Ep 379 - The Hustle Behind Evro Mobility Solutions

EPISODE INTRODUCTION

This week on Hustleshare, Ron Baetiong sits down with Paulo Canivel, GM of Evro Mobility Solutions, to unpack his journey from scrappy side hustles and barbershops to building the Philippines’ leading EV charging platform under 917Ventures and AC Mobility.  Paulo shares how betting early, learning faster than the market, and staying relentlessly adaptable helped him go zero-to-one—again—while leading one of the country’s most critical mobility shifts.

Ep Timeline:

00:01:33 – Paulo’s hustle: Inside Evro and the EMSP model powering EVs nationwide

00:04:06 – Range anxiety is real: Why EV adoption stalls—and how Evro fixes it

00:07:36 – Banking to purpose: Discovering where real value is created

00:09:18 – DigiScript and pioneering LIDAR tech in the Philippines

00:11:00 – Building Felipe & Sons: Identity, self-love, and Filipino pride

00:13:40 – Zero-to-one scrappiness: Garages, sewing machines, and doing it all

00:19:48 – Walking away from retail: Why Paulo returned to tech

00:20:46 – Lazada in crisis: Pandemic war rooms, chaos, and grit

00:25:43 – The moves that mattered: How Lazada scaled through COVID

00:29:44 – The pull of zero-to-one: Choosing 917Ventures

00:32:21 – Betting blind: Entering EVs with no background

00:36:00 – Building Evro from scratch: Standards, foresight, and risk

00:42:14 – Two founder paths: Scrappy entrepreneur vs professional builder

00:45:30 – Unfair advantage: Building on the shoulders of giants at 917V & AC Mobility

00:47:51 – Scale brings pressure: Serving 80% of the Philippine EV market

00:52:07 – The invisible grind: Real-world EV problems customers never see

00:57:28 – Leadership evolution: Becoming what the business demands

01:02:00 – The long game: Staying adaptable, humble, and relentlessly curious

“You never know what you’re going to need to be. What the business needs you to be.

Resources:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulocanivel/
Website: https://www.evro.ph/

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