When Lauren Dunford cofounded the start-up that would become Guidewheel, she initially wanted to make an impact on energy sustainability in Kenya. But when her company’s power-monitoring technology struggled to find product-market fit in factories, Dunford and her team realized that their path forward might potentially lie in productivity—using technology to monitor the “electrical heartbeat” of factory equipment—rather than energy. This case analyzes the unforeseen challenges that Dunford and Guidewheel faced while searching for product-market fit. It also provides insight into Guidewheel’s internal conversations on impact and profitability, as well as the balance that the company tried to find between those two goals. As a final note, it examines the ways in which Dunford and the Guidewheel team adapted rapidly to the COVID-19 crisis and the post-pandemic economic landscape.
