"Ex-Googler Building Tech For the $1 Trillion Climate Challenge" - Marta Krupinska, Co-Founder Cur8 - The Startup Leap Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
She is a child raising entrepreneur who has already founded and exited not one but two fintech companies

(00:06):
And now she set her sights on the climate tech industry
In this episode of the startup leap we sit down with Marta
Co-founder of Crate a company creating innovative technology with a mission to remove 1 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere
backed by over 6.5 million in funding from top investors like Google Ventures

(00:28):
Crate is already trusted by global brands such as Coca-Cola, Standard Chartered Bank and many many more
We need to remove 10 gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere a year by 2050 to stay below 1.5
Marta's journey is nothing short of remarkable
And in this conversation we get real about the challenges and triumphs of taking the leap to build a climate tech company

(00:51):
That's driving real-world impact with well-being of the planet at its core
So stick around this is an episode you don't want to miss
Welcome to the startup leap the number one podcast interviewing start-up founders who have taken the leap into starting their own businesses
Here on the startup leap we hear real, raw and relatable stories of these entrepreneurs

(01:12):
How they've navigated taking the leap and the decisions they've made
We're your hosts
I'm Yvonne
And I'm Maria
And this is the Startup Leap Podcast
Yvonne and Maria are partners at Local Globe and OpenSeed VC respectively
Local Globe and OpenSeed are independent of the Startup Leap Podcast
Any statements made by Maria, Yvonne or the Startup Leap guests are solely their view and are not advice

(01:37):
Endorsements by the Startup Leap, its guests Maria and Yvonne
Welcome Marta
Hey, thank you so much for having me
I feel like this is just a conversation between friends
I mean we've traveled together
We have
Incredible memories together in Nigeria, Rwanda
Oh really, you've been to Nigeria?
Yeah, where have you been Maria?

(01:57):
I've been to Nigeria
Sounds like maybe you were there
Such fond memories, fond fond memories
But yeah today we're here to talk about your journey and I mean quite a remarkable one
And thinking about your background, you've done a lot of fintech
Today you're working in the climate space tackling one of the major issues

(02:19):
You know hitting the earth and it's really fascinating because you don't have a background within climate
So tell us how did you get there?
Well first of all thank you for a very, you know, very very kind opinion
And being remarkable
Thank you
Well you are
We are the very best
I mean I suppose the thing is I guess many people that you speak to had their sort of penny drop moment of

(02:45):
Oh my god climate change is the biggest issue affecting us all today and I think
In truth climate has always been something that was really close to my heart
But I think even closer to my heart were the social issues around inequality
Like I started in fintech but in effect the first third of my career I was largely focusing on making cash cheaper for poor people

(03:08):
Because it was you know low income migrant families, low cost effects, low cost remittances
Then salary advances for public sector workers
Then I went to Google, I worked with underrepresented founders, women and people of color about redistribution of venture capital
And I think one of the things that I really noticed and interesting you mentioned our travels together to

(03:30):
To sub-Saharan Africa is sort of largely the communities that I care about are affected by climate change much more than us
Here in the UK or in the US or sort of in the global north
So I think my journey into climate was really through the understanding of inequalities around the world
And how that's affecting people in unequal measures

(03:52):
And I suppose you know even though my background has always been being a founder and I absolutely loved it
I had a four and a half year stint at Google which was fantastic, a very different beast
But I kind of always knew that I wanted to go back to building
I think it's the biggest privilege of our time to be able to come up with an idea

(04:15):
You know rally the troops around you and go and try and solve that together
What an incredible privilege and I think to have a point of view on
Okay I think I found, I think I identified the biggest problem
I think I identified a part of the solution
I always say when I was at Google I had the best job in the world
You know spending Google's money on supporting founders, can you really think of anything better

(04:39):
And it was an easy decision to leave the best job in the world to go and work on climate
I think your background is interesting because typically you find people come from operator to founder
But you went from founder to operator and then to founder again
Because you had travel in ET and then you did Azimo and then you did Google Startups

(05:01):
I'd love to go back a bit to the beginning when you had your first startup as you thought of that
And now that I think about it as I said, it's very interesting that you make the parallel between inequality and climate change
It's been there but I didn't see it in your background like till you said it right now
So it's very interesting that parallel but it would be lovely to hear from you on the beginnings of that entrepreneurial itch

(05:27):
That desire to identify a problem, solve it just because you can
Yeah so it's really interesting I was reflecting on it recently because it's just been 20 years since Poland entered the European Union
And I'm Polish from Krakow and I remember being 16, I'm 36 now
I remember being 16 on the day that Poland entered the European Union

(05:50):
And I was walking back from school and thinking about how different my life was going to be from the life of my parents
My parents lived the majority of their life in a socialist country where nobody had passports, you couldn't travel, their access to information was limited
They only got passports in their late 40s, what a different life to me
When I was 16 I was getting a passport that would allow me to live and work anywhere in Europe

(06:13):
And frankly would make it much much easier to live and work anywhere else around the world
And I had access to the internet and fair enough I think YouTube only came about three years later
So it wasn't the internet as we know it today
But being able to go online and find any type of information you wanted or actually connect to humans on another side of the planet

(06:34):
Just what a different experience and I think I was humbled and excited about this juxtaposition of my life
The way that it could have been had these things not happened, the internet and Poland changing so much
And I think it was sort of an opportunity not to be missed
And I'd say I don't come from an entrepreneurial family, again some of it is political context

(06:59):
I mean sort of private business wasn't really a thing so this wasn't something that people would talk about
I had absolutely no context but my first business that we started when I was 19 came out of my best friend going snowboarding
And coming back with an idea of I think I'd like to go on a trip around the world, how would I go about organizing that
Hang on this internet thing, maybe we could build a website that would help you do it

(07:22):
And that led to a creation of what was in effect a social media platform pre-Facebook release
What year was this?
This is 2007
And as many of these stories we saw and then we failed quite spectacularly
I think we at our peak got to about 200,000 users but it didn't mean anything because we couldn't figure out how to make money

(07:49):
And it was just getting more and more expensive to run it
We didn't have a sales team, it was crack off in 2007, no angel investors, nobody would give us a loan
No understanding of where to go to for help
And we went bust, my best friend sold a piece of land that his grandma had given him as a gift for his life

(08:13):
And he tanked all of this money in it and that was it
So it was bootstrapped only through your funding as founders?
Yes, well his
And actually he then went on to be a super incredibly successful entrepreneur
Ariel built a cosmetics company and now he's actually looking to go into climate
So it feels like all roads lead to climate

(08:35):
But I think the sort of lack of community or ecosystem that was supportive of building a big business with a big ambition
Is largely the reason why I left Poland
I want to believe that things are changing now
I think there are increasingly interesting companies coming out of Eastern Europe

(08:57):
But where do you go when you have a big dream, you go to America
So I moved to New York when I was 23 and couldn't stay because my visa expired
So a year later with my Polish passport that pre-Brexit was good enough
I landed in London thinking that London was the most New York in Europe

(09:23):
I love that
And I was reasonably fortunate
On some of my travels I also briefly lived in Ireland as a working migrant
Serving drinks when I was 18 to help my mum out
And I remember trying to send money back to my mother

(09:46):
And it would have cost me more than her monthly salary to send money back home
So I ended up stuffing my pockets and underwear with cash and flying home with the money
I often joke that the first money transfer company I ever used was Ryanair
But that was probably cheaper

(10:08):
And then you had to carry it with you, that's the way physical money transfers
Exactly, it doesn't scale well
And it has a carbon footprint now I think about it
When I was in New York a lot of my friends, largely Latin Americans
Were also struggling with the same thing, expensive remittances
And that gave me some ideas

(10:30):
And I was incredibly fortunate to meet experienced people in money transfers in 2018
And ended up co-founding Asomo
Which unfortunately I feel really bad about, it's no longer exited successfully a couple of years ago
But it no longer provides the services of money transfer

(10:51):
But at the time, we started 2012, at the time the Western Union was charging 10% for money transfers
We were charging one and a half
And it was really a reasonably simple business model
What I loved about it was that the good service or the quality of our service
Was sort of baked into the business model
Because it's reasonably expensive to acquire new customers when you're in B2C

(11:15):
So it would take us depending on the cohort between 6 months to 18 months
To recover the cost of acquiring that customer
Obviously migrants generally send money between 6 to 10 times a year
So we knew that if we keep on being good enough, they're going to keep on coming back
But what I loved about it was our commercial success was linked to

(11:39):
Our customers being happy with what we did
And we ended up saving hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds
To hardworking families around the world
And also what an incredible experience, when we started I was 24
My co-founders were much older and more experienced
I definitely owe a lot of what I know today to them

(12:00):
But what an experience to be in your mid-20s and be building a business
That went on to raise almost a hundred million between debt and equity
And at its peak had almost 300 employees
And I think maybe one of my favourite stories
We mentioned Nigeria a couple of times
One of my favourite stories from the time around Asamo was
My friend from uni married a brilliant British Nigerian guy

(12:27):
And they had their Nigerian wedding in London and they had their Polish wedding in Krakow
And at the Polish wedding, I'm queuing for vodka
If you haven't been to a Polish wedding, I warn you, there's vodka
And a lot of it, I'm queuing for vodka
And these guys start talking to me and they ask me what I do
I run a startup, what's it called?
Like what does it do? Money transfers, oh what's it called? Asamo
And they go, guys she's from Asamo, no Ahala

(12:52):
I was like this is like the best moment as a founder when you know
That is cost her a few bucks and now a hundred
And you were very young, how did you navigate that in terms of
What were some of the thoughts that were going through your mind
When you were even thinking about taking that leap and joining that company
Alongside your co-founders at the time

(13:13):
I mean you have nothing to lose, right?
I think, you know, we often talk about the role of naivety in starting things
Sometimes a new podcast, sometimes a new company
You don't know what you don't know
And I think, well there's an interesting stat that shows
Statistically migrants start companies more often than the local population

(13:40):
Some of it is because, I mean frankly I suppose my credentials weren't particularly interesting
You know, Google at the time wouldn't have hired me
It's actually easier to start something or join something earlier
I see the same thing among the people that are joining my company today
Than necessarily roll into fancy jobs if you haven't gone to an Ivy League school

(14:03):
If you don't have networks, if you just don't know how to find yourself into that world
So I think at the beginning I was incredibly naive
Incredibly excited about the opportunity
I mean again, living in London, having an opportunity to build something
Something that felt meaningful to me
I was using the company from day dot
Like as soon as we started sending money, I was using it, sending money to my mother

(14:25):
I send money to my mother through this day
So that was very exciting
And obviously it came with some challenges
I remember probably about, so obviously the boom of London fintech
This is like 2014, you know, Series A
Probably between 2014 and 2016 I was in the news once a month
And a lot of that was because this was also the beginning of the sort of movement

(14:49):
Of let's find some diversity and there were about five women in fintech at that time
And I was one of them
And I was on top of that a migrant and young
So there was a lot of sort of what is my role in trying to have a voice in all of this
And moving in an ecosystem where finance meets tech

(15:14):
It's really sort of diversity was not chief, let's put it that way
Wow, incredible
I would love to learn a little bit about Asamo and how you thought about deciding to join
But also how you met your co-founders
The reason why I say this is because a lot of people want to make the leap to starting a company
Sometimes joining something that someone has started thinking about and joining that process

(15:40):
But also they either don't have the networks
Or there's no passion for the thing
I do think that it's a bit serendipitous joining a company
100%
I used to have this perception that there's only one way to find a company

(16:01):
It's like with your friend from school
You've known each other forever and you're having beers
And you think about what if we started this
So it can be very different
With Asamo, Mike and Ricky had started a company before
Called Asmall World Financial Services
It's still going

(16:22):
And there's an entire backstory of how they saw that the traditional brick and mortar model
Wasn't really serving this potential new wave of largely mobile phone users
And out of that came the hypothesis that perhaps there was an online version of what they already knew

(16:46):
And then a question of whether is this an added service within the old company
Or is this something that should be spun out separately
So that was a conversation between them that was ongoing
They found Matic, our technical co-founder, a couple of months later
And then I joined last
At the point where I was on a mission to
When I first came to London it was a very mixed bag of

(17:09):
I was bartending in Somerset House
Because I'd heard that it's a place where a lot of important people come and meet
And I thought, first of all I need to pay rent
So I was like, okay I'll take any job that's going
And also this may be a place where I can start building my network
I took this crazy gig
I was project managing the build of an entertainment park for the Russian Olympic team

(17:32):
On the helipad of the Royal Family in Kensington Palace
So it's a lot of really sort of weird stories there
But I was also desperately trying to speak to anyone that knew about finance or money transfers
And I first met Ricky, Ricky Knox, who is still a prolific founder and an angel investor

(17:53):
And I suppose in a way they took a chance on me
I didn't have what they had, which was great networks, previous experience in finance or elite education
I guess what I did have was an experience of actually building a tech platform before

(18:17):
That came with some bitter learnings
And I came with a genuine understanding of the market and of the customer that we were building for
I think it's a complete coincidence that two of the founders were British and two were Polish
Marik and I didn't know each other before
But if you've been struggling with this for years

(18:40):
Then you can have empathy for how terrifying it is to part with a third or fifth of your monthly income
And not knowing where the money is for 24 hours
That fear was so alive for me
And I guess that's something that they didn't really have in that same way

(19:01):
And I think some of that we were able to translate into how we executed on the product
Which largely was driven by how do we make people trust that it's going to get to their mum
And that it's going to do what they wanted to do for their family
You mentioned that with the previous startup you hadn't really figured out a way to make money

(19:24):
So curious, going into Zemo, is that something you optimized for?
And if so, how did you go about doing that?
Well, 100% and I think, again, Mike and Ricky had previously built a money transfer offline business
So they knew how it worked
But also I suppose within financial services often the business model is assumed

(19:49):
The good thing from a business perspective in FX is that it's so opaque and intransparent
That it's reasonably easy to make a lot of money on it
The terrible thing about it is that it's generally the people that need the service the most
That fall prey to the sort of predatorial practices in the market

(20:11):
So the business model has always been sort of, again, reasonably straightforward
We wanted to make as little money as we could but in a way that really scaled and was defensible
So we often talk about the CAC to LTV ratios, the cost of acquisition of the customer versus lifetime value
And we knew that in an ideal scenario if we could pay back for the customer in six months, that would be brilliant

(20:40):
Anything under 12, our investors really liked because, again, on average the customer would stay three to five years
And at this point you're making reasonable amounts of money out of those people
But not in a way that would in any way be predatorial
So I think we obviously, this was, again, I love that it was baked into the fabric of the business

(21:04):
The better job we did, the better our rates got, the better the experience the clients had
The better the chance that they would stay with us, recommend their friends to us, which then lowered our cost of marketing
So yeah, I love that business. Some of the best friends, the most meaningful experiences I had come from that period in my life

(21:27):
I love that
And I think the problem still exists actually of expenses, like where my sense is there are so many companies out now
People using crypto, using interesting technologies to try to drive down that cost
During your time in Asimo, you mentioned that it shut down. If you can share any lessons in retrospect of the things that happened
That maybe you did right, things you would probably do differently

(21:51):
Yeah, well, so it didn't shut down, it exited
Oh, fantastic
So it was sold to Papaya Global, which is an Israeli company that does global payroll
So basically they bought the infrastructure that then allows them to do payroll globally

(22:14):
But I suppose to my personal founder pride and sort of the slight sadness, money transfer while reasonably lucrative was just the distraction from their model
So they have such a massive bet on going after global payroll that they didn't see the benefit in keeping that part of the business alive

(22:37):
I suppose commercially it's been a success and it has been a success from, I suppose, why do people start companies?
I guess the challenge that I have, I'd say generally in the startup community, I think we overestimate the importance of an exit
So I've now had two exits and I'd say, well, obviously, financially that's great

(23:03):
I felt funny about both in different ways because it's very, very rare that a company gets acquired and stays on course for its original mission
And when you're a mission led company and an impactor and founder, then you sort of see the commercial value realized, your investors get their money back, everyone's happy

(23:25):
But I remember the day that Asimo sold and I got messages, like at the beginning when you have your first clients, everybody has your phone number
I had like seven different customers of Asimo from back in 2012 text me and go, oh my God, you guys are not going to process transactions anymore?
Where am I supposed to go?

(23:46):
And obviously, actually there was a deal with Remitly so they could go to Remitly and WISE are still doing a really good job
It's interesting you mentioned cost of remittance is still being high, I think, and well, we can talk about as to why that is
There's been a lot of innovation making it cheaper out of the global north to places especially where people have nice villas and nice life

(24:13):
Bizarrely, for instance, transfers intra-Africa are still really expensive or like intra-Asia
And they still take a lot of time to settle as well, you don't get instant settlement all the time
There is still a lot to do and I wonder, and I've not been in this world for a while, so I left Asimo in 2017 and the company went on without me

(24:37):
And successfully, but I suppose I can no longer speak from a position of an expert, but I think if I was to make a bet today
I'd say that'd be a bigger opportunity to build a company that's more focused on solving regionally rather than globally
Because like in any other business you get 80% of your revenue from 20% of your, well, we used to call it corridors, so from country to country

(25:05):
And this perhaps is one of the ways to answer your question, what are the things that I would have done differently or we would have done differently
We went after an aggressive network growth approach, we wanted to say whoever you are, if you're a Turkish person living in Germany or a Polish person living in France or a Nigerian living in the UK

(25:27):
We got your back, you can send to a bank account in cash, mobile top up, you know, you name it
So you went pretty wide with the corridor
We went super wide, but what that meant was, and especially when trust is so important, what that meant was
We were having the odd issues of, you know, a problem with a payout partner in the Gambia and we would have 17 customers sending there, but it's their precious money

(25:56):
And then you spend three days putting out fires fixing this particular thing where the vast majority of your revenue comes out of, you know, Germany to Turkey and UK to Nigeria
And rather than figuring out how to make this part of the business better or grow it, you're focusing on solving problems in that area that isn't really commercially or financially delivering for you

(26:21):
But you still have the responsibility to the customers whose money you've taken to deliver it on time and as well as you can
So I think in hindsight it was quite a complex business to run
It was also a really interesting challenge from a marketing perspective where, for instance, it so happens I feel a huge sense of unity and togetherness with pretty much any migrant communities

(26:48):
I feel like there's probably, I have a better chance, I think, of having a deep sense of understanding of our identity with you guys
Especially with you guys who don't, I think, live in a country in which you grew up, Maria
But then I would with a white British person that's never moved

(27:10):
Turns out not everybody feels this way
So for instance, you know, frankly, the Polish community didn't exactly respond to ads with, you know, African customers in France and the other way around
And we were finding it really tricky because how do you then, if we wanted to be a company for everyone, then how do you execute it from a marketing and brand perspective

(27:39):
And it's very inclusive and it makes you feel like it's for me
And so then we went into a lot of really interesting studies of like, oh, like children are generally seen to be sort of more universal
You know, remember this famous website that PayPal had when there were people sitting at the end of a pier over a lake and they were looking out into the lake
You couldn't tell how old they were or they erased or anything like sort of the silhouette

(28:05):
So it turns out that is actually quite tricky how to come across us for everyone in a way that's authentic
So in hindsight, you would have refined the focus potentially
Potentially
But yeah, hindsight is 20-20, right?
Yeah, it's always the benefit of hindsight

(28:27):
And not for us to talk a little bit about climate change and that problem
The reason why I say this is because for me, I am Nigerian, I moved to the UK four years ago
And I didn't have that much exposure to climate change
Even though, like you said, actually it disproportionately affects African communities, even though we don't contribute as much to the emissions

(28:48):
And I did my MBA at Oxford, then we had a course on climate change, and then my eyes were opened
And I was reading recently that even if, like, it will take, we would need to remove 10 gigatons every year until 2030 before we can actually get to net zero
That's what I read
And it just seems like such a big problem

(29:09):
And I feel like everyone has that eureka moment where one moment it wasn't that important, but then you kind of dig into it
And then you're like, oh my God, this is actually a problem
What was that for you, that transition?
Yeah, so I think there are two parts of this story
There is one which is related to the fact that I am, well, I suppose I am a business person through and through

(29:34):
And I also am incredibly interested in politics and I spend a lot of time thinking about why certain things happen and why others don't
How can we keep on having a number of issues in society that don't seem to be tackled and then some others are tackled faster?
And I think I was increasingly the fetus when it came to climate change
So the number that you've just quoted, we need to remove 10 gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere a year by 2050 to stay below 1.5, which is already massively at risk

(30:06):
I think we're at 1.2 now, something funny like that
I think some studies show that we basically hit 1.5 this year
So part of the challenge is the only reason we need to remove carbon from the atmosphere is because we've already left it too late
We've emitted too much and we are not decarbonizing fast enough
If we weren't putting emissions up there in the first place, well, that would be ideal, except it's not happening and why isn't it happening?

(30:33):
And I think this goes back to the sort of business point
We have a fantastic business model as a species and as a civilization for destroying the planet
We haven't figured out a good business model for protecting the planet
And maybe the one way in which we tried is the offset market, which is about 25 years old
So the credits that you can buy for three, five, ten dollars that will pay for protecting forests or the cook stove projects are moving to solar

(31:03):
So if we were to take all of those incredibly noble and important things to do, I would say personally, I think the incentive is perverse
I don't think it should be allowed for a country or a company to emit a ton of carbon into the atmosphere
And then pay two dollars for an action that takes place somewhere completely different

(31:25):
If I emit a ton of carbon and then I pay for somebody not to emit a ton of carbon, one plus zero is still one, which is very, very different
The math is very, very different for carbon removal
So how did this all happen? I think I was becoming the fetus that we will not be able to stop climate change in time
And I remember in December 2020, I was talking to my former co-founder from FreeUp, the company, co-founded after ASMO

(31:52):
And I remember Ruben saying to me, I am going to start a new company. We're going to do soil carbon sequestration
And I'm like, Sequa what? What does that even mean?
And Ruben is a fascinating human. He also he did PPE at Oxford. We had this like incredible intellectual competition going

(32:14):
It was always like which one of us in a really positive way, but we were always trying to outsmart each other
So I was absolutely furious that you knew something that I didn't, which obviously as an ambitious woman led me to study it furiously
And he basically told me that we can pull carbon out of the sky, that we can speed up naturally occurring processes
And that that could remove carbon. I was like, hang on a second. So maybe we haven't left it too late. You can do it in soils

(32:41):
How else can you do it? I mean, obviously I heard of planting trees, but again, it's a very important part of the solution
But if we wanted to just plant trees, first of all, it can take a hundred years and also we would run out of land
So alone it's not working. Okay, so trees and soils and hang on the oceans are the largest carbon sink that exists
How could we put more carbon into the ocean? And oh, hang on a second

(33:05):
Have you heard of direct air capture? These basically sky hoovers where you can switch it on, it filters through air
And it mechanically or chemically filters out CO2 and then puts it deep into geological storage and mineralizes it
And I'm like, so there is a way in which we can maybe use technology to solve for the climate problem

(33:31):
Hang on, using technology to solve problems is kind of that thing that I really enjoy. Oh my God, can I quit my job now and do it full time?
I think the one thing that I, and again, I've had blueprints for this from my previous companies
I very much believe that it's fundamentally important to have somebody that is a subject matter expert in what you're trying to build

(33:54):
And I, as you pointed out very rightly, I'm not a climate scientist, I didn't know anything about climate science
And if I wanted to go and help build a market for carbon removals and become a market maker for carbon removals
Because basically the biggest challenge right now, we have the technologies, we have some incredible talent working on it
But what we don't have yet is business adoption of carbon removal

(34:17):
And economic incentive as well, a design, a way that we do business that allows the natural expansion of these
Exactly, so I knew that what we're going to need to do is, frankly, this is very similar to fintech
We're going to need to find a way to generate trust among the business community to create budgets to start investing in these cool new technologies

(34:38):
And I, through a dear friend and a mentor of mine, Marcus Exho, who's also a co-founder of Moniz
I started talking to him about wanting to go into carbon removals and he said, hang on a second, there are some people I need to introduce you to
And that's how I met my co-founders, Dr. Gabriel Walker, who spent over 30 years working on climate change

(35:00):
So she's a remarkable woman, she started teaching natural sciences first at Cambridge, then at Princeton
Then she became the climate change editor of Nature magazine, then she edited The New Scientist
Then basically spent the last 15 years working with governments, with the COP, with big corporates on their first reduction strategy

(35:23):
And then about six years ago she went through this exercise that she says she sort of looked at
What are the things that still have to happen for us to be able to address climate change that no one is spending enough attention, spending enough time on or paying enough attention to
And she saw this huge opportunity in removals that are now a critical part of the solution

(35:46):
And there is absolutely a sort of a uniform view on this from governments, from policy makers and rule setters that we need to reduce as much as we can and we need to start removing
She sort of saw her role as somebody who combines scientific background and media background to advance that cause

(36:10):
And she a few years ago started an NGO called Rethinking Removals and the role for it was to be a place where potential buyers, suppliers of carbon removal and policy makers come together to build a better functioning carbon market
First a voluntary carbon market and then a compliance carbon market

(36:32):
And while Rethinking Removals has been doing a fantastic job, one of the things that she's found was continuously business leaders would come to her and say
Okay, I get it now. I want to start investing in carbon removals. What do I do?
And she didn't have anywhere to send them
So that's how she landed from a sort of not a business background. She landed on this idea that there was room to start a company that would allow companies that don't know where to start to go on their carbon removal journey

(37:05):
And also on Gabriel's travel she crossed paths with Mark Stevenson, who's largely environmentalist and a consultant. He's played a role in drafting the UK's climate change policy and again worked with and wrote a number of books and worked with a lot of influential thinkers on this
How do we get people behind climate action today and how do we get people to part with their money to actually do something about it? And I suppose that was the beginning of Curate

(37:38):
I love that. And just curious, obviously we've had quite a few greenwashing scandals and so on. How do you, because I think you've got the largest supply market today, how do you go about validating the projects?
Because obviously some of these markets are really nascent. Yeah, so I love this question because carbon removal and just carbon markets are incredibly complex and ambiguous. So if you'll allow me a couple of, I think, sort of debunking myths.

(38:12):
So one is I already sort of covered the offsets versus removal. So carbon offsets would traditionally be carbon protection or carbon reduction. So I already mentioned stopping trees from being cut down, very important, or paying for, for instance, the more to solar.
Again, very important. This is the traditional carbon market. All of the front pages of The Guardian carbon offsets are bad. This is what you would be reading about.

(38:38):
There are in fact three carbon markets as I see it. There is the carbon offset market, the voluntary carbon market, which is in fact ridden with a lot of controversy. And it turns out that the biggest challenge in offsets is this concept of you're working with a counterfactual.
If we hadn't paid for these forests to be protected, would they have been cut down? And a lot of the scandals that have come out are related to the fact that project developers were overestimating the threat to attract more funding.

(39:18):
So that's the carbon offset market. Separately, there is the compliance market for carbon. So for instance, the UK or European ETS emissions trading scheme. And you will be hearing about and reading in the FT about carbon trading at $60 or $100.
So this is a yet different part of the market. I believe in the future the carbon removal market will converge with the compliance market, but that's not there yet.

(39:45):
And then you've got the carbon removal market. The main thing that I love about carbon removal is the elegance of how measurable it can be. So for instance, we talked about direct air capture.
I went to Iceland last year and I looked at fizzy water, basically carbonated water, going through a pipe and into the ground where it would mineralize and stay pretty much forever. It goes through a pipe. You can see it. You can measure one moment the CO2 was in the tank and another moment it's in the ground.

(40:23):
Obviously with some methods that are more open, such as enhanced rock weathering, where you take, again, it's a naturally occurring process, you take silicate rock, you grind it up, you spread it on fields, and it speeds up sequestration of carbon.
In this case, the measurement has to be done differently because it's not in a tube, it's in an open system. So you need to go every three months or six months and measure the amount of carbon, but you still go and measure it and you're not basing it on a counterfactual.

(40:57):
Nobody in their right mind would go and source rock, grind it up, and put it on a field and hope for the best. You actually know that what you're paying for is additional, that without you paying for it, it wouldn't have happened.
So a lot of the building blocks, how the offsets were constructed and how carbon removal as the credit part work, they're very, very different.

(41:21):
Now, obviously, when I explain it, it makes sense. When you're even a sustainability professional working in a company, often you don't get it. They don't teach us this in school.
And when you think about, and again, my stint at Google was fantastically useful for this, to understand how do people and corporates think, what do they need, how do you build budgets.

(41:45):
If I'm working with a head of sustainability in a company and my team has put together a portfolio of carbon removals for them, then that head of sustainability probably needs to go to the chief sustainability officer or the chief financial officer and explain what they're buying, why they're buying it.
And then they're getting asked the questions of, oh, but offsets. First of all, I heard this stuff can be bought for $5. Why is this 150? And also, wasn't there something in the Guardian about this being really toxic? Like, I don't want to go anywhere near it.

(42:17):
We have a massive education job to do to first just to the wider market, open their eyes to the fact that something like carbon removal exists and then in our sales process to explain how this is different to what they've heard about before, how we manage risk.
Again, so much of I remember one of the versions of our sales tech had the word risk like 17 times. My product was like, oh my God, I can't believe this. This is terrible. We need to reframe it. But there are a lot of what we do is actually trying to anticipate what kind of risks companies perceive to be there.

(42:53):
And then how can we address them? And then, you know, to be honest, there are also real risks. We are investing in products, in credits that come from projects that are new. These are new technologies. All of them. The majority of our IP really sits in the due diligence of projects.
So, you know, which removes the trust issue that is so pervasive in the industry. Indeed. So it's really for me, it's you know, it's science and it's technology. Well, we've been talking for about half an hour. I haven't mentioned AI yet.

(43:23):
But, you know, I think, you know, the majority of the work is done by our team of incredible, you know, human scientists. But then we also use AI. We've, we've, we've, we've prompt engineered a system that helps us dissect scientific information from hundreds and hundreds of pages of documentation that we get sent by the projects.

(43:48):
So that we can make sure that the scientists spend more time figuring out whether they believe it's plausible that the carbon will be drawn down for 1000 years, rather than going through the documents, looking to find what the number is that is quoted someplace.
So it's still, it's sort of AI based largely, you know, then humans doing the work of actual scientific due diligence and verification of information. We see our role as largely being able to foresee risks, manage those risks.

(44:23):
It is possible we work with some of our clients where we guarantee that they're going to be able to make a claim of the back of what we sold them. So say if you, you know, you're, you look at your scope one, two, three emissions, you realize what your residual position is going to be.
You ambitiously set yourself to remove, let's say today 1% of your emissions, you should aim as per the science based targets initiative, you should reduce 90% of your emissions and then remove 10%.

(44:54):
Very few people today are removing 10%. There's not enough of an incentive, but many are looking at 1%. So let's say this is what we agree with you that we're going to sell to you.
The majority of the market is in the future. Most of these credits we're paying for action today that we yield the carbon outcome in the future. So we then continue working with the projects.
Again, we have our technology platform that helps us receive a bunch of data from suppliers. We show, we then expose it to buyers. It kind of almost looks like a wealth management platform.

(45:23):
These are all your carbon assets. This is how they're performing. This is how the price is evolving in the market. This is how you can then go back to your team internally and show them that you're doing a good job because you know, you spent the money.
And now where is it? It's here. You can see on the map where the different projects are, how they're performing, how the credits are performing.

(45:45):
And I guess that visibility definitely enables them to build more trust in what you're doing right as well. Indeed. That's the goal.
I want to just dissect the team a little bit because I know that one of the things that you speak a lot about is culture, building teams. And if we think about culture, you know, they say that strategy, culture, like culture definitely is really key when you're building our team.

(46:12):
This is your fourth company, right? And so just really keen to understand how you navigated building out that culture and how intentional you were about it.
Very.
Again, love that question. Thank you.
Yeah, I think one of my favorite quotes is that culture is strategy for breakfasts or lunch and dinner, maybe all of it.

(46:33):
Everything.
It's been really interesting on two, maybe three accounts. One is, as I said before, I started the company with a scientist and with an environmentalist.
And if you haven't already picked up on the fact that I'm generally the sort of more hippie, let's change the world for the better, rather than, oh, sharky, let's like make as much money as we can and like lead people on the streets.

(46:58):
Well, this is the first time in my career that suddenly I am the scary finance person and my co-founders looked at me like, does she have good intentions?
Does she really want to do the right thing for the planet? Or is she maybe just another tech bro who sort of saw that there is some money to be raised now in climate and maybe she's just like all of them.
So it actually started from me and my co-founders needing to have the trust in each other. They needed to trust that I wanted to build a commercially successful company that will grow really big, but also will stop climate change and will treat people with respect.

(47:31):
And I needed to know in them that they had the ambition to build a massive company as well as stop climate change.
And, you know, very interesting things happened in the process. You know, we raised our pre-seed last year and during that process sort of Mark realized that actually he'd rather be an ambassador to the company than be an executive.

(47:53):
And that is completely fine. And he's still doing a brilliant job just in a different seat. And Gabriel and I are running the company with our exec team.
But sort of just the shape of the founding team was quite unusual and sort of very diverse in many ways because of our backgrounds. So that was the first thing that we need to talk a lot about.
What is the culture and sort of what is the goal? How are we going to align on a shared vision of success? What does success look like?

(48:18):
And we think success is a role in which carbon removals play a meaningful role in creating a livable planet and a regenerative economy. Again, we think a lot about the social impact that goes off the back of the climate impact that we achieve.
And then for the team, I think while so many startups are doing an incredible job and solving lots of problems and creating opportunity, I also think the whole startup culture is often incredibly toxic.

(48:54):
And I see more.
Well, have you heard of tech bros?
I think a lot of it is driven. I mean, there are very it's actually really sad. But when I think of people who are universally understood to be the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, I don't have any respect for them.

(49:18):
So when I think about how how value is perceived in the startup world and a lot of that is I'm sorry, lady investor and lady investor, a lot of it is driven by what investors consider to be value, you know, paying your employees well and treating them well.
That doesn't always have a dollar number associated with it. Well, in fact, it does. But you have to make a more complex case that these things actually will pay off and bring more value to your company.

(49:48):
Whereas being able to, you know, working your people 100 hours a week and not paying them well, you know, it is an easier way of explaining how you're an ambitious CEO, making the most out of your team.
So a lot of the practices in tech I don't sign up to. I don't want to work like this. I don't want to treat people like this.

(50:11):
We started curate saying that it was a matriarchy because all of our all of our and basically we all of our senior most senior positions at the beginning bar one were held by women.
I have an all female board. I it's sort of not really by design. It so happened to be the case. But also then I realized I don't know anybody else who has that.

(50:32):
I, you know, the bulk of my cap table are women and people of color. I thought I was trying to be really intentional about, you know, this is my fourth company.
I think I have a reasonably good chance of making it a success. Then who do I want to make rich? Guess what?
You know, I then sort of ended up with a slightly different shape of of of my cap table.
And then a lot of the people that work at curate our parents of small children. I have absolutely no idea how they do it.

(51:01):
I have I don't have children. Actually, my my best friend has been staying with me for the last two weeks.
She's a single mom with a four year old and a three year old. And I have a new found just a position.
I mean, basically, when I leave for work in the morning, I'm like, no, I just relax.
I mean, they're amazing, but also so hard.

(51:24):
So and again, like, how do you build a company in which, you know, women or parents can succeed?
And, you know, and trust me, it's, you know, the only solution is not just, you know, flexible working hours.
But there are also. Yeah, but it's a bit more nuanced than you want to co-create it with them.
And, you know, it's I think I said that the beginning, I think entrepreneurship is a massive privilege.

(51:51):
I think we spend a lot of time talking about how hard it is and how hard we all work.
And obviously, this is true. But we're not just doing it out of the goodness of our hearts.
We're doing it because it offers us flexibility and opportunity to change something and have a voice and work in a slightly different way.
And often travel and and you know, if it's so hard, if it's not for you, don't do it.

(52:14):
Yeah, I think if you're doing it, remember, remember how much you gain as well as what you lose.
I mean, I will. And I think it's been one of my one of my best friends that a few years ago,
she might have had a couple of glasses of wine. I think that's fair to say.
But she said that she hopes that the next company I create will not only be successful in what it does,

(52:37):
but could also play a role in redefining how we work.
And like I know it's a very lofty goal, but wouldn't that be great?
And I remember one of my engineers said to me a few weeks ago, he said,
you are the first founder I've worked for, whoever takes holiday.
And you know, when he said it, my immediate reaction was guilt.

(53:00):
I was like, oh, my God, I'm slacking off. And then he said, no, no, no, I think that makes you a better CEO.
I don't know if anyone can take good decisions if they don't take time to reflect.
And I was like, OK, that's that's great.
Because again, if we want if we want entrepreneurs to be more representative of society,

(53:23):
then we need to make the job of being an entrepreneur more appealing than it can be.
And I think maybe we can play a small role in showing that it can be done.
Yeah, I love that.
There are very there's some times on the show we have entrepreneurs who marry meaning and like entrepreneurship

(53:45):
and like balancing the tension of both because you have investors.
Yes, I'm sure you are very deliberate about the type of investors you've got so that the incentives are aligned
for operators out there who are thinking about starting businesses,
but really want to build something that is meaningful to them, that they know that they can do for the next decades of their lives.
How would you say they think about it?

(54:08):
Just a few thoughts, heuristics, mental models you used in yours to building
and curates with your co-founders that they might be able to adopt as they think of theirs.
Wow, excellent question.
I think let me let me start from choosing your investors.
But I feel like I need to caveat this with I genuinely believe it's possible to build very successful businesses without taking venture capital.

(54:35):
Again, sorry, I know you're I know you're VCs.
VCs is not but it's not it's not for everyone as a class is for a very specific model and you might not fit that.
I agree. And I also think we need to slightly change how we talk about talk about success.
I think building a company that employs 20 people or 50 people or 100 people and creates a solution for their target audience is an absolutely admirable and brilliant thing.

(54:58):
And a lot of these businesses, by the way, are better ran than those that take venture capital and you know, soar and then crash and burn.
So, you know, venture capital is not the only way or raising venture is not the only way to build a business.
Now, if you do want to raise venture, let me get I have to say this has been a very different raising experience for me than any of the ones in the past.

(55:19):
Because it turns out when you have two exits and you work at Google for a few years and you've been hanging out with investors, it is somehow very, very different than when you're a first time founder or an underrepresented founder.
So I will say I found it almost shocking how this how this has has gone versus in the sense that it was it was easier.

(55:41):
It was it was it was it was it was infinitely easier.
So I knew what I was doing. I'm competent. My my my co-founders were unique in that sort of talent.
You can't really buy. Yeah. And, you know, by the time we went out raising, we had, you know, six figure revenue and the Queen was our first client.
I mean, you can't get that slide presentation.

(56:05):
So sort of also very few people will be able to to do that again, given that she's no longer with us.
But that's a that's a separate point. Very compelling. Like, you don't need to say much. You just start out on a strong foot.
I mean, everything else. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, right.
So I think I think there are a couple of couple of things here. But one is I if you have the luxury of choosing your investors,

(56:30):
I think making sure that you have a shared definition of success is really important.
And the example I would use that's real for curate is we are we only work with carbon removals.
We don't work with carbon offsets. We are the we are one of two companies globally that do this.
And the reason why most sell both offsets and removals is because the offset market is still pretty big and the removals market will be a trillion dollars.

(56:58):
But right now, only three billion dollars have ever been spent on carbon removal. So the market is tiny.
And that means if you want to show growth, it is infinitely easier to sell carbon offsets than it is the carbon to sell carbon removal.
And basically every quarter and I go back to my investors and I go, are you sure?

(57:21):
Are you sure that we can keep on doing this? And the answer and the answer is yes.
And I know that if we hadn't have if we hadn't had the shared vision of success, which is by exclusively working on carbon removal,
we have basically privileged access to intelligence and our compound insights are going to be so much better.

(57:44):
We've won deals and we have some really impressive clients.
Aside from the Queen, you know, we work with Coca-Cola, Hellenic, so the bottling arm of Coca-Cola,
huge emissions profile and a massive ambition to to be sustainable.
British Airways, GoFigures, Standard Chartered, Arup, the sustainability consultancy and a number of others.

(58:06):
And a lot of and lots of these companies trusted us with their carbon removal brief
because they believe that today it's likely that today we know more about carbon removal than others.
But in a year or in two, it's certain that we will because that is the only thing that we work on.

(58:29):
And it's that vision that my investors bought into and they're supportive of when I say no to multimillion deals
because I don't want to touch the part of the market that I think for the long term is going to have to massively evolve
to continue doing good rather than the opposite.
So choosing investors wisely and knowing that basically playing out some scenarios, you know,

(58:52):
what do you think about this? What do you think about this? Do we agree here? Do we agree there?
That's that's really important. And a lot of it is also how do you want to treat your people?
How do you want to reward them? How do you know?
Are they going to be supportive of you treating your employees the way that you want to treat them?
It's really, really key. But then I suppose the second thing that I'd say, and it's very basic,

(59:14):
but when when starting a company, verify that you're actually solving a need that's real and that you haven't.
You know, there is a problem for people.
We don't start a company if you haven't spoken to 50 target clients.
If you haven't mocked it up, would you ask your friend who's a designer now these days, you know,

(59:37):
use AI to generate something and show it to people and ask them if they understand what it is,
if they agree with your point of view, actually test as much as you can, spend as little money or preferably none
and try and get to a place where anyone is going to pay you any money.
Can you get someone to say, I think what you're building is good enough that I'd be willing to pay money for this?

(59:58):
Like the moment you know that this is true, you know that you have a business rather than an idea.
And I think I think a lot of I think it's incredibly prudent to within reason try and verify these assumptions before you get the job.
Yeah. Before you before you have too much to lose when when when your interest when your interest becomes really vested in proving that something is real.

(01:00:27):
It's quite hard to see the evidence of the contrary.
Yeah. So it's much it's much better and much safer to experiment when you don't have everything relying on that one idea playing out well for you.
This was down the line. I'd say it flips down the line.
Sometimes knowing that this is everything you're rooting for is going to give you the conviction and the drive

(01:00:50):
and it's going to inspire you and your team and the people around you.
But in that testing phase to truly be able to learn, you need to have an open mind.
Yeah. I love that. And I think you raise an interesting point there that you can be scrappy.
You don't need to find an expensive it can be very inexpensive, right?
Even if it means just using spreadsheet, picking up the phone, speaking to individuals.
100 percent. We we built we built the first version of the business in a spreadsheet.

(01:01:14):
So I said to my co-founders, it's very hard to find good quality carbon removal.
If you can find access to 100000 tons and it's very hard to sell it because it's 20 times more expensive than offsets.
And also it's not mandated yet by law to buy this. So why would people if we can sell 100000 pounds, I'm going to quit my job.

(01:01:37):
And it was literally the minute we got the first 100000 pounds purchase and we got access to 100000 tons.
I gave him my notice. But before these were my minimum criteria.
So like define what is a minimum criteria validation.
The other thing I'd like to know is how did you think about because we're having this conversation now and I cannot believe that you're not a scientist.

(01:02:00):
It's crazy to me. And I know that it's actually also very hard to simplify complex things.
It's an it's another layer of actually depth of understanding for you to be able to do that.
So I'm curious for folks who are passionate and experienced and maybe say broader and adjacent areas, a broader tech, but they don't have necessarily the training or education in a very specific domain expertise in climate.

(01:02:24):
In this case, how would you you clearly got very competent and experienced co-founders, but you also needed to upscale and learn.
And like, so how would you manage that in the earliest stages where you know that you want to solve this problem, but you don't have all the pieces with you technically?

(01:02:45):
But you know what? I mean, I think.
I'm going to make a very radical statement and I'm always wondering if I truly think this, but I think in a way I do.
I think sometimes formal education is overrated.
And in this particular case, I am not the chief scientist that curate. My co-founder is that I need to be fluent enough in carbon removal so that the business teams trust me to give me the money to then be invested in carbon removal and manage that asset for them.

(01:03:16):
I read a lot. I Googled a lot.
And, you know, I think Google is, you know, in this case, my best friend, although these days I have to say I'm increasingly using perplexity.
But, you know, there are free resources on carbon removal specifically.
There is an accelerator course called Air Miners that's again free to attend and it gives you basically a massive reading list and a group of people that you can study with.

(01:03:45):
If our scientific due diligence and the quality of it was reliant on my level of expertise, I think that would be a problem.
Fortunately, that isn't the case.
But I think, you know, it was I think most of us can reasonably upskill ourselves in six to 12 months if we apply ourselves to it.

(01:04:14):
And I also think sometimes the ability.
Well, you touch upon something really important, which is being able to explain something simply enough.
I had to explain it simply to myself. I have to explain it simply to my team.
Again, like we are a really interesting mix of humans that come from a climate background or don't have any experience in climate.

(01:04:43):
And like I don't know if my front end engineer needs to understand the carbon sequestration curve in enhanced rock weathering on the, you know, on the northern slopes of Kenyan farms.
But I know that he needs to understand the basic concepts in a way that as he translates our designs into into product will make sense.

(01:05:07):
He also needs to understand the impact of the work that he's doing. He needs to be able to tell his friends or maybe his mom what he does.
I think it's a really good practice. I think both in finance and in tech, we often hide behind jargon.
And I think people think that it makes us sound smarter.
Or maybe we just do it because it's exclusive. I genuinely believe if you don't if you if you can't explain something simply enough, you don't understand it enough.

(01:05:35):
I love that. There's a thing we do at the end of the podcast when we try to take you through a reflective exercise.
So I would start thinking about that. But one thing I wanted to touch on before we do that very quickly is what are the common misconceptions from your perspective in the climate space?
Because I think like it's one of those things where fact and fiction like everything is just like muddled.

(01:05:57):
I recently found out that there is CO2 emissions is completely different from ozone layer depletion. And it's like, but you say those things and sometimes you think they are correct.
So what is maybe one top misconception that most people think? Yeah. But isn't true.
So I'd say can I please have two? I'm a greedy founder.

(01:06:22):
I think one one I have to say because it pertains to my industry.
The completely misunderstood relationship between reductions and removal.
A lot of people say we shouldn't be removing carbon until we've reduced it as much as we can.
And it makes zero sense. It's a little bit like with with electric cars.

(01:06:45):
People that say why drive an electric car before we before we cleaned up the grid. But good luck cleaning the grid up.
And then you want to start driving all the electric cars. But hang on a second. We don't have any because we haven't built the industry.
And this is the same thing. We have to absolutely prioritize and focus so much of our efforts on decarbonization.

(01:07:06):
I don't think we're doing it fast enough. I don't think the policymakers are moving fast enough on this.
I think it's a it's a fundamental challenge and it has to be addressed.
I also know that we have to start building the carbon removal industry last year.
And I can tell you from my clients, they know that every million dollars they spend on carbon removal today is going to contribute to the prices going down faster,

(01:07:32):
the availability of carbon removal being there. And they know that they can de-risk their net zero future position by acting today.
If they're just hoping that there'll be abundant and cheap carbon removal in 2030 when they need it, unless they play a role today, it won't be there.
So I think this is the fundamental thing that needs the bunking in the carbon removal space in the climate space more broadly.

(01:07:56):
I don't know to what extent it's a myth, but I know it's a as far as I'm concerned, it's a misconception.
And again, it's a slightly political point, but I think we put enough as society, we put too much pressure on individual action to stop climate change versus exerting more pressure on governments and corporates to do the right thing.

(01:08:19):
So, for instance, you know, I recycle and I don't eat red meat and I try to be thoughtful about where I fly.
And these are good things for me to feel good about myself. That is not going to stop climate change.
Unless we properly think about who do we vote for? Who do we buy from?
How do we demand from our employers and the brands that we give the benefit of our money to if we don't expect them to do the right thing to decarbonize fast enough?

(01:08:48):
If we don't hold them to account, if we don't verify the claims that they make about net neutrality and so on, I think ultimately it's corporate emissions that play the biggest part
and are the main culprits of climate change. And I think the same way that and frankly this leaves me optimistic, because if it's companies that play such a massive role, then it's also companies that can turn it around.

(01:09:19):
And there are some incredible examples of organizations taking it incredibly seriously.
And I'm very excited, you know, it's no longer just Patagonia. It feels like everybody just had one example. But like you had in carbon removal.
Microsoft has already spent more than two billion dollars on carbon removal because they know that it's already generating value for them.

(01:09:40):
And I think it's, you know, I think the CFO, not just the CSO, chief sustainability officer, but I think the CFO and CEO of the future sees sustainability and positive climate action as a source of massive competitive advantage and is going to play really intelligently to it.
Love that.
So, thank you very much. Time Machine.

(01:10:03):
Let's go back to 2012, right before you started Azima.
Tell us what would be one piece of advice that you would say to your younger self.
Wow.
Can I give myself a bunch of dating advice?
You know what I think.

(01:10:25):
I was going to be really tried, but I think I think I tell myself that it's all going to be fine.
I think one of my favorite things about humans is our resilience and our creativity and the way we can support each other and overcome challenges and I think I think there was a time in 2012 and I was really afraid I was, I was new to London, I was, I was called.

(01:10:51):
It was you know the weather was miserable. I've just come back from New York where everyone's like really chatty and warm. Let's just say I wasn't really getting that vibe straight away in London.
I didn't know anyone. I didn't really know how life is going to play out, and I, I, I knew I could do it, but I was afraid that I, that I like very many won't manage.

(01:11:17):
So, I think, with the right level of luck and hard work, we can achieve most of what we want to and what we set out to do and well I'm very pleased that work out like this for me and I hope it also will to everyone else that has has a big dream.
Great. And one more question given that a lot of our listeners are thinking about taking the leap themselves what would be one piece of advice you'd give for anyone mulling on an idea and thinking about taking the leap.

(01:11:49):
Another quote I really like is that first class strategy and second class execution are always, always going to lose against second class strategy and first class execution.
I like it because I think it's something that's kind of equalizing and optimistic. I remember having a massive chip on my shoulder for, you know, not having gone to business school or not having a lot of the credentials that frankly, you know, or networks that you know I

(01:12:21):
was born where I was and I came from a background that I did. So I think I sometimes worried that I wasn't as polished, or I didn't you know what my ideas did not or my strategy didn't, didn't, didn't punch as high as somebody else's.
But I think actually with enough attention to execution.

(01:12:44):
Most successful companies succeed because of their attention to execution. I love that. That is incredible. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you for tuning into another episode of the startup lead Tsl for short, live review, tell us what you think of this episode on all our platforms at the startup report.

(01:13:08):
If you have a question, ask us and we'll ask our guests, go to the startup lead.io. See you next time.

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"Ex-Googler Building Tech For the $1 Trillion Climate Challenge" - Marta Krupinska, Co-Founder Cur8

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}"Ex-Googler Building Tech For the $1 Trillion Climate Challenge" - Marta Krupinska, Co-Founder Cur8