Latest / Lab to Market Leadership with Chris Reichhelm / From Eureka Moment to Industrial Scale with Jamie Walters

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From Eureka Moment to Industrial Scale with Jamie Walters · Lab to Market Leadership with Chris Reichhelm

0:00
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes scientists can spend a long time trying to perfect the perfect product without actually testing whether someone is interested or will buy it.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: And it's a bit of self-preservation in a way.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Everything is perfect until you battle test it.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Too many advanced science and engineering companies fail to deliver their innovations from the lab to the market.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: We're on a mission to change that.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: My name is Chris Reichhelm, and I'm the founder and CEO of Deep Tech Leaders.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Each week we speak with some of the world's leading entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and policymakers about what it takes to succeed on the lab-to-market journey.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Join us.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: How can you extend your tenure in the role of founder CEO?
0:54
SPEAKER_01: That is going to be the topic of today's discussion.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's something that we reflect on a lot here at Deep Tech Leaders and we talk to a lot of companies about, and we talk to a lot of founder CEOs about.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: And for me, where I've gotten to on the question is I think it really depends on the domain you're in.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: If you're in life sciences and medical devices, I think you've probably got the shortest tenure of all as a founder CEO, unless you really understand things like reimbursement or the regulatory pathways, and you're able to bake those into your strategy early on.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I think it's difficult, quite frankly, to stay in that CEO role for too long beyond research.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: I think areas like advanced compute probably offer the best chances.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: It depends on the nature of the distribution challenge, but ultimately technology and engineering prowess and the aura associated with engineers in the space and engineering-led CEOs in the space, I think that can take you a very long way.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: I think within the industrial platforms of deep tech, and I'm talking about things like novel chemistry, advanced materials, energy, advanced manufacturing.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: I think the answer probably is somewhere in between, say medical devices or life sciences and advanced compute.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: Generally, we see a lot of leadership transitions happen in the pilot stages, TRL six and seven.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: And often we see boards decide to change out founder CEOs in exchange for externally appointed CEO candidates with the intent of scaling up, because the skills you need to scale up are going to be very, very different from those that you establish the company with.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about that a lot on this program.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Today's guest is very unusual and something of an enigma in the industrial platform world.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: He's a founder CEO who has gone the whole journey, and he's still on the journey with his same company.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: His name is Jamie Dean Walters.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: He's the co-founder and CEO of a company called Calixia.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: He was part of the early team that set them up, established them, TRL 1, all the way through to TRL9.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: They're in production, they're commercializing with clients around the world in different domains and different geographies.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: This has been a true lab-to-market journey.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to understand from Jamie how he went about it, how he approached it in a way, how he continued to hold on to the role for as long as he did.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: I say did because he's no longer in the role.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: He's now transitioned to another role, which he will talk about.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: But he really led them for most of that journey.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Now they're in a different phase, and it's right that they bring on a new CEO.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: But if you are, particularly if you're in the novel chemistry or advanced material world, maybe even in the energy world, and you want to understand, if you're a founder CEO, how can you hold on as long as possible?
3:36
SPEAKER_01: What is it going to take for you to be able to grow and expand with the company?
3:40
SPEAKER_01: You're going to want to listen to this podcast.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Jamie's going to be a great guest.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: I know it.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm delighted to be able to do this.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Let's get into it.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: Jamie Walters, thank you so much for joining me.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Chris, it's a pleasure to be here.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Jamie, you are, as I said in my introduction, something of an anomaly, particularly within the spin-out startup world, particularly within novel chemistry.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: You are a founder CEO who has lasted for almost the entire lab to market journey.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And we just don't see that very often.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: So I think there are going to be a lot of people very interested in how you've done it, and the lessons that you've learned, any insight you can share with them on what you need in order to extend that tenure for as long as you have.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: The vehicle responsible for getting you to this point has been Calixia.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about what Calixia does.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we're going to go into the history of it and so on.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: We're going to dive in there, but start us out, help us understand where Calixia sits in the universe.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: So Calixia is a French industrial specialty ingredient company serving global markets in three markets, three sectors, home and beauty, agriculture, and materials.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: In each of these markets, we are addressing either a major regulatory and sustainability challenge, an economic challenge, and a performance challenge in each of these three markets.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And we're addressing them by introducing new ingredients to the market that replace incumbent ingredients.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: A good example for this is today lipstick and makeup contain silicone microspheres at about 10%.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: They're microplastic, they're expensive, and their performance is good, but it can be improved.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: The new regulation in Europe is banning these silicone microspheres in next year and progressively in many different products thereafter.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: So what we're doing with hundreds of cosmetic companies worldwide, including Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3, is replacing those silicone microspheres with microspheres that are biodegradable, the same or lower cost, and equal or better in performance.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly what we're doing in each one of our markets that we address.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's why the company is taken off.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have winning products.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have great commercial traction.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're scaling up as a global leader in the sector.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: So you are balancing out the biodegradability and circular themes that are so important for many with actual performance, which I think is tougher for a lot of novel chemistry companies to achieve.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: And I'm assuming pricing and union economics as well?
6:30
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And a part of how we're able to do this is based on our manufacturing process.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: There is a traditional manufacturing process that is used to make these ingredients that has been used for the past 30 years that tends to be batch production.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: So big 10-ton reactors, high temperature, slow processes that are limited to a narrow range of material chemistries.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: Where Calixia really pioneered the space is introducing an inline continuous manufacturing process instead of a big batch that is high throughput.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: This creates low capex.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Instead of using high temperature, our process works at ambient temperature, lower energy.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And by being modular and small in size and continuous, you need less labor.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: So the manufacturing process inherently provides good unit economics.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: And where previous incumbent technologies, the economics were determined to the batch size, and therefore the capex, our unit economics are dependent upon the throughput.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: So we can get very good unit economics at small, medium, and large volume applications.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: That gives a unit economics.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: The other benefit of our technology is versatility.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Instead of working with a limited range of materials, we can work with thousands of materials.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: So while the rest of the market and the incumbents were trying to identify a material that could work with their process, we were rapidly screening thousands of materials to identify which materials, when converted into microparticles or microspheres, have the best biodegradability, cost, and performance.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: That rapid screening enabled us to take a leadership position in the market.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: So that also tells me that at least some of your novelty as an organization, some of your defensibility rests in the manufacturing technology itself.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: You have the manufacturing technology, the material suite, and the final properties of the product.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: Super interesting.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: I want to dive into all of this.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: Let's start with you.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: So you started as a researcher.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: You were a Cambridge PhD, then an ESPCI researcher, and you were ultimately selected by two senior professors to serve as CEO of this entity.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: How did it kind of set up?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: What length of time were you working together almost in a research capacity?
8:55
SPEAKER_01: And then when were you selected as CEO?
8:58
SPEAKER_01: What was that early formation like?
9:00
SPEAKER_00: That was a really exciting time for the company.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Every phase is exciting, but there's nothing like that initial conception where you're dreaming about what that company can be.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: So the the process there, I would say the first part of that process was taking the leap to come to Paris for one.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: Is that where the researchers were based?
9:20
SPEAKER_01: Is that where the professors were based in Paris?
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Where one of the professors was based.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And prior to being in ESPCI, PSL in Paris, I was at Cambridge.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: I had a very good career thriving in Cambridge, but I decided I wanted an adventure.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: So I explored different opportunities.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: And these two academics, Professor David Weitz from Harvard and Professor Jerome Bett in ESPCI, PSL, they said, we have an unsolvable problem, but if you help us solve this, we can create a company to change the world.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: And they had already had a couple of successes, entrepreneurial successes.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And I believed in the passion and the drive of these two professors.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: And I believed they had the secret source, let's say.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And so I moved to Paris.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: And then during the technical development, I had a eureka moment at 11 p.m.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: at night while eating a kebab on Rue Mouvet in Paris.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: The Eureka moment, I ran back to the lab.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: I tested the idea.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: It worked.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: I brought in the professors the next day.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: We all checked different environments, different conditions.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: It worked again and again and again.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: And we realized in that moment we had something really special.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: So after validating that with a couple of major corporates in the US and France, we decided collectively that we wanted to found the company.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: But at that point, I wasn't looking to be the CEO.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: So you were also researchers at this stage, is that fair to say?
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Researchers.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And I was happy to be the CTO.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And we had a really excellent CEO lined up for the company that was an industry head for many, many years.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: But while we were waiting for that person to join the company, the company had to grow.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: So during that time, I took the initiative in leading the science, but I also took the initiative in Daning customers, in securing the IP, in defining the vision, the name, the business plan of the company.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: So while we're waiting for a CEO to join, the job had to be done.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: So I inherently and intuitively started to build the business plan, start to build the vision, start to define the name, the corporate identity.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I remember one Friday evening at 7 p.m.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: where I worked just in the office from 7 p.m.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: till 2 a.m.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: in the morning, just sending 100 emails to 100 chemical companies asking for a meeting.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: And within those 100, I'd say maybe 50 applied, I went straight for the CTO and the CEO.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And then we gained a lot of meetings.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: We presented the technology, the things the technology could do.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Then these companies started to say, we have this problem, we have this problem, we have this problem, we have this problem.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And we started to see the same problems were coming up more and more the more conversations we had.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's when we decided, okay, let's try and work on these topics and these topics, build partnerships.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: That gained as our first commercial traction.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And that first commercial traction was sufficient then to raise the first round of capital.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: So I'd say it took about one year from incorporation and becoming the CTO to be named as a CEO.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: And so you didn't ask for permission.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: You just went ahead and started doing all of these things when the intention at the time was actually to appoint someone externally, but you knew these things had to be done anyway.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: You needed to kind of battle test your thinking with companies in the marketplace.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: I love that you just said, hey, to hell with this.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm writing to the CEOs and the CTOs of these companies.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: We're not starting with some low-level product person or engineer or a scientist in some other lab.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: Not that there's anything wrong with those people, but we're going to the top immediately.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: That's not a comfortable position for a lot of founder CEOs or founder CTOs with scientific backgrounds.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: Would you agree?
13:13
SPEAKER_00: I would agree there.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think perfection can be the enemy of great.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes scientists can spend a long time trying to perfect the perfect product without actually testing whether someone is interested or will buy it.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And it's a bit of self-preservation in a way.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: And everything is perfect until you battle test it.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the advantages or one of the key skill sets that's required in any entrepreneurial adventure is to test the proof points as quickly as possible and adapt quickly and adapt quickly and adapt quickly and adapt quickly.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: And I think it was one of the things I was thinking about what is the skill set that a scientist can bring to a CEO and what are the things that are different?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's an interesting discussion topic.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the interesting things that a scientist can bring to an entrepreneurial adventure is scientific integrity and discipline and honesty.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: I think first principle thinking is really good.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: When you're learning new skills like IP or how to build a business plan or how to build a supply chain function or a procurement function or a quality function, you don't always have to have the answers.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: But having that first principle way of thinking can really help you to understand what is key to those different areas.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: What I think a scientist often struggles with is as a scientist, you're expected to be the one who has the answers.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Whereas a CEO, yes, you're supposed to be able to work and understand different topics, but the key success of a CEO is not answering all the questions themselves, but also building a team that can answer the questions better than what you could do alone.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a key transition between the scientist and the CEO.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: It's battle testing your ideas quickly, adapting, adapting, adapting, adapting, smelling what sells.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: But at the same point, it's also about building a team that can do the jobs better than you could do alone.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a certain element there.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: I think I know I'm talking a little bit too much on this topic, but I think often we describe the CEO as a superhero.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: And the world wants to have this superhero narrative.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And we can play into that sometimes.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you have the Eureka moment in the lab that creates the technology.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: You build the name, you build the vision, you contact 100 parties.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: The CEO, especially the founder CEO or CTO at the time, is absolutely paramount to the success of the company.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: What I think one of the key differentiators between a successful company and a startup that doesn't end up successful is having someone who can recognize the talents in others, share that accountability responsibility, putting the right people in the right place and trusting those people to do the job better than you can do it.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: The world wants a superhero, but what really defines a success is a leader.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: And a leader is someone who can manage well, motivate, incentivize, and also recruit well.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: How much of this did you know when you started in the job, even as CTO back then?
16:20
SPEAKER_01: How much of this did you appreciate or know?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: I think you learn a lot on the job.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: I think you have to be a quick thinker.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: I think you have to work on first principles.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: But I think one of the things that helped me is having a network and leveraging that network.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: So I don't feel you need to know all the answers at a time.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And the key is to balance insight from your network with fast decision making.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: So where I didn't have the answer, I would find the answer quickly or find the inputs that enable me to take the answers.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: So for legal topics, I spoke to friends who are lawyers, HR topics, I spoke to friends in recruitment and HR procurement topics, I spoke to people in procurement.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: So I guess having a network and having investors who have a network as well helped in identifying the gaps and addressing those gaps over time.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: But also being willing to use it.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And I think that point around the action itself.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to have a conversation with you now, and I need your advice on this.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: Can you help me?
17:26
SPEAKER_01: This is what I'm trying to do.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Spending, I don't know, most of the day on the phone having these conversations to get the answers that you need and then to continue driving the thing forward.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a very, very key discussion topic, Chris.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I think as a CEO, you really have to be a communicator.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: You have to be ready to send 100 emails to 100 CEOs and CTOs.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: You have to be ready to pick up the phone and call them.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: You have to be ready to, if you don't have an answer to a problem, call people to find out quickly.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I think often scientists in particular can be very much focused on the technology, on the science.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And I say there's almost a preservation in keeping it as the science and technology.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: But you really have to open yourself up really deeply and communicate regularly with people who can provide input, customers, investors who can really help transform that perfect idea into something which really creates economic value in the market.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: How much support did you get from the other professors?
18:33
SPEAKER_01: How much of a team did you have around you in the early days to help you get started and realize stuff?
18:39
SPEAKER_00: I would say I benefited immensely from the fact that Professor David Weitz and Jerobo Bett had already built several successful companies.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: So in the very early stages, they were great mentors along the way.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I guess you could even say you can't be what you can't see.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: I think that's one of Michelle Obama's points.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: And I think seeing the fact that they had already built successful companies and they had already identified good CEOs who could take them to be successful, and the trust that they had in me to do so.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I think you had the idea, well, it's already gonna be done in terms of the proven that they could create successful companies.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: They trusted me that I could do that.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And it almost gave me the fuel to be able to take this to unreachable, unfathomable heights.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: It was the and I think there's a bit of naivety as well that comes in there.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: It's the Mark Twain phrase of they did not know it was impossible, so they did it.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think you need to have some naivety or some foolish kind of ambition that you believe that the impossible is actually possible and that you can be the person that can achieve that.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: So I think you need to have a certain humility to be able to get feedback from people and to challenge your concepts with the market.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: But then I think you have to have a certain naivety or belief in yourself to believe that you can be the person that can make the impossible possible.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: How long did it take you guys to get to a sense of this is the solution we're going to go to market with?
20:17
SPEAKER_01: This is where our unique value lies.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: How long did it take you to understand that?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: I would say one year.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: One year to identify where our unique selling point was.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: But then converting that unique selling point is I think the challenge we had was that the technology and the science was fantastic.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: And it could solve a large number of problems and have USP in a large number of markets.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: And so it wasn't to find where we had the right product market fit.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: It was where we wanted to allocate our capital and allocate our resources first.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: And how long did it take you to decide on that, where you were gonna allocate the resources and so on?
21:03
SPEAKER_01: How long did it take you to really nail that down?
21:06
SPEAKER_00: A lot longer than one year.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: I would say one of the key lessons now that I think I can share with your listeners, I think one of the challenges when you're building an industrial company in the ingredient space or addressing big challenges in agriculture, home and personal care, materials, food, pharmaceuticals in these kind of areas is to be able to build the volumes that are necessary to generate significant revenue, you need investment.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And often when you're going out to pursue investment, VCs are looking for a very large return on their investment and a potential unicorn.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: So to be a unicorn in the future, you need to highlight the vision and the long term value of the platform.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: So this platform can be used in all these different areas.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And when we do that, the revenue will be a certain level, which will create that unicorn value.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And so to raise money, you need to share the vision of that long-term value.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: But to be successful, you really need to have that hyper focus on a couple of areas in order to generate revenue quickly, profitability quickly, becoming depositive quickly.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: And then from there, you can get to that next level of investment whereby you can have even higher valuations and even more capital raised.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's really a balancing act between highlighting the value of the platform and having focus on products that can generate revenue and profitability quickly, whilst having the capital to be able to invest progressively in industrial capacity to deliver the required volumes of the required quality to make the revenue needed to take that next step.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: And so for us, we were able to demonstrate the values of platform very quickly, but identifying which products we wanted to focus on, there was too many options for us.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's where it took a lot of leadership in saying no to lots of really exciting opportunities to really focus on building a pipeline of a limited number of products, where you have several products that create immediate sales and profitability, and a couple of other products that demonstrate that strategic upside and having that balance between the two.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: So that was your priority initially in making those selections around target market.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: So revenue and profitability, what's going to get us to cash flow positive per product?
23:36
SPEAKER_01: And then we can consider the more strategically interesting areas that may require more development later on.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's often the part that trips up a lot of executives, forget founder CEOs.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: It trips up lots of experienced executives too.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Tell me a little bit, if you can, the process you went through to make those determinations.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: So because our technology works, it helps to improve the sustainability, the performance, and the cost of many, many final formulations in many different markets.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: After several years of advertising the company and being known, we received huge inbound interest from major corporates to work with us, as well as inbound interest of companies which want to acquire us.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: So by being active in the market, we really could get to see what creates excitement in terms of acquisition value, exit value, and what is the market appetite for our different products across different sectors with different players.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: So what we really looked at was first on the financial aspect, which products can be launched and sold next year in the short term and immediate term, versus which products will start to generate really good ROIs in a more longer period of time.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: We then looked at how our product compares to other competition in that space.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: We looked at price per ton, profitability per product, the customer balance.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: For each product, you can have 100 customers, some tier one, some tier two, some tier three.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: So we looked at the balance.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: We looked at the ease to manufacture.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: We looked at the different channels in terms of go-to-market.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: And we quickly identified a couple of areas for short-term sales and a couple of areas for long-term value creation.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And in short-term sales, I think cosmetics was a very attractive market for us because the price per ton is lucrative, the margins are lucrative, there's really a regulatory tailwind.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And we had a solution that could work for many different product formats in cosmetics, for many different sizes of cosmetic customers that could have drop-in integration and could really generate new product claims for them in the market.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think what was fascinating for us is for cosmetics, we saw we could have 100, maybe a thousand different customers across those tiers.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: And one of the interesting learnings for us was okay, how do we address those companies?
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And so we were thinking to ourselves, it's a huge sales force that would be needed to have the right proximity needed.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: And so the question of what is the type of company we want to be?
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Do we want to be a technology company?
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Do we want to be a manufacturing company?
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Do we want to be a sales company?
26:30
SPEAKER_00: And what we realized is that the best way to sell as much product as possible in the shortest period of time would be to work with a couple of tier one accounts directly, which can be very big volume.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: We can capture all the value ourselves.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And then working with a distributor who can then serve 70 countries with relationships already developed and sales forces of over a thousand people who could then be mobilized quickly without us having to build up that sales force ourselves to introduce our products to the customer base and convert them quickly so that we were no longer the bottleneck and that we could use them as a vehicle to capture a bigger pie.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: So while you may lose a portion of the pie because they need to get their own sales, the pie becomes much larger.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: So we also looked to go to market channels as one of the decisive criteria in selecting the different products.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: But underpinning all of this, and I think this is a really important point, underpinning all of this was a technology which offered a step change in performance.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: Unless you have that, and so I think the onus falls on the board and the leadership team, so you need to evaluate your technology performance very, very carefully.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: And it better deliver a real step change in performance somewhere.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, in your case, it did, the market found out about it, and then they beat a path to your door with offers of acquisition and let's do business.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: And so then it becomes a filtering challenge, I imagine.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: We have lots of interest, we know it works.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: Great.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: How are we gonna maximize our opportunity in this space?
28:07
SPEAKER_01: What do we do?
28:08
SPEAKER_00: I think there are so many exceptional technologies in the world today that'll have a step change in performance, but they never see the light of day because they get stuck in a laboratory with people trying to perfect it before they see the problems it can really solve in the market.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: So you might have a great technology, but it's really the decisions you take along the journey in terms of the people you recruit, the areas you want to focus, the investors you want to bring on board, the industrial strategy, the procurement strategy, the IP strategy, the vision, and enabling the combination of a big long-term vision that is grounded in proof points that you've addressed today.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think having a great technology is step one, but it takes a lot more to convert that great technology from something in the lab to something that is really industrially and commercially successful.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: And there you need a humble but ambitious leader who will take a decisive action while collecting the feedback and insight of others to make sure you take the right decisions along the way, as well as great investors and a great ecosystem to thrive within.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: You were in the role, you were in the hot seat as CEO for quite some time.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: How did you distribute your time?
29:32
SPEAKER_01: And I suspect it will have changed.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: There will have been a commercial slant, there would have been a team-building slant, there will have been maybe a continuation of a technology roadmap or operational slant at some point, I don't know.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Help me understand a little bit of where you were focusing your efforts and then where you started backfilling for expertise and how you found that challenge.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: At the very first phase, it was pure technology.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: It was in the lab, uniting a team, getting the team to work together till 10 p.m.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: at night, ordering pizzas into the laboratory to make sure you meet some critical proof point for a customer.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: So that's really kind of the CTO role.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Then very quickly, that became the commercial role of getting as many, being the chief commercial officer in a way.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: I think my role evolved from a chief technology officer to a chief commercial officer, to a investment banker in order to secure funding, to a chief operating officer at some point, to a investment banker again for the next fundraise, to a strategic thinker, chief strategy officer.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And so your role evolves throughout the history or the story of a company.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: But then I think the key is when you move to another role.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that you have to realize is that, and I see a lot of very experienced CEOs struggle with this, is not being the Superman.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's very easy to jump into operations, it's very easy to jump in and become the chief commercial officer again, it's very easy to become the chief technology officer.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: It's very easy to jump back into the role.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: So what you have to realize when you take that next challenge, you need to make sure that you've got really good people who can do the job as well, but preferably better than you can.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: And the goal is to build a company that thrives with you, but not because of you.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: The goal is to put the right pieces into place of the different functions so that the company can really develop and grow at a great rate, even if you're not there.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's very hard for some founder CEOs and some non-founder CEOs to take that role.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people have that extreme accountability and responsibility.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And because you're accountable and responsible, if something is not moving as fast as you'd like it to, sometimes people jump into the role and do the role themselves.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: And this is why recruitment is one of the key success factors here in any company.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: Hiring people that can do the job better than you can.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to jump in or don't feel the tendency to jump in.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think with Calixia, I'll just put a pin on that one second, because I've got an interesting anecdote.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: I now advise a number of companies.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And I was on the board of one company, and we're looking at five different suppliers for a certain technology.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: And the supplier who had the best technology, by far, I thought that was a no-brainer that we would select them as the supplier.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And one of the other board members gave an interesting point.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: They said, okay, that company clearly has the best technology.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: It has a similar production capacity, it has a similar cost, but that company is always fundraising.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And so if the CEO is focused on fundraising, they're not focused on the day-to-day execution and delivering the needs of their customer base.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And that is a very interesting concept.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: So we end up going for a supplier who was second best, but was not spending the time fundraising and could focus 100% of their time on delivering for their customers.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think that is very interesting because raising money is really time-consuming for any CEO.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And when you're raising money, you need to make sure that the company doesn't suffer because you're out raising money.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: So you need to ensure you have a team that can lead the company without you in a way.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think that was one of the great successes of Calixia, is that we built a team that were extraordinary in terms of execution, particularly with our CFO and our chief operating officer and our commercial leaders and our technical leaders too.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And so we built a really good executive team.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was raising money, so to find the strategy, working on these larger strategic transactions, the company was growing and hitting milestone after milestone after milestone after milestone.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Um till eventually, I think as a board, you kind of have to figure out where is the value that you can bring the most?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Where can you bring the most value?
34:22
SPEAKER_00: And my value started off as the best scientist in the company.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: Then it became the best commercial person in the company.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Then it became the best fundraiser and the strategist for the company and the best leader.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: And then over time you realize you're hiring people who can be better than you in terms of execution and management, KPI tracking and speed, and you empower those people.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: And so with that, as a board, we split the roles this year.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: So I really focus on the things I love, which is strategy, big deals.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: And now we elevated our CFO to COO, and our chief operating officer works alongside him, who is really on speed and execution.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: And now Calixia's story is it's a great story.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: It's really about how many machines can we button to the ground to deliver how much volume, to deliver how much sales.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: And now the customers are there, the products are there, the machines are there.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: Now it's speed and execution.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: And bring the right people who can do that while I focus on the big strategic transactions, it means you don't suffer on one axis while the other one is thriving.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: There's so much there we can kind of pick through.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm the capital raising challenge is big for founder CEOs.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: I notice particularly when they're moving from pilots through to commercial grade first of a kind.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: The pressure steps up.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: The challenge of really integrating into the value chain starts to really crystallize there.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: Everyone's now testing you seriously.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to be reliable?
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to be able to deliver?
35:54
SPEAKER_01: Can you get all of this to work?
35:55
SPEAKER_01: Can you get the financing so that you can join the club?
35:59
SPEAKER_01: And it's a popular time for boards to change out their leaders because the initial founder CEO, who could sell the equity vision and the story and the mission and all of those good things that are important in the early days, they generally struggle to get into the more detailed operational aspects that help determine credibility and trust at those later stages.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: That's generally when they switch to scale-up CEOs.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: We see that a lot.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: And because the challenge becomes more operational, it becomes more commercial in that now we've got to get a sales motion, we've got to secure offtake, we've got to put in place go-to-market measures and these sorts of things.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: We've got to build roadmaps.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: It becomes more like a traditional management challenge that you'd expect to see in any company.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: But you somehow managed to adapt each time.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: And that's very unusual, especially for a scientist.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: And not just any scientist, but I'm taking it you were a rather good scientist, too.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: So apart from just saying be adaptable, can you give us some insight into your mindset or into how you approached some of these transition points that allowed you to be successful?
37:09
SPEAKER_01: And I think you're one of the few that I know who have gone from being top scientists to actually top deal maker.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: That's rather unusual.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: So I think beyond the technical skill sets, I think there is a certain character that can help really drive forward an entrepreneurial activity.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's good to share with you a little bit about my background, too.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: So I've shared publicly that I come from a coal mining town in the UK.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: And my father was a coal miner, my grandfather was a coal miner, and I was expected to be a coal miner too.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: And I often talk about how the coal industry created lots of jobs, but it wasn't economically or environmentally sustainable.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: And so the jobs in my town collapsed essentially, and it became really poverty-stricken town.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: And that definitely gave me a vision to create industries that were sustainable economically and environmentally, and creating jobs.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: So I had this kind of internal vision from a very early age.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: But what I don't often talk about is growing up in that environment can create a sense of a desire to build a better life for yourself and with very low expectations.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, going back to the phrase, you can't be what you can't see.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: And so in growing up where I grew up, what you could see was coal miners and factory jobs.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: And so if you do anything that is intellectually seen to be more challenging as those roles, you're a success.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: If you earn a salary more than 15,000 a year, you're seen as a success.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: So I do put a significant weight to the success, at least in terms of the way of thinking, to having low expectations and a desire to build a better life.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: The reason I mentioned that is I think you need a great technology, you need to be open, you need to be adaptable, but you really need to have the drive to continue moving forward.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: And what you find is you will always get setbacks.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: If you reach out to 10 companies, customers, and 10 of them uh refuse a meeting, the question is what's next?
39:30
SPEAKER_00: What's next?
39:31
SPEAKER_00: What's next?
39:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things that has really helped transform Calixia from a technology in a lab to where we are today is with every success, you learn what success is and you replicate those successes through every perceived failure.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: You don't dwell on that failure.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: You take the lessons very quickly and you go, What's next?
39:54
SPEAKER_00: And what's next, and what's next.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: And I think if you have that mentality of being adaptable, being open, but then greeting both successes and failures with the same humility of okay, what's next?
40:11
SPEAKER_00: With resilience, then step by step by step you build a successful company.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: You don't build a successful company by and it's often the way people think, you have a technology, you prove it, you become a success.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: To build a successful company, it's really a step by step by step by step by step by step approach.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's two steps forward, one step back.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: And the ones who are going to be successful are the ones that continue moving forward.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: And whenever they have to take a step back, you learn from that step back, and then you move forward with that lesson.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's how you build a successful company.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: I think that's how you build a successful career in any sector.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Can I challenge you on one piece of that?
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: The low expectation.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: I love the background, the drive, all of the things that come from that, I think, without question, that leaves a mark.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: And it's something that we continue to wrestle with and work from, a point from which we work, and a point that in some ways defines us, whether we admit it or not, or how much it defines us, who knows?
41:12
SPEAKER_01: That's for each of us to consider personally.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: But the low expectations thing.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: I am curious about that, because if the expectations are low, maybe initially they're low, but then at what point do they rise?
41:26
SPEAKER_01: Because you were at Cambridge and you were at Harvard and ESBCI researcher.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: These aren't people with low expectations.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: These are people who demand a lot of themselves.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: You were a researcher, you became CTO, that needs doing.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go and do that.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna phone 100 people.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: Why?
41:42
SPEAKER_01: Just because and we get 50 responses and we're gonna go and do this and keep going and keep going.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: Is that because the expectations are low, or is that because of something else?
41:53
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a deep drive inside.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think the low expectations, you're right, certainly helped in the beginning.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying they're not there.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: They may be there.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: There may be something around that, but I'm wondering if the failure to accept a certain, I'm not going to not try, or I'm not going to fail, or I don't know.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if there's something else in there silently.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: I would say, you know, I can let you into a fun secret.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: So before every big meeting, of course I'd practice the meeting many, many times beforehand.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: But before every meeting, regardless of how important it was, I would listen to the MN song, You Better Lose Yourself in the Music, and as well as this small song about my hometown.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think it helped to ground me.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: Because at the start it's low expectations, and then after a while, it becomes, okay, we've already made it this far.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: What's another step?
42:54
SPEAKER_00: What's another step?
42:55
SPEAKER_00: What's another step?
42:57
SPEAKER_00: So I think the low expectations almost kind of ground you to a position whereby at the very start, whatever you do is groundbreaking.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: And then after a while, you've achieved many groundbreaking successes.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: And then it's about, okay, well, I've I've already proven that.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: What is one more step?
43:14
SPEAKER_00: What's another step?
43:15
SPEAKER_00: And another step.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that helps.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: And so listening to MM and it really helps to ground you in a moment of at one point you were a scruffy-haired kid living on hand-me-down clothes with holes in your shoes.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: And now you've been to Cambridge, you've created a company, you've delivered products.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: That distance seems far smaller than the distance that I still have to go.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: And that's something.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: One last question for you.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: I know you need to run, but tell me about the people challenge, if you wouldn't mind, because so much of business, as you will appreciate, is about getting people to do things or working with people to understand what should be done.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: And then working to get those things done together.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: And whether they're and all kinds of stakeholders.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: And stakeholders are people.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: So they're people within our company, on our board, they're partners, they're investors, they're all different types of individuals.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to somehow all align them.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: This is something that I think a lot of individuals with science or engineering research backgrounds kind of struggle with.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: They think, well, the proof should be in the technology or the proof should be in the numbers.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: It's not that way often.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Things come unstuck because people fail to communicate and for lots of other reasons.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Did you have a challenge with that?
44:35
SPEAKER_01: What kind of advice can you provide in that area?
44:38
SPEAKER_01: If any?
44:39
SPEAKER_00: I think I have a lot to say on this topic.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think like all topics we've discussed, you have successes and you have your failures.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's two steps forward, one step back, and it's about learning from those failures.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: I think first on the recruitment side.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Building a industrial company, while at the time being a CEO without an industrial background, with a scientific background, who was quite young and approaching major global companies and saying that we will be a supplier for your most important ingredients, you can lack that credibility at times.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I think in the early days, I tried to bridge that credibility gap and that experience gap by recruiting people from the industry who had been in the industry, who'd built a reputation, who had major chemical groups in their CV or in senior positions in those groups.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: And that gave a lot of credibility to the company.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: And it definitely gave confidence to investors.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: And I would say it helped to secure customers.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: But what I found is sometimes the big names are not the best for the big results.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I think in terms of recruitment, I think experience, a CV is of course incredibly valuable to see what the companies they've been at, the KPIs they've delivered.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: But what I've learned is what is more valuable is the way the person thinks, the way the person solves problems, and the resilience, the persistence, particularly when building a company from scratch.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Often you find people who've been in big industrial groups, they've had a big structure supporting them for many, many years.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to transition to a company where you also have to build your department.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: So I think what we've learned over many years is how to evaluate a profile.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's not only looking at the track record, but also seeing how the person thinks, how the person can lead, how independent or autonomous that person is, how they can work with a younger team, how they can work with co-workers, and how pragmatic and solution focused they are.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: And you also need to recruit people too that can tell their boss, their leader, no, you're wrong.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: And so I think recruitment is such a key topic in building any successful company from the ground up.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: And it requires experience, expertise, but really character, personality, and really strength as well.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: Because if I'm recruiting someone, and I think I made some mistakes in the past too, that you learn from.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you see a Rolls-Royce of an applicant, and they can have great intelligence, great experience, great expertise.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: But if they just become a yes person and they don't have the accountability and responsibility for their own results of their team.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: So I really think you have to recruit people who are better than you at their job.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: And that requires a lot more than just a one interview, one CV.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: I think you really have to spend a very rigorous approach to recruitment.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: So that's the recruitment side.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: Then you have the leadership side.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: I think that's really about communicating a long-term vision, breaking that down into the plan and strategy for this year, and letting people know the impact they can have on this year, and therefore the impact that can have long term.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: And then if you can unite a team around a common vision grounded in the practicalities of today, I think that's how you build a team that is willing to stay till 10 p.m.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: in the lab to work your pizza, uh, to get pizza, who's willing to, instead of me calling 100 customers till 2 a.m.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: in the morning, they all call 100 customers till 2 a.m.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: in the morning.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: You need to have that connection to that vision.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: And then in terms of stakeholder management, it's all about communication.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: And there's one point communicating the big vision, and there's another making sure that everyone is aware of what this plan is for this year and how their role and how they can support you achieving those actions.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense to you, Chris?
49:06
SPEAKER_01: I think you're bang on.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: I think that communication piece is so critical.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think people overlook it a lot.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: I think people underplay the power of communication.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: Communication, frankly, is a pain in the ass.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: It really, really is.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: When you have to go along and you've got to communicate with all these different stakeholders and all your board and all your team, for God's sakes, can I just send an email and be done with it?
49:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, holy cow, this is so annoying.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: Because communication is not merely verbalizing.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: It's not merely me telling you something.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: It's us having a conversation about it and you voice and you opining on it, and you coming back to me and saying, hold on, I'm not sure I agree with that.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: And we have to have a conversation about it.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to get aligned on it.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: And so alignment takes compromise.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: It takes listening.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: It takes a huge amount of energy.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: But that is, I think, the principal job of a leader.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: You've got to be able to communicate.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you said vision and all those things, and you've got to be able to do that.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of that also has to come from your troops or from your team.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: So, what are people on the ground, close to clients, close to partners, telling me, close to the technology?
50:08
SPEAKER_01: What are people telling me?
50:09
SPEAKER_01: I've got to communicate that and I've got to make sure everyone's understanding.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to bring everyone with us.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: And it's exhausting work, quite frankly.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: I think it feels like it's exhausting work.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: I think nothing's exhausting if you find it fun.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think you're right.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think you're right.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: And if it's yours, then I think you know that sense of ownership, I think, means that you're gonna put more of yourself into it.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: One thing I will say more is in my new role, one of the real joys that I'm actually seeing, and I think it's really, really fun, I built a really great team.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: And what I like is when the charismatic founder leader is slightly removed from the day-to-day, you really see people step up even more sometimes.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: And I think something which I really quite like, and I'll just say this one last thing because I find it really interesting.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: So Barack Obama in his autobiography talks about having children.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: And when he's talking about having children, he said, When I first had a child, I thought it was a project to manage.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: Task one, task two, milestone one, milestone two, deliverable one, deliverable two.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: And then what I came to realize is that it's more of a seed, and that seed can grow into whatever tree it's going to grow into.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: And your job is not to restrict that straight tree, but to enjoy the majesty of how it grows, prune it, guide it, and let that tree grow into what it needs to be.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's the same thing sometimes with a company.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: You plant the seed, you guide the company, you take the decisions to that company to be where that company needs to be.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes in giving it a bit of space, you also give time for that tree to grow.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: And so branches that were already growing can grow even stronger by just giving a little space, a little accountability, a little responsibility.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's real leadership.
52:00
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: I haven't heard that before, but I love that.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: That's a great point to end on.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: Jamie, thank you so much for joining me.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: I've loved our conversation.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: I think our listeners and watchers are going to get a huge amount out of this.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for all of your wonderful insight.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: And thank you, Chris, for the opportunity to speak with you today.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast, brought to you by Deep Tech Leaders.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: You can find out more about us on LinkedIn, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.