manufacturing — you’re going to be answering them sooner than you think.   5 Lessons for Cleantech Founders on Corporate Governance   1. Don’t Wait Until Series B to Think About This Structure matters from Day 1. Cap tables are easy to fix early. Later, not so much.   2. Know the Difference Between Capital and Control Even if you sell only 20% of the company, investor rights and board seats might prevent you from making key decisions.   3. Strategic Investors’ Strategy May Change Their priorities may change. Your alignment today doesn’t guarantee alignment tomorrow. Build in safeguards.   4. Maintain a Long-Term Narrative Show how your governance structure supports scale, partnerships, and future liquidity. Investors want to know the founder isn’t just the visionary but also a steward.   5. Keep Your Promises Execution is your biggest asset. If you deliver what you say you will — on time and on budget — you earn trust. And trust often matters more than voting rights.   What This Means for FOAK Projects   FOAK cleantech companies often raise large sums quickly. Factories, pilot plants, equipment lines — they cost real money. But money comes with strings.   Governance structures that work at the seed stage will break when you’re negotiating with infrastructure funds or corporate co-investors.   If you want to be the one leading your company through commercialisation, you need to prepare for that now. Not when the data room is already open.     Need Help?   I advise cleantech founders building real assets: battery factories, hydrogen pilots, carbon capture systems, and more.   If you’re navigating your first institutional round, negotiating with industrial investors, or designing a founder-friendly governance model for scale, let's talk.