abbeesc winner

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  1. Max — a figure with a dark bob and a red top, on a soft red ground

    Excited to tell you more about the project abbeesc winner!

    Let me quickly summarise what this was about:

    The ABB Energy Efficiency Startup Challenge was a program which seeked for start-ups to provide innovative solution to drive energy efficiency for ABB and/or its customers. At the time we we’re developing 2zero, a gamified approach to reducing your CO2-footprint and we felt like we could adopt the gamified more generalistic sustainability approach to the concrete case of ABB.

  2. Which resulted in the question:

    How might we win the ABB Energy Efficiency Startup Challenge?

  3. Enough from me, where do you want to start?

    Or do you want to read through it by yourself?

Exploration

Where to start? What would they expect?

  • Understand and explore the expectations of ABB.
  • Finding my working mode for product development.

I was quickly hooked on the idea of joining this challenge, as I started my career at ABB and loved the idea of going into that space again. As with every challenge it took some time and first discussions with ABB to understand their expectations. Normally the split between my co-founder Moritz and me was, that he would tackle the product development and I would tackle the rest (sales, marketing, bookkeeping and letters from the Finanzamt). With the challenge it was clear that he wouldn’t have the time to tackle this. So I had to start on my own and for the first time properly discovered the world of Figma…

Definition

Which decisions and assumptions did I follow up with?

From the first discussions with ABB and our starting point with 2zero I decided to adopt our app towards production floor workers and engage them to find energy efficiency potentials.

Development

What did I end up designing?

  • Creating flows and prototypes for use cases.
  • Crafting pitch materials and deliverables.

After figuring out the most basic skills for Figma, I went off to define a few flows and prototypes for potential use cases. For example, scanning motors on the production line and running a quick evaluation to check their energy efficiency. In addition we had to prepare various materials to proceed to the next rounds of the challenge.

Pitch slide "Adapting to your industry" with two phone mockups of the inform and submit-improvement screens
Winner badge for the ABB Energy Efficiency Startup Challenge, with the ABB, SynerLeap and Microsoft logos

Learning

What did I take away? What will I do differently next time?

We did take away the WIN, which was incredible. The project took a lot of me and it peaked in a final presentation in front of ABB leadership which was till today probably one of my best pitch performances. They also published an article (https://new.abb.com/news/detail/98094/game-on-for-energy-efficiency-as-data-disruptors-win-abb-startup-challenge) and it resulted in a follow-up project with ABB as a new customer.

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