040 The Blockchain Artisan

About this Episode

Lakshmi Malhotra is the founder of Resham Dor. Her vision is to revive dying handloom clusters and establish artisans as custodians of their craft across India. She is currently working on the revival of Kharad rugs. This is a diminishing craft practiced by only two families in Gudhrat India.

In this episode, we explore the artisanal Journey in India, and how she intends to use Blockchain to help revive artisanal craft as luxury items.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Lakshmi Malhotra is the founder of Resham Dor. Her vision is to revive dying handloom clusters and establish artisans as custodians of that craft across India. She's currently working on the revival of Kharad rugs. This is a diminishing craft practice by only two families in the Gujarat region of India. Lakshmi, it's such a pleasure to have you. Welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Lakshmi Malhotra 0:50

Thanks for the opportunity to be a part of this podcast.

Katherine Ann Byam 0:54

What is Kharad really and why are you so passionate about saving this type of skill?

Lakshmi Malhotra 1:01

Actually it is quite an interesting story, Katherine and the word Kharad actually comes from a Sindhi word, which is a dialect in that part of the region, which means rock. And the artisan community originally settled in Sindh, which is now in Pakistan. That's where the word came from. So the Kharad rugs were traditionally made out of camel wool and goat hair. And these were woven on a pit loom. And these were basically used by the nomadic community when they would travel all across to keep them warm. That's why Kharad was very simple in its soul, black and white monochrome designs, which was undyed sheep wool and camel wool. And that's where Kharad came from. What happened post migration was that the community moved to a place called Quran, which is the last village between India's border with Pakistan. And after that, considering the craft is very labour-intensive, it was quite expensive as well. And the local market actually was not very interested in the craft. And slowly the families that used to do this started to dwindle down. And now there are only two families.

Katherine Ann Byam 2:24

Tell us a bit about your background and how you found this course.

Lakshmi Malhotra 2:30

I have worked for the corporate for about two decades. For about 20 years, I've worked as an IT professional in a lot of agencies all across the world. However, hand loom is an area which is something very close to my heart. As I was growing up, one of my favourite pastimes was to basically visit these handloom fairs that we had in a city where we would have artisans and weavers coming from all across India, and I would buy handloom fabric from them, get it embroidered or do some embellishments on it, and get it stitched.

I think my love affair with hand looms began there. And initially, it was something that was very personal to me, wherein I would buy hand looms for my own personal use. But as I started going to these handloom fairs very regularly, the weavers got to know me as a person who loves hand looms. And they started sharing their personal stories with me and they talked about the challenges that they're facing with people not wanting to buy handmade, wanting to buy the cheapest stuff, and of them moving away from their original designs to create something which people would buy.

I think I started relating to their stories in terms of the challenges that they have and how difficult it is for them to survive. So about a few years back, I started an initiative again, under the name of Resham Dor to basically create awareness about the hand looms and crafts that we have all across the world. But last year during the pandemic, I realised that I need to basically work full time if I really want to make a difference at the ground level.

That's how I moved into Resham Dor full time. Now in terms of how I found Kharad, I remember I was talking to a craft lover who was also from Gujarat. I was brought up in Ahmadabad which is in Gujarat, and she was talking about Kharad considering I'm from Gujarat, I know all the arts and crafts that come in from Gujarat. But Kharad is something that I was not aware about at all. And it was very surprising that I did not know about this craft and about two years back, I started researching about Kharad because I felt that as a handloom lover, or as a craft lover, and as well as coming from Gujarat, I should know about all the crafts from Gujarat.

When I started researching about these rugs a couple of years back, I was fascinated by how beautiful these rugs were, how they were made, the story of how it is rooted into sustainability, right starting from local people to using natural dyes to basically weaving on a pit loom. I was really very fascinated with the weaves and the beauty of it. And I remember searching for the master craftsman who creates these rugs. I reached out to him and he actually shared a story in terms of how there were 10 families who used to practice this craft 10 years back, and now they've moved away to other professions, because the demand for this rug was lessened. And for these two families to also survive, it's so difficult.

Katherine Ann Byam 6:05

You know, when I talk to people about this topic of sustainability, we often have this debate about, "Is sustainability something that sits outside or does it sit throughout the making of the thing?" And this is in the ethos of everything that the rug is from the point of design up to the point of finishing and ready for sale? What are your thoughts on the opportunities and the sort of hidden wealth in this area of hand loomed skill? Because I think, as we talk about sustainability, the next side of the story is about the human side of it - about these skills and about the fact that we have sort of built a world that trivialised and made irrelevant almost these real important craft skills in exchange for things that are cheap and create waste.

Lakshmi Malhotra 6:54

As far as how the loom and handicraft industry in India goes, we have a very rich heritage of craft. And I think if I look at the techniques or the way the craft and handloom is being made in India, it is rooted in sustainability. What has happened post the pandemic or in the last few years is that sustainability has become at the core. Customers have become more conscious about the production process and about how sustainable a garment is. Most of the crafts, not only in India, but all across the world were rooted in sustainability because the means were limited at that time. And people used to take everything from whatever was available in the ecosystem to make things for their daily needs. And I think if we go back to that, we will be able to ensure that we are sustainable. So I see a lot of opportunities.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:53

So we know that blockchain technology is being used now in the art world. What are your thoughts on how this can benefit the artisans?

Lakshmi Malhotra 8:02

So I think there has been a lot of research on blockchain. And initially though blockchain started from the financial industry and focused around bitcoins and all that, now they are looking at how blockchain could be applied to other industries as well. Now, when I look at blockchain and based upon considering that I come from a technology background, I'm always looking at ways how technology can be used to make lives better, and especially with handloom being an area of which which is an area of interest, I did a detailed study on how blockchain could help the handloom and craft industry.

I think there are a few challenges that the craft industry is facing all across the world. One is product authentication. There are a lot of copies available in the market and the consumer never even knows how, whether a product is coming from an authentic source or whether it is really coming from a craftsman as the brand claims. The other thing is intellectual property protection. If we look at artisan communities all across the world, I believe that the art and the craft is the cultural intellectual property of the community. And if anybody tries to use that intellectual property, then there has to be credit that is given to the artisans.

There is no way of doing that right now. And there are a lot of brands which basically just use a particular art without giving any credit or compensation to the artisans. And the third thing is that there are a lot of traditional crafts that are dying today, and along with that the knowledge of the traditional techniques is getting lost. So there is no standard database for knowledge protection. And I think that blockchain can really be helpful here.

The reason being that blockchain is a technology which is immutable. Immutable means anything that goes into the database cannot be changed by anybody else. It can basically change the face of the craft industry or even luxury goods as well. Because at every stage in the supply chain, if there is information that goes into the blockchain, which says where the raw material came from, who were the people who dyed it, with what material, who were the artisans who weaved it, who packaged it, and how did it reach the consumer, and if all of that is available to the consumer through a scan of a QR code, it will become very powerful.

So I think blockchain as we go forward, there are a lot of pilots that are happening all across the world in terms of how blockchain can be used for the fashion industry, and especially for the handloom industry. And I personally believe that it can change the face of the industry, if we are able to deploy it as we go forward.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:07

Absolutely.. So what's next for Resham Dor? And how can my listeners support you,

Lakshmi Malhotra 11:11

We are just a startup. We are a very new company right now. We just started The Kharad Revival Project, six months back. So our focus for this year is that currently there are two families that are practising this craft. By the end of the year, if we can make it to five, if we can get three more families back into the craft by creating the right market linkages and demand, that would be wonderful.

And a couple of two years down the line, we basically make this artisan community self sustainable, so that they can ensure that the Kharad craft is available for generations to come. In terms of how the listeners can support, they could support by creating awareness about this craft and know more about this craft. They could also talk about how sustainable this craft is. And last but not the least, if the listeners can help us by buying these rugs, these are heirlooms, and these are a beautiful legacy that you can keep in your home. So if the listeners can help by supporting by buying a rug that would really be helpful.

Katherine Ann Byam 12:29

And what advice would you give to someone who's getting started in an area of preserving history and preserving craft and skills? What would you tell them?

Lakshmi Malhotra 12:40

Though I'm very new in the entrepreneurship world, I will share my experience in the past few months. I think the first thing that I learned when I moved into starting my own company was when we work in the corporate world, everything is very structured, right? There are well-defined processes. However, when you move into entrepreneurship, the first thing is you have to do everything on your own now. So it was a difficult task for me. But what I learned in the last six months is that don't hesitate to reach out. Don't hesitate to ask for help.

As a new business, there are a lot of times when people don't respond to you. You get a lot of refusals. I remember that when I reached out to a few influencers to talk about what we are doing and if they could talk about my brand, even after a lot of follow ups, I did not get a response. But what I realised is if your brand has the right ethics, then it will turn around you just have to continue to follow up and now one of the recent successes that I had was that I reached out to a lady who is a textile revivalist and she is a part of the royal family, again, from Gujarat.

I reached out to her and I told her about Resham Dor. And I was not sure whether she would respond to me or whether she would be happy to speak about Resham Dor. She is very active on Instagram and a lot of social media and surprisingly, she was graceful enough to actually see that, "Oh, wow, you're doing such a wonderful thing. And I am happy to talk about Resham Dor.” What is needed is persistence, continuous follow-up, and especially when you are running a new business.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:34

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So right there.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:40

Thank you so much for sharing this important message with us. I think Resham door is doing an admirable piece of work. I think that the future of this type of skill is in the luxury market. And we need to recognise that. I mean this is as precious as the artists are, you know, and when you're at a stage where only a couple of families can do something, this is something special. And this is something that you really want to preserve. So thank you so much for coming to share that story with us and my listeners will be able to access all of your information on the show notes. So thanks so much for coming, Lakshmi.

039 Ideas that Change Things

About this Episode

How do you come up with an idea?

From the poets, science-fiction writers, anthropologist, scientists, explorers of space and time, to the futurists, and the real experiences of those on the fringe, ideas come from a variety of sources.

We explore how to calibrate your ideas following the 5 guides below:

Show Highlights

Mission
Skills
Jobs to be Done.
Market Research
Idea selection

Speaker Introduction

Katherine Ann Byam is a consultant and strategic partner to leaders on sustainability, resilience and digital transformation.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:00

How do you come up with an idea?

Creativity is one of the greatest human gifts from the poets, the authors of science fiction, to the anthropologists, scientists, explorers of space and time, to the futurist, quantitative and qualitative, to the real experiences of those on the fringes. Ideas can come from anywhere.

The way the brain connects events, words, sound, smell, patterns, and senses, we don't even understand yet to spark something new is an incredible marvel that we can learn to better exploit. It starts with interest, call it a healthy level of curiosity, and it goes further, when you add to it the following key elements to grow your possibilities.

These key elements that I will talk about in the rest of this episode are the mission, skills, jobs to be done, market research, and idea selection at the end. The mission directs your actions. What is your purpose and driving goal around starting your sustainable green business?

Entrepreneurs in this space are often guided by two elements - wanting to solve a problem of social importance while bringing in some income to sustain their efforts or wanting to solve a problem of environmental significance. This purpose can be articulated into a clear mission statement or an open question.

Sparking Ideas and Missions - The Role of Questions in shaping the future.

Questions tend to spark great missions, especially questions that are difficult to solve but an important objective on this scene. When we get into sustainable business we often prioritize passion and purpose over profit. And this is great, however, you will not be able to sustain this business without some commercial element.

So you need to make your mindset work across all three things, which is purpose, profits, and the planet. Turn your questions into a tangible purpose for your business. Start broad, thinking big about what you want to accomplish, and then add constraints such as the environmental context, the skills that you have perhaps, depending on how you want to start this business and how you want to grow it, and your freedom, or ease of conducting that business within the environment that you currently work in.

You need to have a clear intention toward the profit motive as even for purpose-led businesses, this is going to be valuable. Some examples of companies with inspiring mission statements that I've pulled together for you. Patagonia - "We are in business to save our whole planet." I thought this really powerful, and they've been leaders in this sort of big business to sustainable business space for quite some time. Microsoft - "To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." I know that Microsoft could be in that debatable space with tech companies. However, I do like the mission statement and I think it's quite powerful.

Tesla - " Accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy with electric cars, solar, and integrated renewable energy solutions for homes and businesses." That's great. It's not as easy to target a company like Tesla for being a greenwasher because they're really in this space. They're really changing the game on how we use renewable energy today. So that's a powerful company who we might want to argue also spends a lot of resources on space travels.

I think we need to nuance a lot of the stuff that's happening in the world around us because I don't think anything is black and white anymore. There's a lot more complexity to our decision-making, and you will meet more complexity in your decision-making as well as you build your business. Some other mission statements that I'd like to play out here for you to think about how you interpret them. Amazon - "We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience." Now that's an interesting mission statement given where we are in the world. You can think about how that statement resonates with you or not.

Coca-Cola - "To refresh the world in mind, body and spirit, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness to our brands and actions, and to create value and make a difference." That's another, let's say mission statement that I'm not sure who it's speaking to. I'm not sure it is speaking to me. Marriott. "To enhance the lives of our customers by creating an enabling of unsurpassed vacation and leisure experiences."

Now my inspiration- I take inspiration from the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals - number eight, Decent work and economic growth is my sweet spot. My question is the question that keeps me awake at night, is how do I go about creating this decent work and economic growth principle for business owners, new business owners as well as people who are struggling to get work and jobs in developing countries?

How do I contextualize this idea of decent work and economic growth to earn a decent living from my efforts without breaching irrevocably any of the other goals? And the part of that goal of SDG 8 that gives the problem is economic growth of itself because we need to reimagine what growth means and I think that that's the crux of the thing. How can I reimagine what growth really means because you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet.

Part of this question or part of the answer to this question that plays around in my mind is how I embrace technology as a tool and not as a weapon of social disruption and these are two complicated things that I know will take me many years to solve. Each business stream I operate today considers my overarching mission. And your mission can be derived from any source. So think about what your question or problem is.

Think about your purpose, and then narrow your focus, as far as possible, and find the right skill to market fit. So let's move on to skills. You do not need to start the business based solely on your skills. But to survive and thrive in your business, it's valuable to have skills that can be leveraged by the business you form. So for example, you can start the data insights company if you're not a data scientist but your strongest skill is communication, because that skill will help you with the toughest part of any business which is sales.

The Skills that make you successful as an entrepreneur - hint: Lean on Your Strengths.

This brings me to the topic of universal skills. So there are some types of skills that are transferable to any type of business you want to start. And three of these I want to mention right off the bat - finance, research, and social writing or business writing. These skills can serve you in any type of challenge and are particularly useful for green businesses as the mode of outreach to clients often lacks a big budget, and far more targeted in niche and influence irrelevant for example. So take an inventory of all the skills that you have alongside the mission and problems that you want to solve.

What skills and strengths will motivate you to keep going when things get tough, and this is an important question to answer yourself. The journey of an entrepreneur can be harsh for sure and challenging at points during your journey. And at your lowest moments you will be asking yourself these questions about why, why am I doing this. So answer them in advance. The inventory of your skills can come from multiple sources. It can come from your education. It can come from passion that you have, topics that you read regularly about. It can come from jobs that you've done in the past.

It can come from any sorts of nature, natural abilities that you have, rare problem solving skills that you have, challenges that you've overcome in the past that you can help others to overcome, hobbies that you have, old traditions that perhaps have been passed down in your family that you haven't called upon in a long time. Your mission is so important, but also needs to be constrained by your skill if it is that you are a solopreneur. If you can gain access to the skills you need to achieve your mission, then you have the power to go further into building your dreams even if you're not particularly skilled in the area you want to develop as a business. Beyond the mission and skill, we get into the jobs to be done by the customer.

The role of Understanding the customer Journey in designing a powerful business Idea.

So let's think about the customer journey. This is really essential to this idea of the jobs to be done. If you are designing something to be more sustainable, chances are that the idea you have already has a market and a customer most likely, except that existing solutions may be damaging some or all the sustainable goals. Your product or service still has to do what the customer wants done so you have to be clear in your understanding of that before you make design changes. So let me give you an example. And this one, it depends on the type of service you want to provide or a product you want to provide.

As an example, a customer is researching holidays, and you are a holiday planner for eco business or eco travel. What is the customer looking for, is it rest and relaxation? Is it a chance to escape with the kids? Is it an adventure? Is it an experience? Is it luxury? Is it hot or cold? How is it sustainable? So, you can choose to address any one of these jobs or multiple ones but you need to have a clear understanding of the problem that you want to have solved.

So the average customer and the sustainable customer can potentially have a lot in common. To design the optimal product or service you need to ask these questions. How does the customer use this product or service today? How are they interacting with it? How did their families interact with it? How many times are they going to use it? What happens in the afterlife? Where are they typically purchasing this.?What are the people commenting on the reviews and what are the business models that currently work for the sale of that product today, as some examples.

How to solve your customers Problems

All of these questions will feed the design of the product or service. Another interesting approach is to ask yourself what level of quality matters to the customer. Using the jobs-to-be-done approach you potentially expand your market by addressing the needs of the consumers, while still achieving your sustainable goals. Let us take the customer who is holidaying with kids - they have a specific window to execute the holiday and things are likely to be booked up quickly, so they have an interest in planning their holiday early. Your window for wooing that customer will perhaps be months before the next vacation.

And because they're traveling with kids, they may have safety concerns, cost and budget concerns, the level of additional effort they will have in luggage, etc. so proposing a cycle holiday may not be the right solution. By contrast, someone into adventure tourism and perhaps travel during peak seasons, may make more spur-of-the-moment decisions, but will be more open to roughing it so can be more easily captivated by eco tourist spots. Understanding the customer journey to a decision or choice is key in being successful at converting that customer.

So, the jobs to be done - think about what's happening before they use your item or service, while they use your item or service, and after they use your item or service. Next, explore the problems they face in that journey map.

Why Every Business Needs Detailed Market Research.

Now we move to the penultimate section which is market research. Each of these steps build on the others so market research is really about how you get to know exactly what jobs that customer needs to get done. You do this through research.

And you can do research in multiple different ways, so you can understand if there's a demand for what you are aiming to create. You can understand the audience and try to define and shape that audience, collect data to identify a niche, know the competition, understand the business models that are operating, understand the price and service range, understand the white space, the gaps in the service or product experiences that you may be able to turn into an opportunity.

There are many different approaches to doing research. Some free ones to use is Google Keyword search so you can sign up for the account and you can start doing some keyword search before you have to pay for the service in terms of the advertising spend at least. You can use Amazon product reviews. You can use Facebook groups. You can use hashtag searches, digital magazines, the free versions of Answer The Public, Quora, focus groups, or any other ways of asking existing customers (if you have them) or asking people in your communities. You can run surveys and quizzes. You can look at some paid options which is looking at Listen Notes which is one of the podcasts usage platforms. There's Buzzsumo. There's Appsumo that you can use as well. What you really wanna do is capture as much useful information as you can about the customer that you're looking at.

There are many other sources - you can use your local chamber of commerce, you can use some statistics consolidation sites, etc. There are many ways to leverage research. The point of doing all of these things, and understanding your mission, understanding your skills in detail, getting sorted on the jobs to be done, and getting your market research right is that you could make a selection of what ideas you want to take forward. And it's possible that you want to take forward multiple ideas but I would recommend not to do too many at the same time.

Finding your business Ikigai - or identifying great ideas for testing.

Yes, you need to have some variety in your business goals but when you're first getting started, you want to go through that process of developing one idea into reality before you move into others. So with your idea selection process, you really have to go with that sweet spot, as they call it the icky guy, so look at the intersection of those things where it meets with your strengths, where it meets with a really strong need in the market, where it addresses a social good, and where it's able to pay you as well. So, look at all those things as much as you can to come up with that short list of great ideas that you want to take forward. Be generous at the beginning of this process to make sure that you capture as much as possible, but then be ruthless and brutal with yourself at the end of the process so that you focus on only a maximum of two or three ideas that you may eventually take forward. Thanks for listening.

038 Hack for the Planet

About this Episode

Carbon Kapture is a social enterprise start-up with a big mission: to regenerate our oceans and fight climate change. We remove CO2 by growing seaweed, then create carbon-negative products and services.

Kelp-us-save-the-planet-a-thon is a virtual hackathon hosted by Carbon Kapture. It is free to join and takes place once a quarter.

Join Howard Gunstock and me as we discuss the journey to build a viable planet based business.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Today, we have a previous guest, Howard Gunstock, who is back to talk to us about the journey he's been on with Carbon Kapture. Howard, welcome to the show. Once again, thank you, thank you very much for having me on the show. It's really good to be here. And Howard, I know that we kicked something off when we had this podcast back in October, but you were just beginning to launch some of your products like your Ocean Care Bonds, etc. You were just getting loud on social media really starting to pick up the followers. And since we've had that episode, it's actually been the second most downloaded episode. You are about six people away from being the top downloaded episode, but you are gaining on the leader. So tell us about your journey since the last podcast my friend.

Howard Gunstock 1:11

It's really interesting. When we started talking about this Carbon Kapture was an embryonic idea that it's something that we're thinking about doing. And as you said, when we launched the social media on our socials back in October, and that was a strategic move that was designed to build up our portfolio of potential customers and our base. And there was a reason why I wanted a strategic move: to become effective kelp farmers. We're going to need to form alliances with businesses that already do kelp farming. Yeah, because I am not your typical kelp farmer. And what we want to try to do is to have these alliances and I had a conversation with a Kelp farmer a few months ago, a European player.

And actually, the reason why we did our stuff in October and November was purely part of this conversation. And he said, and he was saying to me, how can you develop all these farms? How are you going to do all these things and say, well, we're going to have joint ventures and partnerships. He said, Well, why did you need to do this thing with Carbon Kapture? And I said, Okay, well, this was it. If I came to you, six, six months ago and said, Hey, I want to have a kelp farm, you would say to me, "No, I'm not going to give you any of my licence, why would I half my profit?". And effectively, that's where he would be doing. But then if I come to you and say, “Hey, I've got the Carbon Kapture, this is my brand, these are the things these are the products that I'm going to do.

These are the people that follow us.” I then got some leverage to have a conversation with you about being able to help build on your business, rather than remove some quality to your business. And that's really what I want to do. We want to take a collaborative approach. And to do that we've taken an approach that we're going to build our brand. First, we're going to gain variance to what we're doing, we're gonna get a groundswell of support, and then move it forward. And that was a really powerful piece for us to try to achieve. Just the fact that I had that conversation with that kelp farmer was kind of like a seminal moment. It's like I've achieved a little bit of what I wanted to do and being a disruptor in the aquaculture industry.

So that was fascinating. The other thing that we've been doing is testing out some of our hypotheses. So I think you briefly mentioned or alluded to Ocean Care Bonds. So that's really the first milestone and that came about from the original idea of Carbon Kapture, which was, "are people prepared to put a higher power on the regenerative power of nature? Are they prepared to invest in ocean-based and nature-based solutions?" So we were meant to have Ocean Care Bonds in the beginning of December, I massively underestimated how difficult it is to mobilise a part-time team.

The only full-time person in the team is me. And my business partner, who does an incredible (big shout out to Dave Walker Nix) job of managing two jobs, managing his actual job and then his Carbon Kapture job. So we tested out Ocean Care Bonds back at the end of December. So it was meant to be for Christmas, but we managed to get it out on the 27th. So we missed the Christmas bump. And what we were doing were in effect selling advanced sales on kelp. We haven't been involved in the water yet and to see if people are prepared to put a higher price on this thing. And also thanks to the wonderful team at Alpha Geeks who put together a brilliant, brilliant digital campaign for us and also Katie Nuttall from Studio Nimble, amazing content that she produced, but we sold out of our Ocean Care Bonds in 20 days. So it was an advanced sale, not in the water, really trying to capture the imagination for 20 days. I'm like okay, that's pretty cool. But then what I really wanted to find out was, what button had I pressed?

It was we had this great campaign and we thought we knew what we're doing. But actually, in real terms, we didn't know what button we pressed to our customers. So I set about to all the customers that said, they were okay with us contacting them for marketing purposes, we contacted them. And what was really interesting was the feedback that we got from the customers. And the first thing was that people have really bored of trees. I just didn't realise that was a thing. But people are really bored of investing in trees.

The second thing that was really interesting was the people really did want to buy into something that was nature-based, the regenerative power of nature, and people really care for the ocean, like super, super care for the ocean and its health. I think there is a growing consensus of understanding that actually, as a species we are derived from the ocean that we came from, we came from apes and gyms. But before that, the evolutionary processes we came from the water, and being able to sort of know that all life came from from the oceans means we really should be taking more care of the ocean. And the final marker was, people wanted practical ways to engage in the topic “climate change,” as a topic is really abstract.

But if you take away the trees, it's a really abstract topic, you can ask people what it is. And there really is a massive swing and understanding. And in part, that's our job at Carbon Kapture to help people understand and interpret the problem in practical real terms, but actually having tangible products and services, practical ways that you can engage makes people feel like they're contributing to solving the problem. And we all know why I say we all know, I think it's i think i think it's a known fact, that groundswell people power is the reason why change happens. And I can hold those markers to sit on more, and Marcus Rashford. Clearly directive leadership, a clear call to action was is all that it takes. And actually, when you do that, effectively, and you've got your marketing on point, you can have some real meaningful impact.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:42

That's amazing. I just let you talk, I didn't want to interrupt you. Because I think it's been such a fascinating journey that you've been on. I want to get into some of the challenges now because I know that you have built this groundswell of support that you talk about. There is a movement behind you. There's definitely energy behind the brand of Carbon Kapture. And it's exciting, like people are excited to hear about you. Tell me about some of the challenges that you're currently facing in the scaling journey of what you're trying to build.

Howard Gunstock 8:11

Yeah. So there are numerous challenges. One, I think this is the one that everyone has, getting, getting the investment. And so we've taken a really long time to get our stuff together. Aside from the ocean care of bonds, which was relatively clear, the challenge is, when you're talking about creating carbon negative products and services, and ecosystem services, that's even more abstract for some people than climate change. I mean, at least it's a word that's banded around.

And when you're right at the edge of all the cutting edge of climate change activities, what you tend to find is that your thinking is a little bit more nuanced to the vast majority of the population. So you've got to dial it back. So being able to describe our products and services clearly in an unambiguous way has been singly the biggest challenge that I've had to have ever had today. Because not only are you describing it, you're also then having to quantify it financially. And that is something that goes into your P&L, and that's what your investors want to know about. And you got to be able to talk to it, in a sense of what does this actually mean in practical terms. So that's been a massive challenge for the company.

One that I'm delighted to say, we are now over Touch Wood. We have our pitch deck together, we have our P&L together, we know what we're talking about with our products and services. And in the last two weeks, we've started to actually announce some of our partnerships and alliances. There's two or three more to come. I'm extremely grateful, by the way, for your support as well with our hackathon which I'm sure we'll come to in a bit. But it's been a really great opportunity for us to test out our thinking. I mean, it's not been easy. And certainly, there's a lot of money in the swear jar. There's a massive amount that's gonna go to charity. We've got that.. And it's been a pleasure to work with my team to be fair, because they've challenged me appropriately to be able to get to where we are.

So now we have, we have our sponsorship packages, which is really a great little thing. We have our consumer products that we're going to be producing when we get to the end of when we get to having biomass, we're going to have our corporate offerings as well for that. And we're mainly operating in animal feed fertiliser, so stimulants, and biochar, which are fantastic, but the idea of being able to sponsor our activities is the thing that really will be to help organisations aligned to the strategy of ocean health and the regenerative power of nature.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:09

It's interesting because I currently participate and volunteer for a steering group with the Hampshire Chamber around Netzero. And typically, the conversation doesn't come to this regenerative side. There's a lot of talk about cleaner energy, and there's a lot of talk about what we are doing to build back better to reduce the use of toxic things and plastics, etc. But there's not a lot of talk about cleaning up what we've already put into the atmosphere, which is essentially where Carbon Kapture has positioned itself.

Howard Gunstock 11:42

Yeah, we are all the Wombles of aquaculture. We'll begin to throw me clean cleaning up the everyday things that people leave behind. There's a lot of words, buzz words, and that seems to come along. So first of regenerative, all it means is it's the next stage from sustaining what we've got. So everyone has a sustainability project. And what's really become apparent when you're at this when I'm at my side of it, I'm not talking about any other perspective. But I'm just saying from my side, sustaining what we've got is only good if everyone participates in sustaining what we've got. In effect, sustainability, in its current form, is like communism. It works in theory. But unless everyone's on board and does exactly the same thing, then what you're going to get is some sustainability having more power than others sustainability and this piece that says that the bigger players will only sustain what is essential, rather than what they're trying to do.

And then there'll be other people who will try to be more sustainable and become more righteous and pious and all that sort of stuff. That's not where we're at. We're on about being able to, in effect, we climate positive, good for the environment and regenerative. The regenerative power of nature is in nature. We have perennials, everything. It will turn around, there'll be a new new season, a new summer, a new harvest, a new crop, and we can play with it. I mean, we can genuinely geoengineer that, to our advantage, it seems so mind numbingly obvious, like soul crushing the obvious that we've had this power all along, and no one's gone, "Oh, that's something we could do." or if they have, it's only been a passing thought, "Why is no one else taking this and running with it so fast?" And I do understand what we're doing, how effective we are as a company.

As we start off, we're going to be like trying to move water in a wheelbarrow. We know that some of the CO2 is going to go over the side, here, there, and everywhere. Got that 100%. But as we refine our skills and capabilities, we'll become more and more effective at removing bad elements from one location and moving it for the betterment of another and that's what it's about balance. You know, as a species, we don't value nature because we've not been trained or programmed or the story isn't about that. The story is about the value of money, wealth, and capitalism, and consumerism, yeah, consumerism.

So then what you’ve got to be able to do is then train the mind into two parts. One is how I become more of a thoughtful person and two how do I then show that thoughtfulness in terms of our planet that's led (not exclusively), and that's a sweeping statement, by those who have the most influence and those who had the most influence or those with money. So those with money need to get on board with this idea. Because otherwise , this is not my thinking, but in 10 years time, if we don't fix this really clearly, in 10 years time, the “in” gift is going to be a personal breathing apparatus.

That's the gift at Christmas. We don't get our stuff together right now, you know, Darth Vader. You won't know that you're walking into it into a carbon dioxide pocket, you won't know you're walking into a hydrogen pocket or, or a nitrogen pocket, or a methane pocket, it will just be there. There's no Batman, funny coloured smoke stuff going on, it will be the same colours you're looking at now, it's completely trashed completely invisible. And we will know that's really what we've been facing for the past 10 years, you're going to be talking about complete breakdown of all those chains and when those ecosystems break down, they don't come back. So we have to do this now. What sustainably should be is about doing the right thing.

And what it shows is we're not about doing more than the right thing. Businesses need to do more than the right thing, because they haven't. Any industry hasn't done the right thing for a really long time in a few. Half a few have put the Planet in their heart and they've been the outliers. And thanks to them, change is possible. But the vast majority need to do more than the bare minimum. The bare minimum isn't one there. It's got to be a lot.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:57

So I want to move us now to fixing some of the challenges that you have. So I know that you have just built this energy behind the hackathon that's coming up. I want you to share with my audience about the hackathon, and how they can get involved.

Howard Gunstock 17:15

Absolutely, thank you. Yes. So it's really one of the one of the really beautiful things about Carbon Kapture and the way that we've positioned ourselves and the way that we've had so many graduates, postgraduates, PhD students, just literally give us the academic research in my inbox. I have got something like 100- 150 years worth of academic insight. It's amazing. And I'm massively grateful to those people for giving me their abstracts. Please don't give me any more info in the abstract. I don't have the brain capacity to handle it. But yeah, anyway, it's been brilliant, it's really helped shape some of our thinking of our products and services.

So we're massively grateful. And we understand that part of the reason that someone was giving us that was in the hope that maybe we could give them a job. And we're a small business, we don't have a lot of money. So at the moment, we're not in that position. But that feeling of someone paying it forward to us is something that I feel is really important to our business. It feels like the right thing. If you're studying Ecology, or Biology or Sustainability or related disciplines, you're doing it because you have a passion for it. It would be like a crime that you study a STEM degree, and then you go into a completely unrelated discipline in business or something else. And all that knowledge that you've got isn't wasted, but it's not channelled into a way that will benefit us as a society. And that's something that's got me in this whole lockdown and COVID-19 thing where opportunities for graduates has become more and more sparse, has played on my mind massively, and played on the team's mind.

So the idea of the hackathon is that it actually solves a myriad of things. So we have some great ways of solving our business, our business problems. And these are ideas that have been thought of by a bunch of middle-aged people, men, women, you know exactly that have sold some things. And okay, we've got a handful. But what we don't have is we don't have all the ideas that come out from the people who are right at the cutting edge. So with our hackathon, we'll solve a couple of business-related problems that will either build on what we've already got, or give us a completely new idea, or potentially give us some stuff for the parking lot later on. Some great ideas are going to come out. But what we really want to do is use that as a platform for good.

So we're going to film it, we're going to stream it, and we're going to sandwich some adverts in it. And we've got some, we've got some amazing sponsors. So big shout out to you for offering to be a sponsor, thank you very much. Also to }getabstract, Jabra, The Applied Negative Energy Centre, and also avery + brown, who have done an amazing job on sort of helping our, our marketing. Thank you very, very, very much to all of our wonderful sponsors of our hackathon. So the idea is that we will film this and then we're gonna put people into groups of five, and we'll advertise it to potential employers.

So if you're looking to hire a graduate in a Sustainability, Ecology, Biology, Marine Engineering, field, or any other related discipline, we're going to have 25 of the best graduates that we can find. And we're gonna let them have an informal assessment centre, where we give them the problem, they showcase their soft skills, their communication skills, their presentation skills, and problem solving skills. And you can look at it for free, we're not charging anything for it. And we do an introductory service to the rights of some of those graduates, on behalf of the employer that's also non cost as in, we're not going to charge anything for that, because we want those companies that are looking at them to look at us as a company. We are also offering, you know, those people that probably can be looking at possibly looking potential sponsorship for some of our activities.

But we're also using the hackathon, to advertise to investors as well, people who may want to co-own a farm or invest in Carbon Kapture. And we're going to try and put on this show, this show of ideas and good stuff from people right at the cutting edge. You know, we're not talking about the policy and procedure business. We're talking about practical applications to help people engage with climate change because what would be more powerful than helping a load of students who have a vested interest or ex-students have a vested interest in sustainability getting themselves meaningful jobs in industries that value their skill set. That is such a powerful thing to be able to offer. And I think we'll get some stuff out of that as well. But more importantly, we get jobs to pay it forward. And that really, that fits in our ethical compass really well.

Katherine Ann Byam 22:28

Now. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Howard. So just remind everyone again, when your hackathon starts, and how they can sign up.

Howard Gunstock 22:35

The application window is still open. I found a lot of really great graduates. But I'd like some more, please. Employers, you can all register, by the way. So you can find this at carbonkapture.org/hackathon. If you're not an employer, graduate investor or sponsor, you can still watch it. There's an

Eventbrite ticket link for that. It's free. If you are, then you just register an interest at the relevant Google Doc that we've got. We've got Google Doc for graduates, we've got Google docs for employers, we've got Google docs for investors to sort of help people and we'll send you an invite and a link to the event and a hold the date and all that sort of stuff. And then we're just going to stream it on LinkedIn live. We're going to stream it on Facebook and YouTube. And we're just gonna have a lot of fun with it. So yeah. Perfect.

Katherine Ann Byam 23:35

Thank you so much for joining the show.

Howard Gunstock 23:37

Thank you so much for having me. Have a wonderful day. Cheers.

037 So You Want To Build A Business

About this Episode

"Abundance is a lie, but it doesn’t have to be. We can all thrive on this planet, but it’s going to need us to rethink how we design our lives and the planet.”

Welcome to season 3 of Where Ideas Launch, where we explore how we build a better planet, one small business at a time. This is series is a guide to small and medium-sized eco businesses or green tech businesses.

Katherine Ann Byam is a consultant and strategic partner to leaders in SMEs on sustainability, resilience and business transformation.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 00:25

I got started in earnest on my sustainability journey in a classroom in Grenoble, France, the year was 2015. The topic was innovation, and frugal innovation to be precise. And the principles of frugal innovation were not actually foreign to me. My mother practiced them all her life. In fact, so much of who she was and still is, has become more precious to me as I navigate and build my services to support sustainable and impact-driven entrepreneurs like myself. Businesses continuously design new solutions for problems that come with an increase in price, but not always with an increase in value.

We've built a machine that's designed to make a few rich, and others, to keep them rich. In some countries, we don't really have a history of doing business any better. We move from the property of the crown to the property of the Lords and Ladies to the property of the privateers, pirates and the independent land owners that arose after the New World was discovered. Yet there are examples of designing social systems that work for business and society. So why don't we spend some time trying to study these?

This podcast is about addressing the problem of “how do we do business better?” not just taking a netzero box without substance behind it, without considering the social side of the story. So follow me down this road to build a better and greener business. When I started, they considered that there was no resource where I could find the complete big picture, the how to land firmly on my feet, as a sustainable business-minded person. There are pockets of information for sure, specializations in one domain of one area of the job, or another, but the experience of being an entrepreneur is not specialized or siloed and the challenges of being sustainable throughout your offer and your operations requires systemic and more integrated thinking.

Most entrepreneurs start solo or with a small team, and have jobs with multiple facets. To be successful, you need enough exposure across all the various aspects of the business that you're building, so that you can be prepared for the relentless stream of decisions you need to constantly make. Decision fatigue is absolutely real. In particular, when operating from a place of low trust. Low trust happens when brands, suppliers and service providers greenwash what they are doing. We don't want to be caught in a greenwash affiliation. If we are working hard to build an ethical reputation. So we need to do the checks and the disclaimers, to make sure that who we're working with stands up to the values that we ourselves have.

When I understood what this journey was going to be like, I began to prepare a manual to walk with me as I step through all the hurdles along the way. I wanted to solve the problem of where to start, and what to consider for the millions of people who want to make a positive impact but are overwhelmed by all the things that just come up. I wanted to create sign posts to great resources, templates, maps, and a navigation system to find the triple bottom line that's good for the planet, good for the people, and let's face it, what you need in your pocket. You're likely a specialist in an area, and you want to trade either a service or a product, or software as a service, perhaps in your zone of genius, while having a net positive impact on the world around you to round it off.

If you intend to start as a solopreneur, get prepared to be uncomfortable in your first six months, as you figure out the market, consumers, their behaviors and how to serve them better. More often than not, the product you start with is not the one that will make you ultimately successful. You also need to be prepared to pivot and reshape your offer as many times as needed for as long as it takes. I'm starting with the fundamentals and building forward from there.

Katherine Ann Byam 04:25

This episode and season is going to be a guide, but the workbooks that will come alongside it at the end of the season will really help you to personalize this for yourself and make the best use of what you're learning. It is widely acknowledged in the scientific community that we are in the Anthropocene epoch, where the activities of mankind have the most important impacts on the evolution of our planetary systems. The evidence for being in a new epoch has been building since the 1700s, but became clear in statistical records post the 1950s. What changed in the 1950s, is that we became a world with no wars, women contributing more equally to the economy and to growth, democracy and capitalism, and perhaps the most impactful of all mass marketing and advertising and increased use of synthetic Parliaments.

Most experts believe that given the boundaries of current tipping points to irrevocable climate change, we have between 10 and 15 years to radically change the way we operate in order to maintain the stable conditions that have led to the exponential growth that we have seen. The nine tipping points that you need to know about are the Amazon rainforest and preventing savanafication, and drought and converting that forest into a net carbon producer. We really need to look at that and make sure that it doesn't happen or it doesn't happen any more than it already has. Then we have the Arctic sea ice, and preventing the full melt that we now expect to happen during summertime. Atlantic circulation slowing down, is happening as a result of the other tipping points being shifted. So, the increased sea ice into the ocean is creating that slowdown in the current span.

The boreal forest decline, caused by fires and past changes, is also an area of concern. Coral Reef bleaching has been occurring everywhere on the planet at this point in time. And the Greenland ice sheet melting is another area of great concern. All sorts of permafrost thawing everywhere that it is can expose us to risk that we have not even understood yet. And the West Antarctica and East Antarctica ice sheets and the other final areas of tipping points that we need to be aware of. What this implies is that we need to make radical shifts, cutting your annual carbon footprint in both your personal and professional life by half every year is a start. But can we do it? I talk about these things because we need to understand when we get into business that it's not just for us.

When we get into business today, we need to think about our impact down the road, and how we're going to be influencing what happens for our kids for the next generation and for this blue earth that we all love. So I wanted to create that setting, but I also want to create another setting for you, which is a bit about the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Okay. So beyond the Climate, the climate has other tipping points that haven't even been discussed yet, which is around the other aspects of social life. The UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals captures these very well.

They are: no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work, and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure, reduce inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace, justice, and strong institutions and partnerships for the goals. Of all of these platforms to leverage for change, which of these are impacted by your business. It is possible that your business has both positive and negative impact on more than one of these goals. The first thing to do is to know which. Can you articulate the impact, and in the long run, will you be able to measure the impact that you're having. Even if you've already started in business.

This series aims to provide a supporting guide to position yourself to create the positive impact you want to, and to articulate it over time. There's also tremendous opportunity. We are all today creators and designers of a new economics, and a new way of interacting with the planet. The dominant solutions are, how are we able to convert to renewable sources of energy, how can we rewild and regenerate in nature and in our lives. How can we generate novel designs and creativity towards some of the solutions and problems that we face? And how do we use artificial intelligence, as well as bio engineering and technology to change the game. The growth of green tech solutions and advances in artificial intelligence can be truly transformational if well-guided in the context of complexity, and the risk we face as the dominant species on this planet.

This episode was brought to you today by vehicle Business Growth club by Katherine. And by the space where ideas. Eco Business Growth club supports positive impact SMEs with coaching and community support to achieve the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where it is launched on Instagram following the hashtag, where it is across all of your social Media.

036 Decency & Equity

About this Episode

Katherine Ann Byam MBA, FCCA, is a Business Resilience Coach and strategic partner to leaders on sustainability, leadership and digital transformation for marketing and operations.

This episode of the podcast covers Sustainable goal #8 Decent Work and Economic growth, a common thread of the podcast.

Katherine examines:

• Equality vs Equity

• Brewed Indecency

• The International Labour Organisations take on Decency

• And contracts that favour the larger of 2 entities

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:01
Equality versus equity, I'm about to head off on vacation. But a few things have happened in the last weeks that have prompted me to record one more podcast before I take off to the coast of Cornwall without any access to my phone or my apps.

I'm really looking forward to this. But before I come to the many topics I want to discuss, I feel the need to bring us all on the same page on equality versus equity. There's a super popular meme that shows a father, a teenager and a toddler, looking at a game over a fence equality is represented by each having the same size of box to stand on. Yet the toddler still can't see the match.

Equity is represented by each having the size of crate or box relevant to enabling them the same experience. Now in another meme, they show a third option of this equation, which is capitalism where the fence is raised so that neither of them can see and so that they pay to have a seat in the stands. And yet another meme, there's a fence instead of a wall, where everyone can see through it. And this is labelled justice.

Now the point I really want to make here is that everyone you knew and everyone I knew once for basic things, respect, reassurance, recognition, and a sense of responsibility. When we act out of integrity, or out of alignment with any of these things, well, we are brewing in decency.

So speaking of brews, let's talk about BrewDog. For a moment, I've been following and watching James Watt for more than a year. And I've used his presence, his branding his public relations on LinkedIn, as an example for many of my clients, and how to show up consistently with a message that everyone resonates with. The company has supported the NHS, they've pledged to be carbon neutral, and from the outside, they're punching way above their weight and the impact that they are creating or have created on LinkedIn.

There's no reason to believe from the open letter that good and positive things haven't been achieved at the company. But at what cost and are these costs justified? Before we assess the cost, I want to look at what decent work means in reference to goal number eight of the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Now there are four overarching ideas that we can bite our teeth into.

These are dignity, equality, fair income, and safe working conditions. Those four ideas are backed by three fundamental principles rights, inclusivity, and protection. Now, decent work is a key thread in this podcast and the work I do in sustainability consulting. So in both in treat, and invested in what is unfolding in this story, all of the principles, tenets and ideas here are subjective measures that leave a lot of room for GRI. The UN, for example, mentions equality and non equity.

So we can even poke holes in the concept of itself. But all of floored by our inability to measure them. So no matter what words we choose, we still have a problem of measurement. The only reasonable way to measure if dignity exists, if fair wages exist, if respect exists, or even recognition exist, or any of the other examples is to have full transparency.

This means all the data being available, so everyone can interrogate it, we can all do the comparison, and we can all assess whether this exists. And then we need to be able to severe everyone on their perceptions of whether or not these conditions are being met. Transparency, unfortunately, remains an occlusion. Now let's get back to BrewDog. We have largely lost connection with the original founders of large companies in FMCG industries.

And it's perhaps easier to treat the company as the external presence that works to its own culture and rhythm that we don't assess, you know, largely I have lived and experienced my career as believing in this idea of a company in a culture that I could believe in. And I know many of us do.

But this idea of a company isn't real, it is all created, it is all perceived, and it is created by the people who found it and who run it. When a business is found to run. There's much more tied up in the public perception and the perception of the founder personally. This is usually inextricably linked from the company. What the open letter refers to as the cult of personality is therefore unsurprising.

All the way didn't speak to its veracity I've never worked there. But what the employees have described is not an experience uncommon to employees in many companies, if you read Glassdoor reviews, but when you build your brand on a foundation, you have to make sure that that foundation is well embedded. Public Relations starts with who, why, what? And the stories behind the founders and the founding story of the brand. A good publicist understands what the business owner wants to create and where it comes from. From this perspective, I consider the BrewDog public relations team to be exemplary. What appears to be missing is an alignment between the vision and the actual reality.

But as James rightly said, my fault he takes responsibility for the culture of the company. I also have tremendous respect for this paragraph where he says in his response, it's hard to hear those comments, but it must have been harder to see them. We appreciate that. And we will endeavour to honour that effort and courage with a real change of deserves. We aren't going to make excuses. We're going to take action. From our commitment to sustainability to a passion for bear BrewDog has always been defined by taking responsibility and continually improving, this is no exception.

Now it took a bit of a public bollocking and rolling over the coals as they say, to acknowledge a need to listen and to change. But we do have to celebrate this outcome for people who are working toward decent work in the world. I really want to congratulate the punks with Cooper's organisation for what they've done not just for BrewDog employees, but for employees everywhere, who need the courage to say enough is enough. And I'm going to take a stand.

So many employees around the world and indeed the UK are not free to speak their minds and have become slaves to their golden handcuffs and their lack of belief that they can start a new career or give up some of the comforts they have come to enjoy, because of indignities that they have suffered. To James what I see that we are all watching.

We are also rooting for you to set an even greater example than you've done with your public relations to what you will now do to transform your organization's internal culture so that the values of decency tribe shine right true. Beyond James and the BrewDog. travesty, the International Labour Organisation explains the challenges we face globally on the decent work front employment growth since 2008, has averaged only 0.1% annually compared with 0.9%.

Between 2002 1007 Over 60% of all workers like any kind of employment contract, fewer than 45% of wage and salaried workers are employed on a full time permanent basis. And even that share is declining. By 2019, more than 212 million people will be out of work up from the current 201 million and 600 million new jobs need to be created by 2030. Chess to keep pace with the growth of the working age population. Now, these stats are a bit dated, but they're still relevant.

So what do we do? Well, many of us start businesses and season three of this podcast is going to be all about building a business from the ground up going from idea to see you. But starting businesses is also not the full answer because the exam question is much bigger than this. How do we balance what we need for the well being of people, plants, pets and other organisms on the planet in such a way that we achieve a sense of belonging, of contribution of personal and vocational growth, and of economic growth, because we all perceive this as a necessary thing.

We can debate this. Now this is the challenge that we face in levelling up those who are not having a decent quality of life, and those who have more than what they need. Now, before I close, I want to speak about something closer to home for me. A few weeks back, a small but still significant consultancy, started discussions with me to join them as an associate on their team. You know, initial conversations, the CEO of the company joked, let's sign the contract and put it in a dark place never to be looked at again.

Contracts are complicated little beasts, and they are generally not needed in good times. It's when times get bad that they become the first thing anyone reaches for. To suggest, therefore, that a contract is something that could sit in a dark place never to be looked at again, is a mark of professional disrespect. And as such, I was pretty sure I knew how this relationship would turn out.

As I could already tell we had different values. I received a 35 page contractual document assigned from this company stipulating our rights. Yet none of these terms favoured me or acknowledged the unique skills I honed on my own before encountering this company skills that they do not currently have. Still unlikely The previous time I received the contract of this nature, I decided not to simply throw the contract in the Delete bin along with the relationship. But instead I chose transparency.

And there's that word again, I chose to disclose what I would be doing with this document, before I considered signing it. I advised this guy, that there were a few clauses that were not satisfactory to me, and that I'd have my lawyer check it because I didn't want to misspeak. I received no response from that meal. My lawyers no spring chicken, it took her 30 minutes to hone in and respond to the red flags in the contract.

She told me the following. I have reviewed the agreement and do find that more one sided than normal, and answer to your question, there is no guarantee of any work or even if the rate of PII, they reserve the right to reduce the fee from the scheduled periods if they have a business need or a given a client volume discount or a bulk discount, and you have to wait over a month for payment. You're giving up the intellectual property in what you work on, and provide for them, and you be restrictions, you have to give them longer notice when they gave you and you were bearing the risk and liability if something goes wrong.

I asked the owner about his willingness to negotiate and that my lawyer would like to mock up some revisions on a Word version of the contract. And his response was this, I have reflected on our exchanges and your request to edit our contract and negotiate in quotations on its tunes. I think it best if we pause our relationship for now, my sense is that you expect a far more formal relationship than we are used to. We have never operated like this in over 20 years. And it does not feel right to start a relationship on such a formal footing. Now,

I wish you the very best of luck in your endeavours and perhaps we can pick up a discussion at another time. Dude, I will tell you this, without an apology for your disrespect, there will be no other time. Many people signed contracts like these because they are scared of not being able to take care of their family of not getting another opportunity elsewhere, of not being able to show up the way they need to. And to get the great opportunities that are perhaps just a stretch away. I am not that person. The first thing in any relationship for me is whether or not my fundamental core values can be upheld in that relationship.

My fundamental core values are rooted in freedom, equity and decency. When these are not present, no feasible working relationship as possible. It's that simple. If you want to make changes, you need to be prepared to speak up and say what's not right with the world around you. Even if it excludes you from that will by default. We don't get to inclusion, by not expressing an opinion that is not inclusion, that is a false sense of let's all go go along with the stream. Alright, so I think I have covered the full spectrum of things related to decent work. If you have any queries on this topic, do feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

I'm always open to connections and conversations. If you've enjoyed this podcast over the past nine months and the last two seasons, do let us know by giving us a rating, reviewing and commenting on the stories that have meant something to you and share with us anyone you believe would be a good fit for the show, and whose views you would like to be represented on the show. One challenge I faced in finding guests is the diversity of the lineup. But I am proud that there is a broad international representation on the show. I urge you to participate connect with me, as I mentioned on LinkedIn, start a conversation because who knows where that conversation may lead. Thank you for listening to these past two seasons.

And we're coming in just two weeks with a full season three of the show. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you today by career sketching with Katherine Ann Byam and the space where ideas launch. Career sketching is a leadership development and coaching brand offering personalised career transition and transformation services. This space where ideas launch offers high performance, leadership coaching and strategy facilitation to businesses in the food and health sectors. To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn

035 The Ink Bin

About this Episode

Becky Baines is a teacher and single mum to two enthusiastic young boys, living is North Essex. She established her eco-fundraising business, The Ink Bin, in 2019 as a direct result of trying make an impact towards issues of climate and recycling as well as raising valuable funds for schools and charities across the UK. She now works tirelessly to save home-use ink cartridges from landfill and, to date, has recycled approximately 30,000 products destined for landfill.

Becky has stuck firm to her teaching roots and produces a wealth of free, downloadable resources for young people interested in environmental matters. Her latest project is encouraging busy teachers to set up Eco Councils or Eco Clubs within schools by giving easy step-by-step weekly resources and ideas as well as starting points for weekly discussions in schools.

With twenty years of working in schools, Becky recognizes that young people are in an excellent position to create new routines at school and at home which will have a lasting environmental impact as well as hopefully reaching a more mindful life.

The business which she has created works on a Community level, whereby schools; charities and plastic-free groups can place The Ink Bin within a local area and collect home-use ink cartridges on a wider scale. This is increasingly relevant now that 67% of us say we intend to remain working from home at least part of the time post-Covid19. Most of the products sent to The Ink Bin can be refilled and thus reenter the Circular Economy- the ideal environmental solution. This model allows The Ink Bin to give money back for certain cartridges and schools have raised anything up to £550 on an individual basis in the past year.

Becky’s latest campaign has seen businesses place The Ink Bin within their offices to collect employees’ home-use ink cartridges as they move to a more split working routine between office and home. One of the latest national businesses to sign up have placed Ink Bins across their regional offices in support of the homeless charity Emmaus UK. Businesses are asked to sponsor The Ink Bin installation and then services are free after that; with the freedom to choose their own charity of choice.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:02

Becky, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Becky Baines 0:44

Hello, welcome. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Katherine Ann Byam 0:56

Wonderful to have you, Becky. Why is it important that we address ink disposal in your view? Why is this such a passion for you?

Becky Baines 1:04

And I think obviously, we're on a journey where we need to be thinking about everything we use. But I think for me, ink is something that is an essential part of our lives that we can't do without and at present technology means that it still has to be in plastic. And the other thing about ink is the fact that they are actually so easy to recycle. They are likened to a refillable water bottle. So as long as they go into a factory, they can be refilled up to six times. So for me, it's about spreading the word to people that it's okay and very, very easy to recycle them. It's also something that we're selling so much of in the UK. We're selling 45 million units every year and 80% of those go straight into landfill, which is just unnecessary.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:55

Well, that's a really big number. Yeah, tell me a little bit about where you have these services available now in the UK and how your business is set up?

Becky Baines 2:06

We started off mostly focusing on schools and charities. So I created the ink bin as such, which is a lovely cardboard bin, which gets personalised for each individual organisation that works with us. We started by sending out ink bins across schools, charity shops, various different places, and the local community would then bring their ink cartridges and drop them in. As we grow, we're getting more and more interest from local councils, retail outlets, chains, and all sorts who are keen to actually put the ink bin across all of their different stations.

Katherine Ann Byam 2:48

And what's been the biggest struggle for you and getting all this going? I can imagine you've had a few.

Becky Baines 2:54

We've had a few, I think keeping the resilience going. I think COVID really was difficult for us. And as it was our second year of business as well. It was just keeping the faith that actually we are doing something really special and to keep going. And it's proven that the last few weeks actually since things are opening up more. All of a sudden the business is going where I very much hoped it would be. But I think it has been that resilience to keep going on the days when we're working so hard and you keep having the message that we love what you're doing. But we can't do it with you because of COVID.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:37

Yeah. And how have you balanced this with your teaching life? I can imagine that's also complicated.

Becky Baines 3:42

Yeah, it is. So I still teach every morning. And I do that via zoom now. And I have a wonderful student who I work with. But yes, it's been a real struggle to balance everything. And especially because anybody who knows me will know I'm so passionate and enthusiastic that I take on every new project that comes my way. So really, I guess what has fallen by the wayside is any sort of personal life or time for myself.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:13

And how are you incorporating this into the teaching work that you do?

Becky Baines 4:22

I think I try and incorporate it into the teaching, but I think it's been the other way around more so that the teaching has completely impacted the journey The Ink Bin has taken and we do tireless work with schools. And we're very, very set up to work with schools because I understand what busy places they are. So I make the systems very much fit into them rather than having to fit in around us, but also working tirelessly with educating young people on matters of sustainability. We produce weekly newsletters for anyone who wants to read them, but they talk to really five to eighteen year olds. And I am at the moment on the committee for the Eco culture Stir Festival, which is happening in September, running the educational side of things. So I think it's a case of once a teacher, always a teacher, and I think anybody who starts to look into the business will see that it has had a huge impact on how the event runs.

Katherine Ann Byam 5:26

And you mentioned that but what is your team like?

Becky Baines 5:31

The team is very small, it was very small. And I say we because actually at the moment it is pretty much me and my two fabulous children who spend their lives groaning that we have to go out to another event, or mommy has to sit and go on another zoom call. And we are in the process of getting a kickstart with an employee, which I'm thrilled about, and in the process, also of looking to employ some young people around the local area to help with the educational provision as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 6:03

That sounds really, really fascinating. Yeah. And, what gets you into sustainable design and the circular economy? What was the inspiration for you?

Becky Baines 6:14

And I think, I think, like so many people, I'm passionate about what's going on in our world and the changes that are happening, and I'm a mom of two young children. I want them to grow up in a beautiful world. So I think when I came across a business that can help the environment, and help schools and charities to fundraise, it was a win-win for me. But then, the more I engrossed myself in the sustainability world and the more that I developed my understanding of the circular economy, the more I’m just hooked. I'm passionate. It's common sense. It's just a wonderful, very, very simple concept.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:00

Yeah, that's brilliant. And in terms of these eco councils and eco clubs, what have you gotten from those so far? How many of those have you been able to implement and how are they progressing?

Becky Baines 7:11

Again, COVID has been such an issue for us. So we have lots and lots of people wanting to be engaged. We work with schools that already have eco clubs, but sadly, haven't really been able to run them. And I think so much of being an eco-club is actually young people getting together and bouncing ideas off of each other or going outside and doing something practical together. At the moment we are just waiting for September. I'm so excited for September to come when I think there's going to be an explosion of environmental understanding and passion. And I'm really really hoping that come September, we can get hundreds of new eco clubs inspired to start up.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:59

Wonderful. And in terms of your, your spread across the UK, how far across the UK. are you now?

Becky Baines 8:06

Oh, it's funny. I was asked this question the other day, and I realised we have ink bins in all four corners of the UK. We're not so much in Ireland at the moment, but we have them up in Glasgow and Dumfries. We have them in Abergavenny. We're on the east side. So there's lots and lots in the east-end region. And we're down as far as Devon and Cornwall as well. So everywhere which is wonderful.

Katherine Ann Byam 8:32

And are you thinking about collaborating wider to get more into like Ireland or you know?

Becky Baines 8:39

Absolutely, absolutely. We would absolutely love to work with anyone that we can work with completely.

Katherine Ann Byam 8:48

And what would you say to other entrepreneurs who are starting a purpose-driven mission? So for example, I run a community of 2400. I think it grows every day with women in sustainable business who are trying to make an impact wherever they are. What would you say to them in terms of continuing this journey?

Becky Baines 9:07

I think resilience has been a huge thing for me, but I also think believing in what you're doing is the hugest thing. Last year, June COVID, there were so many times when I sat with my head in my hands thinking, why am I carrying on with this when my poor children aren't getting me? I could be spending this time playing a board game with my children. But it was the belief that I was doing something really special that kept me going. And I also think that we're in such an exciting time with sustainability at the moment that things are moving on so rapidly. That it's not a daunting prospect to immerse yourself in it and learn and become knowledgeable very, very quickly. I'm speaking with so many people at local councils and other organisations at the moment who are only just beginning of understanding what the circular economy really is. So I would say to anybody who is interested in sustainability that it's not too late to join the party. It's an exciting time.

Katherine Ann Byam 10:26

And I noticed that your business model involves the charity space as well. So tell me a little bit about how you're managing the financing and getting all this stuff working. Tell me a little bit about that. Because it's also interesting for a lot of people.

Becky Baines 10:40

Yeah we are able to because certain cartridges have got some value, we're able to give money back to charities. We started this with very, very little investment, a little bit of investment from my family. And other than that, we have worked on an absolute shoestring. And I jokingly say that we've been a cottage industry, but we live in a little cottage on the edge of Essex, and there have been ink cartridges all over my house for the last two years. And I think we've been very careful with how and when we've grown, we now have a large office space. But we didn't take that on until we knew we could afford it. We're now at the stage where we can afford to take on a member of staff but we haven't run too quickly.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:30

Yeah, that's great. And have you had support from local bodies? Have you had support from councils, for example, or other government grants?

Becky Baines 11:40

No. We haven't, sadly. We've been looking into it. But I'm not as of yet. We're trying to get some sizable grant opportunities and I think that is in the pipeline. But very much it's been running as a very small business and building organically. We have had interest from local councils who are wanting to buy our ink bins and gift them out to the schools. We actually have just launched with sustainable schools. Leicester who bought 14 bins from us and then gifted them to 40 schools in Leicester. And I'm hoping that will grow as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 12:21

Okay, that's interesting. Who are the suppliers that are contributing the most to your ink recycling stock?

Becky Baines 12:41

We work with lots and lots of groups. And the one thing that I think is quite unique about us and not the most entrepreneurial thing, but certainly the most sustainable thing that we do is we will accept any home use cartridge even if they are not profitable for us, which then actually appeals to wider groups such as Terracycle groups, and particularly environmentally friendly schools who have already maybe been down the journey and been doing in cartridge recycling for a long time, but they choose to come to us because we will accept a cartridges such as an Epson cartridge or a Brother cartridge. And we also don't provide the plastic envelopes which a lot of the more sustainable groups we work with like. So I would say one of the big groups that we've had nice success with is people passionate about plastic, people wanting to do the recycling strains. And the added bonus for them is that they can make some money for their group out of it.

Katherine Ann Byam 13:48

Alright, I think I'm going to ask the question slightly differently because it's an interesting answer. And I might need to go back and edit my question. But when you think about Epson and Brother and stuff like that, who's the biggest contributor to that stock of recyclable cartridges? Then basically what can you do with them? So let me ask it again, right. Okay. So which company contributes the biggest stock of recyclable ink cartridges for you and have you considered working with them?

Becky Baines 14:25

And at the moment, about 60% of what comes through are Canon and HP. About 20 to 30% of that of our overall stock are the inkjet cartridges which we can refill and give money back for. We also have an awful lot of Epson cartridges come through. And other companies such as Brother, Kodak, not quite so much. And we are working towards working with these companies. I actually have had a phone call from a couple of them over the past. As we grow, let's hope that we can work in partnership with them.

Katherine Ann Byam 15:03

I think that would be a really good strong message as well. Getting that responsibility to look back, it's all part of the circular model anyway.

Becky Baines 15:14

It's an absolute joy. Yeah. And the more joined-up thinking what we can all do is for the greater good, isn't it?

Katherine Ann Byam 15:21

Wonderful, really good. Thank you so much, Becky. And if you have any closing words or last advice that you want to give to my listeners about either getting involved in this space or continuing?

Becky Baines 15:33

I think the biggest thing that I'm passionate about is engaging young people. So we now have two websites, we have theinkbin.co.uk and we have theinkbinschools.co.uk. I would encourage anyone with children in their lives or young people in their lives to head over to the website and have a look at the newsletters and other resources. They're all completely free. We do it out of love rather than profiteering. And just please have a look. Contribute if you would like to and let us know your thoughts.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:04

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you

034 Sustainable Supply and Sourcing

About this Episode

Using the TECK method to improve your supply chain sustainability and resilience, from our host Katherine Ann Byam, Business Resilience Strategist & leadership Coach.

TECK Stands for Transparency, Energy, Circularity and Knowledge. Tune in to learn more, and share your thoughts with us! We are on instagram @whereideaslaunch

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:01

Today's session is about sustainable supply and sourcing. And before I get into what we could be doing to solve this problem of sustainable supply and sourcing, I need to tell you why this matters.

Now, we are using resources at 1.7 times their rate of natural regeneration. We have become less efficient at converting those resources that we extract from the ground than we were, let's say in the 1980s compared to today. And part of this is because we have changed the source of supply. Most of the world aspires to be at the level of wealth of let's see, for example, the US.

Now as people aspire to have more and to grow more in terms of wealth on an average scale, we're going to demand more of those resources than we have in the past. Climate change will also render many places uninhabitable, starting, let's say in the 2040s, to 50s. And this will invoke mass migrations and a number of other economic and social challenges that we expect will emerge. Technology can give us solutions if we use it in the right way. And there are also projects underway all around the world to rewild nature in some form or fashion in order to get us to a point where we can move the needle on what we've been putting into the atmosphere in terms of carbon with a very, very urgent timescale for change that we need to commit to.

A lot of customers are becoming more savvy. So as we get into the marketplace, we're starting to see a greater demand for a greater need for knowledge around things that are sustainable. I think customers since the global pandemic, have really started to reflect on what it means to them to live on this planet. The recognition that there's only one blue planet that we have that we can currently inhabit makes this need to do something that much more urgent.

We have also seen things like vaccine capitalism come under real attack because still, we are developing the world and we're developing this planet on the notion of nation-states, where the situation that we're in today, it's so globally interconnected that some of these decisions can no longer be taken on a national level. realistically. Yes, we can still take it on a national level. But will we have the impact? Will we have the same efficacy if we take decisions on a nationalist level?

So these are questions that consumers are starting to ask. Now, in some countries, there are no furlough protections like we have in some of the Western countries. So there's no social protection around the issues that have emerged from the pandemic, including the loss of jobs, the loss of tourism, etc. Now, wealth inequality is rampant and growing.

There are something like 2700 billionaires who own enough to be the biggest country by GDP. And it's only getting worse. The number of people that represents 2,700 billionaires is less than .0005% of the planet. Netflix has been doing a great job of educating people around the topics of sustainability, with independent films such as “Seaspiracy” and “Cowspiracy.” And there've also been a number of interesting films on Amazon, for example, “Living the Change.” And what these are doing is creating a movement in people's minds that they need to do something different, that they need to be more responsible, and that they need to make different choices about their food, and about their repurchase of things and how many things they want to accumulate, how they dispose of their things.

But we're going to talk a little bit about how we can make our supply chains more sustainable for this purpose so that we can address the needs of our customers. Another anecdote that I'd like to share with you, I was talking to a friend of mine who runs a group on Facebook, and he told me that he started his group, it's called Sustainable Living in 2014, and by 2020, much he had 3000 people in his group by September 2020. He had 65,000 people in his group. Today, he has 75,000 people in his group and this shows that there's been a huge shift of people looking for sustainable solutions groups that have sustainability in their name on Facebook have been growing exponentially.

My own group of women who are running sustainable businesses has grown by 100 a week for the last month. And it's starting to accelerate. So this is really becoming a thing. There are ways for us to go about checking our carbon footprints, etc, as people as individuals, freeways, which is also helping to expand the knowledge and make people more aware.

So now I want to get into exactly what we can start doing in our supply chains to think through this sustainability equation. I think about it as tech. And I will explain what tech means it has four elements to this sustainability puzzle. It is transparency, energy, circularity, and knowledge. And I'm going to go into each of these topics so that you understand what you could be doing differently in your supply chains to make a difference.

The first point you need to know about transparency. It's about making a statement; making a statement to see what you definitively stand by when it comes to elements of the whole sustainability puzzle. Sustainability, as you know, it has many different angles, we can start with the human side of the thing. Are we against modern slavery in all of its forms? Are we paying our workers a living wage? Are people able to survive based on the contracts that we're giving them? Is all contracting fair?

That's a key part of the transparency debate, and we should be having that publicly available on our websites. How is the ratio of CEO pay to the lowest-paid worker in organisatio? What's that ratio like? And how we preserve certain reasonableness with that ratio also dictates how transparent and how respectful we are of the human side of the story. Then we have revealed things about our suppliers themselves. So as we supply, we also have suppliers and our suppliers should also be following some of the rules that we have determined are necessary to be an ethical company. So we need to think also about our suppliers.

We also need to think about the way our products are disposed of. Transparency is about communicating what solutions are there to recycle the products that we sell. Getting into this further, you can go the certification route. And the certification route gives other people, your customers and suppliers etc, an idea of who you are if you have a certification that states basically the rules that you have agreed to comply with. This already goes part of the distance, I say part of the distance because certifications have been challenged through their ability to truly verify what's happening.

There are two certifications that are very popular at the moment in this space, which are the fair trade certification and the B Corp certification. Both of these are useful in terms of progress because they do assess quite a wide variety of topics. You can become certified without having all of the boxes ticked. And this is where these certifications can come in the challenge at times. But the idea is that you set a roadmap for yourself as to the things that you want to accomplish. And as you accomplish them, your ranking will increase. So it's a good idea to get involved with finding good ways to be transparent about the good things that you're doing and also to be transparent about the things that you're still progressing. Both sides are important. It's not just a topic of greenwashing. Now we get to energy. Energy is the second in the tech framework and energy for us. - it's really about where you're sourcing the energy to convert your products, how aware you are about the usage of energy in your organisation, and how efficient you are on the usage of energy and the things like your website. So it's not just about the physical product itself, but it is about what's happening in your offices and your website, how heavy is it to load for customers. All of these things need to be validated and checked before we can see that we are truly energy efficient.

So it's not just about the choice of our energy provider. It is also about how we're returning energy to the system. It's also about how efficient our entire systems are to carry out the work that we asked of it. To see in tech is about circularity and the key question here is how are you sourcing your materials, and can your sources be recycled? And this is essential because we need to be able to communicate to our customers what they need to do to dispose of that product. We also need to think about how we can create a second-hand market for that product. And a number of companies have done this. So they do buy-backs, they do sell secondhand versions of their products. And this needs to be something that we go deeper and deeper and further into, especially if we can make that product more efficient to use in terms of energy. So as much as we can recycle and reuse and change and shift even if it is, you know, scrapping the thing for parts and Using that into the process. Minimising waste is a key part of what we need to do.

Also, using different types of plastics will allow the things to be able to return to the earth, for example, and break down more efficiently as well as being able to reuse them in other products. The other bit of circularity is about your supply chain responsiveness to being able to collect things.

So I have a great business model. Someone I've interviewed on this podcast, the model that she uses is that she gives her product in bottles, and then she's able to collect the used bottles when you make a reorder. All of this is important to your customer, they need to know how to end the life of that product that they've purchased. If you have a circular model designed or some links to other companies who will provide that recycling for you, you need to communicate that. The last letter in the tech framework for supply chain resiliency is knowledge.

Knowledge is about how you're communicating with your employees, your customers, and all your stakeholders about what's key to be measured in your space around sustainability and its goals. So if we think about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and that framework of 17 goals, there's a lot there that we could be sharing and tailoring to our organisation. And this is about real education and real change as opposed to greenwashing. So it's not about CSR and PR featuring what you're doing. Because that comes under real attack. It's about making real changes, communicating but making real changes, and also communicating where you have not yet made changes and what you're planning to do.

This is where we start winning the respect of people who are interested in purchasing our products. So this brings us to the end of the tech framework. I hope that was useful in setting up how you can think about your supply chain for the future. Please follow my future episodes where I will be talking about the supply chain in more detail. Thanks so much for listening.

Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you today by career sketching with Katherine Ann Byam and The Space Where Ideas Launch. Career Sketching is a leadership development and coaching brand offering personalised career transition and transformation services. The Space Where Ideas Launch offers high-performance group leadership coaching and strategy facilitation to businesses in the food and health sectors.

To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn.

033 IP Is Your Business

About this Episode

Gjorgji Rafajlovski (Gogo) is the Operational Director @SEEUTechPark in North Macedonia and an IP Consultant who helps entrepreneurs and innovative startups reach their maximum potential.

With an ongoing 15+ years of a successful career in managing start-up Ccnters, Incubators, Accelerators & TechParks, Gogo has built-up a portfolio as an experienced business consultant & mentor, passionate about technology & brands.

His background includes Operations Management, Startup Investments, Intellectual Property, Business Valuation, Innovative Growth. When he’s not supporting a world-changing start-up business, he loves outdoor sports!

We discussed how tech parks support start ups, the importance of IP, and we debated open innovation. Have a listen!

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Connect with Gjorgki

Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:00

GoGo Welcome to where it is lunch. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. I really want to understand all about cu tech Park, and what you've been doing in North Macedonia. Tell me a little bit about how the tech Park has positively impacted business and startup investment in your country.

Gjorgji Rafajlovski 0:46
Yeah, sure. So basically, the SEEUTechPark story began back in 2013. And it kind of started as a pilot project of the university. By the way, we are a private university overthink the first private university of everything here in North Macedonia. And we, we had this idea to start simulating the startups, the investment potential in and innovations through students and young people here in North Macedonia, and try to boost them into developing new startups and new tech tech businesses that has the potential to grow into change the world we live in. So basically, back in 2013, we kickstarted as a as a pilot project.

And then two years later, we incorporated ourselves as a Technology Park, actually, SeeUTechPark, and we started developing our own internal ecosystem, with men, we can boost our creativity and innovation. And then we became self sustainable actually, even today, we are one of the few organisations that have its sustainability as a as a core business value. And I think that's important because if you if you try to teach, especially young people, and innovators in becoming a real businessman and developing their own business, you should not just talk the talk, but you should also walk the walk. And this this system actually helped us to become more community-based and become more recognisable in our country as one of the few organisations that actually has the potential to commercialise your product and to bring added value.

Through this year, we specialise in many tailor-made services and products. And we kind of became a trademark for something that can be widely recognisable, not just in North Macedonia but in the whole region. And these are the two separate services that we provide. One is startup valuation or a company valuation. We do this as a third party, between investors and startups, wanting to raise money, and then another services, IP. So intellectual property. This is a we think is also something that can be introduced, and it should be introduced to all startups, especially in those startups, talking with investors talking with Parisian partners that want to expand their businesses and to become global players.

So basically, these two services are kind of unique to our ecosystem. And we we kind of added it to our everyday programmes and other services that are more or less equal, like every other technology parkour accelerated through the years. Seven and eight years along the path, I think we have accomplished good results in starting helping young enterpreneurs and startups reach their maximum potential. And nowadays we have helped more than 30 companies from from our country. Actually 13 out of them are still located that our technology, so they're located with our university, and we've created directly more than 150 new technology jobs which are boosting the national economy and the IP system in particular.

Katherine Ann Byam 5:16
This is a wonderful story. And really important to see how these, this innovation that you're doing is helping to grow businesses, not just in North Macedonia, but compared to the entire region as well. So this is fascinating to see, I wanted to ask a little bit more about intellectual property is this is to areas of particular specialisation. And I want to understand why this is important, first of all, and at what stage of development should young startups be getting into IP protection?

Gjorgji Rafajlovski 5:50
Yes, that's a very good question or two questions. I will start with a second one. At what stage do the startups need to think and to implement IP? I would say in the very beginning of developing your product or service, even before you create a company. Why is this because a lot of startups, even nowadays, think that intellectual property is something that you can add on along the path as you're developing your business idea, or a product or a service. But it's, it's not a single event thing.

So basically, intellectual property is something that you think of you plan and you implement during the whole journey of upgrading your startup. Because if you're waiting for the perfect conditions, to draft, to plan, and to implement some sort of IP, it won't happen ever. So basically, you have to start thinking about intellectual property as an asset to a company and to your product or service. So in terms of when they should start thinking about protecting the IP, I would say that even before you launch your product or service, you have to have some sort of IP strategy.

IP strategy is not something that you can immediately protect but see how certain things can develop in the certain way that in the future, you can have your assets and your IP working for you and for your business. Having in mind the first question as tp why it is important, only IP is is the asset that doesn't depreciate over time. So basically, the more you use it, the more value it gets. And the IP is the core thing that your business is unique for. So basically, every other thing that you have, business wise for a startup, let's say the office, the desk, the software, the computer, or a prototype can be easily copied, IP, the core of the IP is your your uniqueness at work, and what you're bringing, as a unique point, to the community and to your customers.

And that's why it is important. Nowadays, globally, more than 80% of all assets worldwide, are IP assets are intangible assets. So basically everything else that we see around us, surrounding every business is less likely to be to be copied if it's IP protected. So that's why I think I'm very pro on on on developing intellectual property that can boost your business, and then can bring unique value to both your product enter your investors, and for sure, you should think of how is the best way to protect it and to to give added value to your product or service.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:36
It's a really important point and very interesting point. And I'm going to challenge you now. And my challenge is that there are some that argue that a more open source approach is better for for innovation, and the greater good. So if we take for example, you know, Elon Musk and what he did with Tesla, or even a more recent example, with the ongoing debate around the COVID vaccines, what are your thoughts on whether or not we should embrace some element of openness when we're creating things that are new and game changing for the planet?

Gjorgji Rafajlovski 10:16
Yes, even nowadays, with the global pandemic, this is a more like, floating or open question that should be answered. But I'm personally very pro of intellectual property and the protection and let's say the benefits used by the system. But let me put it this way, you have this innovation system that somehow should be protected, you cannot have both extremes.

The first extreme is everything should be free, not protected at all. So anybody can use it. And it's another good thing for the free economy and for the in the Premiership. If someone could store your business or a product or a service that you've been researching or investing in for months or years, in the back end, you have this uniqueness, that that you should be able to commercialise it and you should be able to put this on the market and have a have a good return of investment for it. And so basically IP gives you a certain time for your business to commercialise a product or a service and then be the only player in the market for it, protecting you and your investment and your know-how and everything you put into a business for a certain period of time. It's not infinity, but it surely gives you an opportunity to get the investment back.

The other hand, the extreme opposite on the other side would be everything should be protected forever so you couldn't use anything without any approval from inventors. So, basically this is also extreme and it cannot be done, it would also hurt the economy and the inventors. So the perfect balance would be to boost innovativeness, to give people opportunity to patent, to protect, and to invent certain things, but also give give them just enough freedom to be able to commercialise it and not to put a forever mark on their products.

So basically, this is the fine balance between open innovation and too much protected innovation. At the end of the day, I will say that there are very positive towards the system that actually rewards something that is new, that is unique, and that could solve a person or a business problem. And and yes, you have to have a business opportunity to commercialise this kind of inventions in order to keep the wheel spinning.

Katherine Ann Byam 13:26
Yeah. What specifically should we be thinking about when we're starting to think about IP protection? So what things can we protect? And what can we not protect?

Gjorgji Rafajlovski 13:38
Basically, IP protection is very territorial. So you can protect a certain thing on a certain territory. So there is no uniqueness to what you can protect worldwide when we're talking about inventions. When we're talking about copyright, and we're talking about the software, it's pretty much protected from the moment that it has been created. So basically, it's some kind of universal protection.

You can always protect something that is a real invention that is new and is a breakthrough technology and then it has a market potential. People are trying to buy. You cannot protect something that is in plain nature. So basically, without a human intervention, you can protect let's say a plant or something that can be as a natural phenomenon in nature because you don't leave other people the opportunity to use it as it is. So basically something that is invented by people or by a group or by business, and is very unique, and it's something new, then it should be protected and it can be protected by IP rights.

Katherine Ann Byam 15:50
That's a fantastic response. And definitely, I think this is something that we need to get involved with. What do you see as the potential future for SEEUTechPark, and how you expected to transform the Macedonian economy in the future?

Gjorgji Rafajlovski 16:06
Thank you. That is also an interesting question. First of all, I see the development of the Tech Park as a good partner for startups and young innovators. That's for sure. I would see that in the next five years. We can help as many as young enterpreneurs that we can into the journey of commercialising their innovations, not just in this country but in the region and Europe also.

In general, I would like to see the first one of many unicorns from from this country and this region on the startup testing, especially in Europe. But also, I would like to see more investors tapping into this market because here in this region, we have very good talent, very skilled young people that are very opportunistic, and we have great conditions for for establishing and starting businesses.

So I would see ourselves as a good partner in the near future for every entrepreneur and startup. But I would also like to see the textbook, connecting with other hubs and innovation centres in the region, and with other universities, not just here, but also in Europe, and to develop and to bring value to to our clients and potential clients in boosting technology and innovation. Not just in our country, but but worldwide.

Actually, we're here just to promote entrepreneurship as a system and try to develop the new generation of Macedonian enterpreneurs that can go out there and change the world.

Katherine Byam 18:03
It's a great challenge that you have set up for yourself. And thank you for sharing your journey and SEEUTechPark with us. Thanks for joining the show.

Gjorgji Rafajlovski 18:12
Thank you, Katherine. Likewise,

032 Transcending Work

About this Episode

These are the notes from the TED Styled talk I gave at the Bee Inspired Event in April 2021. Enjoy this session.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:01

From what I can tell, we have always believed in stories and narratives woven into the fabric of well-being, and the identity of the society we are a part of. Many societies once thought that the world was flat. This was until philosophers and mathematicians and scientists proved otherwise. Well, for some of us at least. But the process of facilitating this transition of beliefs involved colonisation, slavery, murder, and eventually the reeducation with new stories. There are still tribes in the Amazon forest in Brazil and Venezuela, and other places around the world too to be fair, who believe that children have been fathered by all the lovers a woman takes during her pregnancy. Scientists have proven that this isn't true. But the social impact of that belief meant that all men who had relations with that woman would take a role in that child's upbringing. That child belonged to a community.

For many of us today, we believe that a large house, a powerful car, and the ability to travel in style and in luxury are a sign of success that will attract not only more wealth, but more community and more well-being for us and our families. We believe that we can have infinite growth. We only need to put our minds to it. Growth Mindset they say. But can we really have infinite growth on a finite planet? My name is Katherine Ann Byam and I'm a business resilience strategist and leadership coach, helping leaders design a path to sustainable transformation for their businesses, careers, and lives. I am inspired in particular by one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Goal No. 8 Decent Work and Economic

Growth. And to explain what that means to me, I'm going to have to take you on a trip to 1982 in the suburbs of a tiny island, called Trinidad and Tobago. My parents were typical middle-class boomers who lived a comfortable life in a house with land and space for multiple cars and a garden. My parents did decent work. My dad was a lawyer working for the government. His promotions at the time were primarily based on his time in service. My mom was a High School teacher of Biology and food and nutrition.

My grandparents lived a life more closely linked to nature. My grandmother was not allowed to go to High School, so she lived her life as a homemaker. I never once heard her complain, though. When I was born, my grandfather was already retired. And he was the proud owner of a permaculture regenerative farm. He did not call it that, I assure you, he called it “the garden.” I remember it distinctly. His garden has beautiful fruit trees for as far as my tiny eyes can see. And as an adult, it looks smaller than I remember. But at the time, that place meant the world of adventure to me. He had an area for growing beans and pulses, an area for flowers, an area for chickens to rummage around and to feed off the land. The first time I witnessed a chicken being killed was in that garden.

My granddad would take the chicken and carry it to an area out of the eye range of the other hens and the coop. He would slide the entire chicken into a paint can with a hole at the bottom, and then hold the chicken’s wings and legs in place with that can so he could swiftly separate its head from its body. The chickens don't die immediately with this method. But they also do not suffer for very long. This would probably disturb most five-year-olds who live in cities today. But at the time, although it was difficult to watch, it fit the context in which he lived and in which that chicken lived. My grandfather was a sustainable farmer and sources 40% of his food from his garden. Bread, rice, and fish was still sourced from the grocery. What happened to the chicken felt like a natural part of being on a farm. We eat fresh eggs laid by the chickens who eat a bit of corn and a lot of bugs. My grandfather did decent work. His reward was seeing his garden grow and sharing the fruits of that labour with his family and his neighbours, who in turn also shared the fruits of their labour. Much of the local community with sustainable farmers.

No one would walk past my grandparents while they’re relaxing on their porch in the evenings, for example, without stopping to say hello, having a chat, or coming to collect or to receive or to give food. I'll be honest with you, I didn't know how much I valued that part of my upbringing until very much later.

I wanted to take on the world. When I got my first job at a multinational company, I was earning more money than my mom did. Within a few years, I was earning more than everyone in my family. I was travelling the world and acquiring knowledge of how to make decisions that favour the shareholder of a major corporation.

At one point, I would fly through Miami twice every month, each time asking the travel agent to schedule the connecting flight late enough, so I could take a trip to Dolphin Mall for shopping. My footprint is huge. And even though I donated much of my clothing to charity, I still have four suitcases and Ziploc things that I could hope to wear again. Sure, I have a Finance and Audit background, I prepared financial statements. I sat on the board’s Audit Committee. I travelled to more than 50 International offices to review our business practices. I had decent work and a massive consumeristic appetite. When I joined the company, there were more than 120,000 people globally. By 2010, the number halved.

My grandmother died in 2010. Seven years after my granddad, she was 92. I learned that while I sat quietly on my own in a church in Santiago de Compostela. intervene. I received a voicemail message and I knew instinctively what that message was going to say. At the time, I was actually there because I was beginning to wonder if I made the right decision leaving my family behind for the glamour of life and work in Europe. My view of decent work had begun to fracture.

By 2014. I was on a list, one of those lists that no one likes to be on. There was a list for information and consultancy. There was a chance I would be made redundant. I kept my job. Yet I started to wonder what else I could be doing? That's not this that would bring me more joy, and be better for the planet. Work is decent if you as the individual believe that it is. My grandfather was a police officer before he retired, but his dream was to form a garden. He changed his life immediately and completely upon retirement. And he continued to work in that garden for 20 years until his death.

That garden never paid him a cent. But it gave him a great community and food on the table. My grandmother was never paid for her entire life for her work. But she was fulfilled by raising and caring for her family. She showered us with completely unconditional love. I was paid very well for my work. But I felt a growing misalignment between what I valued and what my employer valued. And when I went off to do an MBA, and during one of my classes, it was the first time I realised that my income was in the top 1% globally, and the top 5% in the UK. Before that, I felt like I wasn't making much money relative to my international peers, for example. I started to understand the systemic inequalities that are creating further and further distance from the richest, let's say 2000 plus billionaires of the world and the poorest 20%. Income inequality is an important subject we need to address.

And sooner rather than later, we tend at times to conflate climate change with sustainability. Yet sustainability could be understood as an entire system of economics and activities that maintains or improves the quality of life of people on our planet. The very foundation of our lives has been disrupted by reality. Yes, reality. Many of us esteem to be wealthy, financially, in real assets, and in our relationships perhaps. Yet we ignore the signs that things are not going as planned. And that while we build toward Maslow's idea of self-actualization, the base of our pyramid is fracturing under the weight of our desires. Food is impacted by toxic chemicals, significant water use, and antibiotics.

Water is impacted by industrial pollution, climate change farming methods, and simply where you live in the world. Air is impacted by toxic chemicals being released by industries and by farms, and shelter is being disrupted by the atmospheric conditions that are causing us to emit vast amounts of CO2 and CH4, and other toxicants into the air. So what can we do? The really great news is that everything, absolutely everything is open to being redesigned. So I want to call you to action today saying, “Start with you!” Recognise that sustainability is self-care. It is the care for your health and well-being. It is the care for your family's health and well-being, and others care for your community. Understand the data.

Do a baseline assessment. You can do this for your personal life by checking the World Wildlife organisation site, for example. And for your business, you can take the free assessment available on the B Corp site. This can tell you where you are across a variety of measures and help you to decide where to celebrate, and where to start taking purposeful action. Collaborate. Look for collaboration opportunities among business units or across your community that design solutions for a problem you see at work or where you live. Diversity created the rich planet we live in today and inclusion will help us save it. Innovate. Remember that innovation doesn't have to be new to the world.

Most of man's best inventions have come from observing nature. Observe solutions and other spheres that can be repurposed, adapted, and used to address new solutions in your area. Do you remember the book, “So You Got Innovation?” It was one of the greatest books I read during my MBA. And in that book, there was an example of an Indian potter, who designed a fridge made simply from clay and water. Simple, elegant. If you have the capital to invest, think big. We live in an age where we have the most advanced tools and data are available. Much of the technology for many of the solutions that we need already exists.

Volunteer to support the transformation of urban spaces into areas for community farming and other forms of integrative activities. This concept of “interbeing” is something that I think is so powerful. We are connected to the flora, the fauna, and the people who live around us. And we need to find ways to preserve that connection. Where should you work? I say work for companies who have taken a stand. But you don't have to. You can do things where you are and change and influence a better tomorrow. The companies who have taken a stand - I can bring some examples for you, Patagonia. They were one of the forerunners in B Corp assessments, and they say that we are in business to save the entire planet. Then we have our favourite bamboo roll company Who gives a crap. This one currently gives considerably to charities to support toilets for places that do not have sanitation, appropriate sanitation in Africa, for example, and also to help them repurpose that waste matter into soil manure for farming. Oatly, the oat milk brand that's disrupting the milk industry.

Then we have the Impossible burger. And that's a company that has found a way to make plant-based burgers smell and taste like the real deal. I want to leave you with this. What we believe as humans have changed and evolved any number of times throughout our history. The more we learn, the better decisions we can make. But this only works if we are willing to be curious enough to suspend our beliefs and stay in the question. We have precedent for being able to make a significant change for the better of our planet. We slowed the destruction of the ozone layer with the Montreal Protocol, for example, in 1987.

The Paris Climate Accord in 2015, has had a rocky fight for six years, with us pulling in and out of it. But we see that nations are recommitting, the global pandemic showed us that we can all slow down and even live with far less than we thought we could. This tells me we also have the ability to redesign the engines of growth. And think of it as much more than wealth in the form of physical capital, we can start to appreciate our natural capital and our social capital as well. The only limit we have in making this change a reality is our imagination. Whatever you believe you can do, believe we can all change and save the world. And we will.

031 Innovation Starts with I

About this Episode

Saleema Vellani is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker, a professor, and the author of Innovation Starts With “I”.

Saleema is the Founder & CEO of Ripple Impact, which helps entrepreneurs increase their influence and impact through accelerating the growth of their platforms and businesses. She also teaches design thinking and entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins University and is a frequent guest lecturer at business schools.

We discussed her new book, Innovation starts with I.

Here's the link to pre-order her book
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/innovation-starts-with-i#/

And a link to her 100 Coffee Challenge.
https://saleemavellani.ck.page/100-coffee-challenge

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:02

Hi Saleema, and welcome to Where Ideas Launch, The podcast for the Sustainable Innovator.Welcome, and thank you for joining me.

Saleema Vellani 0:35

Thank you so much for having me, Katherine.

Katherine Ann Byam 0:37

You must be so chuffed and excited about the launch of your new book. Why don't you tell us a bit about the journey to bring this book to life?

Saleema Vellani 0:46

Yeah, sure. So it depends on how far you want me to go back. But the journey essentially started in 2014. When I decided I wanted to write a book with a friend and I ended up parking the project. But it was an idea and we wrote some Google documents and started going for coffee with my friend and I asked him to co-author with me. And it was an initial phase of my life because I had been an entrepreneur, a successful entrepreneur of the past. And then for me, it was not about being an entrepreneur, it was about having the dream job.

And when I got the dream job, I realised it wasn't the job it wasn't as dreamy as I thought it was. And so I was trying to find my inner entrepreneur, trying to help other people unleash their inner entrepreneur while I was also trying to unleash it within myself and figure out, "How do I become an entrepreneur?" Again, how do I come up with a great idea? I would spend a lot of my nights on Google trying to figure out what are the trends, what are problems, I can solve what kind of business I should go into.

And I was looking outward, I was looking outside and not looking within myself. And the very same problem I was trying to solve for other people I needed to solve for myself. And so my friend ended up telling me, he said to me, "I think you need to live a little bit more before you're ready to write this book." And he was right. It was hard to hear it at the time. But I said, "Maybe I just don't have it in me right now to do this." And then I had a whole journey which I talked about in my book - a whole transformative journey. When I went through a whole evolving into this next version of myself and there's a whole life quake, my life had a crash, and everything kind of fell apart piece by piece. And I go into detail about that in the book.

And it was only until five years later when I picked up the book project again. When I decided, people were wanting to hear my story. People were wanting to learn from me. I was already teaching at that point. I was already doing a lot of the speaking and a lot of getting myself out there to share my story. And it was then that I had the confidence. And I decided, "Yes, it's time to do it." But again, I didn't know how to do it on my own because I didn't have a co-author. And I knew I had to write it on my own. But I got stuck. And I said, “Well, I did what I do best, which is build a team and put a team together to get the help I need so that the things that I suck at are not greyed out so that I can focus on the thing that I'm great at.” But then again, I got stuck again on the writing process because who am I writing this for? How do I where do you start?

A book is not like writing an article. It's a lot of work. So I ended up deciding to interview people, I got inspired. I have this process called the 100 Coffee Challenge which I used during my life quake to go out and get a job when I was stuck. And I had two weeks to find a job that was sponsored by Visa here in the United States. And I use that same process. I use that for many different things. And I and other people, my students and interns use that process as well, to go and have 100 coffees with people. So you learned a lot about yourself through that process. I call it active introspection by going out and talking to people, you learn a lot about yourself. It's not just looking inward, it's getting insights about yourself through your blind spots, especially by having those conversations with other people. And I did that same process with my book, I decided to interview 100 people.

So I interviewed people from all walks of life and met innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, even Arianna Huffington, Alex Osterwalder, who created The Business Model Canvas and just a lot of really interesting people. And that made me realise that inspired me to write and to put all those insights together and essentially, the beginning of the book journey was, I would say, finding myself through other people and living my story and then being able to write about it through getting inspired through those conversations.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:38

What made you want to do intrapreneurship? Why was this something that consumed you?

How Saleema Started Her Career

Saleema Vellani 4:45

Hmm, for me, it's how I started my career. So it's familiar to me because I graduated during a financial crisis in 2009 from university and couldn't find a job. And so I ended up going to Brazil to do some volunteer work and get some more international experience. And it was interesting because I was supposed to work in an orphanage. And then at the last minute, my boss in Brazil called me and said, "You know, before you come to Brazil, I just want to let you know, you're not going to come to the orphanage just yet, you're going to be in Rio de Janeiro. And you're going to start this language school because the situation is ingrained at the orphanage and we need to have more funding to help us run our operations." And so I was put into Rio at age 21.

And had to start the school in Brazil. And in Brazil at the time, it was not easy to do something like that and to get something started, especially a business with very few resources that we had. And the situation we lived in, we didn't have water for most days. I was living in a really cramped room with bunk beds with other volunteers that were coming in and out. And it was just a really uncomfortable situation not having the water, having the internet, all those things. I was just working all the time with the school trying to get it to be successful. And it was there that I learned a lot about entrepreneurship and all the failures as well. Because we had a business model that was like, "let's teach all these languages to these different students."

We were a bunch of foreign volunteers. But we realised that that was a model for failure because it wasn't done initially enough. And we weren't getting enough students. Our classrooms are almost empty but it was just like all our group classes were turning into private lessons. So we ended up really taking a look at what we could do. And we said, "Well, what can we do.?" And so we decided to test this idea of just focusing on Portuguese for foreigners and getting rid of all those other languages, Italian, French, Spanish, etc. And it was when we made that pivot, and we reinvented ourselves. We were like, "Wow, the school took off." And now it's one of the top-rated schools in Brazil for learning Portuguese and wins awards consistently. And it all just started with that little project. And again, I was a co-founder, but it wasn't my idea that I was executing.

And so because I started my career with that project, I learned everything, I learned how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I learned about how to start a business from the ground up. And I carry that on with me. So when I went to Italy, that's another story, I started a translation business. And that was how I survived starting these businesses even though I didn't call myself an entrepreneur, I think probably more like a creator, whatever you want to call it, but I never really labelled it. Because for me, I was embarrassed that I couldn't get a job. And this is what I had to do. And so when I started graduate school.

I didn't even tell a lot of people that I was running these businesses because it was for me, I failed. I didn't get the job that I thought I was gonna get after college. And so it was only when I came to the United States that's when I was like, "Boom! Entrepreneurship is not such a bad thing." Like it actually sounds. I've done it before. And when I tried the corporate thing and I tried to work on a nine-to-five for a few years I was like, "I really miss that, that level of creativity, that elation, the lifestyle that I had, and the freedom it was a lot of work. And I say I probably worked a lot more being an entrepreneur but there was a certain "I could really embrace myself and my skills and being myself."

And I think because we're evolving as humans at such a fast pace. We're in this reinvention revolution, where we're trying, we need to reinvent ourselves faster and more frequently than ever before. And so, I think because of that pace of growth that we're seeing right now, I would say that I love being an entrepreneur, but I also love being an intrapreneur. So I always do both, I never just do one or the other always, I call it in my book, hybrid-preneurship where you're embracing being in.

It doesn't have to be a corporate setting, it could be doing consulting work on certain projects. But I always think it's very important to contribute to the larger organisations because that will bring value. You're learning in both areas but you're maybe getting more training and maybe doing things that you wouldn't. You're trying to upskill yourself in one of your projects, or whatever. So I think it's important to embrace both to manage that risk. And I think just so entrepreneurship is very glorified, most people can just do it.

Saleema’s Advice For The Emerging Innovator

Katherine Ann Byam 9:22

That's so true. I think one of the other things that have become more and more clear is that innovation doesn't start with intrapreneurs, right. Employees are innovators every day. And I wanted to get into that because I know that you have some great advice for that in your book. What would you say to people, employees, to become more creative to express their creativity and take chances?

Saleema Vellani 9:50

Great question. I think the first thing to do is to start looking inward and that's what my book talks a lot about. Innovation starts with "I." Even though it happens to me, and anything that I did, if I did it alone, I feel that I failed miserably. All those things I did a lot. It was only when I had a team, a community, you know, a group of people or a support network around me. And so I think ultimately, you do have to start with yourself. And if you look at some of the best innovators and look at Steve Jobs, because his journey of enlightenment or transformation happened in India.

And when he came back, he was all rejuvenated and was able to really innovate with his work at Apple. And so, I think oftentimes we focus on the final product of the invention and we don't put enough emphasis on that personal transformation during that has to happen. And so for employees, I think we need to first drop those labels of employees and entrepreneurs because I think that's why there are so many entrepreneurs that are failing, and so many employees - it's hard to retain them. Even like the intrapreneur and entrepreneur thing, there are all these labels.

Sometimes people feel like as an employee, “I'm not successful.” Listen, an entrepreneur here, at least, that was what was considered cool and successful. And then if I was just an entrepreneur that was failing, Oh it's just interesting because I think we use these labels and they have certain connotations. And so I think, first of all, drop the titles and everyone should just have their brand as an individual, as a person and be brand-agnostic around being under a company. I think we see a lot of solopreneurs who are really, really attached to their company; but at the end of the day, they get hired or they're successful as a human or as an individual. And so I think the same thing with employees, really kill it as an intrapreneur. Really kill it with your work within the company, and not just your day to day role.

See where you can give back to your community and your job or start something within and I think that's an opportunity to learn as much as possible. I think people should be in jobs to learn as much as possible so that they can be an entrepreneur at some point in their life. Or if not, start running or get their project going on a smaller scale. And I think what an important tool that's in one of my early chapters of the book, it's on finding your sweet spot. I think our sweet spots, not just something that we discovered, I think we have to develop it, we have to work at it. And that's where I think being in a job is great because you can have a little bit of room for failure and to learn, and you're not expected to always be the expert. You have a community. You have resources. You have a lot more. You have less risk, oftentimes than just being a sole entrepreneur.

And so I would say during this exercise called "sweet spot mapping" where you think about it like your four quadrants where you look at your career as a portfolio or your life is a series of projects, and not so much like what is a series of jobs, and really think about what projects you excel that so what are the projects that people and you know that you did really well and not just work projects that it could be stuff that you do on an advisory board. It could be volunteer work, it could be personal things too. And so really think about those projects that you really excelled at. And then you want to look at what are the projects that people gave you the most positive feedback on, so you got a lot of praise.

And sometimes you get taken by surprise because people will tell you things. And you're like, "Wow, I didn't know, you know, you saw that in me" or "I didn't know I was great at this." or "I didn't know I did that really well. We have blind spots, we're human. So I think really trying to understand the perspective of other people goes a long way. And then the third thing to do is to really think about those projects that you really love doing. You know, you might not be the best at them, but you love doing them. And those activities that you would even do for free because you love doing them so much. So whether you're running a podcast, or you're writing a book or doing something that you love, think about those things.

And then the fourth quadrant is the most important one because that's where we often quiet our inner voices, and we don't listen to ourselves enough. And it's the open-to-testing area. So that's the projects that you're open to testing. So some of those ideas that you have late at night where you wake up at three in the morning, and then you don't write it down, or some of those projects on your back burner that you never get to do. They are maybe slightly out of your comfort zone.

Maybe you're like, I don't have the time. But I know I really need to do this. It's those projects, think about how you can scale down and start with baby steps or micro-steps and just get them going because those are the projects that you often have to develop more skills in but they're projects or skills or things that you can be very successful in. Often times you touch on, you iterate, and you pivot in a different direction. So like for me it was, public speaking or certain things that I was very uncomfortable doing and I never thought that I would ever do and that I was always a behind-the-scenes desk person and then just trying some of those things, I got invited to some events or certain things I was like, "No. I'm just gonna do it." And it's those projects, those skills, or activities that I think we need to pay attention to. And I think we could be more successful as innovators or entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs if we take on more of those open to testing projects,

Katherine Ann Byam 15:25

I like the idea of being open to testing. Now we have a lot of challenges facing us in the world, and this podcast is rooted in this idea of sustainability. I see that we have a huge opportunity. Like, I think we have an opportunity now to reinvent a lot of things that we've taken for granted in the past. And that's opening the door for many people to step into themselves and express themselves differently. What are your thoughts on sustainable innovation? And how can we do more to lift it and support it?

Upholding Sustainable Innovations By Coming Together and Embracing Diversity

Saleema Vellani 15:59

Yeah, so sustainable innovation is a whole topic of its own. I would say that there's a lot on that. I think right now we're seeing a lot of really neat stuff with the younger generations, like trying to clean up all the mess over the past few decades. There are some serious issues we have in the world that we're trying to figure out how to solve whether it's through social enterprise or corporate innovation, social innovation through companies and through different means.

Solving the Problems of the World by Leveraging Diversity

But ultimately, I think that we need to have more conversations with the different stakeholders. So I think coming together and really embracing diversity, I think sometimes we hear like, great minds think alike. And I really think that great minds think differently. And so I think we need to bring different minds together to solve that. I was actually just in a conference this morning on food security in Cairo. And it was interesting because it was virtual. But it was interesting because it was all these different stakeholders from different countries that were coming together to discuss these things. And I think even especially now in this virtual world, we need to have more of those conversations with different stakeholders, and make that a thing.

Innovation Starts With “I”: The Four-Step Process to Coming Out With Your Sustainable Innovation

And so I would say for sustainable innovation, I say that the first thing to do is if you're like an individual that's trying to figure this out, and you do something, whether you're a leader in a company or you're a business owner, and you're trying to figure out how to incorporate that, I would say that first start with yourself. And again, innovation starts with "I." So do some self-ideation. So really look at your passions, what frustrates you. So your values, your skills, your experience, and try to figure out how you can inject your uniqueness into the world.

And I would say that’s the first. The second thing to do after you do that self-ideation is to start adding value to people wherever you can. So whether it's through some volunteer work, some expert hearing, going to a different country or virtually helping other people however you can really try to bring your expertise and your value. I think that goes a very long way. I think we need to prioritise giving more, and we learn a lot about ourselves. But we also get some really great ideas when we do some of those activities that are just giving value to people.

And then the third is to really embrace failure. I think that if more people embrace failure, we would see more innovation happening on the sustainability front because a lot of times it's their big, big hairy problems and how do we solve these things. And we do have to go through cycles of iteration and learning to get to that point of a good idea becoming a great idea. We don't start with great ideas, usually. So pivoting when it's time to pivot and think. Oftentimes, we don't know when it's time to stick or like to evaluate the risk and all this sort of stuff. There's just so much to really think about and to also listen to our inner voice. And then when is it time to pivot because a lot of times we just give up where we say this is not going to work. And sometimes we just need to have the right conversation, or we need the right training with the right skills or technology. And we let go of those ideas, or we let go of those projects. And so, I go through that four-step process.

Know When To Pivot

Katherine Ann Byam 19:12

Yeah. That's interesting. You just touched on pivoting. And I guess my question is, what would be your criteria for knowing it's time to pivot?

Saleema Vellani 19:23

Great question. I actually interviewed Doug Galen from Rippleworks Foundation. They do a lot of connecting with social entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley mentors. And so they have a really interesting business model. But he mentioned to me that it's important to evaluate what are the three critical risks? What are those three critical risks and really think about those three critical risks?

Then you would know when you do that analysis. Is it time to stick and keep going as a time to let go or is it time to pivot so really thinking about the risks, and doing some coming from the economics world probably doing some cost-benefit analysis on that front as well? If there's a way you can kind of evaluate, is this the path? What are the risks? What are the benefits, and in doing that analysis, I think that can go a long way? If there's a way to simplify it, I would say do a 100 Coffee Challenge as I mentioned. Go and talk to 100 people.

Talk to people from different walks of life, different cultures, different industries, especially not just your own industry. I think that gives a lot of insight so that you're not just putting all the weight on yourself for making that decision. And especially talking to industry experts. I think, oftentimes, we need to have a diversion and talk to different people. But I also think that there's a certain level of, especially if you are trying to innovate and you're trying to scale your business, there's a lot of lack of mentorship that's really connected to industry expertise. And that's something that actually Rippleworks Foundation is trying to tackle by connecting those industry expert mentors and stuff. So I think really thinking about that is key, if I could simplify it.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:16

Perfect! How can people find out more about you?

Saleema Vellani 21:19

Yeah, so they can follow me on social media. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. So I think you can put in the show links, my LinkedIn URL. I'm also active on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. The handle is at Saleema Vellani. And the book is called Innovation Starts With"I" and as you mentioned, it's going to be released later this spring so people can pre-order it already we had a successful Indiegogo campaign last year and we're still taking pre-orders and so those are the different ways where they can visit my website saleemavellani.com and subscribe to the newsletter. That's another great way to stay in touch.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:56

Perfect. Thanks so much for joining us on the show, Saleema. It's been wonderful hosting you.

Saleema Vellani 22:01

Thank you. Thanks so much, Katherine for having me.

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Sponsored by - The Eco Business Growth Club and Women in Sustainable Business

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Sparking Ideas and Missions - The Role of Questions in shaping the future.

The Skills that make you successful as an entrepreneur - hint: Lean on Your Strengths.

The role of Understanding the customer Journey in designing a powerful business Idea.

How to solve your customers Problems

Why Every Business Needs Detailed Market Research.

Finding your business Ikigai - or identifying great ideas for testing.

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How Saleema Started Her Career

Saleema’s Advice For The Emerging Innovator

Upholding Sustainable Innovations By Coming Together and Embracing Diversity

Solving the Problems of the World by Leveraging Diversity

Innovation Starts With “I”: The Four-Step Process to Coming Out With Your Sustainable Innovation

Know When To Pivot