The Electric Car Startup

Chasing a deadline to build an automotive business and profitably bring a new car to a competitive market.

FIRMSconsulting shepherded an idea to a working business. Meticulous. With their Business Case, Start-up and Implementation Journals guiding us. I am proud of what we have achieved together.Richard, CEO Electric Car Startup — mentored in our flagship 1-on-1 private coaching program

The Client

Richard, an ex-McKinsey consultant and FIRMSconsulting alum, is co-launching a start-up to build an electric car. A joint business and engineering graduate, he moved to Asia upon joining the firm, was promoted, then bypassed the MBA route to co-found an automotive venture. This program covers the period from seeking funding through to building the business.

It is one of four businesses we are co-founding to demonstrate how a strategy partner’s thinking would guide a start-up. Unlike the Luxury Brands Digital Start-Up, this company is larger, with employees and tens of millions of dollars in funding from the Chinese government. Each program teaches lessons we do not repeat across the others.

We are not building a car. We are building a business. It is harder.

Our Process

We had a plan. Then COVID-19 came. We almost died. You will follow us, in real time, as we make important decisions on what, if, when, and how we will design, assemble, and manufacture. What will be our first product? Which market will we target? How will we set up manufacturing?

We capture every step, insight, analysis, and lesson. Our goal is to teach you to think the way ex-strategy partners do, introduce advanced problem-solving skills, and show you how to build a business or work inside a high-tech business in a brutally competitive space.

Enduring Leadership Lessons

What members tell us about the start-up programs.

The Digital Luxury Startup

Attempting to build a 50% to 75% net margin business from nothing.

The digital tools and strategy developed by Kris’s team tell us exactly when to go live to hit our revenue goals. The model has proven to be very accurate. I liked the focus on my personal growth and can see where and how the business will grow.Tatiana, CEO Luxury Startup — mentored as part of our flagship 1-on-1 private coaching program

Learn alongside the program as we lead Tati, a Top-3 US MBA graduate and former investment banker, to co-found a profitable, significant and sustainable digital luxury brands start-up in just 2–3 years.

The Process

Unlike our other programs, this is not self-paced. It is a program for you to build a business — an accompanying guide to build and track your changes and milestones. Follow each step: choosing a product, developing a strategy, the plugins, websites and apps used, sourcing, outsourcing, testing, finding clients, building a brand, email templates, client emails, collecting payments, managing taxes, and incorporating.

The program is unique because we focus on software and on building a physical product, and lean heavily on Bill’s and Michael’s teachings.

Our Co-founder

Tatiana, an Ivy-MBA and FIRMSconsulting alum, worked in a bulge bracket investment bank for roughly two years. At the start of the program she must consider her father’s suggestion to return home. Tatiana wants to be her “own person” and launch a luxury label. Her father is hesitant; her mother quietly apprehensive. She has never before run a business.

Luxury prizes elegance, exclusivity, heritage and legacy — enormous barriers to entry. The very attributes that have made start-ups successful in almost every other sector tend to be viewed as a liability for luxury brands. If Tatiana joined the family business she would commit at least 3–4 years, pushing her past 30 with marriage and children making a career change harder. The opportunity costs rise each year, so she has chosen to act now.

The Journey

We begin with no designs, no plan, no strategy, no designer, no theme, no target market, no website, no distribution, no e-commerce system, no material, no sourcing, no presence in the world’s fashion capitals, and almost no capital for a sector that eats it.

We pay stunning attention to detail because execution is key. We dismantle and reassemble every assumption in the sector. It is not all fashion shows, champagne and first-class travel — that is the outcome of harnessing chemistry, automating mechanical processes, and meticulously sourcing pure raw material from a very special lamb in Italy. All of it can be done from a laptop in an apartment on a tiny budget. The business pivots multiple times as it grows.

The Digital Miner

Digitizing a commodities business to strip out inefficiencies.

Kris has assembled the El Galácticos of ex-partners to do some incredible things. One call with Michael will change your destiny. We did not think it was possible to develop a new business model in mining. FIRMSconsulting teaches things you could never find anywhere else.Peter, CEO Digital Miner Startup — mentored as part of our flagship 1-on-1 private coaching program

Deep in a thriving emerging-markets economy we are partnering with a client’s family to take over and bring on-stream a decommissioned mine. As with the Electric Car Start-Up, the Innovation Practice program and the Luxury Brands Start-Up, you can follow the entire journey through detailed episodes: every meeting, every challenge, every tactic, every obstacle, the finances and the implementation of our strategy.

The Challenge

Mining is a tough business requiring critical decisions that are hard to reverse. Mechanized or labor-intensive? Mines are typically in under-developed regions, so we must decide what role to play in developing the local community.

Implementation requires teaching workers to identify and roll out changes. We have to empower a workforce that is largely illiterate, lacking basic services like healthcare, and operating under harsh conditions.

Trade-offs

How do we strike a balance between a humane working environment and the reality of a harsh operating theater where fatalities are common? Do we merely obey local rules, or hold ourselves to higher and costlier western standards? Do we send raw ore overseas for refining and beneficiation — where the most value is created — or capture that value at home? Can we do all of this and still make a profit?

Going Digital

Most digital strategies assume a highly educated labor force. We have to support workers with close to 90% illiteracy and design smart digital solutions that work deep underground — high temperatures, dust, moisture, deafening sound, and incredibly high risk. Taking out a phone to use an app that fails to load, or that the worker cannot read, can lead to fatalities.

Differences Between the Start-ups

Three companies, three very different shapes.