Wattando

Energy transition must be simple

Solar for every household: Wattando connects the sun with your own home. As simple as balcony power plants and faster than conventional installations - this is how Wattando is competing to democratize the electricity market. With its "plug and play solution for professionals," the start-up removes a number of obstacles that mean that 89 percent of roofs are still unused for solar energy. Simply feed green electricity into the grid via the power socket - whether in apartment buildings, owner-occupied homes or commercial properties.

A real innovation, familiar faces and more relevant than ever in times of energy crisis: it was quickly clear we would help this start-up get off the ground.

Working closely with the two founders, we developed branding that set the brand up right from the start, while still being practical for a small company on a budget. The highlight is the logo, which on the one hand visualizes the energy impulse, but at the same time is reminiscent of the power supply cable, which is important for the product. The typogram's characteristic initial W transfers the impulse to the entire lettering and is repeatedly cited as an element in the branding. Together with the color scheme, which describes the brand's tension between innovative, green technology and implementation in an existing, solid system, it forms an electrified overall image.

Little time, little budget and a high level of dynamism/ The need is great, the budget small. Why start-ups are nevertheless so appealing!

Short paths, fast results and really a lot of freedom - these are the assets that creatives appreciate about working with start-ups. In these projects, you often have direct contact with the decision-makers. In the case of Wattando, we knew exactly who we were getting involved with: While Stefan Ulfert, as a copywriter and strategist, has already cracked one or two communication nuts together with us, his partner Boris Klebensberger is also no stranger. As early as 2008, the expert for renewable energies (with his former company Solarworld) relied on Strichpunkt's expertise.

A partnership approach that is also noticeable in the project. Because of course alternative ways have to be discussed with a small budget. Together with our contacts, we agreed on a streamlined and efficient process without sacrificing quality: elaborate presentations were replaced by a weekly meeting on the Figma Board, instead of long planned deadlines, we sent a Slack message whenever we reached a milestone, instead of long derivations, we held open discussions and instead of silent mail, all responsible persons were present in the appointment.

But it's not just in process that you can save valuable time and therefore budget: Anyone working for start-ups should be flexible with standardized branding processes: Because in most cases, a large corporate design package is not yet necessary right from the start. A kind of lean branding, which takes all the necessary basic elements into account during development, but only expands and deepens them at a later stage, is sufficient for many companies for the time being.

To summarize: If you think agile, you also need an agile-thinking agency. This starts with the design and ends with alternative remuneration models such as equity, success fees or shareholdings. A small risk that we are happy to take for a good idea that makes the world a little better!