Jeffery:Welcome to Impact Investing brought to you by the Supporters Fund. From the crispy, creamy and sweet pasties, the nata a secret 19th century recipe capital of the world. Lisbon, Portugal. I’m your host, Geoffrey JP Potvin. And let’s please welcome Lawrence Yan from Taipei with the tallest green building in the world, the Taipei 101. Welcome, Lawrence. It’s a real pleasure having you join us today.

Lawrence: Thank you. JP Thank you for having me. Really excited to be here today.

Jeffery:Well, I’m excited to have you today, Lawrence, on the pod, because what excites me about this is that you’re living in Taipei, but you’ve also lived in China and a few other countries and including brought up in Canada. So there’s so much crossover in your world, in global travels, but also in the impact investing that you’re making that it gets me really excited to be able to dive in and learn a bit more about yourself and the way that we love to start off our show is that we want you to give us a bit of a background all the way from your back to your University of Toronto days. And then one thing about you that nobody would know.

Lawrence: Yeah, Thank you, JP. So I was born in Taiwan and I moved to Vancouver when I was 11 in 91, and on spoke a little bit of English and basically took myself all the way through to college in Toronto and I’m today still, I’m a Raptors fan, I’m a Maple Leafs fan and still root for the Blue Jays. So those series really changed me in those ways. And, you know, after I graduated from college, I want to come back to Asia because that was 2004. That was a time when Shanghai was bustling. So I actually took a trip to Shanghai in 2004. And at the dinner table, there were folks from Germany, from Spain, from us, of course, Canada, Argentina, all over the world in their twenties, and just looking for something new. And it just totally felt like a land of opportunity. So that was when I decided to kind of move from Canada back to Asia and put myself in Shanghai back then on then I got into banking. Of course, that was I took the finance route in U of T and did that for a few years before I want to try the route of running a business. So in 2010, a very good friend of mine from L.A., went back to Taiwan and he wanted to start this beverage business. And it was something very similar to Red Bull back then, an energy drink. It was a really pick me up back then. So we went back to Taipei and we started a brand new beverage brand from from scratch. So we tasted all kinds of energy, drink off the shelf, and then we found a formula. We went, yams and did the entire process ourselves, from manufacturing to retail channels to branding and promotions and everything. So that was my first startup experience. And then after a couple of years, the company studied and a friend of my asking me if I want to help with the venture capital that she is running. And that’s how I got into venture capital. And since then I guess that was 2012. I co-founded four businesses. One of them failed. I tried to do e-commerce in China. That didn’t work out very well, way too competitive. I did the beverage company with a friend of mine. We also did a I did two food and beverage company, one of them in China, which grew from a zero stores from P50 in 2018 till today. There are 2000 franchisees across China, so that did it quite well. And another ready to drink cocktail company I also co-founded that went to Series B, so a lot of it in the consumer segment with my startups and also through my venture capital days. I, I was looking to average generic subject. So from software to hardware to retail to consumer, etc. But then by 2019, I started focusing into the area of climate just because I thought, it’s going to be something unfortunately that’s going to get more attention as time progresses in the next ten years or so. And plus, you know, it appears to be that a lot of the technology in climate technology is related to hardware, which is something that, you know, me coming from Taiwan is pretty good at. You know, Taiwan makes a bunch of stuff. So in 2019 and of beginning of 2020, I got a bunch of my friends together. And you know, these guys are they may be running family businesses or running family offices. And I sat them down and said, Hey, guys, listen, you’re all in a variety of industries, in hardware and traditional manufacturing, in tech manufacturing. And listen, the world is going to become more sustainable in our consumption, whether you like it or not. So, you know, for you guys in textile, in footwear, in cement and steel, in glass, you know, the guys who really have had to innovate in the past 40 years, I’m like, hey, you know, this ought to change in the next ten years because we’re going to have things like carbon credit. We’re going to have things like energy, energy consumption measurements. So why don’t we take our knowhow in our manufacturing industries and, you know, raise our hands and say we could be a part of the solution when the world is trying to become more sustainable? So early, 2020, right before COVID, we started a small fund together. And this is why I’m today, you know, the capital fund, where we are investing into climate tech and sustainability technology across the world. And our mission is really to try to connect Asia with global technologies. And our thesis is that, you know, in the US and Canada and Europe, you know, there are great scientists, great technologies, great institutions for the best minds to excel and to really go beyond their abilities. But then, like I also realized that for a lot of these technologies in climate technology or sustainability, whether you’re talking about energy, you’re talking about material, we’re talking about food, agriculture. most of these are hardware businesses, meaning that unlike software where you get a bunch of engineers together or you write a script, an algorithm, you launch on a website and they advertise on Google or Facebook and off you go. When it comes down to hardware, it’s people say it’s hard. Business is not because it’s technology is hard. Of course the technology is hard. But the tough part is that there are so many incumbents in place. So you have to talk to upstream suppliers, downstream customers and the whole ecosystem is so complicated that for a newcomer, it’s always so taxing on their time, on their mindspace. So what we’re trying to do from Taiwan is, hey, since we have all the industries available within a four about four block radius, essentially we make a bulk of the footwear is that we’re wearing T-shirts, shirts, jeans, software, data centers, all kinds of stuff. Since we make obviously ready, since we are incumbents in the industry already, why don’t we take our knowhow and try to help sort of to get into these segments and make their lives easier? So so yeah, we’re trying to use our our network in Taiwan with the family businesses, these incumbents, and say, hey, if we could invest into new technologies and be healthy technologies, incorporate themselves into the supply chain, maybe we could help them accelerate their go to market timing by a year or two years and if that’s the case, I think they’ll be a blessing to everyone in the climate space because we need to make sure all these awesome technologies are in the market as soon as possible, as fast as possible for us to really have a chance right now. So is that story to offer you.

Jeffery:Know, that was perfect. That was that was a great share. And I’m going to kind of unpack some of this so that we can dive into a few of these things that you talked about. And but before we do one thing about you that nobody would know.

Lawrence: I am I am like yourself. I am a total introvert. I hated going on stage. I hate talking to people. I love my corner. But somehow here I am today talking to you. I guess two introverts together on a conversation.

Jeffery:I love it. Well, that means that we’re going to one. We spend a lot of time looking and watching the world. And then too, we have a million opinions. We just don’t share them enough. So in this case, I guess we get to share them quite a bit because we get to bounce them back and forth. So I love it. So I don’t want to go all the way back to kind of well, you know, you spent some time in Toronto, so you’ve got this really good landscape idea of kind of the ecosystem that’s going on in Canada as well as in China. And I know when we were chatting last time, you mentioned something that was really kind of cool to me, and I’ve never heard this from other investors before or from really anybody, is that you said I have a place in China because China is innovating so quickly that I need to be able to go there and spend some time just so that I can keep track of everything that’s going on, so that I can figure out how to bring that back to mainland where I’m going to be working in in the investor space. Can you talk a bit more about that? Because to me, I just that’s the only thing I could keep out of my head. I was like, Man, that’s so cool. Not too many people would say, I need to be in the center all the time because innovation is happening so quickly and I need to stay up with it. And China’s always been looked at as this kind of taking IP and not really benefiting the rest of the world. And in your terms, you’re saying, no way, man, China is on fire. They’re building, they’re growing, they’re innovating every second of the day. And when you go there, you get to learn more about what they’re doing and how much more advanced they are than the rest of the world. Can you share a little bit more about that experience and why that China’s in such a fast moving environment?

Lawrence: Yeah, Yeah. Of course. So back in September, I went to New York for a Climate Week and it was great. A lot of conferences are discussions about, you know, where the world is going. The Fortune 500, there were startups, investors, all sorts. But one thing I felt that was missing was a, of course, presence from a lot of Chinese representatives. And too there were even a lot of Asian representatives. So you don’t see a lot of folks from Japan, from South Korea, Hong Kong on. So to me, I think you’re really missing a big part of the puzzle here. We’re not having these guys on stage. So on China, you know, the reason why I wanted to be in Shanghai, I was actually in Shanghai throughout COVID, for better or worse. But the reason for that is, you know, today’s media is so robust in Europe and U.S. and Canada that we can know what’s happening in U.S. and Canada and Europe wherever we want. We are right. There are the ten questions are TechCrunch fast companies. You could get all the information you like about these areas, but nobody really knows what’s happening in China, right? People assume they know, you know, from what they hear from the Western media. But the reality is, you know, even by being in Shanghai, I still have very little idea what’s happening around the rest of the places in China because it’s such a we have 1.4 billion people working on something. Something’s working, something’s you’re not aware of is being worked on. So that’s the fun part of it. And so by being here, you get to hear and have the pulse on the ground and to really understand what they are working on and, you know, the areas that they’re really focusing at. For example, you know, just on a random a WeChat message, kind of like the Facebook for for WeChat, which is kind of scrolling and then now this friend of mine, he was sharing on a hydrogen economy, basically, you know, it’s a VC from Beijing and they had to start of camp. They had this whole industrial park basically set up for the whole hydrogen industry. So you asked seven hubs, right? Tell them how do hubs that was start out investors. But when China does it, they just put it on steroids, right? When they want to autonomous driving, they will take on this brand new city and just make sure that it is being tested and done in that particular city. And people are talking about different materials. Let me tell you the story about one of the investments I made back in 2013 as a as an example. So with my previous firm, one of the deals we did was in a battery material company. And back then in 2013, EVA was happening, but it was not happening. I recall back then Tesla was making of course, and then they were not making enough course. So people were still kind of a skeptical whether or not Tesla will become a thing or not. Of course, they’re looking back. Of course it’s going to be a thing, right? Imagine it’s checked every box on our score sheet. But in 2013, that wasn’t the case. But then in China, we’re hearing noise about chains and wanting to switch their entire taxi fleet to electric vehicle. Back then, it was unthinkable right? There were there were not enough charging stations, there were not enough infrastructure. We did not know if these cars are well built enough where they catch fire. All of these were services and question marks. But they made it happen. They made it happen. They may be what happened? Bhiwadi became the largest battery manufacture in the world. Buffett invested and then everything else was public story from that point onwards. But it’s just fascinating how a combination between government incentive, between the central government, the municipal government, and the startups themselves can really work their magic. That’s not to take away anything from the entrepreneurs, because I remember from an interview, Munger did that the founder of the idea was a genius. Like he built stuff and they worked relentlessly. Like there are no I’m not sure if you heard of the term of 996, meaning that, you know, people in China that work from nine in the morning to nine that evening for six days a week. And so if you combine all these ingredients together, it really shouldn’t be a surprise where they used to be a player who copy technology from different places. Now they could be leaders in in different areas. So so yeah, I think like you said, for me, it’s really fascinating to really understand to kind of be in a black box because to me, China is like the black box of information. You don’t really get much outside of China, but by being inside of it, I get to know what they’re working on. And when I do, when I assess my investments, I get to take more of a global perspective. Because today, if you’re sitting on a climate conference or in a tech conference, if you’re excluding China and India, that’s not global. And that’s that’s two of the largest populations you ever find the world. And if you’re talking about climate problems, it’s not going to get solved without China. India on the table. So so anyway, again, a short story long, but this is the reason why I really enjoy kind of being in multiple places, understand where all the technologies are going for for these different players.

Jeffery:I love it and I think that the 996 is pretty much adaptable across Asia. I know it’s pretty strong in Japan as well. They do a lot of a very similar setup when it comes to operational and working. So I think that it carries through well, I’m not sure North America’s picked up on that, other than they probably dislike it. But I think if you want to make a quick bounce into a market and you want to learn it, be the best at it, You do have to put that time into it. And the you know, as much as we maybe grudgingly want to accept that hard work, hard work is what pays off in the end. And, you know, it doesn’t matter how much you get paid or any of those things when it first starts, it’s how much effort you put in having things. You’re going to learn who you’re going to meet, and then the money will eventually come. So it’s kind of fascinating that they call it the 996. I’ve never actually heard the term, but I’m pretty familiar with it globally. And it’s interesting, like when you started to kind of share and I think if we go back to even when you started your energy drink company, I think that, you know, with the way everything that’s going on in China and I’ve always felt the same, China’s a bit of a black box. You don’t know what’s going on. But today they’re advancing technologies a lot faster. And perhaps to your point, early on, maybe years back, ten, 20 years ago, there was some IP learning taking and utilizing. And today they’re more advanced in a lot of these areas because of what they’ve built. You know, the whole world looked at China as being the offset for reduced labor costs functionality, getting it the product to market. And I think that that was a huge advancement on behalf of China that, you know, they said, hey, we can do this. We’ll keep everything at these regulated costs and now we’re going to do is we’re going to be advancing faster than you because you put all your tech in our space. You wanted us to come up with a clever way to build all of this stuff for for minimal costs. So we’ve made you our money. And now today we’re going to be a global power because of it. And I think you’re seeing a lot of that happen in the in the global geopolitical world is that this is all coming to a bigger position for China. But when you started your first company, you went into the energy drink side and you were competing against, as you said, the Red Bulls of the world and you went into operations, manufacturing, maybe use a bit of China to build this. I just remember at that same time you were talking about that somebody tonight were looking at being distributors of Red Bull thinking, could we do this in Canada? Before it actually was in Canada, unfortunately chose that we didn’t have the right abilities to do that. And long and behold, it’s become kind of the energy drink to go to across the world. But when you went through the experience that you did and you said you found the formulations you built that are there are three or four things that really stood out to you today on what you accomplished during that journey that you could share that really will help others understand what it takes to be that entrepreneur?

Lawrence: absolutely. There’s nothing that can prepare you to to start a company, absolutely nothing. You have no idea what’s ever going to hit. You don’t. So the best way to start a business is to start a business. No textbook is going to prepare you for that. Nothing is so yeah, I think it really taught me how difficult it is to start a business and how fragile it could be. It’s not that people always paint a beautiful picture. We talk about finding a company, but it’s so rough. And I recall Sheri Jensen flying an interview, right, Talking about she would never start a business if you were to do it again. Similarly. But I think thinking back, it was tough. It was a lot of, you know, slap in the faces. But we don’t regret it because had we not gone through that journey, all of the companies that comes after that would be even more difficult because I think every step you take, every mistake you make, only make you more resilient and experience. You can learn it anywhere. Yeah.

Jeffery:It it really is true that once you get in there in the thick of things, you know, I saw this Sam Altman discussion where he’s talking about starting a company and what he learned. And it’s interesting that the whole time it was your whole existence is solving problems every day you’re being thrown more problems, people problems. This problem, that problem. And you’re always trying to fix them to move forward. And I think to your point is that if you didn’t start and the whole idea is just get out there and start start something. And when you did do that, you’ve got the learning that allowed you to cut out for more businesses after that. And I think that that’s pretty exciting and pretty phenomenal because a lot of people, like you said, may not have ever decided to go back and continue to build a company. It was too much work or too much hassle. I’m going to guess you kind of created a template said here are the types of things that we’re going to do. This is how we can tackle these problems. And if we do this, this and this, maybe you can list with those four things. Are it really helped you build the next four companies that allowed you to be able to go through and do them maybe a lot easier. Maybe it was different people, different focus. But whatever those things are, I think they’re that template to what you’re doing today, which is the venture side. It’s similar venture side where you’re going out and finding techs that you want to invest in so that you can apply them and cut back 1 to 2 years off their growth pattern because you can help them through all of that because of what you guys built before. So maybe you can share a bit more about what those cookie cutter things are that are really important. I know everybody. I’ll throw one out there. Everybody always says team. But team is tough when there’s no money. So you can’t go and hire the best coder when you know they are costing 800,000 and they’re good enough to steal them from Openai. So how did you work through those? And maybe give a couple of hints on what really makes a great business to move it forward and how you did it?

Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. I forgot where I heard it from, but it really made a lot of sense to me is that, you know, of course, other journey really let me understand how difficult it is and what someone said it was when you’re just starting to invest, you try to look for the rule, but then once you kind of get out of the woods or once you start getting your feet wet, you start to look for the exception and so before people would look for a particular model to look out to go after when they invest. But now I tend to look for a differentiator like, you know, ABC is pretty general. You know, this could be copied or this could be caught up very, very quickly. But this particular team has a particular asset that just cannot be replicated, whether it is their experience, whether it is their birth experience, the childhood experience that they had when they were raised. It could be education, it could be a mentality, something there that’s different, that cannot be copied, the product can be copied, the technology can be copied, but it might be the resilience. It may be that they have the network and nobody could copy. So going back, I think instead of looking for the rule or that person who kind of matches, you know, the next Zuckerberg, next Bezos, the next. Altman You try to find the exception, try to be somebody who is different than who’s out there right now. And and then with our experiences, we try to fill the gap, right? Because especially where you’re an early investment, no company is perfect. Like nobody’s going to check all the boxes. But as long as we understand that, A, they have a particular asset that could excel and be the rest of the things that we could build a solid, you know, an advisor group or with an investment cap table to fill the gaps, I think that gives you a better chance of winning out. At the end of the day.

Jeffery:No, I love that. And finding the gap or filling the gaps, I guess, and being resilience and networks and differentiator, it really comes down to being able to, one, understand what they’re trying to solve and what they’re doing and then what makes them exceptional for everybody else that’s in the same field. Is there something that’s going to make them different? And I’ve probably talked to this a few times throughout the podcast, but one of them was flow, water flow, hydration. You know, when they first came out, everybody just said, another water company. But the difference for me when I saw them and made an investment into them feels like it was almost nine, ten years ago. Was that it wasn’t just another water company. Their differentiator that was made them completely pop out of nowhere was the fact that they were branding, They were building a brand health and wellness brand that didn’t exist. So they were going above and beyond to show and prove that there’s something bigger and more out there than just water in a bottle. Yeah. And then, of course, they went into the completely green space trying to figure out Tetra Pak doing something different. So the differentiators were there and everything else, but it was all about the style of branding and how they were appealing to a large segment of people and users. So I guess in the same instances that it doesn’t have to be the differentiator, it doesn’t have to be always the product or the team. It could be the branding, could be there’s a lot of elements, but what makes them stand out above everybody else?

Lawrence: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Recall I mentioned the the battery mature. I invested it back in 2013. The founder of the CEO of the company was born in China, but then he went to Toronto for four. But the story was when he bought a one way ticket from China to Toronto. And then the first thing he did after the plane landed was to be on the street selling flowers because that’s how he could make and pay his tuition and his rent. So he was literally like a student selling flowers on the side of the street. And I think that builds character, that building resilience. And in comparison, you know, a lot of the kind of monkey wrench thrown at you where any business starts mattering a lot less when you kind of went through that to become who you are today.

Jeffery:So I agree with that. I think what’s the winning side to that is that when you are faced with the realities and survival is the only way to go, that you’ll do whatever it takes. And if you have a passion that’s really strong for what you’re trying to build, you’re going to do whatever it takes to get that off the ground. And I’m sure there’s a lot of great stories out there of founders that started off and did everything they could to push something like the lady that wrote all my card. What’s the famous, like eight movies on Sorcery, which is, my God, why am I having a brain for Harry Potter? So same idea with her was right down to the wire. Like the last You win the game, you win. The award was right down to the wire, right? And she was like, I’m on my last straw. I don’t know if this is going to work. And then found someone that believed that or so I completely agree with you, that you have to do whatever it takes to survive, and especially when you believe passionately about something that you’re good at or that you’re going to build, that’s going to change the world, kind of have to stay in, stick behind it as much as you can.

Lawrence: Yeah. So to keep this moving.

Jeffery:Forward, it there’s some other cool things that I want to kind of unpack. And when you started to move and shift and decided back during the COVID time that you wanted to go into more of this climate tech green space and you started to make that changeover and you’ve already made investments that were in the sustainable space, what kind of gave you that driver decision to say, I want to get behind this, This is where I want to be, this is where I think we’re going to see the most impact and change in the world. What was that kind of turning point for you that that kind of steps you into that new direction?

Lawrence: Well, A, because I think for better or worse, it’s a good business decision because whether we like it or not, the climate problem is not going to be solved in the next ten or 20 years. So if that’s the case, there’s always going to be innovations, there’s always going to be a problem solvers, trying to make things better and upfront and the demand is going to be there. So that’s for better or worse. But B, you know, I think this is where my experiences and our partners businesses can really come and play and be a driving factor. I think personally, I, I try not to be a pure financial investor or a boardroom investor, but not to say that they don’t create any value, but maybe because I my background coming from having co-founded four businesses that I like to, you know, be involved in the business and see how we can help drive it, because if we can do that, we understand the business better and be our investment risk get reduce drastically as well because we’re partially in control like we know how far we can help to take this company forward as well. And so I have the confidence that, you know, with our income industries in Taiwan that we can help so many of these startup go their businesses out, whether it is through sells, through supply chain streamlining. And if if we could do that for for these companies, I think it’s a win win win for everyone involved. So maybe that’s where our value could be created and see if we could if the icing on the cake is for the world to be better, you know, what better business is there. So I really enjoyed doing this and I enjoyed talking with you about this and I’m pretty sure this is not something that’s going to become a bubble, so to speak, because I think whatever progress we can make with these technologies is only going to be better for the business and for the world. So there are no complaints.

Jeffery:I like that. And it kind of reminds me of when people were coming up with green based products. You know, at the beginning there was a lot of greenwashing products that said that they were green and sustainable and natural, and 90% of them were just labels and all kind of fake, you know. But if you looked at it then and said the same thing that you just said now is that it’s an industry that was going to keep growing and it wasn’t going to go away. It wasn’t just the bubble. It wasn’t something that was fly by night. It’s something that the world needed to change. And it’s starting to do that move away from chemicals and move away from plastics and everything else that have been going on. So to your point is that this climate tech or green tech, these spaces are something that we may look at as all this is just nice to have. It’s irrelevant. But I think when you do and read all the information that’s out there is that the world does need to change and that this is going to be something that’s only going to grow and get bigger and stronger. And it’s not going to be something that’s going to bubble bursts and become everybody is going to go back to the way things were. It is a progress in the growth of humanity. So I do agree 100% with that. And I think that’s amazing that you’ve taken this trajectory. To get into a couple of questions, because I think in this space there’s so many terms that get thrown around. So I’d love for you to kind of share a couple of details around these terms. And then the question. So I’ll kind of dive into a little bit. But so there’s a lot around sustainability. How is sustainability actually going to be sustainable? And maybe you can share a little bit on that. So I think that there’s a lot of that greenwashing that’s going on that people are getting frustrated by and then they say that they’re sustainable or they’re ESG based. All of these things, they all throw out the terms, the acronyms, but really at the end of the day, is there something that you define and say this is the better way to look at this, This is what’s going to bring sustainability to this market?

Lawrence: Yeah, I was talking to a founder I invested in and he said something that was very interesting, and I think most people will not realize is that, you know, what most people believe to be kind of decoupling from from petroleum. All we have to do is to drive a Tesla or E vehicle and the road. It will be okay. But fundamentally, our entire material and chemistry industry has been built upon petroleum. So if we have to decouple from petroleum, then we actually have to start from scratch. So from ground zero, we have to build all the particles differently. So whether it is through a belt based molecule, whether it is from a belt based material or a captured CO2, we have to completely revamped that because, you know, we have to stop digging carbon out of the ground. I think that’s something very clear to us already and only if we can reconfigure all of our consumption from the first particle onwards. I don’t think we can be sustainable in that way. So that’s one part of the equation. Another is, you know, how do we make sure that whatever we throw away really gets reused again? So you know been talking to a few battery recyclers as well today. Why are we digging up more lithium, more cobalt, more manganese from the ground when these are available, when we are showing available lithium, cobalt, manganese, putting it into landfills, you know, having these pollute our soil, where can we recycle these instead of mining more of these materials out of the ground? So I think all of these are technologies where we could try to make it more circular, whether it is from a C stock basis or from material basis. And only technology can can make this happen. I think kind of like the leap from a Nokia and Motorola to iPhones, If we could make that kind of a leap in these technologies, then absolutely, I think we will we will be able to have a circular economy where we will find equilibrium in our environment and our consumption all over again.

Jeffery:I love that. And I totally agree. And I think it was something that the petroleum industry did intentionally, which was find ways to use petroleum to become the sticky part of everything that’s being developed. And I think the trajectory started in the sixties when everything started to become petroleum based from how you make products to your homes, to everything across the board. So it made it so sticky that everything had to be used that way. And today it’s now trying to re-engineer that process and saying, how can we build better products that don’t have to use all of these types of resources? And, you know, to your point about Tesla and everything else, even in the battery space, you know, it’s the manufacturing that goes on in the background that creates just as much offset or problems in the environment. But the perceived value is that these are solving the world’s problems, but they don’t look at what’s being created in the background. And I think that circular economy, to your point, is that how do you close this environment off in a circular way and re utilize everything in that environment to build a real value for the population? So they’re getting something out, but they’re reusing everything that they take so that that we’re not stuck with a lot of outside waste and we’re not stuck with products that get disposed of and take centuries to break down, whatever that might be. And, you know, I found it interesting that about maybe a week back, I was listening to a few different podcasts and they started to actually break down a lot of this rhetoric that’s been around saying plastic bags are bad, straws are bad, The breakdown takes this. And they actually dove into this. They said, you know, this was all done by organizations trying to create value for themselves, that they created these false narratives so that people would get fearful of it, block it.

Jeffery:But when they broke it down, they actually said, no, the plastic bag breaks down in 30 days and this was made up. It was never this 10,000 years. And all of the trash that was found in the animals that was just placed there and done for photoshoots and everybody just wanted to falsely believe this. But what they didn’t understand is that they had to do this in order to create an urgency which created new markets. But at the same time, what I think it also did is it started to allow people to innovate and say, wait a second, there’s something better we can do with this. So it’s May they may have been trying to save their industry, but what they did is they sprouted up thousand more businesses that were going to tackle this problem and actually find a better way so that you couldn’t go and try and create all this false narratives around the storylines that they were trying to create and actually crushed those businesses that were doing that because they were finding better ways to create that circular economy, create better products that were sustainable.

Lawrence: Yeah, absolutely. So people always get really surprised when, you know, when I tell them that, you know, most people know that you’re your your cars use gasoline and petroleum. That’s people know that your plastic bottles are made from portfolio even less. People know about the fact that their nylons come from petroleum and even less people know about the fact that their shampoos and detergent come from petroleum. So I think people always get surprised about, you know, how ubiquitous the material is. And going back to your point, we really have to find the technology that helps us decouple ourselves from these, you know, fossil fuels, these fossil carbon that’s been buried underground for billions of years, which could eventually really hurt our climate if if we don’t do something about it.

Jeffery:Agreed. Well, the last questions we’re going to I’m going to ask before we dive into our 62nd rant is in the impact side. You’re starting to see a lot more businesses today than ever before. Coming up with that closed circle loop where they’re reusing everything that they’re building. Is there a way that allows for companies today then your vision and what you’ve seen in China and around where companies are able to start off at 100%, say, renewable when they start their business? Or is it always going to be that they’re trying to get to this 100% circular economy, economy in their business? Is there any businesses that you’ve seen that from day one, they were able to start off right away and make sure that they kind of closed loop to everything.

Lawrence: But the truth is, I don’t think the technology is available and ready for that to happen today. Just to give an example, a friend of mine, they’re trying to make a material that’s targeted targeting to be businesses, but that could replace all the plastic packaging material in the B-to-B businesses. So today we’re seeing problems in, of course, plastic bags or Amazon packages. That’s a problem. Everyone sees and labels and targets, but nobody sees the plastic being used in supply chain. Right. Today, you’re you’re shipping a produce from farm to your table. How much plastic it is use in between you’re shipping. It could be semiconductor manufacturing or the perfect trees you use the etc. All of these, they may actually add up to more than the consumer packaging that we’re seeing on the ground. But people just don’t see it. And if they don’t see it, they don’t recognize it and they account for that into the equation. So I think by today’s technology, it’s going to be very hard because it’s just everywhere. But what’s really comforting is that there are people from different angles, different trades are working on these solutions. So give it 3 to 5 years. I think you’ll see a lot of these companies coming out of stealth and really providing a solution at a price parity, which is also a critical point because I think a lot of these are available, but they’re not a scale of prosperity. If that’s not the case, then it’s never going to fly. So I think in three or five years what you just said earlier can accompany START at 100% sustainable. I think that can happen in just give it five years to be safe, but I think we’ll have the technology ready for that.

Jeffery:I think that’s great and it’s a good projection because I do agree that there’s, you know, when you start off, do your best to get to that, but also have a roadmap on how you can get to 100%. And, you know, eventually in time, just like when the Internet started to build a website costs ship order thousand or $1,000,000 to build. They are eventually able to get to these two cookie cutter as well. And that took maybe 20 years. So this is working at a lot faster speed. So there’s a potential that you can start building products in a faster, higher volume way. And to the biggest point that you shared there is that at par, they’re competitive, they’re making money. And I think the last part to this solution and I think you talked about this in one of your other podcasts was people have to be able to generate revenue and generate a value that’s going to allow them to pay for all of this and cover those costs. I think that also makes it very sustainable. But it also proves that I can build a company that is 100% closed loop circular, and it allows for all the businesses to be able to recoup and, make the money they need in order to grow this business and be sustainable and be impactful and spread their technology around the world. And those things are all come from the innovation to your point is what’s getting built over the next 5 to 10 years?

Lawrence: Yeah, fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

Jeffery:I love it. All right. We’re going to change into the Rapid Fire. So this is how it works. You have 60 seconds. I’m going to hit the timer. I will throw my hand up when you’ve got 5 seconds left. Typically, I never do that because the reds to good. So I end up letting it go for a little bit longer. But I’ll, I’ll do that and then I’ll throw in one rebuttal. But the idea is just anything that drives me crazy about anything and that I’m going to try and have some sort of rebuttal to help you and then you close it off. Ready to roll?

Lawrence: Yeah, Yeah, Let’s do it.

Jeffery:All right. You’re good to go. Start.

Lawrence: Yeah, I think so. Very similar to what we were just discussing today in our conversation is I also think Asia needs to be a part of the puzzle in the global solution climate, just because, you know, people in clean tech 1.0 complain and curse out China because they were undercutting prices and government subsidies and all these stuff, basically allowing the US companies to for dead basically. And my argument for that is yeah, because they were competitive and the government was working together and if it wasn’t for China, we will never have the renewable energy source we have today. That will never happen. We will have the price, the cost of a solar panel, maybe three times of five times it is today. And we will never have the power generation and the cost for a few to to even give us a chance to make sure that things are renewable. So today. But whether it is, you know, U.S., Southeast Asia, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Eastern Europe, anywhere, if they could give us the best solution at the best prices, we can build off that because to solve the climate crisis, it takes everyone and, you know, we need every solution on hand at the cheapest price possible for it to go mainstream and commercialized. So that’s why.

Jeffery:I love it. Now, everybody is going to fight back against this and say that China just produces so much product. It is subpar, it’s not worth it. They’re just junking up the space. Also, they can be in there and be competitive, but at the end of the day, they’re forcing innovation, they’re forcing change. They’re making you look at China as a competitor, regardless of how you look at it from Dubai to Canada, you name it, they’re competing. They’re flooding the market with products, good or bad. How do you get them on board? I sat in a debate with China versus U.S. and it was Bannon versus I can’t remember the other gentleman’s name. And they went at it pretty good about China’s global power and how they’re changing the way people see everything and how businesses interact. And I 100% think that China needs to be at the table. I’m supposed to be going against Europe by the way, but I’m also supporting it’s the China initiative table. How do you get them there? Because at the end of the day, everybody looks at them as being the bad guy. And I think they’re actually the ones that are making this level playing field, which keeps everybody competitive because if not everybody doesn’t care to be competitive, they just want to pay the largest dollar. So how do you get them at the table? Because it’s important.

Lawrence: Well, let me add to your point before this, that being, you know, China, what’s the cheapest in in the early 2000. But looking at the labor structure now, they will not be the cheapest player today. So, you know, how do we get India? How do we get Southeast Asia? How do we get other countries, how to automate the processes? How do we get people to work harder even right. The 96 perhaps to kind of work tirelessly around the clock to solve these problems. Right. Because realistically, the more break people take, the more idle the machines are. That’s that’s cost right. So at some point, I keep drawing in to some of my portfolio in that, you know, like, listen, every penny saved on rent on, you know, labor cost every bag of chips saved in your canteen that goes to your cost. So by being mindful of the cost, that’s the best part of it. That could kind of allow your margin to grow, allow the prices to come down and to allow the market size to grow. So it’s no longer a China is no longer the cheapest player in the world today. But you know, the now who’s going to the next player who’s going to flood the market with these new products? For me, as long as it gives us the best chance to solve the climate problems. I can’t invest into India. I can invest into Southeast Asia, into Mexico and South America. That’s fine as long as the problem get solved. But if we’re too caught up with, you know, is this going to take market share away from the US or Canada, then my suggestion would be, listen, guys, you know, get with it. You know, you got to work harder or find a place to work with a couple and work with Mexico. Right. How do you how does the US and Canada work with Mexico with make sure that your production costs come down? Right? Because I really believe that it is so critical to the well-being of our civilization that for these technologies to be at cost, where people could really purchase and use and commercialize on a massive scale. So that to add to your point before this, but how to get to the table, I think they are at the table whether you like it or not. Right. It’s a matter of, you know, how do we find a position where everyone could win out of the equation or I don’t think, you know, the Western countries have brilliant innovation and there are a lot of very hardworking people as well. But sometimes I, I feel like, for example, Mexico is a great place to partner right now. So if we could combine all the brain trust in North America and Europe and really work with Mexico, that’s also American countries work with Eastern European countries. I’m actually very bullish on Mexico. You know, I actually have a lot of friends from Tijuana senior facilities in Mexico just to supply the supply chain in the North American region. But I absolutely believe that there is a way to make sure that cost is competitive with China and is going to be a very kind of a friendly competition going forward because people are going to be so desperate trying to find the lowest cost in this technology that only people with benefits will be consumers and human beings all together.

Jeffery:Well said. Well said. Well, I’ll only add in that I will 150% back to you on the Mexico piece that since COVID and because of China shutting down and the regulations that created Mexico has been booming, their GDP has been growing at like three and a half percent quarterly since this occurred, There’s more manufacturing. Some of our portfolio companies started running their manufacturing out of out of Mexico and really are solving problems. And, you know, the same thing in Kenya. Google dumped I think it was 500 million or 5500 million into Kenya to create for the same perspective of how do we fix this problem and allowed resourcing to be more effective, How do we retool some of the people that are in these different regions? And I think this has to happen into a lot of countries. And Egypt has been built on the fact that 82% of their population is in the manufacturing tool services business. And the reason they’re doing that and they haven’t moved out of it is because it is a more cost effective labor and they have to be able to compete against the rest of the world. They haven’t been able to upgrade resource like Canada, where 90% of us are in management services, etc. You know, that was built back in the sixties. So that document that was written was said, this is where Canada needs to be in order to be a global power. Well, the same thing has to happen with these other countries. Unfortunately, you’re going to have countries that are coming out of, you know, impoverished circumstance and or they don’t have the resources that they need in the ground to pull out. So they’re going to have to find ways. And sometimes it comes through strength, mind and resource, and they’re going to use those to build up from. So I think Mexico is a great example of having a little bit of everything and being able to adapt to the market and be able to help move products around globally through their shipping lanes and everything else. So I think it’s well supported there and I do see a lot of continued upside that’s happening in Mexico.

Lawrence: Very bullish. If they can take over as the lowest cost number, I’ll be very happy about that as well for sure.

Jeffery:Agree. All right. We’re going to move into our next segment, which is rapid fire questions. So this is how it’s going to work. I’m going to well, I’ll ask one. You choose as an investor which one you find to be the best suited for you as an investor.

Lawrence: Got it.

Jeffery:All right. Here we go. First question, founder or co-founder.

Lawrence: Co-Founder.

Jeffery:Unicorn or a four year ten x exit.

Lawrence: For your ten X.

Jeffery:Tech for CPG.

Lawrence: Tech tech, tech.

Jeffery:NFT or Web 3.0.

Lawrence: Web 3.0.

Jeffery:Ai or blockchain.

Lawrence: Yeah.

Jeffery:First time founder or second third time founder.

Lawrence: Second or third time founder for sure.

Jeffery:First money in or series a.

Lawrence: Series a.

Jeffery:Board seat or observer.

Lawrence: Board seat.

Jeffery:Safe or convertible? Note.

Lawrence: convertible Note.

Jeffery:Lead or Follow.

Lawrence: Follow for now

Jeffery:Favorite part of investing

Lawrence: The people, the learning experiences.

Jeffery:Number of companies invested per year.

Lawrence: 6 to 8.

Jeffery:Beautiful, Verticals a focus.

Lawrence: um Climate and sustainability.

Jeffery:Two qualities for a startup to stand out.

Lawrence: A clear differentiation and hustle and execution.

Jeffery:The toughest lesson you have. Sorry, go ahead.

Lawrence: Sorry. No, no, no, I it’s so, so generic. But just got to put it in there.

Jeffery:Nope, I love it. Toughest lesson you’ve learned as an investor?

Lawrence: Nothing is ever as expected.

Jeffery:There. There. What is something that you would share, advice wise that you give nine out of ten times to startup founders?

Lawrence: Things are never as good as it seems. And there has been and seems to.

Jeffery:Find your lane. Love it. Do you have a philosophy or rules that you stand behind in investing? Yes.

Lawrence: Again, they really have to have a differentiating quality is gonna be different.

Jeffery:Who is your hero or mentor and why?

Lawrence: My dad. My dad. He taught me everything. He was in business and philanthropy. That is a three hour conversation.

Jeffery:I love it. Well, that’s good. What is the most important technology that you see changing the world over the next 5 to 10 years?

Lawrence: Hoping for a fusion If fusion happens, well, it may have a prototype in 5 to 10 years, but not commercial. But then if it happens, it will solve a lot of our problems.

Jeffery:Love it. What line do you find you share to investors over and over?

Lawrence: Depends on where they are. Actually, I wear different hats when I talk to guy and people from, you know, U.S. and Canada and then people from from Asia. So I guess a see the world, if anything, you know, make sure you know what everyone else is doing there.

Jeffery:What is your favorite investment?

Lawrence: The one in battery material? Because it got me into energy. It did really well. It is the market cap one 200 X, So, you know, how can I not love it?

Jeffery:Fair. What is your worst investment? And you don’t have to say names. Well or experience.

Lawrence: Even the ones that. Well, how about this is one of them actually, I can see the one that if the price is filled, I’ll fair to square that there’s no complaint. But I think the ones that are fraudulent, you, you really learn from that. There are signals about the founders that you didn’t catch. I think those are the ones that I’m sure that everyone’s most regretting this right now, especially today. Right. So.

Jeffery:Agreed. It’s happening more and more these days. So I guess every space ends up getting hit with it.

Lawrence: So don’t get on the Forbes cover.

Jeffery:Yeah. Avoid Forbes. Yeah. All right. We’re going to jump into the personal questions now. One or the other most famous person that pops in your mind.

Lawrence: man, that that’s a right now or historically.

Jeffery:And any name that pops into mind.

Lawrence: And then you caught me, I guess, monger, because I just read his read his biography.

Jeffery:So perfect And he’s a good person to read first person that pops into your first brand story that pops in your mind.

Lawrence: As of now, Apple, I’m looking at.

Jeffery:Book or movie.

Lawrence: Movie movie.

Jeffery:Superman or Batman.

Lawrence: Batman.

Jeffery:Fortune Cookie or Birthday cake.

Lawrence: Fortune cookie. Let’s calories.

Jeffery:Your 5 minutes with Bezos or Oprah.

Lawrence: Of can I see neither?

Jeffery:Of course, of course. Mountain or Beach.

Lawrence: Beach Beach.

Jeffery:Bike or run.

Lawrence: Ah, run.

Jeffery:Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets.

Lawrence: Big Mac, for sure.

Jeffery:Trophy or money.

Lawrence: you could take the money and buy a trophy. How’s that?

Jeffery:All right, Don. Beer, wine.

Lawrence: wine.

Jeffery:Ted Talk or, book reading

Lawrence: TEDTalk. Talk talker, Instagram newsletters.

Jeffery:All right. Facebook or LinkedIn?

Lawrence: I try to do more LinkedIn, the Facebook, but are struggling with that too. So.

Jeffery:Okay. Favorite movie and what character would you play?

Lawrence: Favorite movie? Well, since we’ve talked about Batman, of course, The Dark Knight was amazing and favorite character. I actually like Alfred a lot.

Jeffery:All right. Fair.

Lawrence: I thought he was favorite.

Jeffery:Yeah, he is. He’s a very calm demeanor, too. A very strategic.

Lawrence: Yeah.

Jeffery:Favorite book.

Lawrence: Recently on Speed and Skill, I’ve been sharing dialog with with the guys in the in an investment.

Jeffery:Speed and scale noted favorite sports team.

Lawrence: Toronto Raptors.

Jeffery:Nice see but they’re awesome too. I agree that well they’re they’re doing okay they’ve had some better years yeah they’re getting there.

Lawrence: Yeah that’s a that’s a tough conversation.

Jeffery:What is the meaning of success to you?

Lawrence: if I could. It’s my mantra, basically, if I could just make things a little bit better around me. And if I could do that then. Then that’s everything.

Jeffery:I love it. What’s your superpower on.

Lawrence: Listening and being an introvert?

Jeffery:I love it. It’s a great skill to have. I think you’re also very good at the Global perspective, and I think that carries a lot of weight as well. Well, Laurence, I’m going to say thank you very much for joining us today and all of your time. It’s been a real pleasure having the opportunity to be able to deep dive in your background and talk about everything impact and the way we like to kind of end our show is we want to give you the last word to share anything back to investors or to founders. And also if you can share how people can get a hold of you, that would be awesome. But I appreciate all your time and thank you very much for joining me today.

Lawrence: Yeah. Thank you, JP. You can find me on LinkedIn. I think you put on the show notes and if there’s any to share, just basically try to make the world a little better for people around you, for things around you, you know, with your work. Yeah. Then if everyone does that, then Dover is a better place.

Jeffery:I love it. Well said. Thank you very much, Laurence. Thank you, JPA, and thanks for all your time.

Lawrence: Thank you. Let’s speak soon.

Jeffery:Well it was a it was a great conversation uh to chat with Lawrence and dive into pretty much everything around you know climate Tech and impact investing in in China Mexico there was a lot of Great Sound Bites there that we’re going to pick up on and I think that you know something that really does make a big difference uh in the conversation especially today versus you know over the last 5 10 years is that there is a big Global change in where manufacturing and production is actually being done and you know to Lawrence’s point that you don’t have to look for this value and decide you know does China need to be that Global power can you start to shift everything into Mexico and you know do they have the right shipping lanes the right value that you’re going to get which you need to in order to build your product to move it forward um you know and the other thing that I really thought uh caught everybody’s attention especially mine in this was that you know look for that differentiator we can just invest in another company but what is the real differentiator that makes things better and different is it the founder is it the product is it the team what is that differentiator that really makes that business Zing versus everywhere else um and I think the the last thing that I would kind of dive into is you know when you’re qualifying the model the business and you’re looking for those gaps you know figure out is this something that you can scale and you can build into a great company it’s going to be tough no matter how well you organize yourself and the greatest teams and everything you put together you’re going to find a tough go no matter how you skin the cad so just like his first company versus his three others you know there’s always going to be troubles that you’re going to be working through and you’re always trying to solve problems inside of the problem that you’re solving globally for your business you know that’s how business works that’s how it is and there’s probably a great formula and if you do have questions or you want to dive into that more I I implore you to reach out to to Lawrence um he’s a great plethora of information especially if your business fits into the climate Tech uh space so outside of that I want to thank you everybody for joining us today if you’ve enjoyed this conversation please feel free to share with your friends subscribe to our YouTube channel or please follow us on Spotify Andor Apple feel free to share an audio or video clip around the show and we may include it in one of our future podcast if you can find us on so social platforms take a look on LinkedIn at supporters fund and any support or comments you have or truly appreciated helps us improve the show please visit us at supporters fund.com or startup events at opene network.com thank you and have a fantastic day.