2:17 - The problem Linia solves
7:23 - Acquiring your first international customer
10:00 - The biggest competitor
15:18 - Product market fit by trial and error
19:53 - Being bootstrapped
Lorenzo Arizzoli-Bulato is the co-founder and managing director at LINIA, a startup manufacturing drone software for power line inspection. His educational background is in Electrical Engineering and before starting LINIA in 2018 he worked for companies such as IASTE, Axpo Group and EWZ.
Despite being in a rather niche market, Lorenzo has no trouble finding customers, in part because he knows the problem and buyer persona intimately (having worked in the industry for a while himself), and in part because power grid operators are under a lot of pressure:
- Due to the climate emergency, weather impact on power grid infrastructure is worsening;
- Due to decarbonization, more and more traffic is being brought to existing power grids;
- Building new power lines is usually met with quite a lot of resistance from local communities, so operators are wary to do so;
- The time frame for maintenance work is getting shorter as more and more people need to use electricity all of the time.
In November 2021 LINIA won the Energy Startup Day 1st place Public Choice Award.
"I see companies which offer similar products more as partners than as competitors."
