Template 3: The Nigerian company that started with 76 cars, made future productivity financeable, and ended up building the physical infrastructure beneath robotaxis.
This is a free consulting service put together in a post. In the context of energy, what are your thoughts on the technical specification uncertainties that should be included in the checklist? Energy projects tend to be highly technical, so identifying these gaps early could help prevent more significant bottlenecks later, as highlighted in the post.
Thank you, Ayodeji. Please don’t tell the consultants I am distributing the work for free 😄
This is also where the Moove analogy becomes harder. Vehicles are relatively standardised, while an energy asset can be technically sound and still fail because one foundational assumption was wrong.
My early checklist would cover the actual hourly and seasonal load rather than only monthly consumption, the reliability of the grid, diesel and production baseline, expected changes in demand, site and interconnection constraints, degradation, redundancy and availability assumptions, local operating conditions such as heat, dust, fuel quality or water, and who carries the risk when the customer’s operations change after the system has been designed.
I would also include measurement and verification very early. If the customer, operator and lender cannot agree on how output, savings or availability will be measured, the technical uncertainty eventually becomes a commercial dispute.
A perfectly engineered system built around the wrong baseline is still a bad asset.
That is probably the best outcome I could hope for from an article like this. Not merely that it was interesting, but that the underlying ideas can travel into another field.
I would genuinely be interested to hear what field you are applying it to
This is quite a read, and a real signal of what it takes to build the human infrastructure layer that creates the conditions for repeatable founder success, seamlessly.
Thank you, Eric. I really like the phrase “human infrastructure layer.”
The vehicles, technology and financing are the visible parts, but none of them become repeatable without a team capable of underwriting risk, operating the assets, learning from failures and carrying institutional knowledge from one market to the next.
The cars were the assets.
That accumulated organisational capability may have been the thing that actually compounded.
Thank you for reading and for adding that framing.
Thank you, Ese. That Amazon comparison is a very useful one. I need to watch the Kaz clip. Thank you for sharing it.
I would only slightly qualify the “middleman” point. The valuable company is not merely standing between two parties and collecting a margin. It takes responsibility for an ugly risk or coordination problem that neither side wants to carry, then turns that capability into infrastructure.
In energy, that could be underwriting, demand aggregation, collections, operations, financing or performance risk.
The longer timelines and heavier balance sheets make energy harder. But they may also make a trusted operating layer much more difficult to replace once it has been built.
This is a free consulting service put together in a post. In the context of energy, what are your thoughts on the technical specification uncertainties that should be included in the checklist? Energy projects tend to be highly technical, so identifying these gaps early could help prevent more significant bottlenecks later, as highlighted in the post.
Thank you, Ayodeji. Please don’t tell the consultants I am distributing the work for free 😄
This is also where the Moove analogy becomes harder. Vehicles are relatively standardised, while an energy asset can be technically sound and still fail because one foundational assumption was wrong.
My early checklist would cover the actual hourly and seasonal load rather than only monthly consumption, the reliability of the grid, diesel and production baseline, expected changes in demand, site and interconnection constraints, degradation, redundancy and availability assumptions, local operating conditions such as heat, dust, fuel quality or water, and who carries the risk when the customer’s operations change after the system has been designed.
I would also include measurement and verification very early. If the customer, operator and lender cannot agree on how output, savings or availability will be measured, the technical uncertainty eventually becomes a commercial dispute.
A perfectly engineered system built around the wrong baseline is still a bad asset.
Great Read. Great work
Thank you very much, Leke. I really appreciate you taking the time to read it, and for the kind note here and on LinkedIn.
Glad the piece landed.
You have a great sense of humour.
This is a nice read.
I read it for 12 hours because I had to read it in bits. (You probably didn't ask for that information)
Thanks for writing this.
Thank you, Michael. Glad you enjoyed both the argument and the humour. Thank you for taking the time.
Reading it for twelve hours was not part of the intended customer journey, but I am very grateful you kept coming back 😄
(And no, I did not ask for that information, but it is now one of my favourite pieces of reader analytics.)
This is a very insightful read.
Thank you so much for the in-depth lessons. Going to apply them to my field.
Thank you so much, Favour.
That is probably the best outcome I could hope for from an article like this. Not merely that it was interesting, but that the underlying ideas can travel into another field.
I would genuinely be interested to hear what field you are applying it to
This is quite a read, and a real signal of what it takes to build the human infrastructure layer that creates the conditions for repeatable founder success, seamlessly.
Thanks for this piece. 🙏🏾
Thank you, Eric. I really like the phrase “human infrastructure layer.”
The vehicles, technology and financing are the visible parts, but none of them become repeatable without a team capable of underwriting risk, operating the assets, learning from failures and carrying institutional knowledge from one market to the next.
The cars were the assets.
That accumulated organisational capability may have been the thing that actually compounded.
Thank you for reading and for adding that framing.
This was interesting to read. I enjoyed learning.
I also like what you said about "Do not remain loyal to the first product. Remain loyal to the system-level problem"
It reminds me of how Kaz from Open Door talked about Amazon and how it grew.
(here - https://youtu.be/UH3-p_8LPFE?si=rtrSx11mDoT0KVe8)
It seems being the middle man who underwrites risk is the best bet to becoming part of the infrastructure.
Betting on energy might require a much longer time but I think it holds a bigger potential for risk and reward.
Thank you, Ese. That Amazon comparison is a very useful one. I need to watch the Kaz clip. Thank you for sharing it.
I would only slightly qualify the “middleman” point. The valuable company is not merely standing between two parties and collecting a margin. It takes responsibility for an ugly risk or coordination problem that neither side wants to carry, then turns that capability into infrastructure.
In energy, that could be underwriting, demand aggregation, collections, operations, financing or performance risk.
The longer timelines and heavier balance sheets make energy harder. But they may also make a trusted operating layer much more difficult to replace once it has been built.
I really enjoyed reading this!
You managed to make the hard unglamorous work of building mobility infrastructure read like an exciting Netflix show.