162. New Year’s Replay with New Insights: Orchestrating BioInnovation Without Missing a Beat

Karl [00:00:00] also verticalizing their industry, meaning they control every step of the way. And that being very attractive to potential acquirers.

Erum Hey Carl, how's it going,

Karl hirum? Happy New Year. How are you?

Erum happy New Year to you. Although we are recording this ahead of time right now, probably as you guys are listening to this, if you're listening to this when we release it, you are in California and I'm in Cape Town, and why are you in California?

Erum Yeah. Sunshine. Yeah.

Karl I'm here to visit my family. we celebrated Christmas with my family. First I was down in Orange County, then I was down in Ventura County. What are you doing in Cape Town?

Erum I'm here for my friend's five year anniversary. She got married during COVID but then never had the big celebration.

Erum But here we are five years later and it's time for that celebration. So we're enjoying the sun because it is summertime in Cape Town and we're having a good time. I hope, I mean, we are recording this ahead of time. You guys will get the full report when I get back.

Karl All right Wes. [00:01:00] So here we are.

Karl we're about to start another year, 2026 of the Grow Everything Podcast, where we explore the use of biology as technology across all sectors. And so as we enter the new year, here's what we're thinking about. Besides having a prosperous new year. What are you thinking about iam?

Erum Yeah. And when it comes to prosperity, I'm just thinking about how to not only have my own prosperity, but how do we make a more prosperous society?

Erum So when I was thinking of prosperity, it actually came to my mind because I was listening to the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway.

Erum And then also my husband was watching an historical video about 11th century scholars and theologians, and they were talking about money and how money is a lifeblood of our society. And I was like, oh, well what does that mean? And their thinking is that when you hoard a lot of wealth, it's considered dead money.

Erum Meaning that money's purpose is [00:02:00] circulation, acting as society's lifeblood, as I mentioned. So if you hoard a lot of wealth, it stifles economies and spiritual health, you know, and there was both Scott and this 11th century philosopher or theologian said they both advise against accumulating wealth for its own sake.

Erum versus, being generous and Helping a society flourish because you're spending, so this year I'm all about spending some money. obviously I'm also saving, but like within reason, I'm not just spending all my money. I'm also not just saving all my money, but that's my life right now.

Erum But, it's just something that I was thinking about. what are your thoughts?

Karl so I've heard this before that hoarding anything is actually dead energy. I think that's why you have this whole movement of people who are trying to be minimalist or get rid of their stuff I feel like I just read something about this.

Karl When did we become a consumer [00:03:00] society? but I think a lot of people are questioning whether that's really the right way to continue to go forward. And, you know, if you think about biology is totally circular. Everything that is waste, can be used by biology. Biology doesn't produce any waste.

Karl But, I had read something also recently, I don't know where, where they talked about how good the United States and Americans are at. Creating wealth and generating wealth, but we've seemed to have forgotten how to be more generous and share that wealth. Thus, we have this huge political divide, which many people would argue is really a conflict between, the haves and the have nots or the oligarchs and everyone else.

Karl So I totally think that, this idea of circulating money is very important and, I'm with you. It's like, let's circulate, let's have more people. Let's prioritize.

Erum Yeah, I mean, circulation is really not just about giving the money away, right? It's about spending it for some type of value exchange.

Erum And, you know, you talked about consumer society. Well, consuming for the sake of [00:04:00] consuming is not that great. And like right now with the way things are set up, you're buying so much stuff maybe from some larger companies, then you're gonna hoard that stuff. But then if you're talking about spending on experiences, and this was Scott Galloway was mentioning, is that, he's spending on trips and going to unique concerts and, spending money on the actors or on the people that are creating those experiences and those people are employed, right?

Erum So, this is about employing people and giving money to people, which is a very, like, I guess it's a topic that we're all thinking about, you know, with the rise of AI and you know, it's coming for our jobs, but what is the job, right? Maybe people can be, employed by doing more unique experiences, things that they really wanna do, that promote more, camaraderie and, make life worth living, I guess you can say.

Erum so. That's what I think is going to be, a really interesting, way [00:05:00] to, to look at spending money.

Karl Yeah, and it's not just experiences it's also helping others, advance themselves. I used to say it all the time. We need every solution everywhere, all at once.

Karl And one of the ways that you do that is by enabling other people and helping them out.

Erum That's right. That's right. And then another thing that came across my mind, I guess you can say, and you and I talk about this a lot and really it started from. Our conversation with Mike Levin.

Erum Can't shake dis guy's like work. You know, Mike Levin, if you guys haven't heard that episode, I highly recommend listening to it. It's one of our most talked about episodes. It's incredible and it's really about consciousness. but what sparked this other level of thinking is I was listening to Star Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson, and he had Nick Bostrom on, and Nick Bostrom is this.

Erum He's a philosopher and he's known for his work on existential risk, the Anthropic principle and [00:06:00] human enhancement ethics. But he also studies whole brain simulation and super intelligence and all the things, and he has plenty of books that are out. You should definitely read his books. But what they were talking about is, are we living in a simulation?

Erum And I didn't get to listen to the whole podcast 'cause I listened to it before I fall asleep. And so that's probably why it's on my mind 'cause it's, you know, it's there. My subconscious as well. But, Neil deGrasse Tyson was saying like, all signs point to we are in a simulation. And I was like, okay.

Erum And then they started talking about consciousness again and that everything has consciousness in it. which started reminding me of the Japanese religion, the Shinto religion, where it's like the idea of everything has. life, you know, everything in nature. It's like animistic is the way that they describe it.

Erum So everything in nature, mountains, rivers, trees, animals, even rocks are imbued with some type of divine spirit or the force that they call it Kami. And it's like, [00:07:00] okay, okay, what is that all about? So some deep thinking to kick off the year guys, but I mean, I don't know if you have this perspective or have you come across at this.

Erum Idea of the simulation and, how, that works. I mean, of course you did. You love sci-fi, but tell us your thoughts.

Karl You know, what this reminds me of is, first of all, everything has energy. I definitely, you know, am in agreement with that. I'm not sure everything has consciousness, but everything does have energy.

Karl And what this reminds me of is the ending of the original men in black, which is at this point is almost. 30 years old. Is that possible? It came out in 1997 and at the ending, I'm gonna spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it, but basically our entire universe is just a marble being played by advanced aliens.

Karl so yeah, I don't disagree. We probably are living in a simulation and perhaps we are just a marvel being played by advanced aliens.

Erum Yes, [00:08:00] that's right. It's deep. It's very deep. But hey, look. We are podcasters. We'll listen to podcasts, we share ideas so we can consolidate all this amazing thinking, for you guys to noodle on.

Erum and here we go. We're continuing right now since this is a, New Year's Day replay,We're gonna do a whole predictions episode in the next episode where we're gonna go deep. But we decided to pick an episode from last year where we felt would.

Erum Be a good episode to kick off the new year. And which episode was that?

Karl So we chose our episode about orchestration and value chain syndication. And this particular episode emphasizes the idea that innovators have to look beyond their own company and really orchestrate ecosystems.

Karl If they wanna be successful. So whether it's innovators or big incumbents, you need to be able to, orchestrate not just the innovation, but who's gonna pay for that innovation, who's gonna help scale that innovation, who's gonna pay for that scaling and who the end customers are [00:09:00] gonna be, whether or not they are consumers or big companies.

Karl And, this was something that we thought and talked a lot about during the course of 2025, and I think it's gonna continue to be really important in 2026. Particularly, looking at the political landscape that we're living in, this kind of localization idea, regionalization, things that biotech really does enable.

Karl So we thought this would be a great episode for us to kick off the year with before we hit our predictions episode.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. And I love this idea because it's not just about business development. And the idea of orchestration is that especially for new innovation, it might require more collaborations with people who you might think are your competitors or who are selling to the same, industry or the same large.

Erum Company and you have to work together on creating some policy or regulation or deregulation in order to make that innovation accessible and valuable and usable [00:10:00] for not only the customer but for society. And so it's really getting out of. Your head as a maybe a single entrepreneur or a founder or working at a single company and to look at the whole industry.

Erum This is about industry building. 'cause this is what we talk about here on Grow Everything, is that we're building a bioeconomy. And yes, there are lots of companies that leverage biology to make things, but there needs to be a lot more, and there can be a lot more, and this is what we talk about here, but it's not just, one company.

Erum We're not just building companies, we're building industries. And so with that. Let's let our old episode, which I'm excited to hear, and I wonder what, like, you know, if you still got everything right, but let's let this episode get you in the mind of how we can orchestrate biology companies and create new industries.

Karl All right, so what I mean when I say orchestration is I'm not talking about sales, I'm not talking about introductions, I'm not talking about business development. If you wanna get more into how to attend a meeting and how to meet [00:11:00] people at meetings, go back and listen to our episodes from last year and we'll put 'em in the show notes.

Karl But orchestration is. Really building scaffolding around a deal. it might look like marketing, but it's really like amplifying the signal about your company inside of a closed ecosystem. What does that really mean? So it means that you as an innovator aren't just dealing with a potential customer, but you're dealing with the ecosystem that's around them.

Karl So if that's a ingredient producer that they sell to you, you've got a relationship with them. If it's a big company, you maybe have a relationship or you have some visibility with people across the organization, even if that's not gonna be where you end up in the long term, but you wanna be able to have.

Karl The multiple people, the multiple stakeholders on your side as you go in to do the deal. And ecosystem marketing isn't lead gen. It's really like designing influence. Back when I worked, in public relations, we would talk about the circle of influence. Like if you've got a [00:12:00] person that you're trying to target, that person is often very hard to reach.

Karl But it might be much easier for you to go to the five or 10 people that surround that person, like a board of directors that are advising a CEO. And, this is something that you and I do a lot of. we just don't really talk about it so formally, but you and I have helped founders meet new colleagues.

Karl we've helped them meet manufacturing partners, we've introduced people to investors, and in addition we've built category or industry maps. one for example is in the beauty space.

Erum Yeah, exactly. it's, it's looking at the whole industry, right? So, yes, sales is one activity, and when you're describing the influencers and the decision makers, that, that is a part of sales too.

Erum that's within the company. But then we're talking about an entire industry. So who has relationships already with other companies in your ecosystem? So in the ecosystem, you talked about ingredients, so. We can use, [00:13:00] red dye for example, like who's producing that for what other company, for what industry?

Erum And then who are all those people that will continue to take that initial ingredient and get it into the market? And so who are all those people? And when you're thinking of that, you have to have empathy and consideration of their needs just as much as your own company's needs.

Erum because if your partners win, then you win, right? If they're selling your product that's integrated into theirs. Wonderful. Kumbaya, we're all friends here, it's a great pull through, thinking of all the innovators we know. How to get to market. Yes. Some of them are direct to consumer.

Erum That's another conversation. But this is really about, scaling up and where to start. because, you know, we meet a lot of founders meet a lot of these companies. Some of them have been around for a while and they have trouble commercializing. talk to us about that. Carl, why do you think that some of the biotech companies beyond pharma have issues commercializing?

Karl I think there's a lot of [00:14:00] challenges.

Karl you might have an innovation at your company and. It's hard to raise money. It's hard to get started, number one. But then to think about ingredient or a product that could have really big outsize impact like and can really transform an industry, you know, you're probably gonna be looking at the really big players in your industry and.

Karl You could be thinking, oh, well we're gonna build this company and we're gonna displace them. That could be one approach, a very challenging approach. But the other approach is how do you partner with them and leverage them as you begin to, scale production and then you have like an ingredient or something that's a very high performing,

Karl you have, something that is like a high performance ingredient, that is something that's gonna make a huge difference for them and, and also is gonna make a difference for end consumers. But biotech generally outside of biopharma, has struggled. I mean, we could look at what happened, you know, in the early two thousands with the whole biofuels, issue.

Karl So much money poured into that. And, we use it now as [00:15:00] kind of examples of, an industry being overinvested in and then, not realizing that traditional industry already had trillions of dollars of infrastructure built and going up against that is gonna be very challenging.

Karl But biotech, typically has had long timelines. Manufacturing challenges, there's regulatory hurdles you have to deal with, and this is something that is well known, The National Commission on Emerging Biotech just put out a report talking about the need for private industry to help with this.

Karl and we can use examples that we know very well of people who've been very good at not only, moving through this process very quickly, but also verticalizing their industry, meaning they control every step of the way. And that being very attractive to potential acquirers.

Erum the verticalizing is very interesting because can you share an example? Was it verticalized from day one or did it become verticalized? Did they create a value chain with other partners just to get an MVP up and then [00:16:00] started, verticalizing?

Karl Yeah. I mean, the company that I'm thinking about that you know, really controlled this process is K 18 Hare. And we've had Savine Sahi, the co-founder on the podcast, last year and we should have 'em on again to talk about how things have progressed.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. but you know, actually, so K eighteen's orchestration really happened on the marketing side.

Erum The manufacturing side, they verticalized. But on the marketing side, it was an amazing orchestration of different stakeholders. So. KE team brought together stylist salons, retail buyers, beauty influencers together to have a very strong message about biotech and beauty. And that's why we love them because, yeah, they didn't hide the biotech, they put it front and center, but they really thought about who are all the players and how do we get them involved?

Erum how do we show up where they are? And how do we bring them all together to talk about biotech and beauty? And, and yes. of [00:17:00] course KTE went through, but you know, they weren't just talking about their product, they were talking about hair science, which, you we were helping them with that science communications

Erum such a great example of marketing orchestration. But we are very interested in manufacturing orchestration because that's what really we see the challenges of to transition from depending on petrochemical. use and producing goods and being able to use biology to produce goods.

Erum So what is the challenge or what's, missing? And what we're seeing is the, what's missing is that there needs to be this concept of value chains indication of. commercial orchestration. Right. and we're using this word, I know orchestration is used a lot in AI as well to talk about some backend stuff.

Erum I mean, so if you're an AI person and you're like, why are they talking about orchestration? We are borrowing that word to talk [00:18:00] about orchestrating manufacturing, across different players starting from an innovator. All the way to the big incumbents, whether that's CPG or pharma or whoever has the distribution to the end consumer.

Erum how do we think about that and how do founders think about that? How do other people think about that? And it's really to taking a step back away from, just the one company, the one thing you do every day, and looking at all the players. And I think for us it's been, Easier to think about.

Erum I think because we work across various companies, we talk to so many different, amazing people, whether they're, investors or, founders or you know, scientists and across different stages. And we start seeing this and so we're like, okay, let us be your mirror to where you fall in a value chain.

Karl Yeah. And what's interesting is when you look at the, people that we talk to holistically, it becomes very clear [00:19:00] for certain innovators where they need the help. Mm-hmm. It could be on the biomanufacturing side, it could be on the investment side, it could be developing the relationships with the stakeholders at a bigger company, like you mentioned, you know, red Dye being banned.

Karl And so there is this. Scramble for all these big companies that use dyes to find alternatives. Mm-hmm. But we're very lucky in that we know a number of companies that are producing dyes, biological dyes, alternatives to petrochemical dyes, and their challenges are all. different kinds of challenges.

Karl Again, it's like some are scaling, some need scaling help, some don't have manufacturing in place. Some just need get to get exposure to the bigger companies that are gonna end up buying their products. And along the way they have the opportunity to start, developing those relationships. A lot of times that's with like a small deal.

Karl I don't know if you want to talk about that iam, what does that deal look like? Mm-hmm. I know I had it. Like what does that deal look like when you're a small company [00:20:00] and you did this when you did your startup, you have a small deal and actually it happens on the messaging lab side too.

Karl We'll work with a big company and they just wanna see, can we trust these people? They talk a good game, you know, will they produce for us? How does it work? and we've introduced a number of companies to big players. What does that small deal look like?

Erum Yeah. So, we call these seed deals, right?

Erum And so it's not seed funding for you to use to me, but these are seed deals. And you know, I know some people might think, all right, are you talking about piloting, you know, is that one way of it? Again, this is not about that, right? This is not about piloting, it's about thinking that, all right, the big deal, the big shift that we need to do.

Erum We need to, Create tons of product to be able to go in to tons of other product, tons of ingredient. We need to create tons of ingredients to go into tons of multiple, tons of product. So talking about the big picture, and say, this is how we will make the shift.

Erum then you scale it down to a seed deal, like, all right, [00:21:00] let's create a strategic deal that fits within the budget and risk tolerance. Of a mid-level decision maker, right? Let, let's just get started now. But we know we're going to be working towards this big deal. We know it's going to grow into something bigger.

Erum So this isn't just about revenue, this is about relationship architecture. So try the 45, what you're talking about. Right? And it's relationship architecture across the value chain. So, red Ds are one that we, come back to because we just see that there's this great opportunity.

Erum And so, you know, let's talk about red dye in food. there's multiple steps in the value chain. 'cause you have the innovator who's making it and we know a lot of great companies that are doing it. then you have the people that are making the product and sometimes that's not the people that are selling the product because when we're thinking about red D food,

Erum Let's say like for a cereal company,

Erum so Red Dye 40 is in Fruit Loops and Fruit Loops is owned by Kellogg. we don't know Kellogg very well, so we don't know what their infrastructure is. So we're just going to use a hypothetical [00:22:00] situation based on other CPG big food companies that we know. Right. and we don't wanna put Kellogg under fire.

Erum They already are under fire.

Karl for the use of right. Diet? Yeah. Yes,

Erum yes. So, sorry. but they might work with a vendor who's actually. Producing the cereal and the person that's producing the cereal is working with multiple vendors to source the sugar, to source the corn wheat, or I don't know what the basis of fruit loops are anymore.

Erum I used to love that cereal. And then, you know, manufacturers to make, the actual fruit loop, the point is there's multiple people. And so how do you look at. As an innovator at all those pieces and then go to Kellogg and say, Hey, look, I know that this is how it's manufactured and I already talked to these people and I know what they need to make the transition to use my [00:23:00] product and my product, my biological red dye.

Erum It can be plug and play and like we can do the small deal. We can just do a limited edition and focus on the Brooklyn market first, please. And we're just gonna do a limited run and everyone signed up. So we've done the lift. All you have to do is say yes. So that's a full orchestration, but we're saying like, Hey look, we can do the change.

Erum Everyone's on board. We're gonna start small. It's within your budget and risk tolerance. 'cause we're saying a limited run, let's do this. And if they say no, then there's another issue.

Erum so Carl, like how does one actually architect an ecosystem?

Karl Yeah. I mean I feel like this is something we do every day. We live and breathe this. We spend time introducing founders to each other so that they, you know. if a founder of a company needs help, for example, with Biomanufacturing, [00:24:00] we can introduce them to people on the Biomanufacturing side.

Karl Mm-hmm. If they need help or strategy to develop products that are just gonna plug and play into existing ecosystems, we can help find that out. We've done that. And then we have infrastructure investors that we've been able to bring into these early conversations that are looking for these kinds of projects

Karl and we've also been very successful at getting startups in front of really big companies, not for pitches because. No one really wants to be pitched, but to really co-design future supply chains. Mm-hmm. And that's where, these days today, being able to like look at a supply chain, localize it, regionalize it, make it something that is much more robust.

Karl This came out of COVID where people realized how fragile supply chains are. but Iam, what do you think this feels like, this is different than normal business development.

Karl What does it feel like to you when we're putting these people together?

Erum Yeah. It feels like, we're creating, um, like a basketball team, you we have to have all these players that are working together to get a [00:25:00] shot. In the basket, I don't watch a lot of, basketball. So a shot through the hoop or, I don't know.

Erum Um, it's a slam dunk, you know. You wanna get them? Yeah, there we go. That's better. One Canadian ball, a basketball team. So they have a slam dunk and replacing red 40, you know. Um, so who is gonna, you know, okay, I'm gonna stop with the basketball references because I can't. I don't know the names of the position and stuff.

Karl Yeah, you gotta do keep it, keep it real.

Erum Yes. But you know, it's bringing people together, creating a team, a team of companies, a team of companies that excel in a part of this, supply chain's one word. We also use supply networks. because, you know, it changes, it makes it seem like okay, it's pretty linear, but it's linear, but it's not, you know, sometimes it's not,

Erum You just have, for if you're creating a cereal, you're, you're gonna have multiple ingredients coming from different places, and maybe an ingredient has to be processed a couple more times before it gets to you [00:26:00] to actually manufacture. And may maybe in, and if I'm talking, if you, if you're Kellogg, you're not gonna even see any of this.

Erum You have vendors that actually make it for you. so it's bringing all these people together and like creating that team. So we're all working together. So how do you architect that team? That was what, you know, we, we were just talking about and it's to be able just to sketch it out, who do you need to talk to?

Erum And having that core message, a core mission of saying we're going to replace red 40. And here's everyone that is involved in producing processing, using, integrating, selling, testing, eating red dye 40. yeah, so. Then you start your ecosystem marketing. 'cause you have that message, that mission, and, you have the thing, right?

Erum you have all the players. in our view, like we know the players, right? And so, to be able to say, this is the [00:27:00] mission. Let's get everyone in the room and play and do this. This is what I think is the beauty of being able to. Talk about and share the concept of.

Erum Ecosystem architecture, orchestration, we'll come up one word, but we're, you know, we're messaging lab. We have lots of messages to, to share.

Karl I, I think it's also just worth pointing out that this really requires founders to think. Differently. Mm-hmm. it's like I know that my habit is to think about things in terms of business development and, you know, how do you move a deal forward with one person?

Karl You know, I'm trained as a traditional salesperson. I had to learn how to sell. But this really is something that many founders. Are gonna have to learn as a new skillset. they have to become their own advocates and deal architects. They're not trained for it because they're usually laser are focused on their company.

Karl But they should understand that if you're selling B2B and you're, you've got something that a bigger company is potentially gonna want, then you really [00:28:00] do have to have this ecosystem built and you become. The backbone or the center of this. and we recently had Veronica Breckenridge on the podcast, and she's an example of this because they're bringing different players to the table, to provide a vision and also resources.

Karl you know, when it comes to scaling up biomanufacturing and putting. People, innovators together with like chemical engineers and biochemical engineers to make it easier to scale up. And I think it's gonna be really interesting to watch how, first bite and, bio well, do this level of orchestration because it's the same thing that we've been talking about and we're looking forward to doing it with them as well.

Erum Yeah, first Byte is a venture fund and Bio OL Rx. And as an accelerator. and they're very unique and I think they're doing what founders assume that VCs an accelerator do, but oftentimes they don't do this level [00:29:00] of. Creating deals for the founders in their portfolio or like helping to do this?

Erum at least, we know hundreds and hundreds of investors, and only like a handful of them that we know of at least, or maybe they don't talk about it actually, like, help founders create the deal, not just make an introduction. They make E Cs for sure, for sure. Make. Lots of introductions, and that is hugely valuable, but then to sit at the table when a deal is being crafted.

Erum it would be great to see VCs do that more, but again, you know, VCs want speed. they're doing their own thing. They have their own mandates, you know, and, if they have a big portfolio, they can't pick favorites and do these things, you know, so, and cool to know if there are VCs out there that have a business development, arm for their portfolio companies.

Erum And if you are that VC or know a fund that does that, please let us know. It'd be cool to talk to [00:30:00] them and be like, okay. So how do you help your portfolio companies create deals across an ecosystem? maybe niche ones do. I know, like there's niche VCs that are like, all right, we are focused on developing biochemicals, and that is what First Bite and Biol do.

Erum So, You welcome first bite and bye while we talk about you all the time because we love you guys. So,

Karl So why are we talking about orchestration right now, Carl? Like why, like we felt compelled to. Create this episode, this special episode

Erum Why this moment? Why now?

Karl Yeah. So politically and economically, we're moving towards a much more decentralized economy. Mm-hmm. which really allows biomanufacturing to shine.

Karl Mm-hmm. Biomanufacturing is seen as critical. Infrastructure. the Department of Defense sees it that way. This report that just came out from the National Commission on Emerging Biotech sees it that way. National security and supply chain resilience aren't just buzzwords. They are really becoming budget lines.

Karl It's something that [00:31:00] people are talking about and we've got tailwinds for this. They're geopolitical, you know, you've got the tariffs, they're economic, people want to be able to buy things that are not crazy expensive. And from a. You know, climate point of view, we wanna stop shipping things around the world.

Karl there's not really any reason for that. and there's a continued increase in bio-based innovation. So the demand for bio-based innovation continues to increase, but it's not gonna translate to adoption unless there's a lot of things in place, including this idea of orchestrating, you know, not just deals, but orchestrating ecosystems and also orchestrating marketing.

Erum Deals is the biggest thing. Yeah. Marketing and ecosystems, like that's easy. People are making like just meeting people like, but the deals are what's important.

Karl Yeah. but Iam, you know, like, okay, so we're talking about this and we see the downsides of it too.

Karl Like what are the risks? Like where do people fail at this and why? I

Erum the risk is it doesn't get done. The risk is the deal doesn't get [00:32:00] done and everything falls apart and you're just not able to move your company forward, and the innovation doesn't get into the hands of the people.

Erum So. Really, you know, some of the challenges are going to be about messaging. Of course. You know, we talked about, again, we're using this example of Red Dye 40. it's a very clear problem, right? You're not saying, oh, I, you know, I do enzyme engineering. I do, this thing, and we, you know, create novel molecules and you know, we have this algorithm that does X, y, and Z.

Erum No, you're saying. We're gonna use all those things to change to make a, a very specific change and we're gonna change fruit loops

Karl I think the other one is like seeing legislation that comes down, like from the EU where they're banning microplastics. that's a huge deal because there's all sorts of ingredients that either sh that cloth materials sheds, [00:33:00] plastics and micro beads, for example, are typically made of plastic and the EU is legislating that you cannot no longer use microplastic beads in your products. Mm-hmm. So there are companies that we know very well shout out to our friends at Bio Ag who are developing,

Karl These bio-based alternatives to microbeads. Um, and so there's a lot of opportunity, but that, again, is gonna require this orchestration, not just among the end buyers, but even with users.

Erum but what are the risks, Carl?

Karl Well, I think, you know, another risk is that innovators have to move on relatively fast timelines.

Karl You have limited amount of money. you've gotta move as quickly as you can before you run outta money. And so you're looking for deals that are gonna move. allow you to stay in business longer. And building these ecosystems isn't like a 12 month exercise. It could be a five to 10 year arc.

Karl That's a lot of time for a startup, especially when you've got investors breathing down your neck 'cause they want on an [00:34:00] exit.

Erum ideally. if you really wanna win at this, is that you have the ecosystem or orchestration in place before you raise money.

Erum So that way you just have funding to fuel the idea. Right. That would be the wonderful thing. That's a dream. Yeah, that's a dream. Yeah. but you're, you also have to manage expectations and like, there's a whole nother conversation about is venture capital the right type of money to be used for the shift in the bioeconomy?

Erum We talked about the private capital that's needed, or, the capital that could come from the top, orlike the large company is. Right? So if we're talking about CPG companies and, If we're talking about large cereal companies and they need to replace red 40.

Erum how long will that take and how long will it take? So you to manage expectations across the board, and you talk about the five to 10 year arc and you say, Hey look, this isn't gonna happen in a year, so let's get started now.

Erum the reward. Outweighs the [00:35:00] risks here when it comes to ecosystem for sure.

Erum Right. So, and there's just so much opportunity. We talked about Red dye 40, we talked about microplastics, but there are so many ingredients that need to replace as we learn the effects that they're having on the human body, on the environment. And there's a lot of orchestration that needs to happen.

Erum That's all I'm saying.

Karl yeah. I mean, you're totally right, IAM, I mean, we hear people talking about, you know, biopolymers, packaging. we've talked about coatings for clothing, things that people don't think about.

Karl Mm-hmm. so bio surfactants, biopolymers coatings for clothing ingredients that most people never think about that need to be replaced because as you said, they're not healthy for humans. They're not healthy for, for the environment. oh, and Palm Wild. You know, palm oil is a big one, and we had Shera, TKU of C 16 on the podcast very early on, but we've had other people talk about palm oil replacements because it is such a ubiquitous [00:36:00] ingredient. Mm-hmm. So there are so many opportunities for, innovators working on these ingredients to create these ecosystems and supply the big companies that are using these ingredients every day.

Erum Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well said. Well said. So. As we wrap up this episode, a special episode talking about value chain, syndication, orchestration, ecosystem building. what are some final reflections, Carl?

Karl like I said earlier, it's not about sales.

Karl Mm-hmm. It's bigger than sales. sales is a part of this, and it's not about marketing. Marketing is a part of this. It's really about orchestration. It's really about creating. you know, as you said, ecosystems is about architecting these things. And,

Karl If you wanna lead a category, you can start doing this today by putting the people together. Mm-hmm. This is something that is needed. When we tell founders to do this every day, they should be putting people together, bringing different points of view together and building the ecosystem themselves.

Karl And if they don't do it, that's something that we can help with.

Erum That's [00:37:00] amazing. You gotta get the, founders aligned with the incumbents, with the vendors, with investors. If that's it, I mean. We definitely need to do, a whole episode on different types of financing. 'cause investment is not the only way and there are other exciting ways.

Erum we have friends in finance that have been sharing some very interesting ways to, fund these. Types of activities, right? to fund projects that are commercial in nature. So, we love talking about this. If you're thinking about how your company or how you can get your innovation into the hands of the people.

Erum Or if you're at a large company and you're looking at how do we bring innovation in? How do we get. Our vendors aligned. How do we get our supply chain networks together? Talk to us. I mean, another thing too is that it's easy for us because [00:38:00] we we're not a part of those companies. Right. it's harder for some, and we know that.

Erum it's easier said than done for a founder to do something like this. because you have your company and your, singular focus on the company, but to be able to step out is challenging. you can do it. talk to us. We have the view, we have the. 30,000 foot view about what's going on in the bioeconomy, who's doing what, who needs what, what are different governments doing, what's coming around the corner?

Erum so let's talk, we enjoy talking about it clearly. We just did a whole episode.

Erum Yeah. You know how to get to us. Everything is in the show notes. Just click on the episode and you're gonna see our contact information. You know, you'd be surprised, you know, people do reach out to us and we do reply and engage and we love you guys.

Erum So thank you for listening to the Grow Everything podcast.

Karl We'll talk to you soon. That's the pod.

[00:39:00] Hey, this episode is sponsored by Messaging Lab. At Messaging Lab, we translate complex science and economics into compelling business narratives, and we have done so for the most successful biotech forward companies across pharma, agriculture, personal care and beauty materials, and the list goes on. We are here to make sure your ideas not only get heard, but resonate with your audience. So if it's time to amplify your company's voice. Elevate your business. Visit us@messaginglab.com. Let's.

Karl Don't forget to follow us on your favorite streaming service, Spotify, YouTube, apple, subscribe and like, and also sign up for our substack so you don't miss a beat when it comes to building the bio economy with grow everything.

Karl Thanks for listening.

[00:40:00] 10 Hard-Hitting Quotes "If you want to lead a category, you can start doing this today by putting the people together." - Karl "The risk is the deal doesn't get done and everything falls apart and you're just not able to move your company forward, and the innovation doesn't get into the hands of the people." - Erum "It's not about sales. It's bigger than sales. It's really about orchestration." - Karl "You have to manage expectations and like, there's a whole nother conversation about is venture capital the right type of money to be used for the shift in the bioeconomy?" - Erum "Building these ecosystems isn't like a 12 month exercise. It could be a five to 10 year arc." - Karl "The reward outweighs the risks here when it comes to ecosystem for sure." - Erum "There are so many ingredients that need to replace as we learn the effects that they're having on the human body, on the environment." - Erum "If you really wanna win at this, is that you have the ecosystem or orchestration in place before you raise money." - Erum "The deals are what's important." - Erum "If they don't do it, that's something that we can help with." - Karl