Interview Startup Valley!
If you have problems reading the article in German, here is a review in English:
Introduction of Charlotta Holmquist, Co-Founder of BL!XT
I have now been entrepreneur for 20 years and active in several roles setting up businesses in high tech, ICT and transformative energy. I love entrepreneurship for the opportunity to constantly learn and navigate through challenges and opportunities. On Women’s Day 2019 I was awarded “No 1 Female Entrepreneur of the Year Globally” by the UK rating institute Earlymetrics which is of course a great honor.
My latest venture, BL!XT, is the first and only to develop miniature, solid state circuit breakers, creating the spark for an entirely new shift in energy. Turning the conventional mechanical breakers into digital connected devices completely changes the game. With its strategic location in the fuse box they could represent one of the largest energy savings potentials and pave the way for clean energy.
Why did you decide to start a business?
As a seasoned serial entrepreneur I started learning about the climate crisis and strongly felt I must use my accumulated experience to try to make a difference.
Blixt can play a vital role in the energy transition by providing grid-edge intelligence. With the ability to control loads beyond the meter, such as appliances, heating, cooling and EVs, utilities can shifts loads and increase the proportion of renewables in the energy mix.
What was the biggest challenge when founding Blixt?
Blixt is so far the most ambitious challenge I have ever taken on. On the other hand, our innovations spark for an entirely new energy paradigm. One challenge is to get to down to disruptive price levels by making the current product into a silicon chip, which takes time and costs quite a bit. Moreover, local rules and regulations are not changed over a day, but need time to adapt to new technology in order to facilitate the paradigm shift.
Facing this vast opportunity but also challenges we are very happy to have teamed up with Ulrich Seitz at Baywa r.e. Energy Ventures who is our lead investor. They completely understand the startup world and share our vision with Blixt.
Can you start with an idea if not everything is perfect yet?
Of course, you should start at earliest possible stage. Each hour you spend talking to potential customers at early stage saves months or even years in product development. Before even having our first prototype we talked to several hundreds of stakeholders to understand the problems we wanted to solve.
What is the vision behind Blixt?
Our vision is to create disruptive innovations with significant global impact, while at the same time provide attractive opportunities for investors and benefits to all stakeholders in the value chain. So a true win-win. While legislation, such as carbon taxes, can make a short term push in the right direction, I believe the long term solution must be market driven. Business will be the ultimate platform for change.
What sets you apart from other providers?
My co-founders, board directors and myself have decades of experience from digitization, innovation, energy industry and entrepreneurship. We think differently from current incumbents in the circuit breaker industry who are still focusing their innovation on mechanical products while we work with solid state from day one. In essence we combine the functions of a breaker, remote control and metering in one single device.
Blixt, where is the road going? Where do you see yourself in five years?
Our goal is that our advanced, IP protected designs integrate in millions of electrical devices, fuse boxes, connected cars, industry 4.0 applications, energy generation, storage and charging solutions around the world. We aim to make it a low cost, mass market product and offer it on licensing bases to our customers, including OEM manufactures and energy service providers.
Finally, what 3 tips would you give future founders?
Have fun! Entrepreneurship is tough enough so make sure you always prioritize the fun factor. A customer or investor might be right on the paper but are they someone you can have a laugh together with?
Customer Development! Talk to your customers as soon as possible.
Fail fast! If the path or dialogue you are pursuing doesn’t work, fail fast and change direction. Don’t be flattered by interest from the large companies unless they are willing to pay for your time. Time is the most important you have.