Hi! I’m James Luffman, former founder of Solcast, husband of TeamHive founder Kimberly Luffman, and Executive Director at TeamHive where I focus on product and technology.
My professional life started in meteorology and data science – building models, coding algorithms, and then crossing over into executive roles in the weather industry. Then, in 2015, I began prototyping what became Solcast, using satellites and algorithms to track and predict solar irradiance and power production. That prototype evolved into the Solcast API, then into a business with real customers, then a global solar data infrastructure used by grid operators, utilities, developers and software systems worldwide. We grew the team, scaled the platform, and eventually took Solcast all the way through to a successful exit.
Partnering Kimberly on TeamHive from idea to business
My earliest recollection of the idea that became TeamHive is from our date nights! Ever since Kimberly had founded her consultancy Brave Insights in 2013, she was interested in how technology and science could enable her to scale her impact with leaders, organisations, and especially teams. She had developed a very effective way of working with teams as a coach, especially with executive teams and boards of larger organisations, who could afford or justify the cost. Then, Kimberly started to realise the inefficiencies: that the rest of the teams and smaller orgs were missing out, and that even with top teams the coaching could be hampered by the challenges of getting to a correct diagnosis. This led her to develop a prototype survey instrument that measured team functioning, and then validated it with researchers at the University of Newcastle. As that initial research work concluded, I got involved to help with productisation, with the goal that teams and organisations anywhere in the world can access it.
On a personal note, it's very cool to be supporting and partnering Kimberly on another family venture, since she convinced me to take Solcast from prototype to business in 2016, and also gave me the courage to quit a senior role in 2018 to go do a startup thing in the front room of the house while we had two very young children!
The magic of great teams
The idea of the magic of effective teams is not abstract for me; it’s personal. Twice in my career I’ve been lucky enough to be part of truly exceptional teams: once at Weatherzone around 2008–2010, and then at Solcast around 2018–2023. A few times I've also been in ineffective teams. The difference in terms of productivity, business value creation (and vibes) is easily 5-10x. Looking back, I found myself wondering: even a 2–3x on the effectiveness of teams globally, the potential is huge. At the same time, I was watching Kimberly’s team coaching work with executive teams and boards – seeing how much leverage there was in helping a single team shift how it functions. When she started using the first prototypes of TeamHive to measure how teams were actually working, and then using that data in team coaching, what she already understood became clear to me. A well‑designed, research backed team diagnostic could not only supercharge coaching; it could allow teams to understand and develop themselves, with or without a consultant in the room.
Why I care deeply about creating (good) data
TeamHive is actually the fourth research-based, differentiated data product I’ve had a hand in creating. The first was Opticast at Weatherzone – a high‑resolution weather forecasting system that, more than 15 years on, is still quietly powering key parts of the Australian economy with granular, accurate weather data. The second was Solcast itself, which today underpins electricity systems around the world with satellite‑derived solar irradiance and power data. The third was a Solcast side project we called Cumulus (others call it Oracle), which tracked rain globally outside standard radar coverage every five minutes using satellite data. The common thread in all of these was this: there were already thousands of weather apps and websites. What interested me was building a truly unique, upstream data asset – something primary that others could plug into to solve a wide variety of problems. When I looked over Kimberly’s shoulder at what she was creating with TeamHive, I recognised the same pattern in a different domain. There were thousands of consultants and dozens of survey providers – but mostly focused on leadership, culture, or engagement, not on teams as the fundamental unit of performance. The few tools that tried to measure teams tended to lack scale, lacked rigorous research backing, or weren’t really aligned with the leading evidence on team effectiveness and high‑performing teams. TeamHive, with the PLUS model (Purpose, Learning, Unity, Shared Leadership) and the work with the University of Newcastle, was a chance to build a differentiated, research‑grounded “team data” asset that could stand alongside those earlier weather and solar platforms.
Let the people have their data!
At Solcast, during the entirety of my journey there, the entire team always believed that anyone, anywhere, should be able to use the data and tools easily, even for free at small scale in their own work, side project, or hobby. And, we believed that large enterprise customers around the world should be able to use the same system, even at massive scale. This is easy to say, but very hard to do, because technology is hard, and because businesses tend to react and create specific, not general solutions. I think that achieving this intent was probably the biggest reason why Solcast succeeded. One of the things that attracted me to TeamHive was that the philosophy is very similar. Whilst the TeamHive platform has been built with powerful and intricate features designed to enable Consultants and Enterprises to help manage many teams, it also operates very simply and at reasonable cost for single teams and smaller organisations, aligning with Kimberly's initial goal of scaling impact.
And, importantly, there is a free version of TeamHive, which means any leader or team member, in any organisation, anywhere, can try TeamHive for themselves, totally free. To get a view on how their team is performing and functioning. It takes about ten minutes, and you can try it right now if you like, here:
