HAPPY PLANET

Can Lobster Heal our Skin? 🦞 Patrick Breeding, CEO, Marin Skincare

January 04, 2023 Patrick Breeding, CEO of Marin Skincare Season 1 Episode 8
HAPPY PLANET
Can Lobster Heal our Skin? 🦞 Patrick Breeding, CEO, Marin Skincare
Show Notes Transcript

As promised, Happy Planet is kicking off 2023 with an interview with Patrick Breeding, the young founder who says he’s building Maine’s next “unicorn.” And he’s doing it with a lobster based skincare product that is flying off the shelves. 

His company is Marin Skincare, a Maine-based company founded by couple Patrick and his girlfriend Amber Boutiette who met at the University of Maine and whose lives changed when they got hooked up with The Lobster Institute. 

In this episode we learn:

  • How a personal tragedy can lead to a profound desire to do good
  • How two university students stumbled into a skincare solution
  • How science majors may be particularly well suited for entrepreneurship
  • How grants can provide important early funding for startups
  • Why it's nice to have a co-founder
  • How this company is using PR to drive sales
  • How this company is pushing off fundraising as long as they can.

Mentions in this episode

Patrick Breeding
Amber Boutiette
Marin Skincare
MTI
The Lobster Institute
Luke's Lobster
Luke Holden

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HOST VO: Welcome to Happy Planet an impact economy podcast where we speak with entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders in search of profit and planetary health. I am your host Abigail Carroll. 


Today we’re going to follow the journey of one explosive company that’s upcycling possibly the ugliest part of the lobster and transforming it into what appears to be a powerful skincare ingredient. Patrick Breeding is the CEO of Marin (Mahhhr-in like Bill Mahr or the planet Mars) Skincare  which he co-founded with his partner Amber Boutiette. Amber struggled with debilitating eczema and couldn’t find relief in any skincare product on the market. That is until their bioengineering research in collaboration with Maine’s Lobster Institute led them to experiment with lobster glycoproteins. When Amber’s skin quickly cleared up in response to their early formula, they got to work launching Marin Skincare. Now, as partners with Luke’s Lobster, they’re putting this lobster waste byproduct to use and, forgive the pun, they have a long waiting list of people itching to use their cream. 



Patrick (00:01:06):

Thank you so much for having me. 

Abigail (00:01:10):

I wanna get, get in deeper to the product, but first I wanna hear a little bit, about you you know, are you from Maine? What brought you to Maine? and how did you come to found, Marin Skincare?

Patrick (00:01:33):

Yeah. I'm not from Maine. I'm from away, I'm from Connecticut. Grew up, A very normal, you know, middle class Connecticut life. And towards, high school is where my life kind of diverged from normal. Um, when I was in 10th grade, my dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and myself and my family started to experience the things that you go through when you have a family member that goes through chemo and radiation. And, you start to wake up to the world and the hard realities of the world. And for me, started to wake up to the beginning of what I consider to be my purpose,which is helping bring quality of life back to others. as a high schooler, it was just a form of being there for my dad as much as 


Patrick (00:02:28):

I could be, which I wish I could have done more of.  but as that translated out of high school, I started to apply to biomedical engineering programs. So how could I take, you know, these engineering principles, healthcare principles, the intersection of biology, science, chemistry, math, physics, and create tools or solutions to help people that, that really need it. and so I found myself getting accepted in great scholarship to the University of Maine. They were trying to bring people in from away, and I'm so glad they did. and they really hooked me. I, I love Maine. I loved lifestyle of being able to work hard at things that you're passionate about and have a very close geographical and just spiritual and emotional connection to nature and, and the planet, and the community here. Um, so I went through undergrad and I had this guiding purpose, but I didn't

Know how to apply it or apply myself. 

Patrick (00:07:19):

and going through school, I, I would say that again, I was a little bit of a normal student, um, a prolifically B and C student  if I wasn't doing activities where I wasn't, you know, diverging from academic exercises and engaging in applied knowledge, it really didn't interest me very much because.

Abigail (00:08:15):

Interesting.

Patrick (00:08:15):

for me, it wasn't about learning for the purpose of learning as much as it was for learning for the purpose of service. So, I didn't feel like I, I woke up as a student and then the early stages of an entrepreneur until I had the experience of being, having a job in a chemistry lab, one summer between sophomore and junior year where I had the ability to actually look at problems in the real world, devise my own solutions, devise my studies to go and, and  develop and execute and prove or disprove hypotheses and really do real things that I could bring into the real world. The other more important  aspect of that experience was that I was no longer treated like the student or the child.

Patrick (00:09:07):

I was treated like a competent adult and professional. And it was really interesting to see everything about my life turn around my grades, my performance,my whole self just turned into such a more mature, professional, ready to go. and that guided me to work in a couple different labs, And I think the most important thing about biomedical engineering was combining science, chemistry, biology, physics, math in the intersection of that and being able to speak all of the languages.


Abigail (00:10:44):

Well, I think that's, it's really interesting about the way science works and you come at it with a hypothesis and then you test the hypothesis and you're really problem solving. These are all things at the core of entrepreneurship. So it sounds like your training in science really provided a very fertile, um, ground for you to learn how to actually become an entrepreneur and think about the world that way.

Patrick (00:11:14):

I would absolutely agree, and I would say that the physical experiences that I was involved in from the coursework to the extracurricular work was really it. the work after 9:00 PM and just in the middle of the night, and it's just me running around to the machine shop and the wood shop and make different things to experiment, that's where the real growth happens. But I would also put that with the real, real life life experiences I was having with my dad, his multiple battles with cancer. And he, um, passed away Christmas morning of my final year in grad school. And what that, what that does to you as a person, you develop a deep level of empathy, emotional intelligence, and the the other things that you really need that I would say are almost equally or more important than all of the engineering and skills that I learned is how to, how to develop my mind and myself.

Patrick (00:12:10):

Um, but I would go back to what you just said is it is very important to, to learn and understand how to, how to look at systems as an engineer and how to look at the scientific process. And I didn't realize it until a few years later, but what you're really developing is first principles. Everything is made up of fundamental rules and processes and things that govern how it works. And so when you approach things like that and you learn how to think about things like that, you can deconstruct and rebuild and build new systems, products, processes, anything. I think that was the most important, important part of engineering school was developing first principles.

Abigail (00:13:00):

Right. And sometimes it's not the product that's new, it's the, the innovation is actually in the process. There's so many, so many lessons there in. It's really, really cool.let's start with the Lobster Institute. I love the, in Maine there's something called the Lobster Institute. so tell me a little bit more about that, because that part of your education you spent at the Lobster Institute, is that correct?

Patrick (00:13:42):

Well, it was actually in collaboration with it. So I, I started grad school in biomedical engineering, um, starting my masters. we wanted to figure out what we could do with it. We wanted to do cool projects with it. And in a very archetypically Maine way, um, was introduced to the director of the Lobster Institute from a neighbor that my family had in Goldsboro, Maine. So he, he owned a lobster boat tour business in Bar Harbor, a nd he introduced us to Dr. Bob Bayer, who was this famous lobster scientist. He's been the director of the Lobster Institute for decades.

Patrick (00:14:34):

Um, and Bob was always interested in researching different ways that we could use different parts of the lobster that aren't used in an effort to move towards a hundred percent utilization. Bob, like I was, was particularly interested in, in biotechnology and medical applications of, um, byproducts from the shell to the proteins in their circulatory fluid So, it's actually a funny story. Bob was always doing K through 12, um, exercises of going out and, teaching kids about the lobster industry. And it's important to be able to discern between a male and a female. And it was hard sometimes to show people the difference in, in the, the male and female parts.

Patrick (00:15:32):

So Bob's idea initially was actually just to, 3D print in a hundred x blown up lobster genitalia, and he could bring it to his demonstrations to show people. So I, I kind of used the 3D printer at night when nobody was really paying attention and got this lobster thing printed. and he would bring it around and show people. He brought it to my advisor and, gave it to my advisor. And she was so excited with this new project. It's so cool. Biomedical engineering with Lobstering. And she put this on her table thinking it was one of the, the swimmer rats, but it was a penis. and she <laugh> every, all of the new, all of the new, uh, faculty members and the deans and the collaborators and students she would bring in.

Patrick (00:16:29):

She, she would show them, uh, this lobster penis. Um, and only months later did she realize. But, uh, <laugh>, that was my funny experience with that. And after we metaphorically, literally banged that project out, we, um, we, uh, <laugh>, we, uh, I was telling Bob about my drive to help people. And he said, well, I've actually been working on this thing kind of moonlighting using the proteins and the lobster circulatory fluid for these different applications. So Bob had always been reading this literature on how these proteins allow the lobster to fight off diseases, heal wounds, and highly involved in their ability to pop off and regenerate limbs. Um, there was a lot of literature evidence to show that it could help do things from antiviral to maybe even anti-cancer, to, um, what was very little studied and investigated was repairing different elements of the skin barrier.

Patrick (00:17:35):

And so Bob had been doing some in vitro work, um, and he'd also had patch tested this, uh, homemade cream to use. He took the lobsters circulatory fluid and combined it with petroleum jelly and started to apply it on things just to see if it would work. And he started seeing some success. this was very timely for us at the time of him telling us about this and reading the literature.because my partner Amber had been going through for, for years and her whole life, but particularly for the last few years, horrible eczema flares all over her body. Red, dry, itchy, flaky skin. Um, it looked kind of like a flesh eating virus. And I watched her go through undergrad and it got worse in grad school. She started to hide behind hat scarves, hoodies. And, you know, not only was it itchy and painful, but it was distracting and embarrassing and it really took away, she didn't want to go out and socialize with friends anymore.

Patrick (00:18:36):

she didn't want to go to class. She wanted to do everything remotely. it really took over her life. Um, and Amber's not alone. Eczema and psoriasis effect over 10% of the world population. It's just very little talked about. They just go buy the whatever cream at CVS and hope it works, and just try to mitigate the problem. Um, we were always looking for new solutions. Steroids harm the skin barrier more than they help often. And a lot of profit optimized drugstore creams are not meant to help. They're meant to temporarily soothe and juice the lifetime value of a customer by applying just enough to get them on a repeat purchase model. Um, and, and so there was a huge need for something that would actually be effective and gentle and not harm the skin like steroids.

Patrick (00:19:29):

It took a while to convince to go to Amber and say, Hey, you have sensitive skin, everything irritates it. Do you wanna try those lobster stuff? But eventually Bob convinced me to convince her. And, um, we gave her the, one of the prototype samples of this lobster cream and she started applying it. And within days it was significantly calmed down. The dryness was going away, the scaling, the flaking was going away. And within two weeks it was like she never had it. And it was crazy. That's amazing. It's amazing. Changed her life. that was the moment for us where, you know, not only did we believe in it, it worked for Amber and we knew,even though this was an N of one, she has tried everything. We need to lean into this and figure out how this is working and bring this to others. So that's why we started Marin.

Abigail (00:20:27):

Wow. that's just such an interesting story. when I thought about your journey. I was imagining that you were sort of going through all these tests and trying the lobster ingredients on different problems, but you really just came to the problem very quickly. So it sounds like just it was serendipity, 


Patrick (00:21:18):

It really was. I reflect on that with a lot of gratitude because, I'm very entrepreneurial. Amber is too. We started other startups and we've been involved in other startups that have gone off to, to go and raise capital and begin to, to really get off the ground. And, you know, I'm not saying we had it easy, but all the things aligned for it to happen. 


Patrick (00:22:14):

We have followed on Amber's Amber's anecdotal test to give it to family and friends and dozens and dozens turned into hundreds. We then did, uh, more in vitro studies and began in vivo studies. And then we begin to get the product out there. there's no question of product market fit, which I think is the most essential early milestone for, for a startup in a business. I think you need to find product market fit. Let's get past self finding a in a problem that's, that's large enough and in an effective solution, find product market fit, then later find profitable and repeatable modes of customer acquisition. But product market fit is so hard to achieve in, in the way that unicorn brands like us do.

Patrick (00:23:09):

We have now thousands and thousands of people on our waiting list after selling out for like the fifth or sixth time. And we've been responsible operators on the supply chain side. The demand is so big. People are finding my personal phone number online, I don't even know how, and I'm getting calls every day, emails every day. People are asking us to never, ever stop selling this, never sell it to big pharma. So the efficaciousness and the message isn't diluted. we are just the grateful and hardworking stewards bringing it to people.

Abigail (00:23:46):

you know, a product people responding to, then you have to build it like, so then you got 90% of the work is ahead of you. So how do you, how do you go from, you know, Amber, you know, recovering, you do some, you know, tests with some friends and family. Nobody's going to the hospital with terrible rashes. It seems to be working. What are the steps?

Patrick (00:26:01):

Well, you have to figure out how to produce it. You have to source, you have to produce, you have to ethically batch and produce viable legal products.  and you have to create a funnel. You have to create, an initial channel and then scale to different channels of demand. those would be the basic building blocks. So after you get from anecdote in a skincare product, you go to 50 participant, six week clinical safety testing and micro testing and make sure that you comply with all the legal things that you need.


Abigail (00:26:58):

Well, I think that's important too because I think, you know, it's a, a lot of the new brands popping out are, are not necessarily doing all that work in the background. I think the other thing that I love about your story is that, you know, everybody's trying to attack wrinkles and, and, and like, it turns out all everybody really wanted was like to cure their, their itchy skin. You know, I I love that you came at it from a different angle that was so practical, so sort of wholesome, 


Patrick (00:27:35):

Yeah. Well, that's a good point.

I was just gonna say, um, there were some really intentional decisions that went against the grain for what some advisors, um, recommended. We may, we may consider. Um, one of them was, was, uh, you know, I went through ICORE and, and Amber and I went through Greenlight, Maine and Top Gun and all of the different entrepreneurial training things. 

Abigail (00:28:19):

Could you just tell, for the audience, uh, what ICORE is 

Patrick (00:28:25):

ICORE is an early stage, I would say it's an entrepreneurial training course that, um, teaches you how to go about performing customer discovery, understanding the business model canvas, building the initial building blocks of like a value proposition, the product market fit, target audience messaging  and that really initial stuff around the concept of the business. 


Patrick (00:27:45): cont

And one of the things about Icor that was interesting as I was sitting around all the, um, the MIT MBAs and engineers And, and they thoughtfully and rightfully so, would bring us back to, okay, but let's think about what market to introduce it to first. what are the different markets and applications and let's scientifically validate everything first.

Patrick (00:30:10):

And I, it's like, that's a really cool conceptual idea, but I feel that I'm talking to a bunch of faculty members and scientists here that have unlimited budgets to go explore everything and seemingly in limited time to spend the next 10 years of their life validating a concept instead of going out and executing on it. Right? 


Patrick (00:31:00):

Why would I go out and perform all the possible clinical studies to investigate degree of wrinkle reduction or smoothness? Why don't we do that? But let's build a business solving big issues and then use cash flow to invest in those in vitro studies, which I'm so proud that we've done. That's exactly what we've done. Now we know the other verticals and those are really exciting, but we've entered our market with the 80 20 of what we needed to get to market. And it has served us so well because we've learned everything on the fly as we go. We've built the plane as it's, as it's been going, the plane's now taking off, it's, it's, it's assembled. We're assembling the next parts of the plane.

Abigail (00:32:43):

Well, entrepreneurs wanna be in business, right? And you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you've got enough there, perfect is the enemy of the good, right? Um mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so you hit the marketplace and you, it kind of, it just blows up pretty quickly, right?

Patrick (00:33:05):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> within two months, um, sold out of our first initial batch. it was a humbling first month of launching and then learning how to pull the levers and the different traction channels. So organic, social, paid social influencer, search marketing and then PR  in news stories were the big thing. You know, we like to think of it as telling stories at scale. it started with re local news stories, then regional and then national news stories. And it's been a cycle for us of stock up with inventory. Takes about a month and a half for a news cycle to kind of go through, pick us up and run, sell out that quarter, rinse and repeat. And I don't mean to say that with a lack of empathy or gratitude, but that's from the business side.

Patrick (00:33:55):

That's, that's how we've been doing and growing. And every time we blow up like that, it's like a small raise every time cuz it's all cash flow, almost no customer acquisition cost, very low marketing spend. And then you get to continue to build the parts of the business as you go forward. Um, and, and we've learned a lot through doing that. We've learned a lot through not linear and predictable growth, but oscillatory very explosive growth and what we need to have in place to make that happen. we're actually just in, in the, the come down, one of the oscillations right now where we just grew, massively, straight 18 hour days for the last month and a half just to get things out the door and continue to nurture opportunities coming forward when we restock.

Patrick (00:34:53):

Now we're pretty deep into working on a rebrand. Um, we understand what the org chart looks like a year, two, year, three year from now. We understand the vision and the direction to become a category leader in dry damage skin, starting with a strong d to c and followed on with appropriate retail partners that can mutually storytell with us., and the team that it's gonna take to get there is really exciting part of, really excited to be investing in bringing on the right people, the right experienced talent, not convenient talent, not, um, talent that happens to be in our network right now, but the right talent. Um, and really begin to scale this and turn our oscillations into, um, stepping, stepping like stairs of growth where we don't experience inventory gaps because we're able to have the team to manage each element of growing this business explosively every time, um, these type of events happen.


Abigail (00:36:11):

it's wonderful 


VO: Stick with us and we’ll talk about Marin’s supply chain, their plans for growth, and how they’ve bootstrapped with Maine-based grants from organizations like MTI, the Maine Technology Institute. 


BREAK: Spark No 9 and Maine Venture Fund


VO: We’re back with  Happy Planet. 

Abigail (00:36:11):

I have so many questions. First, are there enough lobsters to support your activity? I mean, what happens to that, to that chain? Um, and how do you procure your, your, your lobster liquid?

Patrick (00:36:37):

There are enough lobsters. I can confirm.I believe that with our level of efficiency right now in yield, if we achieved a hundred percent utilization at Luke's Lobster, um, we'd be supporting our business size of, of somewhere between 50 to 65 million a year in annual revenue. So, we're not there yet, but, but we'll be there. it is important to work on increasing, you know, when you think about a supply chain, there's like, you can increase your volume up to a hundred percent utilization, you can increase your efficiency and volume are like functions of utilization, then you can expand your streams of supply. So expand to other lobster processors. Um, and it'll be fairly simple to do that. There are some technology improvements that will needed to be, that need to be put in place to make it really financially worthwhile that, we're working on with Luke's.

Patrick (00:37:38):

it's really important to us to be able to not just be extractive. I heard, um, I think it was Bree Warner from ASF say this at an event recently to not just be extractive but circular in our approach for, creating value on our end for our customers, and then mutually giving back value in terms of the exchange of cash for resource right to the supplier. right now we are growing the operation with Luke's and, uh, we're in our second year of collecting these lobster glycoproteins. They're a waste byproduct in lobster processors, so they go right down the drain. So we've developed a proprietary way that's sustainable and ethical,in the way that it's collecting this stuff from lobsters literally go right down the drain. It's only collecting from lobsters that would already go to become seafood. So it's really a true value add and to make it a real value add for Luke's, um, you know, it's A simple system of ins and outs. The cash that they're receiving needs to be greater and like worthwhile at scale than the human capital and re uh, materials and time invested in collecting that thing. Yeah,

Abigail (00:39:01):

That's getting out presumably. Yeah. That's gonna work out. So Luke seems like a wonderful partner to have on this, on this road with his own successes and his own scaling of a big lobster business. So, um, that's, that's pretty, pretty exciting. As you, you know, you, you have this breakout product and in a way it just seems like that that creates a lot of pressure. Like, will the next one be as amazing? I'm just kind of curious, are you, are you gonna go deeper with lobster? Cuz I know there's like chiten in the shells  that's an ingredient often used in skincare, or are you, ust gonna keep your secret sauce in all the products? how do you envision growing, a line, in the specific circumstances you are in right now?

Patrick (00:40:01):

I think that's an excellent question because, um, in the beginning of our business, as we were spinning out of Dr. Bob's company, so Dr. Bob was a faculty member. He retired, he formed a company around commercializing lobster byproducts. In that company's goal is to find all the different applications for lobster byproducts and position them. That is not our goal. Our goal is not to investigate, um, x, y, and z different byproducts of lobster processing and find new commercial applications for that. Our goal is to increase quality of life of the, um, communities that we wanna serve. Right now we're very focused on eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, dry damaged skin, and that represents a large part of the population. Um, we're not gonna be exhausted of serving that population anytime soon. We have achieved amazing product market fit. So now we will continue to serve them in different ways and solve as many of their problems as we can and find new people like them until we reach a hundred percent.

Patrick (00:40:59):

Or that is a, that's not a literal statement, but we would continue to search for new customers that model our target customer while we, um, offer more products and expand the line to service dry damaging in different ways. For example, a scalp serum, a non moisture stripping shampoo, a lip balm, a lip treatment, uh, a heel bomb, a hand cream, all these different things that service, you know, Amber is thinking about it in terms of, um, being able to make the best products possible for every part of the body. Um, so everything from the scalp and the hair to the skin and, and you wanna treat your skin on your face differently than you would on your legs and make custom products for these use cases. Uh, but not vanity products. Really big problem solvers. And,  not worried at all about our ability to introduce amazing new products because we have an amazing novel active in technology and we have the best product person in the world, which is Amber.

Patrick (00:42:00):

She lived the problem. She knows it very, very well. she's a skin care junkie. So, you know, we have medicine cabinets here full of products. She knows what good products feel like and good and bad products feel like, um, I have ultimate confidence in her ability to introduce, um, those game changing new products that will fit in different parts of our customer's routine. But, um, you know, it's interesting, I think, I think a lot of companies in the blue economy space get focused on, oh, let's find all the different ways to position this, this, this, this, and this. It creates distraction. It doesn't create traction. Um,

Abigail (00:42:39):

Or just the best products.

Abigail (00:43:26):

Yep. I wanna talk a little bit about the team. Uh, you have a co-founder and, uh, you guys have co-founded before and, um, there's a lot of value to having a co-founder, maybe some challenges too. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Patrick (00:44:28):

There's, there's pros and cons to everything. Um, Amber and I have a really unique partnership. We've been dating for almost nine years now. We met on the first day of bioengineering undergrad at UMaine, and we were best friends first and then eventually began to, to get into our relationship. And I am so proud of where our relationship is in terms of our ability to work together as life partners and founders. Um, it really comes down to communication. All relationships, I think come down to an agreed upon terms of engagement and communication. I'm saying that in hindsight, I'm not saying we came into it with that, but now we've developed that awareness and understanding. Um, it's, it's, uh, it's really cool to, to feel that, you know, we can be so candid with one another and be so honest and share our feelings. It's very, very simple concepts.

Patrick (00:45:29):

Be honest about how you feel. Communicate in a way that doesn't shut somebody down, but opens it up for conversation. Um, be aligned at all times, whether it's a leadership team or a, or a relationship and partnership. Very simple things that you could find in any team building or, um, like founder, co-founder relationship type books. But it's hard to actually find in the real world. 


Patrick (00:46:32):

But, um, having a co-founder has been amazing. I don't know anything about skincare. Now, I know a little bit, but, um, you know, we compliment each other so well. Um, Amber, if we were a tech company, Amber would be the software developer and the product person, and I'd be like the, the guy out pitching, um, talking to people, getting the energy going, talking to the reporters and trying to build the business side of it 


Abigail (00:49:28):

you've got your eye in the ball and you've done this just bootstrapping, if I understand correctly. Is that right? I mean, how do you do this?

Patrick (00:50:46):

Well, we're very fortunate to be in Maine. This, this is a big plug, big time plug. Having organizations like mti, mti like reigns above everyone else in terms of our ability to be in business. MTI has given us hundreds of thousands across our different companies and our short career. Five years ago, I was graduating undergrad three years ago, graduating grad school. They have given us hundreds and thousands in grants to build businesses here in Maine that are going to change the economy. without mti we would've not been bootstrapped. we certainly would've had investors we're gonna be successful either way. So this is just a how, but so much credit goes back to MTI because, you know, in, in the beginning of the business about earlier, you just gotta build the fundamental things, the supply chain, find the manufacturer, build the branding, do the regulatory things, introduce the product with a certain amount of inventory, build your funnel, do all these things, get marketing spend.

Patrick (00:51:52):

All these things require capital. And you can grind it out and go to the farmer's market as much as you want, but those things don't scale. And we've always built things that are scaled from the beginning. Um, and to be able to do that, we, needed money. that's the what and there's a bunch of how's can we get a loan? No. Do we have the cash on hand? No. Can we go raise capital maybe, can we get it from a grant? Let's try that first. and we were so fortunate, you know, to come from academia, understand how to write a grant, understand how to pitch persuasion, thoughtful construction of a grant application and things like that. That was really important. That chemistry lab that I worked in and I started getting NASA grants in junior year, that was huge.

Patrick (00:52:40):

Cuz I've gone on to, you know, probably over 700 k in grants now that I've been able to bring in for different companies just from that ability to write grants that started in undergrad. Um, so.

Abigail (00:52:53):

that's amazing.

Patrick (00:52:53):

It's, it's, it's been, it's been bootstrapped Every time we have a PR event, it's like raising a little micro seed round of cash flow and have surrounded ourselves very thoughtfully with,excellent all star advisors that help us build this business as we continuously have more leverage and build our cash position and can bring on new people. 

Abigail (00:56:02):

So are you just gonna be able to grow this organically or are you gonna have to fundraise? Like how how's this gonna work out? 

Patrick (00:56:16):

Yeah. We absolutely have a, have a good amount of interest in make, I make sure to meet it with, with gratitude. I don't blame them for being, you know, so there's a level of self-confidence and self worth that we've cultivated to understand the opportunity here, but not meet 'em with like, ah, we don't need you. That's very shortsighted and not thoughtful, uh, not empathetic, but Right.  we, we don't need to aise capital right now. 


Abigail (00:57:20):

But you're not out gonna do a series A or B or you know, in in any, in the near future.

Patrick (00:57:28):

Not in the near future, but I think in, I think in the next 16 months or 16-18 months, we'll raise a seed round, you know, a seed and that seed round will be a very different version of a seed round than, than comps in our category other than like celebrity led founders that launched and had a huge platform already. It'll be more like that type of seed round, we're certainly gonna be raising capital and in investors, we look for smart capital with relevant experience in our category. so skincare, beauty, D to C or retail. and interestingly,there's one that you won't be surprised to hear, which is ethical capital.

Patrick (00:58:21):

So people that care and align with our mission of helping people and the planet. So the kind of investors that align with us in joining 1% of the planet or 1% for the fishermen and donating our proceeds to, different lobster community associations. Um, and then I would say one that I'm still developing, what I mean, to be able to extrinsically communicate it., is thoughtful capital. sounds egotistical and negative, but I've been really unimpressed with some conversations I've had with investors because of the lack of thoughtfulness. I wanna really be excited about the people that I write my check to bring into the company, and Amber wants to be excited about who she allows to, to become part of the company. And there are conversations we've had with investors that are clear, you know, I don't understand where you're coming from. I don't agree with why you think like that. And I love that you're out there trying to help build businesses. Ours might not be the best fit for you, and that's fine, you know? Yeah. Um, so thoughtful capital, still figuring out what I, the words to describe that, but it's meaningful to me.

Abigail (00:59:47):

Well, it's a family. You run a business, you have a business, you put you, well, literally, it's a family in your case. it's a very intimate thing and your shareholders are part of the team, uh, at that early level with those seed seed investors. so you're right to be careful who you let into your family. I think that that makes a lot of sense. what advice would you have for other entrepreneurs?

Patrick (01:00:21):

I have a lot of advice for entrepreneurs.it's mostly all personal development and, and advice for them as people, rather than skill acquisition or read this book or acquire concept with the guiding principle there being that the potential of the business ultimately reaches the ceiling of the leadership team and the founders. And there's no way around that. you need to develop yourself as a person to be able to be the person capable of building what you want to build. know who you are so others can't dictate it for you. 

Earlier I mentioned logic, intuition, and intention for the three things that we consider to be, um, the foundations of a good decision. When you need to lean on intention, you better know who you are and be confident in yourself. So you're not on shaky ground when you make hard decisions based on intuition.  and I would say know your why. Know your North Star. You know, if, if, if, you know, if someone were to ask you if, if what you wanted in your business, everything that you wanted in your business to happen was to happen tomorrow, what would happen? Know that. 


CONCLUSION


Thank you Patrick for taking the time to tell your story on Happy Planet. Since the recording of the podcast, Patrick and Amber have continued to blow away sales. They just can’t seem to make enough! They have achieved what every brand dreams of: perfect market fit. And they’ve done it through the upcycling of marine waste product. Pretty amazing, thoughI must say that I am not entirely surprised at their success. Though a young entrepreneur, Patrick’s poise and grace are truly unparalleled. In preparation for the holiday season, they brought a holiday gift mini size to market. And more products are on their way. Maybe one of them will make us all look better on zoom!


Thank you for listening. Please follow the Happy Planet Podcast wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review - it really helps new listeners discover the show. 

Happy Planet Podcast was reported and hosted by Abigail Carroll. I am the Executive Producer. The talented Dylan Heuer [hoyer] is our producer and editor. Composer GEORG BRANDL EGOFF created our theme music. Learn more about my work and get in touch by visiting happyplanetcapital.com.