From vision to reality: building the energy category at Handelot

It’s a B2B trading platform where wholesale companies connect to find customers and suppliers around the world. Think of it as a global marketplace — you log in, post your offers or requests, and get direct access to people you actually want to do business with. Simple, secure and effective. And lately, things have been expanding. Last year, we took a big step and opened a completely new product category — the Energy sector. That means solar panels, heat pumps, batteries, inverters, EV chargers… Top-tier brands, focused on the European market.

That’s actually when I came on board — September 2023. When the Energy category was just being born, and I was the very first Business Development rep dedicated to it. I knew it was an exciting idea that had a lot of potential.

At that point, the solar industry didn’t know us — and to be honest, the energy category wasn’t even live yet. So I was pitching a vision, a concept. All I had was a deck and a strong belief in the value we could bring. It was definitely a challenge — a lot of those early calls felt like trying to sell something invisible. But that forced me to really dig into our value, understand the industry, and find the right way to tell our story.

Over time, we personally reached out to more than 350 companies — traders, distributors, installers — holding discovery calls, presenting our platform, and gathering insights to shape our approach. And slowly but surely, it started to click.