The Beginning of TAU
Hello. Let’s get acquainted. My name is Aleksandr Palchikov. I’m physics-engineer from Russia.
My team and I are building an infrastructure, where every regular citizen can set up a charging station in his household or parking lot and get profit from providing public access to it.
The idea
The project idea was born in Norway in 2017 during my masters degree. That was the first time when I told about this idea to my group mate — Damir. At that moment I didn’t know that I’ll start implementing it.
The idea kept following me and I could not escape it even in Russia, where electric vehicle market is extremely small. Unable to bear the pressure of thoughts I started to act.
First steps
Comfortably sitting in a chair in Starbucks I created the ugliest and the most crooked flowcharts. Compared to them the first design of Facebook looks like a piece of art. After that I showed these flowcharts to Damir and asked whether he want to help with implementation of idea. We brainstormed for two days, but on third day he refused to continue. Euphony was gone. This was first rejection.
Then I decided to take search of people for the project seriously. And received another good hundred no. I didn’t quite understand what is the difference between Front-end and Back-end, cross-platform and native development.
I was searching for people from May to September. Eventually all flowcharts for application (2nd and 3d version) were worked by me. From interview to interview my mind was becoming clearer and the picture of the future product started to become more legible.
At the same time I checked the relevance of the product: offered this system to 5 companies connected to manufacturing of charging stations. I was going through meetings. I was able to establish partnership with one vendor only having flowcharts made by myself.
Skolkovo
By 8 of September I ran out of power because I couldn’t assemble a workable team. Progress in development was absent, people only talked. Time ran out.
In depressed mood I stumbled upon the word “hackathon” in social network. I didn’t know what this word meant back then. I googled the meaning, read the description. Decided to participate. Registration was already closed, but I applied. Thereat I thought that if nothing will come of it, I will close the project. During 3 hours I was able to assemble a team with a motto: “Let’s have fun!”.
A sequence of strange coincidences happened which appeared in details and we were able to finish the complete prototype half an hour to presentation. I was pitching courageously because I trained my pitch while searching for co-owners.
I wasn’t expecting us to win. But yes. We won hackathon in Skolkovo! Story like from a movie.
New page
On the hackathon I met Roman Frolov, who I proposed to keep the development of the project, but to be honest I wasn’t expecting his agreement. Not only did Roman agree, but he started to participate so actively that I was dumbfounded, because I had never met people that productive and organized. In Roman I found a comrade who I can rely on.
From this moment the new wave of search for developers started.
Meanwhile, I was thinking of relocation to another country, because electric vehicle market in Russia has not been developed enough. My choice has fallen upon Germany. The motherland of car manufacturing.
I started to learn German from scratch and collect documents for relocation. It took me 4 months to finally relocate for half a year.
And then Roman shocked my again. Despite all the problems he said: “Sasha, I resign from my current job to work on the project full-time.”. It was incredibly nice and gave me support. After that Roman decided to go to Germany to live there for a month to better understand the market and potential customer, to see the problem that we solve from a different perspective.
Is it possible? Yes, it is. And now we are in Cologne sitting in a Starbucks developing great product. Best on the market.
But this is just a beginning.
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