Lex Hoefsloot: “We should have gone to America sooner”

By Wilke Wittebrood, MT/Sprout

Lex Hoefsloot made a name for himself as a hyper-ambitious TU student who wanted to get a solar car on the road. The outcome is well known. Lightyear went bankrupt and started again, but without Hoefsloot as CEO. Now he shares his lessons as an advisor. “I could fill three books with what I've learned.”

Lex Hoefsloot now has a ‘fairly normal’ working week. Office hours, so to speak. That used to be different. As CEO of Lightyear, he easily worked 60 hours a week, if not more. That was his reality at the time, his ‘normal’, it was what running a fast-growing start-up demanded.

He looks back and realizes that he had to make sacrifices. “There is so much you can't do when you run a company like Lightyear. So much that it doesn't fit in your schedule. At a certain point, the stakes became so high that, from a business perspective, I was asked to put certain things aside. Things I would never normally put aside.”

This was mainly at the expense of time with his girlfriend, Tessie Hartjes – private time, he corrects himself, as Hartjes was also his colleague at Lightyear – and their young children. The couple now has three. “They are three, two, and zero years old. Tessie had to take on a lot. Without her, it wouldn't have been possible.”

Entrepreneur becomes advisor

Now his schedule is a lot clearer. Since the beginning of this year, Hoefsloot has been working as an advisor and mentor for startups and investors. Two days a week, he mentors student entrepreneurs at TU Eindhoven, the university where his own entrepreneurial adventure began. He also coaches portfolio companies of the state investment fund Invest-NL and Techleap, the representative of the Dutch startup scene.

He has also recently started seeking out platforms to share his story and that of Lightyear, such as at Level Up. And: “It's also just nice to be able to spend more time with my family.”

Perhaps the best-known startup entrepreneur in the Netherlands – he even made it onto College Tour with his story, an honor that has only been bestowed upon Ali Niknam of Bunq – is no longer an entrepreneur. At least not at the moment, says Hoefsloot. But who knows what the future holds? What led him to consulting? “So many people helped us get where we are as a company. I think there are probably a thousand people I still need to thank, and I'm not exaggerating.”

He thinks for a moment. “I feel the urge to pass on that help.” Laughing: “Or how do you say that in Dutch? I can't think of the word right now.” The reporter helps him out. “Yes! It's a need, a drive.”

New type of car on the road

He needs a goal, he says. For eight years, the goal was to bring a new type of car to the road, similar to what Elon Musk had achieved with Tesla.

An electric car 2.0, largely powered by seamlessly integrated solar panels on the roof and hood. No pump or charging station required; just plug it in overnight. A cool car, too, with a sleek design that you'd be proud to drive. The car of the future.

The prototype, the Lightyear One, was ready. So was the production line. But then things started to go wrong. In January 2023, not long after the company had started production at Finnish car manufacturer Valmet, the start-up was suddenly declared bankrupt.

A huge rescue operation was launched to get Lightyear back on track, also to prevent 200 million in investments from evaporating. The result: after just one month, Hoefsloot was able to announce that the company would continue. With a new plan, the focus would be on developing the Lightyear 2, a more affordable version with a price tag of around 40,000 euros.

This required money, a lot of money. More than investors were willing to put in at the restart. As a result, the ambition to bring its own cars to market was ultimately abandoned. For the past year and a half, Lightyear has been focusing on the production of solar roofs and the associated technology for other car manufacturers. Under the leadership of a new CEO: German-American Bonna Newman, previously head of product solar at the company.

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Decided to quit

Hoefsloot stepped down as director of Lightyear in January 2024. On his own initiative, he says. “Bonna already had the job. She led the division responsible for the solar roofs, and the rest was scaled back. I transformed Lightyear together with the management and investors, but it would have been very illogical for me to also lead that operation. That role suits Bonna much better. Moreover, she is extremely talented.”

Making way was the most rational choice, he says. “Our mission has always come first, and this decision best served that mission. One hundred percent. That also made it easier to take the plunge, even though it took a while. But in the end, I think it was also liberating.”

And if he had wanted to stay, would that have been accepted? Hoefsloot shrugs his shoulders. “I don't know what would have happened. I never thought about it. I made this decision together with the investors and the team. If I had wanted to remain CEO, the rest would probably have said: Wouldn't it be better if Bonna did it?”

Two routes to success

That ‘star on the horizon’ was and still is: accelerating the transition to sustainable car transport. Can that be achieved with solar roofs alone?

“There are two routes to get there,” says Hoefsloot. "The solar car, as we defined it at the time, obtained more than half of its energy from the sun on an annual basis. That's not a small percentage. We wanted to build a business around it so that no one could say it was impossible. We hoped this would enable us to develop a cheaper model or inspire the industry to start making solar cars too. Which of the two it would be didn't matter to the mission."

That's the fast track, he continues. The second route, building solar cells for other car manufacturers, requires more patience. "You're more limited in your options – how many panels you can fit, what kind of cars they can be placed on. But at some point, you'll get there. Manufacturers will get used to the concept and start making cars that are more efficient and better suited to it. It just takes longer."

Your own car, no parts

Lightyear was already faced with this choice in 2021. Shouldn't the company have just gone for it? No, says Hoefsloot – and that has nothing to do with idealism, on the contrary. “The American investors we spoke to at the time showed no interest in startups that supplied components. None whatsoever. They wanted to invest in the car manufacturers themselves.”

In addition, the business case was not interesting at that time, he continues. "Setting up a car parts company takes ten years. During that entire period, you need continuous financing. In America, that concept wouldn't have worked, and in the Netherlands, the stakes were too low. The same applies to the margins you can charge as a supplier, because the automotive industry is powerful. The potential turnover is also limited. Moreover, you have no opportunity to present your new proposition directly to the consumer, because the customer does that for you."

Those are a lot of arguments against it. Don't they still apply to the new Lightyear, a supplier? “They would have if Lightyear had still been in the early stages,” replies Hoefsloot. “But we got through that thanks to financing for our own cars. That enabled us to fund the development of the technology and marketing, and we now have a mature company.”

Exit in sight

Route one could also potentially yield a high valuation for Lightyear. 2021 was also the year that a boom in EV companies went public via a so-called special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). These are companies without business activities (‘empty shells’) that raise capital through an IPO and then look for companies to acquire.

Companies can also be listed on the stock exchange via a SPAC without having to take that leap themselves. Hydrogen truck manufacturer Nikola is a well-known (and notorious) example. It didn't come to that in the end, says Hoefsloot. “We were still too young and didn't have enough validation. But it was a huge opportunity to jump on that trend. And we did. There was so much money available at the time.”

Hoefsloot does not regret the decision to focus entirely on its own cars. What he would have done differently in hindsight is go to the United States sooner. Startups are always balancing between life and death, he says, because they have to raise money continuously.

That's where things went wrong for Lightyear, because an expected investment from VDL Nedcar, which was considering allocating up to €200 million to the company, fell through. At that point, Lightyear had already grown into an organization with more than 600 employees and a significant burn rate.

Prepared for the best and worst-case scenarios

Startups need to be prepared for two things, Hoefsloot now knows. "The golden opportunity that can come along unexpectedly at any moment, and your worst-case scenario. By that I mean circumstances that are even worse than you, as an optimistic entrepreneur, can imagine things getting.

If it comes to that – and I now know that it can come to that – you need a financial buffer to absorb the blow. You have to raise much more money than you think you need. And that's best done in America."

Lex Hoefsloot in the Dutch TV show De Wereld Draait Door, in 2017

Just three years after founding the company, in 2019, Hoefsloot cast his net on the other side of the ocean. If he could do it again, he would have gone sooner. "But we had traction here; people knew us. The ease with which we were able to raise money in the early stages was much greater in the Netherlands than in the US. We should have taken a leap of faith based on the belief that we would not be able to finance Lightyear in the Netherlands in the long term. But of course, that was quite a step. We wanted to believe that it would work just fine in our own country."

Looking back, he would have told himself to choose the ambitious path. “That's what I tell the startups I mentor now.”

Five engineers and a solar car

Hoefsloot and his co-founders Arjo van der Ham, Martijn Lammers, Qurein Biewenga, and Koen van Ham were fresh out of college when they founded Lightyear in 2016.

In 2013, the five had won the World Solar Challenge in Australia with Stella, a solar-powered family car built by the student team at Eindhoven University of Technology. Two years later, the design won the prestigious TechCrunch award.

The success left them wanting more. Stella's design became the basis for Lightyear. When the company was set up, a CEO had to be chosen, Hoefsloot recalls. “I was the one with the most experience, because I had already been the team manager of the solar team. So that's how it went. I've always enjoyed achieving things with a group of people. And we were just five engineers who wanted to create something beautiful.”

No Elon Musk

As CEO, Hoefsloot made a name for himself as the “Dutch Elon Musk.” And although they share an ambition - to make a new and more sustainable form of mobility mainstream - the comparison ends there, according to Hoefsloot. “I don't agree with most of his ideas at all. Although he does have qualities that I find inspiring and instructive.”

Lex Hoefsloot in the early days of Lightyear - © Bart van Overbeeke

In any case, their leadership styles are like night and day. Whereas Musk is autocratic, tolerates no dissent, and is not exactly known for his people skills, Hoefsloot is a team builder. “Something magical happens when you bring the right people together and develop a shared vision.”

These are statements you won't hear from Musk. Couldn't Hoefsloot have used a little more ‘Elon’ as CEO? "That's a difficult question. I don't believe there is one archetypal leader who can ultimately bring success to an organization. I believe leaders should be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, ensuring they possess all the necessary qualities. In the management team, in the organization.“

Lightyear did this, for example, by bringing in Bernd Martens, who came over from Audi, as COO. Hoefsloot: ”Bernd brought more ‘blue’ to our board. More attention to structure and processes.“ What color is he himself? ”Ha. More yellow-red."

Thin line between success and failure

Listening to Hoefsloot, one might conclude that Lightyear has mainly been unlucky. That's partly true, he says. The line between success and failure is thin, a theme that will be explored in his keynote speech at the startup event LEVEL UP on September 29, 2025.

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“After the relaunch, I talked to many of our investors to gauge how they viewed the period surrounding the bankruptcy,” he says. "I wanted to know: was I crazy? Did I really experience it so differently from the rest? But they also agreed that we were close. We were well on our way with that deal, and there was a good chance we could have made it. In the end, though, things didn't turn out the way we wanted."

That doesn't mean he doesn't blame himself as CEO. However, Hoefsloot cannot say too much about this publicly while the trustee's investigation into the bankruptcy is still ongoing. "In general, I would say that, in hindsight, I would get to know the investors much better. To understand what they are looking for. Because they have their own reality: their investment must yield a return. If you don't fit into that picture as a startup, you can jump up and down, but you won't get any funding.“

Making the startup ecosystem more successful

These are lessons he also shares with the startups he coaches – with whom he can fortunately speak more freely than with the press, he laughs. ”Because I could fill three books with them."

Hoefsloot is not only concerned about the consequences of climate change, but also about the position of the Netherlands and Europe in particular on the world stage. "We have all the opportunities and resources to make our startups as successful as those in the US. I find it difficult to see that the ingredients are there, but they're not coming to fruition. So I try to use the lessons I've learned at Lightyear – what went well, what went wrong – to make our startup ecosystem more successful."

He said it himself: he needs to have a goal. And passing on his insights to a new generation of entrepreneurs also helps him personally. To let go, to move on. “To see Lightyear's bankruptcy not as a step backward, but as a step forward.”

This interview was previously published by MT/Sprout and has been reprinted with permission.