Juha Stenberg, Emabler

Thank you for tuning in to today’s episode of the Breaking Changes podcast. I’m your host and chief evangelist for Postman, Kin Lane. With Breaking Changes we explore topics from the world of APIs, but through the lens of business and engineering leadership. Joining me today we have Juha Stenberg, CEO at Emabler. Juha helped me understand the growing space around electric vehicles while providing me with another solid example of how API first can help startups be more competitive in these fast-paced industries. Start with the basics: who are you and what do you do?

Yeah, I am Juha Stenberg from Emabler, thanks for having me on your show. I’m the CEO and co-founder of a startup that is focusing on electric vehicle charging, and to be more precise, we are an API-first platform that connects electric vehicle hardware to different existing systems, and basically these systems can be anything from payment, CRMs, ERPs, and so on. Because fundamentally, when the electric vehicle charging is now kicking off, different stakeholders need to design carefully what kind of services they will provide for their customers.

So why does API first matter in this business?

Well, it’s a good question, and the brutal truth is, it’s a coincidence, it’s also time to market. When you’re building a company, you need to focus on how do you get fast to the market so you can test your service, you can track traction from the customers, and so on. And of course with API first, it is a lot easier and faster for us to build a platform, because we don’t need to care about CRM functionality, we don’t need to care about billing or invoicing functionality, user interfaces for the end users, and things like that. So we were looking at the services and the business, that, okay, what is subject-specific that we need to do in-house, and then we started to discuss with the different stakeholders that already provide systems and how to integrate with them. Then of course, once doing that and talking with the customers, we found out that it’s actually a great value for our customers, because who wants to operate several different CRMs, have customer data in different locations, who wants to operate different invoicing systems, because it’s expensive for our customers, who are B2B customers. But then if you look at the end user, the end user experience might be a little bit complicated, you have lots of different interfaces, you might get different invoices, and so on. So that was the reasoning why we focused on API first.

Of course, the other one was that when we were looking at the competitors, we call our competitors vertical monoliths, kind of like, they have built all of this, and then we were thinking, okay, do we want to be the 20th company doing the same thing as they are doing, why don’t we do it differently and stand out that way. So that was the reason.

So it sounds like specialized, do one thing, do it very well, stand out, be plug and play as part of a larger stack, and that you’ll be able to compete and be innovative by focusing just on that.

Exactly, exactly. And then, let’s say, a little bit later on during the process, we knew this, that actually, when we talk about our APIs, of course the first thing in mind is that, okay, you need to connect with CRM for example, the customer data. But then, going along with our case, we knew this, that actually there are coexisting different ecosystems, and our customers want to connect with different ecosystems. And then if you remember, we are in electric vehicle charging, and one of the big ecosystems is of course the energy systems. So then to think about, okay, how do we connect electric vehicle charging seamlessly to the energy system, because the energy system is facing also tremendous changes, as we speak, windmills, solar, smart homes and things like that are coming into the energy system, and someone needs to then build solutions for the end users that add value, of course, for the end user, but then there are also other business potentials of doing that.

So why is all of this kind of converging, the home, all the electric usage, a problem? Is the current grid not really designed to handle all of this type of usage? And are your customers, are you guys part of trying to figure all this out, how to improve the grid and provide the data that’s necessary?

Yeah, exactly. So if you look at the traditional way of building the energy system, it’s that you have the production, let it be coal, let it be nuclear, hydro, kind of like pretty predictable, big production facilities that were, I’m not saying easy to manage, but basically those who own the assets knew exactly how much will we produce tomorrow, in one year, because all these service periods were carefully planned when they are off the grid. Now, what is happening is that we see the windmills, wind power built, and that of course depends on the weather. Then we see solar, both local and solar farms built. So we start to see energy production to be a lot more volatile, so you don’t know exactly how much you are going to produce. Therefore, what the energy system needs is, if it cannot control fully the production, it needs to find ways to control the consumption, because these two need to be in balance. And in that, electric vehicle charging and of course the storage capacity of the batteries, it’s a huge asset for the energy system, and this is the area where we work, that’s why you need to provide real-time information and APIs to different systems.

Yeah, I can see it’s a potentially pretty volatile market as far as ups and downs, and being so new as we’re trying to replace this old way of doing business with a variety of new ways of doing business, that it can be pretty complex. What’s the regulatory influence over all of this look like as well?

Yeah, well, I would say that there are a couple of big reasons why the change is happening and it’s actually speeding up. We are based in Helsinki, Finland, Europe, and of course Europe has had goals to be carbon neutral and to use less fossil fuels because of the CO2 and the climate crisis. So that’s of course behind many of the regulatory reasons. The need to use less fossil fuels and emit less CO2 is of course there behind, and the regulatory is then trying to guide the market to make the right decisions, the right investments, the right services, so that this would happen as soon as possible. But then of course there is also the fact that the market is working in that direction, because, let’s say 10 years ago the price to produce, for example, electricity with the solar panels was a lot higher, the price of storage capacity was a lot higher. Now when the market is growing, technology developing, the cost of these units is sharply decreasing, so it’s not only anymore the regulatory, but it’s common sense, it’s good business to go in that direction.

Yeah, and it feels like other regulatory influences beyond environment might come into play here as well, in other API resources like payments. You’re having to charge for access across many different jurisdictions and regions, so how does payments play a role in how you run your business?

Yeah, good question, and to be honest, if we look at Europe at the moment and the payments, we are not yet there where we should be when it comes to the simplicity for the end user. I mean, if I’m driving with the electric vehicle in order to charge in the public locations, I need to have a bunch of different mobile apps to identify myself and pay for the charge in the public locations. This, with the regulatory, will change, they are pushing towards simpler ad hoc payment, will it be a physical credit card, or will it be something that you already have in your smartphone, like Google Pay, Apple Pay, things like that, which I personally think is the future, the plastic credit card is a little bit history. But this kind of activity, the regulatory is doing, so that to make it easy for the end users to use the service. So definitely the regulatory is affecting in different areas, and then of course regulatory has impact on the technical specification of the system.

So one of the things that people sometimes ask, why for example in EV charging they talk about smart charging, and smart charging means that the unit, the physical chargers that you see in different locations, they are connected and they are controllable, so you can control them. But the reason for the smart charging is exactly because we want to connect electric vehicle charging with the energy system, and the only way to do that is that they are IoT devices connected and you can control. So these kinds of things the regulatory is pushing and making, let’s say, all things fit together. Of course players, companies in this industry, they have also an important role to develop and test, and also, you know, the regulatory is not always right with their decisions, so to show the way what will be the future.

Yeah, it takes a while for us to see the benefits of regulatory, I would say, but it is an ecosystem of players in it, and you have to get them all in alignment, but it takes the right infrastructure to do this. One of the things that I’m seeing as a pretty common pattern is companies who are the most agile and able to operate in these new markets tend to not run in their old school data center. So I’m guessing you are running your infrastructure in the cloud, if so, which cloud are you running in?

Yeah, we are running it on Microsoft Azure, and it’s multi-tenant, we use Microsoft services, so cloud native. Because of course we need to think about, there are several reasons, scalability of course is one, time to market, and then of course nowadays extremely important is the security, you need to build these platforms secure, because we are connected to very, very critical infrastructure, so it needs to be secure. So that’s the reason why we have done it as we have done.

Yeah, what regions are you operating in currently?

Our customers are in Europe, in different countries, as I was telling, we are based in Helsinki, Finland, so Nordic countries. And we are fortunate to come from this area, because if you look at the global statistics, the Nordic countries are quite advanced when it comes to the electric vehicles. Norway is totally on a different chart, so to say, I think last year 95 percent of the new vehicles were EVs, but all the other Nordic countries like Sweden and Finland, Denmark, Iceland, also are basically in the top five countries globally. Of course, we are small markets, but we are, let’s say, culture-wise and in many ways of doing business, we are one area. So of course we are fortunate that we come from there, because we think that we can take a peek into the future in our home market, and then test here, launch here, and then expand to the other markets. Because the fact is that even the Nordic together, on a global scale, it’s quite a small market.

Yeah, but it’s still very much the tip of the spear when it comes to the future, I feel like, the Nordic countries, from a lot of API industries I’m seeing, are similar to California, how California is for the US, where the forward things that happen here tend to become the laws or become the practices elsewhere. So I think y’all are just thinking ahead of the game and being very innovative and progressive and helping us solve the world’s problems, the rest of the world just needs to follow, fall in line and follow your lead. So what’s the biggest challenge for you in the next year as a business trying to make your way forward?

Well, as I was telling, our concept, the architecture, our thinking of the business architecture, is a little bit different. All other competitors are talking about that, you know, we have this vertical monolith that everything runs there, you have all the data, all the services, everything there, just fired up and you have the service up and running. And we come with the message that you should think about how do you integrate with different existing assets, different systems, how do you connect with different ecosystems. So our message is different, and of course when you are doing it alone, it takes a while, because all the competitors are singing with the same notes, in a way. So getting traction and customers, showing that, is, I would say, the focus at the moment.

Then the other thing is, as I was telling, we have now quite many customers from the Nordic, of course, and some from continental Europe. So of course to expand to other markets, grow faster, run faster, improve all the time the things, and be brave enough to test things, some things didn’t work, then you do just something else, it’s a constant fight against the market.

Yeah, well, I think it’s an API-first reality for me, because it allows you to be agile, nimble, flexible, try new things, see what works, and when something works you do that thing and you focus and provide a really good service there. So I think you all are doing an interesting job, and it’s in an industry that’s fast changing, and I think there’s a future as long as you can remain competitive and offer a good service, so I think it’s an important business to be running.

Yeah, thanks, and as we talk, we mentioned API first, we had the first one talking about that, which is something that we notice on our customer side, that actually sometimes they think, let’s say their mindset is, we go out to buy this vertical monolith, so they expect their customers to tell, you know, what it is, how much does it cost, and then that’s it. When we discuss with the customers, of course the IT departments or digital departments, however you call them, they are involved, because these guys need to be involved to understand, okay, how the APIs are connected, how well we have documented, how they can test their APIs. So it’s a little bit different buying process for the customer, and also the people on the customer side are a little bit different when they discuss with us than when they discuss with our competitors. So we kind of need to learn also how we treat the people the right way.

Yeah, but it sounds like another good way to stand out from your competitors and differentiate yourself and show the value in what you’re offering. So I mean it really speaks the API-first message for me, and it’s definitely why I reach out to companies like you to be on the show, because it shows the future of doing business for me. It shows how, not just in environmental or energy, but in any industry, you want to be agile, nimble, you want to work with your partners in ways like this that are flexible and easy to integrate with, well documented, you said all of those things really matter a lot.

And then if you think about it, the basically limited options of designing new types of services, new types of revenue streams, when you can with APIs connect different things. I think we are just touching the tip of the spear, but I believe that we have just started a journey that will be actually very exciting and open new doors and new possibilities, and we just need to go ahead and do things.

Do you think it’ll just always be this fast changing, and you’ll just have to keep adapting as a business, and that’s just the nature of doing business in a post oil and gas industry, you think, energy industry?

Well, I believe at least the next 10 years will be extremely exciting, because as I was telling, looking at Norway, I have been in the e-mobility sector about 10 years now, and I would say that in Norway they are now somewhere where, let’s say, some of the developed countries are at the moment. But then we have to remember at the same time the technology is developing, so when they started, for example, API-first platforms were nonexistent. So it’s kind of like, you see that the technology develops, the market develops, and then the regulatory and all this. So I think it will be extremely exciting times.

Yeah, agreed. Well, I appreciate you stopping by today and sharing your story. I love a good API-first story, and one that’s benefiting society and the world when it comes to the environment, I think, is even more notable. So thank you very much.

Thanks for having me here.

Thanks again to Juha for stopping by. For more on Juha you can find him on LinkedIn and Emabler at emabler.com. You can subscribe to the Breaking Changes podcast at postman.com/events/breaking-changes. I’m your host Kin Lane, and until next time, cheers.