Espresso Series: Timm Beyer – Human is Better

The Global Denmark Podcast is back with the second installment of our Espresso Series entitled "human is better."

In this episode, Ed Ley and Thomas Mulhern sat down with Timm Beyer, Managing Director of Powerfox, to discuss; their mission, the essence of capturing and managing energy data, the journey with UrbanTech, and what the Danish market can teach German companies.

Transcript

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the ideas, the leaders, the lives that are shaping Denmark and the world from blocks, huh? In Copenhagen, Denmark, with your co hosts Adlai and Thomas Bowl heard this is global Denmark.

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Welcome back to the global different podcast, where we explore how thought leaders and innovators are working to create a better Denmark and a better world as a continuation of our espresso Siri's. We will be releasing here today our second installment. And this time we are looking at a company called Power Fox. Now Power Fox is a German company which provides cost effective and 10 solutions for capturing and managing energy data. In this conversation we take a deep dive into power. Fox's mission, what their product is doing for the market, why they chose to be a part of the urban tech project, their experience in Denmark and, of course, lessons to and from Denmark and abroad. So, without further ado, we bring you

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our fox way,

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are back with a another special episode with our partnership with urban tech. I am here is always with my co host deadly that still hanging in there good. Get tiptop Friday afternoon where almost there, right and our special guest. We have the managing director of power Fox, Tim Buyer Tim. Thanks for coming by the studio. Thanks for having me. How you feeling? You just got off state. Are you adrenaline up? I am. I certainly am. I was a bit nervous, I have to admit, was fun. I mean, it's the end off a 12 week program, so I'm kind of that's a relief, but also happy. Yeah. So I'm feeling good. Fantastic. Congratulations on getting this far. I know. Thank you. The journey even to be selected as one of the tents. Amazing. That was maybe even the toughest part to get selected. The selection days were three days, and it was in the heat off June and Copenhagen, a zero degrees Celsius, which which was not notorious, which was 38 degrees at that point without any air conditioning. So there were some hard riding out the competition. We had to sweat it out. That was really the case. But it was, uh it was a good exercise. I mean, we really have to work on pictures on how to sell us and the product, and that helps for any other sales gives you. Let's do it one more time. What is power fives and why is it important? The pitch starts with the situation that energy data is often not available at reasonable cost. And we think that in the future energy data, real time energy data will be needed to match supply and demand off energy consumption. The reason for that is we're getting rid off oil, coal, nuclear, all the nasty stuff. What we want is solar and wind power and bio gas and all that. But that is not available all the time and everything you hear about storage technology, it's decades away. So what we think is we need a solution that is simple and easy to install to get the energy data out of the household and in companies, both involve the consumer, the customer in the process, get into a dialogue and then find out what service is our interesting, who reacts to, for example, a shift in energy demand, meaning at some point there might be not enough energy in the in the grit. But if everyone just consumes as always, then there might be a problem for the grip. For the balance off the grid, so you might have to send out little signals to people, so they might have to be used to being a dialogue about that. Did you get that? Sending information back to the consumer to set an example? A price signal? Yeah, well, Or make a choice. You can use the cattle. Maybe, but you can charge your Electoral mobile electric vehicle, either. Now, when for the good, it's not a good time, and we make it may be more expensive to do it now, while you can do it in three hours, then there's a lot of solar power projected, and that makes a lot more sense for everyone in the society but also in the energy system. And we give it for free rises, using energy when it's available via sons. Wind. Yes, and people should know, and they have to have a projection in the future. So that is where artificial intelligence comes into the game because it's not just seeing what's happening right now. It's also a lot off how to deal with data, how to project what's going to happen when they collaborating with the weather forecast, presumably, absolutely. That's certainly the case you blend other data in your analysis, That sounds so Tell us your journey. The processes of this whole thing with urban tack. Yeah, I really have to think how it started. I think if the dream as many things, it was a dream. It sounds a bit cocky, but I think they contacted us in the first place and saying, Hey, we found you in a database F six s. It is called where we posted the profile of our company and saying, Yeah, we're in general, be interested in accelerator programs in foreign countries because we didn't want to or in tow before into Germany were from Germany and we wanted Thio specifically explore new markets and then they approach us and we said, Okay, that sounds great. We look at Denmark as a as a country that might be a bit ahead of Germany in many expects, and also that was our understanding. And I think it has been confirmed that you have ah, strong conscience when it comes to climate change issues and all that, and we think that is strongly related to our business on. And that is why we like the idea off taking part in the program, and luckily they have the same feeling. What is the program? Look from the day to day basis. Yeah, like at first sight. It looked when I think about it, it looked very fancy. Various stylish. So since we're not super stylish, we thought maybe we we get stylish by participating. It was very I remember that it was very well communicated every step. We got an email back very quickly. When we had a question, it was very uncomplicated to make an appointment. They came to Berlin to meet us in person. Other than some Google hangout thing that happens. And then you have a bad connection. I don't know, but I don't like it. I like to meet people in person. If I want to decide on stuff, it's not always possible but to make a real decision. Sometimes it really helps. So we showed up in Berlin. She'll see Strozzi somewhere. I don't know. In the first quarter of 2019 and we met four people, all of them, and we showed our little half a device. So they were kind of celebrating. You came packing ready to go. We're always ready way we love our stuff. So we wanted to show it. And, uh and they like that because then we had, you know, stories to share and all that. So, as I said, there were four people was it was a great way. Didn't only meet one person, but we had understanding whole rainmaking on urban tech works, and I had a very good feeling about it. So you get here, tell us about the access you've had in terms of working with the partners and the support from the team. Yeah. I mean, we met the partners during selection days and to give you an example, how it all started with a company that eventually chose us A V original utility from Denmark. They showed up with the team off eight people to interview us, which showed us they really are going the extra mile, and they wanted to invest in this in this partnership. I know from other programs. It's not that it's not one junior person there. Yeah, and they might be professional and all, but we talked to the CEO, and I mean, we talked to the other half. Yeah, yeah, he was there, and he was he was very hands on. And to be fair, that is the case with all the other companies to We had great talks with them, too. They looks cov raid Dana. For us. The decision was made to go with a V, and we were very happy about that. Fantastic. The networking component of this. Yeah. Both with another scale ups that were chosen, Yeah, that provide value to I would say a lot. And that was, to be honest, one off The main reasons to take part in the program We wanted to, you know, see something else than the German market that was one. The other was to improve our product in a concrete project. And the third was to meet other companies not only customers, but also potential partners that we could combine our product with complimented finding you, I don't know value proposition or that I would say with two or three off the company's within the program. We're about to achieve that. We're not there yet. I mean, there's only three months. That's not a lot of time, but we have ah, very good prospect to work together with them in the future and that is a great result for me. What's been surprising about this process will be your biggest takeaway. Um, well, surprising. I mean, we are not a young start up on my co founder and I were in the mid forties. Our company is something like three years old. We are in business already, so we can't be somewhere for three months all the time. And they knew that. And we said We will be here. Let's say two days a week on average, more is not possible. We have employees. We have to take care of customers. All that and it worked very smoothly. From my perspective, maybe we didn't take advantage of all the opportunities that are there. But it worked out well, and that was surprising. That was possible. What else was surprising? I think expectation management is something that I feel a super important and you still get surprised how people have Let's say too much ambition, sometimes about things on here. It was timescale O R. Schedule in three months. You can't do that much. You have to be realistic. If there were experienced, they were a bit disappointed that not everything was possible. Once I was not I I would say, Hey, that's that's that's business. I mean, way we're working. We're working with large corporations, other things going on. It's not like a startup that wants to do everything overnight. Yeah, so let's pivot there. What's next? Well, we're in the middle of a roll out of our new product, so we're really big on sales right now. We will extend our hardware solution. We will look into new markets, we build up our tech team. So we're in the process of the last three months. For example, we hired three new people, which is a lot for us. So we have battles on many frontiers. The moment you any closer to the Danish market. Now, because of this? Yes, certainly. I mean, there's, um, the group off very high profile mental. Lt's in the program. I didn't really take the opportunity to talk to them as much as I wanted. So this is something I will I will do in the next few weeks and months. I saw some of them just down at the coffee bar and they said, Yeah, yeah, call us any time. So I didn't I still have exes and it Sze really easy going. I mean, that is something the oven tech team always said very easy to approach people in in the Danish business world, you know the difference between that and the German work culture. I think this I think this I noticed that there's not, especially on the higher levels off management. People are not as status aware Este on Germany. I mean, that is changing, to be fair. But here it's pretty remarkable. You cannot just on six. Amazing. It's really cool. Yeah, we took advantage of that. Just one final question when we asked this of all of our guests what your company teach Denmark on intern walk in Denmark. Teach your company. What can we teach Denmark? Um, that is a tough one. I think Denmark as a whole. I'm not sure if I can really answer that question. Zero Lee. No new product when it comes to our product. I mean, we certainly have done many projects with German utilities, like more than 20 and we have we have found out a lot of interesting use cases for for in the energy business for any Danish company that wants to somehow see what what works, what doesn't work. That might be a very rich treasure off experience. We're not saying we're technology Clea better than some some Danish competitors. But maybe we have some valuable experience from another market and can be useful for a Danish company in return. What we can learn from Denmark. Certainly it iss to be a bit more relaxed about how to approach people. This low partisans thing is, is great and what I said in the beginning, the Germans, in my opinion, are not really great in designing products for consumer needs. It's not just that it has to be a flashy design. I think it's more than that to involve the consumer into the design process. I mean, we were here. We here in the Danish Design Center, so that was one focus off the program. But that was really what I take with me back to Germany. To think as a designer, so to speak and focus on customer needs more than before. Fantastic sandbar. Thank you so much for dropping by before we go. Can you maybe tell our audience where they can find you guys Well, on the Internet are Yeah, it's www. Our Web site. Yeah, the website would be www. Power folks start energy. Well, I'm gonna find us any time in Berlin and Franklin Rossa. Give us a shout on Dhe. We're happy if you stopped by. Thank you very much too. Thanks for your time and to our audience. Don't forget to jump over to iTunes. Spotify. Stitch your radio wherever you get your podcast. Great reviews subscribe.

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