5 Go-to-Market Lessons from StoreDot’s Journey to Revolutionize EV Charging
Sometimes the most valuable product insights come from unexpected places. For StoreDot founder Doron Myersdorf, it was a viral video demonstrating 30-second phone charging that revealed their true market opportunity. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Doron shared crucial lessons from StoreDot’s decade-long journey to transform EV charging.
- Let Market Response Guide Your Focus
StoreDot’s pivot to battery technology wasn’t part of their original plan. As Doron recalls, “We did in parallel back in 2012, we did like five programs. One was displays, one was memory, one was low K materials and one of them was fast charging of batteries.” The breakthrough came when their fast-charging demo went viral: “I thought maybe I’ll get 50 hits on this YouTube video clip that shows how I charged the phone in 30 seconds. It was like three and a half million in 24 hours.”
This unexpected market response led to a complete strategic pivot: “Back in 2014 is when we said, okay, let’s forget everything else and let’s just do fast charging of a battery. And later on it became just the vehicle itself.”
- Build Trust Through Demonstrable Proof
When developing revolutionary technology, credibility is everything. StoreDot’s approach focuses on concrete demonstration rather than promises. “For us it’s relatively easy because the proof is in the pudding and the pudding is the battery,” Doron explains. “If you can deliver a battery that has a data sheet as a specification and you can demonstrate at the customer site that everything that you said in this data sheet is actually validated on their premises, then basically this is where the trust is being built.”
- Create a Mission-Driven Culture
Technical innovation requires exceptional talent, and StoreDot’s experience shows that mission matters more than compensation for attracting and retaining top performers. “If you’ll go and ask one by one why they are at stored and not in some other company, is because they feel that they can make an impact on the planet, on global warming, on the environment,” Doron shares. “Especially the younger generation – it’s much more important for them than salary or a big vehicle or the prestige or whatever. They just want to make an impact.”
- Push Through Expert Skepticism
When pioneering new technology, conventional wisdom can be your biggest obstacle. “Many, I want to say, 100 professors that came to visit us with the VCs that wanted to invest here, or university experts and so forth, that came, they all told me, ‘Duran, you’re wasting this 200 million, this can never happen,'” Doron recalls. The key is recognizing when expert skepticism stems from outdated assumptions rather than fundamental limitations.
- Build Your Brand Around Performance Metrics
StoreDot’s marketing strategy focuses on concrete performance metrics that matter to customers. “The product that we are shipping now, we call it 100 in five, that’s 100 miles for each five minutes of charging,” Doron explains. This clear positioning helps shape their ultimate brand vision: “When they go and buy the vehicle or they are interested in a new electric vehicle, being a Tesla or any of the other brands, they come and ask ‘is StoreDot inside, can I charge in minutes?’ And if people will ask that we did our job.”
While many deeptech startups focus primarily on technical development, StoreDot’s experience shows the importance of building market trust, maintaining clear metrics, and creating a mission-driven culture in parallel with technical innovation. Their journey demonstrates that revolutionary technology requires more than just scientific breakthroughs – it needs a comprehensive go-to-market strategy that builds credibility and resonates with both customers and employees.
For founders developing breakthrough technology, these lessons highlight the importance of balancing technical innovation with market development, always keeping focus on the end-user experience that will drive adoption.