Can SafetyNet Save Our Fisheries?

We are going to kick off the fall season with a chat with Dan Watson, the UK-based founder and CEO of a fisheries startup called SafetyNet. I first met Dan through Harry Wright’s accelerator Bright Tide, where I am an advisor. Then I wound up on his mentor team for another accelerator run by Boston-based Sea Ahead. I can’t wait to see where our paths next cross!

One of Dan’s most talked about solutions is designed to prevent bycatch. Bycatch refers to unwanted fish that are inadvertently caught in commercial fishing traps. It’s estimated that $1billion of unwanted fish are thrown away each year. Not to mention disruptions to the marine ecosystems. So solving this problem could provide a great benefit to the planet.

SafetyNet’s bycatch solution is based on research Dan dug up from the 70s and involves simply shining different coloured lights into the water as you fish in order to attract and repel different species. This is just the tip of the iceberg of SafetyNet is up to. 

Just a reminder, you can listen to Happy Planet pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts, or by following one of these links:  Apple , Spotify, Google, or our website.

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

Many thanks to Maine Technology Institute, Maine Venture Fund and Spark No.9 for their sponsorship. 

I’d also like to thank our promotional partners. Investable Oceans is a US-based angel platform specializing in ocean-related startups. 

Oceanovation is a fast-growing hub for entrepreneurs and investors in blue-tech innovation. 

Transcript

Abigail: Welcome back to Happy Planet! I am your host Abigail Carroll and I hope you all had a great month of August. I am delighted to be back with you today and I would like to begin with extending a thank you to Dylan Heuer for her incredible editing dn production work on this podcast. Dylan has moved on to a full time job but worry not we are in good hands! Matt Patterson is our new editor and producer. He’s got an incredible resume including almost 6 years with Heritage Radio. 

So once again, welcome back to the podcast where we celebrate global business innovation for a Happy Planet. 

Today our guest is Dan Watson, the UK-based founder and CEO of a fisheries startup called SafetyNet. I first met Dan through Harry Wright’s Bright Tide accelerator in the UK where I’m an advisor, and then completely by chance I wound up on his mentor team for SeaAhead’s GulfBlue accelerator in Mississippi. I can’t wait to see where we next cross paths! 

Accelerators are interested in Dan because he’s proactively working to determine what ocean problems need to be solved while also trying to solve them. One of his most talked about solutions is designed to prevent bycatch and involves colored lights that attract and repel fish, based on research he dug up from the 70s! 

But let’s hear it from Dan: Welcome to the podcast, Dan. 

Dan: Thanks Abigail. It's great to be here.

So Dan, you're the CEO of a company called SafetyNet. Tell me a little bit about that business. 

Yeah, so SafetyNet Technologies is a company that started after my final year project at university. So it was during a time when there was lots of public outcry about fishing supply chains and ethical fish purchasing and what was going on in the oceans. and then it spiraled crazily out of control after I won something called the James Dyson Award, which sort of catapulted it onto this media stage.

And then started a lot of conversations going about how this could turn into a real business and real technology and get it out in the world. Try to do some good.

Abigail: That's really exciting. It's interesting how media can just take you to a completely different level and it's an interesting wave to ride. 

Dan: Yeah, absolutely. It was completely insane. So like, that's, me as a, as a student, recently graduated and then suddenly it's in The Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, like Yahoo front page and stuff. So like, it was all over the place.

And like what it really did was it turned in from a, Hey, I'm a student who's done a year's worth of work on this to try and see where it could go into a student solves fishing problem, ready to go, get in touch, let's go and put this thing in the world. And it like skipped. A lot of that middle ground where you are able to build claims and results and science and all these things to go and support the business as it grows.

So in some ways it's super useful because the interest helped propel it, but then we had to figure out where are we 

actually as a business. Yeah, exactly. And let's make this real. Right. So let's, it was an interesting experience. Yeah. 

Abigail: So what year was that? 

Dan: That was a while ago. That was 2012.

Abigail: 2012. Okay. I wanna get into your products and what your solutions are, but first I'd really like to dive into the context here. What is the problem that you're trying to solve? You've got the ocean. We've got a fishing problem, we've got a growing population, we've got people to feed and a lot of different people who wanna use these resources in the ocean.

What's on? 

Dan: Yeah. I think you basically nailed it there. one of your previous podcasts talked about the tragedy of the commons and it's completely true. It's this shared resource that we're only recently actually starting to have laws applied to, in a way that does reflect that nature of the actual environment that we're in.

whether that's a high seas or coastal fisheries for subsistence or for sale or all sorts of different things, people. Interact with the ocean in terms of protein and protein extraction, to put it in really like crude terms , in many different ways. But over the last sort of 30 to 40 years, and through the advent of commercial fishing, for instance, what we've seen is a massive imbalance really in terms of the resource extraction and the ability to keep it sustainable.

We've seen technology come on leaps and bounds in terms of catching and processing. But how we monitor and then measure and manage those different parts of the supply chain and the ocean's overall health and its ability to keep doing this hasn't really kept up at the same pace. And that's also because management and regulations and other things haven't necessarily kept up with the ability for us to go and actually like take things from the ocean.

So where SafetyNet comes in is looking at recent changes in regulation that have started to support that approach, but also. A more agile, small company that can actually build things to start trying to solve some of those issues as they've become more highlighted. 

But really, it's kind of a little bit backwards with us, to be honest, because we started out building, a device called Pisces, which was to reduce bycatch in fisheries, right?

So you put these lights in the fishing gear to attract and repel different species, and that allows you to catch more selectively. But what we've done now as a company is we started to build cameras and sensors to help us really understand. Well, "what are the issues in thefishing sector?"

Like, "What are we actually needing to solve more immediately?" Because it's been almost impossible for a large part of the fleet to see what's going on, to even understand where there are issues in the first place. So we've gone full circle as a company. 

Abigail: That's really interesting. I just got my recreational lobster license and I went out and put my first two traps out there. And it, I had no idea where I, was putting it Like you, there was no visibility. 'cause we've had so much rain. And I came from aquaculture, so I must say this was my first foray- I'm not a fisher person. I'm nothing. But I did have that sense of. Wow, this is really random. I have no information. This is a complete hunch. And a day or two later, I picked up my traps, the bait was gone, and there was nothing in them. So I can, on a very small scale, I relate to the lack of information problem. 

Dan: Yeah, it's amazing. And so like I, I completely hear where you're coming from and actually traps and pots are an area that we're increasingly doing work in because largely what's happening is you've got this like black box. You're putting this thing in the water, you leave it for X hours or days or whatever, soak time, and then you take it out and you count the result.

But, As you said, like what happens in that interim period is an unknown. So we've been 

deploying our catch cam and inky the sensor systems off the coast of ney with some crab, fishermen and lobsters of fishermen, just to really see what happens during that process. 'cause the other thing is that like people are going out and checking these gears like really regularly, and the thing is, if you can 

start to understand when things are actually happening, is it because the tide influenced it, or the light conditions or the storm or whatever.

You can start to be more like efficient in how you're actually checking for them as well. And that leads to great things like a reduced fuel consumption and other things that are really good for the environment. So yeah, big questions. 

Abigail: And less work. These lobstermen are out there at the crack of dawn every day. they have a tough life. 

Dan: Exactly. In terms of industries that require a passion for what you're doing fishing has gotta be up there near the top of the list because to go out regularly and do this work and check up on it, yeah, it requires a lot.

So where we've made the most progress is actually in UK fisheries. like looking at things like, looking at the, gears, right? Where you'd expect small fish could escape. And we've been using it to see like what's the reality when you put this stuff down there, like 'cause 30 years it hasn't been inspected that easily or that well.

So what modifications can you make very quickly to, to augment that release method. So, lot more things like that in the future, like real things that we can spread across fleets as knowledge and, and insights. 

Abigail: Yeah. So as a business, you know, you can sell the camera, can you sell the data? 

Dan: it's definitely something we're interested in. Our, our first customer is the fishing fleet, so, from the camera systems or sensors are used to inform what we're calling precision fishing. We're not the only ones calling it that. It's just a good term. It's like precision agriculture, but it's really data informed fisheries, right? And. 

So that data can have a secondary purpose. You can maybe, if you choose to donate it to science community or to climate change monitoring or to offshore wind planning, that kind of stuff. And that's what we're really hoping to develop alongside some of our partners. 

Abigail: It seems really hard because there's so much data. 

 how you pick which data to track in an environment that is one so new to us in the sense that we really have very limited data on the ocean, because the coastlands are different than the the lines, you know, and then the deep sea different than the, you know, offshore. Where do you start? 

Dan: It's, it is really hard. I think anyone who says they know, they know what we should be measuring right now is, I, I don't know, if I'd agree. you see some people in this space doing excellent work like Hub Ocean in Norway. They're starting to aggregate a lot of this data.

You've got like, terra depth in the US who trying to make marketplace for data as well. And that's, a lot of that is really building on the top of things that happen in the space industry. So you've got like remote sensing from satellites that's doing sea surface temperature, wave stuff, wind and they've done a lot of learning about how you take what could be an overwhelming amount of data and turn it into useful stuff 'cause they've had to do it and you know, at a bigger scale. 

Abigail: Yeah. 

Dan: So I think ocean sector is drawing heavily on that. It's drawing a lot on precision agriculture and what farmers have done with on land and starting to take those learnings and to some extent, even though in the ocean it's gonna be like 10 to 20 years later than those other sectors, we have a lot of hopefully shortcuts and like best practices to draw on in at least user facing part of things, right?

Because that's gonna be a big challenge as well. Like how do your end users interact with this massive amount of data to get genuinely useful and valuable insights rather than just scrolling screens and numbers that you have to be like the matrix reader to, to even understand what you're looking at. So the ocean in some respects, hopefully has a bit of a headstart in that respect. 

Abigail: So why do you think that we ignored the ocean for so long? 

Dan: Yeah, it's so interesting. heard a story the other day that there are funds in different parts of the world, different cities in the world where people live within like five or 10 kilometers to the ocean, but they've never had the chance to go visit. And those funds are set up exclusively to fund buses to get people to go see the ocean, right?

And. it's amazing to me that like you can live that close and never have opportunity to see what's there. And I think that's a big part of why we have, as you say, sort, of ignored it for so long, at least in on mass. Because it's always kind of over the horizon. Right? And actually, even the close ocean is very different from the high seas.

So like the thing that from the shore you can see is maybe what, like 3, 5, 10 miles, something that. Beyond that, like very few people get to see apart from, from a plane and then you're already 35,000 feet in the air. So like, I think it is far away from most people. I think we hear a lot stories about and you see people diving and you hear about the Cousteaus and the round, world races and stuff, and they all seem very expensive, very far away, very high end to most people.

And it keeps it a step apart from our daily lives, apart from we buy fish maybe or other things. it's been estranged from us as Humans until suddenly we're talking about it as like the world's largest carbon sink and it has a very real impact on our health and wellbeing. And suddenly the, the narrative changes and people are like, oh, this plastic bottle I'm drinking from might end up there and here's effect it will have. Because the narrative and the marketing and the storytelling around it has got so much better and more personal. I think that's been the big change. 

Abigail: I always feel like in the, you know, in the late sixties and seventies, we're obsessed with. Outer space. We had the, you know, flying to the moon and, you know, Jacques cousteau was out doing his show in the seventies, but I think it was sort of eclipsed by a lot of interest in sort of outer space. And then you had all these, you know, George Jetson, like, you know, all of the sort of popular culture followed, even fashion core, like everything looks sort of like, you know, sci-fi. And maybe now we're, we're, having a different as people start looking at the planet again and, and, the environment, the role, the ocean plays, as you say, is totally undeniable. So I guess it makes sense that we look at it. Now, you mentioned regulation, 

is this global regulation? I mean, each country regulating doesn't have a huge impact. We need a real, you know, global, global rules and, and how, how is that happening? Or is it.

Dan: these are ongoing conversations, right? So like even where we've seen recent, what you could term as a win, like the High Seas Treaty, finally getting through the sort of UN votes and stuff and. Some real meaningful conversation happening there. And inclusion from like the EU where, they're talking about how, there's like different rules for the common fisheries policy, right?

In the EU waters like what you can and can't catch, what you have to declare. And finally technology is starting to catch up. Where previously it was very difficult to monitor fishing vessels, as soon as they went sea. And now we have things like AIS, VMS, we have people like Global Fishing Watch, innovating in this space to really make these platforms available to governments and to other people who want to monitor those.

We have CCTV going into vessels. We have AI to do that processing for us. And at SafetyNet, we've been involved in some early stage R&D projects that have completely responding to regulatory changes. And you'll see, despite the lag, they will be phased in over the next few years and it'll make a big difference.

we've also seen things like the, the recent ruling on the rights of nature. So there's been really cool stuff that came Panama, about the nature in Panama being like a legal entity in itself and having a right to being protected. So, you know, that's starting to spread through different countries as well.

And there was also biodiversity levels that have been ratified in a very close vote in the EU Parliament recently, where it was almost 50 50, but it got passed, which is again, nature and biodiversity monitoring being stipulated for EU countries to do as part of that annual reporting. 

So these things are coming in and I think it, it sort of tracks with our ability to actually enforce them. I mean, monitor and enforce where previously like the idea of tracking anything across the ocean is just unfathomable. But now we have networks of technology and other things to start doing that. And consumer pressure and government pressure to, and voter pressure to actually like get on with it, like the. The new infrastructure bill in the US right? there's quite a lot of funding going to NOAA, to start protecting ocean health through the infrastructure bill which previously might not have been earmarked for it.

Abigail: I also like this sort of idea that it put a dollar value on nature and that just puts it. in real, really clear. Terms for people who have grown up, you know, grown up understanding economies, like if something has a monetary value that's really,tangible to people and you can infuse in that dollar value all of the environmental good.

That something does. 

Dan: we hear now about the value of investing in environmental services where an environmental service is actually categorized as like a mangrove or a dolphin or a whale, right? and it came from, I guess conversations about like bees and pollinators, right?

Like, if we remove this as a, a part of nature, which does a huge amount of work for us, here's the cost it would take to actually do it ourselves. And I think moving that to the ocean and then talking about blue credits, carbon credits, biodiversity credits, as a way of preserving those natural services which we should honestly be doing anyway for the survival of our species. Like, but, but having to put a dollar value on it to show what it would take otherwise is.a useful communication tool for sure.

So one of your tools is really interesting to me and it's not the Catch Cam that were just talking about. the Pisces product is sort of fascinating. Tell me about it. How does it work and wow. 

Yeah, so this, this wow factor, this is the thing that really got it, like flying in the first few years with the media coverage and stuff. So lights to attract and repel fish is kind of sci-fi, it feels a bit magical. But actually it was based on scientific studies that were done, I think in 70's up in Aberdeen at the Marine Laboratory there.

So, This guy had been shining flashlights at fish in a tank to see what would happen, and realized that some of them reacted in different ways and wrote a brief report, put it on a shelf, and then probably 30, or now maybe 40 years later, it started being looked at because the market incentive was there to start trying to catch better and people were trying all sorts of different things.

And so I found this report and a few other people had found it too, but it was really saying like, Well, if we're wanting to influence fish behavior to like get them go places or to try and escape something, like an emergency escape sign, what, what can we do visually that could work? So you've got sort of two different approaches there.

One is, well, what can the different species see? Like what are their eyes physiologically set up to actually see? So like the, the rods and the cones and stuff. Based on where they live. And the second is like, if they can see it, how do they respond behaviorally? Like, do they want to attack it, eat it, or, or chase themselves away?

So the reason that Pisces took such a long time to come to market was because there was so much science that needed to be done in different fisheries, even when the technology was there to go and build out this almost recipe book, right. Of light types that you could use to attract and repel that we're still doing it today.

Like we've worked in a, a good number of fisheries. Learned a lot, supplied a lot of sort of technology to other people to learn more and are still building out that recipe book, basically. And I think it's gonna, you know, it's gonna be another 10 years while we still develop it in new places because it's, it's learning about how those things fit together. 

Abigail: But it's fascinating to think that, you know, the bycatch problem, which is an enormous problem, could be solved by simply putting different colored lights on these trawlers

Yeah. the bycatch problem will be solved through, again, a combination of different technologies and tools. So it'll be sending the vessels to the right place, which is what we're working on now. It'll be putting lights in to deter some species at one stage in the catch process. It'll be making holes bigger in parts of the net. It'll be having automatic things that can open if you realize you've run into like a school of Mackerel that you didn't want to catch. Right. So it'll be a combination of all these things and lights will be a part of that in some way. And yeah, it's been really Cool to, to build a thing that has enabled to that discourse to continue and like go and be tried in different ways.

Yeah, so. I'm hearing you and I'm hearing a lot of research, research, research, data collection, data collection. You are in a fantastic spot in that you're in a growing industry. you've got these like interesting products. You're doing this really cutting edge research, but it must be hard at the same time to have a business that's always. growing and always needing to be, deepened and improved by this continued updating of research. It's like the self-driving car, right? You need a lot of the, these things out there on the road to get it perfect, but, you know, there's a few crashes along the way that make it tough.

so what is it Like. I'm kind of trying to drive a business like that. 

Dan: Yeah, and I think, you know, it's, it's one of the things of being in the sort of the deep tech space, right? You're so reliant on the data and, and understanding these things. And the point you made is, is like spot on. Like, like the more of these things we have out there, the more we can learn faster and you've got, again, this balance, which is like, "Hey, hey, fishing industry here is a cutting edge tool that might be useful for you, but I need you to work with me to like get it out there and like get us some more research and get 'em out so we can start seeing what really truly is effective and then scale it up", right?

So that we've had some like amazing early adopters that have made our lives as a company a lot easier because they've agreed to do it and like they're interested and. Even this week was like having great conversations with folks up in Alaska who were like, "yeah, we've got this thing we'd like to build with you guys and try it out. We're willing to be a very patient customer." And it's like cool, like, I mean, and you kind of, you, you have to earn that as a business over years. Like we've been around for a while and like we've built stuff for different people, so I'd like to think that we've earned that level of trust. But again, those car crashes you mentioned, in the early years, like stuff would break, stuff would implode, like it'd be hit with a shotgun. you know, you're learning as you go with the technology building and like mass production, you'd have stuff that would like leak and we'd have to like go back to the customers and have a very close relationship to be like, cool, look, we're on it.

We're gonna fix this. We're gonna try again. And we, we've got these ideas. But I think the major thing throughout the years of having to do that is, is resilience. you have to find those little pockets of energy. Right. And We've probably had like at some point 6 months of just bad times as a company. Where you're trying to find a new market, you're trying to collaborate as the tech's not working. People leave, people arrive and it's exhausting. I don't know, they just, you sort of have to wake up and keep going for it. And there has to be that mission and, and being a mission-led business massively helps because you're like, well, we're not there yet, but we know what we're trying to get to. And then maybe next week someone pops up and offers you a helping hand and it's enough to like to keep you going. and it's not just me, it's the rest of the business, right? Like everyone has to be brought in and has to be excited and interested. So, 

Abigail: Yeah.

Dan: That delegation not only like downwards of like, here are tasks that we need to do, but also upwards in terms of support and motivation. Like the whole team takes that on in terms of keeping us going. So it's not one person. And again, that, That, is resilience, right? You, you spread it out. You you decentralize it. You make sure that each person in the team can keep the other ones going.

Abigail: Yeah. Amazing. I met you.through Bright Tide. It was like a year and a half ago, and then, then you did a Sea Ahead accelerator So is this part of the strategy? Does this help keep that motivation going? what is the role of the accelerator in a company like yours? 

Dan: Yeah, that's a super interesting question and the reason I, I, it's so interesting is that we we're in like full on sales mode right now. So actually we did a lot of accelerators in the past that we're very helpful, but right now we're, we're not doing any more. And that's mainly because I think we're at a point where like it's all about the sales and getting the product into people's hands. Where they've been helpful in the past is like, it can be really hard to break into a new market. So for instance, the, the Gulf Blue one was so interesting because we were really keen on, on speaking to people in the Gulf of Mexico, and there was direct access through that accelerator to do that. And it was the ability to like just walk into a room and someone knows where you're there and you're not chasing over emails and phone calls and stuff.

It was great for that reason and actually in that case, we learned very quickly that there wasn't necessarily the market there for our product. But it still was an acceleration of what we would've done otherwise. So it in the name, right? Exactly. Yeah. We learned what we could do and we learned what we definitely couldn't do with our stuff.

Bright Tide, Similarly, the work that Bright Tide's doing is really awesome in terms of introducing people to people like the Crown of state who otherwise might be more than an arms length away from like your network or even having an interest. Okay, so these are the Folks who are dealing with like the management of coastal regions, whether it's for wind farms, fish farms, or otherwise,let's chat with them about what they might need from ocean data or from the fishing sector and how they're gonna fit them into their future plants. So all that access, and you know, with all of this, it's building your luck coefficient, right? It's like you get access to more people who know what you're doing and may or may not be able to help you, but at least they know. And if it does come up, then you might be in their brain. And that is what I would call luck. It's being known about and knowing what is needed so that there's a higher chance it's gonna happen. 

Abigail: Yeah. Well, it's great to hear that you are in sales mode. Tell me about that and how does feel different? 

Dan: that's, been night and day, so like. We were, I would've guess, described ourselves as a, research organization for a long time with all the science and stuff that happened in the tech. We now have some, like very hungry salespeople on our team in different geographies. And it, it's like incredibly, gratifying to see not only sales being made, but also to have people in the role who can get feedback from the customers so that if we don't make a sale, for instance, we can understand better why and what we might need to do to win that customer in the future. 

So, It's great to see for the future of the business in terms of building those sales up. And yeah, it's really nice. But it does feel very different. Like our meeting structures have changed,like ugh, KPIs have changed. it used to be however many working units and now it's how many we've sold and how long they've lasted and this stuff.

So that's changed the attitude of the company. But what's really cool about that is that. As we move towards financial sort of stability or sustainability, you start to see the mission becoming more achievable. Because I think if you are constantly relying on in investment or in grants or other things you're always wondering where the end of the line is, where the end of your runway is. But if you start to get the ability where you can match the outgoing costs with the income from your revenues, it's like a superpower. You can suddenly get way more creative. You can actually, in good faith, you can take those R&D projects to expand the team beyond the core team to like find new things that you can sell to these customers that like you.

So it's a whole different feeling. It, it feels pretty great, especially again as this mission led company where we're like, every time we make a sale, we're doing hopefully some good in the world. And yeah, it's great to see that being true.

We’re going to take a quick break, but when we return, we’ll hear what inspired Dan to enter this line of work and where he sees Safety Net going in the future. 

Abigail: Welcome back to Happy Planet. My guest today is Dan Watson of SafetyNet Technologies. I asked Dan about his background, and how he got interested in solving these particular problems.

So tell me about your background and how you got interested in. solving this particular problem or these 

Dan: Yes. So my background's actually really nothing to do with the fishing sector. I. trained as a mechanical engineer and product designer. And that was because when I was younger I used to just break things and try and fix them again. And I was told by a practicing design engineer that, okay, I love art and I love design technology.

But if I ever wanted to fix things or build things meaningfully that could scale up, I needed to learn mechanical engineering and maths and physics. And I hated those subjects up until then. But this person changed my mind and I went and studied that. And I think it's been a big part of How I've been able to work on this and other things.

Abigail: Interesting. 

Dan: Yeah, I definitely recommend the maths and physics. It's it's pretty cool to be able to look at the world in that way, that you break it down into, you know, energy forces, materials, that kind of stuff and see what's gonna survive. But yeah, so That led me into product design, engineering that led me to classical university and then reading that article about fish and all the stuff I didn't know about that was going wrong in the ocean and the supply chain of fish.

And it was super interesting. And I think you start off with the technical challenge and then you start to meet the people and you hear about the politics and then the economics and then all these different things. And like, it just doesn't get boring because it's all tied together, but it's like there's always something new and it's been an education in like so many different areas just to be involved in this space.

And yeah, it's been, It's been really cool to be like a part of it, even though it started as a technical part and now we're trying to get more vocal about Some of the stuff around policy as well, because those are the lever that really need to be pulled for change. 

Abigail: Yeah. Yep.where do you think you're gonna take it from here? 

Dan: Yeah, I think, I think there's a ton of problems to solve in the ocean space. I, I don't think SafetyNet is gonna be a company that solves every single one of them, but. we started in fishing, we've developed a really good set of core competencies as a company. I think where I'd like SafetyNet to be is that,we have demonstrated that our products can survive and work underwater and do things that solve the need.

And I think there are tons more out there to go solve. And that could be in aquaculture, it could be in, you know, offshore stuff like, but. I, I just love for SafetyNet to be a position to actually work on a lot of the inbound interest that we get from different partners. 

So we're still small. We have a very focused sales strategy right now. I hope in the future that some of these really cool ideas that we're getting from people, like, we'll actually able to be like, oh yeah, we can spin up a team and bring this knowledge from our company to let go and solve this for you guys. And, and then like we could almost become an accelerator ourselves for like solving ocean issues, but like reliably and robustly.

Because you're like, again, you're like, you're splitting out the accelerator mentality into companies that are like, first in how to do that in a, thematic area. So that for us would be ocean tech. I think honestly, we're gonna move further towards data processing, visualization and supply.

Everything that we've got is really, or we're building now, is hardware that's built to capture data as well as do another job. And that is for us what precision fishing is. it's, Capturing understanding and responding, and Pisces will be like a responding technology and there will be hopefully others that will similarly respond to what the data highlights. 

Abigail: Yep. Yep. And, And, data can not only help your products grow, but data has value in itself. People buy that data and you may not wanna share it, but that that actually could be, could be sold. 

Dan: personally would love to see the world where, and there are people working on this where like fishing crews or whoever collects this data right, has a share in the profits or even they own the data themselves. Right? At the moment, any fishing crew we work with owns their own data.

And like we'll do stuff To make it more accessible. So we'll build tools to sit on top of it, to like give them insights and stuff. And that's how I think SafetyNet will continue to make revenues in the data space. But, That conversation's evolving, like about who? about shared data, ownership rights and stuff, and how that really works with governments and individuals and companies. Right? So I think there's space there to explore and do some cool stuff. 

Abigail: Yeah, and maybe some data's proprietary and some isn't depending on what their usage is. 'cause some of it is so important for our common goals as a planet. 

Dan: Oh, absolutely. Like a big part of SafetyNet's goal is like, as we piggyback on fishing vessels to capture this data. A large portion of that can go to science, can go to research, all sorts of things, and like hopefully for free,that would be our preference. 

Abigail: Yeah. So, we're talking about fish here and people eat fish. What can consumers do to be smarter and, make better choices that are better for the planet and better for their own health? 

Dan: Yeah. We have the M S C, We have the A s C, so marine fisheries and aquaculture sustainability groups. We've got a bunch more labeling schemes now as well right? And I think as the data becomes better, hopefully those become more accurate. And that should hopefully be a good way for people to understand not only where the fish is coming from, but like the sustainability of the stocks and what they should and shouldn't eat.

The other big issue we have, I think, is.we've kind of moved away from local fish species in countries. So like people have their favorite type of fish, like in UK it's cod and haddock and stuff. And we have those in fish stocks, but there's a bunch of other really good fish out there and other species to eat. Really tasty, Really good. You can get 'em from like down the road rather than imported from wherever. And I think that speaks not only to like the biodiversity side of things, but also the carbon footprint. You know, like if we're catching fish and sending it to China or Russia to have it processed and then bringing it back because that's the cheapest way of doing it. selling it back to the same market it was caught from. When it's done half around the world is like, yeah. So these are all things that I really hope over time will either change through the fact that we can educate people about how to cook different species that are closer to home, or we just invest in ways of like cutting down the potential environmental impacts.

Abigail: I think that's really interesting and it's a lesson that we really haven't learned on land. we concentrated our efforts on land to farming a few animals. You know, people will eat beef and they'll eat veal or they'll eat pork. But, if you go back to the old menus from the 18th century, they're eating squirrels, they're eating possum. I mean, we look at those animals and we think, oh, that's disgusting. But I, you know, I don't know. is that worse than like eating, you know, animals that are just fed on corn and we've, done the same thing with,fish. You know, we're over fishing like salmon, we're overfishing tuna, we're overfishing and there're all these little, little, guys out there that are lower mercury content too, that, that are perfectly good to eat. Everything's good with barbecue sauce. 

Dan: Exactly. you don't need much right? And that can be made locally. I, I think what we've seen also is, like you mentioned agriculture. I mean, look at the massive knock on effect that the war on Ukraine's had in terms of grain supply and then down to agricultural supply chains. it's not resilient because as soon as something breaks, that's it. you focus everything on this monoculture, like what do you do? And there's not even just been a danger, I think it's been the reality in fisheries for, for a good long time now. And, and maybe we can start to move away from that, but it's gonna be a big shift to like get consumers on board with doing that.

I think Particularly in the affordability side of things with the crisis we're going through right now, economically, people aren't necessarily thinking about like, "well, I'll spend an extra, like, $3 or whatever on this local fish rather than the one I can get for cheaper." the other battle is also that fish has always like historically had a harder time in terms of consumer sales versus sort of like the, chicken, pork, beef 

Abigail: it's more expensive too.

Dan: It's more expensive. It's like people don't necessarily know how to cook it, like, and that's understandable and it goes off faster, like all these things. So yeah.

Abigail: Well, data will help a lot of those things. So I like to ask, the entrepreneurs two questions at the end. One, do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs out there 

Dan: Yeah, I, I think, I think a couple of things that have served us very well. Like just transparency and honestly, like, I know that this is such cliches, but like, we've been through like a huge number of crises as company every company's been through for the last few years. Right. Global pandemic, economic crisis.

And for us as a company that's like trying to find its way, the thing that served us was the most was just our employees, I think ,loving working at the company we shared. All the financial realities of where we were, the realities the mission, sales, the technology stuff with everyone. So that when it came to asking people to like trust us and almost do us favor, in some instances when like the cashflow runs down or like you've got little bit longer between paychecks people are willing do it.

And I think sustainability in world isn't just about like the environment, it's about sustainable business as well and treating people with respect and welfare because that's how people stick at things. Like if they, you know, and you're gonna have to ask people to help you sometimes on your journey and really do your a favor. And that can be as close to home as your employees as well as your funders and the other people. So yeah, respect and, and welfare are massive and transparency. 

And the other thing is on that subject of asking for things, just ask everyone for everything. Like, my mom is Dutch, my partner's mom is Dutch, and one the sayings from the Netherlands is, "you've got the no go for the yes." and it's like, yeah, it's true. Like just if you just walk in and assume you've got no, but why not go for the yes and ask someone something? They, they might give to you 'cause might be the easiest thing in the world for them to do. But if they don't know, then they can't help you. So ask for things like see might get. 

Yeah, I think those are the Two big things when you're doing entrepreneurship stuff.

Abigail: Yeah. I've heard it before. think that's like a solid, just super solid piece of advice. and the last thing is, are you optimistic? Are we gonna meet this climate agenda? Is the ocean gonna start to boil? Like, how are you feeling about it? Are we, are all the stocks gonna be de depleted? Are you feeling positive about the direction 

the world right now? 

Dan: Oh, wow. That is a ... ok..... I feel like regarding the ocean, what we're seeing is, is a turning point in understanding the ocean better and therefore what we need to do. the concern I have is about attention span right now. So like, high people's agendas. it's super interesting And people really getting into it, but like, how long does that last? Like, how long do we actually take meaningful action? Like even things like. UN ocean decade, right? The Decade of science, like massively well-meaning loads of really cool interest and stuff that's gone into it. But like how far has that really gotten? Like what's actually contributed is, my concern is that attention's wane and then it's maybe onto the next thing, and like, fair enough because if like, the air quality index around your house is massively plummeted, that's gonna be primary concern. Versus like, Okay, do we have porpoises left in ocean, which is clearly still very important. But I'm optimistic In the sense that like, I am my background a technologist, and can see that there are technology strides that keeping up with regulations now that are actually solving those issues.

And we absolutely can't rely on it. Like what we've, you know, you need the socioeconomic buy-in, you need people to really be interested doing in the first place, but when they are, the technology is starting to be there to enable it to happen. And there's more efforts to make sure that people are so. Yeah, a bit of both. think one Final thing is related to attention span. I have lots friends with kids, and they know that those kids are gonna be around in the world longer than they are, and the world needs to be in at least as good a place as it is now or better. And what I also see is that those friends come home and they're exhausted from work or from the other stuff they're having to do. And that means that it's not always front of mind. it's not always gonna be like, oh, I need to it this way because of this. we put so much pressure on people in other parts of life that then bleeds into like our ability to actually treat the world with respect. That again, that endurance is think where I have some concerns. But otherwise, Yeah, I think we can get there. I don't think we'll get what we planned to get, but we might. Maybe you get close. I don't know. It's gonna take a lot though.

Abigail: …Get close enough. 

Dan: Well, this thing. don't know. I don't know. Is it gonna be close enough? It's so hard, even with all this focus on it, like I genuinely don't even know. And like, you know, we read up on this stuff all the time, but how close are we? How far away? Like, what's breaking? Where are the critical areas? It's so hard to tell how well we're actually doing.

Abigail: I’d like to extend a big thank you to Dan for taking the time to speak to us today. To learn more about his company, check out his website https://sntech.co.uk/ What I also appreciate about speaking with Dan is that for all of the technology, data and discovery, his words of advice are in line with so many others: Eat Local. 

Thank you once again for listening. Please follow Happy Planet wherever you tune in and leave us a rating and review - it really helps new listeners discover the show. Happy Planet was reported and hosted by me, Abigail Carroll. I am also the Executive Producer. The talented Matt Patterson is our producer and editor. John Wotowich is also a producer. Composer George Brandl Egloff created our theme music. Learn more about my work and get in touch by visiting happyplanetpodcast.com.