South Africa was never just another market on a spreadsheet.

It became one of the most important learning experiences of my career—and, years later, a successful exit.

We entered South Africa in 2019 with a simple idea: test the market before making a large commitment.

Our initial investment was €15,000. It was enough to start learning, meet customers and partners, and understand whether the opportunity we saw from the Netherlands also existed on the ground.

It did. But the solution that had worked elsewhere could not simply be copied and pasted into a new country.

A new market changes the problem

South Africa had an urgent need for reliable and affordable energy. Load shedding made the limits of the grid visible in daily life, while solar offered customers more control over their energy costs and supply.

But recognising the need was the easy part. We still had to understand local buying behaviour, financing, regulation, operations and trust. Every assumption had to be tested again.

One obstacle became clear: the upfront investment. Customers could see the value of solar, but the initial cost prevented many of them from taking the next step.

The breakthrough was not a different solar panel. It was removing the upfront investment.

By offering solar as a subscription, we changed the decision for the customer. Instead of buying an installation, customers could access cleaner and more reliable energy through a predictable monthly payment.

That shift helped us solve a real local problem and became the foundation for building a strong lease portfolio with our South African team, customers and partners.

Start small, but learn fast

The €15,000 market test was small, but it was not cautious for the sake of being cautious. Its purpose was to buy learning before buying scale.

Entering a new market requires conviction, but it also requires humility. You need to accept that parts of your original plan will be wrong—and build a team and model that can respond quickly.

  1. Test the real customer problem before building a large organisation around it.
  2. Adapt the business model to the local market instead of copying your home-market playbook.
  3. Find the barrier that stops customers from acting—even when the underlying need is obvious.
  4. Use early capital to learn, then invest further when the evidence supports it.

The right next step

Over the years, the South African activities grew into a strong solar lease portfolio. South Africa also became important to me personally. The country, the people and the entrepreneurial energy left a lasting impression.

In 2026, GoZero sold the South African solar lease portfolio to GoSolr, the country’s market leader in solar subscriptions.

GoSolr has the scale, experience and ambition to continue serving these customers and growing the portfolio. That makes it a natural home for what we built.

Sometimes the best next step is to hand over what you have built to the right partner.

I am proud of the team, customers and partners who made this journey possible—from a €15,000 market test to a successful exit.

The experience reinforced something I still believe today: international expansion is not about taking your existing answer to a new country. It is about learning the market well enough to find the right answer there.

Patrick van der Meulen
Founder & Operating Partner