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0:14 energytechnexascom. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I'm really excited to be back here with Jason and with a very special guest, one of our member companies at Energy Tech

0:25 Nexus, Corelidix,

0:28 CEO, Unversed Sadek Welcome. Thank you so much, Nada. Thank you. It's my pleasure and I'm very happy to be here as well. Yeah, so we're really excited to finally get you on board over the past

0:38 couple of months, everywhere we go. And there's like some award show and Corelidix is on there. You've been winning a lot of awards lately. You have to tell us about that. But let's start with,

0:48 what do you guys do? Great question. So at Corelidix, our goal and vision is we are digitizing and revolutionizing how corrosion is detected for industrial assets. Let me put it a little bit back

1:02 story to that. For example, every vacations we take, every clothes we wear, every cosmetics we use, even food, home, outside. Unknowingly, we are paying a very high cost to the environment

1:17 and to the industry, how that luxury has been provided to us. Now, that cost we pay is something called corrosion. And that is a problem that industry faces today And for that reason, they're

1:30 also paying a very high cost for that as well. So, and we are here at Corollitics to make sure that we are providing a safe and efficient environment for industries so that the luxury of life that

1:42 we enjoy today can be minimized both environmentally and costly for the industry as well. Good, cool. And where in the, I guess, value chain are usually checking corrosion I'm thinking, you know,

1:56 I have my ancient car that's corroding at home. But we also have You know, you know, big industrial facilities that also need to combat corrosion. So we're just kind of the sweet spot that you

2:05 find yourself playing. So we started off actually dealing with something called microbial corrosion. So imagine in industries, you're like a pipeline, just like a human body. So just like you

2:18 have microorganisms growing inside of your body, causing infection and damaging your body. So microbes also grow insights of assets in industries Anywhere there's fluids flowing, let's say, you

2:32 know, fuel, wooden chemicals, beverages and water, everything that has anything flowing in it. They have microorganisms growing that is slowly deteriorating these steel pipelines, storage tanks

2:45 and other vital assets in industries. And that is costing both to the industry and to the environment. Now, now you mentioned your car so we don't directly deal with the car but more with the fuel

2:60 you're using. If you have an EV, you don't have to worry about that. But most people are still using vehicles that are of gasoline. So that delivered to us have also a costly price on how it is

3:06 manufactured, drilled, and coming all the downstream. That entire process, they face this problem corrosion. And not only that, corrosion itself, it's living a huge carbon footprint. So we

3:06 have found out that it's living about

3:29 600 million metric tons of carbon footprint each year that is associated with replacing corroded steel in industries and also the overuse of chemicals, biosides, and inhibitors that they're using to

3:47 mitigate the problem. So that's where the main problem is. And the problem really is because the current techniques that are widely used in industries to detect this problem. We call it microbial

4:01 corrosion. It's very antiquated. They're slow, they're inaccurate. So, I mean, the main reason is they're implementing many tools. However, they're not addressing the core of the problem.

4:15 That is corrosion itself is an electrochemical process. And to detect it accurately, you have to use an electrochemical technique. That's where we come in at Coralytics that we have patented

4:30 first-of-a-kind electrochemical technique that acts like an advanced medical diagnostic tool. Pretty much detecting this infection, even before it's a big problem. In fact, we are the only company

4:44 in the world that can detect microbial corrosion rate on site and in near real time. And we are also the only company in the world that can let our clients know if the medication strategy, such as

4:55 adding chemicals, biosizer inhibitors.

4:58 it's actually working or not. So we are much more accurate, faster than anything out there that they're using today. So tell us a little bit about the different types of corrosion. So it's very

5:09 clear that the microbial is the one where you're driving value, but I think the only other thing about corrosion is acid rain. So I'm like, okay, what are the other options? Yeah, so enough for

5:17 you to just break it out in simple terms, because when I think of corrosion, it's like still reacting with oxygen and like those oxides are formed, right? Absolutely correct, yep, that's right.

5:26 And then, but you're talking about microbes, I haven't heard about that before. Yes, that is right. Yeah, so please explain, are there different types of corrosion? Yeah, there are several

5:34 types of corrosion, they are called hydrogen cracking and there's like, you know, marine corrosion and several different categories. So, microbial corrosion, it's pretty much microbes growing,

5:46 they're literally eating away, feeding on the metals. Oh, they will digest it. Yes, there are different kinds of microorganisms, some of them release their by-product, That reacts with the

5:57 metal? saw them literally like sits on the metals and literally eat over the metals. Now, if you wanna think about how big of a problem compared to all the other kinds of corrosion, so we have

6:09 heard that amongst all corrosion, internal corrosion that happens, 50, about 50 is caused by microbial corrosion. And we believe that this number may be much higher, since there are no tools to

6:23 detect this problem accurately, they have kind of figured out that it's a 50, but it could be much higher, because now we'll be able to solve that probably even much effectively. Does it happen,

6:33 like if you're looking at pipes in any industry or factory you're at, is it outside, is it inside

6:45 the pipe, where does it usually occur? And where do these microbes come from? So both, actually, external and internal. So most of the time is internal, if your asset is above ground. So you

6:51 have the, that's when you see the regular corrosion water, oxygen present and the metal is there. So that's how it corrodes over time naturally. But if the pipeline is underground, we have

7:03 bacteria in the soil, nitrogen in the soil that affects the external corrosion. Now internal corrosion, it can be anywhere wherever there's water content. We have seen mostly that as low as 05

7:18 water present, they have a tendency to grow there. And we did another project with Air Force for the for two summer, and they were having issues with their biodiesel storage tanks. It's pure

7:32 biodiesel, there's nothing there, but they were facing corrosion issues for storage tanks. And of course, the efficiency of the fuel was decreasing because it was not how they actually quantified

7:43 how much of the fuel could be used. So we found out that there were microorganisms at the bottom of the tank that has been growing, fungus, and they've been eating away the biofuel, producing

7:54 water, That was producing some other ecosystem of other bacteria as well. And they were all living in this ecosystem where feeding the fuel, producing water. And when they were using it for

8:06 airplanes, the efficiency was not there anymore. So that was a dangerous event. And we were able to solve that for them that this is a microbial issue. You need to mitigate that specific species

8:17 there. Okay, so dumb question. Do you throw penicillin in to your, I don't know if it's penicillin or those fungus, but like how do they mitigate? So they have a huge, right now what they use

8:28 today is a blender formula. So they don't know exactly which kind is causing the corrosion or what specific kinds, but over time they were able to figure out that this certain kind of question of

8:41 the biosides they're going to add today kills majority of the organisms. So these are biosides, chemicals, sometimes inhibitors So you can, in general, call it penicillin for her. So what is an

8:55 inhibitor? Is it like a poison? Is it like bleach? I guess you don't want to put bleach in your fuel system. But like,

9:03 how are they figuring out what the remedy is, I guess? So, pretty much, the biostat specifically, it attacks directly the cytoplasm of the algorithm. This is the wall? Or the cell wall? Is

9:14 that what a cytoplasm is? Yeah, exactly. The cell wall. Pretty much. It attacks directly, kills the bacteria, and that's how they're being done today They already found out many ways to kill

9:24 these guys. But your main offering is detection. You're not really mitigating. No, we are not mitigating. We are detecting. So where's the value chain for us? It's the sense that current

9:38 techniques that are used today, they are detecting number of microorganisms, or they're leaving small piece of metal inside the asset where it's corroding over time, they remove it, and they're

9:49 checking it out, they do laboratory testing based on all of these. they can understand that there are microbes present and there's corrosion happening, but they are not able to figure out today,

10:02 whatever microbes are present, are they really causing corrosion? And at what rate? And by the time, the other problem is the, by the time they actually receive the report, microorganisms grows,

10:15 they multiply fast, they react fast, so by the time they get the report that they took a sample, they did all the tests for months, whether they come back to mitigate it, the environment changed

10:27 completely. Now, whatever you are adding as a mitigation strategy is maybe no longer applicable because the environment is absolutely changed to that by the time they took a sample out to test it.

10:38 So that's how they're doing today. What we are doing is we are not focusing on number of microorganisms present in there or the types of present in there, we are focusing on the activity.

10:53 Another fact to add to that is that only 1 of all microorganisms are discovered by man, human beings, right? And so what about the

11:03 99 they could be newer ones, causing corrosion, or even the 1 whatever they found out, they could be evolving. They probably cannot detect anymore at some point, some of the subspecies. So those

11:15 are all problems we were having in terms of if you focus on getting number of microbes, but now what we're doing is activity. Our technology, as soon as we take the environment out of the asset,

11:27 put it in our test kit and we just detect the activity between the environment and the alloy that is the same alloy as the asset itself. And we can see at electron level, how much metal loss we're

11:40 getting. That's how we are calculating microbial corrosion rate. OK, so you're actually not calculating whether it's microbial you're just seeing, you're taking a sample out. creating a similar

11:51 environment outside and just seeing the detection. Exactly. We are pretty much copying the environment, taking the exact environment and pasting it into our test kit. And the best part is our test

12:02 kit is portable. It's something any operators can take into remote locations and it's non-invasive. That means most techniques they use today could be invasive. They add probes and those are

12:15 another reasons for leaks, failures, maintenance So it's a pretty much an additional test kit you just use in your current existing operations. We claim that it is seamless integration because

12:27 today they already have operations where they are collecting food samples out of the let's say for some more pipelines and they're doing many tests on that. We take that exact food sample in our test

12:39 kit and additional tools they can add and get much more accurate data today on how that integrity is. Yeah, and you were talking about time. So how quickly I have my test kit I put my sample in,

12:49 how quickly do I get a result? We have received this as little as two hours. Oh, wow. And whereas our incumbents are at one month, three months, even six months. So we are cutting the time for

13:02 almost 99. I feel like, yes, there's value in, I don't wanna say it. Like, yes things change over six months, if they wait for six months for the results. Man, I forget so much in six months.

13:15 If I had to like get results back, I would be like, what asset is this again? What are we doing there? What, like, how do we even get there? And so like the value of being there and saying,

13:23 okay, now I know what I can fix and I can order a remedy immediately and then come back next week, or hopefully if the remedy comes in that fast, you get that kind of cycles that are just faster.

13:33 And I can just imagine, man, if I had to wait six months for something to come back, I might be on vacation, I might have a replacement who's kind of coming and who has no idea what's going on So

13:42 the value is more than the reactivity It's

13:47 like just that. the brain space. And I feel like for a lot of businesses, you're your talent constrained as much as anything else. And if you can get your talent focused, like get it fixed and

13:57 get it done and solved and stable, they can actually move on to more high value, other high value work. Yeah, saving time is a real value. But talk to us about some of your customers. Who are

14:07 you getting early attraction from? And if you can give some examples of use cases, like what particular problem are you solving for them? Absolutely, absolutely. So, before that, this

14:18 technology can be applicable in every major industrial sectors, such as food and beverage, chemical manufacturing, biofuels, oil and gas, produce water, water treatment, you name it. Any

14:32 industry that has metallic infrastructure, fluid flowing, there will be this problem. And we are solving this problem. Now, that means we have people who we've been getting attracted from the oil

14:43 and gas primarily, That's a very existing infrastructure. And we still rely heavily on that sector for our energy need today still. And so that was one sector. We also got interest from HVAC

14:54 companies. So they have industrial size HVAC systems, units that have pipelines in it that have cooling, what do you call it? Cooling mechanism loops. Yeah, exactly. That's, we have water in

15:10 there. And they've been clogged by microbial growth And they were also seeing failures in the system because corrosion was another problem there. Not only was destroying the unit, but it was also

15:22 making the air quality bad. So that's where we're also being, trying to solve the problem there. We also were attracted by petrochemicals. So that's what we call the downstream side of the market,

15:37 where they have seen significant amount of growth of microbes and corrosion and most importantly, water. our water system, you know, everywhere it's there. And so even water pretreatment for the

15:50 industrial site produced water, both faced these significant problems. So we were able to tackle clients from all of these different sectors. Now, I think I have to add something more attractive

16:03 to the conversation. So when we started off three and a half years ago, we were at already, we call it TRL, technology readiness level three. That means we have a prototype, it's somewhat

16:17 designed. And in the next two years down the road, we have forged industrial partnership where they wanted to give us real world scenario samples and test the system. So we reached technology

16:31 readiness level of about six right now. That means we have a fully validated prototype using real world scenario, real world samples During that time, some of our partners were very fascinated that

16:44 we are able to provide such insightful data for them that they can actually react on and work on. So some of them actually converted to early customers. And even before we released the technology of

16:57 the market, which validated our product market fit, of course. And they were like, hey, we need the asset integrity information right now. How about we send you the samples to your laboratory,

17:07 user prototype, give us the data It was pretty helpful. So that's how we were able to get some of these clients early on. Most recently, we had two partners who want to use our technology to

17:19 pretty much cater to their own clients. So we just had, I think three weeks ago, we released two pilots. One is in Porto Allegra, Brazil, and another one in Houston, Texas. The one in Brazil

17:31 was for the downstream side of the industry. And the one in Houston, Texas is for the upstream side of the of industry. That was very.

17:41 early attractions that we have received that they want to validate our technology, and they want to help us develop it to a point that we can release to their clients as well. And one of the two

17:52 clients, I'm not able to share the names at this point. So they are also going to be an investor. They gave a verbal commitment that, you know, if the technology works, we'll be an investor.

18:02 And they also became our channel partner to release technology to the biggest oil and gas company in Saudi Arabia. So that was something excited that happened recently. I wonder who gave you the

18:13 question. No, no, no, this was great. You gave us more than I asked. So one of the things I'm curious about is how did you get into this? And tell us the story, what led you to starting the

18:22 company? That's your passion for corrosion. How did that develop? Yeah. So after my undergrad, that's how it all started. I was looking for jobs everywhere. Being a chemistry major, it was

18:33 difficult for me to find job at that point. But I got lucky and went to incorporate, they're called PPG industries. So I was working there developing corrosion resistance, primers, coatings, of

18:46 course on a bench scale. So I was, whatever I was creating on the bench scale from like, you know, tubes, funnels, have a final product, tested it out and it was preventing corrosion. So then

18:58 I've seen whatever I was developing on the bench being like upscaled, selling in millions of gallons globally. I was like, how are they making my lab scale experiment into products that's been

19:12 released globally? Then I went to one of their plants and I've seen how they were scaling the same product I was developing. And I was fascinated that, wow, what are these? They're just huge

19:23 reactors, huge pipelines, developing these, I was like, I wanna learn how they actually do this that picked my interest to kind of go for chemical engineering. So I wanted to, then I wanted to

19:35 go for masters in chemical engineering to understand this process and I got into research for corrosion again with one of my advisors. And while I was completing my master's, I wanted to even give

19:49 in more. I'm like, how do this corrosion is affecting this problem? And that's how I started my PhD. Now, during my PhD time, I never thought I will have something that could make a huge

20:01 difference in our everyday lives and industry as well. That's when I invented one of the inventor of technology and primarily at the time working on how corrosion mechanism works, who are the

20:14 culprits, how microbes, you know, corrodes systems and stuff like that. It was end of my PhD time. I got intrigued and peaked by whole entrepreneurial idea. And I told my advisor that, Hey, I

20:27 want to learn about business. At that point, I was calling it business.

20:32 So, you know, I had scientific strong, scientific background. I want to have some business ideas. So as you told me, there's some extra credits left. Why don't you go for, take some customer

20:43 discovery, commercialization, how do you take a research to our product? So I took a couple of courses and that just picked me off really bad. I was like, wow, this is truly fascinating that you

20:56 can actually create something that can help people in a massive scale. So that's when we started off with National Science Foundation. They have a program called iCorps And what they do is they give

21:10 you a grant about6, 000. They tell you, use this money just to travel. Go talk to relevant people in the industry. Find out if they have a need for your technology, whatever you are developing

21:24 in the laboratory, without telling them what you actually have. So we need to derive questions that will lead to the paid points, figuring out what are they having in daily operations they're doing.

21:38 crafted questions, like, hey, you are a corrosion engineer. What do you do for daily work life? They will talk to us, have you seen this problem? How do you solve this problem? So one of the

21:48 limitations that you solve this problem, they will keep on answering, keep on answering all the different questions. And we have done that with 300 plus customer discovery. And 95 of those people

21:60 said that there's a huge issues with microorganisms. They're growing, we don't know when they're growing We don't have tools that can let us know when this is a problem. So we need technology that

22:11 tells us this specific issue that I'm like, wow, we have a technology that we have found out that can detect this problem and does magic in the laboratory. How do I take this as a product? And

22:26 that's when we started with NSF SBIR phase one. So that means it's a federal grant given to scientists, maybe other people I'm not sure, but we received this grant saying that you have a technology

22:40 or a product that can actually make a difference in the world. So we started off with that grant. That's how it all started. And during my PhD time as well, numbers, when I was publishing a paper,

22:53 I was seeing at numbers. Like, when we publish a paper, we see corrosion. We write about corrosion. But before that, we need to tell the audience how big of a problem it is. What is the main

23:05 problem? And the numbers really scared me. The amount of failures, the amount of carbon footprint that was leaving behind this failure was significant. And I was very, how do you call that scared

23:20 of that? Wow, everything I'm using in my life is behind this effect and this problem. So, and that's what kind of picked my interest as well to how do I solve this problem, make at least more

23:32 efficient, safer for everybody else. It's fascinating It's always great to hear from. you know, hardcore scientists, people who are doing PhD, who then, you know, go on to become entrepreneurs.

23:44 Talk to us about that journey since you did step out of academia. It's a very different mindset. You have to move at a very fast pace, I can imagine. And as a CEO, you're wearing many different

23:57 hats. Oh, yes. So that was super challenging. I wouldn't even lie about it being a scientist who is used to only giving technical presentation. And when I started to pitch, the idea was mostly

24:12 technical. People were like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Even today, I have that problem that I have to make it, get to the, like the layman terms, or spending it to a four years

24:24 old, six years old. That was the idea of fact to me that break it down into simple words and statements that anybody can understand That was challenging for me. I did not know how to do that. And

24:37 I'm still, to this time, still have that problem, but I think I got a lot better.

24:44 So the challenging part was that. And second of all, there's a lot of aspects to it. One is have a product, development, marketing, and how do you sell it? How do you commercialize it? Who are

24:56 your partners? How do you forge that? All of these different details I had to learn from the ground that I learned about marketing I know it's marketing, it's about setting something, simple as

25:07 that, right? But there's so much into it that every color you pick for your logo, the way you say your pick a name or the way you even express yourself. Don't even tell me my name, Dicky. Yeah.

25:21 So I was like, wow, so how am I supposed to address all of these different sub-categories? And also deliver on your product, right? Exactly. Keep progressing on that, which is the main thing.

25:32 And so as I see you, how much time do you spend Oh, in the early stages, the main thing was the most. My goal was how do I convert this to a product? How do I make it more efficient? This is all

25:45 glasswares. It cannot go anywhere, people will break it. So the focus was that primarily, but within the first year, I have two other co-founders at that time. And I was like, you know, listen,

25:59 how about you guys take care of the development? There are other things I really need to take care of that is forging partnership, talking to investors, talking to clients. All of these things

26:10 kind of like weighed heavily on me. So I had to kind of step up with the technical side and started off doing this. But along the way, I won't lie. We had a lot of advisors. There were the

26:22 ecosystem in Ohio. That's where my company was really that watered from. We had a strong ecosystem there where advisors consultants helped us shape us along the way to where we are today. Well, so

26:37 we just did a lot of help. Are you ready to lead the decarbonization charge? Energy Technologies is your platform for growth, offering unique resources and expertise for energy and carbon tech

26:48 founders. Join us at energytechnexascom and

26:51 start building your Thunderlisset. So I'm very curious, you know, how did you, when you did the iCorps and you kind of were doing the interviews, how did you realize that you wanted to be the CEO

27:04 or you wanted to be the founder, you know, you raised the hand and say, No, I'm gonna do all this work. And as opposed to leaving it to someone else. That's a great question. I really never

27:14 thought about that in that way. So it was three of us, my advisor, myself and my colleague was already in the PhD environment and we were all doing it together. And so I think I was more outgoing,

27:30 more proactive in things And they've seen that, you know, I'm, I guess.

27:35 better to reaching out people. That was one of the aspects they've seen that, you know, take the lead and talk to that person, a normal person, you know, and stuff like that. So, and my

27:45 intrigues started, my budget saw that that I wanted to learn entrepreneurship business. So she realized that, okay, maybe, you know, you take point as a CEO first. And I had no idea what it

27:56 takes to be a CEO at that. Was that a surprise to you that that was suggested? Or did you, were like, yeah, of course I'm gonna be CEO? No, I mean, I was surprised too, myself And I did not

28:05 know what it takes to be a CEO. And I was like, okay, sure, my goal is I need to take this technology to our product to better the world. That was my only statement. I was thinking, okay, I

28:17 don't care what position you give me. I want to make sure that this goes to where it has to be. Do you feel like there was a moment in the past few years where you felt like I am the CEO? where

28:28 you're like, I fit well

28:31 in the shoes. Even body, yeah. Yes, there were multiple moments where I felt that way, especially from awards, winnings, or when we have close to deal with partners or clients, I was like,

28:43 Wow, it's working out. You know, yeah, I'm a pretty good CEO. But probably also when things didn't go well, and you're like, Oh my God, I am the CEO. I have to fix it. I'm the one who has to

28:52 fix it. I have to do it. So tell us about kind of those moments where you kind of felt like you stepped in and own the role, I guess. There were a couple of moments like that. Some of them were

29:04 challenging moments. That's when I realized that there has to be someone uplifting the team specifically when something was failing. Something was not working. Figuring out a way. So I didn't have

29:17 a solution either, but I knew how to tell them, Hey guys, we can do this. Talk to this guy, talk to this person. You know, we can solve this problem is an engineering issue that this can be

29:27 solved. So doing these kind of small, small things in daily activities made me realize that, okay, I'm probably I'm a good leader in guiding people how to solve a problem. So that's one of those

29:42 moments that I felt like maybe I am good as a CEO. And second of all, dealing with partners. So it was just like talking to corporates. In my basic idea, I was like talking to companies, big

29:56 companies, big positions, maybe I need to prepare myself. But I realized it was just a conversation. You're having with another person, forget about being corporate, forget about being a big

30:08 position person. You're just sharing your technology to someone who has a need for it. And they're sharing their pain points to you. And you're providing a solution to them. In that way, we were

30:19 able to force those partnerships, get into deals. And whenever the deals were closed, I was like, Wow. I'm a good CEO. We did the thing, right. And in the early stages, I was involved in

30:34 focusing on how to better pitch. And during those time, I have won multiple pitch competitions that really boosted my moral and my perspective that being a CEO, maybe this is what I need to do,

30:48 have a good way to share or speak out what we are trying to solve I

30:55 guess expand a little. I think it is like being a founding CEO is very hard. And part of it is like when you're at a company, you can think about like, you have these consensus builders, where

31:06 you're kind of figuring out how to get everyone involved. And then you also just need to be a wartime kind of CEO when things don't work. And in kind of a traditional business, you're like one or

31:16 the other. But when you're like at an early stage startup, you do need to kind of foster creativity and you get everyone on board. But then there's moments when shit hits the fan and you're like,

31:26 no, no, no. we got to actually pull it in. And I think that kind of stretchiness you have to be as a founder, you either learn it or you don't. And if you aren't able to kind of stretch between

31:36 those kind of different modes, the company won't make it. And so kind of being in this crucible is a hard thing to learn. And it's really something that you get as trial by fire. But I don't know

31:50 not if you still know. I think, I mean, it's super important. It makes me think of like, there's some kind of people, there's some people who like get really bogged down with like small things

31:58 and like perfection. And like they'll be like, hey, like get really stressed about that. And when like something even big happens, then you know, they're actually not able to handle it. I'm

32:10 able to zoom out and say we're gonna pull the team together. Yeah, pull the team together. And then there are other people who actually

32:16 when shit really hits the fan, like they can be pretty bogged down with the details and stuff. But when shit hits the fan, they're just like, Able to calm the team. because that's the moment when

32:27 everyone is freaking out. And your team is especially like, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. But you as a leader have to kind of project that calm to everybody and say, We can

32:38 handle it. Let's roll our sleeves up and figure outhow we're gonna solve this and just focus on thatinstead of thinking about the crisis. And it's just,

32:49 I mean, I think that's really important for a startup CEO because there are gonna be many of those crisis moments It's like every month. Every month, it's like this, yeah. A month is probably a

32:59 stretch every week. Yeah, so more than being like a detailed oriented CEO, you have to actually be someone who's like, doesn't stress too much about the details, but then, but those details can

33:10 be really important to go, like when you're consenting a step. Yeah, right. I mean, that's pretty important that, you know, as the CEO who is guiding a company, also doing product development,

33:22 also making sure that the marketing expect how we market our product ourselves to other people, they have small details too. I'm picking a key about that too. My two co-founders, they're great.

33:36 They've been very supporting along the way, but they would always question, is I'm not gonna like this? Is it gonna be commenting about the color or the size or this? What about the design? So I

33:46 think it has to be a mix of kind of both. It's a mix of both. Exactly. And what I've learned is now we have teams that we're managing all around the world. And when we're short at time, like in

33:58 the beginning, I'd be like, no, do it this way, this is wrong. I would be very direct. But I've actually now also learned to slow down. And instead of telling them what the right answer is,

34:08 just ask questions. So, okay, you saw this. What do you think is the answer? And then ask it again, ask it again until they say it. And then the response isn't 'cause usually when I tell them,

34:18 they'd be like, oh, okay, okay, I get it get a bit stressed that I am telling them. But then when it actually comes to them themselves, They're a bit more like, oh, okay, interesting. And

34:28 it's a bit empowering, you know? So it's like, I'm also working as a leader to like change. And that means like moving away from like the sense of urgency all the time, to like just slowing down

34:38 and guiding them more. Because eventually my goal is that a year from now, they can completely take over, right? And for that, you have to stop being so directive, right? What do you think? I

34:50 agree with that, yeah, yeah. And something I've seen from some of our founders who've kind of grown companies above 100 people So like not where you are today, but like a place you have to go is,

34:59 um, uh, you know, that question always comes up. It's like who's going to, are they going to like it? Are they going to approve it? And, and I found for our successful founders, um, you,

35:10 you have to like lead with an accolade and then criticize. And, and, and it helps to take the edge off of that concern. It's like, you guys are going in a great direction. I love this, this and

35:20 this, but try to change this or try to redirect this or try to think about this. cautious about the way we said, 'cause sometimes we think we don't have time, so I'm just gonna directly say it.

35:29 But like you're saying, you have to wrap things around. It starts happening when the business gets big enough that you're starting to separate a little bit from the team, because you don't have the

35:38 opportunity to have an individual relationship with everyone. And so in some ways,

35:46 the positive reinforcement must lead. And it's the culture that you're building with that. And I strongly believe positive feedback works way better than like even criticizing them. But like if you

35:57 overemphasize on the good things that they're doing, 'cause you really want them to keep on doing this, like they will listen. And often we kind of gloss over their things that they do really well

36:08 because we get so used to them. Yeah, that's so great. It's like, this is perfect. I don't need to worry about that. I don't need to say that. But you have to continue to worry about it. We

36:14 have to continue to kind of bring that back and say, listen, the reason I have you on this job is 'cause you're very good at doing this, this, and this. And you have to remind them, do get

36:24 insecure and that won't serve us as a business. Absolutely. No, that's absolutely, I completely agree with you. And I think above everything being a founder, a CEO, the most important, I think,

36:40 motto that I kind of drive within myself is what really fascinates the work I am doing today

36:48 is the excitement, is the like creating something from ground up and converting that into a reality and for the better good of the world, that that is always something that drives me to do what I'm

37:03 doing today and turning your vision, your mission into reality that also excites me a lot that you have a team that is aligned with your vision, mission and then turning that into a reality. That

37:19 is the most fascinating thing about me being a founder and a CEO than a CEO. what excites me the most. It's an exciting journey for sure. And I mean, building is exciting, right? And what you're

37:28 doing is then getting your team inspired by that building. Exactly. And they feel like, okay, I'm contributing to something big 'cause you've shown them where the vision is. Yeah, awesome. And

37:39 so when you think back to yourself, I don't even know how many years ago was that? Was that four years ago? We were gonna hit four years anniversary this fall. What's some advice you would offer

37:47 to your aspiring self in terms of how to get into the sector, how to really lean into starting your business if you're to look back, if you were to look back, what's the advice you would give to

37:58 your younger self as like lessons learned over the last four years? So one of the, give us the biggest one. Yep, I know, yeah, the biggest one is one of the things that I've learned in the last

38:08 six months or a year that forging relationship with stakeholders, that was one of the things I was mostly focusing on, company, product, path to market, all of these, then I realized that, you

38:22 know, that. all my founders who successful actually raised, they always told me that, you know, they started 40 relationships with investors even a year or two years before even they wanted to

38:33 raise. It's something you start building with investors specifically if you want to raise capital, that they need to actually see where you start, how you have been growing, the things you've been

38:46 doing, that creates trust. And of course, they need to give you their money, capital, and trusting you, that is actually vital. So, when I wanted to raise capital, I started to build those

39:00 relationships. So, it takes time to build that trust with even with investors. So, that's something I would have done differently in the beginning that I tell other founders that, start, if you

39:10 have planned to raise capital, start talking to investors. Don't ask for money at this point, just start building those relationships, show them what you're trying to solve, Show them how you are

39:21 developing a company, yourself, your team. And once you actually need the capital, they know what you've been doing. So it's an easy, easy step at that, at that point. All right. I'm going to

39:32 shamelessly plug something we're doing here at the Nexus. Okay. So we're running a program called liftoff right now. And

39:41 the program is the tagline has launched or raised your first million dollars. And the common question we get from founders are, you know, I'm, I'm thinking about raising, but I'm not going to do

39:51 it for a year. Like, why should I take the class? And the answer is exactly what you just described. Like we're, we're offering the course so you can kind of learn investor mentality and learn

40:00 how to approach them, not because you need it in three months, but because you're going to need it in 12 to 18 months because you need to start setting up those relationships. And, uh, and, and

40:10 I think that that can really stretch out your timeline. Um, if you don't kind of start those relationships early and you don't need spend all your time meeting investors even if you meet like one a

40:20 week. Right, and allocate whatever it is, two hours out of 40. You know, it's time well invested in part because you're also doing your customer discovery in some ways, right? Like just how you

40:31 went out with iCorps, it's the same thing, you don't want to pitch. You want to learn what they want to buy, right? And so I think that's maybe a little lost on the fundraising process, but step

40:41 one on selling anything, just going to learn what the market wants. Yeah. And it's not like you're going out there pitching, but you know what we're doing here at Energy Technics is creating a lot

40:49 of those opportunities where you can just socialize with investors. And they get to know you a little bit, then they see you at the next office hours, together with the networking event that we do

40:59 afterwards, and they're seeing your progression over the year. And then there comes a point when you're actually ready to pitch to them, and they maybe see you at another event pitching, and

41:08 you're like, huh, I actually know Anwar, I really like him. Let's see if he's actually ready for investing in his company To talk to us, I mean, you were also really lucky. know, I think also

41:20 really wise to have gotten the grants that you got early on with NSF, the ICOR and the SBR grant. What has been your fundraising journey so far, you know, besides the grants that you've gotten,

41:34 the non-dilutive funding that you've gotten? Where has it taken you and what is your plan going forward? That's a great question. Thank you for that. So apart from the grants, I started raising

41:47 capital from the pre-seed. I wasn't looking at any institutional investors or accredited investors. At that point, I opened it to friends and family. People, I've been seeing every day, people,

42:01 they know me what I'm doing, what my work is about. So I didn't have to really tell them exactly from the beginning. So for the pre-seed, we were able to reach, I think, about a half, yeah,

42:12 300,

42:14 000 in total. That's pretty good. Yeah, it was You've got some good friends and family.

42:21 Yes, I do, I can agree with that.

42:24 So, and that kind of started off with my fundraising activity that, you know, previously was all grants or, you know, talking to federal, state level people just to make sure that we get this

42:35 grant to make a difference. That's where it started. Then I started to put together financials. Okay, let's see how much capital do we really need to get this product to market, what about our

42:48 team, or whoever you need to add, what are the costs that it looks like. When I started looking into that a little bit deeper, now I'm slowly stepping away from technical development work to more

42:59 of look overlooking the business side of the company. So I was like, okay, it seems like we have about

43:08 one and a half years of runway left. And so I need to start, you know, planning for fundraising at some point So, and even my advisors who I was struggling to get the. Advice from didn't really

43:19 you know us has been hey start talking to me from now on okay? You still have runway comfortable. You're good. It's a good runway you have that kind of like engraved me back And okay, I'm pretty

43:30 good right now I need to worry about that later and I've heard from other founders that you know they were able to raise within Couple of weeks to two months or three months so I thought that was a

43:40 process But they never told me that there's a huge longer process to that that is that relationship building That's the closing you're talking about so so that's so last year around fall I think it

43:54 was after the rice accelerator that I wanted to announce that we're raising a three million dollar fund Pretty much we came to a point where we have done everything We could do in our company team

44:07 wise technology wise validation wise customer wise It was at a point where we're like wow we have really Hit the edge where To move forward, we need more capital. To move forward, to the

44:21 development done, we need capital as well. Putting it all together at that point, the rise has really helped to kind of like drive us that a goal and vision on how to navigate the pathway. So

44:34 that's when I started to fundraise, started off with the investors. And I think since then, until now, my list has spoke to about 120-something investors so far, my everyday is like back-to-back

44:50 meetings with investors every day. And along the process, I've learned a lot on how to talk to them, how to learn from them, or how to actually market my product, or what are the reasons that

45:03 they're saying no. And as you can tell, I'm still pursuing the path. And that means I've heard too many nos.

45:13 And I'm pretty strong in hearing about noises, so it's okay. here and no. Yeah. I think one of the things that's I think challenging, especially being in your position is in some ways you were

45:25 building the business until it felt right to go out and raise the next round. And

45:31 you got

45:33 unlucky with timing because the fourth quarter was terrible to fundraise. Everyone was holding their chips trying to figure out who's going to be president and then Q1. We've seen a lot of people

45:44 take chips off the table in terms of actually deploying capital.

45:48 And it's funny. I was just thinking earlier today. Well, one of the founders we work with late in 2023 had just raised around. He'd raised like40 million. He's going to go out and raise again. I

46:03 was like, why? You got fresh capital. And he's got and his response was, well, it looks like we're going to have stuff dry up at the end of 2024. I don't want to make sure I have money in the

46:12 bank so that we're not stuck out in the cold and I think it's like a first time. fund-raiser founder, you don't appreciate how much you're at the whim of kind of these external capital cycles. It's

46:25 like, why would you? You've never been in kind of communication with that market before, but then B, it's like, yeah, the money should be there. We've got a good business.

46:36 These other guys raised20 million last quarter. Why can't I do it? They did it in six weeks and the reality is you're in some ways,

46:46 you're doing this impossible task of trying to manage your own market for your actual product, but managing the funky timing of when people have liquidity to invest in startups. I

46:58 don't know if anyone's going to go out there and prognosticate. This is the month you should go fundraise, but it's very clear that we're in this position now where it's like some people saw it

47:06 coming and then went out and got capital and then others, you were not in a position to know. Yeah, but they also say sometimes it's doing these dips is those companies that are able to forever.

47:17 persevere, like they have an advantage, right? If you have the capital discipline and you pull for it. Exactly, I mean, you bootstrap, you kind of, you know, maybe get some customers to pay

47:25 for something to kind of

47:28 have enough to make it out on the other end where suddenly there is capital. And they're not that many companies that are raising at that point because they're many that have not been able to survive

47:38 that dip. So, so there's something to be optimistic about, yeah At at one point, we completely ran out of capital for good, like three, four months. But we were still working. We're still

47:51 going on. We're like, you know, we will get there. So, so, and surprisingly we did. We got a couple of angels and we also received Department of Transportation's SBIR phase one. So that kind

48:04 of like helped us to, you know, get some leverage into the game as well. So yes, I mean, one of the one of the key things that even though we went to a dip, being able to survive that dip. and

48:16 now preparing since we have now comfortable runway to prepare for not to get into the dip anymore. Exactly. So that's something that I'm currently working on. And you're right, you're right, it's

48:27 the time and there's whatever going on that fundraising field is not as how it was years back. I did a couple of reasons too that what I've learned that from investment side is that, I mean, my

48:43 brother, he's also an entrepreneur and I've seen him starting his company later than me and myself and he raised six, 36 million and now he's up to getting like some87 million per series B and I'm

48:56 like, how are you doing this? And he's like, yes, good story, the team you have built and the technology itself is very attractive, it's much wanted. So, apart from having an attractive

49:09 technology, I think what we are dealing with is a niche market in the industry.

49:16 One of the challenges that I face myself personally is that when I talk to investors, they're hearing me about corrosion, they hear about oil and gas, and most investors trying to move away from

49:29 the fossil system to

49:32 more cleaner systems, clean energy systems. So we were trying, it was a struggle for us to make them believe that we are a clean tech. We are a clean energy. We are trying to increase efficiency,

49:43 decrease the carbon footprint, you know, make the world a better place. So that was a struggle for us. But what really helped us to change that was Greentown Labs. We were operating out of,

49:55 still in Cleveland, Ohio, and we did one of those accelerators from Aspire, and the Aspire program. Yeah, so during that time, we

50:10 were invited by Juliana Julian is the one who changed everything for me. making that strategic move from being moving from Cleveland to all over the Texas because this is where all the client

50:23 customers are, collaborators are, and investors in this space are here as well. So now moving to Green Town Labs at that point, you know, they're very picky with a pick. So having being part of

50:36 Green Town Labs automatically gave investors the prospect that we are clean tax, not clean energy

50:43 I'd try to remember, did we sit down and work on your carbon TEA together like in the early days when you came in? I don't remember. Yeah. Anyway, I remember there was a point where we're trying

50:54 to figure out like, what's the actual carbon cap, carbon abatement that I think you're technology? Yes, I think we did have a conversation. Yes, yes, yes, that's the first time we sat down to

51:02 actually myself going into the research of finding out what exactly are those numbers that actually carbonate we were doing. And we were able to scope that out and that we have a number It's like

51:13 having that language around. Yeah, what does it actually mean when people want to understand impact and it comes down to that metric? I'm looking at the clock and unfortunately, we have to start

51:22 whining. Yeah. No, but it's amazing to just hear about your journey and that we were, you know, we always love it when we were able to inspire companies from other parts of the US. to move to

51:31 Houston. Because yeah, your customers are here and also able to help you on framing it towards investors. So great to hear that I mean, not only investors' perspective, I think Houston

51:44 specifically has a great ecosystem for entrepreneurs, starting from advisors, the, you know, fellow founders. And the ecosystem is so big and large that everyone is willing to provide their two

51:59 cents to whatever you're doing. And I thought that was more even better than investors or clients, because the ecosystem itself is pretty strong here the opportunities for what I'm building, the

52:12 more I'm learning, that if I want to manufacture it, the opportunity actually lies all here. So I don't have to look elsewhere for in terms of growing the company, looking for talents,

52:23 manufacturing the technology, everything is in Houston. So that made me more confident that I can do this here. Awesome, I was glad to hear. So what's one thing the audience could do for you? If

52:36 you're listening to this show. Are you hiring? Yeah. I have a need of talent at this time But that is now contingent to the fundraise. Yep, of course. So I can start talking with them, if

52:47 anybody's interested. Like right now we are two and a half founders, two and a half people in the company. So I mean, we leveraged interns from many places. They were really good. But imagine

53:01 how much work we had to put to where we are today with the right resources, with the right team, with the right partnership. We can do so much more.

53:11 If people are willing to take a little bit of risk and work with you early, compensation doesn't always have you payroll, but there's tons of talent that's kind of coming out of the traditional

53:20 energy industry today. And I think if they're looking for a great startup to be part of, this is one of the ones. And how can people find you? Well, find me at, I'm part of a couple of

53:33 incubators here and of course my email is there and I'm always active in any sort of events that is happening for networking So yeah, I mean, I don't know if you want to share the email through this

53:43 - LinkedIn. LinkedIn. LinkedIn, yeah. LinkedIn is the best way of course, not to mention. So yeah, people can find me there. And people can reach out to us and we'll continue to - Absolutely.

53:52 I mean, once I see this recording, I'm sure name email will be there as well. So yeah, absolutely looking for talents, looking for, of course, investors as well at this time. So anyone who's

54:02 interested in increasing the safety and efficiency of our industrial infrastructure is to reach out. Awesome, thank you.

54:11 That's great.