#StartupsEverywhere Profile: David Knight, Founder & CEO, Terbine
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Solving EV Charging Pain
David Knight is a seasoned veteran of the startup world and has seen multiple companies through to success. He started Terbine to disrupt the electric vehicle charging space, and we spoke with him about the best startup ecosystems to live in, what it means to startups to have government support, and how policymakers can support STEM education.
Tell us about your background. What led you to Terbine?
I'm definitely what they call a “serial entrepreneur.” I've spent most of my career in the startup world. I've had a couple go public, a couple sold to bigger companies, and a couple that bit the dust, so I’ve seen the whole spectrum. I was based in California for the most part while building those, although I did have one in London and lived there and in Geneva Switzerland for two years. After returning to California, we started a company called Terbine. I ended up meeting Tony Hsieh, one of the founders of Zappos, and he sold me on the idea of moving to Las Vegas (where he was based), which has a booming startup ecosystem. To me, he was proof that you can build a tech startup anywhere, even outside of well-established places like Silicon Valley.
What is the work you all are doing at Terbine?
We're in the business of creating the next generation of infrastructure to support electric vehicles. Terbine produces and markets technology for the seamless exchanging of machine-generated data between the mobility and energy sectors, and our platform TerbineLink characterizes, categorizes, manages, regulates, tracks, monetizes, and securitizes the flows of machine-generated data moving to and from electric and autonomous vehicles, charging networks, public agencies, academic institutions, and commercial entities.
What support have you gotten from your local ecosystem since you’ve moved your business there? What feedback do you have for policymakers trying to support their local startup ecosystems?
I didn't know how much support Nevada gives their entrepreneurs before deciding to move here. For most business owners, the appeal of the state comes from its lack of income tax, which is nice, but we’ve gotten support beyond that—the state of Nevada itself invested in us. Jeff Saling with StartupNV was instrumental in getting Terbine established in Nevada with the backing of the Governor's Office of Economic Development. We were one of four startups that were chosen and invested in early on by that office—you’ll see them listed on our capitalization table right next to our venture capitalists, angel investors, friends, and other high-net-worth individuals. I’m an advocate for more states to do this for their entrepreneurs—it was a way for the government to let us know of their confidence in our company. I’ve also spoken personally with Senator Jacky Rosen, who is a big supporter of startups, and I’ve never experienced policymakers so accessible before I came to Nevada.
What can policymakers do to support and provide resources for STEM education in U.S. schools, of which you’re a supporter?
Improving the quality and substance of our education system is paramount to the United States remaining a world economic power. For quite some time, other countries have been educating their kids in all of the sciences: mathematics and technology, i.e., STEM. In China, they’re also mandating the teaching of English. The last time I read about it, more K-12-age students in mainland China were learning English than the entire population of the United States.
You’re a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits. How have your previous experiences building companies played a role in growing Terbine?
Besides the obvious (build a great team, raise money, etc.), it’s very important to find what the venture capitalists call “product-market fit”—and, critically, know when whatever you’ve chosen isn’t working. As an entrepreneur, it’s hard to “pivot” after you’ve invested time, money, and passion into a market you believe is going to achieve your goals. Yet we did this with Terbine—we were pursuing the Smart Cities sector, and our technology was purposed towards it. However, when the pandemic hit, I realized that when nobody had any idea how long it would last, cities would be empty and therefore not bring in certain income, like tax revenues. My experiences in prior ventures told me that I needed to immediately do something hard—reduce our costs dramatically to ride it through and pivot to something that we had much more certainty about. That led us into the electric mobility space that we operate in now. I know other entrepreneurs who hadn’t been through previous economic downturns and they tried to keep things going as normal through the pandemic. Sadly, many of those companies are now out of business.
Are there any local, state, or federal startup issues that you think should receive more attention from policymakers?
There have been many grant programs formulated at all levels of government, and the best known is probably the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. Unfortunately, almost all of them get bogged down in bureaucracy, especially the often unclear rules by which a proposal would be accepted. Our recent SBIR application, which demanded a lot of precious hours from my team, got rejected because we had selected the wrong category in which to submit. We looked back deeply into the original request for proposals and found no guidance whatsoever on how to select a category, nor any indication that category selection was a Go/No Go criteria (in this case “Category” meant selecting what type of usage the technology being proposed would apply to, e.g. automotive, military, energy, etc.). This was at least the tenth time that a proposal was rejected without a clear reason, and you can find many, many entrepreneurs who’ve had similar experiences. The result is that startups hearing about or having these issues tend to avoid applying for grants or procurement opportunities. Hence, most tend to ultimately end up with the major incumbent contractors who have large teams expert in navigating government bureaucracy. I don’t have a specific proposal to remedy this, but it’s probably something that could be fixed with the help of conversations with members of Congress.
Also, right now there’s also a lot of politically-motivated rhetoric about how the federal government shouldn’t be subsidizing things like next-generation mobility, chip factories, and so on. Yet it’s not a level playing field—many countries, particularly China, are subsidizing industries such as solar and battery production to make themselves globally competitive. So it makes sense that we do the same, regardless of which party has the majority. After all, it was the federally-funded New Deal that moved the U.S. past the Great Depression, and key infrastructure such as hydroelectric power that turned out to be vital when WWII hit.
What are your goals for Terbine moving forward?
We are laser-focused on making the infrastructure required to support the Zero Emission Vehicle transition successful. Being a startup technology company, we’re approaching the issues that we can make a difference in, primarily in how to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to make vehicle charging, both consumer and commercial, as efficient and problem-free as possible. There’s a long way to go, but with the currently available federal funding and several large companies trying to make the transition work, we have a real shot at it.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email advocacy@engine.is.
