Rejected at Home, Embraced Elsewhere

December 2018. I moved into a brand-new condo on Vancouver Island.

It had one EV charging station, and it was free to use.

One problem. I didn’t own an electric car.

A few months later, I bought one.

For two years, I charged for free. Then neighbours started grumbling about the fortune we were supposedly getting in free electricity.

Worried they might be right, I did the math.

Three cars. $52.09 a month. Just $1.24 per unit.

They didn’t believe the numbers. Or maybe they didn’t believe me.

They wanted a metered charging station, but didn’t want to spend that much money.

Instead, they imposed a $40 monthly fee per car.

We all found somewhere else to charge.

I proposed a simpler solution: an app that tracks charging and calculates the cost.

They rejected it.

Disappointed but convinced the idea had merit, I kept building.

Nine months later, we launched EVnSteven. We announced it on Facebook and got 100 signups!

My faith in humanity was restored.

The app was free for buildings. Drivers paid just 12 cents per session.

Buildings in other parts of the world started using it. For two years, we kept improving the app and showing my building the results.

They still refused.

I was furious.

They’d been quoted $7,500 to solve a $52.09-a-month problem, yet kept rejecting an app that cost them $0.

Then it hit me.

You can’t solve distrust with more code. And you can’t fix stupid.

But maybe I’m the stupid one.

I’d wasted valuable time and energy trying to convince people who didn’t want to understand.

Meanwhile, the people signing up for EVnSteven understood its value immediately. They didn’t need convincing.

The lesson? Stop trying to convince people who don’t get it. Find the people who do.

David Williston
Founder, EVnSteven