The Startup Passion Finale – Interview with the winner

Startup Passion is an international program that offers free training and mentoring for students who want to develop innovative business ideas.

The Startup Passion programme is so much more than a competition – it’s a journey. Teams over the past six months have endured the pressures of a gruelling selection process, but they’ve also received top-quality mentoring and support from those who’ve been there, done it, and learned by their own mistakes.

The evening of the final saw stellar pitches from all the remaining teams, at this stage each displaying the ability to take their innovative ideas forward. This is however, a competition, and there must be a winner, and that well-deserved prize went to GridWallet.

One of the key aims of the Startup Passion project is to allow space and resources for growth to startups that might otherwise have struggled in their everyday environments. The winning team’s British CEO Mike Newman explains how although he has had successful projects in the UK before, the climate there is geared more towards entrepreneurship and more traditional ventures, not so much with startups:

“I have successful businesses in the UK which are not startups, more traditional entrepreneurial ventures. [As for startups] I think innovate UK are doing a good job to foster [the culture] through the ‘Catapults’ project and new funding incentives that match public funding with private equity partners. But I don’t think programmes like Startup Passion exist, I haven’t heard of them before.” He told us.

GridWallet is a tool which Newman hopes will revolutionise the sale commerce of electricity, pooling both suppliers selling and buying prices, available load and your own generated load. The app optimises the process, ensuring the very best deal for the customer and the provider alike.

Coming from a background within the energy industry, Newman explained to us the most challenging thing for him whilst getting this idea off the ground was putting a competent and well-rounded team together:

“Finding people that are not only skilled in the areas we need, but who are at the same point in their personal circumstances, willing to take the risk on a startup and have the time to do so is a challenge, but you have to start something, to get out there and meet people. I met the guys for GridWallet at Startup Passion.”

The role of Startup Passion didn’t end there, Newman also attributes the maturation of the idea and its development to help received from the programme:

“[The Startup Passion programme] helped us from Day one, from ideation to MVP. None of the team knew each other before meeting for the first time at the first Startup passion event in March. It helped refine my idea, introduce me to my team members, help with all sorts of things around business growth with talks from “hands on” specialists in the sector. It also trained us to pitch perfectly and helped us define our market and product. Akin to an accelerator programme but not as intense and for no equity.”

With the win under their belt, the 5000 Euro prize money and a tight team with a potentially disruptive – if not revolutionary idea, what’s next for GridWallet?

“Get bigger than Uber?” Newman states cheekily. “To save the planet through an entirely green energy system… the usual!”

On a serious note and joking apart their feet are firmly on the ground, they understand the need to take a calculated and methodical approach to this:

“We are currently developing an minimum viable product. We need this to trial with users and prove our value proposition and build traction so that we can get in front of energy retailers and network operators, our key customers. We are looking for investment and will be open to discussion on this topic,” a confidently optimistic Newman concludes.

The Startup Passion programme will run again next year, for more information please visit our website or Facebook page.