(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) So effectively that means all our batteries are
kind of aimed at those five percent of
people Which again is kind of crazy that
that's almost like the mainstream market.
It's just a tiny little niche.
I think Yeah, whether this is good or
not people care more about money than the
climate I guess that's probably why we're in
this mess.
Rob Halliefax is a mechanical engineer who spent
a decade running Kickstarter campaigns 10 products over
300,000 pounds raised and sold into 70
or 80 countries now He's co-found in
windfall energy a 2.5 kilowatt hour home
battery for renters and people in flats The
half of the UK's 28 million homes that
no existing clean tech product was built for
every other home battery on the market is
built To go in the garage behind a
panel somewhere.
You never have to look at it Rob
decided his product was going to live in
someone's living room So he hired a designer
whose background is ikea and lakeland not batteries
not electronics furniture Just about half the homes
in the uk.
So there's 28 million homes in the uk
and about half are either flats renters small
homes People for whom sell the panels.
They don't have a roof.
They don't have space for a big Tesla
Powerwall or something.
Then I asked the question that gets to
the heart of what windfall actually is Do
you see windfall first as a climate company
that has to pay for itself or as
a money saving device that happens to be
green?
yeah, I'd say the latter like we've been
speaking to a lot of people about this
over the months and I think Yeah, whether
this is good or not people care more
about money than the climate I guess that's
probably why we're in this mess Rob said
something near the end of this conversation that
I keep thinking about When you wake up
in the morning and you see A battery
that has magically overnight chart filled up with
cheap green electricity.
There's a very it gives you a very
warm feeling This episode is about what happens
when you build hardware for people everyone else
forgot where the product decision isn't the cells
or the firmware It's making something people actually
want in their home This is why design
So Rob welcome to the podcast Great to
have you on why design?
Um, thank you.
We're going to dive in.
I know this has been Yeah, long in
the making I can't remember when we first
met but it was at some some mixer
Um in london, um many many months ago.
Um, but yeah here we are.
So thank you for your time.
Um, so Rob You've had this Slightly unusual
mix of mechanical engineering connected products a decade
of crowdfunding going about so far And now
you're building windfall a plug and play battery.
Um home battery for for renters Um before
we get into how that all fits together
Take me back to a moment where everything
shifted Maybe take me back to that kind
of the iot london meetup where you met
your co-founder You know Tell us where
you were in your life and work that
night and what was going through your head
as you walked into that room Yeah, actually
I'll go back a tiny bit further.
So iot london that meetup where I met
my co-founder that's been going over a
decade now, I think um and About probably
about 10 years ago.
I went to my first one so kind
of iot Has always been part of my
sort of professional life for quite a while
now And I guess back then also it
was kind of pretty new It was almost
like the kind of ai of its time
where everyone was talking about iot Everyone was
questioning whether it's overhyped or underhyped and it
was a sort of interesting area I think
at the time that it interested me because
it Brought together the physical and the the
digital because I'd as you you said I
started off Doing mechanical engineering at university and
then but got into kind of digital product
management.
Um, quite a while after that So i've
always had that kind of software hardware Sort
of uh balance and so iot Is kind
of the perfect uh crossover between hardware and
software So i've been going to those meetups
for many years and last year, uh There
was a guy talking as as happens at
those events He was doing a a pitch
about his actually his previous company Which was
a squeevie energy and they were uh, or
they still are a Company that manages car
charging and overnight based on the optimum pricing
of your tariff and electricity is that sort
of thing?
um And I can't really remember how You
know what?
These events are like kind of organic you
talk afterwards and I think we might have
ended up in the pub with a few
of us and we sort of got chatting
about Ideas and he he had just left
that job.
So he was actually Talking on behalf of
the companies and they just left.
Um, and I was also kind of looking
for a new challenge to get stuck into
and so we sort of I guess got
on with each other and had a good
kind of rapport in terms of how we
Chatted about things and we both both kind
of new iot technology But I guess crucially
weren't too similar in that There's kind of
no point if both of you have exactly
the same skills and it can be quite
fun You get on but if you're too
perfectly aligned in terms of what you can
Do and your experience is kind of no
point in having both of you there.
So we had the perfect balance.
I think of Having enough in common because
I think when you're especially when you're starting
out having the the kind of very Sort
of quick communication where a kind of shorthand
for getting stuff done and being able to
understand each other So you need I think
some level of overlap in terms of always
find engineering is a good example because I
kind of some of the generic terms of
engineering that are very kind of precise and
useful Language that can kind of communicate things
very efficiently.
I think when you have that with someone
it's quite you can get through quite a
lot But then equally we realized we had
different skills and balanced each other out in
some ways.
So it was kind of Totally random.
I mean Like all these sort of events
you I might just not have gone I
could have just had something else on or
would maybe feeling a bit under well under
the weather or something and it's kind of
weird these moments where Things happen and I
suppose serendipitous.
Yeah, but the way I look at that
is you Getting out there doing things.
I mean, who knows maybe i'd have met
a better co-founder if i'd gone somewhere
Yeah You never say that to actually But
that's the point like yeah I think the
point is to get out there meet people
talk to people and stuff will happen You
don't know what it's going to be and
it might things sometimes happen sometimes I don't
but getting out there talking to people is
makes things happen It certainly does I posted
today because we've got tomorrow's episode which is
going to feel dated by the time this
goes out but you know tomorrow's episode is
Is is will butler adams co of prompt
and bites and he famously Got the job
at Brompton by chatting to the chairman on
the bus He didn't know who the guy
was from adam And he could have chosen
to have his headphones in like they said
he chose to spark a conversation And then
the next day he's driving hundreds of miles
essentially for an interview um and 23 years
later he's You know running one of the
most iconic hardware brands in the country.
So it's um You know, you never know
what you should put yourself in those positions
You never know what good will come of
it.
So yeah, I think that's the key It
doesn't it won't come to you.
You have to get out there and find
it massively Yeah, you said um when we
prepared for this you said it felt like
a little bit like dating over coffee You
know, what was the yeah?
Was there a moment where you realized that
this isn't just good chat?
This could you know, this could be there
might be the person that I could build
a company with um I can't remember if
there was a particular eureka, but I guess
it was we Kind of went for coffee
then another one.
I think we started I guess both of
us kind of have the inclination to make
stuff I think that's where we started just
packing things together and sketching and even Actually
pretty early on started coding up the kind
of basic app for for approach type.
We were working on this.
I think it was when Because you can
get on with someone and sort of lots
of different levels and what is that can
you work together and can you actually?
sort of bounce ideas off each other and
move things forward.
I think we quickly realized we could do
things so And we were hanging out in
the british library back in those days couldn't
have an office or anything.
So Just seems like he would hack together
a little app I would go away kind
of make a logo spun up a squarespace
website and stuff sort of happened organically and
and I guess any Any point so that
time we didn't have a limited company or
anything It was just a couple of guys
doing having a project and maybe At any
point it might just not have turned into
something.
Maybe we wouldn't have wouldn't have come across
An idea we thought had legs.
Uh, so it's all just small Incremental steps.
Yeah moving forward and maybe both of us
having It's kind of a cliche but kind
of agile development and just just doing small
things and iterating moving forward and seeing what
happens.
Mm-hmm Yeah, absolutely.
Do you remember?
um Because i'm gathering from kind of the
first kind of A few prototypes that there
wasn't that the battery wasn't Not on the
cards then was it wasn't the business wasn't
set up for the battery That's right.
Yeah So do you remember the first time
when kind of the idea of a renter
friendly plug-in home battery kind of showed
up in your conversations So I think actually
it was the almost the renter friendly thing
came first.
So we both live in flaps in london
and we were thinking There's just nothing in
terms of clean tech and energy saving there's
kind of nothing for you if you live
in a flat um all Clean tech stuffs
about uh, solar panels heat pumps All these
things that if you live in a flat
and especially if you're renting you just can't
Can't do so we thought about if I
remember at the time it had been There's
always every once a year in the uk
everyone complains about how hot the weather is
and how Like uk buildings aren't designed for
it.
So we thought maybe there's something we could
do around Some iot thing with sensors and
blinds that automatically monitored temperature in different parts
And because there's always the question of should
I open the window or not?
When's it too hot to open the window?
When are you supposed to and that all
those we thought that could be an iot
solution somehow so that Kind of started there
and then we thought about kind of An
iot plug became out.
That was our first product.
We actually kind of made so we thought
an iot plug that Similar to the the
kind of logic that ashley's previous company did
where it looks at The electricity price over
a day and knows when the cheapest time
is and then the uk cheapest is pretty
much always the greenest as well So it's
kind of a double win So we thought
what about a smart plug that monitored electricity
price and only turned on when it was
cheap So you could set a threshold or
whatever or a certain number of hours.
So we actually Because we thought that would
be pretty easy to prototype.
We actually just Luckily enough came across so
I can't remember how we met this guy
But I think an acquaintance of ashley happened
to have a box of 200 smart plugs
that he'd not needed He had some other
project and didn't need them So we got
200 free smart plugs, which we were able
to Basically flash the firmware and have them
to do what we wanted.
So we then Made these products and again,
it was very we had no money at
the time So we didn't have any investment
or anything So we just what was the
low cost low effort way to move something
forward and test and try so we had
in the end we That smart plug we
gave about 100 out to people who We
met at meetups and just friends and family
people just to say hey, do I have
a go at this?
Try it test it anything and It was
cool.
I actually still have one behind me which
I use But we realized that it just
wasn't impactful enough that you could people were
For example charging their smartphone overnight in the
cheapest two hours, but you save like fractions
of pennies doing that and so we thought
what's actually more more impactful and then For
a while we looked at actually charging batteries
with the smart plug And then we kind
of got on to get what if the
battery just is the smart thing itself.
So Then we hit on the idea of
a smart battery that again monitors electricity for
price and only fills up Cheap electricity and
then puts the electricity back into your house
at the expensive times Bro, we're kind of
skipping ahead, but i've got questions that I
don't want to not ask later.
So So, how does it work then you
know in in practice is it kind of
is it It plugged into the mains.
It's drawing electricity to charge the battery.
Is it then feeding it?
It's not feeding back into the mains.
Is it or so it is.
Um, okay Yes, I mean generally the overall
premise is pretty obvious and I guess a
lot of people say why doesn't exist why
haven't people done before and I mean a
couple of reasons one is The electricity price
certainly uk has just gone up and up
and up and at the same time The
battery price of battery sales has gone down.
So the roi Is worth doing?
So that you can make you could save
enough money with a product at the right
price that is worth doing whereas probably even
Five ten years ago just wouldn't have paid
for itself So it would have been it
would have been a nice kind of novelty
product.
It wouldn't have been had much value And
so Yeah, the plug and play isn't interesting.
So we the idea is it Plug and
play a single plug that plugs into a
regular socket in the wall In the uk
at the moment that's not allowed So technically
there's no reason why you can't push electricity
back Through a regular plug through a socket
and it will effectively just power The circuits
in your home.
So That works.
It's kind of It's a lot of people
Question me when they're like, how does that
work?
And it just it's sort of In a
way simpler If you just have like a
load and a power source And if if
something not in your house is is turned
on it will come from the battery if
the battery's Putting energy out um, so It's
Yeah, how does that work then about does
it kind of know to pull from the
battery rather than just from the the So
it's more about when the battery needs to
know when to push.
So if the battery is effectively pushed it
turned on Exporting so discharging then whatever happens
to be on will just take that electricity,
right?
And so in Germany and quite a few
countries in europe and a few other places
in the world That has become a thing
in the last only the last sort of
five years Um where you can plug a
regular socket a regular battery So I threw
into a regular socket to put power back
The sort of the wrong way as people
see it um, and there's talk of that
changing in the uk and that's something we're
uh, kind of keeping an eye on and
hopefully that will change and we're doing our
best to Speak we're speaking to energy providers
and other people who may have some more
more influence in that than we would as
a small startup Um, but in the short
term we have a kind of interim solution,
which is a hardwired solution So an electrician
will come in and it's sort of like
a half an hour quick job.
The electrician will because one of the rules
is a Bs 7 6 7 1 I
think is the wiring regulation about you're not
supposed to have a Generating device that is
connected to the home via a plug or
socket.
So there so you need a hardwired connection
Okay, that's that's the kind of workaround on
the short term.
So a bit like the way a cooker
is hardwired Yeah, sort of behind the behind
the counter, but that would be still relatively
easy to retrofit and remove for the next
renter or Are you targeting this at landlords
to put into their homes?
I could could be either.
I mean, yeah ideally In the future when
it is plug and play then a renter
So a renter is unlikely to live in
a house for more than like two three
years I think is fairly in london particularly
fairly common.
So you kind of want them To take
it with them.
So there the battery will last 10 years.
So yeah giving value over that time So
you want people to be able to make
the most of it?
Okay.
Yeah, interesting.
So um Well that there's this loop back
then so um Obviously the name of the
podcast is why design so we've got to
at least include that question, but in your
case Um, why engineering, you know, you studied
mechanical engineering.
What kind of started you off On that
path of kind of pulled you into product
development I suppose I mean i've always liked
making things as a kid, but that's a
bit of a cliche again, but lego.
I like lego Drawing just kind of making
Anything was always what I was into um
and my dad was a civil engineer and
so engineering was kind of sort of on
my radar and I was quite good at
maths and science and it was just sort
of I mean you make those choices when
you're Kind of a teenager don't really have
any idea what the world's going to give
you later on in life and I I
think I guess engineering is a good degree
to have it's pretty you learn a lot
of stuff and you learn You learn a
lot about just how to problem solve and
and it's not necessarily Like ask me about
the second moment of area and I wouldn't
have a clue But it's like you learning
the broader kind of principles around engineering.
Yeah, and to be honest actually at the
time I almost after my first year wanted
to change uh degree subjects I thought engineering
was just a bit too kind of prescriptive
and It was all I wanted to do
ad friends doing other subjects where they could
do take electives in philosophy and other stuff
and in Certainly in my department you had
everything you did was in the mechanical engineering
department He had a few choices within that
but otherwise it was all very much and
so I Almost changed to geography.
So my life Quite different if I had
but actually i'm of the age where I
Wasn't paying tuition fees, but only by one
year So if I'd have dropped out and
restarted I'd have had I would have changed
my whole life Had to pay tuition fees
and grants and stuff was all totally different
So that was part of the reason why
I didn't and in hindsight I'm, very glad
I didn't because I I love engineering and
i'm a big Advocate of it.
Let me interrupt for 30 seconds with something
most hardware founders learn the hardware The skills
that get you from prototype to product are
not the same skills that get you from
product to scale That transition is where leadership
matters At codu.
We help physical product companies hire senior leaders
who can formalize roadmaps build world-class teams
and align product with commercial strategy director vp
c-suite If you were entering a new
category raising capital or professionalizing your product function
This is not a hire to rush.
So find me chris white on linkedin and
let's talk before you make the call Yeah,
I mean it looks like just looking at
your linkedin profile and the conversations we've had
you've certainly found a way to scratch You
know the the creative itch, you know from
photography through Uh teaching so you've been caught
entrepreneurial as well found in many ventures Um,
you've even got a roast my kickstarter Um,
I think that you do as well So,
you know, there's there's lots of joy in
there outside of the you know, they're nuts
and bolts of of engineering um you know
how much Of of what drives you is
now is the is the joy of making
something new and how much Kind of satisfaction
how much is the satisfaction of watching it
in the wild doing its job in someone's
home?
Yeah, I think that's what it's all about
really.
I mean I mean you could sit home
making stuff for yourself, which I do I
have sort of hobbies where I just make
stuff my own enjoyment, but then When you
make something that scales and you see it
people using it.
Um, and with my with my kickstarter projects
i've had I think I did I added
at once it's probably about 70 or 80
countries and around the world where my Products
have gone to and it's tens of thousands
of people and the idea that my something
I made Is now in someone's home in
Wherever South America, Singapore, all of this and
I love that feeling of making something that
people Enjoy or use or just get something
out of and I think it's the Turning
it to a business is kind of almost
Sometimes say i'm a bit of a reluctant
entrepreneur like the stuff like accounting and all
that stuff not going to say that's the
most fun, but there's a point where If
you want to scale and get the product
into more people's hands you have to then
become an entrepreneur and think more about the
business and commercials and Legals and stuff like
that, which is I guess that's maybe where
Particularly on the kickstarter side a lot of
people have a kind of hobby project which
then Is it is an art project effectively
becomes a thing and they make 100 and
that's it.
I think I enjoy That core creativity, but
then taking it to the next level and
Making a commercial and selling as many as
possible Yeah Now fantastic and where do guinness
world records come in And what do they
say about the the way you approach challenges
and side projects?
um, so those Last when are we last
two years ago almost exactly two years ago
now new year's eve.
I had a New year's resolution to break
a world record I think I just thought
i'd be running my playing card company for
a few years and I just kind of
thought I was getting a Bit of a
rot not doing enough kind of new creative
stuff So I thought that would be something
that just kind of forced me pushed me
forward to do something Unusual and at the
time had no idea what it was going
to be um, and I think It probably
talks to my I definitely have a philosophy
that Any making stuff is actually quite easy.
You can make anything because It's not really
about you.
I think when especially with my Kickstarter my
first kickstarter was a razor and people often
ask me.
How do you know how to make a
razor?
And that kind of point was like I
didn't before I did you making stuff is
about Finding the right people to help you.
You can do nothing on your own in
sort of especially creative endeavors.
You can Sing dance maybe like pile up
some rocks, but everything else needs at least
tools like other people Like suppliers manufacturers partners
like nothing is Achievable on your own when
it comes to making stuff.
So I think once you realize that some
people think Trying to do too much on
their own So once you realize you can't
do it all in your own you have
to find help Then it kind of once
you get to that you could pass that
hurdle than anything's possible.
You can make anything.
So With the Guinness World Records, I thought
I would Make something that was the superlative
whatever it was in the world um, and
playing cards was an obvious one because I
had a playing card company and I was
I still as a side hustle kind of
run a playing card company with playing card
designs.
And so I thought I did a few
I can't remember how I got to I
guess biggest smallest was sort of the obvious
things to look at and smallest I Looked
up the record and it was the smallest
playing cards previously were I think it was
seven millimeters high And I thought that's I
thought that sounded beatable.
So I started Digging around and figured I
could I could beat that Yeah, so that
was the first one that I went for
And you did it Yep, so the I
got down to five so mine are five
millimeters higher by three point six wide brilliant
Really really difficult to fan out.
I imagine I should play around the post
They just they tend to just flip upside
down and jump around and you can't you
can barely yeah too easy as the answer
brilliant what's the This is a slight departure
from my questions here, but what's what's your
best selling design of playing cards?
It's actually right here.
It's this one So these square Yeah, so
it's called the one deck and these are
So they're regular cards.
So this is an ace with the aces
on but then they also have Chess pieces
in the middle.
Oh cool and dominoes as well.
So basically you could play lots of games
So the idea is they were Um a
multi-game deck so you can take travel
and these these are also smaller than even
narrower as well as being square they're narrower
so actually My first deck was that size
and these were Mini ones that size.
Okay, so the ultimate travel deck.
Yeah was and those yeah that did A
hundred thousand pounds this on kicks off to
this this second deck.
Wow So that's proved pretty popular and they
stay still yeah still selling them today Fantastic.
Yeah, so, you know Just proof that you
know your designs don't need to be kind
of overly complicated to solve a You know
a simple kind of desire and need a
problem there I'm guessing relatively, you know affordable
to produce as well.
Um, yeah, I mean that's One beauty of
playing cards is there I mean effectively Your
pdfs is your output you find a playing
card manufacturer.
Yeah, send the bdfs and that's that's it
So it's a question of finding the right
supplier and you're right.
They're a volume.
They're pretty cheap.
So margins are good Um, so it's just
uh, I kind of I guess deliberately constrained
that design and manufacturing problem because I didn't
Want to try and create the next kind
of Really expensive sort of electro mechanical device
that that wasn't kind of where I was
at in my life Again, it's the balance
of finding the right thing for you at
the time No, fantastic.
Thank you.
So so you've run um You know 10
I think 10 kickstarter campaigns you've raised over
300 000 pounds of your own through that
You know, um, what was going through your
mind the first time you you know, you
hit launch Um, and and you asked the
internet to to back your idea with real
money uh Pretty nerve-wracking such might have
weirdly my first one was probably the hardest.
So it was my Highest target.
So my first one was a razor basically
a men's razor Um, so that needed it
was made from die cast Metal so needed
tooling which was quite expensive.
So I think if I remember rightly Maybe
19 000 pounds was my target Actually, it's
now pretty much 10 times what my playing
card Target would be so It's always harder
on kickstarter to hit a bigger target and
especially for your first ever project So it
was a tough it was tough and I
I think very nearly didn't make it.
I It was kind of tracking along slowly.
Um, um Like everyone will always say on
kickstarter You need to have a strong first
day ideally, but hit your target in hours
If not a day the first day and
I did definitely didn't do that and kind
of battled through slowly raising the money and
only Perhaps a few days before the end
actually hit 100.
So it was pretty nerve-wracking and very
emotional Kind of roller coaster.
It was a few a couple of articles
online kind of men's sort of like tech
not tech but more gadgety like stuff blogs
published about it and Those there's actually you
can see on my Trajectory of the project
one of them.
I woke up one morning and it Really
took off and that's what that's what ticked
me over a hundred percent.
So it was definitely definitely touch or go
and if I Had not succeeded then I
probably wouldn't have done another one.
So I think my life again Talking about
pivotal moments that would have been very different
did that um You know the the stress
of getting to Kind of a hundred percent
and then some you know Did did that
not make you?
Kind of think twice about doing another one
or was the rest of the journey quite
quite quite good Uh, it probably did maybe
see I guess it perhaps made me Tone
down my ambition for the actual product because
like I say that what the first one
had quite a lot of upfront costs that
were kind of necessary the tooling and fixed
costs which so my Which is partly why
I went to playing cards.
I did a couple in between where I
just had lower fixed costs So I needed
a smaller target and it would just easier
to launch um and kind of Sort of
almost annoyingly that the margin is much better
on the playing cards And it's not there's
not necessarily a correlation between the complexity and
how successful is Kind of be as a
business or a product.
So it's like picking the right picking your
battles.
I suppose yeah, no, absolutely you um Going
going further back in your career, you know,
you uh, you're a global player like thermo
fisher Um, and then you moved into startups
and digital products.
What what prompted that move?
Away from the corporate into you know, the
unknown the risky kind of world startups I
suppose it was I was yeah living in
cambridge at the time working for thermo fisher
and I actually did uh an open university
Uh course on design and innovation which was
two years part-time I think it was
a diploma or something.
It's like the equivalent of kind of first
year graduate And I think that was what
really made me start to get more into
the design side Of of products and I
was At the time I probably didn't know
what a product manager was and it was
I was starting to work So actually that
company actually started working on the factory floor
assembling stuff And then kind of worked my
way up into I ended up in the
technical support team where I was writing technical
documentation manuals for service engineers I was going
around the world training service engineers to fix
the stuff that we made and I think
I started thinking about All the things you
deal with as a service engineer.
We're all kind of caused by design choices
that someone made