#39: Dr Catherine Jadot – Blue Finance Expert and Author of “How It Doesn’t End”

Today we dive into the finance side of the ocean economy because, like it or not, without capital, we won’t be able to make the impact and change we want to see in the world. Finance will be needed to make it happen.

To explore this difficult topic, I sat down with Dr Catherine Jadot, author of the book “How It Doesn’t End”. She’s a fantastic person to talk about this because she’s a marine biologist AND blue-economy finance specialist with over 20 years of experience working with organisations from governments to start-ups.

We didn’t just cover blue finance; we also looked at the psychology of action and the behavioural science behind influencing the positive change ocean founders and innovators want to see.

Catherine's Bio:

Dr Catherine Jadot is a marine biologist and blue economy finance specialist with over 20 years of experience at the intersection of climate resilience, ocean governance, and sustainable development. She advises governments and regional organisations in islands and coastal states on how to design and finance policies and projects that protect marine ecosystems while supporting inclusive growth. She currently leads blue economy and blue finance work for European and international institutions, including multi-country investment facilities, technical assistance programmes, and innovative financing mechanisms for coastal and island regions.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro 

00:03:15 - Catherine Jadot’s early career amidst the doom and gloom narrative

00:09:45 - The limits of project-level work​ and need for a bigger-picture approach

00:16:15 - Why governments and blue finance are necessary to the ocean economy

00:19:30 - Focusing on solutions​ and writing “How It Doesn’t End”  

00:22:45 - The sources of a new, constructive perspective

00:29:15 - Social experiments to understand everyday climate behaviours​

00:35:45 - The importance of people’s perceptions in changing cultural norms 

00:37:45 - Finding impact investors to share the potential of the blue economy

00:42:15 - Behavioural science insights for ocean entrepreneurs​

00:44:30 - Bankable vs investment-ready projects and mangrove finance examples​

00:47:15 - Financial models: grants, blended finance, public–private partnerships

00:51:00 - ​Finding the right investors: what to do and what to avoid

00:55:45 - The Ocean Startup Blueprint, helping startups moving forward

00:59:30 - ​Learning to identify the impact investors and become investment-ready

01:02:00 - Closing reflections on the approach to ocean entrepreneurship

Useful Links & Resources:  

Catherine Jadot’s book How It Doesn’t End (Amazon, Goodreads)

Catherine Jadot on LinkedIn and Instagram

The Ocean Startup blueprint

Get in touch with The Ocean Age's host Fed DeGobbi on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠, ⁠⁠X⁠⁠ or by emailing directly at fed@oceanage.co

The Ocean Age Podcast is produced by Charlotte Raffo and edited by Nebojsa Lešević. Sarah Carpenter and Giulia Leanza are our research assistants. The show notes for this episode were produced by Cecilia Bombonato.

Please send in your feedback: what do you want to hear more or l

Transcript

Fed DeGobbi:
Welcome back everybody to The Ocean Age. I'm Fed DeGobbi and today we dive into the finance side of the ocean economy. Because, like it or not, without capital we won't be able to make the impact and change we want to see in the world. Finance will be needed to make it happen. Money will be needed to make those projects and ventures possible. To explore this difficult topic, I sat down with Dr. Catherine Jadot, author of the book How It Doesn't End. She's a fantastic person to talk about this because she is a marine biologist and a blue economy finance specialist with over 20 years of experience working with organizations from governments to startups. We didn't just cover blue finance, we also looked at the psychology of action and the behavioral science behind influencing the positive change ocean founders and innovators want to see. Catherine, it's great to have you here. Thank you so much for making the time.

CatherineJadot: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Fed DeGobbi: I want to go straight into your book. You have written a book that is called How It Doesn't End, which immediately signals optimism in a space… Oh, you got it there. Fantastic. So for those who can't see it, we've got it up there. So, it immediately gives a sense of optimism, you know, how it doesn't end, and in a space that can be dominated at times by a bit of doom and gloom. In the book, you talk about hitting a wall, a sort of low point. This is back at the end of 2007, if I understand it correctly, when you attended a conference organized by the International Coral Reef Initiative. Can you take us back to that conference? I know it's a long time ago, 2007. How did you get to that moment in your career and personal story? And why was it so impactful for you?

CatherineJadot: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm a marine biologist. That's my background, right? So I did my PhD in fish behavior, actually, studying the behavior of fish on the environment and how they interact in a sustainable manner with the environment. And when I started working in the real world, I was so, you know, enthusiastic about the change I would in my mind being able to do for the environment, how I would be able to make things better. And during this very first conference in Miami, every single talk was about the doom and gloom of the ocean and how the reefs were dying, how the fish were overfishing, all the sharks were dying. And it was devastating. I was just like, oh my God, what am I doing? I just entered the wrong field. In five years from now, everything's going to be dead. And it was very shocking for me to see that it was the state of mind of every scientist because you get hooked into that narrative and that's the only thing that you can think about. And the problem is that once you enter that state of mind, physiologically, you're actually not able to take the best decision possible. Why? Because once you enter that fight or flight reaction, your blood flow is redirected from your prefrontal cortex, which is the decision-making center of your brain, into the amygdala, right? So you're physiologically not able to think clearly about what are the best solutions for the ocean.

Fed DeGobbi: You become more irrational, almost.

CatherineJadot: irrational, emotional, and just like, you become overwhelmed. And once you're in that state of overwhelm, everything shuts down, right? So you can either put your head in the sand and say, okay, this is too big for me, there is nothing I can do anyways, you know, I'm just like one person, what do you want me to do? Or you just like, you become completely depressed, right? And panicking, which was my case. I was just like, oh my God, I mean, are we all gonna die, you know? And I hooked into that narrative. And then when I worked in Borneo with millennials, I was teaching and doing reef restoration. They were asking me a lot of questions about the solutions that were possible. And up to that point, I was not really looking at the solution. I was just more into studying the reef, doing reef restoration, mangrove restoration, but not thinking of the larger scale possibilities of solutions that we have today.

Fed DeGobbi: Did you actually consider changing sector because it was too much?

CatherineJadot: I did, actually. I did. You know, so early on in my career, I was doing, I was teaching at university, right? So I was teaching grad, undergrad and grad students, studying the reef, doing reef research, you know, measuring what I felt was like the despise of the reef. So I was completely emerged into that narrative because my work was, measuring coral cover and fish density and that kind of thing. So every day, day in and day out, I was looking at what was going wrong and reporting on what was going wrong, right? And then I felt very depressed. I felt that doom and gloom on my shoulders, not being able to enjoy what I was doing in that ecosystem that I love the most and over everything else. So I decided to quit my job at university and started a consultancy firm. And this is when I started to do mangrove restoration and reef restoration. In 2007, I started to do coral restoration. Back in the days, it was pretty much unheard of. But we started to do the first project was in the Cayman Islands, where I started to do reef restoration and mangrove restoration. And it gave me a new sense of hope. But, you know, out the year we're passing by, I would come back to to project and read that had restored to see that it were completely destroyed again. And it was not because we didn't do a good job as you know. restoration practitioner, but because the environment didn't support our work. So for that specific example in the Bahamas, one of the property owner upstream from our reef decided to do an illegal sand mining activity. And doing that, it stirred up a lot of sand that smothered the reef that we are restoring and died again. So you realize that you can spend a lot of time, energy, and effort into restoring something, and then for whatever reason, or you can have a developer that decided to cut the mangroves and to put a building or whatnot. So I had that sense of doom and gloom again. After quitting university to do restoration work, I was like, maybe it's not so bad. And then I had that feeling again. completely, I don't want to say devastating, but very depressing, right? And, you know, when it is everything that you do, it really, it can really has a very strong, at least for me, right? Very strong, how do you say that? I don't want to say it anchors that negativity around you, but when you look at what's happening in the world, and then when you see the same thing happening in your work, it's your entire universe, you know? Everything is very, very negative. So then I decided to change work line again and I started to work with governments.

Fed DeGobbi: And when was this roughly?

CatherineJadot: That was around 2010, 2011. But it wasn't just in one go, right? I mean, it was like I was still doing a little bit of restoration work and decided to work with the government and whatnot, trying to see how we can provide governments with better structure to enforce the policy they already have or to create better policy to protect, you know, the ecosystem they have. And then very quickly, I realized that you can design the best strategies and roadmap to protect your environment. If you don't have the finance to implement it, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, it makes sense, but it doesn't have any impact in the real world. And that's where I find myself today, working a lot with blue finance and governments across the world to see how we can implement those strategies and develop innovative financial structure so that we can bring in better capital and especially private capital into the blue economy. Because today we know very well that public money, government money will not be enough to solve the problem that we see in the world. We have to be able to bring it private capital to reinforce the structure that we already have in place so that we can increase the impact that we have.

Fed DeGobbi: I see. When you said it comes down to finance in the end, is it because you need money to run projects? Is it as simple as that?

CatherineJadot: Yep. Yeah. And, you know, I very often hear people saying, oh, isn't it sad, you know, that we all just have to, to, to talk about money and we shouldn't monetize nature or the ocean or whatnot. And I agree a hundred percent, you know, and I would love to be in a world where it is the case that people protect the environment for the sake of it. And some people do absolutely, but we have to accept the reality of the world we are living in today. And today, if you want to have real change, real impact, you need to have finances in place. You need to have money to develop the project. You need to have money to make it happen. And, you know, I think this is something super, super interesting because very often there is a clash between the finance world and the conservation of, you know, the environmental world. And when you're in conservation, it's almost like that hate relationship with finance. It's like, it's a big word, you know, it's like, ooh, finance, no, you know? And I see that every day. Exactly, exactly. Money is the root of all evil, right? We hear that all the time. But until we can change the way the world is, we have to play with the cards we have on hand.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. I think I interrupted you at some point. You were talking about working with millennials. If I understand it, that was slightly later on around 2018 when you were in Borneo.

CatherineJadot: And that's when I started to write the book. Yeah, it took me five years to write that book. It took me a long time. But I was really digging into all the different options that we have, all the different solutions that were already in place, all the good things that we're already seeing in place. So it's very easy to be anchored into that doom and gloom narrative. And it's absolutely true. I mean, we shouldn't try to put, you know, rosy goggles on and see the world that it's not. I think there are very bad things happening to the environment today. But we also have to see all the good things that are happening, right? You have a lot of people doing a lot of excellent work that have an impact today on the environment. So we should not forget that. And again, once you are into that doom and gloom mentality, then it's difficult to see the other side and the positive, right? We have to make the decision. It's a decision that you have to take. You have to make the decision to also look at the positive and what is done today. And that will open up the door to make it even better, bigger, stronger, and more impactful.

Fed DeGobbi: What made you make that shift? What made you get out of that doom and gloom bubble and have almost like a change in thinking and energy?

CatherineJadot: It was my students when I was on Borneo, asking for solutions and not letting me go by with vague answers. They were like digging stuff. But how do we do that? And how would that work? And why? And how? So I was very challenged. And it was also very uplifting for me to see that the next generation was willing to look through that lens.

Fed DeGobbi: Do you find that, because I definitely see that things like fear and anxiety and also negativity can be super contagious. Do you think that the opposite is also true?

CatherineJadot: 100%, yes.

Fed DeGobbi: So it was almost, they sort of, they passed that optimism to you.

CatherineJadot: They infected me with positivity, absolutely.

Fed DeGobbi: What's bone fishing?

CatherineJadot: Oh my God.

Fed DeGobbi: Exactly.

CatherineJadot: Once again, in Borneo, right? So bomb fishing is a practice that small scale fishermen use to harvest as many fish as they can in a very short period of time. So basically it's artisanal bombs made with fertilizer and gasoline in a plastic bottle that they ignite and then throw in the water. and that explodes on the reef and kills everything. So it not only kills all the fish in the blast, but also all the reefs that are in the surrounding area. So you completely annihilate the reef that is there for a few fish that die and then float back to the surface. So the problem with that is that not only you can harvest maybe like half of the fish, I don't know the number exactly, but you can only harvest a fraction of the fish that were killed because the other fraction is just like, you know, crumbled and stuck with the rubble of the reef, but then you also destroy the habitat, right? So after that happened, there is like nothing that is living anymore, right? And on top of that, you create a lot of rubble, a very mobile rubble, and that's a huge problem for corals because corals, to establish themselves, need a stable surface. You need a piece of rock so the little coral nubbins can gets, you know, attach itself to the rock and then grow into a coral. It's a very slow process, but they need to have that stable surface. If you have a surface that is moving all the time, like small pieces of coral, then as soon as they're going to attach themselves on a little piece of broken coral, if you have the wave that comes in, then that coral is going to start to move around and going to kill that baby coral. So it's a double whammy effect. You not only destroy what is there, but you prevent new calls to re-establish themselves. And it's also simply super dangerous, right? I remember the first time I felt it, because it's still a practice that is done today in certain parts of the world, right? So I would go diving And then suddenly you feel a huge blast. Of course you hear it, but you can feel it in your lungs, right? Because the strength of the blast, you know, move the water. And then you can feel the wave shock, the shock wave, right? So it's very, it's a lived experience that was very traumatic for me. And I think it was two years ago, you have two scuba divers that got killed because of that. So you have incidents happening, some tourists diving in an area where you have still bomb fishing.

Fed DeGobbi: And it's still definitely going on, but it can't be illegal, can it?

CatherineJadot: No, it's 100% legal, absolutely, yes. But the governments don't have a way to enforce it, especially when you think about Indonesia, Malaysia, all those countries where you have a gazillion million islands that are super hard to patrol, right? It's very difficult. So maybe nowadays with AI and drones and whatnot, we might get better, but that costs money. If you want to have a proper enforcement force and fleet, you need to have enough capital to make it happen, to have an impact.

Fed DeGobbi: Right, where do we go from bone fishing? Something I wanted to talk to you about was the psychology and behavioral science element, because there is a whole chapter in your book that is dedicated to psychology and the neuroscience around climate change and other environmental threats. And personally, behavioral science is becoming more and more an obsession. For me, I really believe that it is underestimated by ocean founders. And it's a tool, a discipline rather, that could, if used effectively, make a real difference in my mind. So to start with, why is psychology and behavioral science important? What's the link?

CatherineJadot: You know, I think we don't need more science to solve climate change. We need more people who care. And how do you create, how do you make people care? Well, you have to talk to them about something they care about, right? I mean, you're not convincing people with yet another science report, right? You convince people by touching from heart to heart. You have a heart to heart discussion with them, right? So let's say that you are a coffee lover and say, well, I know that you love coffee a lot, but do you know that the price of the coffee beans will probably triple in the next five years because of climate change? Because of climate change, the weather patterns will change in the areas where we grow coffee. in such a way that is going to make it so much more expensive for you to drink coffee, maybe to the point that you won't be able to afford it. So that's the entry point, right? You should not try to say, well, what do you mean you don't care about climate change? You know, I mean, this is not acceptable. You have to be if you're entering a discussion and you're very confrontational, you will not change someone's mind. So you first have to connect with that person, you know, and say maybe that person has children, you know. Well, you know, can you imagine a world in 50 years from now where your kids will have to deal with floods every two months or hurricanes every three weeks or whatnot, right? So trying to see what that person cares about and then from there explain what the impact of climate change will have.

Fed DeGobbi: So you need an anchor into something that that person cares about already to bring it to the matter at hand, which in this case would be climate change.

CatherineJadot: Absolutely.

Fed DeGobbi: Why is that? What's going on? I mean, you know, at a deeper level, what's going on in people's minds? Why doesn't it work to just go out and tell the facts? Or why doesn't it work to be confrontational? Why does it not work to scare people?

CatherineJadot: You know, I think that most of the time when people hear about another climate change study, they shut down. They're just overwhelmed. So in case of overwhelm, people shut down. So you need clear and final actions that remove that mental load to make change feel doable. And people will respond when they understand that their choices contribute to a larger pattern, not when they feel solely responsible for solving the crisis. So this is why social cues matter so much more than facts. So because when people see peers changing habits or, you know, investing in solutions, it shifts what feels normal to them. So setting norms is so, so important. That's why, you know, maybe using a, like a, you know, cardboard straw or, you know, a non-plastic straw, It's not what will change the world, but it changes the social cues. It changes what people care about. It's not about saving a penny, it's about saving the environment. And it's when you add all those little social cues that you can really make a difference and shift the mentalities.

Fed DeGobbi: Yes, tell me about that. What are social cues?

CatherineJadot: So social cues are indicators in society of the way the majority of the society is behaving, what they care about, what they will invest in, what they will protect.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay, so if we all gather in a meeting room and I'm bringing my, I don't know, reusable mug and you're bringing your paper straw and a particular jumper that is made in a certain way and things like that, is that what it is?

CatherineJadot: Yes, exactly. So it's really the different signals that we take from people around us. And from that, we extract what is normal and what is expected for us to do. And in the climate space, it can be as simple as seeing your neighbor installing solar panels or hearing coworkers talking about resilience plans. Today in our society, the most impactful input that you can get, it's not from the news, it's from friends and family. Today with Instagram and social media, it changes a little bit, but if you have that trust from a specific influencer, it will have a way bigger impact on how you behave than anything else that you can read in the news or hear on the radio. Those cues will really shape behavior far more than any abstract data or any reports that you can read or hear just because they tell people what others in their own community already accept or value.

Fed DeGobbi: And you talked about changing the norms. Why is that important?

CatherineJadot: Again, same thing.

Fed DeGobbi: It's what's around you.

CatherineJadot: Yes, if you see that nobody cares about the environment. That's why, for example, in a city where you see a lot of graffitis, you will have even more graffitis. That's why municipalities try to take very quick actions to paint over graffitis and clean up the streets and whatnot. Because if you see trash on the ground, it will be much, much easier for you to throw your trash on the ground because it is what is normal, right? And if you go to Japan and the streets are absolutely pristine, the social norm there is that, you know, we value cleanliness and everything is impeccable. You don't even have trash bins in the street, right? Because you just keep your trash until you get home or you find a place to put your trash in. and in certain areas in western countries or in other places of the world there are trash everywhere so it's like meh you know one more one more little piece of trash won't make a big difference so i just gonna put it right there or the opposite of that even if i bring my trash at home it won't make any difference because everybody else will exactly

Fed DeGobbi: You know there's a I think a common advice in the maybe self-help or entrepreneurial space that goes something like you should go and surround yourself with people where the behavior that you aspire to is the norm and I guess that's what you're talking about. However, it sounds to me like it's easier to move yourself physically or change your friend circle or whatever and put yourself in a space where the norms are what you're trying to achieve or what you're aspiring to or what you want in life. The opposite, changing the norms in a particular space, that sounds a lot more difficult. Is it possible to change the norms? How do you change the norms?

CatherineJadot: I think it is. I think it takes time. I think it takes intent, you know, you need to be very, so there is a branch of science called social science, right? Who looks at that and to look at how we can change the norm. And one of the, I don't want to say the best or the easiest is the fastest, but one of the way to do it is by peer pressure. So there was a very interesting experiment that was made in Switzerland. I can't remember which state of Switzerland, but it was in partnership with the regional electricity provider. at the utility provider. When customers were receiving their invoice to pay, they could actually see how much electricity their direct neighbor were using. When they were using less than their neighbor, they were getting a little marmot that had a little mammals that were dancing, had a dancing marmot on the screen when they were going to pay their invoice for the utility. And so I think it was a shocking number. Don't quote me on this, but I think it was a 30% reduction in electricity usage just because they wanted to see the dancing marmots to know that they were doing better than their neighbors. So it's surprisingly feasible, I will say.

Fed DeGobbi: And I'm really curious, what is the psychology at play there? Because there's a number of things that I can think of. One thing is, I really like the marmot. It's a reward, right? And I just want to see the marmot. Or I just want to stick it to my neighbor. It's competition. I want to be better than them. Or it's a shame. I don't want them to know that I'm wasting energy. What is it? What's going on?

CatherineJadot: I don't think it's so much, I like the little dancing marmot. I think it's more competition and being seen as part of the community and doing the right thing, right? It's like, if everybody's doing it, I need to do it too, right? You know, and I'm sure you have seen in the hotels where you have that little cardboard that says, if you don't want, we're trying to save water and energy. If you don't want your towels to be, you know, washed today, just hang them. Otherwise put them on the floor. that has a social impact on the amount of towels that is actually reused. But if you just change what you write on the Elon card and you say, 75 percent of customers in this room have been reusing their towels for two or three days in order to save water and energy. Then suddenly, it goes up through the roof. Because that's not the norm. That's what is accepted and that's how we are social beings. We are made and designed to work in society, right? So we are physiologically anchored to be accepted by the group. When you see that a high percentage of people are doing that, then you do that. The reverse is true too. You had a forest in the US where you have petrified wood, which is like a very old wood that becomes like rocks. It's very beautiful, very rare. People would go to that forest and steal little pieces of that petrified wood. So the ranchers decided to put a sign and say, hey, this wood is very valuable. Please don't steal it. You know, over the past five years, 50 tons of petrified wood have been stolen. Please don't do it. no change, the same amount of wood would disappear from the forest every day. Then they decide to flip the narrative and say, hey, we realized that, you know, 35% of the people decide to not steal the wood, you know, and the petrified wood. And again, there's a huge change in the response of the people visiting the forest because they wanted to conform to the norm. We want to do Like the group is doing and it's an ancestral behavior that we have and we don't even think about it so it's just like automatic.

Fed DeGobbi: I think I read, I think it was in your book, there was something about an elevator experiment.

CatherineJadot: Oh my God, I love that.

Fed DeGobbi: I thought that was amazing.

CatherineJadot: Everybody's listening, you should go on YouTube and try, I can't remember exactly, but it's the social experiment in the elevator. I'm sure if you search that in YouTube, you will see it. And they've done it over and over again, and it's happening every single time. So for listeners, so what is happening in that video is that you have So five people are in the experiment and there's one guy who doesn't know what's happening. So everybody is in the lift and he's facing backwards. So they have the back to the door and they're looking at the wall. So you have a first person in the elevator facing backwards and okay, they go to the next level. The person who doesn't know what's happening entered the elevator and is a little bit fuzzled by what the guy is doing, looking at the wall, what's going on here, but whatever. And then you have four more people coming into the elevator and everybody's facing the back. Everybody's here looking at the wall. The guy, every single time the person who doesn't know it's an experiment will turn and also look at the back of the other wall as the elevator. And so it's- Without knowing why, no idea. Without knowing why, what's happening. It's just like conform to the norm. It's just what we do. It's just what we do.

Fed DeGobbi: Why is that? Is it like an evolutionary advantage? You know, if you do like the others, you'll have more chances of surviving?

CatherineJadot: Absolutely. We are social beings. We were wired to belong to a community.

Fed DeGobbi: And, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind hearing this, because it seems so powerful and also it's always going to be there. Like, these sort of things are not going to change. what are the practical applications of behavioral science for an ocean founder that goes back to work tomorrow morning, sits at their desk and they're like, all right, I'm in, I want to change some things around here, embrace the power of behavioral science for what I feel is a good cause, a good vision, where do I start?

CatherineJadot: Yes, so I think that what we can learn from behavioral science applied to an ocean founder is that when people hear constantly about negativity around climate or the ocean, you know, the brain goes into that threat mode. You get a spike in cortisol, attention will narrow, and then the prefrontal cortex will pull back, like we were talking about. So that's, that's when people shut down, turn out, you know, and start telling themselves that the problem is too big, there's no way they can do anything. So it's really a protective response, it's not a lack of caring, right. So, norms. will cut straight through that shutdown because humans are really wired to copy what the group seems to accept. So when people see that others are acting, investing, restoring reefs, or backing new ocean ventures, it flips the internal script from why bother to This is what people like me do. So it's going to reduce the fear, really build, it's going to build agency and makes action feel safer. So for funders, it means two things. You need to frame the ocean space around progress, not doom. So the brain stays open and curious rather than defensive. Instead of saying, the ocean is dying, we need to do something, we say, hey, we restore 30% of the seagrass patch that we had. So frame everything that you say about progress, not doom. Then you need to show that there is already forward motion and it's already happening, right? Think about social norm. You have to tell the story so that they understand that the social norm now, it's to invest into the ocean, right? Norms will shift faster when funders see like a cluster of peers moving in the same direction. even if the cluster is small, but if you can tell the story that, hey, look at the numbers. If you look at the blue economy and blue venture, it has exploded over the past three years. So go look at those numbers and say, hey, over the past three years or five years, Investment in the ocean world, in my specific niche, has increased by that many percent. If you do reef restoration, seagrass restoration, you're helping agriculture or fisheries or whatnot, find those specific numbers to your niche to show that investors that this is the norm. The norm now is to invest in this type of venture. When you're a startup, it's, for example, always more difficult to have your first investor. Because as soon as you have your first investor, you can say, hey, I already have that person who invested in me. So it gives you social proof. So if you're trying to raise money, it's always super helpful to have social proof of your solution. Of course, you need customers and you need sales and whatnot. But before you get there, before you get to the point where you have your prototype working and you can actually make your first sale, you need to have social proof that your system is working. So with social media today, you can have a huge following even before you start selling something, right? And that would be very powerful for investors, showing that your solution has social proof. And then once you have that first investor, try to leverage that as much as possible. Instead of saying, I don't know, 70% of people are not using our solution, you can say, hey, 30% of people are using our solution.

Fed DeGobbi: So it's not one tactic, but it's looking at all the different messages and communications and way you show up and looking at those with a behavioral lens, I guess.

CatherineJadot: Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Fed DeGobbi: You quickly mentioned identity there, a personal identity, an investor's identity. What is that about? I feel that's important.

CatherineJadot: We are much more predisposed to do specific actions that will align with our identity. If I identify as someone who cares about the ocean, I don't want to say force, but it will be easier for me to choose an action that is aligned with my personality. So again, you know, it's trying to show investors that people like them do this essentially. Exactly, exactly. So you have that niche into the VC world, like venture capitalists, you have those impact investors. The impact investors usually accept a lower rate on return on their investments because they value social or environmental impact as the same as let's say finance, not the same, but it enters in their equation for investing. So those type of investors, impact investor will have a higher propension to invest in that type of venture because it is their personality. What we don't see yet enough of is those impact investors investing in the ocean economy. I'm sure you've seen those numbers floating around, but it's only 1% of climate finance going to the ocean.

null: 1%.

CatherineJadot: And those people are already investing in climate. It means that you don't have to convince them that climate is happening or we need to protect the environment.

Fed DeGobbi: And it would feed their identity as well.

CatherineJadot: Exactly, exactly. So there is a the challenge is perceived risk, right? Because they don't understand enough that new economy, that very niche sector. So they will only invest into what they know. And that's okay. I mean, we understand it's a lot of money very often. But there is that lack of awareness about the real potential of ventures into the ocean space. And that's one of the things I really try to do, if you follow me on LinkedIn, is trying to showcase all the potential that we have into the ocean economy and all the excellent potential that we have.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay, okay. So let's try to unpack that. So from what I understand, the problem, and I think you said this previously, possibly in your book or somewhere else, maybe on LinkedIn, that the biggest threat is not lack of capital, it's inertia. So it's not that the money is not there, but we're in a situation where ocean solutions are grossly underfunded. What's going on there? Is it just a case of the risk is perceived as too high and the benefit is perceived as too low or just not known, not seen? Is there anything else going on?

CatherineJadot: There are different things happening, right? Like very often, it's like not one main roadblock. Let me give you an example. Right now, I'm working on developing a very early stage of two blue bonds in Africa. And the problems that we have there, it's not that the money is not there, it's that we don't have projects that are bankable yet. So because entrepreneurs don't believe that there is money that will come, they don't start projects. And because there is no project, investors won't invest in the sector. So it's a little bit the chicken or the egg, right?

Fed DeGobbi: Is that what bankable? How would you define bankable?

CatherineJadot: Bankable is ready to be deployed, ready to be invested in. It doesn't have to be profitable. It's not the same thing. It means bankable. It means that you have all the pieces in place so that if a bank want to invest in it, they could do it. You have the team in place, you have the permit in place, you have the procurement system in place, this kind of things. So it's a little bit of the chicken or the egg, right? You need to have proper projects in place so that investor can come in, But if the people who can start those projects don't believe that there are investors that will come in, then it won't happen, and then you don't have the capacity to make it happen. It's a slow-moving animal because there are so many moving pieces. But it's happening, it's changing, and it's doable, but it just takes time.

Fed DeGobbi: In the book, you identify the pipeline problem and you say that it's like having eager chefs, but no ingredients. What does that mean? I guess I'm trying to unpack all the different barriers. This sounds like one of them.

CatherineJadot: But the pipeline is exactly what we were talking about, like for the development of Bluebone. So the pipeline means having enough projects in the pipeline ready to go, being bankable, being able to be deployed now so that investors can invest into those projects. So it is a lot of work, energy, and effort to create, let's say, a blue bond, right? So if you want, and what it takes is not only having investors willing to put money into that bond, because that is rarely the problem, It's not creating the framework so that we know what works and what doesn't work, what can be funded or not. That's also not what the problem is. The problem is that you need to have those projects that are bankable, ready to go, that are solid even before you start to raise money. You need to know what project will be invested in. You need to have that pipeline, that group of projects that are ready to go, ready to be invested in before you can call on to those investors. Because you're going to say, hey, we need money to do some blue projects. That will not fly with any type of investors. They need to know exactly what project will be invested in, how much it will cost, and what will be the return financially or on the environment.

Fed DeGobbi: Can i make sense it does you often talk about investment ready being investment ready is bankable and investment ready the same thing.

CatherineJadot: Almost almost almost bankable means ready to be deployed means implementable. You have everything lined up. You have all the people that you want to hire will be there, all the contractors will be there, everything is clustered. You know exactly how much it will cost, how long it will take, what the permits are needed, the timeline, that kind of thing. That's being implementable, bankable, ready to go. Investment ready means that you have one step further, and that you know what the return on your investment will be. That's where you have the finance. For example, a mangrove project, I don't want to say it's not investment rate. It's not that you cannot make a return on your investment when you want to do mangrove restoration because you can. There are five different ways to finance that kind of project. But it's a different level if you want to be investment ready. If you want to be bankable and implementable ready, you need to know everything that I mentioned before. But if you want to be investment ready, you have to To have thought about the way you're going to make money on that. So it can be, of course, blue carbon, we talked about it, but it could be also an agreement with an insurance, right? Because when you have mangroves, it reduces the way of action on the coastline. So now, like in the Philippines, you have governments paying for restoration of the mangrove on the coastline because they know it's going to cost them less money for their insurance because the mangroves provide so much protection for the coastline that it's cheaper for them to restore mangroves that put seawalls up. So you see that. You can also have fisheries community investing into that restoration project because they know that mangroves have such a nursery, they create a nursery habitat for the fish, so the community will benefit from it, so you can have some money coming in from the fisheries. You can also have money coming from municipalities because mangrove is going to filter water. So this is something that a municipality won't have to invest in, right? You can also have ecotourism because you know that once you have a healthy mangrove, you're going to be able to do ecotourism. So that's just there. It's like five different ways that you can finance your mangrove restoration project. So you need to have So about all those different ways of financing your your restoration project before going to the bank to get, because all this will take time, right? So it's not, but you still need to have that capital up front to make that restoration happen. So how are you going to get that money up front is when you have all those very detailed and very specific way that the person who will finance that will get their money back. Of course, you can get a grant But, and it's a big but, this is too often something that we see in conservation projects. Very often, we design those projects to only work as grant-funded projects. And this is something, I don't want to say it annoys me, but it's sad, right? Because very often we say, oh, well, this is not something that we can fund with an investor. We need to find a grant money to make it happen.

Fed DeGobbi: But it's almost like a limiting belief. You're sort of preventing yourself from opening to all these other ways of funding your project.

CatherineJadot: Absolutely. And if you frame your project like that, then it's very difficult to change course. So from the very beginning, you have to have that mindset, how can I make it financially sustainable? And that's one of the major roadblocks that I have with different startups. They say, well, I don't know. I just can get from grant to grant. And unfortunately, in the world that we're living in today, the grant money is getting thinner and thinner, right? So we have to find ways to make it work otherwise.

Fed DeGobbi: So the key would be to find people or entities that may benefit from your project, whatever your project might be, and then think of ways those entities will benefit and get their money back essentially, or have some kind of economic advantage, I would imagine. And just to finish this off was, and you have to think of all of this at the very beginning when you are framing and getting the idea, the concept of your project.

CatherineJadot: Absolutely. And one of the framework that is more and more developed is what we call blended finance, where you blend public money, so grants, and private capital. So you start with a little bit of grants that you can leverage to attract more private capital. And that's something that is coming very, very common nowadays. They have that blended finance approach or a PPP, private-public partnership. When you work hand in hand with an entity like the government, a municipality that can give you that first chunk of money to get started, and then you move into private capital. But it has to be structured like that from the very beginning.

Fed DeGobbi: What are some of the other mistakes that you see Ocean Founders make when trying to become investment ready? Does anything else come to mind?

CatherineJadot: not having the right type of financial structure from the very beginning. And then it's very difficult to jump ship in the middle and not thinking about the finance part. And what I see very often is that if you look at the core team who build the starting, very often you're going to find people who are passionate about the ocean. And they are brilliant scientists, brilliant engineer and whatnot. And they design fantastic, beautiful, amazing solutions, but they are missing the finance part. So when you talk to an investor and you say, hey, look at my solution, this is what he can do. It's brilliant. It will save the world. but you don't have that investment ready parts. You don't have anyone in your team who understand the economics of your system and you only provide vague idea, vague business plan. An investor is someone who does that for their living. They will smell BS very, very quickly. They can take just a look at your business plan and say, no, that's not going to work. So if you only have on your team, and I see that very, very often, only have on your team scientists, engineers, and nobody who has that management background and that investment background, that finance background, very often it's not going to fly. Very often. And don't even look at the business plan. Investors don't even look at the business plan if they don't see that the team is well-rounded. So it doesn't mean that you need to have someone, you know, a full-time MBA on your team. You can have an advisor, and that's enough. I mean, that's enough in the beginning, right, to bring you to the next level. But you need to have someone on your board, in your team, who understands that piece, who understands how the finance world works. And we go back to what we were talking in the beginning. You know, very often you have that friction because finance is a bad word. So it's not something that you will even think about that you need on your team. You won't even think that you need someone with an MBA in your team to make it work. I don't say that you need someone with an MBA. I don't have an MBA, but someone who understands how designing a business plan, how having an approach to have leads and allies and letter of intent and that kind of things that will talk to the investor. You need to be able to speak the investor's language and it's a different language. It's not a difficult language, but it's a foreign language to a scientist. So you need to be able to learn that language so that when you are, because very often you only have one shot, right? If you not at the wrong door or you have at the wrong time. The investor won't look at your deck five different times. You have one shot because they get decks to review all the time. So you need to have that perfectly polished deck that will directly speak to that specific investor. Even if you approach an impact investor, it's still an investor. It's in the name. They're going to invest because they want return, right? So you have to come up with very strong financial. Because if your financials are not working, if you cannot show that you have a return that will attract an investor, then there's a mute point. And very often, another mistake that I see from startups is that they have one deck and then they send it to 100 investors. Yes, you need to send it to 100 different investors, but you need to tweak it very specifically for that specific investor. Is that a lot of work? Absolutely. But that's part of the job of building a startup, right? You need to understand the investment thesis of that specific investor so that you can infuse your deck with the keyword that will, you know, click in their brain. Oh yeah, that's interesting. So you need to do your due diligence on what the investor is interested in. Look at past investments. What are the typical startups they started investing in? What is the size of their tickets? How much money are they willing to put in companies in general? Because that's also very different. Pre-seed, Series A, Series B, where are you on the spectrum? Look at the geography, right? Very often investors have a very specific geography. The investors in India won't invest like in the Pacific or in the Caribbean. So you also have to do your homework and see which one is the best fit for you. And then you also have mandates, right? I mean, different investors will have different mandates. Are they supporting seaweed? Are they supporting any type of aquaculture? Are they investing in fishing or, you know, technology or SaaS or whatnot, right? So you need to really understand what the investor is doing, what they like to invest in, what they are likely to invest in. Otherwise, you lose your time and you lose their time. So yes, you need to send your deck to 100 different investors because two will take an interview with you, but you need to cater every deck to the specific investor.

Fed DeGobbi: That's really useful. Would it be fair to say that one has to be a bit creative about what investor means? Because a lot of the more traditional investors and maybe venture capital are a bit reluctant to go into the ocean space. Does one need to be a bit more creative around who is an investor and who might benefit from their project? and become an investor just by the fact that they're putting some money on the project without necessarily being an investor i mean you mentioned insurance you mentioned government you mentioned ecotourism these are not investors in the strict sense right.

CatherineJadot: Absolutely. And another one that is growing more and more is crowdfunding, right? If you have a very strong social presence, you can ask your followers and whatnot to, you know, start funding your project. And this is becoming very popular too, right? So those are tiny investors. But, you know, very often when you start a project, having 50k $50,000, it's enough to get your project started, you know, get your project started and have that first hurdle without having to through grants or proper investors. So yes, absolutely. There's so many different ways that we can raise money nowadays. Absolutely.

Fed DeGobbi: Fantastic. Right, I know that you've been working on something called the Ocean Startup Blueprint to help entrepreneurs close those gaps in the finance world and overcome these barriers. I'm super curious about this project and it sounds amazing. I wonder if you could maybe give us a bit of an overview of what it is. And for me personally, you know, I'm assuming that you would have had dozens of conversations in the preparation phase for this project with Ocean startups, possibly around the world. So I'd be super keen to understand what are the patterns that you've noticed.

CatherineJadot: Yeah, it's still in development. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to dedicate to that project. But it came from the fact that so many startups reach out to me asking very specific questions that required a lot of time to be answered properly, right? They say, hey, this is what I'm doing. This is my problem. What can I do? So of course I have my consulting services, you know, and I can go in details with them. But for most startups beginning, it's not something they can afford. So the idea is trying to develop a course that would be much more accessible for a larger community. And I can also not split my time, you know, in so many ways to answer to everyone. There is only one of me. So the idea was to have that course to provide the the main solutions that I see and answer the main questions that I see coming up often on this type of interaction that I have with startups. And, you know, this is something that we've been talking about during this podcast, you know, it's simply showing what our domain roadblocks that most startups are seeing and how we can lift those roadblocks to move forward. I talk about how we can divide, let's say for example, divide your investors list. So when you've done all your research, you want to have three different buckets of investors. The first line of your bucket will be the investors who are exactly the type of investor that you want to have. Because that's another thing that you have to look at when you approach an investor. What is the type of interaction that they provide to the start of the support? Some investors are very hands-on. It's that type of investor that you want. Oh, you just want the money and that's it. Or you want an investor that has a network that can plug you into their own network, right? So you have that first layer in your investor bucket who are a perfect match of what you want. For those guys, you really want to do a lot of due diligence. You really want to have a deck that speaks specifically for them. Then the next layer is investors like, yeah, okay, yeah, they are somewhat aligned, but not exactly the way I would envision the ideal investor to be. So for those guys, you're going to develop a deck, but you cannot spend as much time developing the perfect deck for that second layer of investors as you did at the first layer. And then the third and last layer of your bucket of investors are the guys that, yes, they are at least investing in your niche, in your geographical area, and they have a ticket size that correspond to what you want, but for some reason, they're not well aligned. For those guys, you maybe want to have a deck that is less customized to them.

Fed DeGobbi: Why is that? Just because you're not going to invest all that much time on those?

CatherineJadot: Exactly. It's better for you to invest more time in that first layer because there is a higher probability that they will invest in you. So again, it's like, When you're a startup, you only have a finite amount of time and cash that you can dedicate to that. So you have to make sure that whatever you do has the most impact possible. Because it's very easy to lose your time in designing the best business card possible and doing a very fancy website. but you're not moving forward, right? So if you got, I could say a 10,000 grand to make it happen, if you spend half of that budget and half of that time to develop a fancy business card or reaching out to investors that don't align with you, then you're burning all that capital, you're burning all that opportunity and that energy. Let's not forget that it's not easy, right? So if you reach out to investors that are not aligned with what you do, It's hard, you know, it's hard to hear no, no, no, no, no, no, no all the time. So you have to make sure that you focus your attention where you have, where you can have the most bang for your buck.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, absolutely makes sense. So for people interested in Lenovo, there will be many. Is this project happening when, when my people hear more about it? Yeah. Is it definitely going to happen?

CatherineJadot: Yes, it's going to happen next year, probably first quarter. That's the plan. So I will announce it in all the platforms. You can find me on LinkedIn and on Instagram. I will announce it on those platforms.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay. So at the moment you're testing, you're putting the program together?

CatherineJadot: Finalizing, yep.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay. And is there like an underlying mission for the program? Like what will people get from it?

CatherineJadot: Oh, they will be investment ready. That's the goal. So if you have an ocean startup and want to be able to find an investor, you have to be investment ready. Otherwise you're going to burn all your matches. So that's a good way to have the first level of investment ready. So yeah.

Fed DeGobbi: When you think about the work you do and you think about who contacts you and what they ask of you, what they ask you help with, is there anything that we haven't covered that would be important to cover?

CatherineJadot: I'm not sure if we want to put that on air, but the most common thing that comes into my mailbox is, please help me. Please help me, but I don't have any money. So it goes back to what you were saying in the beginning. It's like, hey, my solution will save the world. So if you don't invest in it, there's something wrong with you. But I would love to be able to do that. But I also have bills to pay. I also have to buy food and pay the rent. So it breaks, it makes it hard on me when people say, oh my God, you should help me because my solution is really fantastic. And they are the very beginning. So I, you know, there is no proof that it will actually work or whatnot, but it's surprising how people expect help for free because they're doing something good for the environment. And it goes back to that mentality of grant money, right? Not seeing the value, the financial value into helping protect the environment. And this is a mindset that I see very often, not attaching a financial value into protecting the ocean. I think it's what got us there in the first place. It's sad, but it is the reality of the world that we are in today.

Fed DeGobbi: What is the flip side of that? I mean, if I am an ocean investor at the beginning, I have this brilliant idea, I have no money, where would you start if you're in that position? Other than not emailing you and just asking for help randomly.

CatherineJadot: I would develop that idea. I mean, trying to gain traction. You know, if you're a young entrepreneur, you're probably fresh out of school, go to your professor, maybe use your capstone project to develop that idea, right? So try to get some traction and some validation in the market, not in your head, to see if that idea is valuable.

Fed DeGobbi: Fantastic, I think that covers everything. We'll definitely put, you've already mentioned your social media handles, so we'll definitely put that in the show notes. And we'll be waiting for news on the Ocean Startup Blueprint program. Thanks so much for taking the time, Catherine. It's been fantastic. It's a difficult topic. One that is very difficult to navigate. And one that, as you said, sometimes is perceived as the dark side, the dirty part of the Ocean Founder's job. But one that is so key and critical. Without the financing, nothing's going to happen, sadly.

CatherineJadot: Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity.

Fed DeGobbi: Thanks so much.