158. Mycelium On, Sound Off: How GOB's Lauryn Menard Makes Biomaterials Feel Like Culture

Lauryn [00:00:00] This is basically my favorite subject. in nature, in nature, nothing is wasted, right? Every single component of nature has a function, and it's there for a reason.

Erum Hey Carl, how's it going?

Karl It's going so great. Iam, welcome to everyone to the Grow Everything podcast. How was your Thanksgiving iam?

Erum It was fantastic. It went by so fast though. my Thanksgiving this year was with our friends, local neighbors and. I was really excited for it, and it just happened in the blink of an eye.

Erum And here we are just on the other side of it. What about you? Yeah. How was your Thanksgiving? I know you were jet setting around the world a little bit beforehand. Tell us about it.

Karl So, I don't know about jet sitting. does it count if it's jet setting? If you travel for work? I don't think so.

Karl So was in Paris because I was, helping to facilitate a meeting with a group of bio manufacturers. Big brands that are working to biolog their businesses. [00:01:00] And, the meeting was great and I will reveal more about that as we get closer to, the project's, completion. but I'll just say Paris was, first of all, it was freezing cold, but at least the sun came out.

Karl I have been in Paris in January when the sun doesn't come out and it's not so magical. but it felt very crowded. and it was really great to be there for a couple days. And then I came back and kind of had the house to myself because my family was upstate because my father-in-law just had heart surgery.

Karl Mm-hmm. and he's doing very well. But, I've don't think I've ever had a Thanksgiving by myself. So I visited a couple of my neighbors, one who's a shut-in, just to make sure he's doing okay. And, just spent the time after the trip to just kind of, get over the jet lag. But before I left, we did something excited.

Karl We went to caveat in, lower Manhattan to their trivia night, which is like a science trivia night. That was a lot of fun. What'd you think about it? Iam? Oh yeah. it's like you're a third or fourth time. I've only gone twice.

Erum Oh, [00:02:00] yes. Yes. It's hosted by a, a group of scientists, comedians, their group is called Fax Machine, so F-A-C-T-S machine.

Erum you guys can look 'em up and of course we'll put them in the show notes and you can follow them when they have different. trivia nights, but they also have a podcast. You can listen to some of, their shows on the podcast, and it's just incredible. I mean, like, first of all, you have very intelligent PhD candidates or postdocs, and then you have them being very funny and like, humor is the highest form of intelligence.

Erum Like, if you can laugh at something, it's just okay. It's a very intellectual exercise. So it was great to be there with you. our associate, Lizette, my friend Ed also came, and it's just, you know, chock full of activities. And of course facts about this theme was about human evolution, so we learned a lot about different primates.

Erum it was hysterical. I know you, had a really good time and were like, I have to take my wife here.

Karl Yeah, no, I came home, I described it to [00:03:00] Kristen and she was like, I really wanna go to this. Sounds like a lot of fun and it is a lot of fun.

Karl I mean, I've, gone twice. We've gone a number of times and it's just a great evening and it's fun to see a bunch of people on the audience laughing. It's science nerds and science nerds being funny, and I think we need a lot more of that.

Erum Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And then we've been really busy, you mentioned, you know, you went to Paris talking to a lot of bio manufacturers and brands and, we've been really focusing in this world of consumer packaged goods, so CPG, and it's really something that we're bringing together.

Erum We'll have more of a focus on it early next year on the podcast. Think of it more of like a crash course, but more of like a realistic crash course in Biomanufacturing because we are gonna talk about what are some of the priority molecules and products that need to be made, and who wants them, who's making them, So I think it's gonna be something that. [00:04:00] Listeners you're gonna be excited to learn about because these are products you use every single day, around you, on you. And for these products to not only be made more sustainably, but to have higher performance and to work with their biology is a very exciting thing.

Karl Yeah. And I'll just mention that we've had a lot of people, over the years, come on and talk about biomanufacturing. The challenges associated with Myo manufacturing and its importance. But now when we talk to the CPG companies, which we are gonna have a big focus on in 2026, you'll see how that biomanufacturing gets applied at scale because some of these products are produced in the hundreds of millions of tons.

Karl And, a lot of times when people think about biotech products, they think of things that are produced in very small quantities, which is definitely true for biopharmaceuticals, but CPG often requires huge volumes. And so, I think it's gonna be really exciting for you to learn about how people are taking biotech to increase performance, as you said, e Roman, also sustainability.

Karl one of the great things about doing that is [00:05:00] we've been able to gather some people who are some of our favorite people that we know, either from Symbio beta or bio fabricate. And today's guest is someone who comes from that world. Do you wanna talk about our guest today, iro?

Erum Oh, absolutely. I am gonna talk about Lauren Minard.

Erum She is an incredible force, so she's the co-founder of gob, which was named Fast Companies, most innovative companies of 2025, which we'll talk more about in the episode. But what GOB has done is created the first bite, degradable sound, or earplugs that are engineered for comfort

Erum performance, and designed to return to the earth within weeks. Lauren launched GOB to challenge how we consume everyday products. So blending both cultural relevance, which we'll talk about a lot, and material innovation.

Erum we love talking about buy materials here on the Gring podcast. So why don't we let Lauren Menard take it away. INTERVIEW

Erum Lauren Menard, welcome to the Grow Everything [00:06:00] podcast. We're so happy to have you here.

Lauryn So stoked to be here. Thank you.

Erum Yay. Well, we're, particularly excited because you have been on fire lately

Karl yeah, for sure. You had quite the year. You, thank

Erum you. Yeah, you're recognized by fast companies, most innovat companies of 2025, one of time magazine's Best Inventions of the Year, and you've collaborated with Bill Eilish, Chappel Rone on getting your product, the gob earplugs into the world.

Erum So that's incredible.

Lauryn Thank you. Yeah, it's been a whirlwind. Can't say that I saw this coming at all, but here we are. We're doing it. Awesome. Yeah. So let's get

Erum into a little bit. We wanna learn a little bit about you, how you got into this and like what's going on. So first talk to us about how you came into the world of gobs.

Erum So you've been leading design through fashion, furniture, brand work. And then you founded gob, which is a compelling transition. So what was a moment when you realized [00:07:00] that single used earplugs and other single used products could become regenerative products? And What sparked that leap?

Lauryn Hmm. Yeah. Well, basically my entire career, I've had these really weird titles. So I've been given jobs that people never knew what to call me, right? Because I was somewhere between material and design and brand sometimes. So there was always like innovation consultant material innovation, and the word innovation was always in there, basically about, a couple years before starting gob, I co-founded a design agency called PROWL Studio. And that was basically the intention behind that was to do the work I was already doing with my co-founder and be able to help companies bridge the gap between mass manufacturing and better materials.

Lauryn And just because they usually don't have an internal team that knows how to [00:08:00] do that or has the language to even begin researching. So we were doing that and, P'S still alive and well, but I stepped away basically because just my entire career was spent working on luxury goods, or we'll call them innovation products that never really saw the light of day.

Lauryn And I got pretty fed up with that. I just. Was using earplugs constantly and had this aha moment at a spin class. I won't tell the whole story, but basically it was like, oh, this is simply a material problem. No moving parts, who, there's gotta be something better than this on the market. There Wasn't.

Lauryn Found out that they were made out of polyurethane and PVCs that are really harmful for humans and planet. Saw the number of them the world produces each year, which is 40 billion. And I was like, wait, this is a huge [00:09:00] problem hiding in plain sight. Let me try and fix it. And basically just through that, it just snowballed into its own business.

Lauryn And now my full-time job as a startup founder. the earplug was the segue into single use, right? It's like this was our pilot, this is our debut product. But now I'm like, I want to take all these not so sexy products and make them sexy again. Maybe they never were sexy. Make them interesting and make them out of healthier materials.

Lauryn So yeah, it's a weird journey.

Erum bringing sexy back to earplugs. Great. That's right.

Karl That's amazing. So at Gob you talk about beginning with the end in mind, designing a product that returns to the earth. How did that idea or that ethos changer approach to design from day one.

Lauryn Yeah. So that ethos actually comes from PROWL, the [00:10:00] agency. And that way of thinking was basically everything stemmed from that ethos, right? So if we thought about a product's end of life at the beginning of its design conception. Then we will inevitably create something healthier and more responsible, because usually that's the afterthought, right?

Lauryn But every single product, no matter how beautiful it is, no matter how relevant it is in a moment, we know this by now, that it will someday have its end. Whether it's no longer relevant, it's obsolete, or you just used it and now it's done. You have to have a plan for that when you're designing it. It's our responsibility as creatives and designers to do that.

Lauryn And so we just decided to take the end of a product's life into the design phase, and I think it's been pretty successful thus far. And I think that's just how I design now. That's just [00:11:00] part of how we think about every single thing we create, including packaging and everything we touch basically.

Erum Wow.

Erum Yeah. I wish more people thought like you. That's incredible thought we wouldn't be in some of the big working on situation working. Yeah,

Karl yeah,

Erum yeah, yeah, that's right. All the pollution and everything's right, but we're working on it, so that's wonderful. so on this podcast, we talked to many people in the biotech biomaterial space, and we've learned that there are different types of materials.

Erum There's bacterial cellulose, there's algae, there's mycelium, which. Is the fungal material you decided to choose as the core of your product. So what drew you to mycelium and what surprises did you face working with it to make a high performance wearable product?

Lauryn Yeah.

Lauryn This is basically my favorite subject. in nature, in nature, nothing is wasted, Every single component of nature has a function, and it's there for a reason. like [00:12:00] flowers, for example. We find them beautiful, that's their function in our lives, but they're pollinators.

Lauryn they spread their seeds to feed animals, and they're part of this beautiful system, right? But when we are creating something that's manmade. We are creating something that's functional for our own lives to make them more comfortable, more convenient, and basically when you are working on a new product, especially something that is as we'll call it form wise, simple, right?

Lauryn It's doesn't have any moving parts, it's nothing but it's material. You have to find the material that serves the function you need, right? More than likely. Everything. we create comes from nature. And so what we did was we were looking at materials that dampen sound in nature, that brought us down a bunch of rabbit holes.

Lauryn But basically, does mycelium try to dampen sound in nature? No, but the way that, [00:13:00] its form is grown and the way that the specific material we use is created, it actually does naturally dampen sound. It took us maybe eight months to find this material, and when we set out to find a foam, we set this criteria.

Lauryn We wanted it to be home compostable, completely plant-based. It had to dampen sound and it had to be extremely comfortable. And about six months went by. Weren't finding anything that was not, stuck in the lab prototype phase. We either found something that like wasn't comfortable or not quite the right consistency, but randomly, I had seen this prototype from Ecovative of their foam years before at the bio fabricate conference, and I had been bothering them.

Lauryn Can I please get a prototype of this? Can I please get a [00:14:00] prototype of this? Six or eight months into the discovery process, I actually got an email back from them that was like, Hey Lauren, you are the first person we're emailing our, they call it aerial mycelium, is ready to try out. We're gonna send you some, see what happens.

Lauryn And we basically just, Found a way to poke a few cylinders out on our own and tested it and we're like, oh my God, it works. So it's kind of a messy process to find the material match, but they exist. I'll say,

Karl that's amazing. I mean, do you know, what does it look like at the Incubated factory when they grow these things?

Karl Are you guys punching them yourselves or do they do that for you?

Lauryn So the Ecovative is our material supplier. It's actually Forager by Ecovative. It's one of their brands. And they're growing this mycelium material in these huge, like 25 meter by five meter, I believe, [00:15:00] sheets in racks. And this is weekly, which if you do the math, that's over a million earplugs in one week that could be grown.

Lauryn It's wild. So when people worry about scale, like this is not a problem. It's a renewable resource through and through, but it is grown into this wet, fluffy material. It's then dried in their facility, which makes it so that it stops growing. It's completely inert. it's just an incredible material. And once you like heat it up and it stops growing, it basically is stable.

Lauryn In that stable form, we receive it in sheets and we process it into our product. I can't tell you exactly how we do that 'cause that's part of our ip, but, we created this automated system that produces our earplugs.

Karl Got it. and just going one more thing about earplugs, because you had said, here's this overlooked product that is also a problem 'cause something like you said, 40 [00:16:00] billion to produce each year.

Karl How do you look at something so small as having such big potential?

Lauryn There's volume and scale. Someone said to me, recently, If you're dedicating your life to stopping the plastic pollution problem, why are you working on something so small? And I started asking them, do you remember when people started talking about plastic straws and how big of a problem those are?

Lauryn Oh, they're small, but the scale and the volume is just tremendous, right? We're talking billions. When you're talking billions. Our brains can't even fathom what that looks like. If you were to take 40 billion earplugs and put them into one space, it would look like a mountain. It's huge. Mm-hmm. It could wrap around the planet more than once if you lined them up.

Lauryn And so for me, a lot of designers and a lot of people love spending their time, which we need both. Right. I was one of these people spending [00:17:00] my time on these big, beautiful things that are physically large like furniture, for example, and working in that arena. But those aren't produced at the scale of single use products are.

Lauryn We're not consuming them and going through them constantly. Right. So my take on this is I would rather spend my time on the things that people aren't looking at that are produced at mass scale. Then on these sexy things that are produced in smaller volumes but are like physically large, if that makes sense.

Lauryn We have to do all of it. We have to be reinventing our material world. But I just am kind of sick of things getting stuck in this. Like quote unquote fixing these more like sexy, luxurious products. Right.

Karl I just wanna make a comment for our listeners in case they dunno this, if you go into a CVS to buy earplugs, you're probably gonna buy 10 or 12.

Karl Like they come in a small pack, there's a dozen of them. Mm-hmm. And if you [00:18:00] go to like a Grainger or like a hardware store. You're gonna buy a container that probably has a hundred or 200 of them in there. Mm-hmm. So they add up really quickly and they're really cheap. I think like 10.

Karl At CVS maybe cost five bucks or six bucks, and the big packs maybe cost like 20. So the scale is there.

Erum Yes. And to continue talking about scale, I think it was really beautiful when you talked about how much mycelium your partner can produce in a week versus how much like you can sell.

Erum So this is always a big, controversy or like a roadblock to maybe investors. Other people, when they think about buying materials, they say it can't scale, it can't get to price parity. And then like when you came to bio fabricate and I started learning more about gob and you were just like giving it away, I am like, I.

Erum Is she just throwing money away? Like how much money did this woman raise to be able to hand this buy material? 'cause these buy materials are so expensive. How is she doing this? But now I get it. So like thanks [00:19:00] for sharing that. perspective on like scaling isn't an issue and that's a renewable resource can be made in big scale.

Erum You just need to do it.

Lauryn Yes. And with time, you know, our, pricing will come down even more. That's our goal is to replace these commodities, right? But it will take time because we're basically replacing something that is almost free. 'cause it's made out of basically the byproduct of the petroleum space and the oil industry and that disconnection.

Lauryn A lot of people don't think about that when they're using products that, the source of this thing is the same source that you're pumping into your gas vehicle, and I think that that disconnect is just like, wait, what? And gas is getting more expensive. It is like maybe plastic should get more expensive.

Lauryn Right. But yeah, scale is not a problem.

Erum Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's incredible. And the whole pervasiveness of Petra based chemicals is one of the reasons why we have this podcast, because it's like, let's highlight [00:20:00] those things. I mean, earplugs mm-hmm. Earbuds, all the single use products that you mentioned.

Erum and of course the things that we eat. there's, artificial dyes and everything. And so, thank you for doing what you're doing. I had a question really about, this intersection between entrepreneurship and design. and there's pressures on both of those sides.

Erum So how do you balance a pressure for how your product looks and feels, which is, yes, they're, earplugs, but you have done a beautiful job of designing it and also the packaging and everything with what it material does and becomes how do you balance to make sure that it functions, but looks cool at the same time.

Lauryn I will tell you, I did the classic designer thing. my business partner from P Prowl and I were both industrial designers and when we first started prototyping with our mycelium material, we were like, surely we cannot ship a cylinder. It's not sexy. Like we can't do that. And we prototyped and tested maybe [00:21:00] 20 to 25 shapes that we thought were quote more.

Lauryn Interesting. Could be more functional. kept making up these reasons, I'm gonna be completely honest. And we ended up back at a cylinder because we had maybe 2000 UserTest testers. And everyone's ear is a different shape. They're like snowflakes, which is kind of funny. And so we had to find a universal shape and.

Lauryn Our product doesn't work like the ones we're used to where you like squish it down and then you push in your ear and it opens up. It's the chemicals that create memory foam that are toxic for us. And so without those chemicals, you just have to push our product into your ear and it will form to it naturally.

Lauryn And so after all this testing, after all of that, we did end up at. A cylinder. And internally we were calling it the DFC for a while. The dumb effing cylinder. 'cause we were like, this is so [00:22:00] silly. But it works. And so if the product is so simple, it's about telling compelling stories that people can connect with in a way that's accessible for people.

Lauryn So we don't, I don't use the word biopolymer in our branding. We don't use like biofabrication that often. We say mycelium, but then in the science page of our website, we say what the F is mycelium. Most people don't know, right? This group of people listening to this podcast probably do know that it's the root structure of a mushroom.

Lauryn It's not the fruiting body. most people don't dunno that. And sometimes people hear mushroom and they get really freaked out. Like, we get questions all the time. Will I get a fungal infection in my ear? Right? And we have to be like, no, no. This isn't a mushroom. It's actually hypoallergenic and so we have to do a lot of educating, but that's actually the exciting part for me, is teaching people about the magic of what nature has created.

Lauryn And our [00:23:00] material partner have figured out how to work with the way that I like to frame it is they partnered with nature to make this beautiful material. And so it's not hard for me to feel creative in telling those stories. That's maybe my favorite part of my design career is that it's taken me to this place.

Lauryn But, when the products become simpler and simpler in form, the creative aspect is in the storytelling and in the packaging, quite honestly.

Erum actually, since you're speaking of packaging, do you have a package in front of you? I actually have one. Should I go run and grab it really quick?

Lauryn I have a small one.

Lauryn I have, well, I have a whole inventory,

Erum Yeah, I've got them too. And I didn't go to the other room to get,

Erum I think I live in apartment, but anyway. Yeah.

Karl So, there's this whole thing where like sustainable or eco-friendly products kind of struggle to resonate with mainstream consumers.

Karl Have you built Gob, not just to reach the [00:24:00] climate warriors, but everyone, talk to us about music venues and how that's translated into everyday users.

Lauryn Oh gosh. Well. The unfortunate news is that something being quote unquote sustainable better for the planet does not, convert people to a sale.

Lauryn Consumers care, but A company and a brand have an added layer for someone to want to spend money on it. And there's a small niche group of people who purchase simply because of environmental reasons and. The mass majority of people do not fall under that category. And so knowing that having worked with companies, you know, like Target, BMW, Herman Miller, these like massive companies that wanted to do better, still want to do better, but are caught in the capitalist cycle, right?

Lauryn It's like, all right, well how do you make something better that. [00:25:00] Basically people will care enough about to purchase. And so there's a couple layers of this. There's cultural relevance, there's storytelling, and I think there's also a layer of how does it benefit. Your personal health, and this is something we're starting to hyper focus on more, is People may not really care in their heart of hearts if something is polluting the oceans, if something is causing, soil toxicity, they might not understand that.

Lauryn But when you explain that, it comes back around and it actually creates a toxic environment for their body. Or by having plastics on their body, it can have health. Effects that does actually move the needle cause people want to live longer, healthier lives now more than ever. Right? So that's a story that we tell through and through.

Lauryn But the way you make it exciting is by [00:26:00] leveraging culture and being part of the culture in a way that doesn't feel like you're paying an influencer to talk about something in a way that falls flat. Right. So what we do and what we did this summer is we had two pilot venues in New York City selling our product so that when people were at a show, under the K Bridge or Forest Hill Stadium in New York, they could be grabbing a drink, getting ready to see one of their favorite artists that they spent lots of time and money to get there to enjoy, and they could discover our product in that moment.

Lauryn When they needed it. And so those pilots went very, very well. And we do intend to do more of that in the future. Those seasons just ended, which is very sad. But it's really interesting because it's this opportunity to really connect with someone at this heightened emotional moment. [00:27:00] And not every product can be relevant in those spaces.

Lauryn And so we knew it was, and that was a really amazing discovery. because it feels like a marketing Trojan horse, right? a lot of be beverage brands do just that, where they try to find these cultural spaces and you don't wanna like always do an activation at these spots. Like, you don't wanna be like, come to our booth, right?

Lauryn You wanna just like be there and be a part of it in a way that's not forced. So anyway, we'll continue to do that and we'll continue to do events and meet people in real life because. We don't just want people to discover us by scrolling. We want people to be having the time of their lives in these heightened states.

Lauryn The dopamine is riding high and then gob is part of it, and it's like, hell yeah. I want more of that. Right.

Erum so beautifully said. I mean, one of the things we say is the importance of in real life experience, IRL experiences and people wanting that, right?

Erum Get away from the screens who've been in front of screens for so long and to be able to first go [00:28:00] out and see a concert and then have other products that help enhance your experience. And for earplugs, I concert, I think it's a beautiful thing because. There's times where it does get loud. I mean, I'm getting older, so when I go to these concerts, it can be really loud, but I still wanna be there amongst people and experience things.

Erum But I just do need a little bit of a, a softening of Of the noise or the, volume. So you're talking about, concerns of health. that sound is like a concern. Like your ear or your,ear health, hearing health, hearing protection.

Erum Hearing protection. Yeah. Hearing health is a good way to put it. Yeah. I like that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. and it's beautiful. It's just not. Like in your face, you don't have this like big Instagram bowl, green balloons everywhere. So someone can take a selfie in front of the thing. I've, it was cool at first, but now it's getting a little too much because I've seen it at these concerts.

Erum on the, beverage side, I won't mention the brands, but you guys, I'll call it. Oh, actually one of those rings is made from mushrooms, [00:29:00] actually. I'm funny, funny. And they're doing the, they're doing the

Karl activations. Yeah. Rise.

Erum I'll say Rise. Yeah. I mean, it's cruel. I mean, it's a great drink. I mean, it's nice.

Erum I don't wanna miss anything. But we were at this concert and it was just so much stuff. They had one of those Italian carts, that we're selling like espresso, like their espressos and an actual mascot walking around. I'm like, okay, cool, but too much. It's a little extra. I get it.

Erum Yeah,

Lauryn yeah, yeah.

Erum You have a, drink and you're trying to sell it. We get it. I see you.

Lauryn Yeah. Our version of that is so bare bones and yeah. Our version of that is, I think it kind of freaked people out when we first had the idea, but basically we did this photo booth where all we had was a backdrop and a leaf blower.

Lauryn And we call it the blast booth. And people put our earplugs in, we hit them with a leaf blower, and we take their photo and What they take away is digital, not physical. And so there's no waste. it was just like purely for the fun of it. And then they could share the image, but we're not gonna do that constantly.

Lauryn And [00:30:00] yeah, these activations can get really out of hand really quickly. And just feel like so wasteful, right? Yeah. I mean, I come from the exhibition space where something's up for a day and then it's wasted. And it's like sometimes that waste is way more than your product waste. It's insane.

Lauryn so yeah, we wanted to make sure that when we're showing up in these spaces, we're showing up responsibly, right? Because also, like if you don't, and you claim you're a responsible company and you show up with all this stuff that you made custom. People are gonna call you out these days.

Lauryn They're not afraid to do that.

Karl Yeah. I'm just thinking of all that I hate to say it like, you know, you go to a trade show or a show and all the stuff that people put on their tables, like the banners behind you It's just all single use plastic, printed with who knows what kind of ink.

Karl So all that stuff also needs to be reimagined and redone.

Erum Yeah. Yep. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about your, your, Product pipeline in a second. But you're not just an entrepreneur, you're also an adjunct professor at California College of Arts. And That's [00:31:00] so amazing because there's so much you just share already on this episode that is so helpful for designers and entrepreneurs.

Erum And you also mentioned that some of your students listen to this podcast. So hello to your students.

Karl Yo.

Erum What up? What up? So, oh, they're gonna love that. Yay. What's up? the question I have here is, what lessons or mindset shifts do you hope that your students take away from your class, seeing gobs out in the world, what can you share with them?

Lauryn Well, every, every single time a new semester starts and, the class is called Future of Biomaterials. We have students from, graphic design, interaction design, architecture, and there's always at least one or two students when we start, you know, presenting the content of the class that raise their hand and say, I'm not a scientist.

Lauryn I shouldn't be in this class. And I totally, that happens every time [00:32:00] without fail. And it's my favorite because I'm not a scientist. Suzanne Lee. who inspired me to basically take this path. She's not a scientist and it's really interesting how I have to convince them that they will be able to invent a new material and create something new out of it by the end of the class.

Lauryn And sometimes students drop before we even get there, but, most of the time when they stick with it at the end of the semester, it's just incredible. So basically. The goal of the class is to get students to do exactly what I did, which is start by making biomaterials in their kitchen and understand that the building blocks of most materials are very simple.

Lauryn They might be things they already have in their cabinet, like agar, agar, calcium carbonate, baking soda, all these things that you can put together to make alternatives to plastics or whatever leathers or whatever material you're trying to create. And so. I mean, the majority of the class truly is just [00:33:00] taking something that looks like goo and making it not goo anymore.

Lauryn That's really what it is. It's like, look at this disgusting Petri dish of like, like last year we had a student who was trying to take stale bread and turn it into something and She was blending up bread with water and it was disgusting. But in the end, she turned into a paper pulp that she molded into packaging and.

Lauryn The majority of it is that, right? And so it's just a beautiful journey seeing these students go from this mush into like a finished good. And most of them have come to me after graduation to be like, I want to do bio design, but I know that that's not a title that exists yet. How do I do that? And it's like, oh, this is exactly the question I asked my entire career.

Lauryn The answer is you have to create it yourself. You just do. I think it just opens up their minds to questioning everything basically. And [00:34:00] knowing that, there are a lot of, I also like to expose my students to companies that exist, that do just, that, who create better, healthier, bio-fabricated or bio-based materials that they can then implement into projects for their clients.

Lauryn So. It's just a matter of like breaking down those barriers, breaking them down a little bit too, you know, like bringing them back down to earth and understanding that design starts with this messy kitchen slot, honestly.

Karl Yeah. And Don't be afraid of science. Come on people. Students listening.

Karl That's right. Don't be afraid.

Karl we're all scientists. If you're curious, you're a scientist. So, you know it's not math. It's not math. And we joke around about it too, in a way because we're like, we deal with bio nerds. We also have had to deal with math nerds, and let me just tell you, it's like a different planet and we love them both.

Lauryn Definitely.

Karl But anyway, so you're teaching this bio design class, you're [00:35:00] mentoring these students who are becoming emerging designers. What do you think the biggest misconception these new designers bring to sustainable product creation? Beyond the science?

Lauryn Well, I would say just like the next generation of students, gives me so much like optimism and hope.

Lauryn I also just am so sick of like these generational generalities. A lot of folks are, you know, oh, totally Gen Z. They are so sucked into their phones. Actually, no, a lot of them are connecting more and more with the real world. They're going places and not recording it. Truly, it's not just like a one way.

Lauryn They're not just one thing. You know, like everyone said, millennials are just, lazy and entitled. That was our thing. Right? so basically what it, it's done is, I think that's a misconception. Is it hard to get students away from their computers and into making things? Yeah.

Lauryn But once you get them doing it, it empowers them to do [00:36:00] more of it. and so they're really, really great fast learners, and especially if you see these like micro improvements on what you're working on, it's empowering, right? But each class, something goes a little bit, right, and then they come back, and then they wanna do more and more and more.

Lauryn And at the end of the semester, they're not fulfilled because they feel like they could push us further, right? And that's exactly what I want. And so one. It's bringing a whole new class of designers into the world that I think we need, that are gonna push the boundaries and tell people, no, I'm not gonna source that material because it's made out of petrochemicals and toxic.

Lauryn Right? But it also is bringing in a more curious group of people into the design field that aren't just going to believe that the only part that they can have an impact on is form and function. It's actually the material and the contents and understanding, it only takes, [00:37:00] I mean now we have ai, it's not amazing at bio education, but it's pretty good.

Lauryn Mm-hmm. And some of them, I think what's interesting is you can put in a white paper and have it explain it to you in ways that are a little bit more accessible. And I've found that my students, that's how they're using AI is they're finding these bio white papers. They're having it explained to them in a way that they can actionize.

Lauryn those are the things that get me excited.

Erum I love that word, actionize. I have to use that. I think I made that up. Okay. No, well that's great. Oh God, you storyteller. Amazing. Amazing. Oh my God, I love it. I know. Okay. maybe the title, sorry for the English nerds

Lauryn out there. No, no, no. I make up words.

Erum You are an entrepreneur. You have to bring things into life, like new words, it makes sense. I mean, it worked for me, but, this is such a good topic because, you cross a lot of things like the. Generational [00:38:00] generalities. I mean, that's a big thing.

Erum And not everyone is the same. ages, just a number. and then mm-hmm. Anyone can be a scientist. Carl, you mentioned that earlier too, is just that, it's just a tool. Toolkit. Yeah. And then with ai, I mean, I've used AI to, ask to, make unique bio products and it doesn't get it right sometimes, but it's a start.

Erum it's a start like at least start trying and then figure it out for yourself and having the ability to decide and know what's right and what's wrong. But like this gets started this is the same thing about AI helping with writing, right? Like it solves the blank page syndrome.

Erum Like you don't know where to start. Just ask AI some questions. It's gonna give you some things, and then it's like, all right, thanks for getting me started. Let's go. so I would love to talk a little bit more about the future of gob, right?

Erum you have the earplugs, you know, can make as many, I can make a million a week if you want to. and, you talked about on stage when actually, when we were on a panel together, I moderated a panel about storytelling. So a lot of the stuff [00:39:00] we had talked about before. So, bringing it to our audience now, but you were talking a little bit about other single use plastic.

Erum So talk a little bit more about what you would aim to go talk about, if you had no constraints, what would your next category be? tell us a little bit more about the future of gob. Mm-hmm.

Lauryn Well, you know, I've been in active fundraising mode, so basically this is what I talk about every single day right now.

Lauryn And sure most earplug companies, they named themselves to only ever do that one thing. Like a lot of them are like hearing or ear related names and a lot of single use products, period. Do just that, where they like stay in their lane. They do one thing, take breathe right strips, for example, right? It's like, They only do that. And on the other side of the table there's this like obsession with [00:40:00] the beauty industry, the personal care industry, the wellness industry, to make the formulations of the things we're putting on our bodies and in our bodies to be completely non-toxic, to be. Responsible, cruelty free, all these things, but the applicators, the delivery mechanisms, the other things that we have in our travel bag, they just get forgotten about and they're just like, oh, I'll just grab the bag of these.

Lauryn That's the only option on the shelf. And so I just kind of feel like I'm that person who's replaced all my cosmetics, all my personal care products with. Waste free, healthier vegan, cruelty free, you know, check all the boxes. And I still use cotton pads that are probably bleached with, you know, sometimes it's more response, quote unquote responsible with like,

Lauryn Hydrogen peroxide is actually used to make cotton pads white. it's that plus bleach and so you're actually putting [00:41:00] hydrogen peroxide on your body when you use them, whether you want to or not.

Lauryn And so there are all these like hidden things where we're not questioning those products. We're questioning the other more beautiful ones. And so let loose handcuffs off, like what can God become? I wanna become the like 3M or Unilever, of the next generation of the better, more beautiful, optimistic future.

Lauryn And so right now we're focusing on, the products we're developing are very much in line with the things that you use when you go to bed, when you travel, when you're at a fitness class that are single use. That go hand in hand with earplugs, but then the intention is like, that's the now. Then there's the near, which is more like beauty focused, that kind of world.

Lauryn And then we plan to get, which will take more FDA approval into the sexual health world. Because let's face it, when you see single [00:42:00] use products on the ground, what's the most disturbing one to see? It's a condom on the sidewalk. I don't wanna see that ever again. So basically I just wanna take everything that we see polluting, that's single use and just like, let's make sure it's non-toxic.

Lauryn It's interesting, it's under the gob umbrella. It's more fun to use, more functional 'cause that has to be true. If we want to fully replace the nasty ones and then Yeah. Yeah, let's make sure they don't last longer than we do as humans. That's like absurd.

Erum it's interesting because there's, two different. options, which a lot of entrepreneurs faced. You are either gonna go deep or you're gonna go wide in terms of mm-hmm. Going deep into the earplugs market and like, you know, you mentioned, concerts of course, but then, they show up in, airplanes and in hotels and different places, which construction sites, construction sites, which will naturally happen.

Erum I feel for you and I, I have been thinking about that. 'cause we talked about that [00:43:00] before. also then the single use as we mentioned, condoms mentioned, actually mm-hmm. We had interviewed, Gabe TVA of Symmetry Wood, before you, and we asked him like, what type of biomaterial product would you wanna see?

Erum And he said, ear buds like Q-Tips. And at first I was like, mm-hmm. Thought he's earplugs. I'm like, oh God exists already. But he had mentioned earbuds. so I'm not sure if that's on your roadmap, but I've never heard them

Lauryn called that before. It actually is on our roadmap. Yeah. So that's interesting earbuds.

Lauryn Mm-hmm.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's interesting and I, I love the big vision. I mean, this is entrepreneurship, right? Be the 3M be the Unilever. 'cause you clearly have a lot of mycelium at your. Disposal.

Lauryn Yeah. And I will note that, none of the products we're developing right now will be out of mycelium, and so we're basically going back to that drawing board of we need something to replace one for one, this thing that people use and love mass scale.

Lauryn we're using films. [00:44:00] We're using Latexes and I'm using words that are plastic based because we don't have new names for them. And that was a whole conversation at Bio Fabricate, which is you create new names for everything and then it becomes confusing. But we also need new names that aren't latex or plastic.

Lauryn So anyway, that's a whole other conversation. But we are working with seaweed based materials. We're working with fiber based materials and like. We're not stopping at just mycelium. I just wanna make that super clear. Although it does have a few use cases that will come into our portfolio, but it's whatever bio-based material serves the function we need.

Karl That's awesome. Okay, so one more kind of manufacturing question. especially as you think going forward. being able to go from that r and d to manufacturing to creating compostable materials can be a major challenge. Has there been any failures or unexpected roadblock that you guys have come across, and what did you guys learn from it?

Lauryn [00:45:00] Oh, yeah. Because the first thing you do when you receive, let's say, ecos mycelium, like aerial mycelium foam, for example. We received this sheet. And it was like, all right, well, we're going to try the methods that foam manufacturers use to cut. Guess what? Chitin? Doles blades. We didn't know that.

Lauryn And so Chitin is what, mycelium is made out of. And so it breaks them down very quickly. And so you have to find alternative methods. However, I don't anticipate having to do that much r and d. In the future because basically this is a new material, but the way we ultimately do produce them is with existing manufacturing methods and infrastructure.

Lauryn It's just not normally used for foam. So when going through RD and manufacturing and moving from prototype to scale, it's really important in this space. If you ever want to get a product to market. [00:46:00] To not have both new manufacturing methods and a new material. The new material in our case needs to be able to work in existing manufacturing and infrastructure.

Lauryn For example, if you are injection molding something, if you are die cutting something, it has to be able to do that because it will take you way too much money time. You probably wanna pull your hair out if you do both at the same time. So basically that's one of our constraints. we do not invent manufacturing methods.

Lauryn we wanna make sure that there's a scalable existing way of doing that. I love that question.

Karl I think that's super smart and I think it's something, other entrepreneurs need to hear because I think people. I'm not gonna say forget, or maybe they just don't know. I hate to say it that way, that there are manufacturing methods out there that you can plug and play into with these new materials.

Lauryn Mm-hmm.

Erum You don't have to reinvent the wheel, and you don't have to raise hundreds [00:47:00] of thousands of dollars to create your, vision.

Erum And then, you know, think about the product, the end life, the end life. I mean, there's end life of where it actually goes, but the end life of the product. You know, maybe not the complete end, but how it's gonna be used in the world and you know, how long is gonna be used and how is it gonna be used?

Erum I love this whole backwards thinking strategy, which sounds like a bad thing, but it's a good thing.

Karl And walking bad quis is supposed to be really healthy for you by the way's, but what this reminds, reminds me of is Amanda Parks at, bio fabricated hits.

Karl It's something like, one of the most underlooked areas for innovation for entrepreneurs is to take. Successes from one industry and move 'em to another. I mean, this is absolutely the case in marketing. Hmm. But I think for manufacturing it's even more the case. and this really, I think what you're talking to, Lauren really speaks to that because it's like, I love that there's people out there who know how to manufacture things.

Karl And it's silly to think that you come up with a new material and you have a concept that someone isn't out there [00:48:00] that has already made something, that you can learn from. And sometimes you have to go to an adjacent industry to find the solution.

Lauryn 100%. And going back to the reinventing the wheel thing, someone on my team during a brainstorm last week said, gob isn't reinventing the wheel, they're replacing the material of the wheel.

Lauryn And I just thought that was so well said and couldn't agree more. And that material might come from a completely different industry, right? Like, for example, our foam is turned into leather and it's turned into bacon. when we came to Ecovative, they were not thinking earplugs. And sometimes that's the case, right?

Lauryn Yeah. hey, before you turn that into bacon, let's, try that over here, right?

Karl Yeah, our listeners just have to go back a few episodes because we've had Eben Bayer on the podcast twice talking about what they're doing with mycelium. I have two questions. One, I wanna talk about the future, in, in 10 years. What do you see products like the ones you're creating have [00:49:00] done and, how will they change what we think about consumption and waste? What vision do you hold for like a regenerative economy? And then I have one more question before we get into quick fire.

Lauryn Well, I don't think there's any lack of innovation in the product side of things.

Lauryn I know in my own circles over here in the Bay Area, sway cruise foam, there's so many cool companies over here innovating that. I'm optimistic that this happening everywhere, but I, what I do need to be true. In the next 10 years is that infrastructure improves. For example, New York City doesn't even have compost available.

Lauryn the biggest city in the US and yet compost is not available. That is insane to me, but it's required and if you want, it's

Erum required. Yeah.

Lauryn But people don't do it because the infrastructure's not there. Yeah. They have to walk blocks. Right. you live in New York, is that right?

Lauryn Brooklyn? We both live in Brooklyn. Different, yeah.

Karl We both are on different sides of Prospect Park. Yeah.

Erum yeah. And we have composting bins in our building, [00:50:00] but I don't think everyone in our apartment buildings doing that.

Lauryn No. And I know my friends in New York, some of them, the compost bin is like four blocks away and they're still expected to go drop it, you know?

Lauryn And so the fact that it's 2025, almost 2026, and that's the case. we need to figure out our infrastructure better, like talk about working backwards. That's where I would start because a lot of folks. Especially in the US don't even have access to that. And if that's the case, then where does the product go at the end of its life?

Lauryn It goes to the landfill. And so I think we need to work backwards there. I'll keep it at that, but future state, that's what I'm hoping for.

Erum you could go to like a landfill. Look at everything's that's in there, and be like, how do we biolog this? Which is another word with an eyes.

Erum Yes. Ilog, actionize, ilog. But that's a good way

Lauryn for like people to get ideas. Ooh.

Karl last question before we get into the, quickfire, but where'd the name come from?

Erum Yeah, good question.

Lauryn I get asked all the time, does it stand for something?

Lauryn Is it from Arrested [00:51:00] Development? 'cause there's that guy named, job, but it's GB Yeah. On Arrested Development. Neither of those, the name. Came and then it never changed, basically. But It basically means a dose of something, a gob of something. And the word is kind of squishy. It has presence.

Lauryn It's fun to say. And so that's basically it. But really it's a dose of something. And because everything we do is single use and it's like one thing or a pear, we wanted it to feel that way. So a gob of blank, right, is where that comes from.

Karl Yeah, it's a good word. I love it.

Erum Alright, here we go. Quickfire questions. Let's go. Okay. All right. Well, I think this was an easy one. We might get this, but, these are just the questions we have, so here we go. All right. So mycelium or metal, if you had to pick, wanted sign with forever, which

Lauryn and why?

Lauryn my god, mycelium. Because, metal is recyclable, but almost [00:52:00] never gets recycled. And so I think that, yeah, that's crazy. It's overused in that arena, but also we're not tapped into all of the potential use cases of this biological material. So mycelium through and through.

Karl All right. One single use product you believe deserves a complete regenerative redesign

Lauryn I will tell you, you that we are working on the whole suite of things that go on your bed stand. And so that's where we're focusing now and all the things you're ripping open and using to sleep better, those are the things we're replacing right now. So I'm gonna say all of that stuff. I don't wanna trash can build the stuff by my bed but then eventually, I know I keep saying it over and over again, but condoms, why?

Karl it's easy and cheap,

Erum Um, what's the weirdest piece of feedback you've gotten from an early gob user?

Lauryn Well, there was a question someone asked recently, which was, if my bird eats these, will my bird be okay? Oh my God, that's so funny. And the answer is [00:53:00] yes, they're, they're technically edible, but of all the pets to get questions about like a bird was not something I was expecting. So I'll just say, that's a funny question we received.

Lauryn a funny piece of feedback is, and we get this kind of often. When people use them to sleep, they're so comfortable that they forget they're in. They'll go to work and be like, why can't I hear anything? Because they still have their earplugs in, so they're so comfortable that you forget that they're in sometimes.

Lauryn That's

Erum kind of funny. That's super funny. Yes. Super comfortable. I love 'em. There they are. It's Quish. Squish. Squish. Okay, cool. All right, well Lauren, this was so much fun. I'm so happy I had a chance to get you on the podcast and speak to you about the gob story, your story. What's next? Buy materials, actionize B.

Erum So much

Lauryn fun. So fun. Thank you so much for having Meia. This was lovely.

Karl Thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it.

Lauryn Anytime.

[00:54:00] OUTRO

Karl erum, what did you think of that interview with Lauren?

Erum It was such a great conversation, Carl, on so many levels. First of all, I want more people and myself when we get there, to take a page out of Lauren's and gobs playbook.

Erum Don't need to build everything from scratch. You can take material that's been made. And I'm talking about the biomaterials industry, because it's a new one, right? and people think that they have to build everything from scratch, but Lauren saw an opportunity [00:55:00] to work with another company that was making mycelium materials to create a single use product and really focus on building a brand and storytelling around it so people can first be aware of the product and then purchase it and put a lot of effort there versus having to.

Erum Spend a lot of time and do a lot of calculations on making materials from scratch. So I just loved so many things about this conversation with Lauren. What about you?

Karl yeah. I mean, to me she's like that next generation of biotech founders that are solving a real problem in the world, and she's not coming from the biotech world, so that means that.

Karl She's not being necessarily constrained by the science. And I say that in the most positive way. and she also shows that you don't, need to invent a new material from scratch, but you do need to be inventive and have some grit. So I loved the whole story of, you know, looking around for material, seeing what Ecovative was [00:56:00] doing, finding this Ecovative material, coming up with a way of mass producing these earplugs.

Karl and making something very valuable from that. I'm super excited by what Lauren has done and how she can serves as an example to other biotech founders.

Erum Yes, yes. And she's not just stopping with mycelium materials, she's looking at other test materials for other products.

Erum So she listed off a few, and I just love the fact that she's like, all right, single use products. We don't need to make them from petrochemicals. Let's start there. They're going straight to the landfill right after it's used for like less than a day. Let's focus on that problem and work backwards.

Erum And not just limiting herself to mycelium, which is what she's using today, but I'm gonna be curious to discover what other materials she comes across and what are those companies that she creates, partnerships with to make, some of these new [00:57:00] products. So, love it. Love the fact that.

Erum This is just a, for us, we are really focused on communications and storytelling and branding. How do you put these products into consumer's hands? And here we go. Lauren Maynard. A Gob has done it. And so I hope that you all have really taken this as a good example of being able to introduce my materials to the world.

Karl Yeah, I'm super excited for what. Lauren puts on their market next, and again, to see her as being such a great example of what is possible. And hopefully a lot of people would take inspiration to what she's doing.

Erum Yes. And then this kicks off another episode that we'll have, next week about fungi in all of its different uses, even though Lauren's not sticky with mycelium, it is a great material to use for many different things and not just mycelium, which is.

Erum The underground, the mushrooms underground, the roots of the mushroom, the mushroom's actually what is above the ground. But the whole mushroom fungi is an [00:58:00] incredible living material to make all sorts of different things. And we are gonna have the winners of the Future of Fungi Award on this podcast next week

Karl that is excellent. I'm looking forward to those episodes as well.

Erum Yes. So please like and subscribe, follow us on YouTube. We are there.

Erum You can see us if we're watching us on Spotify. Hello. It's good to see you. Please like and share and reach out to us. Ask us questions, recommend guests, and tell us what you're excited for, for the holiday and for 2026.

Karl All right, let's go.

Erum Let's grow.