We were lucky to catch up with Jimmy Douglas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jimmy, thanks for joining us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

We had a successful first year in market, but now we need to grow at a much faster rate. We’re becoming more disciplined as a team about about focusing our efforts on well-defined hypothesis-driven validation cycles, so we can prove or disprove small convictions quickly that compound over time. With the benefit of hindsight, I would have applied that framework and discipline much earlier in the process. Fortunately, we have the runway required to figure out an exponential growth path.

Jimmy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

It’s common for those of us in the automotive industry to start at a young age, often influenced by family, and my story is no different. While my parents were not in the industry for most of their careers, my father embarked on a painstaking journey to build cars from the ground up after selling his tech company in the early 90s, and I had a front-row seat as a pre-schooler. My eventual career journey similarly transcended tech startups and automotive, including a five-year run at Tesla which is the best of both worlds.

Today, Plug is an early-stage startup that’s navigating growth in an industry that has no shortage of mature, very established incumbents. We take a differentiated approach that harnesses the differences in software-defined and battery-defined electric vehicles. It’s the most ideal problem for a startup to tackle because we have the benefit of focusing explicitly on a market that’s relatively small today, but set to explode over the next decade.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

If you’re working on something that’s non-consensus in your industry, it’s so important to put yourself out there and be a vocal advocate for your cause. We worked tirelessly to find opportunities to use existing platforms, be it podcasts, journalists, or conferences, to make as many people aware of us as humanly possible. In the very beginning, we went as far as visiting as many potential customers in-person as possible, regardless of where they were located in the country.

One of our most impactful decisions was to retain a solid PR firm that had established relationships with influential people in our industry.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Solving for the classic two-sided marketplace cold start problem from zero is a constant test of resilience in itself. Buyers want to go where the sellers are, and vice versa. Building up to the point where both sides will meet before any others did previously requires the compounding affect of all the recruiting, building, fundraising, selling, and publicizing required just to get that first sale across the line. In truth, it took almost a year to make that happen, but then the next 400 followed in the second year.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://plug.vin
• Instagram: jimmydouglas
• Linkedin: jimmydou
• Twitter: jimmydouglas