Zola Electric

Xavier Helgesen's journey to founding Zola Electric began not with a business plan, but with a dinner by kerosene lantern in rural Malawi. As chairman of the board for Books for Africa (Better World Books' literacy partner), Xavier was invited to visit the continent with other board members. During a trip to a small village on Lake Malawi, he stayed in an off-grid community of roughly 20,000 people with no electricity. When his local host—a scuba diving instructor—led him by kerosene lantern through the dark streets to his home, Xavier had a revelation: "If I survive this, maybe I should fix this."

That evening, he dined with the instructor's family by kerosene lamp and saw firsthand the reality of life without electricity. The seed was planted, though Xavier wasn't immediately certain he'd start a company around it. A year later, while traveling to a conference in Oxford, he learned about the Skoll Foundation scholarship for social entrepreneurs—a fully funded MBA at Oxford for people building social impact businesses. He applied, was accepted, and spent a year deciding whether to remain focused on Better World Books or pursue something entirely new.

After committing to the Zola idea, Xavier made a bold decision: he and his co-founders—Erica and Josh—moved to Tanzania. This wasn't a symbolic gesture. Erica, who had worked in Africa for 10 years before joining, insisted they couldn't understand the problem or build a solution from California. "We are not going to achieve anything unless we all go and we all move and we live next to our customers," she told them.

Once in Tanzania, they did something radical: they knocked on doors. Xavier and the team would ask locals to spare 15 minutes to discuss their electricity situation, what they currently spent money on, and why they weren't connected to the grid. The first real customer insight came from a new mother who burned a kerosene lamp all night as a night light for her baby, spending roughly $30 per month on kerosene—jet fuel—to fuel one small oil lamp.

This sparked the critical realization: they shouldn't solve an abstract "electricity problem." Instead, they needed to ask: What are people already spending money on? The answer came in three buckets: kerosene for lighting ($30/month in that example), diesel batteries for powering radios, and phone charging fees (some households paid $10/month in 15-25 cent increments to charge phones). The pitch became elegant: "Look, you're already spending this much. What if we gave you something way better that cost you less every month?"

Crucially, they didn't build custom hardware immediately. Instead, they sourced off-the-shelf components, assembled them into systems, and put them in customers' homes—even though the unit economics were terrible for Zola. This let them validate that customers would pay for the experience and price point they promised, which then enabled them to raise money beyond friends and family.

Xavier's approach to customer acquisition was methodical and grounded in anthropology. Rather than assuming they knew what people needed, they sat in living rooms across Tanzania and asked. This wasn't a marketing channel in the traditional sense—it was customer discovery that doubled as sales.

The first customers were people already spending money on kerosene, batteries, and phone charging. By repositioning solar not as a luxury but as a cheaper alternative to existing substitute products, Zola tapped into a massive addressable market. The key was understanding the true price sensitivity: customers could afford to spend money on electricity; they just couldn't afford grid prices or traditional solar installations.

What worked was radical customer empathy combined with economic honesty. Rather than importing Western solar solutions, Zola built backwards from what customers could actually afford to pay. They also evolved their product focus over time. Initially, Zola targeted completely off-grid customers. But they discovered an even larger market: people in places like Nigeria, where the grid was available 8 hours per day and completely unreliable. For these customers, Zola's solar-plus-battery system became the primary power source, with the unreliable grid as a backup—flipping the traditional utility model.

Their newest product, Infinity, represents a maturation of this philosophy. It's a beautiful, Apple-designed lithium battery system that replaces the exposed lead-acid batteries (with dangerous terminals) found throughout Africa. It's plug-and-play, requires minimal electrical knowledge, and can be scaled incrementally—starting with a few lights or plugs and expanding to whole-home power.

What didn't work: trying to build solutions without deeply understanding electrical engineering. Xavier admits he wish he'd taken a crash course in electrical fundamentals in the first three months instead of waiting five years. Understanding cost and feasibility tradeoffs at the engineering level was essential to hitting the price points customers needed.

Zola Electric now delivers electricity to one million people in Africa every day. The company has raised over $100 million in equity funding, plus another $50 million in debt and financing. They've just launched their Infinity product and are shipping their first units. The market opportunity is vast: Nigeria alone has 200 million people experiencing chronic power instability, with electrical demand growing at double-digit rates due to rapid economic growth.

Xavier has transitioned out of the CEO role—a three to four-year deliberate process—because he knew his critical contribution was starting the company and launching an entire industry. He's proud that Zola's success has spurred a boom in renewable energy investment across Africa; while Zola raised $150 million, at least five times that amount has flowed into the broader sector from other investors, entrepreneurs, and large corporates. For Xavier, this is a feature, not a bug: in mission-driven work, more competitors solving the same problem means the mission gets accomplished faster.