Powering the Future of EVs: How Alchemy Charge is Making EV Charging Smarter

0:00 Mick Liubinskas: You're listening to a DayOne.fm show.

0:05 Yasemin Selvi: What drives you to make bold moves, to build something that didn't exist before, to live, lead, and choose life with intention? Welcome to Perspective X. I'm Pauline Fatowi, and this is not your typical business podcast. Each episode, I get to speak to extraordinary entrepreneurs and leading innovators to unpack what truly fuels their journey. Not just the wins, but the inner work, the overlooked decisions, the mindset shifts, and the personal moments that sparked something bigger. This show is about the ripple effect of choice, the kind of deep accountability that lets us respond to life rather than react to it. Because when you realize everything is temporary, and you are the creator of your own experience, you start to play the game differently. So if you're curious about how people build meaning alongside success, how they evolve through challenges and shape the world with intention, this is your invitation to listen in. Perspective X, where we go beyond the highlight reel and into the moments that changed everything. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

1:16 Mick Liubinskas: Hey everybody, it's Mick Lubinskis here from Climate Salad. Uh, we are recording The MIX podcast. One of the things I love doing is speaking to highly ambitious, incredibly capable climate tech entrepreneurs and founders. And today we're talking about Alchemy Charge and talking to Yasmin. Yasmin, how you going?

1:39 Speaker C: I'm great. How are you?

1:40 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, good. Can you give us a quick intro? What is Alchemy Charge?

1:44 Yasemin Selvi: I can.

1:45 Speaker C: Alchemy Charge, what do we do? So we're an EV charging network. We're based here in Australia. We enable users to have Level 1 charging. And I can go into that if you want. So, you know, there's 3 levels of charging, Levels 1, 2, and 3. Level 3 is what you see, the fast stuff on the side of the freeway, Sydney to Brisbane in a day. Level 2 is what you see out and about in shopping centers, council car parks, et cetera. And Level 1 is the use of your portable charge cable. What Alchemy Charge has essentially done is monetize the power point. So you're able to plug into one of what we refer to as a smart point. And pay for usage.

2:21 Mick Liubinskas: Roughly how long does it take to charge a car? Like if you're like level 1, 2, and 3, like what's the rough details?

2:27 Speaker C: Yeah, this is probably one of my favorite questions. And it's probably because it's a slightly different mindset when you drive an electric vehicle. So it's no longer about going to the servo once a week and charging your, getting a full tank of fuel. It's more about, they refer to it in the industry as ABC, always be charging. It's incidental top-ups. Charging your car is no different to charging your mobile phone. Mobile phone. So you primarily charge it on your bedside table overnight, and then when you get to— you get in the car in the morning, you plug it in. When you get to work, you plug it in. If we were sitting in a cafe right now and there was a charge pad between us, I guarantee you one of us would have our mobile on it topping it up. So it's no longer about letting your tank or your battery get to zero, it's about topping up as often as possible. So the average Aussie does 38 kilometers a day, which is only 3 hours of charging via your portable charge cable. And when I say portable charge cable, almost every car in Australia, EV sold in Australia comes with a portable charger. All you do is plug that into a power point, just a regular power point, nothing fancy.

3:35 Mick Liubinskas: So tell us how all this started.

3:37 Speaker C: It was an interesting conversation. So my co-founder, Merrick, also happens to be my husband. He came home one day and he said, "It's time to buy an electric vehicle." and I just assumed he wanted a new car and he hadn't really thought it through. So my first question was, how are you going to charge it? And he said, I'm gonna charge it from the PowerPoint in the garage. And I, you know, I almost didn't believe him. I just thought, okay, he's telling me what I wanna hear because, you know, this is a big purchase. And it was actually in amongst pandemic. We had just had our now 4-year-old twins.

4:13 Yasemin Selvi: Wow.

4:13 Speaker C: It was in the too hard basket, so I just let it be. And we did exactly that. So we've only ever charged our electric vehicles via our portable charge cable unless there's been an instance where we've had to do something else. And what ended up happening, so a little bit of background on Merrick and I. Merrick is a remedial builder, and what that means is that he doesn't build things, he fixes things. So concrete structures, that's his forte. He's been in concrete structures, so apartment buildings, for the last 15 years. I've worked with him for the last 10. And what that means is that we have a super far too intimate understanding of strata in Australia. So when we're talking, you know, all the different stakeholders, so you've got your landlords, your tenants, your strata managers, your committees, your, you know, everyone under the sun. And then second to that, there's the psychology that goes with living in a strata building, the legislation, the processes, the procedures, and obviously the built environment, which we understand really well. So we kind of thought, okay, this is a great opportunity. We can take, you know, EVs are on the way up. We understand the built environment. We can do EV charging. It was going to be just another strand of our business, our existing remedial building business. We walked into someone who is now one of our competitors, and we were shopping for a charger to install at our Brookvale facility. And, you know, we were probably a little bit arrogant when we walked in because we were like, you know, we're in industrial downtown Brookvale, we've got access to power, you know, we don't really have a lot of limitations on what we need to feed into to be able to install this curbside charger. So we kind of walked over to the sales exec and said, "How much for that one?" And he just laughed and he said, Don't worry about how much. Talk to me about how much power. And we were like, you know, we've got 300 amp available. And he was like, well, you need 1,000 amp for that. And at which point Merrick kind of piped up and said, well, what can we have then? And they took us over to a small, you know, it was a Level 2 charger. So it was a 22 kilowatt charger, not super fast, just, you know, in that very mid-range offering. And we sat back and we were like, oh, we had bigger expectations. And, you know, Merrick being Merrick started questioning. So he was like, so where are you installing these? You know, referring to the bigger ones. And he was like, well, we're not. And what have you got for apartment buildings? Oh, well, that's in the too hard basket. That's, you know, it's, it's, we're not installing into apartment blocks. And we walked out of there and we kind of thought, okay, this is a problem for someone else to solve. And it wasn't until, you know, it was a couple of months later, we had parked the idea altogether, you know, just got on with life. But a couple of months later, I get an SMS from Merrick. We should probably frame that SMS, but it said, it said, "Monetized PowerPoint." And I was like, "What's this guy talking about?" You know, he was actually getting a haircut at the time.

7:24 Yasemin Selvi: Hahaha.

7:26 Speaker C: This man has no peace. You know, he runs a business. We have 4 children. We have a very full life. So, you know, making sense of everything is a bit hard on a good day. But, you know, he kind of, he sent me that message and I wrote back, well, that's dumb. And here we are, you know, almost 4 years later working on his dumb idea. And it was exactly that. You know, it was, you actually don't need anything more than a PowerPoint to be able to charge your car.

7:53 Yasemin Selvi: Yeah.

7:53 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

7:54 Speaker C: We looked at mature markets. So we looked at the European market, you know, more specifically Norway, and, you know, understood that most of charging takes place where you've got the longer dwell times. So at home or at work, and of, I think it's like 96% of charging is done at home or at work. And of that 96%, 63% is done via portable charge cable. And, you know, understanding the limitations to Strata, we knew that we had found a very workable solution.

8:24 Mick Liubinskas: Wow, amazing. Not the first and last time you're going to get a text message from him like that. But yeah, very glad you decided to jump in and go for it. Where, like, from— in terms of what you can share, where are you up to now? And what's 2024? And you've been a part of the Global Growth Program in Climate Salad. It's, and we've got to know you over this year. It's been great to see you expand, but tell us some of that journey, that recent journey.

8:52 Speaker C: Yeah, so I guess we've been in market for just over a year now. So it was about 2 and a half years of development to get to this point. Growth has been phenomenal. And I say this because, you know, where you start isn't where you end. And that's probably my big takeaway and understanding that we are a, Monetize PowerPoint, and we talk about EV charging because it's our biggest use case. Being a part of the Global Growth Program, we've always had the global ambitions, and it was actually through the program that we kind of came across the understanding that our offering is instrumental and a game changer in the strata space. But when you take a step back, in different markets it means different things to different people. So, you know, when we're talking about Southeast Asia and we're talking about two-wheelers and three-wheelers—

9:44 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

9:44 Speaker C: They don't have the luxury of levels 1, 2, and 3 charging. You can only charge by your portable charge cable. So our solution is the only solution. Um, and, you know, suddenly the conversation changes. Um, and, you know, we were lucky enough to spend some time in Singapore together, and that was for us game changer. And we had some, um, experiences there that kind of led us to our our first international step, which will be at the end of January next, yeah, next year, 2025, we'll be launching a 500-device pilot into Indonesia.

10:21 Mick Liubinskas: Oh, fantastic. I think one of the biggest reflections on the Global Growth Program is how incredible Australia is at producing innovations and entrepreneurship, but how different we are to the world. Like, there are 26 million people,— and a massive country. And even though Strada is obviously big in Australia, places like Indonesia with 280 million people and the size of Victoria, really, it's just the density of the world. And also two-wheelers, as you said, significantly more two-wheelers in the world and a really, really big problem. And actually total game changer, right? Because 99% of those journeys are within 10 kilometers. So—

11:05 Speaker C: Yeah.

11:05 Mick Liubinskas: Level 1 charging and wherever you are, like, it's just, it's such a different dynamic. And it is a challenge to have this ambition in Australia, but sorry, that the, be based in Australia, but have this global ambition and have so many options. Like you could, you could go to Europe because of the regulation and like getting lots of two-wheelers and smaller cars and smaller distances. You can go to the US where there's actually a big population, lots of capital. But bigger cars and bigger distances and lots of driving. Everyone drives. Each of the markets represent such different opportunities. How have you tried to process that?

11:41 Speaker C: The thing that you have to get your head around is scale. So when we're talking about Australia and, you know, although our solution is very flexible and it has so many different use cases, we've built for strata. And when we're talking about strata and apartment blocks, you know, just under 10% of Aussies live in strata. So it's, you know, 2.4 million people live in Strata. And when you flip that on its head and we're talking about Indonesia and we're talking about the island of Bali alone, it has a population of 4 million people and a scooter population of 4.5 million. So there's more scooters than people. And the Indonesian government is doing like so much in the space of trying to electrify. Initiatives and the incentives are definitely there. So they're using the carrot and the stick model.

12:35 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

12:36 Speaker C: To give you an example, you can, you know, Merrick was in Indonesia a couple of weeks ago. He tells me it was for work, but you know, cocktails in Bali.

12:46 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

12:48 Speaker C: You know, he came back and told me that there's a limitation on how much petrol you can buy at any time. So you can only purchase 10 liters of petrol at a time.

12:56 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

12:57 Speaker C: And that's one of the mechanisms they're using to push people into electric vehicles, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, EVs, the whole lot.

13:03 Mick Liubinskas: That's really interesting. It's such different dynamics, right? And I think we're right in the middle of it, right? Like there's, there's no doubt to me that in 2035, we'll look back and all these things will be totally normalized, but we are right in the middle of this messy transition. And it's really complicated, but really important. And it's been interesting for me. A lot of people say to me, what's the point of Australia doing anything if Asia's not doing anything? And it's like, Asia is doing so much, like so much more to drive this because they've got huge incentives on the negatives of health and the positives of transition and business opportunity. Yeah, really interesting reflection. So that dynamic is actually, I remember going for a surf trip in Indonesia and seeing like people just buying like 2 liters of petrol in little bottles. And—

13:50 Speaker C: Yeah.

13:51 Mick Liubinskas: So yeah, the dynamic of that change. And you think again of the combination of solar and charging those can be totally game-changing in terms of actually helping these developed nations actually provide secure energy and cheaper energy. Democratizing it could be a total game changer. Like you could literally run your bike for free, like once you— once the capital costs are in.

14:16 Speaker C: Yeah, that's it. And it's really interesting because I guess they've tried to take the dollars out of the equation. So they've got this incentive where if you've got a petrol scooter, you hand it over to someone, they convert it into an electric scooter, you contribute the equivalent of $100, the government contributes the equivalent of $1,000, and they give you your scooter back as an electric version. And that's 20% of the cost to run on an ongoing basis. So it's a no-brainer.

14:46 Mick Liubinskas: That is amazing. Like, that is really cheap. And so I've thought about the same thing. Like, I, uh, I drive a petrol car, um, but we, we live really close to buses and we just don't drive the car enough to warrant upgrading yet, but we really want to. But I thought about getting it, um, upgraded into an EV, but a bike, obviously it's, it, Is it a simpler, do you know much about that? Is it simpler or easier or it's just, they're just motivated to do it anyway?

15:15 Speaker C: I can't tell you about the technicalities. That's when Merrick would step in. We're a two-for-one deal.

15:22 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, exactly.

15:23 Speaker C: Look, there's some pretty stringent testing around it. So I've heard some of our partners' pain points over there. So when they're talking about conversions and making sure that they pass all the tests, et cetera. So they've actually, I can say that they're not just releasing it into the wild. Sure. They're actually taking their time with this transition piece because they want to get it right.

15:45 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, interesting.

15:47 Speaker C: And they're learning, they're learning from the markets that have done it before them, right?

15:52 Mick Liubinskas: Speaking of learnings, what's been the biggest learning this year for the business?

15:57 Speaker C: Patience. When you're a startup, or the type of startup that we are, you know, where we're kind of in this climate tech space, You know, we're talking to organizations that we've met through Climate Salad or, you know, other startups or other scale-ups that have the motivation and the energy and the agility to be able to make decisions quickly. And then on the flip side of the coin, you're talking to some really big players and generally, you know, they're corporate players and they can, they can make a real impact. So they can click their fingers and make a significant change in our world.

16:39 Yasemin Selvi: Yeah.

16:40 Speaker C: Whether I'm referring to, you know, our little Alchemy Charge world or just, you know, the world in general.

16:44 Mick Liubinskas: Sure.

16:45 Speaker C: And dealing with the larger organizations, I really just think that you have to respect their processes. And as a startup, that can be frustrating.

16:55 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, we often talk about impatience for action but patience for results. So you've got to maintain the hustle, but the hustle doesn't— I think there's an expectation that hustle just brings instant results.

17:08 Speaker C: Yeah.

17:09 Mick Liubinskas: And I think you're dealing in some tough worlds, right? Like infrastructure, Strata, the major partners around, like electricity is not something you can muck around with, right? Like you can, you've got to, it's got to be done really, really seriously. And there's probably benefit of that in there because you've, you've got to really commit to it, but there's also means that you can't just throw, you know, you can't just sell them online for everyone to go and throw this in your house, right? Like it's not a $15 toaster. You've got to really do that very seriously. Do you see partnerships as like key to your growth long-term?

17:48 Speaker C: Absolutely. Absolutely. We actually believe that partnership is our number one method of growth. We actually, we, we're, we're heavily reliant on people taking action, as everyone is. But, um, through partnership, we just feel like it's a win-win. And, you know, Merrick and I are old enough and ugly enough, and this isn't our first rodeo. We won't do business unless it's a win-win-win. So it has to be a win for us, a win for our partners or our clients, and win for Mother Earth, because she always wins.

18:21 Mick Liubinskas: She does. Regardless, it's about whether we hang around long enough. I think there's a lot of sense as well that these really, really big companies just don't care and they're not taking any action. In terms of what you've seen in conversations, obviously we'd like to see them take more action, but can you give us a sense of what's the reality of these big companies? Are they taking this seriously?

18:43 Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, my experience is they absolutely are. In some domains they have, they've been forced to, you know, all the regulation changes and, you know, they've had to take ownership of their supply chains or whatever it is. And that's definitely a motivator. But I also feel like just on a, like, on a human personal level, you know, the teams that we've interacted with in these huge organizations, people genuinely Yeah, like they, they, um, we're yet to hear a hard no. We're hit— we're yet to hear a 'this is just not a priority, walk away from me.' Yeah, because I really do feel like it is. Having said that, is it the highest priority? No.

19:34 Mick Liubinskas: That's a really good point.

19:36 Speaker C: And nor should it be, right? Everyone has to keep their doors open.

19:40 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

19:40 Speaker C: It's definitely a consideration and it's coming up to the top of the priority lists.

19:46 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, that's really interesting. Okay, so yeah, I think you're right that the, um, there's obviously the capitalist push, and if someone's going to lose their job versus making a slightly better decision for the environment, you know, they, it's unlikely that, that 99% of the world are going to make that call. But I, I think there is the discretion and the, the, in the continuum of people's behavior to be like, you know what, I'm recognizing there's a problem here. Like, it's, I understand climate change and know we're going through it and I don't feel comfortable doing this. And they can, they'll push a bit harder and they'll try to make that happen. I've seen a lot of business deals die in middle management. So it's like, you know, the CEO might say, you know, we need Alchemy Charge, go and roll it out. And middle management goes, eh. But I feel actually that a lot of middle management are going, you know what, this is a problem. And if I can make this, if this is better for the world, I can do my one little, one positive component, then maybe that's something. So yeah, that's an interesting reflection.

20:47 Speaker C: I think the pause that we had, you know, I'm going to call it a pause, it's controversial topic, but you know, with COVID and everyone being locked in their houses and, you know, maybe taking a slightly different view or taking a moment to reestablish their views. I think has definitely changed the landscape. You know, this is something that Merrick says all the time. There is enough for everyone. There is so much opportunity out there and there is so much that needs to be changed and fixed that partnership and working together is actually the only solution.

21:22 Mick Liubinskas: I think that's, that's right. I think what is frustrating is that once you recognize there's a problem and you can see a solution you want, we just want to get it, um, adopted and deployed at scale. And I think the reality of most climate tech is that there are very few things that are simple. Like—

21:43 Speaker C: That's it.

21:44 Mick Liubinskas: You know, you can offset, you can click the little button, offset your flight. But honestly, that's the simplicity of that is actually, is an indication that it's not actually doing the job, right? You're not flying with sustainable aviation fuel because you click that button, all the plastics or the waste. Like we've got a, you know, the same thing of like just buying an EV doesn't solve the problem.

22:06 Speaker C: That's right. Charge it from the grid, you're still better off. But yeah, you know, the gold standard, the end game is to get the solar on your roof and get that feeding into your car battery and then using that battery to power your home overnight. You know, vehicle-to-grid is so, or vehicle-to-X is so unbelievably exciting.

22:25 Mick Liubinskas: I think you're right. That's the other common thing you get from people is like, it's not, if it's not perfect, don't do it. And I think that's like, don't get an EV because it's going to be, you know, it was made by coal-fired power plants and actually it's being charged by coal-fired power plants. Like that's not a reason not to do it. Like it's, those things are going to get better too. You need to ratchet up on all fronts. It's, you know, again, it's the same like Alchemy, it's not like, well, all we need is Alchemy Charge and the whole world's problems, but Alchemy Charge just makes everything a bit better and easier.

22:57 Speaker C: Yeah, and horses for courses. And would you want to be charging at an Alchemy Charge SmartPoint on the side of the freeway going from Sydney to Brisbane? Absolutely not. You know, that's where you need your super fast charging. You need your 350 kilowatt fast chargers that are going to get you in and out in 18 minutes, you know.

23:13 Mick Liubinskas: That's right.

23:14 Speaker C: Um, especially with 4 kids in the back screaming.

23:17 Mick Liubinskas: 4 kids in the car, exactly. You've got a high motivational case study right there, of just like there is— Totally. Yeah, that is, yeah, I think that's, there's so many interesting dynamics of that and second order effects, which are changing. Are there other markets around the world? I know Scandinavia been really, really fast moving in, sorry, ahead of the curve in terms of EVs. China, obviously a lot of the cities are really, really moving. Have you seen some of those markets that are on the other side of growth that might help you in terms of thinking about how you roll this out?

23:47 Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, China just takes the cake. They've totally blown everyone else out of the water. All the market data that I see, you know, everyone else on the graph is down here and China is doing these ones, you know, but at the same time, when we look at mature markets, we've spent a lot of time looking at the European markets. So, you know, if we're talking about the UK and we're talking about curbside charging. So they're definitely taking the lead in curbside charging or taking the initiative with curbside charging because they're dense urban areas where they don't, cars don't have the luxury of having parking. And you know, if you take a step back in Australia, 40% of cars are homeless. So I, you know, in Australia we have not as big a problem, but we have a similar conversation. Yeah. So you really need to take the opportunity to learn what they're doing and then transfer it across.

24:48 Yasemin Selvi: Yeah.

24:49 Speaker C: In the two-wheeler and three-wheeler space, it's the, you know, it's the Southeast Asian markets. You know, we're looking at what they're doing over in India. How can we do it differently? How can we add value? It's, it seems like a lot of our value will come from product quality and safety.

25:08 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

25:09 Speaker C: So, you know, where, where our, our product, our shell is a Clipsal Schneider shell. We spent 2.5 years selecting this particular shell, you know, not just, not just the shell, obviously it was the entire product development, but you know, there's very specific reasons why we chose it, you know, safety, the environment, you know, Schneider is an impact-driven organization. The what happens at the end of life. Recyclability of the products. Yeah. And their considerations that sometimes don't come into other markets. And, you know, and that's kind of— that probably reflects on what you were asking earlier, right? So yeah, yeah, horses for courses.

25:52 Mick Liubinskas: Of course. Of course. It's amazing. Like, it's really been, again, incredible to, to get to know you this year and see that the journey the business is on. Tell me about next year. Like, what, what can you share about the, um, the bold plans?

26:02 Speaker C: Yeah, next year. So this year's been phenomenal out the gates, really quick. You know, you can probably see behind me we've got a couple of accolades to our name, which I love to brag about. But next year is all about growth. So next year is expansion. Next year is getting into the market. I can't quite say yet, but we've got a few plans to shake things up. Next year is all about just that, you know, we've got our range of products, we've embedded everything, we understand our markets. It's all about heads down, bums up, go.

26:40 Mick Liubinskas: Fantastic. That's amazing. What are the biggest, like, how do the trends look? I know there's been a lot of conversations this year about EVs and Australia is a completely different case to the rest of the world, but, and obviously you're playing in other different markets and there's Flight EVs and other things. What's your sense? I think there's two, there's, well, there's 10 different trends going on. There's the macroeconomic general one.

27:03 Speaker C: Yes.

27:04 Mick Liubinskas: And then there's kind of EVs, which is driving, then general EV infrastructure policy. How are you feeling about which of those are headwinds and tailwinds for next year?

27:14 Speaker C: Okay, so next year it looks like a lot of the focus will be around heavy transportation. So, you know, it specifically for Australia, that's where it looks like all the government funding is heading. It looks like a lot of the strategy is going down that path, understanding that there's a lot of those trucks coming into the Australian market, so there's more availability. So I think that's what's kind of— that's, you know, the last 2 years have all been about destination charging. Everyone's had this. Yeah. This obsession with getting, you know, going long distances, although you only do it once a year, right?

27:55 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

27:56 Speaker C: Yeah, everyone's been— it's all about destination charging, it's all about being able to charge on the side of the road.

28:01 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

28:01 Speaker C: A lot of that focus is shifting to, you know, the business side of things, less of the consumer and more into impacting through business.

28:12 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, I think it's— I think the timing's good. Like, I think it's been a tough year for climate tech in some degrees because in terms of capital raising, macroeconomically. But if I think about a business like Alchemy Charge, I think the timing is good. I think the, you, I reflect on a lot of the companies, like you just, all of your ambition, all of your hard work and hustle, and this goes to the point about being impatient for action, but patient for results. Like it's impossible for you to change the entire market. Like you can't be like, well, now here's Alchemy Charge, go and buy an EV. Like it's not like you have to actually go in lockstep with that. But I think actually that pace and that timing is actually really good. And again, we're not gonna see, you're not gonna 100x, but we don't need to. We just need more proof points, more growth, more partnerships, more deployment and gearing up. Because I think it's, again, I think by 2035, we're gonna be in a whole different world. And in fact, I think we're going to see a ton of growth in the, in the, over the next 3 to 5 years. So I think the timing is, is really, really right. So yeah, very excited.

29:24 Speaker C: Yeah. So we, and I think that you're absolutely right. Had we started this journey 10 years ago, I think we would have burnt out before we had the opportunity to get out there. I think the timing is right. I think that the market understands where it's heading a little bit better, which means, you know, your average consumer is— it's no longer your, you know, early adopters. This is just becoming the norm.

29:50 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's the— they're the tipping points I see. We've talked about a few times is the, um, you know, regulation is driving the cost of, of climate negative products higher. Climate tech companies are getting better and better, so their economic value is getting better. So that the green premium is quickly becoming a green profit, wherever my arms are going. So that's really good. And then you have a lot of the pressures coming. We've mentioned it here as well, like in terms of like individual consumers, employees. So you, because the middle management, right? It's like, why do we care about rolling out more EV chargers in Strata? Like, because we all, enough of us see those problems now. Board pressure, investor pressure. So then all these things are really building. And my experience in technology waves has been things happen gradually, then suddenly. Yeah. And I think the suddenly is gonna happen. 2027 is my bet. So if you're watching this in 2027 and I'm right, reach out, tell me how great I am. If I'm wrong, keep hustling. If I'm late, I'm okay. Sorry, if it was 2026, I'm okay with that.

31:04 Speaker C: Okay.

31:05 Mick Liubinskas: 2029 is too late. But so that's my bold bet for next year.

31:09 Speaker C: I'm making a note in my calendar.

31:11 Mick Liubinskas: I'll reach out. Exactly. I'm expecting a phone call on January 1st, 2028. Actually, sorry, 2027, by the end of the year would be fine. And look, you've been, it is not your first rodeo. I always think that places a significant amount of pressure on that second rodeo. But in terms of like a climate tech business, how has it differed? Like I just love the remedial building side. Just the fact that it even exists, I think, is fantastic. But yeah, how's the experience differed from your previous entrepreneurial experiences?

31:40 Speaker C: It's wild. And I say that with love. And, you know, remedial building, being in the building game, that whole industry, it's very established. It understands its ways. You know, what we do in the remedial space is probably Uh, it is tech forward and it is climate conscious. And if I can, you know, like if I can just jump into that, it's about what we do is, um, here we go, polyurethane injections. So what we can do is, is we can seal a, um, a water crack, a crack in a concrete slab, um, instead of replacing everything above it. So if you've got a terrace that sits on top of a lounge room, instead of going up into the terrace and taking off the tiles, the screed, the waterproof, and putting it all back down, causing all of that rubbish that goes into landfill. We can go in underneath and at high pressure insert our resin that will, you know, it's, its viscosity is like water, so it'll follow a crack to the hairline, and you've fixed the problem, uh, quickly, simply, cheaply.

32:50 Mick Liubinskas: Amazing.

32:50 Speaker C: So that, that's kind of always been our motivator. So that's, that's similar in both the businesses, in both veins, but you know, going into construction. You go out, you do a quote, someone comes back to you with a work order, you schedule the work, you do the work, you invoice it, done. You can pay your rent and you can pay your school fees.

33:13 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

33:15 Speaker C: Uh, Alchemy Charge is a little bit different.

33:17 Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, totally different.

33:18 Speaker C: Yeah, totally different. And you know, when you spend so long developing the product and then you're going out and educating the market and You know, I don't need to educate anyone on what a water leak is. Everyone understands that problem. But educating someone on understanding the difficulties of installing, you know, super fast charging in an apartment setting, you have to explain the electrical backbone. You have to explain the limitations on power that comes from the grid. You have to explain the amount of, you know, OPEX that the— or CAPEX and OPEX that the strata committees have to put in on an initial and ongoing basis. You have to explain how long it takes, the complexity of it all. It's a very different conversation.

34:04 Mick Liubinskas: Amazing.

34:06 Speaker C: Yeah, but no, nothing's ever lost, right? It's so many lessons that we learned from remedial building transfer straight across to this. And you know, I say that Alchemy Charge will be our last climate tech startup. But I think deep down inside, I know it won't be.

34:25 Mick Liubinskas: Merrick's gonna get a haircut one day, he's gonna text you and say like, you know, what if on Mars we're doing this? Like, you're like, Yeah. Sounds good, let's go to Mars. I think that that's definitely gonna happen. It's, yeah, that's a really good story in there. I'll put that in my calendar for 2035.

34:44 Speaker C: Let's see where we're living then.

34:48 Mick Liubinskas: One thing we love to do is encourage people who are passionate about building climate solutions, who've got an idea, but might be sort of sitting there wondering like, how to get going on this? Like any thoughts of advice, less like applying those lessons learned for someone getting started on this journey in climate, building climate tech solutions?

35:07 Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Look, the highs are high and the lows can be low, Yeah. Um, and sometimes those lows can come in thick and fast, but you've got to know your why. You've got to know why you're doing this. And if, as long as you know, um, why you've set out to make this change, have this impact, develop this idea, build this business, whatever it is, you come back to that, it helps with that You know, it's a roller coaster. I said it's wild. It's, you know, it's, it's so fun. I get to meet people like you and, you know, everyone else that I've gotten quite close to through it, through the Global Growth Program with Climate Salad. Um, and, you know, going to networking events and then, um, meeting someone who will be, you know, they'll, they'll come up to you and, you know, this is a very real conversation I've had. They'll say, you know, I don't— as, as an organization, we don't own petrol stations. Why should we own EV chargers? You know, like coming up against that wall and making it your ambition to explain to them, this is why I do it. You know, I don't know why you're going to do it, but I'd love to see you on the journey.

36:25 Mick Liubinskas: It's a really interesting reflection because I, when I see a fairly public post about something, and there's been a lot of rounds about nuclear and other things, and I'm like, don't read the comments, don't read the comments, don't read the comments. I'm like, I read the comments and it's like, oh, I shouldn't have read the comments. And you know, I don't know whether I'm just lacking the courage to go and, you know, fight that fight and sort of push back. Partly I'm like, I'm not gonna change that person.

36:50 Speaker C: Yeah.

36:51 Mick Liubinskas: My view is if I can spend time with you and helping Alchemy Charge grow, like I don't have to worry about the other person. Like, One day they're gonna rock up on holiday somewhere up at Port Macquarie. They're gonna get to the parking station. They're gonna have an EV, even though they said they'd never ever buy one. They got it 'cause it's $4 to fill up your petrol car and $2.50, like, and they're just gonna scan it and they're gonna go, "That was easy. That was awesome." Yeah. And they're never gonna go, "This is a great climate tech solution that I'm using for the environment." They're like, "This just works." And I'm like, just go and make better products. And I think that's the, I feel like that's the journey we're on now.

37:29 Speaker C: Don't read the comments, that's the answer.

37:31 Mick Liubinskas: Don't read the comments. Focus on like the beauty again of Climate Salad is everyone there is for climate solutions. Everyone's positive, everyone's collaborative. And definitely not my first rodeo. I'm so old, I actually run rodeos now. That's how old I am. The positivity, like I've never experienced before, right? In other industries, you're like, I've had startups who are like, we're almost the same, I hate you. But Climate Salad has a dozen EV charging companies of different kinds. And everyone's like, everyone's helping each other out because we've got a common why, right?

38:08 Speaker C: Definitely. And you know, I ran into a Climate Salad member, another EV charging network, they do peer-to-peer. Ivy Go, give them a shout out, but they— Yeah, love it. I saw them at an event here in Brookvale and they're actually on the other side of Sydney. And you know, I could walk up to her and I could crack a joke and say, why are you on my turf? You know, we hugged and we, you know, there's so much love there and it's actually really wonderful to be a part of.

38:35 Mick Liubinskas: It is really, really awesome. And look, thanks so much for sharing your journey and experience so far. Looking forward to some incredible growth in 2027. Thanks again for being a valuable member. The one thing we talk about as well is this is the charter of Climate Solidarity is give before you get. And that this, even though you're part of a program, we expect everyone to contribute and you've been a really great contributor to that. I wanna give a big shout out of thanks to the New South Wales Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, who've been the ones who supported this new Used program. that fast program and allowed us to operate this with you. And again, thanks again for sharing all the hard work with Alchemy Charge. Looking forward to a big 2025.

39:18 Speaker C: Absolute pleasure. Thank you.