The following interview is a conversation we had with Kameale Terry, Co-Founder and CEO of ChargerHelp!, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: Over $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Electric Vehicle Infrastructure
Kameale Terry
Thanks so much for having me.
Brett
Not a problem. I’m really excited for this conversation. I’d love to kick off with a little bit more about who you are and your background.
Kameale Terry
Sure, Kameale. I’m from south central Los Angeles, born to two belizean parents. One parent was an entrepreneur. And funny enough, I said I would never be an entrepreneur until I discovered a really interesting problem in the EV charging space. So I am tackling reliability management for EV charging stations, and I’ve been doing it since January of 2020.
Brett
How did you uncover this problem in the first place? And what was about this problem that made you say, all right, I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur, but I’m going to do it. I’m going to dive in?
Kameale Terry
Yeah. So I used to work for a company that made software for EV charging stations. I was the 10th employee there and had the really cool opportunity to grow with that company. But funny. Not even funny enough, just crazy. My mom got diagnosed with cancer for like, the second or third time. There was a reoccurrence. And so I ended up leaving that company and was actually just creating a curriculum on how to fix charging stations, like in my spare time, because that’s what people should do in their spare time. And started to talk to different organizations, linked up with organization called the La Clean tech incubator. Started to train folks on how to fix charging stations, like in a volunteer type space. And then I was trying to get those folks hired at companies, but no one wanted to directly hire field service talent.
Kameale Terry
And so then one of the companies was like, what if you hired the field service folks and we hired you? And that’s actually where it kind of started. So I feel like I stumbled into entrepreneurship and, yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to.
Brett
Nice. That’s very cool. And when it comes to the actual product or the solution that’s being delivered. Can you provide a bit more context on that?
Kameale Terry
Sure. So charging stations are computers. They are what we call IoT assets, Internet of things. For fast chargers, there are many different, what we call handshakes, which essentially interoperability of software that has to properly work in order for one charging event to happen. Because this technology is new and there’s a lot of new players. What we find is that oftentimes those handshakes fail and the stations do not work so much. So there was actually a Wall Street Journal article that came out last week, and others as well, that they’re seeing between 30% to 40% of the current infrastructure being inoperable. And a lot of the issues is because of these failures of handshake.
Kameale Terry
And so at ChargerHelp!, what we believe is that you can get fill service data, you can troubleshoot, but you can collect the steps that you did when you tried to fix a problem. You could bring that problem into a system alongside other data sets, and you could start uncovering what’s happening when the stations don’t properly work. And then more importantly, you can start predicting when you think an issue is going to happen. And then if an issue does occur, you could actually solve it a lot faster. So we sell something called reliability as a service. Essentially, it’s a fixed cost o and m. We utilize a lot of data in order to solve problems really quickly and sometimes even prevent someone going on site.
Kameale Terry
We’ve done about 18,000 fill service interactions in the last couple of years and continue to build out our database and.
Brett
Our predictive analytics work just to visualize this space. How many roughly ev charging stations are there in the United States?
Kameale Terry
I would say for charging manufacturers, I would say core, probably about five or six large brands, and then three. That probably has most of the market. And then for software providers, there’s probably about three or so large software providers. And what ends up happening is a lot of people just white label existing software and existing hardware. But when you get down to it’s a pretty fixed number of hardware providers and software providers, but everyone. For the software side, they all utilize a core protocol called open chargepoint protocol. So that’s what kind of makes everything a little bit easier to understand and to troubleshoot.
Brett
That makes sense. And when you’re looking at the stations that you serve, then, is this all b to b, or are some of these consumers? Sometimes?
Kameale Terry
So, as of today, we’re all b to b. We work primarily with utilities, and we work with fleet operators, cities, and then larger kind of like resellers that are reselling to small businesses. So we are definitely in the B2B space.
Brett
And is that like a new revenue line item that small businesses are embracing to say, okay, I can set up a few of these charging stations and it’s a way to drive more revenue, or what’s like that business model for these charging stations?
Kameale Terry
Sure. Yes. So for small businesses, we’re seeing even multi unit dwellings, workplaces. A lot of folks are seeing having charging stations as an amenity, and so they’re investing in charging infrastructure. But then you do have a lot of businesses, actually larger scale businesses, where greenhouse gas reduction, things around climate are impacting how they think about their fleets, and so they’re electrifying their fleets and then. Right. Haphazardly having to install charging infrastructure.
Brett
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. And can you tell us anything about traction adoption? Any numbers that you can share?
Kameale Terry
Sure. I guess the biggest set of numbers is that year over year, we’ve seen very impressive growth. We are currently servicing stations across 17 states that 18,000 fill service interactions. That is the largest set of fill service interactions that there are in the US across multiple different manufacturers and network providers, and just really been proud of the team to see month over month revenue growth.
Brett
What do you attribute to that success? I’m sure any Founder that’s listening in would want to come on and say that as well about their company. But a lot of companies aren’t growing right now, and a lot of companies are struggling. What do you think you’ve gotten?
Kameale Terry
Right timing. It’s like the one thing you can’t control. When we first started the company, no one really cared about operations and maintenance of charging infrastructure. But we’ve seen this huge switch within our industry, and what we did influence, though, were laws. So were able to co-sponsor a bill called EV Charging Reliability act in California. So that’s giving the legislative body more insight and understanding of charging uptime. We were also able to advocate for a guideline in the new federal funding for there to be 97% uptime. So I guess we have been doing a lot from a legislative perspective, but I think the one thing that has worked out really well for us is timing.
Brett
Did you have to hire a lobbyist or were you doing that yourself when it comes to influencing the laws and the bills that were passed?
Kameale Terry
Yeah, it’s a great question. So my first hire actually was government relations, and then we joined two core associations that already had lobbyists. And so then that way we didn’t have to have a direct expense of a lobbyist. There are two states that we ended up hiring lobbyists, but that was later on. But our initial strategy was to work alongside the industry that aligned with our same values and then utilize those larger organizations to help lobby on our behalf.
Brett
I spoke with the Founder earlier today, actually, and they were telling me that their first hire was a general counsel and their investors are like, are you crazy? That’s your first hire. So when you told investors, or when you were having conversations with investors and told them that the first hire was going to be government relations, did they think you were crazy or did it make sense, given the business that you’re in?
Kameale Terry
They say either you’re really smart or really dumb. I guess we’ll see. And we passed one bill, another bill that’s going to get signed by the governor, and we did really well. So they’re proud that I made that decision. But no, they were definitely on the fence. Like, what the heck are you doing? But climate is different. That’s why I try to explain the folks, like, in climate, you will get squashed by laws in climate tech. So you have to be prepared for that.
Brett
That makes sense. Yeah, I feel like there’s probably a lot of stories of startups that just get crushed, right? Or just to get killed by regulation.
Kameale Terry
Yes, absolutely.
Brett
This show is brought to you by Front Lines Media, a podcast production studio that helps B2B founders launch, manage, and grow their own podcast. Now, if you’re a Founder, you may be thinking, I don’t have time to host a podcast. I’ve got a company to build. Well, that’s exactly what we’ve built our service to do. You show up and host and we handle literally everything else. To set up a call to discuss launching your own podcast, visit frontlines.io podcast. Now back today’s episode. Now let’s talk a little bit about messaging and positioning. So how has your messaging and positioning evolved since you launched the company?
Kameale Terry
It’s interesting because we’ve always had to be education first, right? Because a lot of folks are like, what charging stations break? And then they were like, well, isn’t it an electrical problem? So a lot of what we’ve had to do is utilize our platform to bring data to the industry so folks can better understand the problem and then better understand our solution. So that’s been the biggest messaging. I think how it’s evolved is the nuances that we can talk about now. We can talk more about handshake failures, interoperability issues. But in the beginning, I had to spend a lot of time showing the industry that the stations didn’t work. But now that’s picked up and there’s more articles about it and more people talking about it.
Kameale Terry
And so now our next kind of messaging strategy is like, okay, now that you know that it doesn’t work, here are the complexities. And then two, once again, here’s how we can be helpers in solving it.
Brett
Now, another Founder described it to me is they spent the first few years of the company really trying to create demand and educate the market about the problem and aggravate that problem so that they would want to solve it. And then the next phase for them was about capturing that demand. And when they were trying to capture that demand, what they found was there was a lot more competition. All of a sudden, largely because of their work, they were competing with companies to capture demand. Is that something you’ve experienced as well? Was this kind of this lonely journey at first, where there was no one really talking about this problem, and now there’s more people talking about it, or is it really still just you talking about this problem and you capturing that demand?
Kameale Terry
So there’s now more people talking about it, but they were talking about it how were talking about it a year ago. Right. And so now we’re in this new lonely space where we’re explaining the nuances of it because we have the largest data set to explain it. So it’s interesting because, yeah, people talk about it more. There’s way more people that say they can fix chargers, but then a lot of those folks don’t understand what it takes, and then the industry is still catching up to understanding what it takes. Right. So it’s interesting. The thing is that, I guess that makes it still a compelling problem to solve is because there’s so much government funding in this space, and most importantly, there’s so much private sector funding from car oems who’ve made commitments to electricity and electrification.
Kameale Terry
So it still makes it a compelling problem to solve. But it is funny that we just go from another set of education.
Brett
Yeah, I feel like it never ends. Right?
Kameale Terry
Yeah.
Brett
Now, I saw that you were also mentioned in a White House press release celebrating, I believe it was just the progress or the network being built for EV chargers in America. What was that like being featured in that? And what impact did it have on the company?
Kameale Terry
Yeah. So the White House press release was actually because we partner with the organization called SAE International, and that organization, they’re the ones that help the automotive industry and also the airline industry with a lot of standards. And so they actually are putting together the first ever EVSC technician certification program. So prior to our company starting, there was no job title called EVSC technician. We actually created that job title with the Department of Labor. And then we needed an organization to essentially know stamp of approval of this person knows how to fix a charging station. And so we had created a curriculum on our own, but then SAE took our curriculum and then worked with some of the other industry folks to add on to it to now create this body of knowledge that was released.
Kameale Terry
And now in Q one, people can go and sit for a test to become a certified EVSC technician. And so for us to get recognized for that work was huge because we really needed to create a workforce in our industry. We’re a technology company. We’re not a service company. We had to hire field service technicians and train them on their own because that labor force did not exist. Right. And so it’s really cool stepping into next year where there will now be certified folks that can do this work. Right. And so that way we can further move into being a full technology company and not having so much service, physical service that we’re responsible for.
Brett
That makes a lot of sense now. Did you feel like you had product market fit right away when you were first launching in 2020, or did it take some time for you to really feel that way?
Kameale Terry
I feel like it took some time. I think we’re just at the cusp of it right now. Like, strong product market fit. I think in the beginning, the customers that were experiencing the most pain understood our product, and it made sense to them. But a lot of folks wasn’t experiencing tremendous pain yet. Right. Because they didn’t have enough stations deployed, or if the station broke, they really weren’t really responsible. But now, with the new legislation coming into play, it’s forcing people to deal with this, which we should have been dealing with it, because it’s such a waste of funding to deploy assets, and 30% to 40% of them don’t work. That’s crazy. So I think we’re at the really cusp of it right now for more of a mass space.
Kameale Terry
But people who’ve had charging infrastructure, I feel as though we fit very well for them.
Brett
As I mentioned there in the intro, you’ve raised over 20 million to date. What have you learned about fundraising throughout.
Kameale Terry
This journey that you have to have customers? I mean, I think the thing that’s crazy to me is, like a lot of folks, they raise so much capital, and then they have no revenue or they don’t have a strong understanding of their customer. And I think for us, which has been good, is that when we’ve gone off a fundraise, we’ve always had solid traction. Right. We’ve always been able to show what exactly we needed the funding to hit the next growth phase. And on those in between, we’ve done, what, three rounds? On those in between rounds, were able to show that we hit the milestones that we set off before.
Kameale Terry
So it’s really like one, making sure you have customers, making sure people are paying you, that you show you have traction, and then being super clear on if you get a new inflection of capital, what will that mean? What will those milestones be? And then when you hit those things and you do have to go out again, you could point to and say, hey, you gave me x, I did this. And then that allows people to trust you. And of course, nothing is going to be perfect. It’s all very hard. But that’s what I really just try to strive for, is make sure I have customers and that we’re hitting our milestones before we ever go out to fundraise.
Brett
Are you still involved in every deal that closes, or have you managed to transition out of Founder led sales?
Kameale Terry
I am out of Founder led sales. It’s really sad because I really like talking to customers. So sometimes I ask if I can be included because I like to talk customers.
Brett
I’ve heard founders say something very similar, and they’ve also said that it’s just really hard. And that’s why I wanted to ask about that, is they’ve told me that it’s just extremely difficult when you make that transition out of sales. Was that difficult for you or was that easy to navigate?
Kameale Terry
It was easy because my SCP of sales is really smart and a lot smarter than me, and so I felt very comfortable having her own that space. So, yeah, that part was easy for me. It’s just, yeah, I just try to stay close to our product and stay close to the customers. Just so, one, you always want to make sure that the thing that you were selling in the beginning is still the thing that you’re selling now that you have more people. And then two, it’s just helpful to hear how we’re still solving a really big problem for people in the industry.
Brett
Amazing. Now, final question for you. Let’s zoom out three to five years into the future. What’s the big picture vision that you’re building here?
Kameale Terry
Yeah, at charger, what we’re really trying to build. Actually, I’ll explain the bigger problem, which is fascinating. So today, if you drive an electric vehicle and you need to go to a charging station, you typically use your electric vehicle, will tell you what’s the nearest available charging station. What we see time and time again is because that vehicle is relying on station data. And the station data is typically saying, oh, I’m available. But when that driver gets to that station, the station is actually broken. And so we see that the information that comes off the charging station is not right. And that has all to do with what were talking about earlier, like handshakes and discrepancies in how the station is actually understanding itself.
Kameale Terry
And so we believe that if we get enough data, that we can be a verification system for those car oems. And even as the federal government starts to roll out more regulation on uptime, we can verify, oh, that station actually is working right. And so that’s where we see ourselves, really, within the next year or two, we actually have a strategic ground open right now that bring forth some of our product roadmap. But that’s one of the newest features that we’re building towards, is to have a verification tool for the charging infrastructure, which then, as you have more smart technology, smart cities, and you have more software interacting with the built environment, you can utilize the same type of framework to understand, is this IoT asset? Is it behaving as intended? So, yeah, that’s what we’re working towards right now.
Brett
Amazing. Well, I love the vision. I love everything that you’re building, and I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I know it’s going to be a real hit with our audience. Before we wrap here, if there’s any founders that are listening in, they’re inspired by your journey, and they just want to follow along as you continue to build and execute. Where should they go?
Kameale Terry
Oh, yeah. I am unofficial LinkedIn influencer, so you can find me on LinkedIn. I like to share a lot of what we’ve been up to on my LinkedIn.
Brett
Amazing. We’ll make sure to link to that in the show notes. Really appreciate you taking the time again. This is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.
Kameale Terry
Thank you so much.
Brett
All right, keep in touch. This episode of Category Visionaries is brought to you by Front Lines Media, Silicon Valley’s leading podcast production studio. If you’re a B2B Founder looking for help launching and growing your own podcast, visit frontlines.io podcast. And for the latest episode, search for Category Visionaries on your podcast platform. Of choice. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
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