How I Built My Small Business

Harshal Chokhawala - ZYMOCHEM’s Game-Changing Bio-Based Materials: Affordable and Sustainable!

• Season 1 • Episode 43

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Today we have Dr. Harshal Chokhawala chatting with us about starting a biotech company.

Harshal is the CEO and Co-Founder of Zymochem, which he founded in 2015 and recently celebrated a major milestone by closing a Series A funding round in January this year.

As a speaker at the SynBioBeta conference in San Francisco and the Rethinking Materials conference in London, he is passionate about about bringing sustainability to everyday materials and reducing humanity's dependency on plastic. 

After hearing that microplastics can be carried through the placenta from mother to baby, Harshal doubled down on his mission to bring breakthrough technology products to everyday materials. 

Zymochem recently introduced Bayse, a biodegradable, bio-based super absorbent polymer that can be used to make diapers, the third-largest item in landfills. He aims not only to tackle the hygiene industry, but coatings, textiles, and plastics.

Zymochem has partnered with well-known including Toyota and Lululemon.

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Harshal Chokhawala:

It's very hard to really strive to understand what journey you want to be on and why. Spending time thinking through that can be very, very rewarding. Figure out what that means to you and start as soon as possible, because if you actually are able to pull it off, it could be quite phenomenal.

Anne McGinty:

Welcome to How I Built my Small Business. I'm Anne McGinty, your host, and today we have Dr. Harshal Chokwala chatting with us about starting a biotech company.,

Anne McGinty:

which Harshal is the CEO and Co-Founder of Zymochem, which he founded in 2015 and recently celebrated a major milestone by closing a Series A funding in January this year. As a speaker at the SynBioBeta conference in San Francisco and the Rethinking Materials conference in London, he is passionate about bringing sustainability to everyday materials and reducing humanity's dependency on plastic. After hearing that microplastics can be carried through the placenta from mother to baby, Harshal doubled down on his mission to bring breakthrough technology products to everyday materials. Zymochem recently introduced BASE B-A-Y-S-E, a biodegradable, bio-based super-absorbent polymer that can be used to make diapers, the third largest item in landfills. He aims not only to tackle the hygiene industry, but coatings, textiles and plastics.

Anne McGinty:

Zymoc hem has partnered with well-known brands, including Lululemon and Toyota. You can find a link through to his company in the episode's description.

Anne McGinty:

Before we jump into the interview, there is one thing that you can do to help me grow the show, and that is to please hit the follow button on your favorite streaming platform. Thank you so much. Let's get started.

Anne McGinty:

Thank you to our listeners for joining us today. Harshal, thanks for coming on the show.

Harshal Chokhawala:

Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here.

Anne McGinty:

So, going back to 2014, what inspired you to originally start a biotech company?

Harshal Chokhawala:

So just a little bit of background on sort of how I ended up starting the company. So I was born and raised in India and as I was growing up, everyone in my family was a small business owner. Everyone Aunts, uncles, father, grandfather, generations we were making everywhere, from copper wires to manufacturing textile garments. We had a lot of different businesses, and so the entrepreneurial way of thinking was quite ingrained with me from day one of my life. But as I was growing up and studying, I really fell in love with organic chemistry, which is what I would say is my first true love.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And for those listeners who don't know what organic chemistry is or maybe you don't know what organic chemistry is I think we've all experienced that in some shape and form it forms the basis of every material goods that we use today, from paints on the walls to carpets on the floors to the plastic in the cars, like all of this is made with organic chemistry, and so I was very fascinated by that when I was growing up and I decided to do my PhD, which was very different from anybody else who had been in my family, and so as I started doing my PhD, I realized that enzymes and microbes do really the same type of chemistries that chemists have done over the past decades, but they do it with a lot of precision and under ambient conditions, so like room temperature in water, et cetera. All of this is to say that enzymes are the best catalyst or chemists out there that are a lot more efficient, it's a lot more sustainable and it absolutely opens a completely new way of doing chemistry, which did not exist, you know, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and so I realized as I was doing my PhD that this is still a quite nascent field but it had a potential for massive impact the way chemistry when it was invented to bring manufacturing to everyday goods in 1900s think about DuPont's nylon as an example used in stockings all of those was invented in the early 1900s. Think about DuPont's nylon as an example, right, used in stockings All of those was invented in the early 1900s. Biology and enzymes and microbes have the opportunity to have the same impact right.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And so the first 10 years of my PhD plus post-PhD life was spent at Davis and Berkeley, really learning from the best in the trade, in academia, and the second half of my career over here was spent at Zymochem, which really sort of brought me back to my entrepreneurial roots and married the two things that I loved chemistry and enzymes. And so if you look at the name Zymochem, the Zym comes from enzymes and the Ochem comes from organic chemistry. So it's really doing enzymes, doing organic chemistry to help us make the physical world in a more sustainable way.

Anne McGinty:

So how did you come up with the idea for your business ZymoChem?

Harshal Chokhawala:

You know the type of products in the industry that we are in. It's chemicals manufacturing, right? So these are physical goods that all of us use every day. So these are very, very large industries. And when you think about bringing a fundamental change to these very large industries, what I realized early on is that these new technologies need the ability to scale to very large degrees. This needs to be a scalable technology, a scalable business, and you need to be able to meet the consumers at a price point where they exist today, right? So if you want to make change at massive scales, those are sort of two prerequisites to what you need to do.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And when we started ZymoChem, coming from a technical background and having some business acumen, we understood that this was actually a gap in the industry. You know, the Bay Area is a hotbed for innovation, has been a hotbed for innovation for so many years, you know, with the Silicon Valley being here, and in the early 2000s we made many, many breakthroughs in this field of how you could use enzymes, engineered microbes, to do very specific things, right. And so this, to me, was the innovation that got kickstarted and what I like to think about this. As you know, we have a Silicon Valley, since all of this is using carbon. This is also a carbon valley because of those innovations, right?

Harshal Chokhawala:

But, as you can imagine, the gap of taking this technology to bringing to everyone it was really around scale and to do it at a cost point that makes sense for the consumers. And that was really what I wanted to do. You know, obviously doing cool science and taking it to the next frontier is one thing, but then bringing that science into commercialization so that it impacts everyday life is something that I was very passionate about. So that's how we came up with the idea of ZymoChem is to really bridge this gap from science to commercialization that we saw that existed, you know, back in 2014, 2015. And one of the first things was to bring on a co-founder, Jon, who's sort of my partner in crime and was crazy enough to see this vision and build a company with me.

Anne McGinty:

What would you say your long-term goals and vision are for Zymochem?

Harshal Chokhawala:

The vision for Zymochem hasn't really changed in the 10 years. You know, when we started, there were three really key issues that we wanted to change. So one was how materials that we use today are made. Right. All of these materials are made from chemicals that get manufactured from fossil-based inputs. So think about coal, think about natural gas, think about oil, and so this is really one directional right. We're taking stuff out of the ground and putting in the atmosphere. That's the way it goes, and so we wanted to change that sourcing of how things are made. So that was the first problem that we wanted to solve saying how can we use more renewable sources of inputs to manufacture these same things?

Harshal Chokhawala:

The second problem that we wanted to solve was the carbon intensity, or the amount of energy you need during manufacturing. Now, all of these things require very high temperatures, very high pressures for manufacturing. Versus enzymes, they operate at room temperature. Think about fermentation, which uses microbes to brew beer. It's a very similar process. Just like that, it operates at room temperature in water, so it's very benign from an energy perspective, and what this means is that the carbon footprint, or the amount of CO2 you emit during manufacturing, is substantially lower with these types of technologies as well. So you're solving a second problem, which is how much CO2 is emitted during manufacturing. Which is how much CO2 is emitted during manufacturing.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And the third one is one that sort of became a little personal, as we, you know, went through this journey of Zymochem, and which is one around the persistence of plastics in the environment much longer than they should. Right, and this is also a materials question. Plastics are materials that get made from these chemicals, and so when we were thinking, saying like hey, we're bringing a completely novel way of manufacturing, can we use this novel way of manufacturing to redesign materials or polymers, or plastics, which are all in that same bucket, to actually be much more friendly for the planet in the environment? You know, don't persist for a thousand years when you're only used for a minute, right? So these were the three key issues that we wanted to solve.

Harshal Chokhawala:

One was how can we source these chemicals and materials from a different, more environmentally friendly way? How can we manufacture things with much less carbon footprint? And the third is really around end of life with much less carbon footprint. And the third is really around end of life, how do you construct materials such that they have a much more planet-friendly end of life. So for us, those were the three key goals that we wanted to address, and essentially, our goal is to hopefully have an environment where all the materials that we all love and use today are manufactured using renewable carbon. So think about carbon sources that we can grow, that we can use, having very low carbon footprint during manufacturing and have a better end of life right. And so we're working on very large problems touching multiple different industries, from hygiene which is think about diapers, adult incontinence, feminine hygiene on one end to materials and polymers that go in textiles, the auto industry, etc. And so we're really bringing this tool set to these different industries.

Anne McGinty:

How did you identify and target these initial markets, and this is such a big dream and goal of yours. What strategies do you have to achieve them?

Harshal Chokhawala:

Absolutely. That's a great question. Part of this is also kind of we didn't really want to work on smaller things, you know, because we had the opportunity, we had the training, we had the skill set, we had the ability to attack such a big problem. We actually chose to go after these things because we knew it would matter. Right, and some of the things that you absolutely need as you're thinking about these large goals is like hey, how do you achieve them? Right, we're 10 years into this journey of ZymoChem and we're still sort of what I would say is in the first or second innings of our journey, and one of the key aspects is to really have mission, aligned vision, aligned partnerships and people right, and there's a lot of folks at the table who want to bring products to market. Think about industry leading chemical companies those are one of our partners Manufacturing companies who want to see real change, very large brands who want to stand for something that they believe in from a sustainability perspective, and investors who realize that all of this can actually carry financial returns. And so we've been blessed that over the last 10 years, we've actually had the support from a village, so to say, to bring all of these technologies that we've been developing through the various journey points into where we are today. So in that sense, I'm quite lucky that we have had the people and the partnerships with this vision, with this support, to enable this. So that's one portion, and then to the other portion. It's sort of how do you identify your initial market right? And that's a tricky one because you could do a lot of things.

Harshal Chokhawala:

But early on in Zymochem's life, for a number of different reasons, we chose to focus very specifically on just materials, so materials that go into everyday products. So think about plastics as an example, right. Think about polymers that go into making nylons, that go into making your favorite jackets, your leggings. If you open up a car, every plastic under the car hood is a polymer. So we thought about that as a section of the chemicals industry that we wanted to focus and specialize in and, very specifically, the reason for doing that was also what we had seen over the past 10 years, and I'm sure you have seen it too.

Harshal Chokhawala:

There's actually a lot of regulation throughout the world in many shapes and forms against single-use plastics the impact, the pollution, the microplastics that come from single-use plastics and one of the fundamental bets that we took at Zymochem early in the day from a market perspective was you know, plastic is a material, and so if regulation is going to drive change in how plastics are made and the end of life of plastics, it's going to percolate through consumers, brands, chemical companies and the whole chain there to think about sustainability as a key driver for materials. Right, because these are all within the subsection of materials, and so that's the fundamental reason why we chose materials as a subsection to focus on within Simulcap, and then, once we pick that, we then went down the list of. You know again what is really important to bring change. Right, so one is really economics, and so one of the first filters that we've used at Zymochem to pick which of the various materials and chemicals that go into making these everyday goods do we want to work on? The primary filter we use, Anne, is economics. Hey, can I under my dream scenario of manufacturing how I want to do this? Do I have a leg to stand on versus the incumbent petrochemical industry, which has been there for a long, long, long time? Right, because one of the things that we've seen very effectively is, if you have an advantage on cost, the whole industry will switch to your technology, right, and so that's a big driver for us when we think about these giant scales that we want to address, these big problems that we want to address.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And so we put a lot of thought and effort into understanding our cost structure, understanding our existing materials, cost structure, advantages, et cetera, and a part of that involves us interviewing the entire supply chain of our particular products, starting from existing manufacturers who manufacture this particular chemical, companies that take this chemical and then convert it into different products, and then brands that would take these products and then, you know, create something out of it for a consumer, and then the end consumer itself, right? So I'll give you a specific example over here so that it's not abstract, right? One of the products that we're very excited about is making nylon 6-6, which comes from adipic acid, which is one chemical, and hexamethylene diamine, which is another chemical. So these are two chemicals that combine to make nylon 6-6. And that nylon 6-6 then goes into making engineering plastics that go into automotives, it goes into making fiber that goes into textiles, and then it percolates into very different industries, right, and so think about your jackets that have the rainproof thing that has some nylon in it, right, and so what we're really doing is engaging the whole supply chain, but really working with the very front of the supply chain to slot in our product and process.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And so, as we think about, like hey, if I were to create an alternative material, alternative biobased nylon, one of the first things, as I mentioned, we do is we actually interview the whole supply chain to understand is there an adoption necessity, right, what does those adoption cycles look like? Necessity, right, what does those adoption cycles look like? And is that a critical pain point we are solving for all the folks along the supply chain? And do we have a cost structure to stand on, right? And so that's sort of our second piece of large work that we do before we go into the technical side of things, right, like, hey, let's start putting people, resources et cetera towards developing this technology. So it's really around business robustness of different products and how to understand and quantify that for us, and you had mentioned that there are some companies that are aligning with your mission and vision.

Anne McGinty:

Are you able to mention what some of these brands are?

Harshal Chokhawala:

Yeah, absolutely. You might have seen our CSA announcement early in the year, where we raised a $21 million financing. As part of that financing, one of the brands that invested in us was Lululemon. You can look at their sustainability profile and they're really looking towards sustainable materials to drive innovation in the products that they create. Another investor of ours was Toyota Ventures innovation in the products that they create. Another investor of ours was Toyota Ventures and Toyota Ventures. One of their mandates is to really bring in decarbonized, more sustainable materials to the wider industry, and so we've been privileged enough that we've had partners and investors like this supporting our mission, supporting our cause, supporting the type of products that we're making from a sustainability perspective and there's more, but unfortunately I can't really say we do feel very lucky that Zymochem's world mission is getting to the point where we're seeing a lot of the consumer driven pull for technology and adoption of bio-based, decarbonized, more sustainable materials.

Anne McGinty:

It's nice to hear that companies like that are working with you. So for anyone that doesn't know or understand the science of what you're talking about, including myself, how does a biomanufactured chemical really differ from the existing options?

Harshal Chokhawala:

Manufactured chemicals really differ from the existing options. So let me give you two examples. Over here, bio-manufacturing is essentially where you use biology to manufacture things. Right Now, when I say biology is basically what I'm trying to say over here is you do fermentation with a microbe that you have engineered to literally brew different chemicals. So it's the same process of making beer, but instead of making beer or ethanol, which is the you know, the true carbon alcohol that we all love and enjoy or most of us love and enjoy, right? Instead of doing that, you change the yeast or the different microbes so that you can make a different chemical, right. And so that's the bio-manufacturing piece. And so what you could do is you could bio-manufacture the exact same chemical that companies are using today, right? So you're not really changing the chemical identity of what's being done. Or you can use this technology to manufacture something that is a very different molecule, right, that's a very different chemical, but that same chemical can still be used for an existing application. So, a, it's bio-manufacturing is different than chemical manufacturing, and, b the output of that bio-manufacturing can be the same or it can be different, right. So I'll give you an example for each the nylon that we talked about previously, where we're using the bio-manufacturing to make a bio-based version of the nylon. It's chemically identical to what is used today, but it is sourced differently, right? So, if you go back to the three problems that we want to solve, one is how do you source the materials different? We're not using fossil-based inputs, we're using renewable sugars that go into this, and then, when you're using bio-manufacturing, the energy that you put into the system is quite low, so the carbon intensity, the carbon footprint of our nylon is substantially lower than a fossil derived nylon, right? And so those are the two advantages that come when you make the exact same thing that you're using today, but with a different process, with a different input. On the other hand, because this is a new technology and we can make a lot of cool things that traditionally you cannot do with organic chemistry or it's too expensive with organic chemistry you can also create novel materials, novel things, and so here I want to give you an example of another product that is very close to commercialization and simulacrum, and I'm personally very excited about too, is a super absorbent polymer. This is a polymer, as it says, super-absorbent, can absorb a hundred or a few hundred times its weight in water, right, like kind of becomes, it swell powder in it that essentially holds the pee, the blood, the urine in these constructs, but it persists for 500 years, right, so it doesn't degrade. And so one of the things that we started to think at Zymo Chem is hey, can we invent another polymer that does the same thing, which is like hey, when you add water or urine to it, it swells up, it holds it in, but it is derived from biology and can biodegrade, you know, and not persist for hundreds of years. And so that's the other side of biomanufacturing, right. So where you can get to invent new things, you can get to create new things that don't exist and bring you know materials that have properties that didn't exist before but have a huge environmental benefit, right, for the consumer and for the planet.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And I'll give you one statistic which blew my mind about five years ago, which is, you know, diapers are the third largest item in landfill, after food and paper. Right, in the United States it's the third largest item. And to me, when I think about a single-use plastic, right, I mean, we've heard this word very times we sort of roughly, truly, equate this with, you know, disposable forks, spoons, or like plastic bags. But, honestly, you can use all of those more than once. If you wash it, you can use it. You know what you can't use more than once A diaper? To me, it's the quintessential single-use plastic right. And so we want to bring change to this massive industry right where you know these diapers don't persist for 500 years plus, when they are really used for a few hours at best.

Anne McGinty:

This is an incredible cause to devote your life to. How did you go about approaching the initial research and development phase, and can you tell us about some of the scientific challenges that you've faced along the way?

Harshal Chokhawala:

Yeah, absolutely hey. This is where the lack of hair and the gray hair comes in.

Harshal Chokhawala:

One of the advantages that we have being in the Bay Area as a company is that we just have a phenomenal pool of talent over here. You know we have some great universities over here, some really great minds over here, and so you know we're now a 55 percent company. I believe 30 to 40 percent of the folks that work at Zymochem have PhDs. 40% of the folks that work at Zymochem have PhDs. So the technical understanding, the technical knowledge coming from the best minds in the country, is, I think, really critical for us to solve the technical challenges right as we look at, you know, inventing these new technologies and bringing it to commercially. And so the first question is does it really work? And then we spend a lot of time and effort towards understanding whether we can make it to work, and usually that's not an issue, it's a time and a dollar issue right, like how much time do we have, how much focus do we have and how much money do we have to spend towards, you know, developing this technology or chasing this particular innovation right. Once you're sort of beyond that, that's where sort of the commercialization side of things becomes an important piece, which is like does your stuff actually perform and can you scale right? And so on the super absorbent polymer piece. I'll give you this one story you know, there's like 4 million metric tons of this product, just this polymer, not the diapers made globally and the whole hygiene industry where this powers. It is like $155 billion. So this is like massive scales, right.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And in 2020, we have created this new polymer and we were at the top of the world. It was like, oh man, this works. We had this phenomenal breakthrough and we had this little small while of material with us, so we were so proud of. And then we go and take it to the industry and the industry says, you know, and they were really nice and they acknowledged what we had done, but we could see that they were like, okay, guys, this is really like a hobby. You know, show up with much larger materials and we will talk.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And you know, obviously we're traversing that journey. But you know, obviously we're traversing that journey. But you know, over the years, we've kind of went from this to creating hundreds of kilos of materials and now going to a lot larger scale. And so you know, the ability to scale things up after passing the innovation and the technology development is a key aspect and a lot of companies fail in this sort of what they call the valley of death. You know bridging between technology and commercialization right. So challenges keep changing as you're crossing certain aspects of your product development cycle towards commercialization, and each one is unique and it has its own fun associated with it.

Anne McGinty:

So, on the other side, can you tell us about some of the technological breakthroughs that have fueled your success?

Harshal Chokhawala:

Absolutely. So I'll again kind of go back to my beer analogy over here. When you do fermentation and maybe for some of your viewers who are home brewers, right, when you make beer at home, you will see a lot of frothing you lose a lot of carbon in the form of CO2. You experience that right Now. That's good for a beer, because you know you want a little bit of a head on your beer, for sure. But when you think about manufacturing, right, that carbon that is lost as CO2 is a big cost penalty. And so the same process happens when you make chemicals too. You lose a lot of carbon at least a third, if not more, of the carbon in the form of CO2. So what ends up happening is you only make a little bit of product and you lose some CO2.

Harshal Chokhawala:

Can we invent a series of chemistry reactions that are done by enzymes inside a microbe, such that this carbon is not lost as CO2? And so the principle was really like, hey, I want to take all the carbon that you put in inside a microbe and make it my product and not lose CO2. That was the basic principle, and so for that we had to discover enzymes that could do this, put it inside a microbe and show the concept works. And essentially what to me is like. You know, if you brew, you get a six pack for a particular price. With our technology as an example, you would get a nine pack. So you get 50 percent more product using the same inputs, the same infrastructure, inputs the same infrastructure. So that's the kind of product scale, product quantity, economics, impact our innovation has had on the type of chemicals, the type of materials we are making.

Harshal Chokhawala:

There's a lot of successes that I can share, but one of the things that I promised my wife as we had worked on the super-absorbent polymers that are going to making these better diapers, on the super absorbent polymers that are going to making these better diapers right, sustainable diapers I promised her that before our kids get potty trained, I'll be able to create a version of the diaper with our material in it and put it on them right. And it was literally in the nick of time. You know, about a month before they finished their potty training, we had created diapers that I was able to put on them and you know, obviously you know it worked quite well, and so that to me I still remember like they were the first test subjects off of a material in a finished consumer product and it made me very, very happy and I still remember fondly about like six years into the making, but finally I was able to do that and I was quite happy about the outcome.

Anne McGinty:

My goodness, I just got chills when you were saying that, and your kids will know that you contributed to this in that way. So can you discuss a failure that you faced, something that really set you back, and what you learned from it?

Harshal Chokhawala:

Yeah, very much. So first I'll just say you know the nature of entrepreneurship failure is a very everyday occurrence and I'm sure all of you are quite aware with that too, and over the years, as I've reflected on failure, for me, one of the things that it has done is it leads you to perseverance, and perseverance leads you to growth. You know, it makes you uncomfortable, it makes you do things that you're not very good or comfortable doing, and that's really when you expand and grow as an entrepreneur. And so to me, I actually look forward to failure because it helps you. It helps you point in a direction which is really great for you in the long term. I love these quotes from the NVIDIA CEO. He's like I wish failure on all entrepreneurs because that is the recipe for success. But recognize that, work towards it and once you come out of it, you would be in a much better position to take the journey to the next stage.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And we've had tons of failures from we have a particular deadline that was very crucial for the next stage unlock in terms of funding and we were not there. And you know we had to spend night and day to figure out what was wrong and then kind of you know, convert that and then take lessons from what could we have done differently to make this happen During COVID times? I mean, this was insanity. The whole bay was shut down and we had a massive milestone that was due, right. I mean we couldn't really do a whole lot about it, but you had to accept what was there and then move forward. There's always things that are both expected, unexpected, that'll come at you and it'll lead you to new discoveries and new ways of finding your way around the problem and, in some instances, new ways of finding your way around the problem. And in some instances you can't find a way around the problem and you have to take it on the chin and learn from it and then adapt and grow.

Anne McGinty:

I imagine that all of this innovation, research and scientific breakthroughs are very costly to perform. So how did you secure funding for Zymochem in the beginning?

Harshal Chokhawala:

It is expensive to do experiments, get a lab, et cetera. And here also, what I would say is we were very conscious of who we were as a company and what sources of capital would that unlock for us? Right, and we've been very consciously building that that the stage of the company matches the appetite of the capital as well, right. And so in the early days of ZymoChem and we were literally an idea on paper, a little bit beyond that the sources of capital for us were ones who really wanted our vision to succeed, right, and having an understanding that if our technology is developed, it could have a massive impact. And so we were lucky enough to be selected by the government. So we received a few different grants, government grants to really help us develop the early stages of the company, and they were really looking at sustainability and domestic manufacturing as a key pillar for the United States, and they were really looking at sustainability and domestic manufacturing as a key pillar for the United States, and so that made sense collectively.

Harshal Chokhawala:

Additionally, we also were lucky enough to work with IndieBio and Breakout Lab. So these were two incubators, grand foundations that would fund you early enough for your vision and for your potential for impact. That would fund you early enough for your vision and for your potential for impact. Now, as PhDs coming out of academia fresh right, there's a lot of learning that needs to happen. So we were quite cognizant like our strengths matched quite well with the stage and these resources that were available to us. And then over time, you know, as we develop the product, where we could talk about the product, we could show physical samples, we could talk about customer traction, we could talk about purchase orders, we could talk about what we're doing that started to unlock different stages of partnership, different stages of capital for us as well.

Anne McGinty:

You had mentioned the importance of scalability and commercialization in your industry, which makes a lot of sense. What would you say the critical steps are in taking a biotech product from the lab to the market.

Harshal Chokhawala:

You really start with the end in mind, right. So at the end of the day, we are about a product, but it is a product that we have to sell. We are a company, and so the key aspect that comes to mind as you think about sort of starting with the end in mind is like how robust is your business case right? Because that's where things get expensive and that's where things fail. Like, if your business case is not robust, right, it becomes difficult. Do folks want it? Are they willing to pay for it? Can you manufacture it at a cost that makes sense? Do I have a team that can execute on this vision? So that robustness is key.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And so, as I mentioned earlier in our conversation, I think establishing that is a big and important piece of the puzzle.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And then keeping a track on the underlying value drivers for your business right, and keeping a very sort of Hawkeye-ish stance on that and keeping an eye on it is an important piece.

Harshal Chokhawala:

And then you sort of go more in the technical development and sort of lay a map on sort of like hey, how much is going to cost me to fund this and is there a business return that I can justify to my investors and sort of do, sort of the more Excel-based analysis of, like it's going to take me four years, five years, this much dollars to get to what here. Then I had this much capital to unlock this much return and that's how much I would be worth, my company would be worth. And then it's the hard part Everything looks good. You actually go ahead and do it. So I would actually flip the order as I suggested and really start with the end in mind, Because if you can't really make a money on the product or the consumers don't want it, effectively you don't have a business, and so that's to me sort of the way to think about it a business, and so that's to me sort of the way to think about it.

Anne McGinty:

Do you feel that you are on the path to being able to manufacture these items that you were hoping to at a cost that will make sense for consumers?

Harshal Chokhawala:

Absolutely, absolutely yeah.

Anne McGinty:

That's so great to hear. How do you balance your focus between innovation and commercialization?

Harshal Chokhawala:

That's a constant act. Now, fortunately for us, the challenges that you face, especially when you look at commercialization, are quite different than the ones facing the innovation side, especially as we talk about the product lifecycle between innovation and commercialization, they're quite stark, so you can have dedicated team, dedicated expertise focused on commercialization versus innovation, and so I think that helps from a planning, logistics and execution perspective to solve that. And for me as a CEO and I think for a lot of the folks, it's actually fun to be able to look at both the sides right, because both the sides have their own unique set of challenges. They exercise different muscles in your mind. You know, innovation is more blue sky. Commercialization is very driven by value and timelines, and so it brings out very different traits in you, and I think it's actually a really good thing to have both pillars within the company.

Anne McGinty:

Because you are a B2B business. What can we, as consumers, do to support what it is that you are working on?

Harshal Chokhawala:

You know, whenever there is an option for you to buy something that is more sustainable, please, you know, try to do that. As a father of two kids, you know, I'm a consumer myself too, right? I mean, ultimately, all of these technologies, you know, are for the next you know, future generations. Right, we want to leave the planet in a way that is in a better shape for them than hopefully we all found it right, and so the consumer voice is probably the most important ones, because that's the way you drive innovations through the funnel. The other piece is regulation. You know, obviously we all have a voice here, and if there are regulations where you can vote on, we can have influence on. That's another piece that also drives a lot of new technologies, a lot of innovation.

Anne McGinty:

It's always a good reminder to hear. So, just as a closing question here, if you could go back and talk with yourself when you were in your early 20s, what insight would you give yourself?

Harshal Chokhawala:

So I have two things to say here. One's a little bit personal to me and what I would say go back to my 20s is to think about legacy a bit more. What I really mean by legacy is, you know, when I started doing my PhD and sort of craft my own path away from the family business. Obviously there's nobody else to take the baton and take it forward. And what I didn't really appreciate about that choice, right, was really, you know, it's a lot of effort to create a business from the ground and then actually pass on a successful business over generations, right, that legacy is something that and I guess now more so than before, I've realized is something that is really great. You know, I look at these multinational corporations. You know Japanese corporations. They have a conglomerate there. They've been around for 150, 200 years. The culture, the tradition, the baton that you pass on in terms of values is phenomenal. That's something that I didn't truly understand when I was in my 20s. So one advice I would give myself is to think about that.

Harshal Chokhawala:

The other one, which is more genetic for everyone, including myself, is it's very hard when you are in your 20s to think about and to really strive to understand what you want to do, right, what journey you want to be on and why, right?

Harshal Chokhawala:

I mean, to me, spending time thinking through that can be very, very rewarding. Right, to me, that's a big piece If you think about it and figure out what that means to you and if you have the freedom or the support from your family, from your friends, et cetera. To be on this journey, to be able to dedicate a large portion of your life to something you really want, is quite rare, right? Not everybody gets to do it, not everybody has the environment to do that, and that's truly a privilege if you do get to do that. And then if you actually find meaning, if you find success, if you find happiness as you're sort of going through this journey, it's truly a blessing. And so think about this process and start as soon as possible, because if you actually are able to pull it off, it could be quite phenomenal.

Anne McGinty:

That is some great advice, Harshal. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story with all of us.

Harshal Chokhawala:

Thank you for having me here, Anne. It's been an honor to share the story with you and the listeners who are here, and look forward to reconnecting soon, as we are able to announce more stuff.

Anne McGinty:

As always, thanks for being here.

Anne McGinty:

Today's key takeaways

Anne McGinty:

To bring fundamental change to a large industry, new technologies must be able to scale significantly and meet consumers at existing price points. So build backwards and make sure you can achieve both of these if you want to tackle a big problem.

Anne McGinty:

Find mission-aligned and vision-aligned partnerships with people, businesses and investors who realize that doing good can actually be profitable.

Anne McGinty:

If you're trying to identify a business opportunity, consider interviewing other businesses or people in an industry you are interested in and see if there is a critical pain point you can solve to unlock opportunities.

Anne McGinty:

Many companies fail at bridging the gap between technology and commercialization. So if you're planning to enter this space, focus on this critical transition.

Anne McGinty:

View challenges and hurdles as opportunities to innovate and solve problems

Anne McGinty:

Failure is a regular part of entrepreneurship that leads to perseverance, growth and expansion. Accept challenges and failures, learn

Anne McGinty:

from them, adapt and

Anne McGinty:

move forward. Learn from them, adapt and move forward. Consider your legacy, the culture, traditions and values you plan to leave behind.

Anne McGinty:

And, lastly, take time to reflect on your journey. Find meaning, success and happiness in what you do. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.

People on this episode

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Anne McGinty

Host
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Harshal Chokhawala

Guest