Jonathan Strauss, Climate Draft
Today's guest is Jonathan Strauss, co-founder and CEO of Climate Draft, whose mission is to expose more people to the inspiring, impactful, and lucrative opportunities at venture-backed startups focused on decarbonizing the global economy.
Talent movement into climate tech is critical, especially talent that has learned to scale businesses and technologies fast. In many cases, the skillsets that these folks possess are so ingrained that they don't even recognize them as skills. Innate familiarity with things like how to build a hiring pipeline, how to properly incentivize a sales team, do performance reviews, how to establish a culture, bring in and integrate senior executives as it scales, and how to manage key accounts. These are all day-to-day activities that people in big tech companies take for granted but in many cases are altogether new skills for climate companies founded by folks with skills in synthetic biology, mechanical engineering, or other areas. And getting many of these key climate technologies to a scale fast is what needs to happen given the timeframes we are working with from a global carbon budget.
Climate Draft is an organic effort, born out of the climate tech community and focused on increasing the awareness of climate in other corners of tech and industries beyond, particularly into talent pools with individuals who have deep experience scaling businesses and who may be concerned about climate change but haven't yet explored working in climate as a career path.
Jonathan and Cody have known each other for over 15 years, and have a great conversation about his journey from mainstream tech into progressive political work and then into climate, the community-based origins of Climate Draft, and what he's learned as he's helped thousands of people take their first step into exploring climate-related work. Great inspiration for anybody looking to figure out how to apply their skills most effectively in climate work.
Get connected:
Cody Simms
Climate Draft Twitter / LinkedIn
MCJ Podcast /Collective
*You can also reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded on December 1, 2022.
In this episode, we cover:
[3:21] Jonathan's background and climate journey
[14:55] The initial idea for Climate Draft
[21:29] Need for talent and company-building experience in the climate space
[26:18] First version of the "sports draft" model and learnings
[32:06] Pros and cons of working with an all-volunteer team
[36:38] An overview of Climate Draft today
[41:35] Use case for people wanting an entry point with Climate Draft
[44:24] Some of the takeaways from talent looking to transition to climate
[46:06] Misconceptions about compensation in climate careers
[47:08] Applicable skills
[48:40] Learnings from climate companies trying to recruit talent
[51:01] Range of geographies, skill sets, and industries that involve climate
[53:26] Revenue-based financing that worked for Climate Draft
[59:03] Learnings from founders
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Jason Jacobs (00:00:01):
Hello, everyone. This is Jason Jacobs.
Cody Simms (00:00:04):
And I'm Cody Simms.
Jason Jacobs (00:00:05):
And welcome to My Climate Journey.
(00:00:10):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (00:00:15):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help.
Jason Jacobs (00:00:26):
We appreciate you tuning in, sharing this episode, and if you feel like it, leaving us a review to help more people find out about us so they can figure out where they fit in addressing the problem of climate change.
Cody Simms (00:00:40):
Today's guest is Jonathan Strauss, Co-founder and CEO of Climate Draft whose mission is to expose more people to the inspiring, impactful, and lucrative opportunities at venture-backed startups focused on decarbonizing the global economy.
(00:00:53):
As you'll hear Jonathan describe, Climate Draft is an organic effort born out of the climate tech community and focused on increasing the awareness of climate tech into other corners of tech and industries beyond, particularly in the talent pools with individuals who have deep experience scaling businesses and who may be concerned about climate change, but who haven't yet explored working in climate as a career path.
(00:01:15):
Jonathan and I have known each other for over 15 years, and we have a great conversation about his journey from mainstream tech into progressive political work and then into climate, the community based origins of Climate Draft, and what he's learned as he's helped thousands of people take their first step into exploring climate-related work.
(00:01:33):
Talent movement into climate tech is critical, especially talent that's learned how to scale businesses and technologies fast. As Jonathan and I discuss, in many cases, the skill sets that these folks possess are so ingrained that they don't even recognize them as skills. Innate familiarity with things like how to build a hiring pipeline, how to properly incentivize a sales team, how to do performance reviews, how to establish culture, how to help an organization bring in and integrate senior executives as it scales, how to do account management with key accounts, how to manage a growing code base. These are all day-to-day activities that people in big tech companies take for granted, but in many cases, are altogether new skills for climate companies founded by folks with skills in synthetic biology or mechanical engineering or electrochemistry who, they may be leaders in their field, but they haven't worked at global scale, and getting many of these key climate technologies to global scale fast is what needs to happen given the timeframes we're working with from a global carbon budget.
(00:02:35):
I hope you enjoy the chat that Jonathan I have and that his own backstory and journey, which we spend a good chunk of time on before getting to the talent piece, is also helpful inspiration for any of you looking to figure out how to apply your own skills more effectively into climate work.
(00:02:48):
Jonathan, welcome to the show.
Jonathan Strauss (00:02:50):
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Cody Simms (00:02:52):
So Jonathan, you and I have known each other a really long time, which makes this episode especially fun for me. Excited to talk to you and really dive into both your journey, as well as how you're helping now so many others make their journey into climate. And maybe let's start there.
(00:03:09):
As much as you probably don't want to talk about your personal history because we're here to talk about climate talent, I think all of us want to know who is this guy, Jonathan Strauss, who's starting this climate movement from a talent perspective?
Jonathan Strauss (00:03:21):
And thanks for having me on the pod. Long-time listener, first-time caller. It's a great honor to be ... We've been working together through MCJ since you joined MCJ, since before you joined MCJ. As you said, we've known each other for a really long time, but as with so many other people, the MCJ podcast has been really formative and such an entry point for me personally in getting into climate. So, this is a great opportunity and really excited to be here.
(00:03:48):
As you know, I got my start in tech at Yahoo. And back in the day, when that was a going concern, for the youngsters out there, and then left Yahoo in 2008 to start my own company, a social media analytics startup. I've got a software product management background and that was what I thought I was going to do for the rest of my life. And then after we sold our company, I ended up working for Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy for our mutual friend Ian Rogers, who was, at the time, the Chief Digital Officer. And that was just a great corporate tech gig, very interesting challenges and a huge audience and a great intellectually stimulating opportunity, but also, was very focused on doing things that weren't personally that compelling to me.
Cody Simms (00:04:42):
For those of you who don't have a visual, which is almost everyone listening, I'm sitting here talking to Jonathan in his black t-shirt and Climate Draft dad hat-
Jonathan Strauss (00:04:50):
Free t-shirt!
Cody Simms (00:04:51):
And free t-shirt, Climate Draft dad hat, full beard, talking about his experience working in high fashion. And I am enjoying this very much.
Jonathan Strauss (00:04:59):
Yeah, I had to change my wardrobe for the office visits I would make every six weeks to Paris.
(00:05:05):
But yeah, and for a lot of people, a big catalyst for me was the 2016 election and I had been kind of politically active as a volunteer and as a donor for many years, but it was always something that I did on the side and I kind of looked at my vocation as being technology and really, in that context, I think of technology as being agnostic and kind of apolitical, amoral, and just a thing that was separate and apart from my personal values and passions. And with the aftermath of the 2016 election, I just started to question that judgment and that approach for me.
(00:05:50):
I kind of reflected on my work history as having my startup. I was making the world safe for social media marketers, and my time at LVMH, I was helping sell luxury goods to the global 1%. And I also was just having my first kid, which I think when we talk to folks, as I'm sure you do as well, about their climate journeys, having children is usually a big catalyst for people.
(00:06:14):
So it was an inflection point, a moment where I was thinking a lot about my time and my labor and what the outputs of those things were and how they were aligned with the things that I cared about. I also recognized that I was, at that point, very privileged to have had enough success that I could prioritize things that, in addition to having to make a living, that I could think more broadly about what the work product was of my efforts.
(00:06:49):
And so that led me to get into political technology. Basically I had honed a skill set of getting people to buy things on the internet and I ended up applying that to getting people to donate and volunteer to Democratic campaigns as the Head of Product at Swing Left in the 2018 cycle. And that was an amazing eye-opener for me.
(00:07:13):
Jeff Bezos, I think, talks about one-way doors. When I pitched it to my wife and said, "Okay, I'm going to leave my pretty lucrative job at LVMH and the employee discounts on luxury goods," which were nice. But we had been thinking about moving to Paris, from Los Angeles. And it was kind of a big sea change to say, "All right, no, that's not it. I'm going to quit that job and go work in politics for a lot less money." And I positioned it as, really, a tour of duty. "I'm going to do this for a couple years, hopefully we have some results consistent with my values, and then I'll go back to doing the tech thing for money again." And that was unintentionally like a one-way door.
(00:08:03):
I got through the other side and just had a tremendous experience working with Swing Left and a lot of great people from Swing Left who are in the climate movement today, like Matt Ewing from Down Ballot Climate Partners, so it's been fun. And Clay Duma from Lowercarbon who, at the time, was helping out with Swing Left, and Dan Lichtenberg, also from Keiki Capital who was an early Swing Left volunteer, now a climate investor.
(00:08:32):
You and I met at, I think, one of those times in tech in those halcyon days of Yahoo. It's like sometimes there are these moments, and we can come back to it. I think it's fun because this is kind of a moment for climate that I think hearkens back to that. But that 2017, 2018 moment in political tech was really exciting with some fantastic people. And it was just inspiring to experience getting to work on interesting challenges because that's always been something that compels me is I like getting lost in the work. I like solving hard problems, getting in that flow state. That's always been valuable to me.
(00:09:14):
And so I had kind of assumed, when I was going to get into politics, that I was going to be working on just stuff that wasn't particularly that interesting, but I was surprised that the problems and challenges were actually compelling and got to work with really amazing people, which as you know, is something that can't be undervalued in how fulfilled you are in your work, and got to do it for the first time on something that I was just truly passionate about, probably for the first time since my startup, but in a totally different way.
(00:09:47):
And that was a huge unlocker. I was like, "I can't go back to just working on stuff that I don't care about." It seemed like a waste of time.
Cody Simms (00:09:57):
So you went through this one-way door, you went through Swing Left, you kind of got into the political tech sort of world, and then from there, I think you did Frontline Foods, and then at some point, you jumped into climate. You ended up deciding to do the On Deck Climate Tech Fellowship.
(00:10:10):
So maybe walk us through how, ultimately, that became the way you found to channel your interests in realizing that you could work in the areas that you had built a career working in, but apply it to a space you cared about.
Jonathan Strauss (00:10:25):
Yeah. I think, like many people, my interest in politics ... I've cared about climate since I was a kid and in varying ways and varying brands that have evolved along over the last few decades. But my political involvement as a volunteer, as a donor, et cetera, much of it was driven by my climate concerns.
(00:10:49):
And so for me, the political pivot in my career was, in many ways, already the start of a focus on climate, and then coming out of the 2018 cycle, wanting to really get more directly involved in having an impact on climate.
(00:11:07):
And there was a pandemic along the way. As you mentioned, I worked with some amazing people to start and run something called Frontline Foods, which was a non-profit that raised money to order meals for healthcare workers from local restaurants. So it was kind of a double whammy. We raised and spent over $11 million in partnership with World Central Kitchen over the course of four months in 2020.
(00:11:35):
And that was also a really interesting experience because I think a lot of us have observed this along the way, but the pandemic gave everybody kind of a mass point of self-reflection and that's had ramifications that still continue. And what we saw with Frontline Foods was we ended up having over 800 volunteers in a Slack in 60-plus chapters around the US who were all coordinating and working together. And it was just such an inspiring groundswell that I think that that was also fuel to the fire of saying, "Wait, a lot of people care about a lot of things and if we can focus that energy, we can accomplish a tremendous amount in a short period of time."
(00:12:23):
And having the startup background and the tech background, having seen, not firsthand, but you and I have had front row seats for companies that have changed the world in a decade and changed the lives of billions of people for better or worse in decades. And so I think that was a big inspiration for really focusing on climate tech and the startup-driven innovation aspect of it because I'd been on the political side. And that's super important. Through you, actually, I'm an advisor to Climate Cabinet, you work with Climate Changemakers. There's so much important work that needs to continue to happen and climate policy and advocacy and it's a, "Yes, and ..."
(00:13:12):
But the thing that I felt was the real big lever that could be the outsized impact, like the unknown, the X factor, right? We can model how quickly can Congress move on things, and we can model out how quickly can big industry change and things like that, but the things that nobody can factor into their model, and you're already seeing in the MCJ portfolio, and I love looking at those IEA charts of solar projections of renewable energy adoption, that they're always revising it and they're always wrong, but the pace of change that can happen in startups and through technological innovation is really the thing that gave me the most hope, continues to give me the most hope.
(00:13:57):
And so I really wanted to figure out, okay, I know how to build startups, I know how to build products, I know how to do a bunch of stuff and there's cool stuff happening in the climate tech world, how do I get involved and how do I start applying that?
(00:14:12):
And so I participated in the second cohort of On Deck Climate Tech with Joel Wishkovsky, who was the founder of Frontline Foods New York. That's how we originally met. Then ultimately, we went through On Deck Climate Tech together and started what is now Climate Draft together. That was a great opportunity to just have a little bit of structure and have a path to get exposure to this really, as you know, broad ... It's not a category, it's not a sector, it's the entire ... Decarbonizing the global economy is everything. And so it can be very hard to approach. And so that was a really helpful entry point.
Cody Simms (00:14:55):
Do you remember how you first used to describe Climate Draft? We haven't even gotten into what Climate Draft is. We will. But do you remember how you used to first describe Climate Draft? Because I remember the first time you approached me about it, and it just kind of immediately clicked for me. And I know it's evolved since then, but it may be helpful just to set the stage of the nugget of the idea you all had at first.
Jonathan Strauss (00:15:16):
I think it would be better to hear it from you because I think I've described it so poorly so many times. What sparked it for you?
Cody Simms (00:15:24):
I mean, for me, you basically described it as the NBA Draft for climate, right? You said, "Okay, we are going to go out and find the best operators we know in tech, who we think might have an inkling of interest in climate, and we're going to spend time introducing them to the most interesting and potentially impactful companies out there in climate. And we're going to hold the equivalent of an NBA Draft. We're going to say, 'You've been drafted to work on climate or at least learn about climate. Come hang out with some of these companies for a little bit virtually.'" It was all virtual. "And we'll see what happens."
(00:16:00):
At least that was the nugget of idea that this whole thing has evolved from. It's now become a much broader movement than that. But maybe walk us through some of the early days of how it ultimately started to turn from an idea into the first event you did. And then we'll get into what it is now as an actual entity out there.
Jonathan Strauss (00:16:23):
You definitely recapped it better than I would. I have to credit Joel for the draft branding and, frankly, the draft concept because the original thinking didn't have the timeliness element to it. And that was something ...
(00:16:37):
I think you just asked a great question that I hope for a lot of listeners as well will be something they can take away of things that make it and things that die as ideas, there's not actually a big difference between the merit of those ideas sometimes. Oftentimes, it's just approach and willingness to take risks and timing and people saying yes and building momentum, and not to get too inside baseball, but the timing of your move to MCJ was probably very much serendipitous in whether Climate Draft actually came to fruition or not since you were the first or second person that we ever talked to about it. And I think when I talked to you about it, I didn't know that you were going to be moving to MCJ.
(00:17:28):
But yeah, I think where it started, and this does connect back to the time in politics as well, is one of the things that was really interesting when I was working in politics is I started to become just a personal API, like a nexus, where a lot of people from tech and from my extended social network in the tech world were like, "Oh, I'm interested in politics or I'm interested in having an impact in politics. How can I apply myself?" And so I started getting a lot of either first degree or friends of friends coming to me and just started as the product manager in me was building up a little bit of user research and customer development and seeing patterns in the questions that people were asking and where they were coming from.
(00:18:13):
So after the 2018 election, the first conversation about what would become Climate Draft actually happened in December of 2018. So it's almost four years ago, right now. I have to look at the initial domain registration, but it happened after a meeting I had with Clay, who's now at Lowercarbon. And I was saying to him, "Hey, look, done the politics stuff, want to get more directly involved in climate. I know you all are focused on that. Where are their needs? Where can I help?"
(00:18:42):
It's like, okay, the innovation is surprisingly there. And that's always been, I think, a revelation for everybody who starts to look at the space because ... And this is a theme that's carried through from that first conversation to everything we're doing today with Climate Draft, which is most people who aren't listening to MCJ Pod, the majority of the world out there, their awareness of climate is very much like their awareness of politics. It's at arm's length, it's through the fog of noise and what makes it onto the front page of the New York Times or the headlines on the evening news or stuff like that.
Cody Simms (00:19:20):
It's also very bad news, to underscore. Very, very bad news. And it is bad news, but with no hope, like bad news without a side-serving of hope.
Jonathan Strauss (00:19:29):
Exactly. And that, I think, the share of voice that is in the mainstream conversation, the mainstream awareness is you can understand why so many people are just throwing up their hands and saying, "Why bother?" It's now been termed dooomerism and I think there's been some great articles and writing and thought around, "Hey, this is actually counterproductive." And yes, we should be telling the truth about how bad things are and how bad they can get and the IPCC reports and the wildfires and all those things. Those deserve headlines, but they shouldn't be the only headlines, to your point.
(00:20:08):
And so what I found personally, as I started looking into climate, was like, oh my goodness, there are so many amazing and inspiring things happening, so many reasons for hope that I had no idea about before I started looking at it. And so the innovation is happening, whether it's in research labs or in academia or now in startups, and we have ... This is a pat kind of generalization, but I think most experts would agree, and you've talked to more experts than I have, and I think actually, this might be something that I remember you did a Techstars Podcast with Clay. That was awesome. And I think this came up in that too.
(00:20:47):
It's like we kind of have all of the innovations that we need to decarbonize the global economy. We could do everything that we needed to do with the science that we have now. The real challenge is getting these things adopted, to quote the book sitting in front of me from John Doerr, at the speed and scale that the climate crisis demands to change the trajectory of our descent towards planetary boundaries.
(00:21:13):
And so that was the first thing that I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, of course we need more scientists, we need more innovation, we need all of these things. Fusion breakthroughs would be transformative, et cetera. But no, most of the things we need are already there."
(00:21:29):
And the second thing that I learned from Clay in that meeting was obviously we need more capital. This was four years ago, but Chris could already see the writing on the wall of capital is coming to the space. It doesn't need to be dragged here anymore. The tipping point is coming. And so in that conversation, we arrived at, okay, if you've got the innovation, if you've got the capital, what's the next bottleneck? Well, it's going to be talent.
(00:21:54):
And as I was going through my journey, talking to investors, talking to founders, going through On Deck Climate Tech, a recurring theme that came up, and I'm sure you see this across your portfolio as well, is climate tech companies, I look forward to talking more about this further on in the episode, is all kinds of talent and it's really exciting, all the different types of talent that climate tech companies need.
(00:22:16):
But one of the things that's a differentiated need for them is talent that has experience scaling and operating at scale. And there's one industry in the world that has a ton of people who have seen and done that and had a front row seat to the growth of the biggest companies in history and the fastest growing companies in history. And so the idea of saying, "Okay, that talent is valuable, is particularly valuable to these founders who ..." And that was another thing that kept coming up again and again is we take for granted people in tech, especially Silicon Valley, that there's this distributed institutional knowledge of how to build a startup.
(00:23:03):
When I set out to build my startup, I had never done it before, but very quickly, I was living in San Francisco, it was too ... I got connected with people who were investors and founders and I could benefit from all that experience they had. And as you have a founder pool for climate tech that is more geographically diverse, thankfully more diverse in every way, but also comes from diverse backgrounds, they're coming from industries outside of tech, they're coming from academia, they're coming from research. They don't have access to tap into those whisper networks of, "Here's how to build a startup." They don't know who Fred Wilson is or Brad Feld and which blogs or books to read or all that stuff.
(00:23:53):
And so that was something that kept coming up again and again was like, "Oh, hey, we need company building experience more than anything else." That is going to be a huge unblock for how quickly these companies can get to market. Yes, you can learn how to do all those things. I've learned how to do them myself, et cetera. You make a lot of mistakes along the way. You waste time along the way.
(00:24:17):
So in thinking about how I could have a personal impact, I know a lot of the people who know how to do this stuff and they love sharing that information and they're personally concerned about climate and they don't know how they can help.
Cody Simms (00:24:29):
Yeah. The skillset that I hear the most that really resonates with me is one that, if you've worked in big tech at all, is just so obvious to you that you don't even think about it. But it's things like how to do performance reviews, or how to build a hiring funnel, how to assess salesperson effectiveness. These are just course of business things that you don't even think about as skill sets if you've worked in big tech, but that are actually really helpful to a climate tech with, potentially, a research or academic founder who hasn't worked in tech and hasn't had to think about how to scale these types of things before, to bring those skill sets in within the function that you do, just feels like it is actually a huge unlock in value add for many companies out there.
Jonathan Strauss (00:25:18):
Yeah. Company building is a skill and there aren't that many places, there aren't that many industries where company building at the speed and scale again that we want to see in climate tech have happened, right? Yes, people build companies all over in all kinds of industries, but they don't do it as quickly or as massively in general as you see happen in software tech every day.
Cody Simms (00:25:45):
So I want to hit quickly on, after you had these ah-has, you built the MVP of Climate Draft and had a couple of early instances of testing the model. Let's talk about that quickly and then talk about what Climate Draft today is.
(00:25:58):
And what I really want to spend the bulk of the rest of our conversation on is what are you learning from the talent that you're talking to? What kind of talent are you seeing wanting to come into climate? What are you learning from the founders who are trying to recruit talent in? Let's make sure we were able to spend a lot of time on that part because I feel like that'll be the most relevant for the bulk of the audience here that might be listening.
Jonathan Strauss (00:26:18):
Sure, yeah. And so taking all these insights, ultimately, we have this idea to, as you said, run a sports draft. And this was the summer. This was last summer, summer of 2021. August, I think. It was early August, I approached you. Yeah.
(00:26:37):
The idea was just, okay, we've got a bunch of companies out there that seem to have need of people with this type of skill and experience. Climate concern is something that uniquely cuts across at a personal level. It cuts across wealth, it cuts across age, it cuts across seniority, it cuts across industry. And we just know from our personal networks, there are a lot of people out there who have valuable experience and resources and skills to bring to bear that care about climate and want to figure out a way to help.
(00:27:11):
So we went to MCJ, Lowercarbon and eight other climate tech VCs with your help, and Jason's help and Clay's help, and we said, "Okay, if each of you VCs invite a handful of senior leaders from your personal networks outside of climate and a handful of your most exciting climate tech portfolio companies, what we're going to do is this one-month virtual on-ramp to climate. It's going to have some educational components. It's going to have some awesome invite-only Zooms."
(00:27:46):
We had Chris Sacca speak. Jason interviewed Peter Reinhardt from Charm. We had Nan Ranshoff speak and Kamal Kapadia from Terra did a private lecture. So we got some really amazing programming, but the centerpiece of it was the networking. It was show, don't tell, and it was what I believed and continue to believe is the more that people could have exposure to the companies and the work that they're doing, the more excited and inspired those people will be to make their careers about climate because it's just so hopeful.
Cody Simms (00:28:24):
So the idea was let's pick our personal networks, find people we know who are VPs at Facebook, Google, C levels at scaling startups-
Jonathan Strauss (00:28:30):
The CTO of Facebook.
Cody Simms (00:28:33):
Right, yeah, people like that, these kinds of people.
Jonathan Strauss (00:28:34):
The COO of Stripe.
Cody Simms (00:28:38):
And then put them in a virtual space with some of the most exciting climate tech companies out there and just inspire them all to know each other and see what happens. That was the MVP.
(00:28:48):
What did you learn? What did you learn from that?
Jonathan Strauss (00:28:50):
Yes, that is what we did, with your help. And we were blown away by the level of receptiveness and engagement on both sides, especially ... It started with the invites. So we were inviting, as you said, all of these pretty senior people, and the invites started trickling up, which was not what we expected. And every time somebody would come with an inbound of saying, "Oh, this person's interested in participating," whoa, that's our new most exciting, name brand title that we've got participating. And then the next week it would be somebody even more senior than that.
(00:29:29):
But yeah, we had two-thirds positive RSVP rate for a month-long thing from really, really busy people who have insane demands on their time. So the first signal was, "Oh my goodness, people really care about climate." And then it wasn't just like, "Oh, they said yes," but the actual engagement of, "Oh, they're showing up to these sessions, they're engaging." We have this online directory that today's version is a bit more advanced, but it's kind of the same idea as what we had then of everybody has a profile and you can see what skills and experience they have to offer and companies can connect with individuals and vice versa.
(00:30:08):
In three weeks of networking, we had over 400 accepted connections, like double opt-in, both sides said, "I want to talk."
Cody Simms (00:30:19):
The easiest way I could explain it, I think, is imagine a world where LinkedIn only had 300 people total. Every one of them was exceptional. You weren't connected to any of them, but you could click a button and ask to be connected, and they were all interested in talking to you. That was basically what that V1 of the product felt like.
Jonathan Strauss (00:30:35):
Yeah, exactly. And it was fantastic. And what we saw come out of it were angel investments being made, board seats, advisory relationships, and a surprising number of hires that we didn't come into it with transactional or prescriptive outcomes that we were looking for. But again, it wasn't something we did. It was the exposure to the reality of what's happening in climate tech that just people don't have as much occasion to learn about and know about, that was really the driver of the engagement and of those outcomes.
Cody Simms (00:31:14):
I think another cool aspect of that first version, it actually reminds me a lot of both the early days of MCJ and the early days of Climate Changemakers, which is a lot of the direct team that was helping you build this was a volunteer team who were themselves using this as an opportunity to do something in climate. And it was how they knew how to apply their skills in climate, which was building out the infrastructure that was Climate Draft.
(00:31:41):
And so to me, for anyone listening, if you have an idea that involves getting into climate for the first time, it may not be a hard tech company, but it's something that services the common good, there are lots of people out there who are likely going to want to help you on it. And maybe talk a little bit about your experience, the pros and cons of working with an all-volunteer sort of operating team in the early days, Jonathan.
Jonathan Strauss (00:32:06):
Yeah, and I think you make a great point that I definitely want to reinforce for everybody, and goes back to what we said of the difference between ideas that make it and the ideas that don't usually isn't the quality of the idea. It's all about the execution and the commitment. And this was really a flyer. It was so out of left field and it was the momentum and the receptiveness that we had from folks like yourself, as well as all those volunteers.
(00:32:33):
Yeah, the one thing I learned. I have a lot of experience, actually, working with volunteer teams. One of the things I did in politics before I landed at Swing Left was work at an org called Tech for Campaigns where I was leading 12 volunteer teams in the state legislative races in Virginia in 2017. So that was my crash course on the pros and cons of volunteers.
(00:32:59):
And with Swing Left where we had a strong volunteer component, with obviously Frontline Foods, which was all volunteer-run, and then with Climate Draft, where it was initially all volunteer-run, I think there are definitely some key things that were immutable through all that.
(00:33:14):
And one is you have to motivate people, you have to keep them motivated, and you have to show them ... Ultimately, you have to think about a value exchange. People are volunteering, they still want value, it's just non-economic value. So you definitely can't take volunteers commitment for granted. And this isn't to say anything bad about the people who are volunteering. We're all humans, we all respond to and we're all very busy people with demands on our time. And so you're constantly ... It's like a SaaS product. Just because somebody says they're going to do something, as a volunteer, it's like you have to earn their work every day, every week. And the best way to do that is to always give them that positive reinforcement and show them the reason that they wanted to do it is because they want to contribute to these results. And so you want to make sure you're giving them that closed feedback loop.
(00:34:07):
And just to be really respectful of people's time, really grateful for that time and recognize that in every way possible. I think organizational design, you can design for efficiency or for resilience, and in all-volunteer organization, you really need to over index for resilience. And so that means things will go slower than they would in an employee-based operation, and that's okay. You have to just know that going in and not approach it in that same way and approach it in a way that's going to be sustainable and allow for the invariable. Something comes up, I can't fulfill that commitment. That's just going to happen.
Cody Simms (00:34:52):
We're going to take a short break right now so our partner Yin can share more about the MCJ membership option.
Yin Lu (00:34:59):
Hey folks. Yin here, a partner at MCJ Collective. I want to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ Membership Community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast.
(00:35:10):
We started in 2019, and have since then grown to 2000 members globally. Each week we're inspired by people who join with different backgrounds and perspectives. And while those perspectives are different, what we all share in common is a deep curiosity to learn and bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change.
(00:35:28):
Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams I've met, nonprofits have been established, a bunch of hiring has been done, many early stage investments have been made, as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly Women in Climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops, and more.
(00:35:48):
So whether you've been in climate for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to MCJCollective.com and click on the members tab at the top.
(00:35:59):
Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms (00:36:01):
All right, back to the show.
(00:36:03):
Well, thanks for all this backstory and humoring me in probing into your journey because to me, what's really exciting about Climate Draft was it's not like this is something you woke up one day and said, "I'm going to do this." It really is a journey that has led you to where you are today. We've skipped over some of the things that you did in between, but I do want to hit today.
(00:36:23):
So maybe talk a bit about what Climate Draft is now and also some of the recent events in the tech world and what you've seen happen over the last few months as layoffs have ramped in our current economic cycle.
Jonathan Strauss (00:36:38):
I think there's a good segue there, which is what Climate Draft is today is the result of a journey of what will be most impactful for climate tech companies.
(00:36:49):
In the beginning, what we set out to do as volunteers was to help accelerate the efforts of companies working to decarbonize the global economy. As you said before, it was our way of contributing to something where, I don't know how to start a carbon-free steel company or whatever it is, but it was our way to help the people who are out there doing the thing. Just like with Frontline Foods, I couldn't go and be work in an ER, but I could help feed the people who are working in the ER.
(00:37:22):
And so that was very much the ethos that got us to start Climate Draft was like, what are the people who can do what we can't do? What do they need to do it better and faster? So that's always driven what our solutions were and has driven how it's evolved over the last year.
(00:37:41):
So on September 20th ... So now Climate Draft is a public benefit corporation. Another learning from running a lot of volunteer orgs is that you cannot run an all-volunteer anything indefinitely and kind of scale it up. It has its time and place and has its limitations. Coming out of what we did last fall, the initial draft, there was just a lot of enthusiasm from everybody who participated, investors, companies, and on the talent side, for us to continue doing it, which wasn't our plan at all.
(00:38:17):
If I'm going to be honest, I think a lot of us who were running it, we were like, "We want to work in climate tech. This is a cool way to build the job fair that we want to be a part of." And so instead of finding a job, I ended up with something that everybody was like, "No, you need to keep doing this." I'm like, "We didn't build it in that way."
(00:38:36):
So we spent a lot of time thinking about what that would mean and came back to the first principles of, okay, this only makes sense to do if it's something that helps companies and is really additive to what else is going on in the space. And I want to give a huge shout-out to all of the amazing orgs that have been working on climate career transitions and before Climate Draft existed, continue to work on it and that are great partners to us.
(00:39:02):
As I mentioned, Kamal from Terra was a speaker. Terra, actually, was the only sponsor that we had for Climate Draft, the original Climate Draft, and Work on Climate is an amazing community that we partner with. MCJ, obviously, while not a dedicated career transition solution, but you play such an important role in it and we partner with you all. Climatebase does great work as well, and we work with them where we can.
(00:39:27):
So we wanted to be additive. We wanted to make sure that if we were going to spend our time doing this ... Again, going back to for me, my time and my labor are the most important valuable things I have. And so I want to make sure that they're doing things that are moving the needle. And so what we came up with is it should be a membership organization. If we want to help companies, it should be something that the companies pay for because that's the best way to tell if you're you're delivering them value. If we're not delivering them disproportionate value, then we shouldn't exist. And I really wanted it to, from the start, if we were going to continue doing this, be baked into it.
(00:40:14):
We have a public radio model, is the way I think about it. And so we currently have, I think, going on 40 paying member companies, 10 member VCs, but we have a network of hundreds of companies and dozens of VCs. And we try and add as much value as possible wherever we can, as scalably as possible.
(00:40:37):
We launched in, officially, September 20th where we opened up our directory to anybody who wanted to learn more about climate tech and could create a profile that would be discoverable to the hundreds of climate tech startups in our network, and also are creating resources for people at the very earliest stages of their climate journey. We really are focusing on raising the top of the funnel to reach, attract and activate people with valuable skills and experience in other industries who are personally climate-concerned, but aren't yet climate-committed.
Cody Simms (00:41:17):
Let's do a use case. So let's say I'm a machine learning engineer who was just laid off from a big tech company. I'm excited about climate. I don't really know what it means. I see some tweet or something about Climate Draft. I go check it out. What do I do? What does my pathway look like?
Jonathan Strauss (00:41:35):
I mean, I think the first important thing is there's no one answer to that. There's no one-size-fits-all, and we want to acknowledge that.
(00:41:43):
I think the important thing is that you saw a tweet about Climate Draft, or whatever. It's that by creating a center of gravity, by having one call to action ... This is actually something that I experienced firsthand at Swing Left in 2018. We partnered with 70 other progressive orgs, including Indivisible and Our Revolution, et cetera, to do something called the Last Weekend where all of these orgs had a call to action for people to volunteer the last weekend of the election. And we said, "Hey, look, if we just have one website that we're telling them to go to, it'll probably reach more people than if we try and get people to talk about 70 different websites."
(00:42:22):
And so that was really illustrative, the success of that, coverage on CNN and MSNBC and got celebrities talking about it and all that stuff. And because it was one neutral entry point, you didn't have to pick, "Oh, am I supporting Bernie or am I supporting Hillary?" Or whatever it was. It was just like, "Go volunteer."
(00:42:44):
And so that is kind of what we've set out to create with this industry-wide coalition of saying Climate Draft is an entry point, it's an on-ramp to climate. We don't actually do all of the various things that somebody might want on their journey. MCJ is there for a community component. Terra is there for an educational component. Climatebase is doing the job board. So we're really focusing on how do we reach a broader audience that doesn't necessarily know this is out here, and how do we push that message of there's really exciting things, going back to what we talked about, of what the mainstream coverage looks like and how doom-inducing that can be, we want to be out there working to get that message out.
(00:43:31):
So we're doing a lot of stuff with the press, on social media, et cetera to make sure that people know, "Okay, I'm personally concerned about climate. I don't know where to start. Here's an entry point."
(00:43:40):
And so for that machine learning engineer, they can sign up for our email newsletter. We just sent out an email saying, "Here are 10 great events happening over the next two weeks from MCJ and Work on Climate and Terra and Climatebase." So it's just breaking down some friction, aggregation theory in action.
(00:44:03):
They can also create a profile. So now we have almost 3000 profiles in our talent directory, and we've got hundreds of companies that are looking at those folks and reaching out to them. But it's more about facilitating, getting people into the funnel and helping them to find the right path and the right solution for them.
Cody Simms (00:44:24):
And you've talked to hundreds of people now looking to make their own transitions into climate, much as you made your transition a few years ago in maybe a different way than you would've expected. What are some of the things you're hearing from people? What do they come into with maybe a misconception around? What are they coming in to try to solve for themselves? What do they want to know?
(00:44:48):
If you could boil it down to a handful of takeaways, what would those be?
Jonathan Strauss (00:44:52):
Yeah, so we have three themes that we focus on in our messaging and our programming, which are born out of those conversations that we've had and continue to have.
(00:45:04):
The first is that climate change is a solvable problem. Even the people who are motivated to take a look, still don't know about so many of the solutions that are out there, and they almost feel silly or frivolous about it, like this is just me being self-indulgent, and so we want to make sure that people know, no, actually this is a real thing and they are real solutions and we can actually move the needle on this.
(00:45:33):
And just showcasing ... Another reason why it's so great to be a membership organization is that most of our "content" is just really elevating and amplifying the work that's happening in the climate tech space that these companies are doing, how much progress has been made, how close we are to major breakthroughs in so many key areas.
(00:45:54):
That's a key thing. Even for the people who want to get involved, they still have very little conception of how exciting the innovation in the space is.
(00:46:06):
The second key misconception and recurring theme, and we've talked about this offline, is about compensation and about just like, is this a concessionary industry or is this a charity kind of thing? And only people who don't care about money are working on it. And no, the reality is that if we're successful in decarbonizing global economy, that's Industrial Revolution level wealth creation. It's orders of magnitude bigger than the internet. Fifth Wall published a blog post a couple years ago now that, I think I found it through Peter Reinhardt, where they just did a rough market sizing and they're like, "The entire SaaS market is X," and just commercial real estate in the northeast is 10X that, right?
(00:46:51):
So just the amount of money that is being deployed into the space, as you well know, the amount of the addressable market is huge. And so this is something that is a lucrative career path, maybe the most lucrative career path available right now.
(00:47:08):
And then the third big thing is how are my skills applicable? And that's obviously a lot more idiosyncratic, but as we talked about before, all of these companies need company building, and they all need a lot of the same things. Many of them that you wouldn't think need software product expertise on the design side, the product management side, the engineering side, there are a lot more software-centric opportunities than people realize, and there are a lot more software-enabled opportunities than people realize. People don't think of Commonwealth Fusion Systems as having a huge software team, but they do. And it's an essential part to what they're doing. Or Heart Aerospace where the entirety of their first plane was built out virtually before they ever started doing the first thing physically.
(00:47:59):
So those are the three main things that we focus on and that we hear reinforced.
Cody Simms (00:48:05):
And on the flip side, what are you hearing from climate tech companies who are looking to hire? Is there something different about recruiting talent in climate tech or something unique to it that they're learning how to do? Granted the whole definition of climate tech, as you said, it's not a sector or an industry. So we're talking about food and ag companies and we're talking about carbon market companies and we're talking about carbon removal companies, and these are very, very different things. But is there any common thread you're hearing about what they're having to do to pull talent into their companies that may be unique or different from traditional tech?
Jonathan Strauss (00:48:40):
So I think that the climate angle can be a double-edged sword for a company that's hiring, right? It can be a great motivator and a great draw, but also the flip side is the misconceptions that we just detailed that are broadly held in the talent pool.
(00:48:57):
So I think for people who are climate-motivated talent that it's a huge draw, but there's also a big world of people out there who still don't believe in climate tech, don't believe that climate is a lucrative career and just automatically kind of think, "Oh, that's a hobby or that's a passion project," or something like that. So I think there is a bit of, not to be redundant, but I think it's just the flip side of the same things.
(00:49:26):
And especially, as you move out of the software tech world in terms of your talent pool and you think about, okay, we want to tap into talent from the oil and gas industry or the manufacturing industry or the automotive industry or whatever, I think there's a lot of groundwork that needs to be laid in order for these companies to be seen as ... And those are also worlds where there's not as much exposure and kind of awareness of startups. Startups are seen as risky, not exciting. In the software tech world, startups are exciting. But as you start to expand beyond that, people look at it as a liability. And so I think there's a lot of work to be done there.
Cody Simms (00:50:12):
Yeah. To me, one of the most exciting things about climate tech is the opportunity to be more inclusive in the growth economy, to skill sets that maybe weren't able to participate in the last decade when it was a tech economy or the decade or two before that when it was a finance economy. And now to say, "Hey, some of the most important jobs out there are electricians or solar installers or agricultural workers who are helping to change our entire systems for growing food into regenerative methods." Those feel really important and yet feel like in totally different groups of workers and people to try to reach. How does Climate Draft envision playing in that space over time?
Jonathan Strauss (00:51:01):
Yeah, great point. Great question. And just to put some stats around it, I just quickly pulled up jobs.climatedraft.org, which includes all of the jobs in MCJ portfolio and 13 other VC funds. Currently, I'm just looking right now, 5,774 jobs across 434 companies in 14 different VC portfolios. I just did a quick search. What percentage of those are software engineering jobs? It's less than 20%, right? There's a ton on there that are in different geographies, that are different skill sets, et cetera.
(00:51:38):
As our guiding light being Climate Draft is here to do what is valuable and will help climate tech companies move as quickly as possible, we're absolutely looking to take our playbook that we've run in the software tech world for tapping into climate-motivated talent in that industry, and moving it to other industries that have folks with valuable skills and experience to climate tech companies.
(00:52:06):
And yeah, it's basically how do we create an on-ramp to climate? How do we make sure that we get out there into the networks of people who are influential and leaders in that space and start having that narrative, kind of changing the narrative and how people talk about and thus perceive this industry and go from it being something that's seen as potentially politicized or a threat to growth, to really being a source of economic opportunity and betterment? Because in the end, that's something, whether you care about climate change or not, everybody, these are what they call kitchen table issues. Everybody cares about economic opportunity.
(00:52:52):
And so we have a playbook that we've refined a bit in the tech industry and we're looking forward to putting it to work in other industries in the new year.
Cody Simms (00:53:01):
One of the other topics I wanted to hit on quickly with you, just because it's so unique is I know you recently raised a bit of money into Climate Draft and you did so in a structure that I think is unique in and of itself. You mentioned that you're a public benefits corporation, but maybe you also want to talk a bit about revenue-based financing and what that whole model looks like, just for founders who are looking at alternative models of raising capital.
Jonathan Strauss (00:53:26):
Absolutely. Yeah, a shout-out to Bryce Roberts and Indie VC.
(00:53:30):
So we did our very small round for the Public Benefit Corporation, basically Indie VC terms, which is a revenue-based loan, and they're open source terms. You can find them at Indie.vc, I believe, or Google, "Indie VC terms." And it's not the only revenue-based financing approach, but basically, when I first talked to Bryce, who kind of came up with these ideas a few years ago before he launched it, his whole thing ... He's a early stage VC, kind of conventional VC, and his whole pitch to me was, "Look, if only half a percent of venture-backed companies achieve unicorn status," which is what the goal is of the model, "then it means that we're selling the wrong financing product to 99.5% of our customers." And I was just like, "Whoa, man!" But he is right.
(00:54:25):
And as a venture-back startup founder in the past, as somebody who's been an advisor, Techstars mentor, angel investor, et cetera, I've seen no shortage of companies that raise venture capital because they don't know of any other options and not because it's the best option. And I think a really key insight, I give a talk to Techstars companies about intro to VC funding, and the number one thing I want to get through to people who've never fundraised from VCs before is all that matters is growth. You take money from a venture capitalist, you are signing up for growth at all costs above everything else, including running out of money and going out of business. If you're not planning to focus on having a billion dollar plus outcome, don't take venture capital money. It's not the right solution for you.
(00:55:20):
So we knew from the start with Climate Draft that no, our focus is the impact. Our focus is on helping these companies. And for a number of reasons, it didn't make sense to do it as a 501(c)(3), so we had to do it in a for-profit structure. But we're like, "No, we're not going to try and raise a venture round. That's just going to sign us up for something that is antithetical to our mission and our goals."
(00:55:46):
But yeah, so Indie VC terms, there's a number of folks who are doing revenue-based financing for climate companies and I'm trying to remember off the top of my head-
Cody Simms (00:55:56):
Enduring Planet is one.
Jonathan Strauss (00:55:56):
Enduring Planet, thank you.
Cody Simms (00:55:57):
Yeah, Enduring Planet offers it as a solution for climate tech companies. But yeah, maybe just the Indie VC terms, just give us 20 seconds on how it works and underscore that really quickly.
Jonathan Strauss (00:56:07):
Yeah, so what it is we said, like our terms are that after, I think, three years from when we raised the money, we will start paying back our investors from 5% of revenue and that we will buy back their shares at 3X the price they paid for it.
(00:56:28):
So basically, there's still risk on the investor side, but there's a meaningful potential outcome. It's if we succeed and we continue to go, we'll buy back all your shares at three times what you paid for it. And really, the only question is how quickly it happens, or the primary question is how quickly it happens.
(00:56:50):
And so if we do that within five years, hey, that's actually a venture scale investment. If we do it over 20 years, that's more like putting your money in a bond. So that's kind of the big risk. And obviously, there's the risk that we don't last long enough to pay that back, but it's a different model and I think it aligns.
(00:57:09):
The whole idea that Bryce had when he came up with the Indie VC terms was, I think, to better align investors with the company in terms of motivating them to have revenue, be profitable, build an ongoing sustainable business. And I think that was important for us to scale our impact over time.
Cody Simms (00:57:29):
And as contrasted to, for those who aren't super familiar with venture economics, a typical venture startup, which the venture investors really only make money when that company either sells to someone or has an IPO. So I think that's the other benefit here is there's no investor motivation to get you to try to sell the business over time. You just build, keep growing and building the business, they'll eventually get their money back and everybody wins, I think, is the theory at least.
(00:57:52):
And so the bet with you all is that there are going to continue to be waves and waves of people moving into climate, and there are going to continue to be more and more amazing companies built, and that Climate Draft is looking to be a nexus point for that as a member organization. Right?
Jonathan Strauss (00:58:09):
Yeah. And I think the on-ramp to climate for talent across many industries is going to keep us busy for a while, but there are also, from our lens of being a member organization for companies, talent is only one of the planks of value where we see the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
(00:58:28):
And so that's really the key is identify where coalition efforts can have a greater ROI than individual efforts and build those things out.
Cody Simms (00:58:40):
Well, that makes sense. I mean, I could see over time things like government lobbying or things like cooled purchasing of certain types of assets or resources. These are all things that a member org in other industries might do on behalf of their member participants. Interesting.
(00:58:56):
Jonathan, what didn't I ask today? Anything else I should have asked that I haven't?
Jonathan Strauss (00:58:59):
No, I mean, I think we've covered a lot.
(00:59:03):
One thing I would say to the founders who are listening that ... You asked about what we see on the talent side in Climate Draft, and there's a lot to be learned from that and a lot of important insights there. I think we also learn a lot on the founder side and we have a ton of conversations across a wide set of founders of different backgrounds, of different experience levels. And I think one of the most interesting things, going back to what we talked about earlier of founders who don't necessarily come from the tech background, who don't necessarily have the same innate institutional knowledge that a lot of us take for granted who come from that background, that there's a learning curve in what's available to them in terms of the types of help that could be beneficial, even if it's not necessarily super tactical.
(01:00:02):
So I think that's a really interesting thing that we've observed, and I'm sure you observe across your portfolio as well, is usually the less experienced founders tend to be much more tactical in terms of their priorities, and the more experienced founders have a broader, more strategic view of, "Hey, this conversation might not be something that I need this minute, but it could actually have outsize impact down the road."
(01:00:28):
And I was talking to somebody earlier today who was a product executive at Twitter and YouTube is now looking to get into climate and he's actually a member of the MCJ community. And so we were talking about it, he's like, "Yeah, sure, I'm open to head of product roles at climate tech companies, but I also really am interested in advising right now as I get my feet wet," which is just a great way for somebody who can afford to do it, to really learn by helping and it's a lot of how I got into it as well. And so we were talking about, okay, well how do you plug in as an advisor?
(01:01:01):
And while in Climate Draft, we have the ability for people to tag themselves as being open to advising, and that's something that we saw a ton of in the original smaller Climate Draft. Now that we have a broader membership base, what we really see the founders using it for is very tactical of like, "I'm hiring for this role, who can I find for that?" And I think there's a missed opportunity in tapping into those people with really valuable skills and experience who you might not have a role for today, but they could really help you today and tomorrow.
(01:01:37):
And so I think just that's something that we'd like to help more founders think about is ... And it's hard. I've been a founder. You get really in the weeds. Sometimes you're in survival mode. I always talk about the tyranny of the urgent versus the important. And so the more that we can do to help founders make time for the important and create opportunities to get access to all these amazing people who want to help them with those important things, I think that's also part of our mission to help accelerate climate tech companies.
Cody Simms (01:02:13):
Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us today and it's been awesome to be a partner with you on this journey, and I can't wait to see how this continues to evolve.
Jonathan Strauss (01:02:21):
Thanks for having me, and thanks for all of your support personally and all of MCJ's support as well.
Jason Jacobs (01:02:28):
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey Podcast.
Cody Simms (01:02:31):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem-solving capacity. To do this, we focus on three main pillars: content like this podcast and our weekly newsletter, capital to fund companies that are working to address climate change, and our member community to bring people together as Yen described earlier.
Jason Jacobs (01:02:53):
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at www.MCJCollective.com. And if you have guest suggestions, feel free to let us know on Twitter @MCJPod.
Cody Simms (01:03:08):
Thanks and see you next episode.
