Climate Careers: Merrill Feather & Kristen Winzent, Co-Founders & Collaborators at The Regenerates
Today's guests are Merrill Feather & Kristen Winzent, Co-Founders and Collaborators at The Regenerates.
The Regenerates is a brand and marketing consultancy focused 100% on building momentum for climate solutions. Kristen and Merrill met in the MCJ Slack community when they were looking for marketing-focused jobs in the climate space. Realizing they were both up for 3 of the same positions, they decided to start their own marketing consultancy. Kristen and Merrill have decades of experience as in-house marketers for creative strategy partners. Before founding The Regenerates, Kristen was an in-house marketer on the global creative campaigns team at Airbnb and was a strategic consultant at Pramana Collective. Prior to The Regenerates, Merrill was a brand manager at Hasbro Toys and a product marketer at Facebook.
I was looking forward to speaking with Kristen and Merrill because marketing plays a significant role in addressing the climate crisis. Kristen and Merrill take me through how The Regenerates came to be, their "aha" moments, and what the consultancy does. We also discuss how to assess climate impact in a job offer, where brand strategy and community organizing come together, and whether a financial hit is necessary to transition into climate. For those looking to work in climate but aren't sure where they fit in, this is a great episode.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded April 12th, 2021.
In Today's episode, we cover:
Overview of The Regenerates and how the consulting agency began in the MCJ community
How to assess climate impact in a job offer
Advice for people looking to transition their careers into climate and suggestions for gaining foundational knowledge
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Jason Jacobs: Hey, everyone. Jason here, I am the My Climate Journey host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey or MCJ as we call it membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education, but there were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack community for those people that's now mushroomed into more than 1,300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screened for, determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent and we're not wasting our time for trying and a collaborative spirit.
Beyond that, the more diversity, the better. There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community, a number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of non-profits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there, a bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well. At any rate, if you wanna learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co, the website and click to become a member tab at the top. Enjoy the show.
Hello, everyone, this is Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help. Today's guests are the two co-founders of The Regenerates, Kristen Winzent and Merrill Feather. Kristen and Merrill bring decades of experience as in-house marketers in external creative strategy partners at places like Airbnb, Facebook, ed-tech, deep tech, experiential, digital media and more. Now they're focused 100% on building momentum for climate solutions and they do that through a practice that involves strategic narrative, CMO as a service and flexible advisory for climate tech companies of all shapes and sizes.
Now, Merrill and Kristen are also very active [MCJayers 00:02:39] who met in the My Climate Journey Slack community as well, which is always exciting for us to hear and super excited to have them on the show and to learn more about The Regenerates, about the process of how it happened and what led each of them up to founding this climate tech marketing advisory firm, some of the client work that they've been doing, lessons learned and also just advice for anyone else looking to find a spot to anchor and be impactful the way that Merrill and Kristen have done so successfully. Merrill, Kristen, welcome to the show.
Kristen Winzent: Hello, happy to be here.
Merrill Feather: Thanks for having us.
Jason Jacobs: I'm so, I'm so psyched to have you. I feel like you're, you're OG MCJayers if that's such a thing. And you're up to such cool things now that how could I not have you on the show.
Merrill Feather: Very kind [laughs].
Jason Jacobs: Well, for starters, we'll start the same way that we start every one of these episodes, which is what's The Regenerates?
Merrill Feather: Yeah, so The Regenerates is a marketing consultancy that Kristen and I founded together. We've been at it for about nine months now and we are 100% focused on marketing for climate and sustainability oriented solutions really from the perspective of applying our marketing skillset where it's needed to help build momentum for solutions as well as really focusing on how to activate people. So we think a lot about the people side of the equation. People do things, people buy products and services and, and how can we really make sure that we are telling the stories and reaching the right people to make sure that those climate and sustainability solutions are being adopted.
Jason Jacobs: And what is it that led you down this path? And when did that start? Where did that come from? And that's probably two different answers since you are, last I checked, two different people [laughing].
Kristen Winzent: Yeah. Yeah, I, I can start. This is Kristen just for voice recognition. So Merrill and I actually met through MCJ last spring immediately after the start of the pandemic kind of at the culmination of both of our climate journeys having spent on my side, it was probably two years prior trying to figure out the right way to jump into the space. So my background is in digital advertising. I spent some time in house at Airbnb launching really large global creative campaigns. And then subsequently was at a small strategic consultancy called Pramana Collective where I was helping a variety of entrepreneurs through really difficult inflection points, either helping them redefine their company, redefine their products, speak about themselves in a very different way or build internal momentum with employee culture programs.
And through the course of that, I was a consumer marketer before all of this and had the opportunity to work on deep tech stuff. So automation, robotics, all of that and realized how much I absolutely loved helping simplify and put context around what these new and novel solutions were for people. And, you know, climate was always this kind of like nagging thing that was going on. And you know, the more that I informed myself about it, the more I went to events and conferences and all of this stuff started to really realize that there was this other half of the story that almost wasn't being told about what happens if we do something, what is the world that we could create if we actually decide to implement solutions, if we decide that we want to live differently.
And so I, yeah, I started by my, my journey to kind of figure out what, what marketers or communications folks like myself could do in this space, which eventually I found the portal that is MCJ and in there I met Merrill as one of the only other marketers at the time actually on the platform. And so she originally reached out to me and we had a really funny Zoom conversation where we realized we were interviewing against each other for like three different jobs. So we kind of had this aha moment of that seems like an actual problem that there aren't enough opportunities for marketers in climate. You know, since we both were passionate about the fact that we need, we need to bring more people into the space and help more people understand what's going on.
Jason Jacobs: Before we move on, Merrill, what about your story?
Merrill Feather: Yeah, happy to add my side of the story. So I think I can trace back my interest in the environment kind of in seeds along the way, but it really started in earnest when I was working at Hasbro Toys and just seeing supply chain waste in action and not to call out that company, but more just, you know, the nature of the beast. And I was there doing brand management, then moved to Facebook where I was doing product marketing for Facebook's consumer features. So newsfeed, Facebook groups, et cetera and really helped that, grow that organization from its infancy to a full service marketing team. And I was there for about six years sort of towards the end of it was ready for a change and ready for a new challenge. And I was sort of deciding between environmental focused work, which I really didn't know that much about in the tech space at the time and an opportunity with a team I had worked with before in education and ended up going that route.
And I was head of marketing at this small education startup for two years. During that time was when the IPCC report came out. I started to just talk to more friends and family about my interests and realized that sort of the more I read, the more I wanted to read and the more I learned, the more I really felt like there had to be a place for marketers. There had to be a way to apply the skill set and what was that gonna be. And it didn't feel very straightforward to me. And so after almost two years there of kind of chipping away at that on the side when I had spare time, I decided it was time to put a more dedicated effort behind finding what my next job. And by then I knew about climate tech, et cetera would be.
I left that job and started really focusing on finding my next thing in earnest. And a few months later is when I met Kristen and discovered My Climate Journey. And really just felt like I was opened up to a whole world of solutions and people and angles on the problem and still felt like to me, the angle was kind of, gosh, even just from my own personal experience, I'd been reading so much doom and gloom, right, as all of us feel, I think we're in this space. If you read about it from the outside actually, you see lots of doom and gloom. And then when you get into the space and you hear about the solutions, there's a lot more optimism actually and a lot of creativity and you can kind of see how the people are coming into this space with new ideas. And that's very energizing.
And I, and I sort of felt like that's the story that needed to be told to if we're gonna be able to activate more people to it. And so that started to feel like the opportunity for, for marketing. And when I met Kristen, we realized we had pretty complimentary skill sets. We started, you know, working on sort of side projects together and just trying to get our hands dirty. And that turned into it, morphed into a company. Never, never thought we'd do it. Never, never exactly set out to do that, but this is where we net it out. And it's been a pretty organic, but also really interesting and, and fun ride so far. So...
Jason Jacobs: First of all, uh, as you're both well aware, there's more and more people that are picking their heads up and starting to feel how you feel and felt. And there also seems to be conventional wisdom, um, I would say that given the complexity of problem while every second might be different that climate science is climate science and that one should invest in understanding the science before anchoring. And I think that might hold many people back from coming in because they feel that they don't have a great grasp of the science and maybe it's not their forte, maybe they don't have the time, maybe they don't find it energizing. And so how much did either of you or both of you invest in that underlying foundational knowledge and how important do you think it is for someone that wants to get active in the space?
Kristen Winzent: I'll start. I'm a voracious reader. So I did a lot of self study trying to even just, um, 'cause I think once you start to look at the array of solutions, I definitely jumped into the solutions first and then realized I needed more context about the world in which they, they fit. So I did a lot of reading on my own, a lot of talking to people directly and reaching out. And I would say just to answer the other half of that question is I do think the science is really, really important. I think leading with science though can be really tricky for people. Science isn't necessarily... The science is kind of like math.
It's one of those things that people either love or they don't see themselves in it. I am a science nerd. So I love science. I, I, I do see myself in it and get excited by it. But I think the fact of the matter is a lot of people don't. I like to start with, how can you find a thing or a purpose for our folks first and get them really bought in and then create pathways for them to go deeper? And so it's to me just a little bit inverting the process. So starting with that passion, that interest, that thing that kind of brings you alive and then using that as the fuel to really pull someone through what might be a tough learning experience for them.
Jason Jacobs: What about you Merrill, what's your experience been?
Merrill Feather: Yeah, I mean, I would echo what Kristen said. I, I also spent a lot of time really trying to learn and read up on my own. I am probably not as voracious of a reader as Kristen is. So I did a lot of my learning through one-on-one conversations with friends and, and other, you know, folks in my network who people pointed me to. I did a lot of listening actually through a podcast and others. And I do think the science is really important. I do think that being grounded in what's happening and what's real is really important. But I also, I think you bring up a good point of is that holding people back?
And I think also finding ways to make sure that people know they don't have to be scientific experts to be part of the solution is also important. And, and I think that the exact pathway into that for someone who's maybe not gonna ever become a scientific expert is maybe more through their business function. Like what are you super well-trained in? What are you, what are your strong skill sets? We're building businesses here. So businesses need a variety of skill sets and that doesn't necessarily mean everybody has to be an expert. I think trying to break down that, that barrier a little bit could help us get more people into the space faster.
Jason Jacobs: And given that there's so much new to learn for people coming in, but wherever they're coming from, they've probably cultivated a set of skills, a set of relationships. What advice do you have with the benefit of hindsight for people that are just starting down that path in terms of how to figure out where their spot might be and even how to go about finding those answers?
Merrill Feather: Yeah, we have a couple of thoughts on this. I'm happy to start, Kristen and you should chime in. So one is that I would point people to this great Venn diagram that I just saw Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson post, where she shows the Venn diagram of what you should do in climate is the overlap between what brings you joy, what you're good at, what skills you have and the work that needs to be done. And I think a lot of times people start with the question and I know I started with a question too. It's like, what impact can I really have? You know, and or where can I have the most impact? And, and I think people spend a lot of time looking or some people do spend a lot of time looking at drawdowns research and saying, well, this solution can drive the most gigaton. So I should go work on that.
And I really think that there's value in understanding those relative, the relative power of the solutions. But I also think if you're really signing up to work on something for the long haul that's a really challenging problem, you know, making sure that, that actually the piece of it that you were working on is, is that kind of overlap between what you enjoy doing, you know, what you're good at. And those solutions is actually really important and can potentially shortcut you faster to the thing that's right for you to work on. The other way I think about this is not just in terms of your work in the sort of traditional explicit, I'm an employee sense, but also in the sense of what are my spheres of influence in the world. You know, obviously, there's a lot of talk about, you know, individual personal choices and whether or not those matter in the climate crisis.
And I think that's one sphere of influence. You know, most directly I can control what I do, sure. But thinking about it also as I have a sphere of influence in my community, whether that's at my kid's school or in my case, it's in my condo building. You know, like you can have an impact at your community level. You can also of course have an impact at your work level, whether or not your job is directly working on a solution or it is actually you taking a look at your larger company and thinking about how you could impact what that company is doing. And then, you know, greater sphere of influence even your civic engagement. So I think also for people to think about things in terms of they have different spheres of influence, do they wanna take action at every sphere? What could that look like for them? That helps to potentially round out the options you have, the power that you have to be part of the solution really.
Kristen Winzent: And I think one of the things just to build off of that that I observed coming into this space is that we're kind of sold this story that our most powerful lever we have is our choices as consumers and that's just frankly wrong. And to Merrill's point, we have these other paths or like forms of agency that are very, very powerful. And so part of what we've become really passionate about is waking people up to those other aspects of their day to day that maybe they don't immediately think of.
Jason Jacobs: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. And so when you look at building this new, or maybe not so new anymore and, you know, nine, nine months old, so veteran business that you're building, how much do you look at it through a capitalist lens and how much do you look at it through a mission lens? And what, what percentage of that portfolio of professional time do you think is, is focused on strictly driving business versus broader impact on the problem, how you balance those things?
Kristen Winzent: Yeah, so just to give a more tangible breakdown, I would say right now, our clients predominantly are all climate solutions companies. So folks that their end products or end service is directly focused on a result. So we have some folks in agriculture food, consumer hardware that is much more climate friendly. And then also working with a couple of larger organizations on their internal employee activation. So we love doing all of the climate solutions stuff. One of the observations or realizations we had in doing that is a lot of companies are very early stage, very nascent and kind of their reach is quite small right now. And so at the same time, when it's you parallel path working with some large organizations to wake people up there about the type of impact they can have from where they sit.
And so for those organizations, a lot of what we're doing is actually all internal. So we're not ever going into bigger companies and saying, you should be talking about this work externally more so helping them build internal employee activations to bring people up to speed on the situation, teach people how to be better advocates for climate, how to more effectively communicate and bring others into the fold on climate. And from there, have really the foundation to look at their array of business activities and decide to do something meaningful.
Jason Jacobs: So what's the pitch to those larger organizations and where does that budget come from? Like which group does it tend to come from and why?
Kristen Winzent: We have a couple of different... I don't think there's any uniform answer. Like most things in climate, it's very context dependent. I think the first thing of the pitch is usually are brought in by a group of very passionate employees. So a group of folks who are going out of their way to try and do something and now they want to understand how to build more momentum around it. And so we're coming in to help them understand how you build effective communications and engagement programs 'cause it's really just marketing for a much smaller audience.
And I would say for those groups, the budget is totally dependent. In a lot of situations, we're helping people connect what they're doing internally to a broader context. So a broader business opportunity helping reframe climate more so as an opportunity for innovation, for a transformation or helping them tie it to a broader cultural conversation that they wanna be a part of. So a lot of it is that reframing of climate or folks from this doom and gloom disaster thing that can be really disempowering too. There's something here if we take advantage of this to really rethink how we exist.
Jason Jacobs: And in terms of the actual work, what's similar about marketing for climate tech versus your old lives and, and what's different? And then in a similar vein, when people come to you for advice who are maybe coming from the types of places that you've come from, what expectations do you set for them in terms of salary and whether they need to take a hit to make this transition?
Kristen Winzent: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. I can start with what is similar to our old life. So I, a lot of my work before all of this was in, you know, brand strategy and really thinking through the stories that we're telling the mediums in which those exist and kind of how are you, a lot of the work that I did was in consumer-led brands, so how are you helping tell your story? And so I, you know, after meeting Eliza and helping fund climate change makers, I started to realize that brand strategy is a lot like community organizing. And so the more that I started to think about my role through that, I really felt more empowered to use this very broad toolkit that I have to activate people.
And then in terms of climate solutions themselves, I would harken it back to a lot of the work that I did with other deep tech technologies. And a lot of it is helping, you know, technical or scientific founders understand the ways in which people communicate or make decisions or are motivated to act. And usually, you know, that is people feel than they think than they do. And often we want people to just do or we want them to just think and that's just not the way that the human brain works. And so it's, it's usually trying to build that case in that trust with folks that, you know, when we, when we insert emotion into your technical solution, there's a reason for it.
Merrill Feather: And I think what I would add from, from my side is that certainly there are a lot of parallels, right? Like we're trying to bring, when we work with an early stage company, we're really trying to bring that same level of rigor that we would bring to any of our previous engagements at, at larger companies as well to thinking about really crisply defining who their audience is, what that story is as Kristen was talking to. And then also how you're going to get that story to that audience, right? That process. There's a lot of similarities there. I think another difference is, you know, typically you're trying to communicate something that is technically challenging or that, that relates to the systemic complexity of the climate crisis challenge and, and communicating that at the right altitude for the audience is a challenge, right?
Because I think if you are communicating it at too high level, it's vague, maybe it's overly vague, it's just using buzzwords and that's where some, you know, potentially greenwashing accusations come in, et cetera. But if you're communicating it at too specific a level or maybe you're getting too down into the weeds of what the product is, then you're not, or too quickly, then you're not leveraging some more of that emotional storytelling. So it's really a balanced and that's something that we have sort of prided ourselves on, on really kinda getting our hands dirty on and trying to develop our own, our own sort of best practices for and, and really apply that with all of the work that we do.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. So, I mean, it sounds like if you're a lawyer, you can find a climate company to work for, if you're an accountant, you can find a climate company to work for, if you are a salesperson, you can find a climate product to sell for and, and things like that. Is there, uh, a climate handicap when it comes to compensation, is it, uh, a philanthropic endeavor at least partly or, or can one make a decent living working in these areas?
Merrill Feather: I can start, Kristen and then you can jump in. You know, I think from my standpoint, the challenge was not a compensation handicap, I think was the word you use, but rather realizing that because most of the companies in this space are still at such an early stage. You know, we're, we're sort of really just getting started again in a lot of ways after the first wave that a lot of early stage companies are not quite ready for a full-time senior marketer such as Kristen and myself, right? And they don't need that level of support all year round. They're not ready for it and that's not the most efficient way for them to get their stuff done. So that's in part how we ended up in more of the freelancing and consulting realm and we operate a lot as embedded fractional senior marketers.
Jason Jacobs: I was thinking that word as we... Before you said it out, I was like, it sounds like the fractional model.
Merrill Feather: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: So, anyway. Yeah.
Merrill Feather: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we kinda, we kind of call it, lovingly call it CMO as a service, right? Like we can come in and be pretty adaptable and flexible and plus up or down our time depending on the needs of an organization. A lot of times where the real initial benefit at least is coming in and really setting that strategy, what should the marketing strategy be for your organization? That's something that a, you know, a senior marketer certainly, you know, can really lend a lot of longer term vision and rigor to and then we can help set you up in transition on board to potentially a more junior team longer term if that's what you need. So...
Jason Jacobs: In terms of, now fro- from a selection standpoint, so we've talked about how the skills transfer and things like that and company's maturity and their budgets as they scale, right? And we all, then we also talked about the science and the underlying foundational knowledge to assess. So let's say I am a lawyer looking to transition from having FinTech clients to having climate clients. And let's say I have three opportunities to choose from, what advice do you have in terms of assessing which one can be most impactful or is that even a healthy calculus to go through?
Kristen Winzent: I think that my answer is gonna tie both that and your question about compensation with climate and is that a barrier. And I think one of my huge aha moments coming into this space is how early and nescient it is. And so that is a barrier for people. And I think that goes, that goes both way in terms of compensation, it goes in terms of the type of risk you're willing to assume in a role, it goes to how you should make a decision about what company to join. And so I think it's, it's the same advice that I would give anyone that's jumping into a really early industry is, you know, self-select for people, the products might change at some point, but you're gonna be working with the same people day in and day out and you're gonna be spending a lot of time with them.
And so I think more than anything else, those relationships really mattered quite a bit. The compensation, I think, coming into this space, no matter what your role is and what you're trying to do, what that skill set is that you're trying to contribute, you're gonna have to be somewhat entrepreneurial about it. And so like Merrill had said, neither of us came into this thinking we were going to be freelancers or to consult or any of this, but we were very purpose-driven in what we wanted to do. And so we've found a way to adapt and still play our role.
Jason Jacobs: Is it just the two of you now at The Regenerates or what does the team look like?
Merrill Feather: Yes, it is just the two of us and, and we, we intend to keep it small in that regard, but have the opportunity from time to time to pull in additional folks from our network to either help us bring an actual, additional expertise on a project or additional arms and legs. So more on the contractor basis if you will.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And maybe you don't have these answers yet, but you think long-term is this kind of a try before you buy where you get to see a bunch of different opportunities and ultimately find a long-term home in one of these client companies or do you wanna launch products or start a product company one day or do you envision that this services type of model can keep you busy, engaged, fulfilled and fed for a long time to come?
Kristen Winzent: So I will admit, when we first started this, I was like, Merrill, I'm probably gonna wanna join a company in about a year. So just so you know. This isn't permanent. And now being in it, I'm having so much fun. Like I am realizing how much I love the variety of people we got to work with, the variety of solutions we get to see, but then the value we're able to create by really connecting the dots between a lot of those things. You know, we go really deep with the client, but we're there temporarily, let's say. And then we kind of extend through like an advisory relationship of some sort and we're able to then bring them more opportunities. So I'm having a lot of fun playing in that role.
And I think more and more too, we are realizing the immense opportunity there is in that bridge building capacity and trying to now figure out how do we build more bridges to other marketers who are kind of in what we call mainstream, the mainstream world and help them actually do their jobs better. Then we have this concept of regenerative marketing that we're building more meat around and trying to really open people's eyes to the broad tool kit that marketers have at their disposal and also the incredible leverage that a lot of marketers have in terms of the amount of money that they spend or invest every year and the number of people they reach. And so how can we really activate more marketers to understand you don't maybe need to leave your company, but you can be doing a lot more from where you sit.
Jason Jacobs: Have you two tested the intern model at all? 'Cause I could envision you just being a factory for young, bright, energetic, ambitious, mission-driven people who wanna find a home in climate, but who maybe don't have a lot of professional experience yet or maybe they have a few years and are looking to make the transition and, and you could kinda train them in your image.
Kristen Winzent: We're trying to figure that out a little bit like what's the right way for us-
Jason Jacobs: I just, selfishly, I just wanna place the same people [laughing].
Kristen Winzent: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think by virtue of the altitude at which we're coming in, for a lot of companies, they are looking for that very senior experience help. So we've actually started to think more and more, how are we pulling in some of the smartest marketers me now, some of the folks who maybe, you know, they've been senior brand marketers at very large companies, heads of marketing at other companies and how are we pulling them in so that they're then also pulling their huge networks forward.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And you mentioned that you're having so much fun. I mean, don't mention anything that's confidential or, or that you're not supposed to share, but are there any examples either of a company or an engagement or even just maybe a, a subset like a moment or a day or an experience that stands out to you so far as representative of why you're so excited about what you're building?
Merrill Feather: Lots of them. I'm trying to think of what we can disclose, but you know, I can share a moment, I think maybe. I echo what Kristen-
Jason Jacobs: Moments ago, we'll take moments.
Merrill Feather: ... Yeah, I, I, I will echo to what Kristen said earlier about, you know, really some of the joy and fun is in getting to work on a variety of different things with a variety of people and help connect those dots. As an example, we worked with a client pretty recently on developing their narrative, meaning what's the story of their company and the context in which they're playing and why they really matter in the space. And as part of developing that narrative, we're able to bring even some of their external specialists, their PR person, their investor into the conversation and really facilitate the conversation to lead to the best narrative as quickly as possible. And that, that sort of collaborative experience was really fruitful and also fun. Good, good people.
And then as a result, kind of coming out of it, one of our recommendations was around how they updated their website and we were able to pull in one of our connections to help update their website. So there's just something so I think unique about this space as well, where everyone is so, I mean, by and large, people are so mission-driven that there's a real connection across the people that you need and a real sort of spirit of collaboration. And that's something that, that excites me that I find super fun and motivating. And so getting to have that, you know, experience even just with one of our clients, but then being able to pull in other folks that we work with was really, really enjoyable.
Kristen Winzent: And then to shamelessly plug one of our other incredible clients. We've been working with Cody since over at Techstars. Um, there-
Jason Jacobs: I thought you're gonna talk about the pro bono engagement you did with MCJ. No, I'm just kidding. [crosstalk 00:32:28].
Merrill Feather: Very fun.
Kristen Winzent: We did, we didn't-
Jason Jacobs: You like... The be- the best client we've ever worked with [laughing]. Let me tell you about them.
Kristen Winzent: We didn't hear back from you. So we didn't know if we scared you.
Jason Jacobs: Oh, come on. No, no, mostly, mostly what we... And you didn't actually do a pro bono engagement, but you did a session with us, which was greatly appreciated. And we've heard such good things from Cody and from so many other people. And, and mostly what we realized is wow, when we are ready to, I was gonna say step on the gas, but I can't say that, but when we're, when we're ready to, you know, step on what do you call it [crosstalk 00:33:01].
Kristen Winzent: When you're fully charged.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, exactly. When you're fully charged and ready to go on a long journey, I know just who to call. And we, uh, we kinda need to get our ducks in a row a little bit, but we will be back. I promise you that. Yes, yes. Now tell us about Cody. Tell us about Cody.
Kristen Winzent: We didn't pay for that. We didn't pay for that endorsement.
Jason Jacobs: [laughs].
Merrill Feather: I know we do.
Kristen Winzent: Yeah, also we've been helping Cody with, you know, articulating his vision for Techstars and their role in the sustainability in climate worlds. And one of the most direct outfits of that right now that's public is the Sustainability Summit that will be on the 15th. And I have to say it never ceases to amaze me when people like sign up for the things that I put out to the world. And so the fact that we had something like 3,000 attendees from 105 countries like it just, it was really moving to see the stuff that you're putting into the world really resonate with people. And so that's been a really rewarding experience as well.
Jason Jacobs: So I can see two kind of hidden areas for impact that I'm sure you guys have thought about, but then I'm gonna bring up anyways just as an example of how doing this kind of work can not just have the first degree impact, but can have second or third order effects. And I know something about that because I'm living that as well with MCJ. And that is, for example, when you go, you mentioned like regenerative marketing, where you go in and you spend time with the comms person and investor relations and the CFO and things like that. Well, like all the learnings you've gotten across all these different clients, uh, you know, Kristen, all the books you've read and Merrill, all the people you've talked to and podcasts you've listened to and, and things like that, right? And that's not to suggest that you don't also read books or this or that, that Kristen doesn't listen to podcasts as well.
But, but that knowledge transfer then they're, it's almost like they get bit by a vampire, right? And then they're gonna go and touch other people in their organization, outside of their organization, they're gonna go home and talk about it with their families, et cetera. And so it's, you know, that, that compounds over time. And then same thing. Like if you, the more success you have with this model, not only you, can you become a breeding ground for more marketers coming in with your marketing, I was gonna call fractional marketing, but you were marketing as a service offering.
But then some smart CFO's gonna say, well, why aren't we doing the same thing with finance? And some smart sales is going to say, why aren't we doing the same thing with sales, right? And it's going to spur all these other kinds of things, which can then be catalyst for other functional roles as well, which are then gonna have that same drag along effect about the underlying education, the mission-driven aspect or realizing the scope of the problem, that there are ways to solve it, that we can be optimist and get out of, out of bed every day to work towards it.
Our version of that is our, our LPs for example. Wi- with our fund, we've got 140 something LPs and many of them are climate interested and feel a duty, but haven't really done anything before. And so then we try to learn transparently in public and by educating them, hopefully, they stick around, but also it then opens their eyes. And then maybe that carries over into their day job. Maybe that carries over into the other investments. Maybe it carries over into their philanthropic pursuits-
Kristen Winzent: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Jason Jacobs: ... et cetera.
Kristen Winzent: Yeah, we, we spend a lot of time talking to behavioral scientists and understanding how to, you know, not only represent the needs and the rigor of the hard sciences, but also, you know, bring in those learnings from the social sciences about how you actually motivate and activate people. And what you just brought up is one of the biggest leavers for behavior change is actually demonstrating what happens if you change the behavior and starting to surround people with people who have made the decision to change the way that they work and the way that they kind of do their thing.
And I was really encouraged to learn that people, I mean, our, our social tendencies are stronger than we, than we imagine. And people, even if you tell them, this will be the hardest change you ever make in your entire life, it's gonna suck. There's nothing redeeming about it. But then they see people around them having made that change, they will commit to making the change and they will effectively make the change. And so at the end of the day, I, I try to never lose sight that, you know, climate is a people caused problem. And in a lot of ways, I do think we need to believe in people in order to get out of it.
Jason Jacobs: And in terms of sample engagements, I, I don't mean current ones, but I mean, for anyone listening that might work in organization that can benefit from your services, what criteria makes a good client and what types of people would it be helpful for you to hear from?
Merrill Feather: We're generally open to talking to anyone who's focused in this space. You know, there's no perfect client in terms of stage of company or industry. We're actually have worked across many of the solutions sectors within climate already and are definitely open and interested to doing more of that. We're pretty flexible, but we tend to engage in kind of one of three ways. We already mentioned this sort of CMO as a service marketing, as a service where we can come in and really provide senior guidance and flex up and down for strategy projects leading into execution. We work on brand strategy, narrative positioning, go to market plans, but we will also work with you very specifically on, you know, one specific project in that space. And then we'll also work with folks as advisors.
So if you're just looking for, you know, if you've got a small marketing team in place and maybe you're just looking for some more ad hoc advisory, we will also do that. But I think from, from our standpoint, because we do like to get pretty embedded with our clients in the sense that we, we wanna go deep, we wanna work with someone that we, where we really believe in their solution, where we really gonna dive in from a standpoint of our own time and understanding as well. We are looking for great relationship fit, right? These are teams we really would wanna work with. And so there's a lot just in terms of meeting each other and making sure that our skill set aligns with the needs and, and having that conversation to make sure there's a good fit.
Jason Jacobs: Kristen, did you have anything to add by the way?
Kristen Winzent: I was just going to share in case it's helpful my, my dream client [laughs]. You know-
Merrill Feather: Oh gosh-
Kristen Winzent: ... part of that big universe, Netflix is my dream client.
Jason Jacobs: I'm enjoying this, this ying, this yen here. I see why you make good partners.
Kristen Winzent: Yes, we're very... I'm always, I'm always the one throwing it way out there and Merrill is like, let's, let's reel it back in [laughing].
Jason Jacobs: I'm more like you, Kristen, for sure.
Kristen Winzent: She's like no one knows what you're talking about.
Merrill Feather: [laughs] That's not true.
Kristen Winzent: My dream client is Netflix. I want to do a lot more content and cultural storytelling in climate. And so anyone who has ambition to do that, please find me and let's, let's figure out how to make it happen.
Jason Jacobs: And last question is just, if you could change one thing outside of the scope of your control that would most accelerate progress in this area at least from the time you've spent in climate so far, what would that thing be and what would you change about it?
Merrill Feather: I think for me, it would just be bolder, faster regulation. Let's just get there faster.
Jason Jacobs: Kristen, she's still thinking, I can tell.
Kristen Winzent: I, I, I have been, and there I was just trying to figure it out what's the appropriate way to frame it. I actually want more recognition of the, kind of like mental health implications of the climate disaster and the fact that our isolation and societal kind of like loneliness and lack of community connections is to me one of the first things we can kind of fix to help people feel a part of something bigger and to give them something to actually fight for. I think it's a really hard sell right now to tell people we're gonna repair things and make them just the way they are when those things aren't working for a lot of people. So if there was anything that I could fix, it would be strengthening community connections and relationships for people right now.
Jason Jacobs: And any bold ideas on how to do that?
Kristen Winzent: Not that I can deliver [laughs]. I think part of it is recognizing that if you want climate solutions to really take fire, they need to become movements. And movements gives people not only a grand vision and aspiration, but they give something to people to be a part of and kind of tell their story through and connect to other people through that story. And so my big push, I guess, would be like, let's think bigger about the way that we're talking about solutions.
Jason Jacobs: Um, so Sarah's silent on this call, but I'm, I'm so glad she's here because our next meeting is an internal team meeting and one of the things we're talking about is around storytelling and rallying cry and, and, and things like that. So yeah, you, you might be hearing from us again sooner than you think. Although we still, we do still need to figure out our, our budget problems. So, but maybe, maybe this episode will help us get so many more members.
Kristen Winzent: Well, it's a fun facts [laughing]. Great storytelling makes it cheaper to do marketing [laughs].
Jason Jacobs: That is true. Yeah.
Kristen Winzent: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: No, and I'm a, I'm a big boy. I've always been maybe even too allergic to paid, paid marketing just 'cause it feels like, it just feels so transactional where it's like, I wanna inspire, I want word of mouth to be so strong that, that it just carries the day. But, uh, um, maybe I almost feel like I'm too much of a purist in that way though. But-
Kristen Winzent: I'm right there with you.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. Yeah, so is there anything I didn't ask that I should have or any parting words for listeners beyond what we just covered?
Kristen Winzent: I would love to point people to a recent project that we just launched or published. We, as part of our like gift back to the climate space wanted to kinda codify some of the learnings from our own journeys. And going back to what we were talking about, wanting to help folks realize the different spheres of influence they have beyond, you know, this dumb story that we're told that we're just consumers, we built an infographic that provides handful of different ways for people to get involved and kind of really find that area of focus faster with specific suggestions of actions or organizations that they should consider joining.
Jason Jacobs: Awesome. Well, yeah, definitely send us a link for that and we'll include it in the show notes as well.
Kristen Winzent: Cool.
Merrill Feather: Great.
Jason Jacobs: Okay. Well, this was awesome. Thank you both for coming on the show, for being such supportive and active members of the MCJ community, but also for the awesome work that you're doing with The Regenerates and, and beyond. I'm super excited to see how things progress for you and, and also your services are gonna be super helpful for our growing portfolio of, of startups that we work with as well. So hopefully we can make some connections for you there on that front as well.
Kristen Winzent: Cool.
Merrill Feather: Thank you.
Kristen Winzent: Thank you.
Merrill Feather: Thank you for having us.
Jason Jacobs: Thank you both for coming on the show. Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note that it's .co not .com. Someday we'll get the .com, but right now .co. You can also find me on Twitter at jjacobs22, where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.
