Making whole-of-ecosystem EV charging software is not easy

Building a tech company from scratch is very challenging. From the smallest local software provider to the largest multinational companies that we use every day, developing a sustainable, profitable company requires a tremendous amount of hard work, creative problem solving, and a dash of good fortune. This is especially true in an industry that is just beginning to take shape, like EV charging. There are no long-established business models. There is no historical reference to point at and say “Ah, yes, that is an example of a successful EV charging platform company. Let’s do what they did, but better!” Just as Netflix or Spotify entered uncharted waters more than a decade ago with no historical streaming precedent, so are we at Monta faced with the task of charting success through the yet-to-be-defined world of electric vehicle charging.

The segmentation challenge

There is one challenge I want to highlight in particular. That challenge comes from the straddling of many different worlds: software, hardware, public utilities, oil & gas giants, other start-ups, and individual EV drivers. Depending on the context - and there are a lot of contexts - we are B2B, B2C, B2B2B, or B2B2C. That’s a lot of B’s and C’s and 2’s.

With a direct-to-consumer app, there is one fundamental challenge: get more paying users of your App. You need to be on both major App stores, so that anyone with a smartphone can download your app. You then try to accumulate users and sell that data to advertisers or data brokers. Or you have some freemium model and try to get users to pay for a subscription, additional in-app features, or maybe even order some real-life good or service. Obviously I am painting in broad strokes but those objectives largely cover the B2C tech space. It is certainly not easy. Consumers are flooded with apps. But the recipe is relatively straightforward: Build a slick-looking App (gamify it a little if you can). Accumulate users. Monetize those users.

The B2B software path is also well-trodden. Develop a software tool that solves a problem for businesses. Target and contact all the businesses that might conceivably use your product with a laser-like focus on B2B marketing and sales. There is no need for B2C marketing on Instagram or TikTok because the average person in the street is not going to download your App. Your business may not even have an App. Your objective is to get in front of decision makers at companies that could conceivably use your product and then convince them that your software is better than anything else on the market. Again, not easy, and that is a radical simplification, but there are long-standing businesses that have demonstrated how to succeed in this space.

The B's and C's of EV charging: understanding the complexity of the industry

That brings us to all the B’s and C’s of the EV charging industry. Our customers are both businesses and EV drivers. First, we sell a B2B solution - our Portal, a charge point management system - to operators of charge points. This can be one charge point at an AirBnB summer house or 5,000 charge points managed by a large utility company. Right there, you already have VERY distinct use cases. The owner of three charge points at a hotel will have some pretty straightforward requirements: guests need to charge their EV, the hotel manager needs to know who charged and how much, and receipts and invoicing need to go to each party for the right amount of money.

A large-scale charging solution provider with thousands of charge points at all manner of businesses will have complex system requirements to cover all of their use cases. We routinely receive tender submission requests with 1,000+ questions/requirements (major credit goes to our Enterprise Sales team Christian Kurtenbach & Christian Haugbyrd Clausen , I am not sure how they do it).

Our C’s - the consumer - are EV drivers. The function - charging a vehicle - may be the same, but a driver and her vehicle have a wide range of needs. A person charging at home doesn’t need anything radical. Just a charged car ready for the morning commute. The businessperson with a company car needs to be reimbursed immediately for home charging and charging on the road. The delivery driver needs to charge at a depot and ensure the right truck is connected to the right charger and ready for deliveries the next morning. Car rental companies have complex invoicing and receipt requirements. Then there are drivers who go on road trips and charge at three different external networks in three different countries. They need to charge and pay in different currencies while being charged the right amount of tax. Every. Single. Time.

Then there is the matter of hardware. We don’t just need to work with two different App Stores or three different browsers. We are integrated with more than 250 models of charge points. The quality of the charge experience on all of those models varies widely, to put it mildly. How do you ensure 99% uptime across 20+ markets, 400+ partners, and untold amounts of EV drivers? It is not easy. But when you combine an incredibly talented team with incredibly advanced technology, you give yourself a damn good chance to do it.

That is a distilled version of the challenges we face. We have to build, improve, and maintain our App and our Portal in parallel. It is no good to develop incredible, wide-ranging features for a major solutions provider, while neglecting the App and how the EV driver experiences the charge. Conversely, we have to make sure our Portal is easy-to-use and meets the varying needs of charging providers because, well, they are the ones paying us at the end of the day.

The good news is we are doing both. We started with our App and a focus on the EV driver. Our founder - Casper H Rasmussen - developed it himself in a matter of weeks. Its usability and flexibility is core to everything we do and that will not change. The original team then created our Portal and began adding market-leading features like spot pricing and true dynamic load balancing. And there is a lot more to come very soon. Significant product and commercial opportunities start opening up when you bring thousands of charge points onto one platform.

Suffice to say, no matter where the B is headed, we’ll have a solution.