Well, it’s been quite a while between posts here… so a bit of explanation is in order.
Shortly after I presented at the IxDA drinks last year, a number of my colleagues pointed me to the Energy XO program that was being launched by Western Australian electricity utility Horizon Power and (now defunct) startup accelerator Pollenizer.
It seemed like a great opportunity to connect with industry folks and participate in a two-day “microhack”—essentially a workshop to develop up business ideas in the electricity sector and to be introduced to the “startup science” process that Pollenizer had developed around Lean Startup principles.
Little did I know at the time that I would be one of four people selected to enter into the 12 week accelerator program!
Thus began a bit of a whirlwind journey that saw me join with my co-founder Darius Salgo to create Nexergy, a startup that enables local energy trading, where people with solar, and soon batteries, can trade their energy with others in there community.
The accelerator program was ostensibly for 12 weeks, but this was generously extended to 6 months due to the progress we’d made and the relationship we’d developed with Horizon Power team over that time period. We spent a few months earlier this year continuing to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and recently announced a partnership with community energy retailer Energy Locals to develop the Nexergy Ready plan, which we will be launching soon.
We’ve learnt an enormous amount in our first 12 months—both in terms of Lean Startup, the local investment community, communicating big ideas, getting an MVP to market, and more. Darius has shared some of his thoughts in a recent post over at the Nexergy blog (which has seen a lot more movement over that time period than this one has!).
Activity at Zumio has taken a bit of a back seat over the intervening months as a result, but in March we started to pick up steam again, working with the Department of Planning and Environment, the Total Environment Centre, and the Alternative Technology Association to deliver the NSW Home Solar Battery Guide, which was launched at the recent Clean Energy Council Summit.
Zumio worked with the broader project team to develop a keen end-user focus for the Guide, running workshops and contributing to early prototyping of the Guide for testing. We also developed a set of personas to guide the project team, which were later translated into the Practical Examples that are available alongside the guide. Lastly, we translated the developed content into the various forms that are currently available (the responsive and accessible web version, PDF and printed documents).
I’ve shared a few thoughts about the Guide over at LinkedIn, and we hope that you (or someone you know) will find it useful!
I’m looking forward to being a bit more active around here in the coming weeks and months as we collaborate with our clients to deliver more projects in a human-centric way. Thanks for joining us on the journey…