Episode 87 – East Bay Green Corridor Advances the Green Energy Economy
December 20, 2012
In Episode 87 of The Wendel Forum (originally aired on December 15, 2012, on 960 KNEW AM radio), show moderator Dick Lyons, co-founder of Wendel Rosen’s sustainable business practice group, welcomes Carla Din, director of East Bay Green Corridor, a nine-city partnership devoted to assisting green businesses, and Dr. Monika Weiss and Wolfgang Weiss, CSO and CEO/CTO, respectively, of ergSol, an Oakland solar thermal company.
Carla Din, director of East Bay Green Corridor, in studio
East Bay Green Corridor was founded in 2007 to advance a green energy economy in nine East Bay Area cities, including Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville. The organization develops policy and also markets and promotes clean energy start-ups with the goal of keeping those businesses in the East Bay. Unlike traditional accelerators, which focus on start-ups’ business plans and capital, East Bay Green Corridor introduces companies to its vast network of local supply chains, customers and resources, including several academic institutions and programs (such as the Cleantech to Market program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business). Already, it has worked with Alphabet Energy, which captures waste heat, Imprint Energy, which pioneers zinc-based rechargeable batteries, and Lucid Design Group, a cleantech software company.
Dr. Monika Weiss and Wolfgang Weiss of ergSol
Din met Monika Weiss at a conference and since then East Bay Green Corridor has been facilitating relationships for ergSol, a developer and manufacturer of high temperature solar thermal systems based in Oakland. Since the Weisses moved to the US 12 years ago, they’ve seen an increase in activity and interest in renewable energy. With ergSol, a solar thermal system that can also be used for cooling as well as heating, they hope to bring US solar use up to the level of Europe.
How has relationship-building assisted your business?
Post Links:
Listen to the interview with Din and the ergSol executives: Episode 87 of The Wendel Forum (27:44 mins; mp3)
960 KNEW AM Radio website: http://www.960KNEW.com
East Bay Green Corridor Website: http://www.ebgreencorridor.org
ergSol Website: http://ergsol.com
Dick Lyons’s online profile: http://www.wendel.com/rlyons
In Episode 85 of The Wendel Forum (originally aired on November 17, 2012, on 960 KNEW AM radio), show moderator Dick Lyons, co-founder of Wendel Rosen’s sustainable business practice group, welcomes Kelly Boyd, founder of My True Nature, a line of natural body care products for children.
Kelly Boyd, founder of My True Nature
After Boyd’s first child was born, a baby nurse introduced her to natural products for kids. Always interested in cooking and in organic foods, Boyd, a corporate securities lawyer and tech company executive, began developing her own formulations for personal care products, including bubble bath, shampoo, lotion and body wash. She gave the products to friends, who tested them for her. One of the things she learned in the process was how sensitive people are to scents. In the process of finding the right formulation with the right scent, Boyd made more than 300 batches of her products.
After her second child was born, Boyd quit her job, and she and her husband financed and launched My True Nature. Using all natural, largely organic ingredients, My True Nature products are manufactured locally in the Bay Area. She describes them as “mainstream green,” meaning they look and feel like comparable mainstream products. For example, the shampoo and body wash suds up and the bubble bath does, in fact, bubble.
Initially, Boyd sold the products to friends, who helped spread the word by putting the products in gift bags at birthday parties. Later, she began selling online, including offering group deals through sites like Groupon. Some of her products are now in “brick & mortar” stores, but the majority of her sales come from the big internet retailers, such as Amazon.com.
Boyd says that it was important that she not have investors in her company. With her experience in the legal and tech company worlds, she knew investors would demand, and rightfully so, that she spend her entire time and energy on building the company. And she knew that she would feel responsible to do so. Instead, without having investors to answer to, she can devote the time and energy she wants to her children. She recognizes that her company will grow more slowly, but the real payoff is that she can be the kind of mom she wants to be.
Boyd believes the rigidity of corporate jobs is contributing to the emergence of a generation of mothers who are starting companies. In fact, Boyd believes there’s no better time than now for a woman to start a business. There are funding sources particularly looking for women entrepreneurs, especially women launching green businesses.
Do you know green mompreneurs like Boyd?
Post Links:
Listen to the interview with Boyd: Episode 85 of The Wendel Forum (27:46 mins; mp3)
My True Nature Website: http://www.mytruenature.net
960 KNEW AM Radio Website: http://www.960KNEW.com
Dick Lyons’s online profile: http://www.wendel.com/rlyons
Episode 82 – Elemental Herbs Brings Good to Body Care — Inside & Out
November 6, 2012
In Episode 82 of The Wendel Forum (originally aired on October 27, 2012, on 960 KNEW AM radio), show moderator Bill Acevedo, chair of Wendel Rosen’s sustainable business practice group, welcomes Caroline Duell, the founder of Elemental Herbs, an organic body care company based on the central coast of California.
With a background in herbal medicine, Duell is a massage therapist and outdoor enthusiast who began making skin care products for her friends and family. Later, after success selling the products at farmers markets, she launched Elemental Herbs, a California certified B Corporation. That certification is to sustainable business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee – it measures a company’s commitment to operating a business responsibly and sustainably.
Caroline Duell, Founder of Elemental Herbs
Duell also runs a farm, from which she harvests some ingredients for her natural healing products such as All Good Goop, a moisturizer and salve. While Duell also gets ingredients from outside suppliers, she only partners with similar-minded businesses. In particular, she examines other companies’ employee benefits, utilities use, social benefits and transparency. Though not certified organic, all Elemental Herbs holistic products and remedies contain organic ingredients and are free of GMOs (genetically modified organisms).
The Elemental Herbs farm also offers a CSA (community supported agriculture) and serves as an education center, including offering courses about sustainable living. As a member of 1% for the Planet, one percent of all Elemental Herbs revenues is dedicated to fighting for social and environmental justice around the world. Organizations it supports include a local marine mammal protection organization, a local trail organization, Save Our Snow, which provides information about how global warming affects the planet’s snowfall, and cityWILD, which brings inner city kids into the mountains.
Do you care about the company policies, as well as the ingredients, of your skin care products?
Post Links:
Listen to the interview with Duell: Episode 82 of The Wendel Forum (26:47 mins; mp3)
Elemental Herbs website: http://elementalherbs.com
B Corporation website: http://www.bcorporation.net/
1% for the Planet website: http://onepercentfortheplanet.org/en/
960 KNEW AM Radio website: http://www.960KNEW.com
Bill Acevedo’s online profile: http://www.wendel.com/wacevedo
In Episode 79 of The Wendel Forum (originally aired on October 6, 2012, on 960 KNEW AM radio), show moderator Dick Lyons, co-founder of Wendel Rosen’s sustainable business practice group, welcomes Peggy Cross, founder of Bay Area-based EcoTensil, which produces eating utensils made from sustainable materials.
Peggy Cross of EcoTensil
With a background in packaging and marketing, Cross developed a whole line of certified compostable eating utensils made from “silky smooth” paperboard, similar in mouth feel to a soda cup. The taster spoons are a particularly better alternative to plastic tasters, which are made from petroleum in China and are used for two seconds at ice cream shops, grocery stores or at trade shows, yet will exist on the planet for thousands of years. In contrast, EcoTensil’s taster spoon offers efficiencies in storage, shipping and waste management, and companies using it can offer customers something obviously greener. Interestingly, EcoTensil’s first clients, which still represent 25 percent of her business, were prisons because users can’t hurt themselves or others with a paper spoon.
In launching EcoTensil, Cross learned that everything in the start-up world takes longer than you think and costs twice as much money. As a result, she recommends not launching a start-up without an abundance of tenacity and perseverance. She also says that entrepreneurs should not just want to make money, but they must also have a passion for what they do.
Wouldn’t you like to ditch the splintery wooden taster spoon?
Post Links:
Listen to the interview with Peggy Cross: Episode 79 of The Wendel Forum (27:49 mins; mp3)
EcoTensil Website: http://ecotensil.com/about.html
960 KNEW AM Radio website: http://www.960KNEW.com
Dick Lyons’s online profile: http://www.wendel.com/rylons
Episode 73 – Lindsay Riddell Discusses Current Cleantech Trends
September 7, 2012
Lindsay Riddell covers Cleantech, Sustainability, Startups and Venture Capital for the San Francisco Business Times
Biofules and Biochemicals
Investment trends
Carbon Data
Electric Vehicles
In Episode 61 of The Wendel Forum (originally aired on May 5, 2012, on 960 KNEW AM radio), show moderator Dick Lyons, co-founder of Wendel Rosen’s sustainable business practice group, welcomes Rachel Barge, a partner at Greenstart, which is a San Francisco start-up accelerator. Greenstart helps new companies that use software to solve clean tech problems.
Rachel Barge of Greenstart
Twice a year, Greenstart, which launched last year, sifts through hundreds of applications and offers a handful of clean-tech start ups seed-stage venture capital as well as training in the company’s 12-week boot camp. Specifically, Greenstart invests $15,000 in exchange for a 15% equity stake, it makes a $100,000 convertible loan and it provides concentrated training. The three-month academy “crams two years of development into three months,” according to Barge. Entrepreneurs learn to validate their technology (proving customers exist for the product), develop a 12-month execution plan (including building the team and honing the financial model), and communicate (to investors, team members, channel partners and customers). Entrepreneurs are paired with mentors, including executives from cutting-edge companies like Tesla and Pandora. The program’s culmination is “Demo Day,” during which the start ups pitch hundreds of potential investors.
Software, Barge explains, is key to what she calls “clean tech 2.0.” For example, the collaborative consumption trend, which replaces ownership with use and access, requires new software platforms. That’s why Greenstart selected for its program Scoot Networks, which provides shared electric scooters that customers can unlock with an iPhone.
Barge explains Greenstart’s unique application for companies that want to apply to the Greenstart program. The entrepreneurs must state the dirty energy problem they’re solving and explain their technology in just 250 written characters and a two-minute video. The accelerator is particularly interested in working with fast-to-market products. The company’s first class included SmarterShade, a self-tinting windows company; Sylvatex, which cheaply mixes biofuels with diesel; Wa.tt, a consumer web app company that “gamifies” energy use on Facebook; and Tenrehte, a wireless system for managing energy flowing through electrical plugs.
Post Links:
Listen to the interview with Rachel Barge: Episode 61 of The Wendel Forum (27:36 mins; mp3)
Greenstart website: http://www.greenstart.com
SmarterShade website: http://smartershade.com/
Tenrehte website: http://tenrehte.com/
Sylvatex website: http://sylvatex.com/
960 KNEW AM Radio website: http://www.960KNEW.com
Dick Lyons’s online profile: http://www.wendel.com/rlyons
In Episode 59 of The Wendel Forum (originally aired on April 14, 2012, on 960 KNEW AM radio), show host Dick Lyons welcomes Morris Shriftman, a brand strategist for natural foods and green products, and CEO of Mozart, Inc. (A classical music fan, Morris’ company name carries the name of the great composer and is a double entendre on his name: “Mo’s Art.”) He also serves on the board of the American Botanical Council, which provides consumers with credible information about plants and herbs used in natural medicine.
Morris Shriftman of Mozart Inc. visits The Wendel Forum studio
A marketing expert, Morris has been focused on the natural food and alternative medicine industry since 1970. He began as brand consultant in New York. In the 70’s, he met the founders of Tree of Life and was hired as vice president of marketing, where, he says, he gained a “360 degree perspective” on the wellness industry, handling product creation, development, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, marketing and retail partnerships.
Tree of Life became both a major national distributor of natural products and had its own line of branded natural products. Among other things, Morris designed the well-known “Tree of Life” logo. In 1985, when Tree of Life was sold, he founded Mozart, Inc., which “creates products and builds brands for companies doing the right thing, including using healthy ingredients, removing objectionable ingredients and having the courage to be transparent.”
Dick and Morris discuss how natural products companies can communicate their message to retailers and consumers, a particular challenge for smaller, undercapitalized companies that can’t afford the marketing practices of larger companies, such as product placements, public relations, trade advertising, events marketing or consumer advertising. Those companies have to be inventive, Morris says.
Fortunately, social network marketing is an inexpensive way to reach a narrow audience of people who share similar values, what Morris calls “narrowcasting” (as opposed to broadcasting). Better than a new logo or slogan, narrowcasting permits a small company to convey its mission directly to communities that will be drawn to the mission. That happened for Avalon Natural Products where Morris was brought in as senior vice president of marketing.
He led the company to eliminate allergens and artificial and petroleum-based ingredients, including parabens, a preservative implicated in breast cancer. Avalon’s “consciousness in cosmetics” mission resonated with The Breast Cancer Fund, an organization that informs women about the environmental causes of breast cancer. Collaborating with The Breast Cancer Fund and networking with other women’s health organizations and green scientists became a major driver in Avalon’s marketing. That kind of work, Morris explains, can distinguish a company and create empathy with consumers.
Post Links:
Listen to the interview with Morris Shriftman: Episode 59 of The Wendel Forum (27:31 mins; mp3)
Mozart, Inc. website: http://www.mozartinc.com/
American Botanical Council website: http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/PageServer
Tree of Life website: http://www.kehe.com/treeoflife/Home.aspx
Avalon Natural Products website: http://www.avalonorganics.com/
The Breast Cancer Fund website: http://www.breastcancerfund.org/
960 KNEW AM Radio website: http://www.960KNEW.com
Dick Lyons’s online profile: http://www.wendel.com/rlyons
Dick Lyons
rosebie
TheWendelForum
Bill Acevedo