Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I lived in
South Africa for the first twelve years of my life
and at the tend age of twelve and a half,
my parents decided to leave South Africa. They didn't agree
with the government at the time, it was an apartheid government.
I had an older brother that had to go into
(00:21):
the army and I didn't want my brother going into
the army and fighting for a cause he didn't believe in.
And my parents were very much part of the anti
apartheid movement and wanted us to grow up in the
right kind of environment. So twelve and a half thirteen
moved to Sydney, Australia, where I had the more formative
(00:44):
part of my education secondary education. I went to university
at the University of New South Wales. My story is
more of a school of hard knocks in the sense
of how I got to where I got to, and.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
But I was very fortunate to be part of a
unique program where I was on scholarship between industry and
the university for a group of five of us in
the areas of marketing and commerce. As part of a
scholarship program. I did that for three years. I got
(01:21):
a little bit frustrated. I felt like I needed to
leave Australia. You know, it's like this little island at
the end of the world, far far away. And I
was very lucky to be able to receive an opportunity
to do an exchange program with a university in the US,
with a college in the US, and I spent a
year which very much influenced me, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Very grateful for this.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I spent a semester abroad at Babson College in Boston.
Babson's the number one school in the US for entrepreneurial
studies and that really started to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit
inside me. I was amazing professors and the way things
worked at that time was Australians were allowed to actually
(02:05):
work in the US for.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
As long as you studied.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And after finishing my semester abroad, I didn't want to
go back to Australia.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I wanted to work and I started to apply for internships.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
But it was really tough to get an internship when
you didn't you know, you were this little kid from.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Australia and I was very lucky.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I interviewed for an internship at Pepsicola in Boston, and
I was accepted as an intern, and I started my
career at the back of a truck with a two eeler,
literally getting up six o'clock in the morning and being
one of those, you know, very challenging job delivering products
to South Boston to Back Bay, up and down the
(02:50):
streets of Boston. And that's really where I started to
learn and understand the importance of how to bring consumer
brands to the marketplace and understanding the power of executing
the right way.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Well, you had an incredible journey, and we're going to
talk a lot about your really wonderful resume because the
one thing al that I got from it is there's
a lot of diversity going on between the soda company
and high tech and now what you do for the
last four and a half years a CEO of Bioharvest Sciences,
which is an incredible company that we're going to find
a lot out about it with the mission and what
(03:23):
you do, but it really is revolutionary when our listeners
and CEOs and future entrepreneurs get to hear what you're
doing right now, because it really truly is extraordinary. I'm
going to have you dumb it down for me because
I'm still learning as I go here. But it's about
fruits and plants and really helping everybody out there when
it comes to that. So, but before we do that,
I want to talk about your journey out of school.
(03:44):
And you know it's not going to surprise you a
lot that you started doing really hard work right out
of the gate and out of school, not exactly what
you want to do, but you work your way up
the ladder. So if you could maybe kind of capitalize
your journey after that, after your interning at PEPSI and
the things that you did, because because it really truly
is an incredible resume. So if you could get everybody
kind of the highlights, we'd love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, sure, I want to go backwards to go forwards
because I think it's important because my story really is
a story of an immigrant and you know, coming to
and I'm sure many of your listeners have similar backgrounds.
I came to Australia as an immigrant. My parents came
with literally very little money. Anything that I wanted, whether
it was going to the movies or anything that was
considered a luxury I had to work for so at
(04:27):
the age of literally fourteen, I was lucky.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I was pretty tall. I looked sixteen.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
In Australia at the time, you had to be sixteen
to legally work.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And off I went as a fourteen year old and
I started to work.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
At that time, it was Saturdays and Thursday nights, so
you worked like sixteen to twenty hours a week. And
I started in a delicatessen and learning how to slice
meat on a slicer and do window displays, and that
taught me how to do merchandising. And then I got
promoted with a speaker and a headphone to start to
do sales in the shopping center.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And you know, there I was.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
On a Saturday talking about you know, silver side nine
ninety nine ladies and gentlemen coming in to cut price deli.
You've got the best silver side and cheeses and off
our wents. And that taught me, you know again, how
do we engage with customers all the way through to
dish being a dishwasher, apprentice, butcher, and you know, at
that time, you would do anything in order to get
(05:19):
some cash to be able to enjoy the benefits of
what people around you were enjoying, but you just couldn't afford.
So I think that taught me the value of money.
And then I was lucky to get a scholarship. But
the opportunity in the US started at Pepsi cod I
spent in Pepsi. I was able to you know, I
had a lot of lucky breaks. You know, works dynamic.
(05:41):
I had a boss who basically quit all of a sudden,
What do we do, We need a merchandiser. Take the
Australian kid. Put him in that job. If I went,
I learned how to merchandise and now I was CBS, Walgreens, Walmart,
resets and learned the area of merchandising. And then one
of the sales guys just didn't come to work, and
the business development sales guards said, take the Australian guy.
And you know, Dennis, I was very lucky in my career.
(06:03):
I had a lot of breaks.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
For example, at that time, if you can remember, there
was this great movie that Americans were infatuated with. There
was an Australian movie called Crocodile Dundee absolutely put your shrimps.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
On your barbie, right If you remember that and here
I was at that time, I had a much thicker
Australian accent because I wasn't married yet to my South
African wife, who's been my sweetheart from when I was
twelve years old.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
That's another story we can we can talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
By the way.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
By the way, I do want to tell you that's
the first and the four years I've done this series,
a Paul Hogan reference has been thrown into CEOs.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
You should know, so bravo, do you, sir?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, Paul Hogan.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I owe a lot of my career jumps to Paul
Hogan because there I was, you know, going in and
pitching coke versus PEPSI all these different accounts, and because
I had this stick Australian accent, people remembered me and
it just helped me get those sales over the line
and I was.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Started to win.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I started to win all these accounts in Fennel Hall
and all these strategic places in Boston, and before I
knew it, literally, I was running business development in Boston
City at my Pepsy Van or if.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I went to every single lead and converted it.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And end of the end of my internship came up
and I actually was very fortunate that Pepsi Cola USA
was willing to sponsor me from a visa perspective, come
to the US working operations for two years and then
going to purchase New York.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So there I was.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I had to go back to Australia tell my parents
I was going to live after immigrating from South Africa
to Australia.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I had to tell my Jewish mother that I was
going to be leaving, leaving Australia, going to live in America.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
And I don't know if you know much about Jewish
mother's guilt, it wears on you. And after having the
discussions with our parents, I said to them, Okay, I've
got three months here in Australia to finish off my
undergraduate degree. Wherever the best job is, I'm going the
best jobs in Singapore. I'm going to Singapore. The best
job is still with Pepsi USA. I'm going to the US.
(08:08):
And I was really lucky. At this time, the Coca
Cola company was looking to hire ten middle managers to
develop and nurture with intense training over a one year
program in Australia, which is a very mature market. Develop
market and then send those managers into Asia. This is
(08:31):
now we're talking nine to ninety six, ninety seven. Asia
was pumping. You got the growth of China, the growth
of Indonesia, and I was very lucky because of my
experience at PEPSI I got accepted onto that Coke program
and that Dennis was the start of an amazing eighteen
year career that I'm so grateful for. Where I spent,
(08:54):
you know, twelve years in Asia in multiple different roles
running businesses across Asia Pacific, including in China, where I
was headed up all of marketing and innovation for the
China business, where I.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Was responsible for fighting the Code Wars.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Which had a very interesting time in the history of China,
built a billion dollar juice business with the Minimate brand,
launching the Minime brand in China, and was responsible for
all the marketing around the Beijing Olympics. And I was
able to then follow that up with going back to
South Africa, which is a really interesting opportunity from a
leadership perspective, where in South Africa leading up to the
(09:33):
twenty ten World Cup, I was responsible for the marketing
for that and also leading the organization, the marketing and
the commercial organization at a time where it was critical
from a diversity perspective to change the nature of the
organization to reflect the rainbow nation which South Africa is
today is so well known for.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And that was an amazing leadership experience.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So, you know, basically twelve years in Asia, three years
in Africa, and then I got sent to the US
initially to head up marketing for the Glasow business unit,
which is brands like Vitamin Water, Smart Water, the Power
Aid sports drink line, and the energy portfolio. And I
was fortunate there to very quickly be able to take
over as general manager of that business unit that I
(10:18):
did for three years up until twenty fourteen. So that
really gave me a lot of global experience from running businesses.
You know, I started the business for Coca Cola locally
in Mongolia. I'm an honor in Mongolian. I'm really happy
to say there were like four countries in the world
where coke was not producing locally at the time. It
(10:40):
was Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Mongolia. And the company
had found a partner and I had the opportunity of
really being able to work with that partner, build a business,
build food law in Mongolia with the local Mongolian authorities
and really upgrade the whole industry. And when I say,
I'm almost like an honorary Mongolian in the sense of this.
(11:02):
It's just a huge affinity to the people, such wonderful people.
And when you have an ability to come into a
market and ubscull people and be able to pay people
more money and help them progress in their lives. You know,
these are the great benefits of what companies like cocon
Cola do all around the world, from an economic development
and professional development, female leadership, diversity, really critical human values
(11:26):
that are so important today that I had the benefit
of being part of for eighteen years.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I want our listeners to trust me on this one
that we could talk to Alan for a couple hours
about everything he did before Bioharvest, because it's such a cool, diverse,
incredible journey. But this is one of my favorite questions
that I get to ask any CEO or founder or
entrepreneur on this series when it comes to the current
place you're at the last four and a half years
(11:55):
as a CEO, and I can certainly see what bioharv
Sciences was interested in you and the diversity that you
brought and all the change and a risk taking that
you've done.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I'm very clear about that.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
But what did you see in this company that made
you say I want to join them as CEO.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Wow, that's a great question, Dennis.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
So it's important to understand my journey because before I
got to Bar Harvest, I went from the front of
the aeroplane to the back of the aeroplane, and from
the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta to the Red Rooftop
Motel in Atlanta. I don't want to disparage the Red
Rooftop Motel for great people that run their place.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And so I went into startup World and together with
two Israeli partners because I moved my family, I wanted
to become an entrepreneur. Hit the age of forty, I
kind of had a I would say, a positive midlife crisis.
I always had a deep connection to wanting, as a
religious tuition observant Jew, to have my family live in Israel.
(13:01):
And I moved the family in twenty fourteen, and I
also wanted to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit inside me in
a way that you know, it was outside of the
corporate environment. And together with two partners, we built a
big data, IoT and software company in the beer industry,
which we were very fortunate. We had a lot of
luck and we landed up exiting after four and a
(13:24):
half years, and and I was a bush Imbev, the
largest brewery in the world bought our company. I worked
as part of the deal. I had golden handcuffs. I
had to work for them for a year. They were
a great company, great management, amazing people, and I actually
ended up working for them for another year. But I
got to the stage where, you know, it was kind
of ironic. I was the oldest guy in the high
(13:46):
tech company right at that time. I was like, you know,
forty five, forty six years old, and I kind of
felt that I, you know, again, I was back in
corporate America and I needed to unleash that entrepreneurial spirit
again inside me.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And I got introduced to bio Harvest.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Sciences through a friend of mine, and Wow, when I
came to this company, what I saw and the best
way to explain it, because I came to the company
initially as an investor, what I saw was an R
and D gold mine, the most amazing technology to unlock
(14:25):
the secrets of plant biology, to be able to be
a bridge between the power of the plant kingdom and
all the pto medicinal compounds and fighter nutrients that are
contained in plants, and to be able to have a
technology that can democratize all those critical fighter medicinal nutrients
(14:45):
compounds that I found at such small levels, but to
be able to find a way to manu to produce
it at such scale that you can democratize the power
of these molecules and change the world of health and
wellness hundreds of millions of people, but doing it in
a way which preserved the planet for generations to come.
(15:06):
And as a father of three kids who were quickly
growing into their teenage years, I felt this significant, compelling
desire to want to do something from a professional perspective,
which was much more in the spiritual stage of my life,
(15:27):
where I wanted to leave a legacy, a lasting legacy
that my kids would be super proud of.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Me, that was a legacy that literally.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Changed the lives of millions of people. From an overall
specifically health and wellness perspective, and what I saw by Harvest,
I saw an R and D Company was a gold
mine of R and D, but they didn't. Like many
R and D companies, they didn't yet have the knowledge
on how to unlock this R and D and commercialize
(16:00):
it and bring it into the global marketplace. I still
landed up investing, even though that was a risk in
my investment. I was so blown away with the IP strategy,
with the clinical trials that they've done, with the regulatory strategy,
and the regulatory approvals that already received, all the way
(16:20):
through to the scalability of the technology, which is so important.
At the time, I never thought I was going to
be the guy that was going to be, you know,
unlocking that and bringing the technology to the global market.
And I invested in the company and I literally went
away with my family and I got a phone call
from at the time the CEO of the company, who
(16:40):
was the largest investor and an amazing man who's become
a dear friend and a partner for the last four years.
His name is doctor Zaki Rakiv and doctor Zaki. He
was the co founder together with doctor Yoki Kagai, and
he himself has a very impressive resume.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
You should have him on his show as well.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Entered voice over Internet, the cable modem and they had
invested his money similarly to my desire to change the world.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Wanted to take the money that he had made there and.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Build a buyotech company ultimately that was going to be
able to change the world, leveraging the power of the
plant Kingdom. And doctor Zaki called me up and he said, listen,
you drove me crazy during the due diligence process, and
I really did.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You know again, going back, I don't come from money.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Every dollar I've earned from where I was at a
delicate testant all the way through to exits, every dollar
is a dollar. So if I'm investing like one hundred
dollars or five thousand dollars or more, it's the same
due diligence, right, drive some people crazy. But he said
to me, listen, besides driving us crazy with your due diligence,
I realized I need a professional CEO to come in
(17:46):
and to run the company and to be able to
really bring this technology to the world. And at this
time my heart started to beat and it was the
kind of adrenaline rush.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I realized at the time, Wow, this is an opportunity
of a lifetime, and almost Dennis, an opportunity if you
think about it, if you go back to my days
with a two wheeler at the back of a Pepsi
truck and as a merchandiser and as a sales guy
all the way through to all the roles I did
in the Coca Cola company, and then going into high
tech as an entrepreneur and being bootstrapped. I couldn't have asked,
(18:22):
you know, for a a better training camps, multiple training
camps in order to be able to take this company
who at the time had just gone private just sorry,
I had just gone public, and to be able to
manage this company and scale the technology and bring the
amazing molecules that day had already developed to the marketplace
(18:45):
and impact people's health and wellness.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And so it was a very quick decision.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
For me which I made, and after unraveling some of
my responsibilities with annalser Bush, I started as CEO.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
In the company in June of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I tell you it's been the best four and a
half years of my life from a professional perspective, and
I would probably say from a personal perspective, because when
you're professionally happy, you're personally happy, and it works the
same way but it's just you have positive energy, you're energized,
and you know, we've now built an amazing business where
(19:24):
where we've brought to market our molecule, our key molecule,
which is a red grape cell molecule. And just to
kind of go back, maybe for your listeners to explain
the technology, might just take like two minutes to explain
the technology of what we do, as people might find
it interesting and.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
It may help some of the future questions that you have.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
But basically, we've invented a technology called botanical synthesis. So
people have probably heard of chemical synthesis, some people have
heard of biosynthesis.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
What we do is botanical synthesis and what does that mean.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
It's a big word, but simply what does it mean
technology platform where we can take the plant once and
as you know, plants have these critical phyto medicinal compounds
that are found in very very small levels that it's
very very difficult to be able to unlock these molecules
(20:18):
in a way that's consistent, in a way that's economically viable,
and in a way.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That you can actually build patents because you can't patent nature.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And this is these are the three core reasons why
pharmaceutical industry they started with the plant and move to
chemical synthesis, because when you chemically synthesize a compound, it's consistent,
it's cheap normally, and you get patents. So what our
technology does is it allows us to take the plant.
Once we understand exactly where in the plant are the
(20:51):
cells that produce these critical phyto medicinal compounds. We take
the cells, We grow the cells in a petra diish,
and we do literally thousands of experiments where we change
the nutrition we feed the cells, We change other variables
like the light, the temperature, and a whole bunch of
other variables that I'm not allowed to talk about, which
(21:12):
are part of our IP box.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And at this stage we get the cells to do
two things.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
One, we get the cells to produce the exact same
mirror of the phyto medicinal compounds that the plant produces.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
We call this mirroring. Two, we can.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Identify a specific phyto medicinal compound that we want to
increase by an order of magnitude by changing the variables.
We call this magnification. So in the case of our
red grape cell, we produce a very unique compound called
pissis vitral. Passirisvitral is the gold standard of resveratrol because
(21:51):
it has the highest level of solubility. It's twenty five
times more soluble than regular resvertrol, and it's much more bioavailable.
Stays in the body for at least twelve hours for
two peaks, one after one hour, one after five hours,
so it's like the Rolls Royce of resveratrol versus all
other resvertrol that comes from polygenium.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
It's called transfers vitual.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's much less soluble, much less bioavailable, and we're the
only company in the world that can produce pi seed
res vitrol together with all the other polyphenales from the
red grape, computing catogen costine, anti sinis and tannons because
we magnify the levels one hundred times at least one
hundred times versus what's found in the red grape. And
(22:30):
at this point, Dennis, we lock the cells, we create
a cell bank, and we never have to go back
to the plant. And then what we figured out how
to do, and by the way, all of this is
non GMO. We don't need any way change the molecular
structure of the actual cell itself. And then what we
figured out what to do is how to actually take
(22:52):
these cells from a petri dish and grow them in
massive industrial scale bio reactors thousand leader plus and economics scale.
We do this in eighteen to twenty one days. The
cells multiply, they produce the fat and medicinal compounds.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
We harvest the cells, we take out the water.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
We're left with the rich mud of highly efficacious, soluble
by available end product that we dry and today it
goes into dietary supplements. We have as a company where
science based everything we do is backed with clinical trials,
double blind placeibo publish and peer reviewed scientific journals. And
(23:34):
in the case of our red grape cell molecule, which
we call vinear v nia, we've been able to demonstrate
the ability to significantly increase dilation of arteries after taking
one capsule every day for ninety days. And arterial dilation
is so important because it increases blood flow and Dennis,
blood flow is the most critical part of your body's
(23:55):
operating mechanism.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
No blood flow, no quality of life.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
With more blood flow, you got more oxygen, more nutrients
flowing to the body. Tiss your cells and organs, which
means you have more physical energy, more blood flow to
the peripher part of the brain. Our molecule gets below
the blood brain barrier, so we're able to increase blood
flow and critical parts of the brain. Normal brain flow,
more mental alertness, maintains blood pressure within already normal levels.
(24:21):
We're able to help reduce oxidation of LDL cholesterol and
oxidative damage to the cells. So this is a product
that now we've brought to the marketplace. It's a subscription
subscription based product and it's really validated the power of
our technology platform. We sell it as a supplement in capsules.
We've just launched a superfood coffee. We're about to launch
(24:42):
a tea in the marketplace, all direct to consumer.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
We don't go through retailers.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
After spending all my time with retailers, I said, thank
you very much, we're now going to go direct to consumer.
I always want to be directly connected to the consumer.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It's so important not.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Just to have the cash cycle that you need as
an entrepreneur, so you have the voice of the consumer
directly in your ear all the time. And today our product,
we have more than six thousand verified reviews four point
eight out of five verified rating, and we change people's lives.
And this has been the validation of the power of
the technology platform that we have. We have an olive
(25:18):
cell molecule that we're going to be bringing to market
the end of next year which has the most potent
anti inflammatory called verbosca side from the olive cell, which
is going to target liver health as well as lestra
health and bone health to bone and joint health. And
now that we've scaled the business and we've developed the
technology and it's so mature, we made a conscious decision
(25:41):
to open the technology to other companies and earlier this
year we opened up a CDMO, which is a contract
development and manufacturing organization with existing contracts. We have contracts
with pharmaceutical companies, with nutrition companies to develop unique molecules
for their businesses, leveraging their muscles so that we can
(26:02):
really democratize these molecules from plants and impact the lives
of hundreds of millions of people. That's why I think
I have the best job in the world. I'm really
the chief plant officer for the world. Ultimately, we're leveraging
our technology to be able to bring the power of
the plant kingdom, and the world is now realizing that
if we don't start to responsibly utilize the power of
(26:27):
what we were given, whether it's from God on Day three,
evolution of creating the world, or whatever evolution theory you
subscribe to, there are five hundred thousand plants that contain
the secrets and answers to so many of the challenges
that we as human beings are dealing with. And fortunately
the world is becoming a lot more integrative in their
(26:47):
thinking as it relates to the whole world of health
and wellness. So the timing for our technology really is
perfect from leading farmer companies starting to go back to
the future because they started there, and going back to
the plant kingdom for the next generation of therapeutic solutions
to address current indications today where there's no solution ninety
(27:10):
five percent of rare diseases, so there's no solution out there.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So I'm having the time of my life. It's brutal hours.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I have an amazing team, but when you're changing people's
lives every day, and you know, I'm fortunate that I
get forty to fifty reviews because the direct to consumer
subscription business we're getting reviews. I get forty to fifty
reviews from people every day that keep my blood pumping
in addition to me taking two vinear a day, but
(27:40):
keep me going from a spiritual perspective because it's, you know,
being an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It's dealing with a company on the public market.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
You're dealing with all these challenges, scaling expectations of investors.
But wow, I mean, it's been an amazing four and
a half year journey. I have an amazing team together
with my partner, doctor Zaki Rakim, going back to brought
me into the company.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
He's a chairman of the company, and the two of us.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
That are very very dedicated management team and nineteen employees.
You know, were mission focused to change the world. With
the north star of developing ten to fifteen molecules from plants.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I've got to change the lives and.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Health and wellness of hundreds of millions of people by
leveraging the power of the plant kingdom in a way
that preserves the planet for generations to come.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Well, it's pretty extraordinary.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Of all the things you talked about, and admittedly as
a B minus student in both are sciences and chemistry,
I understood most of what you were talking about. But
here's what I would like you to do, because I
know that you're a believer in this and knowledge is power.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
And when you.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Talk about what you're exactly doing with your company, as
you work with all of your clients and heading them
down to the consumer, the consumer wants to know what's
going in their foods and maybe how they're processed or
not process and how they're growing and all that. So
your clients and the consumers want to know about this
and need to know about it. But I'm sure the
education process is going to take some time, and I
(29:12):
imagine that as you work with people, those are conversations
that are happening right now. So as you see the
technology continuing to evolve down the road and you're working
with these clients who are delivering to the consumer, what's
the overall plan of educating everybody of all the great
things that are coming out of this.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So look, firstly, the world is changing rapidly and consumers
are understanding the need to move to cellular based technologies,
whether it's meat cells, chicken cells, our space that we
own and we've.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Been you know, global leaders of because we've been doing
it for seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
The company was started in two thousand and seven, amazing
team of female leaders from our founder, doctor Jokika Gai,
doctor Malki Dosai, VP of R and D, probably the
best planned cell biologists in the world, and a number
of other members of the team or PhD plan cell biologists.
(30:12):
My CEO runs manufacturing, doctor Elana Beltze, she's a PhD
plan cell biologist.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So it's like it's all in the DNA.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
So you know, the world has started to understand, the
regulatory environment has started to understand, and you know, we
as a company when it's when it's related to the consumer.
For the brands that we're building in our director consumer business,
we invest a lot of resources educating the consumers, helping
(30:44):
the consumers understand the power of our technology, because when
you understand the power of the technology, you understand the
magnitude of impact of what you're putting into your body,
the cleanliness of it, because we grow all of ourselves
in aseptic by reactors, so there's no funger size, there's
no insect the sides, there's no verbal sides. You're coming
to our manufacturing facility, it's a really it's a sterile facility. Right,
(31:07):
you've got to be cold, I mean literally glay everything.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And biological facility.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And because at the end of the day, consumers want
to understand more. They're so open to be educated. And
when you take the time and you obviously you have
to simplify to understand it and you explain to it.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So a lot of.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
TV that we do, we're explaining to consumers our process
and our technology and how the technology works. And you know, mirror,
magnify and multiply. This is how we do it because
this is the future. This is the future of everything
from food all the way to preventative therapeutic solutions. This
(31:48):
is the future because the world cannot continue the way
it is operating today. Look at what we've just experienced
from a global warming perspective, right, you know, look at
our friends in Florida, right, and the southeast of dealing
with right.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
You know, the.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Magnitude of impact of our actions from an industrial perspective
for the last one hundred and fifty years has taken
its toll on the world. You cannot There are today,
for example, one hundred and forty drugs on the market
that contain critical active pharmaceutical ingredients from plants. If you're
(32:25):
one of those companies, your supply chain is at risk.
Your supply chain is at risk because of global warming.
Your supply chain is at risk because there's not a
consistency in your raw materials, because you don't know what's
going to happen from let alone, day to day, month
to month, year to year, and you're not able to
control the economics, and you don't have a moat around
(32:47):
your technology. So this is where our technology becomes so
critical for everybody, from players who are in the RX world,
all the way through to if you think about cosmetics
companies today, the consumer today, Dennis has voted as saying
to cosmetic companies all the top ten, all the way
(33:08):
through to the small guys, don't give me any active
molecules that come from chemicals. I'm not putting chemicals onto
my skin every single day.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
For thirty years, consumers have voted, you.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Know, a major change right now, and technologies like ours
become really poignant and critical for those industries all the
way through to just the simple nutrition chain. Think about
what Stevia has done for the overall let's call it.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Food system.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
But I would even go broader to say the healthcare system,
because at the end of the day, you know the
perils of sugar when you don't have an active lifestyle
and you have a seventy lifestyle, right, this is what
you know the American health and wellness system is dealing
with today. The unintended consequences of this Stevia came in.
(34:07):
It was a decent tasting non nutature sweetener that had
a following.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
But what if we could develop the.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Next generation, the next generation of non nutature sweetener where
there was no trade off versus sugar, but ultimately you
were bringing a non nutature sweetener into everything that you ate.
It would change the whole healthcare system based on the
perils of the underlying perils of the biggest challenges of
(34:38):
a healthcare system. So this is where our technology really
is anchored in all these different areas and.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Why these partnership with key companies are so critical.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Whilst we execute our game plan on a director consumer business,
launching all of our own products which just brings us
significant scale and learnings so that we can apply them,
or to our CDMO Contract Development Manufacturing organization with these
key partners. So the world is changing, education, the consumer
(35:12):
wants to be educated. We just have to change the narrative.
And that's what we did. When we brought our resverratrial
to the marketplace, people said to me, Elan, you're crazy.
There's every other resvitraal product out there. You go into Amazon,
every other is viratual product out there that use polygonum Japanese,
not weed.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
How are you going to differentiate? No chance. That just
made me more motivated to try.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And figure out a way, and I just realized that, look,
you just have to change the narrative to consumers. We
have clinical trials, we have an amazing technology. Let's just
give them the respect and help educate them, spend the
time the investment in the right kind of For example,
we brought the best medical and animator in the world
(35:57):
on board to work with us, and David built three
beautiful videos top videos of medical animation explain to consumers
basically the power of our molecules and how are molecules
work in your body? And that was critical and those
videos have been seen by thousands and thousands of people.
(36:18):
So you have to be willing to invest in education,
and the consumer's ready for it.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
They are ready for it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Specifically if it's going to change their lit from a
health and wellness perspective and protect the planet. And so
when you're hitting on those two areas, you have the
ear of the consumer.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I agree with that, and I'm glad you addressed the
education part because as much as we wanted, I think
once again, knowledge is power.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
We need to know what we.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Wanted, what's good for us, And it sounds like the
future is bright. We are running out of time, Aline,
and I do want to do this and just maybe
do a little recap if we could, and just get
some final thoughts from you. It really is truly amazing
and just the four and a half years as you've
been there at CEO at this incredible company about what
has change and what the future like.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
It's blowing me away.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
The technology that you guys have patent and what you're
doing as you do direct a consumer. Let's just get
some final thoughts and recap everything. The floor is your, sir,
that some final thoughts.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Look, I would just say to all those CEOs out there,
you know, if you're doing something that you love.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And you really feel is making a change in the.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
World, you're aligning your heart with your values, and when
your heart and values are aligned, then no matter how
big the challenge out there is, if you have a
great group of people around you.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
And I'm so blessed to have an amazing team.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And I've shared a number of the different people in
my team, including our chief medical officer who's from John
Hopkins and has a whole interesting story himself.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Everybody's just you know, got their own unique story, and
everybody is aligned with the strength of a team.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
And when there's heart and soul and it's all congruent
with your values, your values as parents in some cases
in my team, your values as grandparents.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Because in the world of biotech ages.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Everything right, age is everything that's the high tech and biotech.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You're able to climb a.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Mount Killerman Gena and back ten times over because you're
going to be facing and every few months we face
some really challenging hurdles. But because there's such conviction and
such deep belief in the impact of what we're doing
and our desire to really change the world, that you're
(38:49):
able to actually conquer those hurdles. And so I just
say to people like specifically, like for me, I'm so
blessed that at the age of forty five, I really
found my call him. Honestly, like you, Dennis, I think
I was a nightmare for all my biology teachers, right.
I think I flunked out every class except one on biology.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And I don't want to talk about right.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
But I just found that when I came to this
company and spending time with doctor Jokika, who's the mother
of the technology and amazing also she has thirty years
of experience in the pharmacide and the biotech side. Together
with doctor Malkett, I just became like a spongergame because
I realized that they.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Simplified it for me.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
They helped me understand what they were doing. And I
realized that if I could tell their story and if
I could work with him with all my experience in
manufacturing and in high tech to be able to scale
the technology, we as a team to change the world right, right,
And what better way to wake up? Like this is
why I wake up in the morning and I'm pumped
(40:01):
and I'm happy. Like literally, I always when I sit
down with all my staff members and I do like
a media review or check in, and I always ask them,
when you wake up in the morning, where are you
on a scale of one to ten. One you don't
want to get out of bed, you can't even open.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Up your eyes.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Ten you can't wait to get out of bed. By
the way, there's very few people in this world that
are tens. For the last four and a half years,
I've been like a nine to nine and a half, right,
which is amazing. And that's really driven by the fact
that every day I'm focusing all my energy because there's
no politics in our company.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
This is either thing all.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Those CEOs out there dealing with politics pulling knives out
of your back. It sucks energy when you're mission focused.
When everybody comes to work, from a biologist to manufacturing
to literally my team in manufacturing that I'm working with
the bioreactors, everybody understands this bireactor is going to produce
twelve kilos of our red Grapes video product and it's
(41:01):
going to change the lives of a few thousand people.
Everybody's all focused the energy on the outside, their hearts
and values are aligned. It's all positive energy, and it
just allows for you to be able to achieve success
in a way that is so satisfying. And that's what
(41:25):
I would say to those CEOs out there. Find the
space where your heart and your values are aligned, where
ultimately you can be in your spiritual phase of your
professional career. By the way, it can happen much earlier
in life. The earlier the better. You can just stay
there for longer, but make sure you don't spend your
(41:47):
time and energy doing something that your heart and values
are not aligned. Get out of it, get out of
it quickly. And I was lucky that all through my
career I was pretty much aligned. But when I got
to the world of biotech and I saw the impact
of all my energy, Wow, right, like it really it's
such a virtuous cycle of energy that permeates individually and
(42:12):
from a team perspective. And this way we can really,
you know, fulfill our calling of unlocking the secrets of
five hundred thousand plants that are out there that are
ready to be conquered and utilized in a responsible way,
responsible way that leaves the planet in a situation that
(42:35):
generations to come will be able to enjoy in value.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Well, so, well said man, thank you for that. So
you've got a great website, whoever designed it. It's beautiful,
it's easy to navigate. Let's give the website for everybody
who wants to check out a little bit more about.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Exactly what you and your team do. Add Bioharved Sciences.
What's that? What's a u ur L the web?
Speaker 1 (42:54):
So the r L is Bioharvest dot com, bi h
A r V e st dot com. And if you
want a little more at a product Vinia, you can
go to Vinia dot com, v i NI dot com.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
All right, and sir, before you go, I'd like to
pay you a compliment. I've talked to a lot of
CEOs and entrepreneurs on this series for the last four years.
There is a common theme about getting up every day
and being excited about what they do, having the best
team members on the planet that sometimes are usually more
smarter than them and are very good at what they do.
The communication, having fun, working your tails off, being jacked
(43:29):
up about.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
What we're doing and what the future is.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But also your passion and your enthusiasm come loud and
clear through our conversation. And I will give you a
personal story that I relate to a lot of people
that listen to the series in my industry. What I
do and I'd like to think over the thirty years
of what I do, I do a pretty good job.
But every hiring manager lon that's ever said, hey, Dennis,
do you know.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Why I hired you?
Speaker 3 (43:52):
It wasn't for all your gifts and what you brought
to the table, what you're good at. I brought you
because of your passion of the industry. And that comes
loud and clear that you're passionate about what you do.
And I think that's a good lesson for all the
entrepreneurs in future CEOs that if you're passionate about and
you're willing to take chances like our guest has, you're
probably going to succeed. So I want to pay you
that compliment because that came through loud and clear.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I really appreciate it. And you know you've got to
be passionate about.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
What you believe in.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's where Will said, well, listen on.
Thank you so much for a valuable time, continued success.
It really is extraordinary where you and your team are doing,
and we really appreciate you joining us on iheart's CEOs
you can do.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Thank you very much. Enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you.
Thank you so much.
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I lived in
South Africa for the first twelve years of my life
and at the tend age of twelve and a half,
my parents decided to leave South Africa. They didn't agree
with the government at the time, it was an apartheid government.
I had an older brother that had to go into
(00:21):
the army and I didn't want my brother going into
the army and fighting for a cause he didn't believe in.
And my parents were very much part of the anti
apartheid movement and wanted us to grow up in the
right kind of environment. So twelve and a half thirteen
moved to Sydney, Australia, where I had the more formative
(00:44):
part of my education secondary education. I went to university
at the University of New South Wales. My story is
more of a school of hard knocks in the sense
of how I got to where I got to, and.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
But I was very fortunate to be part of a
unique program where I was on scholarship between industry and
the university for a group of five of us in
the areas of marketing and commerce. As part of a
scholarship program. I did that for three years. I got
(01:21):
a little bit frustrated. I felt like I needed to
leave Australia. You know, it's like this little island at
the end of the world, far far away. And I
was very lucky to be able to receive an opportunity
to do an exchange program with a university in the US,
with a college in the US, and I spent a
year which very much influenced me, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Very grateful for this.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I spent a semester abroad at Babson College in Boston.
Babson's the number one school in the US for entrepreneurial
studies and that really started to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit
inside me. I was amazing professors and the way things
worked at that time was Australians were allowed to actually
(02:05):
work in the US for.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
As long as you studied.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And after finishing my semester abroad, I didn't want to
go back to Australia.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I wanted to work and I started to apply for internships.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
But it was really tough to get an internship when
you didn't you know, you were this little kid from.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Australia and I was very lucky.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I interviewed for an internship at Pepsicola in Boston, and
I was accepted as an intern, and I started my
career at the back of a truck with a two eeler,
literally getting up six o'clock in the morning and being
one of those, you know, very challenging job delivering products
to South Boston to Back Bay, up and down the
(02:50):
streets of Boston. And that's really where I started to
learn and understand the importance of how to bring consumer
brands to the marketplace and understanding the power of executing
the right way.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Well, you had an incredible journey, and we're going to
talk a lot about your really wonderful resume because the
one thing al that I got from it is there's
a lot of diversity going on between the soda company
and high tech and now what you do for the
last four and a half years a CEO of Bioharvest Sciences,
which is an incredible company that we're going to find
a lot out about it with the mission and what
(03:23):
you do, but it really is revolutionary when our listeners
and CEOs and future entrepreneurs get to hear what you're
doing right now, because it really truly is extraordinary. I'm
going to have you dumb it down for me because
I'm still learning as I go here. But it's about
fruits and plants and really helping everybody out there when
it comes to that. So, but before we do that,
I want to talk about your journey out of school.
(03:44):
And you know it's not going to surprise you a
lot that you started doing really hard work right out
of the gate and out of school, not exactly what
you want to do, but you work your way up
the ladder. So if you could maybe kind of capitalize
your journey after that, after your interning at PEPSI and
the things that you did, because because it really truly
is an incredible resume. So if you could get everybody
kind of the highlights, we'd love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, sure, I want to go backwards to go forwards
because I think it's important because my story really is
a story of an immigrant and you know, coming to
and I'm sure many of your listeners have similar backgrounds.
I came to Australia as an immigrant. My parents came
with literally very little money. Anything that I wanted, whether
it was going to the movies or anything that was
considered a luxury I had to work for so at
(04:27):
the age of literally fourteen, I was lucky.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I was pretty tall. I looked sixteen.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
In Australia at the time, you had to be sixteen
to legally work.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And off I went as a fourteen year old and
I started to work.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
At that time, it was Saturdays and Thursday nights, so
you worked like sixteen to twenty hours a week. And
I started in a delicatessen and learning how to slice
meat on a slicer and do window displays, and that
taught me how to do merchandising. And then I got
promoted with a speaker and a headphone to start to
do sales in the shopping center.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And you know, there I was.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
On a Saturday talking about you know, silver side nine
ninety nine ladies and gentlemen coming in to cut price deli.
You've got the best silver side and cheeses and off
our wents. And that taught me, you know again, how
do we engage with customers all the way through to
dish being a dishwasher, apprentice, butcher, and you know, at
that time, you would do anything in order to get
(05:19):
some cash to be able to enjoy the benefits of
what people around you were enjoying, but you just couldn't afford.
So I think that taught me the value of money.
And then I was lucky to get a scholarship. But
the opportunity in the US started at Pepsi cod I
spent in Pepsi. I was able to you know, I
had a lot of lucky breaks. You know, works dynamic.
(05:41):
I had a boss who basically quit all of a sudden,
What do we do, We need a merchandiser. Take the
Australian kid. Put him in that job. If I went,
I learned how to merchandise and now I was CBS, Walgreens, Walmart,
resets and learned the area of merchandising. And then one
of the sales guys just didn't come to work, and
the business development sales guards said, take the Australian guy.
And you know, Dennis, I was very lucky in my career.
(06:03):
I had a lot of breaks.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
For example, at that time, if you can remember, there
was this great movie that Americans were infatuated with. There
was an Australian movie called Crocodile Dundee absolutely put your shrimps.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
On your barbie, right If you remember that and here
I was at that time, I had a much thicker
Australian accent because I wasn't married yet to my South
African wife, who's been my sweetheart from when I was
twelve years old.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
That's another story we can we can talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
By the way.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
By the way, I do want to tell you that's
the first and the four years I've done this series,
a Paul Hogan reference has been thrown into CEOs.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
You should know, so bravo, do you, sir?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, Paul Hogan.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I owe a lot of my career jumps to Paul
Hogan because there I was, you know, going in and
pitching coke versus PEPSI all these different accounts, and because
I had this stick Australian accent, people remembered me and
it just helped me get those sales over the line
and I was.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Started to win.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I started to win all these accounts in Fennel Hall
and all these strategic places in Boston, and before I
knew it, literally, I was running business development in Boston
City at my Pepsy Van or if.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I went to every single lead and converted it.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And end of the end of my internship came up
and I actually was very fortunate that Pepsi Cola USA
was willing to sponsor me from a visa perspective, come
to the US working operations for two years and then
going to purchase New York.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So there I was.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I had to go back to Australia tell my parents
I was going to live after immigrating from South Africa
to Australia.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I had to tell my Jewish mother that I was
going to be leaving, leaving Australia, going to live in America.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
And I don't know if you know much about Jewish
mother's guilt, it wears on you. And after having the
discussions with our parents, I said to them, Okay, I've
got three months here in Australia to finish off my
undergraduate degree. Wherever the best job is, I'm going the
best jobs in Singapore. I'm going to Singapore. The best
job is still with Pepsi USA. I'm going to the US.
(08:08):
And I was really lucky. At this time, the Coca
Cola company was looking to hire ten middle managers to
develop and nurture with intense training over a one year
program in Australia, which is a very mature market. Develop
market and then send those managers into Asia. This is
(08:31):
now we're talking nine to ninety six, ninety seven. Asia
was pumping. You got the growth of China, the growth
of Indonesia, and I was very lucky because of my
experience at PEPSI I got accepted onto that Coke program
and that Dennis was the start of an amazing eighteen
year career that I'm so grateful for. Where I spent,
(08:54):
you know, twelve years in Asia in multiple different roles
running businesses across Asia Pacific, including in China, where I
was headed up all of marketing and innovation for the
China business, where I.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Was responsible for fighting the Code Wars.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Which had a very interesting time in the history of China,
built a billion dollar juice business with the Minimate brand,
launching the Minime brand in China, and was responsible for
all the marketing around the Beijing Olympics. And I was
able to then follow that up with going back to
South Africa, which is a really interesting opportunity from a
leadership perspective, where in South Africa leading up to the
(09:33):
twenty ten World Cup, I was responsible for the marketing
for that and also leading the organization, the marketing and
the commercial organization at a time where it was critical
from a diversity perspective to change the nature of the
organization to reflect the rainbow nation which South Africa is
today is so well known for.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And that was an amazing leadership experience.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So, you know, basically twelve years in Asia, three years
in Africa, and then I got sent to the US
initially to head up marketing for the Glasow business unit,
which is brands like Vitamin Water, Smart Water, the Power
Aid sports drink line, and the energy portfolio. And I
was fortunate there to very quickly be able to take
over as general manager of that business unit that I
(10:18):
did for three years up until twenty fourteen. So that
really gave me a lot of global experience from running businesses.
You know, I started the business for Coca Cola locally
in Mongolia. I'm an honor in Mongolian. I'm really happy
to say there were like four countries in the world
where coke was not producing locally at the time. It
(10:40):
was Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Mongolia. And the company
had found a partner and I had the opportunity of
really being able to work with that partner, build a business,
build food law in Mongolia with the local Mongolian authorities
and really upgrade the whole industry. And when I say,
I'm almost like an honorary Mongolian in the sense of this.
(11:02):
It's just a huge affinity to the people, such wonderful people.
And when you have an ability to come into a
market and ubscull people and be able to pay people
more money and help them progress in their lives. You know,
these are the great benefits of what companies like cocon
Cola do all around the world, from an economic development
and professional development, female leadership, diversity, really critical human values
(11:26):
that are so important today that I had the benefit
of being part of for eighteen years.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I want our listeners to trust me on this one
that we could talk to Alan for a couple hours
about everything he did before Bioharvest, because it's such a cool, diverse,
incredible journey. But this is one of my favorite questions
that I get to ask any CEO or founder or
entrepreneur on this series when it comes to the current
place you're at the last four and a half years
(11:55):
as a CEO, and I can certainly see what bioharv
Sciences was interested in you and the diversity that you
brought and all the change and a risk taking that
you've done.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I'm very clear about that.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
But what did you see in this company that made
you say I want to join them as CEO.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Wow, that's a great question, Dennis.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
So it's important to understand my journey because before I
got to Bar Harvest, I went from the front of
the aeroplane to the back of the aeroplane, and from
the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta to the Red Rooftop
Motel in Atlanta. I don't want to disparage the Red
Rooftop Motel for great people that run their place.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And so I went into startup World and together with
two Israeli partners because I moved my family, I wanted
to become an entrepreneur. Hit the age of forty, I
kind of had a I would say, a positive midlife crisis.
I always had a deep connection to wanting, as a
religious tuition observant Jew, to have my family live in Israel.
(13:01):
And I moved the family in twenty fourteen, and I
also wanted to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit inside me in
a way that you know, it was outside of the
corporate environment. And together with two partners, we built a
big data, IoT and software company in the beer industry,
which we were very fortunate. We had a lot of
luck and we landed up exiting after four and a
(13:24):
half years, and and I was a bush Imbev, the
largest brewery in the world bought our company. I worked
as part of the deal. I had golden handcuffs. I
had to work for them for a year. They were
a great company, great management, amazing people, and I actually
ended up working for them for another year. But I
got to the stage where, you know, it was kind
of ironic. I was the oldest guy in the high
(13:46):
tech company right at that time. I was like, you know,
forty five, forty six years old, and I kind of
felt that I, you know, again, I was back in
corporate America and I needed to unleash that entrepreneurial spirit
again inside me.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And I got introduced to bio Harvest.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Sciences through a friend of mine, and Wow, when I
came to this company, what I saw and the best
way to explain it, because I came to the company
initially as an investor, what I saw was an R
and D gold mine, the most amazing technology to unlock
(14:25):
the secrets of plant biology, to be able to be
a bridge between the power of the plant kingdom and
all the pto medicinal compounds and fighter nutrients that are
contained in plants, and to be able to have a
technology that can democratize all those critical fighter medicinal nutrients
(14:45):
compounds that I found at such small levels, but to
be able to find a way to manu to produce
it at such scale that you can democratize the power
of these molecules and change the world of health and
wellness hundreds of millions of people, but doing it in
a way which preserved the planet for generations to come.
(15:06):
And as a father of three kids who were quickly
growing into their teenage years, I felt this significant, compelling
desire to want to do something from a professional perspective,
which was much more in the spiritual stage of my life,
(15:27):
where I wanted to leave a legacy, a lasting legacy
that my kids would be super proud of.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Me, that was a legacy that literally.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Changed the lives of millions of people. From an overall
specifically health and wellness perspective, and what I saw by Harvest,
I saw an R and D Company was a gold
mine of R and D, but they didn't. Like many
R and D companies, they didn't yet have the knowledge
on how to unlock this R and D and commercialize
(16:00):
it and bring it into the global marketplace. I still
landed up investing, even though that was a risk in
my investment. I was so blown away with the IP strategy,
with the clinical trials that they've done, with the regulatory strategy,
and the regulatory approvals that already received, all the way
(16:20):
through to the scalability of the technology, which is so important.
At the time, I never thought I was going to
be the guy that was going to be, you know,
unlocking that and bringing the technology to the global market.
And I invested in the company and I literally went
away with my family and I got a phone call
from at the time the CEO of the company, who
(16:40):
was the largest investor and an amazing man who's become
a dear friend and a partner for the last four years.
His name is doctor Zaki Rakiv and doctor Zaki. He
was the co founder together with doctor Yoki Kagai, and
he himself has a very impressive resume.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
You should have him on his show as well.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Entered voice over Internet, the cable modem and they had
invested his money similarly to my desire to change the world.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Wanted to take the money that he had made there and.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Build a buyotech company ultimately that was going to be
able to change the world, leveraging the power of the
plant Kingdom. And doctor Zaki called me up and he said, listen,
you drove me crazy during the due diligence process, and
I really did.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You know again, going back, I don't come from money.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Every dollar I've earned from where I was at a
delicate testant all the way through to exits, every dollar
is a dollar. So if I'm investing like one hundred
dollars or five thousand dollars or more, it's the same
due diligence, right, drive some people crazy. But he said
to me, listen, besides driving us crazy with your due diligence,
I realized I need a professional CEO to come in
(17:46):
and to run the company and to be able to
really bring this technology to the world. And at this
time my heart started to beat and it was the
kind of adrenaline rush.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I realized at the time, Wow, this is an opportunity
of a lifetime, and almost Dennis, an opportunity if you
think about it, if you go back to my days
with a two wheeler at the back of a Pepsi
truck and as a merchandiser and as a sales guy
all the way through to all the roles I did
in the Coca Cola company, and then going into high
tech as an entrepreneur and being bootstrapped. I couldn't have asked,
(18:22):
you know, for a a better training camps, multiple training
camps in order to be able to take this company
who at the time had just gone private just sorry,
I had just gone public, and to be able to
manage this company and scale the technology and bring the
amazing molecules that day had already developed to the marketplace
(18:45):
and impact people's health and wellness.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And so it was a very quick decision.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
For me which I made, and after unraveling some of
my responsibilities with annalser Bush, I started as CEO.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
In the company in June of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I tell you it's been the best four and a
half years of my life from a professional perspective, and
I would probably say from a personal perspective, because when
you're professionally happy, you're personally happy, and it works the
same way but it's just you have positive energy, you're energized,
and you know, we've now built an amazing business where
(19:24):
where we've brought to market our molecule, our key molecule,
which is a red grape cell molecule. And just to
kind of go back, maybe for your listeners to explain
the technology, might just take like two minutes to explain
the technology of what we do, as people might find
it interesting and.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
It may help some of the future questions that you have.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
But basically, we've invented a technology called botanical synthesis. So
people have probably heard of chemical synthesis, some people have
heard of biosynthesis.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
What we do is botanical synthesis and what does that mean.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
It's a big word, but simply what does it mean
technology platform where we can take the plant once and
as you know, plants have these critical phyto medicinal compounds
that are found in very very small levels that it's
very very difficult to be able to unlock these molecules
(20:18):
in a way that's consistent, in a way that's economically viable,
and in a way.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That you can actually build patents because you can't patent nature.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And this is these are the three core reasons why
pharmaceutical industry they started with the plant and move to
chemical synthesis, because when you chemically synthesize a compound, it's consistent,
it's cheap normally, and you get patents. So what our
technology does is it allows us to take the plant.
Once we understand exactly where in the plant are the
(20:51):
cells that produce these critical phyto medicinal compounds. We take
the cells, We grow the cells in a petra diish,
and we do literally thousands of experiments where we change
the nutrition we feed the cells, We change other variables
like the light, the temperature, and a whole bunch of
other variables that I'm not allowed to talk about, which
(21:12):
are part of our IP box.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And at this stage we get the cells to do
two things.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
One, we get the cells to produce the exact same
mirror of the phyto medicinal compounds that the plant produces.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
We call this mirroring. Two, we can.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Identify a specific phyto medicinal compound that we want to
increase by an order of magnitude by changing the variables.
We call this magnification. So in the case of our
red grape cell, we produce a very unique compound called
pissis vitral. Passirisvitral is the gold standard of resveratrol because
(21:51):
it has the highest level of solubility. It's twenty five
times more soluble than regular resvertrol, and it's much more bioavailable.
Stays in the body for at least twelve hours for
two peaks, one after one hour, one after five hours,
so it's like the Rolls Royce of resveratrol versus all
other resvertrol that comes from polygenium.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
It's called transfers vitual.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's much less soluble, much less bioavailable, and we're the
only company in the world that can produce pi seed
res vitrol together with all the other polyphenales from the
red grape, computing catogen costine, anti sinis and tannons because
we magnify the levels one hundred times at least one
hundred times versus what's found in the red grape. And
(22:30):
at this point, Dennis, we lock the cells, we create
a cell bank, and we never have to go back
to the plant. And then what we figured out how
to do, and by the way, all of this is
non GMO. We don't need any way change the molecular
structure of the actual cell itself. And then what we
figured out what to do is how to actually take
(22:52):
these cells from a petri dish and grow them in
massive industrial scale bio reactors thousand leader plus and economics scale.
We do this in eighteen to twenty one days. The
cells multiply, they produce the fat and medicinal compounds.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
We harvest the cells, we take out the water.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
We're left with the rich mud of highly efficacious, soluble
by available end product that we dry and today it
goes into dietary supplements. We have as a company where
science based everything we do is backed with clinical trials,
double blind placeibo publish and peer reviewed scientific journals. And
(23:34):
in the case of our red grape cell molecule, which
we call vinear v nia, we've been able to demonstrate
the ability to significantly increase dilation of arteries after taking
one capsule every day for ninety days. And arterial dilation
is so important because it increases blood flow and Dennis,
blood flow is the most critical part of your body's
(23:55):
operating mechanism.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
No blood flow, no quality of life.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
With more blood flow, you got more oxygen, more nutrients
flowing to the body. Tiss your cells and organs, which
means you have more physical energy, more blood flow to
the peripher part of the brain. Our molecule gets below
the blood brain barrier, so we're able to increase blood
flow and critical parts of the brain. Normal brain flow,
more mental alertness, maintains blood pressure within already normal levels.
(24:21):
We're able to help reduce oxidation of LDL cholesterol and
oxidative damage to the cells. So this is a product
that now we've brought to the marketplace. It's a subscription
subscription based product and it's really validated the power of
our technology platform. We sell it as a supplement in capsules.
We've just launched a superfood coffee. We're about to launch
(24:42):
a tea in the marketplace, all direct to consumer.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
We don't go through retailers.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
After spending all my time with retailers, I said, thank
you very much, we're now going to go direct to consumer.
I always want to be directly connected to the consumer.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It's so important not.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Just to have the cash cycle that you need as
an entrepreneur, so you have the voice of the consumer
directly in your ear all the time. And today our product,
we have more than six thousand verified reviews four point
eight out of five verified rating, and we change people's lives.
And this has been the validation of the power of
the technology platform that we have. We have an olive
(25:18):
cell molecule that we're going to be bringing to market
the end of next year which has the most potent
anti inflammatory called verbosca side from the olive cell, which
is going to target liver health as well as lestra
health and bone health to bone and joint health. And
now that we've scaled the business and we've developed the
technology and it's so mature, we made a conscious decision
(25:41):
to open the technology to other companies and earlier this
year we opened up a CDMO, which is a contract
development and manufacturing organization with existing contracts. We have contracts
with pharmaceutical companies, with nutrition companies to develop unique molecules
for their businesses, leveraging their muscles so that we can
(26:02):
really democratize these molecules from plants and impact the lives
of hundreds of millions of people. That's why I think
I have the best job in the world. I'm really
the chief plant officer for the world. Ultimately, we're leveraging
our technology to be able to bring the power of
the plant kingdom, and the world is now realizing that
if we don't start to responsibly utilize the power of
(26:27):
what we were given, whether it's from God on Day three,
evolution of creating the world, or whatever evolution theory you
subscribe to, there are five hundred thousand plants that contain
the secrets and answers to so many of the challenges
that we as human beings are dealing with. And fortunately
the world is becoming a lot more integrative in their
(26:47):
thinking as it relates to the whole world of health
and wellness. So the timing for our technology really is
perfect from leading farmer companies starting to go back to
the future because they started there, and going back to
the plant kingdom for the next generation of therapeutic solutions
to address current indications today where there's no solution ninety
(27:10):
five percent of rare diseases, so there's no solution out there.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So I'm having the time of my life. It's brutal hours.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I have an amazing team, but when you're changing people's
lives every day, and you know, I'm fortunate that I
get forty to fifty reviews because the direct to consumer
subscription business we're getting reviews. I get forty to fifty
reviews from people every day that keep my blood pumping
in addition to me taking two vinear a day, but
(27:40):
keep me going from a spiritual perspective because it's, you know,
being an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It's dealing with a company on the public market.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
You're dealing with all these challenges, scaling expectations of investors.
But wow, I mean, it's been an amazing four and
a half year journey. I have an amazing team together
with my partner, doctor Zaki Rakim, going back to brought
me into the company.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
He's a chairman of the company, and the two of us.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
That are very very dedicated management team and nineteen employees.
You know, were mission focused to change the world. With
the north star of developing ten to fifteen molecules from plants.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I've got to change the lives and.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Health and wellness of hundreds of millions of people by
leveraging the power of the plant kingdom in a way
that preserves the planet for generations to come.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Well, it's pretty extraordinary.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Of all the things you talked about, and admittedly as
a B minus student in both are sciences and chemistry,
I understood most of what you were talking about. But
here's what I would like you to do, because I
know that you're a believer in this and knowledge is power.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
And when you.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Talk about what you're exactly doing with your company, as
you work with all of your clients and heading them
down to the consumer, the consumer wants to know what's
going in their foods and maybe how they're processed or
not process and how they're growing and all that. So
your clients and the consumers want to know about this
and need to know about it. But I'm sure the
education process is going to take some time, and I
(29:12):
imagine that as you work with people, those are conversations
that are happening right now. So as you see the
technology continuing to evolve down the road and you're working
with these clients who are delivering to the consumer, what's
the overall plan of educating everybody of all the great
things that are coming out of this.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So look, firstly, the world is changing rapidly and consumers
are understanding the need to move to cellular based technologies,
whether it's meat cells, chicken cells, our space that we
own and we've.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Been you know, global leaders of because we've been doing
it for seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
The company was started in two thousand and seven, amazing
team of female leaders from our founder, doctor Jokika Gai,
doctor Malki Dosai, VP of R and D, probably the
best planned cell biologists in the world, and a number
of other members of the team or PhD plan cell biologists.
(30:12):
My CEO runs manufacturing, doctor Elana Beltze, she's a PhD
plan cell biologist.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So it's like it's all in the DNA.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
So you know, the world has started to understand, the
regulatory environment has started to understand, and you know, we
as a company when it's when it's related to the consumer.
For the brands that we're building in our director consumer business,
we invest a lot of resources educating the consumers, helping
(30:44):
the consumers understand the power of our technology, because when
you understand the power of the technology, you understand the
magnitude of impact of what you're putting into your body,
the cleanliness of it, because we grow all of ourselves
in aseptic by reactors, so there's no funger size, there's
no insect the sides, there's no verbal sides. You're coming
to our manufacturing facility, it's a really it's a sterile facility. Right,
(31:07):
you've got to be cold, I mean literally glay everything.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And biological facility.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And because at the end of the day, consumers want
to understand more. They're so open to be educated. And
when you take the time and you obviously you have
to simplify to understand it and you explain to it.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So a lot of.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
TV that we do, we're explaining to consumers our process
and our technology and how the technology works. And you know, mirror,
magnify and multiply. This is how we do it because
this is the future. This is the future of everything
from food all the way to preventative therapeutic solutions. This
(31:48):
is the future because the world cannot continue the way
it is operating today. Look at what we've just experienced
from a global warming perspective, right, you know, look at
our friends in Florida, right, and the southeast of dealing
with right.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
You know, the.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Magnitude of impact of our actions from an industrial perspective
for the last one hundred and fifty years has taken
its toll on the world. You cannot There are today,
for example, one hundred and forty drugs on the market
that contain critical active pharmaceutical ingredients from plants. If you're
(32:25):
one of those companies, your supply chain is at risk.
Your supply chain is at risk because of global warming.
Your supply chain is at risk because there's not a
consistency in your raw materials, because you don't know what's
going to happen from let alone, day to day, month
to month, year to year, and you're not able to
control the economics, and you don't have a moat around
(32:47):
your technology. So this is where our technology becomes so
critical for everybody, from players who are in the RX world,
all the way through to if you think about cosmetics
companies today, the consumer today, Dennis has voted as saying
to cosmetic companies all the top ten, all the way
(33:08):
through to the small guys, don't give me any active
molecules that come from chemicals. I'm not putting chemicals onto
my skin every single day.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
For thirty years, consumers have voted, you.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Know, a major change right now, and technologies like ours
become really poignant and critical for those industries all the
way through to just the simple nutrition chain. Think about
what Stevia has done for the overall let's call it.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Food system.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
But I would even go broader to say the healthcare system,
because at the end of the day, you know the
perils of sugar when you don't have an active lifestyle
and you have a seventy lifestyle, right, this is what
you know the American health and wellness system is dealing
with today. The unintended consequences of this Stevia came in.
(34:07):
It was a decent tasting non nutature sweetener that had
a following.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
But what if we could develop the.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Next generation, the next generation of non nutature sweetener where
there was no trade off versus sugar, but ultimately you
were bringing a non nutature sweetener into everything that you ate.
It would change the whole healthcare system based on the
perils of the underlying perils of the biggest challenges of
(34:38):
a healthcare system. So this is where our technology really
is anchored in all these different areas and.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Why these partnership with key companies are so critical.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Whilst we execute our game plan on a director consumer business,
launching all of our own products which just brings us
significant scale and learnings so that we can apply them,
or to our CDMO Contract Development Manufacturing organization with these
key partners. So the world is changing, education, the consumer
(35:12):
wants to be educated. We just have to change the narrative.
And that's what we did. When we brought our resverratrial
to the marketplace, people said to me, Elan, you're crazy.
There's every other resvitraal product out there. You go into Amazon,
every other is viratual product out there that use polygonum Japanese,
not weed.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
How are you going to differentiate? No chance. That just
made me more motivated to try.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And figure out a way, and I just realized that, look,
you just have to change the narrative to consumers. We
have clinical trials, we have an amazing technology. Let's just
give them the respect and help educate them, spend the
time the investment in the right kind of For example,
we brought the best medical and animator in the world
(35:57):
on board to work with us, and David built three
beautiful videos top videos of medical animation explain to consumers
basically the power of our molecules and how are molecules
work in your body? And that was critical and those
videos have been seen by thousands and thousands of people.
(36:18):
So you have to be willing to invest in education,
and the consumer's ready for it.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
They are ready for it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Specifically if it's going to change their lit from a
health and wellness perspective and protect the planet. And so
when you're hitting on those two areas, you have the
ear of the consumer.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I agree with that, and I'm glad you addressed the
education part because as much as we wanted, I think
once again, knowledge is power.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
We need to know what we.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Wanted, what's good for us, And it sounds like the
future is bright. We are running out of time, Aline,
and I do want to do this and just maybe
do a little recap if we could, and just get
some final thoughts from you. It really is truly amazing
and just the four and a half years as you've
been there at CEO at this incredible company about what
has change and what the future like.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
It's blowing me away.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
The technology that you guys have patent and what you're
doing as you do direct a consumer. Let's just get
some final thoughts and recap everything. The floor is your, sir,
that some final thoughts.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Look, I would just say to all those CEOs out there,
you know, if you're doing something that you love.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And you really feel is making a change in the.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
World, you're aligning your heart with your values, and when
your heart and values are aligned, then no matter how
big the challenge out there is, if you have a
great group of people around you.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
And I'm so blessed to have an amazing team.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And I've shared a number of the different people in
my team, including our chief medical officer who's from John
Hopkins and has a whole interesting story himself.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Everybody's just you know, got their own unique story, and
everybody is aligned with the strength of a team.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
And when there's heart and soul and it's all congruent
with your values, your values as parents in some cases
in my team, your values as grandparents.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Because in the world of biotech ages.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Everything right, age is everything that's the high tech and biotech.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You're able to climb a.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Mount Killerman Gena and back ten times over because you're
going to be facing and every few months we face
some really challenging hurdles. But because there's such conviction and
such deep belief in the impact of what we're doing
and our desire to really change the world, that you're
(38:49):
able to actually conquer those hurdles. And so I just
say to people like specifically, like for me, I'm so
blessed that at the age of forty five, I really
found my call him. Honestly, like you, Dennis, I think
I was a nightmare for all my biology teachers, right.
I think I flunked out every class except one on biology.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And I don't want to talk about right.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
But I just found that when I came to this
company and spending time with doctor Jokika, who's the mother
of the technology and amazing also she has thirty years
of experience in the pharmacide and the biotech side. Together
with doctor Malkett, I just became like a spongergame because
I realized that they.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Simplified it for me.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
They helped me understand what they were doing. And I
realized that if I could tell their story and if
I could work with him with all my experience in
manufacturing and in high tech to be able to scale
the technology, we as a team to change the world right, right,
And what better way to wake up? Like this is
why I wake up in the morning and I'm pumped
(40:01):
and I'm happy. Like literally, I always when I sit
down with all my staff members and I do like
a media review or check in, and I always ask them,
when you wake up in the morning, where are you
on a scale of one to ten. One you don't
want to get out of bed, you can't even open.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Up your eyes.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Ten you can't wait to get out of bed. By
the way, there's very few people in this world that
are tens. For the last four and a half years,
I've been like a nine to nine and a half, right,
which is amazing. And that's really driven by the fact
that every day I'm focusing all my energy because there's
no politics in our company.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
This is either thing all.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Those CEOs out there dealing with politics pulling knives out
of your back. It sucks energy when you're mission focused.
When everybody comes to work, from a biologist to manufacturing
to literally my team in manufacturing that I'm working with
the bioreactors, everybody understands this bireactor is going to produce
twelve kilos of our red Grapes video product and it's
(41:01):
going to change the lives of a few thousand people.
Everybody's all focused the energy on the outside, their hearts
and values are aligned. It's all positive energy, and it
just allows for you to be able to achieve success
in a way that is so satisfying. And that's what
(41:25):
I would say to those CEOs out there. Find the
space where your heart and your values are aligned, where
ultimately you can be in your spiritual phase of your
professional career. By the way, it can happen much earlier
in life. The earlier the better. You can just stay
there for longer, but make sure you don't spend your
(41:47):
time and energy doing something that your heart and values
are not aligned. Get out of it, get out of
it quickly. And I was lucky that all through my
career I was pretty much aligned. But when I got
to the world of biotech and I saw the impact
of all my energy, Wow, right, like it really it's
such a virtuous cycle of energy that permeates individually and
(42:12):
from a team perspective. And this way we can really,
you know, fulfill our calling of unlocking the secrets of
five hundred thousand plants that are out there that are
ready to be conquered and utilized in a responsible way,
responsible way that leaves the planet in a situation that
(42:35):
generations to come will be able to enjoy in value.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Well, so, well said man, thank you for that. So
you've got a great website, whoever designed it. It's beautiful,
it's easy to navigate. Let's give the website for everybody
who wants to check out a little bit more about.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Exactly what you and your team do. Add Bioharved Sciences.
What's that? What's a u ur L the web?
Speaker 1 (42:54):
So the r L is Bioharvest dot com, bi h
A r V e st dot com. And if you
want a little more at a product Vinia, you can
go to Vinia dot com, v i NI dot com.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
All right, and sir, before you go, I'd like to
pay you a compliment. I've talked to a lot of
CEOs and entrepreneurs on this series for the last four years.
There is a common theme about getting up every day
and being excited about what they do, having the best
team members on the planet that sometimes are usually more
smarter than them and are very good at what they do.
The communication, having fun, working your tails off, being jacked
(43:29):
up about.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
What we're doing and what the future is.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But also your passion and your enthusiasm come loud and
clear through our conversation. And I will give you a
personal story that I relate to a lot of people
that listen to the series in my industry. What I
do and I'd like to think over the thirty years
of what I do, I do a pretty good job.
But every hiring manager lon that's ever said, hey, Dennis,
do you know.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Why I hired you?
Speaker 3 (43:52):
It wasn't for all your gifts and what you brought
to the table, what you're good at. I brought you
because of your passion of the industry. And that comes
loud and clear that you're passionate about what you do.
And I think that's a good lesson for all the
entrepreneurs in future CEOs that if you're passionate about and
you're willing to take chances like our guest has, you're
probably going to succeed. So I want to pay you
that compliment because that came through loud and clear.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I really appreciate it. And you know you've got to
be passionate about.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
What you believe in.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's where Will said, well, listen on.
Thank you so much for a valuable time, continued success.
It really is extraordinary where you and your team are doing,
and we really appreciate you joining us on iheart's CEOs
you can do.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Thank you very much. Enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you.
Thank you so much.
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