Startup Series: Mill
Today's guest is Harry Tannenbaum, Co-founder and President at Mill.
Mill developed a household bin that not only collects uneaten food but also shrinks and deodorizes it. The company’s solution aims to keep food in the system and prevent it from ending up in landfills or waste systems, which would otherwise generate significant emissions.
Mill recently exited stealth and we're proud to be multi-time backers of the company through our MCJ Collective venture funds alongside other leading climate tech funds such as Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lower Carbon Capital, Prelude Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, and John Doerr.
In this episode, Cody and Harry delve into the issue of food waste and what inspired him to tackle it. They discuss the qualities of a successful consumer product and how Harry and his co-founder, Matt Rogers, applied the lessons they learned at Nest to their work at Mill. Additionally, they examine Mill's product and logistics framework, and the intersection between consumer behavior change and systems change. They also explore the network effect that Mill hopes to create between the two. Finally, the conversation covers the pros and cons of building a company in stealth, as Mill did during the product development process.
Get connected:
Cody Twitter / LinkedIn
Harry Tannenbaum / Mill
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 February 10, 2023.
In this episode, we cover:
[2:42] An overview of the food waste problem
[6:04] The life cycle of food waste and the role of city municipalities
[11:15] Harry's journey and experience with Nest
[14:13] How he met his co-founder and decided to focus on waste
[20:00] The genesis for Mill's hardware solution and how it evolved
[25:28] Critical team members and how the company's final produce came to be
[29:47] Mill as a systems change company
[30:35] An overview of the Mill bin and membership experience
[37:07] Where chickens fit in
[45:19] The theoretical debate of systems change vs. personal responsibility
[54:00] The company's partnership with the city of Tacoma, Washington
[57:27] Where the company is looking to hire talent
[59:06] Pros and cons of building in stealth
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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. 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 Harry Tannenbaum, co-founder and president at Mill, which develops a household bin that collects uneaten food, shrinks and de-stinks it, and keeps it in the food system and out of landfills and waste systems. Where it otherwise would become a significant source of emissions. Mill recently exited stealth and launched their product and consumer membership offering. We're proud to be multi-time backers of Mill through our MCJ Collective Venture Funds alongside other leading climate tech funds such as Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lower Carbon Capital, Prelude Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, and John Doerr. Harry and I go deep on the food waste problem and how he became motivated to work on it. We talk about what makes a great consumer product and how he and his co-founder, Matt Rogers, who co-founded Nest learned valuable lessons together at Nest that they're applying at Mill. We talk all about the Mill product and the logistics framework that the company is developing, and we talk about the intersection of consumer behavior change and systems change and the network effect that Mill hopes to create between the two. We also talk about the strategy of building a company in stealth as Mill was throughout the product development process and the pros and cons they're in. This is an in-depth conversation and Harry and I didn't leave many stones unturned. I hope you enjoy it. Harry, welcome to the show.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:02:01):
Hey, it's great to be here.
Cody Simms (00:02:04):
Harry, I have noticed in reviewing now thousands of MCJ members that join our member community, a very large portion of people when they are trying to lean into how they can work on climate, identify food waste as one of the areas that they want to lean into. It's like the initial entry point for a lot of people into thinking about how they can work on climate. Maybe it's because it feels very personal to them, I don't know, but let's start there. What is the food waste problem?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:02:42):
It's a great question. I'm on the same page with a lot of folks there. I think one way to look at it is just the sheer volume of food we grow that doesn't get eaten and the impact of agriculture on the planet. We can talk about some high level numbers. Emissions of agriculture as a whole, about 25% of our emissions. And then a bonkers thing is that we throw away about 40% of the food we grow. Emissions for food waste are between eight to 10%, which when you look at it as a country, would be the third-largest country on the planet.
Cody Simms (00:03:26):
And do you know roughly how much of that is household food waste and how much is grocery store or supply chain logistics waste?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:03:34):
In the US, first of all, the thing that actually got me going is, I just started getting obsessed with waste in the pandemic. And you don't have a lot going on so you go to the EPA website and download a PDF and you look at what makes up the landfill and food is the single largest inhabitant of the landfill at 24%.
Cody Simms (00:03:55):
That's mind-blowing. Wow.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:03:57):
And then when you look at where that food comes from, I actually think, first of all, my hypothesis would have been food isn't the largest thing in the landfill. And then I would've guessed it probably comes from farms, grocery stores, et cetera. But actually households are the single largest slice there. I think the number is about 43% of the food waste that is produced comes from the residential sector, effectively us. And when you take a step back, it makes sense because every other step of the chain is profit motivated not to waste food. I think we are theoretically as well. But yeah, it's about 40%/ ReFED, which is just an amazing organization that builds awareness about food waste and loss. There's a quote from Dana Gunders, the director there that was something like, one way to visualize it is we go to the grocery store and we buy five bags of food and we just leave two of them in the parking lot. They don't even get in the back of our car.
Cody Simms (00:05:03):
Man, that is a depressing stat to think about, but it doesn't feel super untrue to me in my own behavior, unfortunately. We all have the best of intentions, but one evening we get busy or this, that and the other and next thing you know that broccoli is probably not something you want to eat anymore.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:05:20):
It's 500 to 600 pounds per household per year in the US. Which actually works out to about two grand a year. It's real money, it's a real amount of material. And I think the thing that got me really fired up, maybe the thing that got me flared up, is that when the food ends up in the landfill, it degrades anaerobically. There's no oxygen in the landfill and you get methane, which is public enemy number one. And order of magnitude. If AG is 25% of emissions, food waste and loss is eight to 10% of emissions, those methane emissions from landfills are 2% of emissions.
Cody Simms (00:06:04):
Let's talk about the life cycle of this food waste. I would assume, based on the numbers you just threw out, the bulk of it just ends up in the garbage, people just throwing it in the trash. Some of it goes down the garbage disposal and goes to a different waste pathway, which also has an emitive component that maybe you can talk about. And then some very, very, very tiny, tiny, tiny small percentage of it is home composted, that's my guess. Is that accurate?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:06:34):
That is accurate. I think if we were to make three big buckets out of it, we could look at circular solutions, which would include composting into animal feed, where the food is reintroduced into the food system. And then linear outputs, which could be incineration, land filling, and then wastewater treatment as a pathway. And maybe it's a little bit between the two. It could go to anaerobic digestion and get used to create energy. But I think when we zoom out, if you think about food, there's two really amazing things about... three amazing things about food. The first being it's delicious, but the second two components being that it's energy rich and nutrient rich. When we're thinking about where the food goes, we can think about different pathways. Are they capturing energy? Are they capturing nutrients? Are they capturing both energy and nutrients? And I don't have the EPA numbers up in front of me, but I think the last EPA fact sheet had the percentage of food that was composted in the US that wasn't eaten, at around 6% and then the landfill-
Cody Simms (00:07:43):
It's actually more than I thought, interesting.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:07:46):
It's not nothing. Backyard composting is a thing. Municipal composting is also a thing that occurs, but in not that many households. Something like only... there's another great publication.
Cody Simms (00:08:02):
This is where you have a bin outside, you're able to put your food waste in a bin and it gets picked up on the road along with your garbage and your recycling?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:08:08):
Yeah. And some MCJ listeners probably have that. And I will say you are in the lucky 5% of Americans that have access to a program like that. Curbside collection for food scraps is... there are lots of municipalities that are working to get there, but it is not hyper prevalent. And then just to chunk out the numbers a little bit, I think about 60 to 70% of the food that doesn't get eaten heads to landfill, I think around 10 to 15% gets incinerated. And then some does go down the drain and you're hitching a free ride in a water pipe. But generally that material needs to get raked out of a wastewater treatment system. And that's pretty energy intensive as a primary treatment. And then it depends what the secondary treatment is, whether that material is hauled to a landfill or goes to an inner digester or could be composted.
Cody Simms (00:09:02):
And by the nature of what goes down the pipes, it's being combined with a bunch of other forms of solid waste, it's not just food at that point clearly?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:09:11):
Correct.
Cody Simms (00:09:12):
And so then that may turn into an anaerobic digester and be harnessed for energy or it may get land filled or it may get incinerated itself. There are multiple end of life pathways on the garbage disposal, sewage side of things.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:10:03):
And cities don't love it either. It's expensive for them to deal with it.
Cody Simms (00:10:06):
In most of these downstream organizations that are managing this, are municipal run at this point. Obviously wastewater is primarily municipal run. Landfills are a mix of private or municipal depending on the locale, I'm guessing. And composting also somewhat a mix. Is that a correct way to think about it, every city's a little bit different?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:10:28):
Yeah, generally when we think about how materials are managed, it's a city by city stack effectively, and it can be really different by city. And everybody has their own local approach to it. There are state level regulations that drive targets for compliance, et cetera, et cetera. But generally it's up to the city to figure itself out there, which is interesting.
Cody Simms (00:10:54):
And how did you decide to work on this problem? We haven't talked about your co-founder, Matt. How did you and Matt Rogers meet? Well you met at Nest obviously, but maybe take us into the way back machine on your journey, how you know all collaborated and how ultimately you ended up deciding to build Mill?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:11:15):
I can go all the way back. Do we want to?
Cody Simms (00:11:16):
Do it. Let's do it.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:11:19):
I was born May 28th. I'm a Gemini. Fast-forward some number of years. I went to college at UCLA, I studied economics and statistics. And after school, or actually in my senior year, I got a job offer to move to New York to be an investment banker. And I was actually entranced by that because it just seemed like, oh cool, I've never lived in New York and maybe there's a lot of cool stuff I can do and learn. And I got to tell you, I got to the investment bank and I was not inspired by the gig. I was fortunate to have made some connections with folks that were at Nest and I effectively got into some conversations with people at Nest and they needed a numbers person and I was so ready to go.
(00:12:19):
And I remember I had my first conversation with folks at Nest and they said, "Oh my God, this sounds great. We need someone like you. You should come join." And I said... I was right out the gate I was like, "Great. I think this is a done deal." I think that was October. November, December, January, I'm talking to recruiting. No response, no response. And I'm thinking, oh my God, this company's so cool and it's doing something for the planet.
Cody Simms (00:12:44):
And it was still a startup private company at this point?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:12:47):
It was a private company and I'll never know if this was the case, but it did occur to me, maybe they're too cheap to fly me out for an interview. I wrote them, I said, "Hey, I'm going to be in the Bay Area, can I come by?" And they said, "Sure, come in."
(00:13:06):
So I booked flights. My family's in San Francisco, I flew out to the Bay Area and I interviewed and I joined Nest in April, 2012. And I was really attracted to the company because it seemed like a super motivated team that was building this thermostat. And the core bit of that was, this is something people want that simplifies your life, that's rationalizable. It was kind of eye watering at the time that it was a $250 thermostat when the average ASP of a thermostat was $27. And I know these numbers, these have been beaten into my head over a long time. But it was this thing that was just an amazing product that people wanted that actually made it easy to save money and made it easy to do the right thing for the planet. I was really attracted to that. And I joined Nest and I was the numbers person at the company. And over the years I did a bunch of different jobs. Effectively figuring out how to help drive the business and drive decision making and booting up organizations, giving away those Legos.
(00:14:13):
So over time it was analytics and then it was e-commerce and digital marketing and all sorts of different things. And along the way I met my now co-founder, Matt, who is one of the founders at Nest, who's just this amazing guy. He's like a human energizer bunny of optimism and thoughtfulness and there aren't that many people on the planet that have shipped as much first-gen hardware as he has. And as a side project that that they, okay, we'll throw this guy on this. Shipped a bunch of versions of the iPhone and iPad and then everything we did at Nest. And we can talk about it later. But first generation hardware is really different than subsequent generation. You're really bringing something to existence that there may be types of it in the world, but it's a big lift to go from zero to one.
(00:15:12):
And we sold Nest to Google in 2014. Along the way, lots of thermostats made their way into people's households. I think the last number was that... I think this is a little outdated, that we saved something like a hundred billion kilowatt hours of electricity. Which is cool. By making it easy for people to do the right thing. And as the company scaled up and grew, we were then a business unit inside Google and the portfolio grew. It's funny, I kind of woke up one day and I just realized I wasn't spending as much of my time on climate related stuff.
Cody Simms (00:15:54):
That hadn't been a motivator for you, but you internalized it while you were at Nest as something that mattered, it sounds like?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:16:01):
It was in there. But I think if you had asked me in the early days of Nest, I would have said, yeah, yeah, I like that we're doing something for the planet. That was a draw for me. But if you had asked me, I would've said no. But the thing that really drives me is I get to work with great people every day and we get to work on a really interesting problem and I try my best to do excellent work to build something new. And then later on when the climate related mix of my work or the missional related mix of my work had gotten turned down, I think in retrospect the missional bit was a bigger piece of it than I had previously thought. I think I was more mission driven than excellence driven, than I thought.
(00:16:48):
So this is now, we're now in 2020 and I'm talking to my now fiance Rachel about this. And she's like, you should quit, get back to doing something you love. And Rachel's much smarter than I am. So I'm like, she's the best. She tells me to quit. We can take some more risks now. So I left Google and then the next week the pandemic started, so I got the risk. And that was when I started thinking about waste. And it's weird, we're trained to ignore waste. I don't know about you, but you accept that it's inevitable, I think. Hey, this is just something that's going to come into existence by virtue of our existence and it goes away.
Cody Simms (00:17:50):
And it's totally not natural.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:17:54):
Yeah, these are two breaking news items for me. One, there's no waste in nature. That was a mind bender for me, that it's a human invention. And two, that there is nowhere called away. This material just doesn't disappear. And then I started seeing it everywhere. just to rewind, isn't it weird that we make our own weight in food waste every year? It's just a weird... if you have an airplane full of people, you could just swap them out for an airplane full of food that they don't eat every year. Anyway, so I started just seeing it everywhere and I started reading. And this harks back to what we were talking about earlier, you download the PDF. What's the biggest thing in the landfill? That seems like a good thing to go after. Food. Okay, that's crazy. Wait, this is way worse than I would've thought from a climate perspective, but also just a food system perspective. We're talking water usage, soil health, fertilizer use, land use, all of it's tied in. And then when you think about it, it feels like the dumbest climate problem out there because we don't need to invent nuclear fusion, we just need to stop throwing food in the trashcan. And I would say the little-
Cody Simms (00:19:22):
Nuclear fusion would be nice, don't get me wrong.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:19:25):
Hey I'm a big fan, I think, not an expert, but I know there are magnets involved. And I think that 2040, 2050, whenever that comes, that's going to be awesome. But we got to make sure we don't cook ourselves on the way there. And this just felt like a tractable problem.
Cody Simms (00:19:46):
So you got motivated by the problem, you went back and reconnected with Matt, I presume, and what was the genesis of the actual company that you're now running?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:20:00):
It was a collaborative thing, but the initial seed crystal of an idea that I had was related to this idea that waste is all about mixing. If we have apples and aluminum separately, this is not waste, these are resources. We can make more apples out of the apples or we can feed the apples to something. We make more aluminum out of the aluminum, they're resources. But when they get mixed together and if you have trouble unmixing them, now you have waste. The little seed crystal, the idea is, what if we could distribute infrastructure to prevent things from getting mixed together? And what if that infrastructure could do some processing inside the home or inside a business, could that unlock a different pathway? And then I was like, shoot, I'm not a hardware person. This sounds like a hardware company. Which I think is probably a theme you see on this podcast where to solve climate change and to build new systems, it's got to be atoms, not just electrons.
Cody Simms (00:21:15):
I was just talking to someone who's getting involved in climate investing. And well that person was asking me, "How much of your investments are hardware?" And I said, "Well, it's about half at MCJ Collective." But it's not all... I mean Mill is to some extent an actual widget that gets sold somewhere, a thing that gets built and sold. Though I know we'll talk about your business model because it's not exactly like that. But when you think about the broader category of moving atoms, which again might not be a hardware product, but it may be a hardware process, it's about half of our investments. And so it's a very real thing because those are how you solve the real problems.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:21:57):
Right. So I can engineer a spreadsheet, but folding a thing is different. So I called Matt and Matt was doing a bunch of climate work, investing, philanthropic work, political work. The reason for calling is I thought there would be someone in his stable of mentees that I could hook up with. And I got a text back from Matt two hours after he talked, "Hey, I talked to my wife, Swati, I think I want to come do this with you." So we were then off to the races and the initial idea was, hey, can we make a bin that does something to food that makes it so it doesn't end up in the landfill? And that really evolved a lot over time from that idea. And it was not from me and Matt. We started building a team. And I would say to folks out there that are thinking about founding a company or have just founded a company, my greatest advice is just focus on hiring people that are smarter than you are. I find it to be an incredibly effective way of driving the business forward.
(00:23:10):
And we started working on approaches and an approach we landed on was that we're going to dehydrate the food. And the cool thing about dehydration with food is that food is 80% water. So that's also just kind of interesting. When you think about all the food that's hauled to the landfill, 80% of that is water that we're hauling around in this diesel truck. So when we take the water out of food, it gets really small and it becomes non-putrescible. Which is a really good Scrabble word that I picked up in my journeys here.
Cody Simms (00:23:48):
You could go get a lot of points when you play that one down.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:23:52):
Is that a nine? You only have seven tiles on the rack. Putrescibility is probably going to be hard, but it could be played on ability. So somebody just got something out of this hopefully.
Cody Simms (00:24:05):
We're adding value.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:24:08):
You stop heat putrescibility because when you get to a lower moisture content, the microbes that cause organic material to break down or they digest it, can't operate at 12 to 13% moisture content. And this material is really small, but it is still food just minus the water. And then the next question is, okay, so what do we do with this stuff?
Cody Simms (00:24:31):
It's basically almost like a protein powder, that's the way to think about it, is that accurate?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:24:38):
Yeah. We're making astronaut food effectively and it's protein powder. And since you're asking, around 19% protein in the average mix of uneaten food from a household, which is pretty bonkers. We call it food grounds, which kind of makes sense because it is ground food. So what do we do with the food grounds? And this is where Alyssa Pollack, who was the first person we hired to the team, the first and not last person way smarter than I am working on this with us. And Alyssa had come from Uber, she was on the team that had incubated and grown Uber Eats within Uber.
Cody Simms (00:25:26):
I'm guessing some pretty heavy logistics background?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:25:28):
Yeah. And she was like, we should take this back. Because what we were struggling with was that, okay, you make 600 pounds of uneaten food a year, in that it's, I'm not calling it food waste, it's just uneaten food. And we turn that into about a hundred pounds of food grounds a year, if we size reduce it by about 80%. So that's like a shoebox and a half a month. But not everybody has a pathway to get that into a circular loop. So Alyssa's like, "Why don't we take it back ourselves?" And we were like, "Whoa, that's a big deal." And then also on the team, I think around the fifth person we hired is Dr. Geoff Hill and Geoff has a PhD in composting. They don't just hand those out. And he'd operated composting facilities and had really gone deep on organics management. And we were thinking initially that would be a pathway we could get this material to. It's light, it's non-putrescible, it's easy to manage.
(00:26:38):
But Geoff was doing all sorts of crazy stuff. He was like... nobody would say anything. And then Geoff would just come into Slack and be like, "Hey, I lit it on fire and it burns at a higher BTU than wood pellets because it's so incredibly energy rich." "Hey, I did macro and micronutrient testing and this stuff is amazing." And it made sense because it was still food. And US EPA has this hierarchy of the highest and best uses for uneaten food and the best thing is not wasting food in the first place. So we can talk about that later because there's some parallels to Nest on that. The next best thing is having a person eat it, but then anything not eaten by a person should get eaten by an animal, which kind of makes sense.
(00:27:22):
It's a pretty tight loop. If you have food, can it be used as food? That's when we started thinking about this pathway that could get us to an ingredient in animal feed. And that didn't happen overnight. That was months of thinking and trying and running into walls. But effectively then we knew what we were building. We weren't just building a bin, we were building a whole new system. And there's a fair amount of talk out there about the circular economy, which is great, and there are companies that are building things that have the potential to be circular. But for us when we looked at it, we needed to build those rails. We needed to build that loop to get food from the farm to your table and then back to the farm.
Cody Simms (00:28:06):
We're going to take a short break right now so our partner Yin can share more about the MCJ membership option.
Yin Lu (00:28:13):
Hey folks, Yin here, a partner at MCJ Collective. 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. We started in 2019, it has since then grown to 2000 members globally. Each week we're inspired by people who join with differing 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. Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community, a number of founding teams have 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. 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. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms (00:29:18):
All right, back to the show.
(00:29:18):
And so do you view Mill as... I guess, this is a putting things in buckets question. But on one hand Mill is a hardware company, on another Mill is a, I guess, reverse logistics company. And on another Mill is a consumer subscription business. And I'm curious how you've thought... those are three vectors to have to optimize against.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:29:47):
I think what we think of ourselves as internally is we're a systems change company. And if we zoom way out, if we're going to decarbonize the economy, we need new systems. And if those systems are going to be adopted, they need to be more efficient than the systems that are out there. And the way we do that is actually by making an experience that is just the most kick-ass experience you can imagine.
Cody Simms (00:30:15):
So let's go into that. We're multiple minutes into this conversation. Just for folks who are casually tuning in and haven't paid attention to what you've announced and launched with Mill, maybe describe what Mill is, what the experience is like and the end to end ultimately flow that you're trying to develop here?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:30:35):
First there's a bin. New kind of bin for your kitchen about two feet tall. It's white, pretty, you can see a picture of it at mill.com. It's been described as svelte. And effectively what this bin does is it eats everything you don't eat. And as I mentioned before, what it does at night, it effectively grinds it up and dries it out.
Cody Simms (00:31:03):
So if I'm thinking about it, if I do a good job of household recycling, presumably my trash can doesn't have aluminum or paper or cardboard in it, that goes on my recycling bin. And so really what is actually going in my trash can today, for the most part, it's food. And what you're saying is, this is going to sit alongside your trash can separate from your trash can just as your recycling bin does, and it's a separate receptacle for your food?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:31:28):
And this bin is a bottomless pit. I cannot explain to you how rad it is. You fill it up and again, the magic trick is we're taking the water out of it. But you fill it up and you come back the next morning and it is empty again. Not because someone has magically emptied it, but because the material has shrunk down. It is a bin that for me and Rachel, it takes us about a month to fill it up and we cook at home a lot.
Cody Simms (00:31:58):
It basically chews and grinds and dries up your food?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:32:02):
And it makes it into this small-ified material called food grounds.
Cody Simms (00:32:06):
Do you have to separate, can I throw bones in there, can I throw-
Harry Tannenbaum (00:32:09):
Anything.
Cody Simms (00:32:10):
... anything?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:32:10):
Meat, dairy, avocado pits.
Cody Simms (00:32:15):
Because it doesn't rot because it's drying it out. So you're not going to deal with stinky, rotty stuff?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:32:19):
And there are paddles in there that move. It's not a blender. The paddles in there move at about one RPM at night and they can exert thousands of pounds of force. For us, let's go back to Nest. The theory of change there is we have to make it easy to do the right thing. Cody, I wish you had a bin so you could talk about it because... I'm the founder of the company, maybe I'm theoretically biased. But we had a prototype bin at my house and I wanted to lend it to a new hire at the company so we parted ways. And again, Rachel, my fiance, really reasonable person, really thoughtful person was like, "When does it come back?" You miss it because all of a sudden your trash isn't gross anymore. And Cody, where do you live?
Cody Simms (00:33:16):
I live in LA. I've got a household of four.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:33:19):
And your food is going into the trash can right now?
Cody Simms (00:33:21):
The trash or to the garbage disposal, but depending on what it is. But I'm taking a full bag of garbage out to my garbage bin probably once a day roughly.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:33:32):
We're just getting to know each other. But you're theoretically a well-meaning person that wants to do the right thing for climate change and you're putting food in the trashcan that is turning into methane. And for us it's like this is solvable. And the way we want to solve it is by making it better than that experience you have. Not actually relying on altruism here, not relying on, oh, I feel guilty about food going to the landfill, but just, no, it makes a lot more sense. And the reason it makes sense is because... I hope you get a bin soon and you can fact check me on this. But when you get the food out of the trash, first of all, your trash doesn't stink anymore. Second of all, there's no drippy stuff. Third of all, it doesn't need to get emptied out as quickly.
(00:34:14):
Fourth of all, often you can save money on your waste collection bill because most municipalities have what's called a pay as you throw waste collection scheme. So if you're putting less on the curb every week, your bill goes down. And then fourthly, or maybe fifthly, I don't know where I'm at, it does feel good in the opposite way that it feels to throw a glass bottle into a trash can. It's almost like there's something hardwired into us. Kids love it and they get it. Food is good, food is delicious. It's kind of weird when you think about it. You're just eating dinner and there's a little piece of something on your plate that you don't finish. A minute ago it was delicious and then you put the plate into the sink and then it's transformed into waste.
Cody Simms (00:35:11):
And so then you have this food grounds. You said it takes roughly a month on your end?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:35:18):
That's for us in a household of two, but three weeks-ish, I think is a good target.
Cody Simms (00:35:24):
So then what happens?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:35:26):
We have a deal with the US Postal Service. Which by the way, the people you meet on your journey. I did not think I would get to know the great folks at the US Postal Service. But effectively we're thinking about, how do we get this material back and it's a shoebox worth of food. And you think about it, and there's a male carrier that's at 99% of American households addresses every day. And they're often dropping off a lot more than they're picking up. And the trucks are already on the road. So we effectively hitch a ride with the US Postal Service. Which I think someone from USPS just yesterday told us. They described themselves as the world's largest carpooling service, which I loved.
Cody Simms (00:36:13):
You put it next to your mailbox or wherever?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:36:16):
Yeah, you just put it out front. The membership comes with boxes and they origami up, they pop up, they're already labeled.
Cody Simms (00:36:27):
Like the whole Netflix, DVD package?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:36:29):
Right, yeah.
Cody Simms (00:36:34):
I'm definitely dating myself with that reference.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:36:37):
But for food, Cody. You get that and then it's a couple taps in an app that says, "Hey, I'm putting a box out." And says, "Cool, USPS will pick it up tomorrow." And then that gets picked up and brought back to us where we do some sifting and sorting and testing. And then what we're working towards is what comes out the other end of that process, is this amazing, nutritious and delicious ingredient for animal feed.
Cody Simms (00:37:07):
And so then do you sell that to animal feed companies or do you process the animal feed or that's part of what you're still figuring out as you build? The business has only been live for a short while now.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:37:19):
The target is chickens and eggs specifically and something that factored into that decision... can I do a crazy stat sidebar?
Cody Simms (00:37:31):
Please.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:37:32):
One third of the arable land on the planet is used to grow food for animals. One third of the grain we grow on the planet is for animal feed. Bonkers. It's crazy. There's 27 billion chickens on earth at this moment. I didn't count, but I just have a feeling. And they're hungry and there's a lot of fertilizer and water and land that goes into growing the protein that they eat. And meanwhile we're sending 50 million tons of it to the landfill every year. So that didn't really make sense. So you're rerouting and it's not food waste, it's just still food to these chickens. And where we're at right now is, we're going through the scientific and regulatory process to make this happen. But yes, we will sell this material to farms and then that money goes to effectively offset costs to allow us to deliver the membership at the rate we deliver it at.
Cody Simms (00:38:38):
Have some kind of, I don't know, is it FDA approval for animal feed? I don't know what the regulatory approval chain looks like there.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:38:46):
Yeah, no, we've been working super closely with FDA and USDA and there's an organization called AAFCO, the American Association of Feed Control Officers. And the reception has been great and the collaboration has been great. But we have a ton of respect for the regulatory process so we're working really closely with those bodies to make sure that we can bring this to market in the right way.
Cody Simms (00:39:09):
And so today consumers, I think, don't have to purchase the bin. They're buying a subscription that covers the cost of the bin and the pickup, is that correct?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:39:21):
Yeah, it's a membership that comes with hardware where the hardware is included for free. A question folks asked us... we said it's about a dollar a day, and people said, "Okay, but what do I have to pay for the bin?" And we said, "No, no, it's in there, it's all included." And the reason we did it this way, there's a couple reasons. One, there's a bunch of stuff that comes with the membership. There's the bin, there's an odor management system in the bin that needs to get refreshed about once every six months. It's a coconut quar filter that has just in a square mile of surface area inside of it. It's about the size of a six-pack. But if you were to actually trace all the surface area inside the little pieces of coconut quar, there's a square mile in there. There's the send back pathway, so all the mail back to the farms, and then things like warranty, lifetime support, everything.
(00:40:17):
And if you think about it, the hardware is part of it and it is insanely delightful, but the real star of the show is the food. And for us, we wanted to make sure we're building that full loop. I actually think something that's kind of cool about the business model from a sustainability perspective is when you're in the business of selling hardware, let's say, I was running the e-commerce business at a hardware company, somebody comes to you and says, "Great job, Harry. You hit your number this year. Next year, please sell 30% more." You go, "Okay." But spiritually you get into a mode where you just want to sell more stuff and make new versions that are better and then obsolete old ones. If people buy more and more and more and more and then that stuff ends up in the landfill. But in this model, we actually own the bin. So it's interesting to think about we Mill. So it's actually interesting to think about what that does from an incentive standpoint. Makes us want to make something that's going to last as long as possible. That's modular, that's repairable. It's this piece of distributed infrastructure that we want. We are incentivized to keep running as long as possible. And that's really in line with the principles of the circular economy. So that's a kind of a co-benefit of the business model we're in as well.
Cody Simms (00:41:41):
And if you are able to successfully reduce the amount of food waste that's going to these landfills, what does that do to the business models of the waste management companies themselves? Are they all of a sudden scratching their heads thinking, wait, what happened to our customer base here? Not that that's a bad thing, but I'm curious to think about the macro after effects that could happen as Mill gains traction.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:42:07):
Nobody is in the business of wanting resources to go to waste. Everybody that is involved in materials management wants materials to go to their highest and best use. When we talk to municipalities, same page. We all want to figure out if we have a resource, how can we do the very best thing with it? And I think as we move towards distributed infrastructure, it can unlock new opportunities and new pathways for materials. Because what we're effectively talking about, you could take... look at the energy industry. There's been a transition there over the last 50 years from all you had were centralized facilities and now we have wind, solar, batteries, thermostats on the wall. They opened new opportunities for grid management, for generation, for storage. And I think distribution in materials management is exciting because what we're effectively doing in the house is taking the water out, which Cody means, no more stinky trash for you and fewer trips to the curb and savings and all the good things there.
(00:43:15):
Seriously, nuclear fusion, hard. I also think getting rid of fruit flies, hard. I don't think those are the same level of technical difficulty, but fruit flies are hard to get rid of and we've done it. But I think when you unlock that distributed infrastructure, it opens new doors and new opportunities. It's interesting, we're moving something that previously would've been moved in a garbage truck, in a mail truck. It's still moving, but it's moving without water. And there's a new pathway that can get to a farm. It's just been met with a lot of excitement because folks have been thinking about ways to drive innovation and we're really coming at this starting from the kitchen out, versus the curbside in.
Cody Simms (00:44:07):
I think the decentralized distributed systems nature of what you mentioned certainly is in almost all forms of technology where technological innovation tends to shine, to be able to push things out to potentially more complicated logistics networks, but ones that technology is able to manage. The other two big impacts that I see are, one... and I feel like this is something that you also probably all learned at Nest is, you are building something for consumers at the point of heavy consumer interaction in the household. You're managing a thermostat on a daily basis for the most part. Or historically you were at Nest. With Nest, you don't have to do that quite as much. And same with Mill. You're obviously managing what you eat in the house on a multi times a day basis. We had a good MCJ episode a couple weeks ago with Sam D'Amico from Impulse who's building induction stoves. And we were talking about the big gas stove controversy that has become a culture war.
(00:45:19):
And his point of view was, yeah, that's because it's the only interface in the house where you actually engage with gas with your eyes. And which I thought was an amazing point. And I think you're tackling that head on with Mill as well. This is where you engage with waste in your house on a very regular basis, for things that shouldn't be waste, as you pointed out many times. And then the third question I would ask, not question, the others weren't questions. The question I would ask is, in climate tech there is this constant, to some extent theoretical debate of systems change versus personal responsibility. And you all are at the center of that in terms of what you're building. And I'm curious to hear your theory of change in that regard?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:46:06):
Oh, I love it. I'm going to use an analogy I've never used before, but we're going to use an analogy of a sushi role because that's just what came to mind because we're talking about food and maybe it's approaching lunchtime. This is a systems change company. That is the core of the role, but it is wrapped in a layer, in a delicious seaweed layer of individual action. And I think the way we think about it is, collective action is what can drive systems change. So what we're not talking about here is a disconnected set of individuals that are partaking in an individual action on their own. What we're talking about is a network of individuals that together can come together collectively to carve out a new pathway for a new system. And at the heart of changing behavior, you have to make it frictionless and delightful.
(00:47:09):
If I think about AirPods, which I just threw a set through the washing machine the other day and they're drying out. But it's like if you had asked me, "Harry, do you need AirPods?" And I don't think I need them, but would you love AirPods as much as you love them today? When I first saw them come out, I would've said, "I don't know." But whether it's the satisfying clicky clack of the lid, the way that they pair perfectly when they go in your ears, the fit, the ease, the battery life, the form factor of the case in my pocket, it's just better. Our theory of change is, if we're going to make something that is going to be adopted, that is going to scale to the level that it's going to change systems, it has to be frictionless, it has to be totally delightful.
(00:48:03):
We stress out about how the foot pedal on this bin feels. And I won't say we're at the clicky clack level of an AirPod case necessarily, because that's some of the most satisfying clicky clack stuff out there. But I think some would say we're close. We think about the capacity. You asked the question, do you have to think about what you put in there? No, any food can go. Can you fill it to the top with Starburst? I can tell you what's going to happen there, but who throws away Starburst? So that's what drives it. I'll just say one other thing though. There's the experience, but then there's also the information. So to talk about Nest, there are two sides to that energy saving coin. When we talk about a hundred billion kilowatt hours. A chunk of that saved from the thermostat programming itself. And you live in Florida and you go on vacation for the weekend. And we saw this, people would write in, "Oh my God, we left the AC on and we're going to be gone for two weeks. And normally that would've cost us hundreds of dollars. And you know what, it shut the AC off and thank you, best investment ever." Three day ROI.
(00:49:14):
But there was another side of it at Nest where we would send an energy report to people and say, "Hey, did you know that your run time was X last month compared to your neighbors?" Or, "Hey, if you tuned this set point by a couple degrees differently, you could save X percent." And we see this with companies like Opower where you get your water bill and it says, "Hey, do you know used 38% more water than your neighbors?" And you're like, "Damn them, they've got me again." And I think there's a similar opportunity for us at Mill where I just had no idea how much food I was throwing away in the trash, because that's what we were doing previously because it was more convenient. And we would try to compost.
Cody Simms (00:50:06):
The fruit flies got us on the compost side, I have to admit, we tried.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:50:11):
And we had a good run, there were good runs. But then we'd fall back. And it's really interesting when the app we have presents data, it says, "Hey, do you know how many pounds of food you put into the bin every day last week?" And you become more aware of it. There's the frictionlessness of the experience, but then there's also this, now this thing is measured, and if something isn't measured, it's unlikely to move and food's expensive.
Cody Simms (00:50:42):
So the data is going to help people, consumers also presumably make better choices in the future once they start? You can't change what you can't measure. So once you start measuring it, you can also change.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:50:53):
There's different awareness to it. Big fan of Persian cucumbers over here, the little cucumbers. And infuriatingly when you get them at Trader Joe's they come in a little plastic bag. But we started noticing that we were buying too many of those and they're going slimy and kind of weird. And then now... go ahead.
Cody Simms (00:51:20):
I was going to say, what a cool product feature I'm already envisioning in the future where somehow with some kind of sensor in the bin someday, you could actually tell me what I'm most frequently throwing away.
Harry Tannenbaum (00:51:31):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure... I'm going to put that one in the queue. But no, I think there are ways. And there's also other cool apps and things out there that help you scan your fridge and make lists and understand. I think for now though, it's like it does really bring awareness and that's just money in the bank when we're realizing the types of things that we're buying that are just not getting eaten.
Cody Simms (00:51:55):
What have you learned from consumers so far? You've only been live for a couple weeks as of the time we're recording this. What have you learned so far about propensity to pay? Because I think the other... we talked about personal responsibility and systems change. I think the other big debates in climate circles is, are consumers willing to pay a quote unquote green premium for something? Are they willing to open their wallet for climate change? And I'm going to anticipate you're going to say, "Hey, some people will open their wallet for climate change. Some people will open their wallet for less stinky food." But I'm curious what you've learned thus far?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:52:33):
These are learnings that carry over from Nest, but we are not counting on altruism here. Just to be clear, people are signing up at significant levels, at great velocity. So we're on the path to sell out for this year based on our planned build, which is exciting. I think it all has to be rationalizable. It all has to make sense. And something I'm heartened by is actually we're seeing really great traction before we've actually shipped our first bins out. And they're shipping soon, early Spring. I don't know when exactly this is going to air, but they may be out in the wild when we air. But in a way it's still vaporware to folks. And I'm really excited.
Cody Simms (00:53:24):
No one's had the clicky clack experience yet?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:53:26):
No one's had the clicky clack experience or the bottomless pit experience or the no stink experience or the save money on my bills experience. And I'm really excited for that kind of testimonial to get out there because I think similarly, if we think about an AirPod case before anybody's tried it or a Nest thermostat before anybody's experienced it, objectively someone's testimonial of saying, "Wait, this is insanely awesome," really makes a big difference.
Cody Simms (00:53:55):
And what key assumptions do you feel like you need to prove next? You all are very experienced company builders. The best builders always know what they don't know. What are you trying to learn next?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:54:09):
I think something that will be out in the wild, because we're announcing the partnership shortly is, how our collaboration with municipalities clocks forward. Next week we're announcing... again, I don't know if that's... whatever the date is in relation, but shortly we're announcing a partnership with the city of Tacoma, Washington. And it's been an amazing collaboration, public-private partnership with that municipality. And their thinking about how can we keep more food out the landfill. And Tacoma's such a leader in sustainability. They actually have an amazing program called Tagro where it's short for Tacoma grows where the biosolids, so the stuff that goes down your toilet, goes to an anaerobic digestion facility to get the energy out. But then they take that residual material and blend it with other types of materials, call it proprietary blend, and they make an incredible soil amendment that can be land applied and sells out every year. So they're really, really thoughtful about keeping nutrients in the food system, in the soil cycle. And what's cool is in Tacoma, they have a pay as you throw rate structure, effectively. Which I think in Tacoma, the savings, if you were to step down from a 64 gallon cart on the curb to a 32 gallon cart on the curb, you can save something like 26, 27$ a month. And something we don't know is-
Cody Simms (00:55:50):
Well, so that's basically net swap. If people are subscribed to Mill, it almost makes the Mill subscription free?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:55:56):
And better kitchen experience. That's a new frontier. I feel like we're getting good signal right now in terms of, hey, when we educate folks, albeit without any testimonial, people are excited about this. And with technology you're always going to move through a technology adoption curve. It starts with early adopters who are... these are the people that were buying a Tesla before you could charge the Tesla reliably or before the brakes worked reliably or whatever that is. And then there are people that are going to wait until the price and capacity and ability to drive from LA to San Francisco unimpeded is all figured out with supercharger stations, et cetera. I think naturally right out the gate, we're talking to early adopters and I do think it's an ensemble of reasons to buy. Either it's a pack of militant raccoons that have been wreaking havoc in an alleyway or a dislike for stinky trash or a dollar savings on a bill. Or mixed into that someone who says, no, I'm quite committed to taking action at home and this is a pretty cool way to abate methane emissions from your kitchen.
Cody Simms (00:57:16):
Where do you need help next? You mentioned municipal partnerships that you're working on. You've mentioned the talent you've needed to bring into the team. Where are you looking for help?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:57:27):
I think we're always looking for great people to join the team. And shout out to the MCJ community for being part of our community. I don't want to forget anyone but John McBride, who effectively leads growth at the company. Hannah Brown, who leads social and community at the company. Part of the MCJ community, and just incredibly talented folks that are making a huge impact at the company. I think we're always on the lookout for the best people. As we think about scaling this business there's so much we can continue to learn. And our attitude from the jump has been that we are not experts in organics, we are not experts in food systems, we're not experts in materials management. So it's just so fun when emails come across or pings come in from people that have tons of experience in these areas, that have spent years, decades working on this and can help educate us. And that's folks who are familiar with the scientific side, folks who are familiar with communities who have been impacted by, hey, we're looking to have more regenerative circular loops in our community. We're looking to abate soil erosion, you name it. So I think we're all ears and open to learn in a bunch of different ways.
Cody Simms (00:59:06):
One other question, just for the entrepreneurs who are listening. You all made a conscious choice to build in stealth for a decent amount of time, well over a year. What are the pros and cons?
Harry Tannenbaum (00:59:19):
Pro, we did not know everything we know now when we started and the idea evolved over time. Being in stealth allows you to get more clever, to realize that your initial idea might not have been the best idea and evolve that without whiplash on message. It also enabled us to engage really closely with a bunch of stakeholders and make sure we were integrating a whole bunch of considerations into what we're doing. Whether it was from an admissions perspective or a messaging perspective, or tuning the service in the right way. Con, it's harder in stealth. You can't recruit as easily because you can't really say what you're working on. It's harder to forge partnerships because there's not a website someone can look to that explains everything. You are waiting longer for customer feedback and reaction, which is incredibly valuable.
(01:00:22):
Pro, when you are ready to announce you really feel good about what you're saying. And for us, we wanted to have as much of a splash as we could when we came out. And pro, we waited long enough to announce that the folks that are signing up, aren't going to have to wait long to get their bin. Although as I said, we're on the path to selling out. So once we sell out, then there will be some weight. But it is fun to operate a business. And there are muscles inside your organization, tendons, ligaments, that are operational muscles. And the longer you can have them working, the better to work out any kinks. We're not communicating as optimally in this way, or this is some way we need to evolve this process. Or whoopsie, this piece of SaaS is costing way more than we thought. Something like that. And you delay that feedback loop from an operational perspective. But all in all, I'm happy with the way we did it. I think it was worth it.
Cody Simms (01:01:25):
And I think also, you all have track record with your experience and Matt's experience at Nest, that allowed you to raise capital. A few rounds of capital from top, top tier climate investors before you'd launched anything or even announced the company. And I think many entrepreneurs probably can't do that. So you all have that built in advantage to some extent there too. On that note though, it also creates, I would assume, a little bit of pressure that you now are effectively a fairly mature company from a financing and cap table perspective, but your business is essentially starting now, so you have a lot of ground to cover to continue the finance momentum of the business. How do you all think about that?
Harry Tannenbaum (01:02:12):
Look, hardware's hard in that way. It's more expensive upfront to do it. And you are necessarily going to need to raise capital in advance of deploying at scale. If deploying at some semblance of scale is what you desire to do out the gate. I think we're really in a privileged and fortunate position to have come from the backgrounds that we come from and have the team that we have around us, which I think de-risks the hardware work. I think something that was differentiating for us as well is there's not that much stuff in climate land that is something that you can take part in at home that has such value and ease. Also, along the way, we're building prototypes, experiences, demos, where investors, prospective employees can experience it. Now maybe you're experiencing it and seeing the first version of it that's as big as a desk.
(01:03:19):
It's a subsystems prototype, but you can imagine it. So it's not like folks are investing blind. And along the way we're building partnerships. Forging inroads with municipalities, et cetera, that is giving feedback and signal on that. It's kind of different, but it's not that different from some of the other kinds of climate technology we're looking at. Because I think if you look at other companies that are inspiring to us. Take Form Energy or something like that, or the companies like Brimstone. Your initial run is effectively to demonstrate that the technology works and then you need to scale that up over time with additional capital to get to a scale where you can have meaningful impact on systems. We did some of that internally proving out, hey, we can get food from 80% moisture to 13% moisture overnight, reliably. We've figured out a good way to move it around with the US Postal Service. We've done the nutritional testing and are making progress on regs to feel like this pathway makes sense. But yeah, there's definitely risk in it. This is not the least complex startup we could have built, but we're going for it.
Cody Simms (01:04:44):
Well, I have to say, as a firm that's been there with you since close to the beginning, we've been honored at MCJ Collective to be able to participate in multiple rounds that you've raised along the way. And the way you worked with investors while you were in stealth was exactly what you're talking about, being able to share milestones, being able to show the evolution of the product. But boy, it sure is nice to be able to talk about the fact that you're out there now.
Harry Tannenbaum (01:05:13):
It feels so good. And people are buying it that aren't my mom. It's really affirming. There's a ton of education. It's a new concept. We published a lifecycle analysis on the website, we've done our homework. It takes time. And I would say to entrepreneurs out there, you want to look for investors that are going to be patient and thoughtful if you're going to be getting into a business that is going to be a long-term bet. And mission alignment really helps there because I think speaking for our investors, I think they want to deliver healthy returns to their LP's, but they're also looking to deliver healthy returns to the planet and it helps to have that double alignment.
Cody Simms (01:06:11):
Well, Harry, any big picture comments you want to share on what's next, what you're excited about? You've given us a few nuggets of things to expect. But anything else that you're particularly looking forward to as Mill continues to grow, even if it's a five year, 10 year vision of where you think this is going to go? Just anything else you want to leave us with would be awesome.
Harry Tannenbaum (01:06:35):
I think if there are any listeners who have already signed up or thinking about signing up, thank you for welcoming us into your home and what our promise to you is we're always going to be thinking about ways that we can get better from an experience perspective. Thinking about ways where we can deliver more value into this membership and thinking about ways that we can keep getting food back into the food system effectively. And I think long-term, I am really excited about what a focus on awesome experiences and this platform of distributed infrastructure can do to the flow of materials on the planet. And as I have developed my perspective on systems change, what we're looking to do is build more efficient systems. And the things that make any system inefficient are waste. So by being a waste prevention company, what we're really saying is we're a more efficient systems company. And that all feels really in line with decarbonizing the planet. Not leading with, hey, this is impact or this is green, or this is what we should be doing, but that this is just a better way that makes sense both experientially, economically, environmentally.
Cody Simms (01:07:59):
Well, Harry, at MCJ Collective, we're super proud to have yo in the portfolio. We're super proud to have you and Matt and many others of your team in the MCJ member community, and really grateful for you to come on today and spend this much time with us, outlining what you're building and what we should all expect to come, so thank you.
Harry Tannenbaum (01:08:18):
Oh, this was super fun. And I am in the MCJ Slack, so if there are... Harry Tannenbaum. T-A-N-N-E-N-B-A-U-M. Feel free to Slack me thoughts, ideas. I'm over there and would love pings. But I'm proud to be part of this community and wonderful to be on the show.
Cody Simms (01:08:40):
Thank you, Harry.
Jason Jacobs (01:08:43):
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey podcast.
Cody Simms (01:08:46):
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 Yin described earlier.
Jason Jacobs (01:09:08):
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 at MCJ Pod.
Cody Simms (01:09:23):
Thanks and see you next episode.
