Great to chat with Kim Pendergrass, Co-Founder of Algeon Materials, a biotech materials start-up on a mission to fight climate change and reduce plastic pollution by creating plastic alternatives for leading brands! We discussed the properties of algae, the importance of researching customers in the early days of the start-up, product validation, balancing biodegradability against material longevity and more!
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James
The unedited podcast transcript is below
James McWalter
Hello today. We’re speaking with Kim Pendergrass co-founder at Algeon Materials welcome to the podcast Kim.
Kim Pendergrass
Hi James thanks for having me today I’m so excited to be here.
James McWalter
to start, Could you tell us a little bit about Algeon materials.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, happy to it’s one of my favorite subjects. So algoen materials is an advanced materials Biotech startup So we’re on a mission to fight climate change and reduce plastic pollution and we see ourselves doing this specifically by creating sustainable and biodegradable plastics.
James McWalter
The future.
Kim Pendergrass
Made from kelp.
James McWalter
Super cool and what drove the initial decision for Algeon.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, you know, like like most things over the last few years the pandemic was really a tipping point. So I’m the co-founder rose fine is my other co-founder. She’s honestly one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but our story plate takes back when we were doing our Mba at. Ah, you see San Diego so we’re on zoome it’s terrible and we’re talking to each other about this and like everyone else we just have tons and tons of Amazon packages coming to our door because you don’t really want to go to the store right? and then on the flip side. You know you want to support those local restaurants I’m a big thai food person.
Kim Pendergrass
But I felt bad because every time I would you know get an order of panancurry. It comes with like £3 of plastic you know with all of a little containers and all all the plastic goods so we got to talking um and we’re like you know what there has to be a better way. Okay, so we have people working on single-use plastics. There’s a lot of legislation.
James McWalter
Right.
Kim Pendergrass
Trying to ah ban them or change them. But what about some of these limited life plastics and then on the flip side because we both lived in San Diego walking the beach is a great pastime I’m not personally a surfer but I do know a lot of surfers and seaweed is just always rolling up on the beaches or touching you. And so we started thinking about it. We’re like hey could this be a good material I grew up in the pacific northwest I’m originally from Portland Oregon and you know we take our recycling very serious up there and I grew up using things like cornforks I’m sure you’ve probably used one too. They’re not very delightful. They usually break.
James McWalter
Sure.
Kim Pendergrass
Break cuff in your mouth and so we got we got to thinking you we’re like hey you know what we make bioplastics out of other you know materials what about seaweed and so here’s the funny story. So here’s actually how we got her start imagine us pulling seaweed off the beaches of San Diego it’s just a disaster in the car. Um, and then getting it into a kitchen environment which is kind of like a lab if you think about it ruining some very good coffee grinders trying to grind it up and really seeing if we can make that first batch a plastic in the kitchen and we found out that we could and that was super exciting. Um, and so with that we started getting off to the races. And yeah, so that that that’s kind of the origin story long and short version of it.
James McWalter
Yeah, and so from the kind of moment you were having these conversations. Um, which your cofounder rose all the way through to like getting to you’re boiling up seaweed and and trying to process it in in a home kitchen. Ah how long was that and. You know when I guess did you say? Okay, we’re actually going to get our hands dirty on this.
Kim Pendergrass
You know I I know I know so many smart people who like have a lot of great ideas and they just don’t take any action. They spend all their time you know sitting around and strategizing and thinking of amazing solutions that never go into testing or execution. And I would say 1 thing that Rose and I really both have is a bias for action and so as soon as we started talking about it and we were like you know I I think I think there’s something here. We immediately jumped in and started trying and testing things out. Um I’m a big proponent that you know you learn a lot from failure and so a lot of. Little tiny pivots and failure early on were really important to us and for us, you know, just making sure it was technically possible and especially for somebody like me who doesn’t have a technical background in this. Um, that was really exciting and rewarding and it really gave us the confidence to move forward and can. Continue to pull in more subject matter experts in this field to help us grow.
James McWalter
And so we were kind of like you know, taking textbooks out of the library you know, googling around to try to figure out. Yeah because were there some existing Frameworks or recipes to to use to at least get you started.
Kim Pendergrass
Oh yeah, yeah of course and you know one thing that was really interesting as we started diving more into this started as a project now. It’s a full-fledged business um was starting to look to see what other people were doing and so I’d never heard it kelt plastic when I started.
Kim Pendergrass
Turns out with a few quick Google searches. There are some really cool people all over the world doing some interesting things so we have companies in the us I’m located in California so we have some California companies doing some really cool things. Some indonesian companies different european companies whether they’re in the U K or Spain. Um, truly people all over the world looking to make some unique solutions out of seaweed and kelp.
James McWalter
And so why seaweed and calupp like what are the elements of seaweed and Kp that make it a suitable potential raw material for this type of process.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, yeah, of course and I also just want to throw out a quick thing I’m going to use the words interchangeably? um, the best way to kind of think about it is is an overview is going to be algae you have macro a micro. We’re talking about Macro Algae here. Um, then seaweed would kind of be the next classification. It can classify a whole bunch of different sea plants and then we’re going to go down into Kelp then there’s obviously different species. So if I Um, if I use those words interchangeably um, please know that I am kind of talking about the same thing here. So Why is seaweed or kelp such a great material. First of all, it’s regenerative. Um, it grows super quickly and it’s good for the environment. Um, what a lot of people probably can can think about is it requires virtually zero inputs to grow so it doesn’t require fresh water. It doesn’t require arable land and it doesn’t require fertilizer which can be. Um, very harsh on our environment and so um, as ah as an aquaculture crop. You know it’s It’s growing quickly. Um, it’s creating jobs for people around the world who want to harvest this grow and harvest it and it’s putting nutrients back into the ocean for our planet. A lot of people talk about um the carbon sequestion. Um element to it as Well. Which is really important.
James McWalter
So And so has all these properties and yeah, then we kind of think through. Okay, so there’s a specific use case for plastic and you mentioned you know there are some other companies kind of exploring ah Kelp and seaweed I’ll also use them interchangeably um, seaweed for varying kind of use cases. Um, but you zeroed zeroed in on a specific you know, plastic replacement. Um, why did that appeal relative to some of the other potential options.
Kim Pendergrass
Oh yeah, um, it’s really in a whole bunch of different things. So it’s all the way from like additives and the food we eat if anybody enjoys ah nut milks I think almond milk if you use the pacific brand take a look in there. You might be surprised to find um some additives it’s in pharmaceuticals. It’s in a beauty product. So like makeup. It can be in biofuels. It can be in food I’m I’m a lover of sushi I think a lot of people are um, it can be an animal feed. It can be a fertilizer and it can also be a plastic. Plastics were really interesting to both of us and I think it probably just has something to do with um probably our age and where we grew up in the world and so we are both from corners of the us again pacific northwest for me roses from um, the northeast. And there’s a big push for environmentalism. You know I can remember growing up and hiking with my dad in the Columbia Gorge which is obviously a very beautiful place to be and thinking about wanting to make a positive impact on the world. You know we see plastics starting to pile up. Um, if you do walk the beaches and you see them kind of roll in with the the tides. It’s it’s really sad and it’s sad to think about you see it on the side of our roadways and you know we’re to the point now is you know we’re kind of maybe those stereotypical passionate millennials but we want to make a positive impact on the world.
Kim Pendergrass
Um, and we have identified this as the path that we’re going to take for right now.
James McWalter
And so let’s go back to that kind of you know that the first kind of breakthrough moment in the kitchen. So you’re like okay we’re actually able to make something and but the scale of the problem is so massive right? So every beach in the world has that plastic on the beach problem. Yeah. Up from the west coast of Ireland we have these beautiful beaches if much colder than San Diego and again you will still see you know with with the the vast mite of the the ocean plastic on beaches and so on and so what was the kind of next step to try to figure out. Okay. How do we? you know, think through what scaling this idea could look like yeah.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, so the next step was Omg I don’t know if we’re allowed to say ah curse words on this podcast. But oh say holy shit I think we have something here. Um.
James McWalter
So you can say you can say what you watch.
Kim Pendergrass
We ah, we immediately looked out to get some more technical people involved. So you know somebody with a biopolymers background material science. Um scale at manufacturing all of those things and then on the flip side. You know we’re in business school. We know step 1 is you you have to understand the problem. So we immediately went out and started doing customer discovery and people get a little turned off maybe on the word customers because they’re not buying from you in that exact moment. But what you’re really trying to understand is people who would be your customers. You know what are the problems that they’re truly up against not the problems. You think they’re up against um. You know what do? What do they need from a solution. What do they care about? What’s it nice to have what’s not and going through that process and so right away you know, maybe this is ah a good thing with the whole Zoom world. It was really easy to get a hold of people so we just started talking to people we would set up calls. 15 to 20 minutes honestly across the world which was really cool and just asked them to tell us about what they were doing. You know what they wanted to accomplish with reducing plastic what kind of mechanical properties it needed and so on and I would say in that you know we learned a ton. And we met a lot of really interesting people which was really neat.
James McWalter
I yeah I had a very similar experience. Um, also during covid um, when starting to kind of research different startup ideas myself also in the climate space and it was kind of this remarkable time you know 202021 where all of a sudden things like you know soil carbon. Just by spending a little bit of time you’re noticing people who didn’t know much about something a year previously becoming like foremost experts in the application of solar carbon in agultural use cases right? Obviously not the forefront expert from a science point of view but by talking to all of the kind of forfront experts technical folk. Scientists people who are doing research etc and then thinking through it a you know, startup in business lens starting to kind of say okay, this might be a path to market to solving this problem from boat to climate and a business point of view and so yeah I had a very recent experience. Met a ton of interesting people. I think there’s like this little group of people who are on things like my climate journey and air miners and it’s kind of various slack groups that were like a very very strong ecosystem to kind of encourage this and so at that time were you kind of part of any of those kind of ecosystems or are you kind of like figuring all this out on your own.
Kim Pendergrass
A little bit of both so neither Rose or I came from this industry. Originally my background is actually actually in financial technology enterprise software. So I’m pretty far out from that and then Rose was in aerospace and defense. 1 thing that. Deeply benefited us was at the time we were university students and so we had access not only to our university you see San Diego but also the broader uc network and I and maybe even like even one past that I guess all all universities in a way. So. Universities are really supportive of students. They have networks. It was great. You know getting involved with different professors in different organizations in San Diego we have the Scripps institution of oceanography and they were really great. They had a blue tech accelerator program that we joined. And they have definitely helped us better understand the industry that we’re stepping into making connections for us sharing research you know 1 thing James it sounded like maybe you had this experience too and and correct me if I’m wrong here. But 1 thing I love about this industry and I’m going to put climate tech. Um, as as a whole industry here is everybody wants to do better. You know it’s not about um, it’s not about like making the most money or anything like that. It’s about having ah a good solid impact a measurable impact to help others.
Kim Pendergrass
And so because of that you know we have just found people so open to talking and sharing and so really supporting and championing each other.
James McWalter
Yeah I found the exact same thing and it and it even becomes this interesting thing with competitors. You know one of the things I found remarkable particularly when I was working on this this soil carbon idea I ended up going a different direction as the audience knows im you know more in the renewable space now. But at the time I would like. You know, send an e-mail to somebody who is series a stage startup doing something you know adjacent or pretty similar to what I was kind of picturing and 9 times out of 10 they was like yeah, let’s just put a call. Let’s chat about it because I think the sense is that because startups have such a low success rate. Regardless you know. We’re all we need the you know the idea to actually succeed like you know if there’s 10 twenty thirty companies working on a similar idea statistically on a couple that’s going to make it and so you know Whistlecompe will still. You know do the the things we have to do to kind of grow our business quickly as possible. But. In terms of the actual sharing of knowledge. It’s really fascinating how open people are.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, and I I don’t know if this applies to Youtube but I grew up ah playing group sports competitive you know, competitive sports and there’s yeah oh rugby. Okay, so you’ll get this. There’s just something about having competitors too, especially good competitors that really you know make you strive to.
James McWalter
And rugby in my case and.
15:09.67
Kim Pendergrass
To do your best and be your best and never give up and so I you know I couldn’t imagine even doing startup world or startup land without having good competitors to go up against.
James McWalter
It? Yeah not um, it’s and it’s actually one of these kind of classic things where some folks who are kind of new to startup world will say yeah, especially when they’re like pitching investors and someone’s like oh we have no competitors.. There’s always some sort of competitor. Even if it’s a pen and paper right? Even if it’s a. You know something that people have figured out. Um, now maybe the solution that that one is proposing is way way better, but there’s always some way that people are trying to solve but given problem. Um and actually to kind of go back to you know this kind of user research customer research that you’re doing you know I can maybe agree I think you mentioned that. You know as you’re asking people exactly what they’re Experiencing. We don’t want to kind of presuppose the answers was there any kind of surprising things that came out of that research.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, there were a lot of surprising things I I think 1 thing 1 thing that I found really interesting is the vast vast vast majority of people I mean we’re talking like 99.9 percent know that there’s a problem. And they know that they know that they have to get started on fixing that and I’m talking about this from the corporate point of view and they are working with programs and you you just might be really surprised to learn about some of these companies and some of the initiatives that they’re undertaking in terms of like I would say like small initiatives like r and d. Or innovation challenges or things that they are trying to do because they know they have to make changes so I thought that felt really good. Um, and I was really pleased to learn this another thing that I found really fascinating I don’t you know it doesn’t really surprise me and I guess now that I think back on it but it did at the time. We spent quite a bit of time um talking to plastics manufacturers in the us so we spent time back in Erie Pennsylvania and we were part of an accelerator program there with the regional chamber of commerce and they’d introduced us and as we’re talking to these these plastic engineers. These plastic engineers are like yes we want a better material. You know we don’t want our product out there polluting the earth and I guess I was I was pleasantly surprised how open they were to the idea of innovation and wanting something better something new.
Kim Pendergrass
Um, for the environment which was really cooled here.
James McWalter
Also think a lot of corporates are starting to realize that there’s going to be a continued brain drain from organizations that don’t put these kind of concepts at the forefront like it used to be that. Yeah, all the some of the greatest ph d in the world would go work at shell or Exxon right. And like those companies cannot hire those people anymore like even if they dramatically overpay because folks coming out of university just don’t want to go to those places and so I think about any of these areas. You know one of the kind of big powerful things that a corporation can do is to not just screenwash but to actively you know, improve their. Environmental footprint nearly as like a talent acquisition and retention strategy.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah I see it. You know all the time It’s really funny so you know just leaving at university and and watching my cohort members go out and you know friends go out and get jobs a vast majority of them are picking you know small. Innovative new players in industries who are disrupting things I don’t see people going to kind of the big established firms and I have a really good friend who teaches up at Oregon State University in the business school and she was telling me something really similar where. They um were their students are turning down offers at these you know like blue chip legacy companies because they just they don’t like their approach to Esg or Csr or something. Um, and I think it’s going to be a huge wake up call.
James McWalter
It it will and actually and will continue to be um and so yeah, so let’s ah, get back because we’re kind of you know, moving through through time. Um, and so you know you’re starting to kind of engage technical experts. You’re starting to have these customer conversations and so I guess from there you know how did. You know product validation product development go from there up to let’s say today.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, um, it’s It’s been a journey is the best word. Um, so you know initial experimentation and formulation. Um went really well in terms of proving that. Yes, it can be done but now it’s can it be done well and is it scalable. And so that’s where we’re working through right now in R and D. So we have gone through hundreds of formulations. Um on our primary product. Our formula Um, which is really great. So We’ve moved from a thermal set kind of formulation over over to a thermal plastic. What’s really important for us. Is that we are targeting injection molding for a final manufacturing method. The reason why is this will get us the most bang for our buck in terms of getting this biodegradable plastic out to the industry for packaging. So We’re excited about that. Um, and then working through the various manufacturing methods. Um, so we’ve you know we’ve talked about thermal set which is kind of like mold casting. Um, you know think about like I guess an Nice. You know if you do I Guess if you do chocolates maybe like a chocolate mold or I guess an ice cube. Maybe.
Kim Pendergrass
Um, you know, right now we’re working through our extrusion process and then next up would be the injection molding.
James McWalter
And that’s very exciting you know and I think people sometimes yeah will come across a video on Youtube or some random discovery channel these like large industrial presses and and molds. Um, and you know they’re kind of like magical how they kind of speak to each other to kind of produce like basically all the materials and all the. Different things in the kind of modern world and so yeah, so kind of scaling up from the kitchen. Yeah, the stove top all the way to that is this kind of like fascinating direction.
Kim Pendergrass
It is and it’s been really great. You know one of the great things about being located in San Diego is the biotech industry there so we have lots of access to some really great scientists as well as some really great lab space.
James McWalter
And yeah, and absolutely having that kind of localized talent is like makes massive absolutely massive and I guess when we think about um materials and we’ve had quite a few folks on the material side on the podcast over the last you know year or 2 and 1 or 2 folks. Ah in the kind of seaweed space. People in the kind of new types of concrete space and I’ve said on a previous podcast that I think materials is like the most interesting space for people who are like wanting to bring fresh eyes into climate tech. Yeah, we’re going to re a fashion pretty much all the materials of the built environment. And the consumed environment. So you know everybody you know opportunity for everybody um with something at that scale but 1 of the you know the kind of tradeoffs or 1 of the um I guess people have different kind of views on what a kind of go-to-market might look like and it generally splits into licensing or being a direct supplier. Like end supplier I know it’s quite early. You’re still kind of thinking through the product set of things. But how are you thinking about the kind of tradeoffs of different kind of business models.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, you know I I think there’s there’s 2 things maybe more. You know we’re always considering the one is is yeah how can we have the most impact and the second is is you know. How can we make sure that we are a viable business. Um, we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot. You know to say um because of the business Model. So What we’re thinking about right now is long-term you know we’d love to be a material feedstock provider for these large plastic manufacturers. Um, you know, working through material distributors who have contracts then with these large companies that we all know so you know we’re thinking like the P and gs of the world making those consumer packaging in the short term. We’re. Very aware of the fact that we need to prove out our our material and our product and make sure that we have the ability to scale and so we are focused in on making custom packaging solutions with smaller companies smaller companies who are willing to work with us as we go through the R and D phase. Um, and work with us as we scale up I think long term. There’s definitely a lot of value in Licensing. It’s ah it’s a very um I Guess a very valuable business model in that Sense. We haven’t done a lot in the exploration though of that at this time.
James McWalter
And that that makes sense and yeah you know it is yeah nature of any startup right? You’re trying to find those early adopters who will take a chance on on a company who’s figuring things out will potentially be a design partner because like the mutual learnings are massive right? so. Startup side. They obviously get this like amazingly direct feedback directly from an end user who will hopefully become ah like a paying customer and the company itself. Um actually gets listened to um it is funny I was talking to ah a customer from our company who we just closed and they moved to us from a competitor. And he was like the competitor wouldn’t take my phone calls anymore like you know they used to be a smaller company and and then they got very big and then you know like they just couldn’t supply the same amount of service or the same experience and and those kind of factors become very very important and so I think yeah, anyone who’s working on startups or trying to think through starting your own startup. Touch founders early team members and so on you know, definitely remember when you’re asking for design partnerships or early engagement from customers that you’re giving them something as well like it’s not just taking their ideas or taking their insights. It’s like you’re actually giving them attention and focus which is actually something that’s quite rare.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, exactly especially with ah the disaster of the last couple of years and in supply chain and it’s really I think ah highlighted the value of good strategic partners for everyone.
James McWalter
And actually just because you mentioned supply chain there so you know supply chain has become a massive issue. Um in Theory Kelp can be grown. You know pretty much any ocean or body of water in the world. Um, and so yeah, So how do you think about the advantages of. Yeah, using seaweed for use cases like this from a supply chain point of view.
Kim Pendergrass
Ah, it’s it’s it’s actually really complex so part of the part of the value prop and the promises is you know, not being worse than petroleum based plastics and so when we think of that about that we think about the lifecycle analysis and so it. Then so with that in mind we can’t just have seaweed from anywhere because you know getting seaweed from anywhere and getting it to you and where you’re manufacturing could actually be a lot worse or or very harmful for the environment and so things we’re thinking about are building out sustainable supply chains. Near us and near our processing. We’re located in North America Today that is very very very unlikely to change in any near future and so what we’re thinking about is you know can we get our sustainable supply chain out of Alaska um, Alaska and the us. Along with some places over in the northeast us do aquaculture farming so commercially grown kelp and thinking about working with the farm and the cooperatives up there with buying and securing that. And then bringing it down to our processing facilities.
James McWalter
So ah, the okay, where was my next question and so one of the aspects of you know, using seaweed is that it you know breaks down and so you’re not going to end up with these kind of you know horrific situations in landfill where the plastic’s around for you know, potentially hundreds or thousands of years um on the other hand it it degrades quite quickly right in things like so sunshine and so on potentially and so you know one of the things I think that people who are trying to develop products in the space and materials in general is that you know the advantage of being biodegradable sometimes comes up against the disadvantage of longevity. And so how do you think about balancing that equation.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah I the the way we think about it is is um, not not every not 1 single material is not good for every single use case and so um, I’ll give you an example. Um. Some plastics we want to to go away rather quickly. So the average useful life of a plastic bag is less than 15 minutes um there’s no reason why that needs to hang around for hundreds and hundreds years. Um, but on the flip side you know if I have pvc piping in my house. Um I want that to last. And so when we think about our material we as we target these single use and limited life products. You know we are looking for use cases where um, you know the end the end consumer doesn’t need it to last forever and so we’re thinking about things like Trapstick containers or deodorant. Um. Deodorant containers or even the handle on your lint roller I have a golden retriever and oh my god fur is everywhere at all times. Um, these are things people typically throw away. Um and they don’t recycle and I think another thing too that is kind of a misnomer at least in the Us. .
Kim Pendergrass
Is 90% of plastics aren’t recycled and that’s really a bummer, especially when you think about the time um that you might take to actually sort your bins If you’re one of those people and so when we are thinking about materials and the Lifespan. We want a material that has the mechanical properties that is needed to do the job. But when that job is Over. We Want it to go away.
James McWalter
No absolutely. And yeah I think everybody has a drawer at home where it’s like all these kind of used plastic bags and then it gets full and then eventually you just throw them out and it goes to landfill and and then repeat right? and so there’s all these kind of little patterns that result from.
Kim Pendergrass
Right here.
James McWalter
A mismashch between the as ah like the longevity versus the bio degradabilityability of individual plastics and you know I think figuring that out makes a ton of sense. You also mentioned a little bit earlier I think at the beginning but legislation around single use plastics. So that’s come in in I believe certain parts or maybe all of California It’s definitely about to come in in the next couple of years for all of Europe Ireland has their own I live in Mexico Mexico is introducing it. Um, how do you think about the legislative kind of space and how that impacts because sometimes legislation. You know can cause some problems sometimes it can be a massive kind of tailwind for a massive vanchture of a new industry and so yeah, how do you think about that balance.
Kim Pendergrass
I Have complicated feelings about it. Um, the reason why is I I do think things like this are well intentioned and I I think when they’re brought about the the hope or the belief is is that people will Um. Apply themselves to it in the way it was meant to be so when I think about things like um, we’ll just say like um, banning single use plastic bags. Great sounds great. Um, but now I’ve seen situations where um.
James McWalter
For her.
Kim Pendergrass
Plastic bags are being made thicker or with a little bit different material composition and so now they’re no longer single-use plastic bags. They’re just plastic bags you can reuse them 400 times or whatever the the claim there is um and I don’t think that was really the spirit of the the legislation. Or you know I am seeing things where maybe the composition has changed a little bit and so maybe the definition of plastic becomes a little bit more nebulous. Um again I don’t think that is the spirit of the legislation and so I I think you know when legislation like this comes out. I Would hope that people would and people in businesses would try to apply themselves to solutions. Um, that are in the spirit of it. So whatever. That means you know maybe it is truly learning how to use a nice good reusable bag. Maybe it’s learning how to carry things with your hands. I’m now one of those people who like see if I can juggle things out if I forget forget the reusable bags at the grocery store and then things with plastic Stras too I Mean that’s that’s truly complicated I think it’s it feels definitely a comfort to use a plastic straw especially with a nice cold drink or a milkshake. Um, and there are so you know some people in our communities who need straws for whatever reasons that may be but the vast majority of us. Do not use them and so some of that’s just kind of freetraining behavior as Well. I think there’s definitely a lot more. We could do I’m definitely ah a fan of the um.
Kim Pendergrass
Reduce first before we get into the reuse and the recycle.
James McWalter
I’ sorry we’re just slightly getting the the shovel there right at the very end again. Just so um, yeah, it’s so interesting you mentioned about like you carrying things and and the reduce. Um in Ireland and but it was 2002 we introduced a ten pence
Kim Pendergrass
Okay.
James McWalter
Um, plastic bags tax and that’s a time I was working in retail as a retail butcher of all things and the week that that came in was chaotic people. Ah yeah, people have quite quite a bit of pushback. Um, but what people ended up doing rather than pegue ten cent was like they were. Yeah, lump a load of things into their arms and then and then bring it out and then people did start to adapt and you get to a point and it was actually quite strange for me when I eventually you know moved on to to the Uk then later other countries where you kind of it took me a while to get back into actually taking the plastic bag. Default would just be not to have it or always carry my own bag with me. Um, and so having some sort of like price signal I think was was actually this like very powerful thing rather than just like outright banning which as I said or as you said yeah, there are ways around certain you know, depending on how the legislation is written to get around those things. Um. So yeah, so you have this kind of play of both carrot and stick that I think makes yeah that we’ll have to basically balance in order to get to the right path.
Kim Pendergrass
I’m I’m curious when you ah first experienced um the the bag feed did you feel like that changed your behavior early on um or was it or were you just like and whatever ¢10 I can deal with it.
James McWalter
I was a teenager so 10 centers a lot so at at the at the time I was like but and honestly like people people definitely did change behavior people definitely were um, more resistant to getting bags it it definitely absolutely did.
Kim Pendergrass
Ah, okay.
James McWalter
I think it has started to go a little bit towards the mean again in Ireland so does actually talk about raising the price again. Um, but yeah.
Kim Pendergrass
Interesting. Yeah.
James McWalter
Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. All these little laboratories of of experimentation. Um, and so yeah, so you mentioned the beginning so you were kind of in university you were working on your Mba and I’ve heard like mixed things from folks who’ve done mbas and then go on to found startups some apps who were like. You know the structure and the the kind of frameworks from the Nba had some profound effect on how they approach a startup and just were like I kind of wish I just started something earlier. Um, how do you think about? you know the impact your Mba and studying of that type has on how you founded the company.
Kim Pendergrass
I think that’s interesting feedback. Yeah, you know everybody’s different and is on a different journey. So my journey was from undergrad I went and worked for a startup for 8 years I was employee 15 and we were going through some really early funding rounds all the way through us. Successful. Acquisition by a large public company and then did a year of public life. So I felt like I had already had kind of the learning startup learning experience as an early employee and what I really wanted to do when I got my Mba is I wanted more frameworks and more knowledge. In some areas that I didn’t that I didn’t specialize in so I wanted more information and learnings around operations and I wanted more around finance and accounting and I can’t believe I just said I wanted more around accounting but I did of course yeah.
James McWalter
Of course.
Kim Pendergrass
Ah, it’s definitely the the language of businesses as my accounting professor Eric liked to say and that’s why I went and did it and for me it was a really good. It was a really good opportunity but on the flip side I think also taking advantage of the university environment is huge so universities. Have all kinds of access to um, early funds start you know startup accelerators, competitions incubators networks and because you’re a university student people usually want to help you and they want to help you learn and and grow and they want to be a part of that journey I think. Most people not all but most people feel really fulfilled when they can give back and teach somebody something and so being in that kind of learning environment was huge huge for us and it definitely um I would say kind of protected us probably you know like ah like an incubator. Um, protected us and helped us grow as we worked through some of the early stages now at the same time you know having a bias for action I 100% agree with just go out and do it. Um, the way you think you’re going to do it in the beginning is not the way it’s going to be um.
Kim Pendergrass
You might as well just get started I would say you know, starting this business while I was doing my Mba made my Mba so much more rewarding because everything I was learning in a classroom or academic environment or setting I could then directly apply. Ah, to the business as we were growing.
James McWalter
So I love that and you know for those who are running Mba Programs you know may make everybody start a company right? It’s why you’re running your Mba because I mean yeah, you’re immediately kind of tying the theoretical and the practical and in this potentially like fascinating way.
Kim Pendergrass
Oh yeah, I mean in theory everything makes sense. We’re like oh I just do this that and that and you know boom the $100000000 in revenue you’re like okay great. Let’s go out and execute that and practice.
James McWalter
Yeah, yeah, it’s like okay, everyone just gets our first 10 customers and it’s like okay, how do we do that like just trivial shit like that. Um.
James McWalter
Cool, well um, really enjoyed Chatten Kim before we break off is there anything I should have asked you about but did not.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah I would have loved um to know a little bit more about our team and where we’re headed so today yeah today algae materials has a very small nimble and passionate team people working with us.
James McWalter
Please.
Kim Pendergrass
We are really excited to grow our team and so we are specifically looking for people who are you know obviously passionate about climate about Materials. Um, but specifically looking for some of those more technical rules. So You know polymer scientists material scientists. And people with skill at manufacturing experience. Anybody in those realms Even some chemistry you know if you want to come work for a a nimble startup looking to to change the world and really shake up an industry and be a part of something that’s important. We’d love to hear from you.
James McWalter
So and will include any career page to the show notes. Thank you Kim.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, thank you so much James it’s been a pleasure talking to you today I love talking about this kind of stuff. Cheers.
James McWalter
It’s the best cheers.
Title: Replacing Plastics with Algae – E111
Great to chat with Kim Pendergrass, Co-Founder of Algeon Materials, a biotech materials start-up on a mission to fight climate change and reduce plastic pollution by creating plastic alternatives for leading brands! We discussed the properties of algae, the importance of researching customers in the early days of the start-up, product validation, balancing biodegradability against material longevity and more!
Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418
Remember, If you want to support the podcast please rate and review 5 stars on Apple, Thanks so much!
James
The unedited podcast transcript is below
James McWalter
Hello today. We’re speaking with Kim Pendergrass co-founder at Algeon Materials welcome to the podcast Kim.
Kim Pendergrass
Hi James thanks for having me today I’m so excited to be here.
James McWalter
to start, Could you tell us a little bit about Algeon materials.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, happy to it’s one of my favorite subjects. So algoen materials is an advanced materials Biotech startup So we’re on a mission to fight climate change and reduce plastic pollution and we see ourselves doing this specifically by creating sustainable and biodegradable plastics.
James McWalter
The future.
Kim Pendergrass
Made from kelp.
James McWalter
Super cool and what drove the initial decision for Algeon.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, you know, like like most things over the last few years the pandemic was really a tipping point. So I’m the co-founder rose fine is my other co-founder. She’s honestly one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but our story plate takes back when we were doing our Mba at. Ah, you see San Diego so we’re on zoome it’s terrible and we’re talking to each other about this and like everyone else we just have tons and tons of Amazon packages coming to our door because you don’t really want to go to the store right? and then on the flip side. You know you want to support those local restaurants I’m a big thai food person.
Kim Pendergrass
But I felt bad because every time I would you know get an order of panancurry. It comes with like £3 of plastic you know with all of a little containers and all all the plastic goods so we got to talking um and we’re like you know what there has to be a better way. Okay, so we have people working on single-use plastics. There’s a lot of legislation.
James McWalter
Right.
Kim Pendergrass
Trying to ah ban them or change them. But what about some of these limited life plastics and then on the flip side because we both lived in San Diego walking the beach is a great pastime I’m not personally a surfer but I do know a lot of surfers and seaweed is just always rolling up on the beaches or touching you. And so we started thinking about it. We’re like hey could this be a good material I grew up in the pacific northwest I’m originally from Portland Oregon and you know we take our recycling very serious up there and I grew up using things like cornforks I’m sure you’ve probably used one too. They’re not very delightful. They usually break.
James McWalter
Sure.
Kim Pendergrass
Break cuff in your mouth and so we got we got to thinking you we’re like hey you know what we make bioplastics out of other you know materials what about seaweed and so here’s the funny story. So here’s actually how we got her start imagine us pulling seaweed off the beaches of San Diego it’s just a disaster in the car. Um, and then getting it into a kitchen environment which is kind of like a lab if you think about it ruining some very good coffee grinders trying to grind it up and really seeing if we can make that first batch a plastic in the kitchen and we found out that we could and that was super exciting. Um, and so with that we started getting off to the races. And yeah, so that that that’s kind of the origin story long and short version of it.
James McWalter
Yeah, and so from the kind of moment you were having these conversations. Um, which your cofounder rose all the way through to like getting to you’re boiling up seaweed and and trying to process it in in a home kitchen. Ah how long was that and. You know when I guess did you say? Okay, we’re actually going to get our hands dirty on this.
Kim Pendergrass
You know I I know I know so many smart people who like have a lot of great ideas and they just don’t take any action. They spend all their time you know sitting around and strategizing and thinking of amazing solutions that never go into testing or execution. And I would say 1 thing that Rose and I really both have is a bias for action and so as soon as we started talking about it and we were like you know I I think I think there’s something here. We immediately jumped in and started trying and testing things out. Um I’m a big proponent that you know you learn a lot from failure and so a lot of. Little tiny pivots and failure early on were really important to us and for us, you know, just making sure it was technically possible and especially for somebody like me who doesn’t have a technical background in this. Um, that was really exciting and rewarding and it really gave us the confidence to move forward and can. Continue to pull in more subject matter experts in this field to help us grow.
James McWalter
And so we were kind of like you know, taking textbooks out of the library you know, googling around to try to figure out. Yeah because were there some existing Frameworks or recipes to to use to at least get you started.
Kim Pendergrass
Oh yeah, yeah of course and you know one thing that was really interesting as we started diving more into this started as a project now. It’s a full-fledged business um was starting to look to see what other people were doing and so I’d never heard it kelt plastic when I started.
Kim Pendergrass
Turns out with a few quick Google searches. There are some really cool people all over the world doing some interesting things so we have companies in the us I’m located in California so we have some California companies doing some really cool things. Some indonesian companies different european companies whether they’re in the U K or Spain. Um, truly people all over the world looking to make some unique solutions out of seaweed and kelp.
James McWalter
And so why seaweed and calupp like what are the elements of seaweed and Kp that make it a suitable potential raw material for this type of process.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, yeah, of course and I also just want to throw out a quick thing I’m going to use the words interchangeably? um, the best way to kind of think about it is is an overview is going to be algae you have macro a micro. We’re talking about Macro Algae here. Um, then seaweed would kind of be the next classification. It can classify a whole bunch of different sea plants and then we’re going to go down into Kelp then there’s obviously different species. So if I Um, if I use those words interchangeably um, please know that I am kind of talking about the same thing here. So Why is seaweed or kelp such a great material. First of all, it’s regenerative. Um, it grows super quickly and it’s good for the environment. Um, what a lot of people probably can can think about is it requires virtually zero inputs to grow so it doesn’t require fresh water. It doesn’t require arable land and it doesn’t require fertilizer which can be. Um, very harsh on our environment and so um, as ah as an aquaculture crop. You know it’s It’s growing quickly. Um, it’s creating jobs for people around the world who want to harvest this grow and harvest it and it’s putting nutrients back into the ocean for our planet. A lot of people talk about um the carbon sequestion. Um element to it as Well. Which is really important.
James McWalter
So And so has all these properties and yeah, then we kind of think through. Okay, so there’s a specific use case for plastic and you mentioned you know there are some other companies kind of exploring ah Kelp and seaweed I’ll also use them interchangeably um, seaweed for varying kind of use cases. Um, but you zeroed zeroed in on a specific you know, plastic replacement. Um, why did that appeal relative to some of the other potential options.
Kim Pendergrass
Oh yeah, um, it’s really in a whole bunch of different things. So it’s all the way from like additives and the food we eat if anybody enjoys ah nut milks I think almond milk if you use the pacific brand take a look in there. You might be surprised to find um some additives it’s in pharmaceuticals. It’s in a beauty product. So like makeup. It can be in biofuels. It can be in food I’m I’m a lover of sushi I think a lot of people are um, it can be an animal feed. It can be a fertilizer and it can also be a plastic. Plastics were really interesting to both of us and I think it probably just has something to do with um probably our age and where we grew up in the world and so we are both from corners of the us again pacific northwest for me roses from um, the northeast. And there’s a big push for environmentalism. You know I can remember growing up and hiking with my dad in the Columbia Gorge which is obviously a very beautiful place to be and thinking about wanting to make a positive impact on the world. You know we see plastics starting to pile up. Um, if you do walk the beaches and you see them kind of roll in with the the tides. It’s it’s really sad and it’s sad to think about you see it on the side of our roadways and you know we’re to the point now is you know we’re kind of maybe those stereotypical passionate millennials but we want to make a positive impact on the world.
Kim Pendergrass
Um, and we have identified this as the path that we’re going to take for right now.
James McWalter
And so let’s go back to that kind of you know that the first kind of breakthrough moment in the kitchen. So you’re like okay we’re actually able to make something and but the scale of the problem is so massive right? So every beach in the world has that plastic on the beach problem. Yeah. Up from the west coast of Ireland we have these beautiful beaches if much colder than San Diego and again you will still see you know with with the the vast mite of the the ocean plastic on beaches and so on and so what was the kind of next step to try to figure out. Okay. How do we? you know, think through what scaling this idea could look like yeah.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, so the next step was Omg I don’t know if we’re allowed to say ah curse words on this podcast. But oh say holy shit I think we have something here. Um.
James McWalter
So you can say you can say what you watch.
Kim Pendergrass
We ah, we immediately looked out to get some more technical people involved. So you know somebody with a biopolymers background material science. Um scale at manufacturing all of those things and then on the flip side. You know we’re in business school. We know step 1 is you you have to understand the problem. So we immediately went out and started doing customer discovery and people get a little turned off maybe on the word customers because they’re not buying from you in that exact moment. But what you’re really trying to understand is people who would be your customers. You know what are the problems that they’re truly up against not the problems. You think they’re up against um. You know what do? What do they need from a solution. What do they care about? What’s it nice to have what’s not and going through that process and so right away you know, maybe this is ah a good thing with the whole Zoom world. It was really easy to get a hold of people so we just started talking to people we would set up calls. 15 to 20 minutes honestly across the world which was really cool and just asked them to tell us about what they were doing. You know what they wanted to accomplish with reducing plastic what kind of mechanical properties it needed and so on and I would say in that you know we learned a ton. And we met a lot of really interesting people which was really neat.
James McWalter
I yeah I had a very similar experience. Um, also during covid um, when starting to kind of research different startup ideas myself also in the climate space and it was kind of this remarkable time you know 202021 where all of a sudden things like you know soil carbon. Just by spending a little bit of time you’re noticing people who didn’t know much about something a year previously becoming like foremost experts in the application of solar carbon in agultural use cases right? Obviously not the forefront expert from a science point of view but by talking to all of the kind of forfront experts technical folk. Scientists people who are doing research etc and then thinking through it a you know, startup in business lens starting to kind of say okay, this might be a path to market to solving this problem from boat to climate and a business point of view and so yeah I had a very recent experience. Met a ton of interesting people. I think there’s like this little group of people who are on things like my climate journey and air miners and it’s kind of various slack groups that were like a very very strong ecosystem to kind of encourage this and so at that time were you kind of part of any of those kind of ecosystems or are you kind of like figuring all this out on your own.
Kim Pendergrass
A little bit of both so neither Rose or I came from this industry. Originally my background is actually actually in financial technology enterprise software. So I’m pretty far out from that and then Rose was in aerospace and defense. 1 thing that. Deeply benefited us was at the time we were university students and so we had access not only to our university you see San Diego but also the broader uc network and I and maybe even like even one past that I guess all all universities in a way. So. Universities are really supportive of students. They have networks. It was great. You know getting involved with different professors in different organizations in San Diego we have the Scripps institution of oceanography and they were really great. They had a blue tech accelerator program that we joined. And they have definitely helped us better understand the industry that we’re stepping into making connections for us sharing research you know 1 thing James it sounded like maybe you had this experience too and and correct me if I’m wrong here. But 1 thing I love about this industry and I’m going to put climate tech. Um, as as a whole industry here is everybody wants to do better. You know it’s not about um, it’s not about like making the most money or anything like that. It’s about having ah a good solid impact a measurable impact to help others.
Kim Pendergrass
And so because of that you know we have just found people so open to talking and sharing and so really supporting and championing each other.
James McWalter
Yeah I found the exact same thing and it and it even becomes this interesting thing with competitors. You know one of the things I found remarkable particularly when I was working on this this soil carbon idea I ended up going a different direction as the audience knows im you know more in the renewable space now. But at the time I would like. You know, send an e-mail to somebody who is series a stage startup doing something you know adjacent or pretty similar to what I was kind of picturing and 9 times out of 10 they was like yeah, let’s just put a call. Let’s chat about it because I think the sense is that because startups have such a low success rate. Regardless you know. We’re all we need the you know the idea to actually succeed like you know if there’s 10 twenty thirty companies working on a similar idea statistically on a couple that’s going to make it and so you know Whistlecompe will still. You know do the the things we have to do to kind of grow our business quickly as possible. But. In terms of the actual sharing of knowledge. It’s really fascinating how open people are.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, and I I don’t know if this applies to Youtube but I grew up ah playing group sports competitive you know, competitive sports and there’s yeah oh rugby. Okay, so you’ll get this. There’s just something about having competitors too, especially good competitors that really you know make you strive to.
James McWalter
And rugby in my case and.
15:09.67
Kim Pendergrass
To do your best and be your best and never give up and so I you know I couldn’t imagine even doing startup world or startup land without having good competitors to go up against.
James McWalter
It? Yeah not um, it’s and it’s actually one of these kind of classic things where some folks who are kind of new to startup world will say yeah, especially when they’re like pitching investors and someone’s like oh we have no competitors.. There’s always some sort of competitor. Even if it’s a pen and paper right? Even if it’s a. You know something that people have figured out. Um, now maybe the solution that that one is proposing is way way better, but there’s always some way that people are trying to solve but given problem. Um and actually to kind of go back to you know this kind of user research customer research that you’re doing you know I can maybe agree I think you mentioned that. You know as you’re asking people exactly what they’re Experiencing. We don’t want to kind of presuppose the answers was there any kind of surprising things that came out of that research.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, there were a lot of surprising things I I think 1 thing 1 thing that I found really interesting is the vast vast vast majority of people I mean we’re talking like 99.9 percent know that there’s a problem. And they know that they know that they have to get started on fixing that and I’m talking about this from the corporate point of view and they are working with programs and you you just might be really surprised to learn about some of these companies and some of the initiatives that they’re undertaking in terms of like I would say like small initiatives like r and d. Or innovation challenges or things that they are trying to do because they know they have to make changes so I thought that felt really good. Um, and I was really pleased to learn this another thing that I found really fascinating I don’t you know it doesn’t really surprise me and I guess now that I think back on it but it did at the time. We spent quite a bit of time um talking to plastics manufacturers in the us so we spent time back in Erie Pennsylvania and we were part of an accelerator program there with the regional chamber of commerce and they’d introduced us and as we’re talking to these these plastic engineers. These plastic engineers are like yes we want a better material. You know we don’t want our product out there polluting the earth and I guess I was I was pleasantly surprised how open they were to the idea of innovation and wanting something better something new.
Kim Pendergrass
Um, for the environment which was really cooled here.
James McWalter
Also think a lot of corporates are starting to realize that there’s going to be a continued brain drain from organizations that don’t put these kind of concepts at the forefront like it used to be that. Yeah, all the some of the greatest ph d in the world would go work at shell or Exxon right. And like those companies cannot hire those people anymore like even if they dramatically overpay because folks coming out of university just don’t want to go to those places and so I think about any of these areas. You know one of the kind of big powerful things that a corporation can do is to not just screenwash but to actively you know, improve their. Environmental footprint nearly as like a talent acquisition and retention strategy.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah I see it. You know all the time It’s really funny so you know just leaving at university and and watching my cohort members go out and you know friends go out and get jobs a vast majority of them are picking you know small. Innovative new players in industries who are disrupting things I don’t see people going to kind of the big established firms and I have a really good friend who teaches up at Oregon State University in the business school and she was telling me something really similar where. They um were their students are turning down offers at these you know like blue chip legacy companies because they just they don’t like their approach to Esg or Csr or something. Um, and I think it’s going to be a huge wake up call.
James McWalter
It it will and actually and will continue to be um and so yeah, so let’s ah, get back because we’re kind of you know, moving through through time. Um, and so you know you’re starting to kind of engage technical experts. You’re starting to have these customer conversations and so I guess from there you know how did. You know product validation product development go from there up to let’s say today.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, um, it’s It’s been a journey is the best word. Um, so you know initial experimentation and formulation. Um went really well in terms of proving that. Yes, it can be done but now it’s can it be done well and is it scalable. And so that’s where we’re working through right now in R and D. So we have gone through hundreds of formulations. Um on our primary product. Our formula Um, which is really great. So We’ve moved from a thermal set kind of formulation over over to a thermal plastic. What’s really important for us. Is that we are targeting injection molding for a final manufacturing method. The reason why is this will get us the most bang for our buck in terms of getting this biodegradable plastic out to the industry for packaging. So We’re excited about that. Um, and then working through the various manufacturing methods. Um, so we’ve you know we’ve talked about thermal set which is kind of like mold casting. Um, you know think about like I guess an Nice. You know if you do I Guess if you do chocolates maybe like a chocolate mold or I guess an ice cube. Maybe.
Kim Pendergrass
Um, you know, right now we’re working through our extrusion process and then next up would be the injection molding.
James McWalter
And that’s very exciting you know and I think people sometimes yeah will come across a video on Youtube or some random discovery channel these like large industrial presses and and molds. Um, and you know they’re kind of like magical how they kind of speak to each other to kind of produce like basically all the materials and all the. Different things in the kind of modern world and so yeah, so kind of scaling up from the kitchen. Yeah, the stove top all the way to that is this kind of like fascinating direction.
Kim Pendergrass
It is and it’s been really great. You know one of the great things about being located in San Diego is the biotech industry there so we have lots of access to some really great scientists as well as some really great lab space.
James McWalter
And yeah, and absolutely having that kind of localized talent is like makes massive absolutely massive and I guess when we think about um materials and we’ve had quite a few folks on the material side on the podcast over the last you know year or 2 and 1 or 2 folks. Ah in the kind of seaweed space. People in the kind of new types of concrete space and I’ve said on a previous podcast that I think materials is like the most interesting space for people who are like wanting to bring fresh eyes into climate tech. Yeah, we’re going to re a fashion pretty much all the materials of the built environment. And the consumed environment. So you know everybody you know opportunity for everybody um with something at that scale but 1 of the you know the kind of tradeoffs or 1 of the um I guess people have different kind of views on what a kind of go-to-market might look like and it generally splits into licensing or being a direct supplier. Like end supplier I know it’s quite early. You’re still kind of thinking through the product set of things. But how are you thinking about the kind of tradeoffs of different kind of business models.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, you know I I think there’s there’s 2 things maybe more. You know we’re always considering the one is is yeah how can we have the most impact and the second is is you know. How can we make sure that we are a viable business. Um, we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot. You know to say um because of the business Model. So What we’re thinking about right now is long-term you know we’d love to be a material feedstock provider for these large plastic manufacturers. Um, you know, working through material distributors who have contracts then with these large companies that we all know so you know we’re thinking like the P and gs of the world making those consumer packaging in the short term. We’re. Very aware of the fact that we need to prove out our our material and our product and make sure that we have the ability to scale and so we are focused in on making custom packaging solutions with smaller companies smaller companies who are willing to work with us as we go through the R and D phase. Um, and work with us as we scale up I think long term. There’s definitely a lot of value in Licensing. It’s ah it’s a very um I Guess a very valuable business model in that Sense. We haven’t done a lot in the exploration though of that at this time.
James McWalter
And that that makes sense and yeah you know it is yeah nature of any startup right? You’re trying to find those early adopters who will take a chance on on a company who’s figuring things out will potentially be a design partner because like the mutual learnings are massive right? so. Startup side. They obviously get this like amazingly direct feedback directly from an end user who will hopefully become ah like a paying customer and the company itself. Um actually gets listened to um it is funny I was talking to ah a customer from our company who we just closed and they moved to us from a competitor. And he was like the competitor wouldn’t take my phone calls anymore like you know they used to be a smaller company and and then they got very big and then you know like they just couldn’t supply the same amount of service or the same experience and and those kind of factors become very very important and so I think yeah, anyone who’s working on startups or trying to think through starting your own startup. Touch founders early team members and so on you know, definitely remember when you’re asking for design partnerships or early engagement from customers that you’re giving them something as well like it’s not just taking their ideas or taking their insights. It’s like you’re actually giving them attention and focus which is actually something that’s quite rare.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, exactly especially with ah the disaster of the last couple of years and in supply chain and it’s really I think ah highlighted the value of good strategic partners for everyone.
James McWalter
And actually just because you mentioned supply chain there so you know supply chain has become a massive issue. Um in Theory Kelp can be grown. You know pretty much any ocean or body of water in the world. Um, and so yeah, So how do you think about the advantages of. Yeah, using seaweed for use cases like this from a supply chain point of view.
Kim Pendergrass
Ah, it’s it’s it’s actually really complex so part of the part of the value prop and the promises is you know, not being worse than petroleum based plastics and so when we think of that about that we think about the lifecycle analysis and so it. Then so with that in mind we can’t just have seaweed from anywhere because you know getting seaweed from anywhere and getting it to you and where you’re manufacturing could actually be a lot worse or or very harmful for the environment and so things we’re thinking about are building out sustainable supply chains. Near us and near our processing. We’re located in North America Today that is very very very unlikely to change in any near future and so what we’re thinking about is you know can we get our sustainable supply chain out of Alaska um, Alaska and the us. Along with some places over in the northeast us do aquaculture farming so commercially grown kelp and thinking about working with the farm and the cooperatives up there with buying and securing that. And then bringing it down to our processing facilities.
James McWalter
So ah, the okay, where was my next question and so one of the aspects of you know, using seaweed is that it you know breaks down and so you’re not going to end up with these kind of you know horrific situations in landfill where the plastic’s around for you know, potentially hundreds or thousands of years um on the other hand it it degrades quite quickly right in things like so sunshine and so on potentially and so you know one of the things I think that people who are trying to develop products in the space and materials in general is that you know the advantage of being biodegradable sometimes comes up against the disadvantage of longevity. And so how do you think about balancing that equation.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah I the the way we think about it is is um, not not every not 1 single material is not good for every single use case and so um, I’ll give you an example. Um. Some plastics we want to to go away rather quickly. So the average useful life of a plastic bag is less than 15 minutes um there’s no reason why that needs to hang around for hundreds and hundreds years. Um, but on the flip side you know if I have pvc piping in my house. Um I want that to last. And so when we think about our material we as we target these single use and limited life products. You know we are looking for use cases where um, you know the end the end consumer doesn’t need it to last forever and so we’re thinking about things like Trapstick containers or deodorant. Um. Deodorant containers or even the handle on your lint roller I have a golden retriever and oh my god fur is everywhere at all times. Um, these are things people typically throw away. Um and they don’t recycle and I think another thing too that is kind of a misnomer at least in the Us. .
Kim Pendergrass
Is 90% of plastics aren’t recycled and that’s really a bummer, especially when you think about the time um that you might take to actually sort your bins If you’re one of those people and so when we are thinking about materials and the Lifespan. We want a material that has the mechanical properties that is needed to do the job. But when that job is Over. We Want it to go away.
James McWalter
No absolutely. And yeah I think everybody has a drawer at home where it’s like all these kind of used plastic bags and then it gets full and then eventually you just throw them out and it goes to landfill and and then repeat right? and so there’s all these kind of little patterns that result from.
Kim Pendergrass
Right here.
James McWalter
A mismashch between the as ah like the longevity versus the bio degradabilityability of individual plastics and you know I think figuring that out makes a ton of sense. You also mentioned a little bit earlier I think at the beginning but legislation around single use plastics. So that’s come in in I believe certain parts or maybe all of California It’s definitely about to come in in the next couple of years for all of Europe Ireland has their own I live in Mexico Mexico is introducing it. Um, how do you think about the legislative kind of space and how that impacts because sometimes legislation. You know can cause some problems sometimes it can be a massive kind of tailwind for a massive vanchture of a new industry and so yeah, how do you think about that balance.
Kim Pendergrass
I Have complicated feelings about it. Um, the reason why is I I do think things like this are well intentioned and I I think when they’re brought about the the hope or the belief is is that people will Um. Apply themselves to it in the way it was meant to be so when I think about things like um, we’ll just say like um, banning single use plastic bags. Great sounds great. Um, but now I’ve seen situations where um.
James McWalter
For her.
Kim Pendergrass
Plastic bags are being made thicker or with a little bit different material composition and so now they’re no longer single-use plastic bags. They’re just plastic bags you can reuse them 400 times or whatever the the claim there is um and I don’t think that was really the spirit of the the legislation. Or you know I am seeing things where maybe the composition has changed a little bit and so maybe the definition of plastic becomes a little bit more nebulous. Um again I don’t think that is the spirit of the legislation and so I I think you know when legislation like this comes out. I Would hope that people would and people in businesses would try to apply themselves to solutions. Um, that are in the spirit of it. So whatever. That means you know maybe it is truly learning how to use a nice good reusable bag. Maybe it’s learning how to carry things with your hands. I’m now one of those people who like see if I can juggle things out if I forget forget the reusable bags at the grocery store and then things with plastic Stras too I Mean that’s that’s truly complicated I think it’s it feels definitely a comfort to use a plastic straw especially with a nice cold drink or a milkshake. Um, and there are so you know some people in our communities who need straws for whatever reasons that may be but the vast majority of us. Do not use them and so some of that’s just kind of freetraining behavior as Well. I think there’s definitely a lot more. We could do I’m definitely ah a fan of the um.
Kim Pendergrass
Reduce first before we get into the reuse and the recycle.
James McWalter
I’ sorry we’re just slightly getting the the shovel there right at the very end again. Just so um, yeah, it’s so interesting you mentioned about like you carrying things and and the reduce. Um in Ireland and but it was 2002 we introduced a ten pence
Kim Pendergrass
Okay.
James McWalter
Um, plastic bags tax and that’s a time I was working in retail as a retail butcher of all things and the week that that came in was chaotic people. Ah yeah, people have quite quite a bit of pushback. Um, but what people ended up doing rather than pegue ten cent was like they were. Yeah, lump a load of things into their arms and then and then bring it out and then people did start to adapt and you get to a point and it was actually quite strange for me when I eventually you know moved on to to the Uk then later other countries where you kind of it took me a while to get back into actually taking the plastic bag. Default would just be not to have it or always carry my own bag with me. Um, and so having some sort of like price signal I think was was actually this like very powerful thing rather than just like outright banning which as I said or as you said yeah, there are ways around certain you know, depending on how the legislation is written to get around those things. Um. So yeah, so you have this kind of play of both carrot and stick that I think makes yeah that we’ll have to basically balance in order to get to the right path.
Kim Pendergrass
I’m I’m curious when you ah first experienced um the the bag feed did you feel like that changed your behavior early on um or was it or were you just like and whatever ¢10 I can deal with it.
James McWalter
I was a teenager so 10 centers a lot so at at the at the time I was like but and honestly like people people definitely did change behavior people definitely were um, more resistant to getting bags it it definitely absolutely did.
Kim Pendergrass
Ah, okay.
James McWalter
I think it has started to go a little bit towards the mean again in Ireland so does actually talk about raising the price again. Um, but yeah.
Kim Pendergrass
Interesting. Yeah.
James McWalter
Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. All these little laboratories of of experimentation. Um, and so yeah, so you mentioned the beginning so you were kind of in university you were working on your Mba and I’ve heard like mixed things from folks who’ve done mbas and then go on to found startups some apps who were like. You know the structure and the the kind of frameworks from the Nba had some profound effect on how they approach a startup and just were like I kind of wish I just started something earlier. Um, how do you think about? you know the impact your Mba and studying of that type has on how you founded the company.
Kim Pendergrass
I think that’s interesting feedback. Yeah, you know everybody’s different and is on a different journey. So my journey was from undergrad I went and worked for a startup for 8 years I was employee 15 and we were going through some really early funding rounds all the way through us. Successful. Acquisition by a large public company and then did a year of public life. So I felt like I had already had kind of the learning startup learning experience as an early employee and what I really wanted to do when I got my Mba is I wanted more frameworks and more knowledge. In some areas that I didn’t that I didn’t specialize in so I wanted more information and learnings around operations and I wanted more around finance and accounting and I can’t believe I just said I wanted more around accounting but I did of course yeah.
James McWalter
Of course.
Kim Pendergrass
Ah, it’s definitely the the language of businesses as my accounting professor Eric liked to say and that’s why I went and did it and for me it was a really good. It was a really good opportunity but on the flip side I think also taking advantage of the university environment is huge so universities. Have all kinds of access to um, early funds start you know startup accelerators, competitions incubators networks and because you’re a university student people usually want to help you and they want to help you learn and and grow and they want to be a part of that journey I think. Most people not all but most people feel really fulfilled when they can give back and teach somebody something and so being in that kind of learning environment was huge huge for us and it definitely um I would say kind of protected us probably you know like ah like an incubator. Um, protected us and helped us grow as we worked through some of the early stages now at the same time you know having a bias for action I 100% agree with just go out and do it. Um, the way you think you’re going to do it in the beginning is not the way it’s going to be um.
Kim Pendergrass
You might as well just get started I would say you know, starting this business while I was doing my Mba made my Mba so much more rewarding because everything I was learning in a classroom or academic environment or setting I could then directly apply. Ah, to the business as we were growing.
James McWalter
So I love that and you know for those who are running Mba Programs you know may make everybody start a company right? It’s why you’re running your Mba because I mean yeah, you’re immediately kind of tying the theoretical and the practical and in this potentially like fascinating way.
Kim Pendergrass
Oh yeah, I mean in theory everything makes sense. We’re like oh I just do this that and that and you know boom the $100000000 in revenue you’re like okay great. Let’s go out and execute that and practice.
James McWalter
Yeah, yeah, it’s like okay, everyone just gets our first 10 customers and it’s like okay, how do we do that like just trivial shit like that. Um.
James McWalter
Cool, well um, really enjoyed Chatten Kim before we break off is there anything I should have asked you about but did not.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah I would have loved um to know a little bit more about our team and where we’re headed so today yeah today algae materials has a very small nimble and passionate team people working with us.
James McWalter
Please.
Kim Pendergrass
We are really excited to grow our team and so we are specifically looking for people who are you know obviously passionate about climate about Materials. Um, but specifically looking for some of those more technical rules. So You know polymer scientists material scientists. And people with skill at manufacturing experience. Anybody in those realms Even some chemistry you know if you want to come work for a a nimble startup looking to to change the world and really shake up an industry and be a part of something that’s important. We’d love to hear from you.
James McWalter
So and will include any career page to the show notes. Thank you Kim.
Kim Pendergrass
Yeah, thank you so much James it’s been a pleasure talking to you today I love talking about this kind of stuff. Cheers.
James McWalter
It’s the best cheers.