In this episode of The Breakout Growth Podcast, Sean Ellis interviews Hugo Pereira, Chief Growth Officer of EVBox, a manufacturer of electric vehicle charging station solutions on a mission to drive sustainable mobility and a zero-emission world. Their breakout growth can partly be attributed to their focus of not just being a market leader in charging manufacturing and development, but instead on being an industry leader (27:56), building mindshare around electric vehicle adoption.
To meet their mission and vision, EVBox shifted from a B2C to B2B2C approach and put an incredible emphasis on customer advocacy (13:17). By amplifying the value of customer relationships the company has been able to center their test/learn growth process around effectively meeting the needs of diverse customer sets that include automobile manufacturers, energy companies, fuel retailers, and others.
In this interview, we learn about the challenges that come along with this explosive growth. Transferring knowledge as a team grows by 40 - 50 people a month is incredibly challenging (27:03), and Hugo describes how collaborative culture and transparency have made is possible for the company to expand from a dozen employees to more than 600 in five years.
Hardware businesses are notoriously complex as there is little room for error when it comes to nailing product/market fit. Hugo explains how a shift in mindset has helped overcome these challenges, and how a culture has emerged where people powered by purpose build the right products in a fast-moving industry (27:40).
We discussed:
How Covid-19 may change the EV landscape forever, and how that has presented both internal and external challenges and opportunities (11:42).
The unique challenges of getting it right vs. getting it fast in the hardware space (26:30).
How being acquired in 2017 by a large energy firm gave EVBox more power to form partnerships and make an impact in the industry (29:24).
Why managing accountability across the organization is an important part of the growth team’s role in a growing organization (36:00).
How bureaucratic control is balanced with a startup mindset that connects to the mission, vision, and values of the company (38.55).
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