Innovation Is Not Enough: How to Turn Ideas Into Profitable Businesses | Ep. 74 [Nigel Marc Roberts]

Why do so many brilliant innovations fail? Often it’s not the technology, it’s the lack of a clear path to commercialization.

In this episode of Industry Ignited, host Dr. Leeanne Aguilar sits down with Nigel Marc Roberts, CEO of GraphMarine, to discuss the real reason great ideas struggle to become profitable businesses.

With experience leading 23 technology commercialization journeys, Nigel shares hard-earned lessons about why innovators often get trapped in their own ideas, how startups can compete with massive corporations, and why understanding the customer’s real pain points is the key to success.

They also explore Nigel’s work at GraphMarine, where he’s helping drive decarbonization in the maritime industry through innovative solar tile technology designed for commercial vessels.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelmarcroberts/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/grafmarine-limited/

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Transcript

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 0:07

Why do so many brilliant innovations fail? Not because the technology is flawed, but because no one ever figured out how to make money from it. Welcome to Industry Ignited, the podcast where we sit down with leaders shaping the future of industry through real-world execution. I'm your host, Dr. Leanne Aguilar, and today I'm joined by Nigel Mark Roberts, CEO of Graph Marine. Thank you. Mark, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to attend.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 0:37

Yeah. Now you've described this as your 23rd journey of taking technology to commercialization. Looking back, what moments most shaped how you approached business today?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

What shaped my approach to business? I think the early exposure was to how fragile SMEs are and how cash-constrained businesses are. I think those are my those my earliest memories of of coming into business, becoming an SME myself is how difficult that is. And the moments in time where I found out that technology actually mattered. It was a journey. It wasn't something that was linear. It had to change. So yeah, for me, over the last 23 journeys, where they've been different, they've also been extremely similar. Irrelevant that people's cultures or their languages or anywhere around the world, whether they're male or female, it was all the same. Their journey was almost identical. So there was a pattern to them. And it was something I recommended, I recognized fairly early on in my career that I could actually see the pattern. So the grounding had very early on in my career as working for an SME was the fact it was so incredibly uh restrained due to financial capital. We had to be innovative. We had to think differently. We had to be, we had to be entrepreneurial in our approach because we could never compete with the major, the major corporations, whether they were in Europe or in or in the US. There was no way to compete with them with without the capital. So you had to think differently. And I say to most people when they ask me how do you do that, I just always envisioned big organizations as being oil tankers, huge, massive oil tankers that take weeks, days, months, years to turn, where an SME can be a speed button, could weave between the different sort of things they needed to do or the different challenges a lot quicker, which helped them survive. So I've learned a lot in the last in the last 20 years, but maybe the 23 journeys I've done taking startups to commercialization has been has been wonderful.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 2:32

Yeah. Now you mentioned patterns. Tell me a little bit more about that. What were the patterns that you identified?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

The patterns I identified were all innovators were pretty much the same in how they looked at their business. They were very precious about their technology. And it was the biggest fundamental change I had to make is to, rather than, rather than push people into making that change, basically open their eyes to change. Let them see that change was possible, let them navigate with me. So it wasn't always an always easy thing to do. Risp was always in their mind. Pride was always in their mind when you're looking at startups and innovators. Innovators are fundamental to what we do as businesses. You know, we've seen that all around the world. Some of the some of the technologies come out of the US at the moment have been have been astronomical, they've been fantastic. They've needed to change to the demand of the market. Most of the innovators I meet make something and then insist everyone should buy it. The world doesn't see it that way. You have to be flexible, you have to approach things differently. So my job was always to I I walk into businesses and I'm their customer. That's what I say to them. I will be your customer. I will tell you, you know, by engaging with the customer market, and I will tell them what the ex customer requires and wants and needs rather than I'm making this wonderful widget that everyone should buy it. But it should work that way.

unknown 3:50

Yeah.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 3:50

The world doesn't work that way. Yeah. I mean, you spoke about in our earlier conversation about how many entrepreneurs miss the focus on commercialization, that they're so focused on just creating their widget and they're so in love with their own technology or their own ideas that they they miss the that perspective from their customer and how they're going to get it to market and if their customers even want what they're going to sell. Tell me a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I think innovators get trapped. I do honestly think innovators get trapped. I think they get trapped in inside their own bubble of what they're developing. And that's a general sort of statement because I haven't worked with people in the US, having with a lot of people in Europe and in the UK. And I think UK is very European in its approach. Now we've been part of here for a long time. So we think a lot like the Europeans, but they all share that same problem. All the innovators share that same problem is they're very precious about what they develop, but they never, they never step outside that bubble to actually ask themselves, you know, the poignant questions are is this commercial? Is it viable? Is it something the industry of the world wants? We we seem to be fascinated at the moment. Um and I do find it fascinating talking to so many highly intelligent people around the world, far more intelligent than I am, and very clever at developing things, but I've no commercial understanding of making money. And I don't normally have this problem in the US because they're very dynamic in this approach, and they do lead the world in this approach about being driven commercially. They want to commercialise their dream. In Europe and in especially in the UK, it seems to be a word that we don't talk about, which is making money, commercializing. And it's an argument I have quite fiercely with people. No innovation in the world is any good, in my opinion, in just in my opinion, unless it can actually return an investment. If an investor comes along and puts a million dollars into something, they want to return on their investments. They want to do the nice things the world. Most people do, you know, irrespective of what the right thing media say around the world at the moment, most people who are wealthy generally want to give something back. They want to do the right thing because they think it's the thing they should be doing now. Let's be honest, everybody knows that. But the problem is that the innovators just want to do what they want to do. Everybody wants to hook a polar bear, everybody wants to make the world a better place. But to do that, you have to have a return because that's economics, that's that commercial model, that's the model of the world. We have to and move things forward. So bridging that gap between the potential commercial reality of something and its technology is what I tend to do when I go to the marketplace. And as I said, Leanne, it's not very complicated. You know, talk to your client, talk to your customer, talk to the market, understand the market, understand your client. That is that is paramount in everything you do. It's okay making a super duper widget, but is anyone ever going to buy that widget?

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 6:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

You know, and find it everywhere.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 6:52

It's it's very interesting that you've identified a cultural difference too, versus Europe, the UK, and the United States, as far as mindset and and you know, point of view on that.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

I could I could be a bit brutal when I say that because I'd say this, and I'll say this with the greatest respect to all our cultures. We have the dreamers of the world, which is the US. But the difference between being a dreamer and making something, they do both. They have a dream and then decide that this is going to happen. The UK people tend to have a dream and then find every single way why it shouldn't happen. It's it's completely opposite side of the fence between, I know we share the language between uh the UK and the US, and we share other things as well. You know, lots of you know, democracy and all that sort of stuff. But our business, the way we look at business, is different. Is different, our culture is different. Um, because I come from a different background to an English person. So again, I'm another step to the right of that. But it's the fact that we're doing something and we will make this a success. In in Europe, it's we'll do this and and maybe it might work. Can you something say what what this might work, Mark? No, it has to work. You know, that's what when I go to the market, when I go into these places and say, look, what are we doing? We're doing this. Why are we doing this? Why would somebody pick up the phone and buy this from you rather than from somebody else? And exactly nearly every single person I've spoken to in the last 10 years can answer that question. That question and the other question nobody ever seems to be able to answer in Europe. I get it, I get the answers in the US, by the way. I've only done three in the US, but they're really cool. What does success look like? And they'll tell me straight away. That's what success looks like. Right. You ask someone in, I've done a project in in Spain, in the Basque region, they have no idea what that means. Interesting. No idea what that means.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Why are you doing this then if you don't know what the success looks like? If you don't know what success looks like, how can you actually get a roadmap to get to there? Because all you'll ever do is be going round in circles, which is what happens in the RD process and innovation. Uh-huh. The universities in the UK and in the US are not as bad, they're still bad, they're still bad. Europe is awful. Is there's this fixation that innovate, innovate, innovate, innovate, innovate. But when you stand up and say to people, well, who what you're gonna do? And everybody's convinced, the younger generation especially, everybody wants to be Elon Musk. Whether you like the man or you don't like the man is irrelevant. But what you have to respect with the man is he works damn hard. Right. That guy works hard, you know, seven days a week, 12 hour days. He puts all the hard yards, which is why I say to people, when I say that saying to people, are you prepared to do the hard yards? What does that mean? Are you prepared to do the hard work to do to become the next Elon Musk? Are you prepared to give everything to get better? If you're not, then find another thing that's success for you.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 9:54

Yeah, redefine success. Exactly. There are many different definitions of success. You get to decide what that means for you.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yeah. I want to work two days a week. That's success for me. Wow. Okay.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 10:06

Yeah. And I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, but like you said, define it so you know when you get there, or you know when you need to change course in order to get there. Yeah. So in your your personal journey, you've been candid about losing a business partner early in your career and having to rebuild from the ground up. How did that experience fundamentally change your view of risk, resilience, and leadership?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

What I realized fairly quickly when I lost my business partners is um, and the younger generation, by the way, don't have this baggage, I find. I'm 50 plus. I'm a long way down my career compared to somebody who's just graduated from university. So let's let's be honest, I'm 35 years behind that probably an average graduate's leaving university today. I was institutionalized. That's what I recognized fairly quickly. I was very fortunate. I met somebody who was a lot older than me, who's still alive. God bless him. He's still my mentor, thank God. And I one day would love to have a podcast here. He is a really highly intelligent gentleman, speaks 10 languages. He took pity on me because he was somewhere new and I was a bit lost. My colleague died. I had to chose to sell all the businesses we had and start again. But what I realized is I was completely institutionalized. I knew nothing outside the bubble that I lived in. So I was in this bubble of an industry which was incestuous and everybody knew everybody. But when I stood outside that industry, what did I actually know? Not a lot, not a great deal about the world. I wasn't a rounded individual. I was a very focused, narrow individual in my thinking. So hence, when you say, what did I need to do? So look, retrain, you know. And as Graham, my mentor, said to me, he said, he said, there's two things about individuals that you'll need to learn. And he said, this is very important. He said, forget about all the things you're going to read in books and university, and they're all really, really important stuff. Academia is very important. We'll come to talk about that in a second, because I'm a big supporter of academia and industry together. He said, but two things you'll you'll you'll you'll really need to remember. And he said, Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. He said, nothing else is. You hear the saying that money's power. He said, it isn't. It's knowledge that's power. You need to have that to move things forward. And you need to have a vision. You need to know what success looks like. Those are two things you ever need to know in your life. And he explained a number of other things about why people have mental health issues, not a really clever guy, really clever guy. And he said, focus on those two things and you'll be fine. Because at the time I was in a really dark place, I'd lost everything, I'd sold everything and everything else. And he was going on about that as well. And he said, mental health is about being in the present. That's why people suffer so much with mental health issues. Nobody lives in the present anymore. You either beat yourself up about what you did 10 years ago, which let's be honest, you can't do anything about that. That's gone, it's finished. True. So yesterday's finished. Yesterday's finished. A half an hour ago is finished. 10 minutes ago, it's finished. Live for now, now, this minute, when you stand now, embrace now, and don't worry about tomorrow. You can affect tomorrow, you can't affect yesterday. So he gave me those things as a starting points. And I retrained. I learned about photonic technologies. I went to work for four universities, which was an interesting part of my life because it was never commercial. And I came from a commercial background. Since I was 16 years of age, I came from a process of make it as cheap as you can, sell it for as much as you can, and the bit in the middle is called profit, and that's what we live on, guys. That's what we live on, you know, and and that's how you run a business. So that was my background.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

So that that change was the most difficult change of my life. Right.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 13:39

No, and that's, I mean, great advice too. I mean, yeah, live in the live in the present, focus on now you can't do anything about the past. And I mean, what anxiety is, which I know a lot of people, you know, suffer with, is is not being able to control the future. And so living in the present and doing what you can about now is all you can really control. Uh and then knowledge, like you said, that's how you make the money, is having the knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

And that's what he that's what he explained to me without really saying too much because it's it's it's personal to him. But his his father was someone really influential in the UK, worked for the UK government as as a diplomat of sorts. He was around after the Second World War and all the the dark times. So he traveled the world. He speaks Spanish, he speaks Portuguese, he speaks German, he speaks, you know, speaks multiple languages. What he said was really relevant to me is he said, with knowledge, you can walk into any room and have a conversation with anybody. It doesn't need to be anything, but you could have that conversation. You can leave relate. That's the problem we have when we talk about innovation and people come out of university. They're not able to relate what this is and what this does. It's this is clever, and Lianne's not very clever because you don't understand it. Well, Lianne's really clever on doing what she does. Does this solve the problem for Lianne? No, or why are you actually doing that there? So I I held on to that very very very solid in my life since then. And I do live in the moment. Um, I don't have problems with my mental health, I don't have issues with stress, I don't have I don't have any of that sort of stuff because there's stuff I can't control. If you can't control it, why worry about it? Leave it, put it put it to one side, you've got no control of that. Forget about that. So um he would be someone I would I would think you'd find hugely interesting on one of these. Very well spoken individual, but a perfect gentleman, yeah.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 15:32

Oh, and yeah, and love love an introduction. Now, you return to education, earning advanced degrees in innovation and technology, mid-career. What gaps did that education fill that experience alone could not? What gaps did it fill?

SPEAKER_00 15:47

It filled so many, you know. I suppose when you have your own business for for a long period of time and you work on your own, you form a a form of arrogance, if that's the right word to use. You form this opinion you are better than you actually are, to be brutally honest. And I think that I'm generalizing when I say that, but that was me as an individual. I'm sure other people could relate to that when they listen to this. They'll say, perhaps that's me. But that's what I was. I was arrogant. I knew everything. I thought, yeah, I could do that. And when I did my first my first degree, my first master's, I did an MBA. Um, because I'd read about it, I'd heard about it, everyone does an MBA, and I need to take a different direction. So I thought I'd do that to start with. What I got from that was a grounding, a better understanding of the horizon, if that makes any sense. If you could think of it as being a bit like climbing a mountain, I'd gone up the first level and I'd stopped there. I'd stopped at that level. Why? Because I was making lots of money. I was very comfortable, I brought a family up, I had a nice house, I had all the things that that would give me. But I didn't really know any more than that. I didn't really understand the complete package. So what the MVA did for me, it helped me polish the things that I was good at. I was good at the commercial side. I was good at innovation, but I didn't know I was. I was good at sorting things out. And the doctor that took me through my dissertation, I was the old guy, by the way, when I did this. I was the old guy in the room. I was 49 when I did it. Everyone else was 25 and 24 and just done their degree and gone on to a master's. So I was the I was the guy that flatly refused to read a 6,000-page book to do an assignment. I'm not doing that. Um, and fair play doctor that took us through, a lady called Dr. Jan Green, who was just amazing. She took me to one side and said, Look, forget about the academic side of this for a minute. Think of it as a business, how you'd built your because I'd built five by then. Build this like you build your business, but utilise the tools in here to make it better. Pull and leave as of all the things. Corporate social responsibility, supply chain management, the commercial side. Things that that were on that side, I'd do an assignment and get 99 out of 100 because they were just things I just knew because I'd grown up with it. When I would come to corporate social responsibility, wasn't very good at that, didn't really understand a lot about that one. And so there were things that enabled me to have a broader view. Again, it was knowledge, it was power, gave me a reason to do it. Uh, I wrote the dissertation on on how do SMEs compete with large organizations, which was was a great Bible for anyone. What I'm doing now, going, I can show you how to, I can show you how to compete with people, I can show you to compete with Microsoft or or these companies, I can give you a route to to to to take some of the business. So um that gave me a grounding. It gave me a and and the other thing it gave me, which is going to sound rather silly by the way when I say this, but I'm sure whoever listens to this will it'll resonate somewhere. It gave me confidence. Education gave me confidence. That's why when Graham put his arm in and said knowledge is power, I got what he meant. Because I could stand up in a room and feel a bit of a fraud and present to 400 people and think, I shouldn't really be here. But now I can get in a room when I go to London and there's 300 people in the audience, and I feel comfortable. I'm just me, they're just them. I'm I'm sharing a journey as passionately as I can and making it interesting. But now I feel confident.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Back then I wouldn't have done that. So that led me to my NSC after that, and I did an international innovation uh uh degree, and I took that forward with with with the university in Wales in in South Wales. They they approached me and I did that with them. And I just used one of the companies I've worked with and flipped that and brought it in, asked their permission, can I use you as a as a as a guinea pig, if you like, to to to do this around what we're doing? And it was hugely successful. And again, that that opened that opened another door for me to start looking at trading internationally, which I never thought of doing before. You know, and what I mean by that is reaching across the pond to the US and ended up talking to lots of people in America now, which I found hugely fascinating, because they were on another level again. You know, they were they were they were doers, they were they were dreamers, but doers. You know, so it was a there's a different different approach to that as well. So yeah, it was the lessons that stake me for for my life now. They are you know knowledge is power, you know, academia and industry frustrates me greatly, really frustrates me. I I I get I get into so many passionate debates with people about the fact that when we don't need academia, druggish. No, no, it's critical, it's absolutely fundamental to our human beings. We need to be educated. Yeah, but we don't do anything for industry, it's trying to bring those together at heart.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 20:38

No, I yeah, I I completely agree. And I I relate to you a lot. I was the same, you know, early 40s when I I started my MBA program and then went out to my my PhD. And I same with you, just a lot of light bulb moments. And I've been running my business for 15, 20 years at that point, but there still were gaps, absolutely. And like you said, I think I and and my employees will probably still say that that, you know, okay, you think you know everything about everything in your business, I mean, uh, but have to remember, okay, you're right, let me listen. But it's helped fill in gaps and open my eyes to to new things. And then it's leverage, right? So it's like you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's a ton of experience that teaches you a lot. And of course, experience is is what you use to run your business. And at the same time, learning from others has huge value as well. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Liana, I can't say that strongly enough. The fact that the academics have a huge responsibility with industry, and vice versa. How we get that to join better, I'm not sure. I worked in Germany for a couple of years and they were they were phenomenal at doing it. You know, they were really integrated. But academia understood that that business needs to make money. Business understood that academics were looking for research, they were looking for research papers, they were looking for knowledge. They were building knowledge, these were building businesses. One was trying to get an economy. Going. One was trying to get the education part of the country going. So they both have responsibilities, but we felt miserably in the UK doing that.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 22:08

Yeah. And I think I mean we need each other. You're right. They're different, but they're, I mean, they can mutually benefit each other. I mean, with business, I mean, the academics are looking for trends. They were looking for statistics. And so we can see big picture how to move forward. And business owners can learn a lot from that. Yet, I mean, academics can get arrogant too, thinking, you know, they know everything just the same, but but they don't necessarily have all the practical experience and the ins and outs and experience with the daily issues. And so I think we all all have to check ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

And I and I would be the first to put my hand up and say, was I arrogant about a business? Yes. Did I think I didn't need uh academia? Yes. Did I think it was a waste of time and my uh and money? Yes. Until I got to the stage where I opened my eyes and looked at it properly, and I thought, wow, all the missed opportunity I had in my life, if I could have bring more academics of certain levels into my business earlier on, yeah, I'd have probably trebled the size of my business. Yeah. And it would have looked differently. You know, it would have looked completely different to what it to what it ended up representing. I just ended up selling it to a multinational, all of them. It's very important.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 23:14

Yeah, I completely relate. And I've said that so many times. I feel like I did things backwards, and I if I could do it over, I would have, you know, just and I tell my kids this, you know, get as much as education as you can up front. That's one thing that nobody can take away from you. You know, just go as far as you can when you're young, when you have the opportunity, and then go get your experience, and then you'll it'll start clicking, you know, but then you'll have tools to leverage your your career and your mentors.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Tell my kids the same. I told my kids exactly the same what Graham told me. And they were very young at the time. I say it to both the kids now, which they laugh at me because they're both they're both 30. But I say to both of them, knowledge is power. If anyone says, Do you want to go on this training course? Yes. Yes, yes, I do. Yes, I want to go on everything. If there's a door open, can I do it? Can I learn? Because you never stop. And I and I feel really good about that now because like I said, I'm I'm I'm 60 this year, but in the last 10 years, I've invested more time in my academic learning than I've ever done. And it's changed the way I look at the world as well as look at other people, business, everything else. It frightens me, I'll be honest, and I hope whoever listens to this, they've a giggle about this too. It really frightens me sometimes because now I sit and watch, you know, whether it's whether it's our news or it's Sky or it's CNN or I read the Times or whatever, and I read this stuff and I think that's just absolute baloney. That that's just not gonna happen. You know, you sort of know now when people are saying things, and you envisage that business is not gonna be there any year's time. Most of the time it isn't, because you just have these visions that you say, well, that's not on a that's not on a solid footing, so that's fragile, that's gonna go, you know, before it starts. That's been the most striking thing during the training for me to do this business as well, because okay, I run I run the CEO for Graft Marine, but I've also taken these other companies, like I said, there's been there's been a lot of companies that taken to to commercialization from from a concept, you know, with people from university spin-outs. So they've been helpful in both schools, you know, either running a full-time business or developing the business.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 25:19

Now you often say innovation is one of the most overused words in business. When did you first realize that innovation without commercialization is just noise?

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Oh, very early on in my career. Very early on. What I didn't realize is innovation can come in so many different formats. Everybody that I when I first started talking about this, what is innovation to start with? It's an idea, it's a concept, it's I'm changing something, it's a change. Um, the amount of people that I spoke to early on in my career had to be, it had to be a change. Let's start with that process. How did I know so early on? I didn't know I knew this by the way. So I'm not I'm not a genius, I'm not clever in any way, shape, or form. I did this in my academia level. When I went and did the MBA and the MSc, I realized I've been doing this for years. I've been doing this since I've been 16 years of age. So I think over 40 years I've been doing this sort of process. So I looked at it and I thought to myself, what was I doing when I had an SME? Well, I was competing with huge companies, I was competing with big companies. What did I have to do? I had to think smarter, I had to offer a different service. If I had one plus one, I had to do one plus one plus one. I had to do something differently. So even back then, I was working smarter, not harder. I was circumnavigating how I could compete with big organizations because I couldn't, I couldn't fund it the way they could fund it. I couldn't undercut the price. What's a well that's not a business anyway? Anyone can do that. Go out and just give it away then. Okay, well, you know, you just you'll never survive doing that. You've got to be a commercial value. Um so I saw it as an owner of a small company, you're always strapped for cash, you've always got a limited amount of capital. So you can't buy your way out of problems. You've got to think your way out of it. You've got to be smart, you've got to be entrepreneurial. So I've been doing it for quite a long time. To such a degree, it sort of came natural. So when I moved into doing academia for a while and then and then doing doing this role before I took on the role in in um in Graft Marine, I used to have a business called NMR Ventures, where I pick up companies all the time and commercialise them and make make a very nice living. Thank you, Bill. It was a it was a really, really good thing to do. But it was also it was also second nature. I'm not gonna say it was easy, because that'd be disrespectful. It wasn't easy, but but I could visualize things fairly quickly. Um, and what somebody actually said to me, what is it you do? Ask me a question, what is it you do? Well, I make money. That's what I do really. I make money, I get you to make money. And how I do that is I'm a very, very good middleman. I know A fits B. A doesn't fit F G, Z, and all the rest of it. A fits B or it fits C. It sits in the middle. So I always I always had an understanding where I could focus and found out where it came together. That was the reason why I sort of fell into it and moved into it, is because I was doing it without even knowing I was doing it for quite a long time. Um and that's not because I was clever or I was it's because I had to to survive. It was a survival instinct. So that's what made me a bit resilient. Um, I highly focused when it came to doing it.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 28:27

Yeah. And from your experience, why are why are innovators so resistant to letting go of control? And how does that resistance stop their growth?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

That's a really, really big question. Um, why why are they resili look? Think about but think it's like giving your children away. That's what I said to one person, and she was a lovely lady. Um, and we were doing a project, an environmental project on seaweed. Um and it's something that she developed. She'd been to university, she was her mum and three kids, lovely lady gonna be doing this. Um but wouldn't listen. No, we do this. Well, the market doesn't want to do that. Yeah, but it should do. Yeah, it should do. No, it should. I agree. It's it should do that, but guess what? It's not gonna do that. Never mind who's in power anywhere in the world, it's not gonna do that. We're where you're probably 20 years ahead of where the world is in thinking. This was this was using a CV pro. But it's like giving your children away. If you use that analogy, it's like giving the baby away. You're suddenly losing control of what's yours. Now, there's some of the nice people. I have worked with people that that are had a lot more difficult in the terms are I'm very clever, you're very stupid, everyone should buy this. No, because they're your customer, you can't say that to them. You know, you have to find a reason for them not. See, the the problem with innovators they want to sell their product, right? This is this is what I go when I go into the market. The idea is not to sell your product. This is not what this is about. You don't go out and commercialize a technology by making people, right, sort of buy it. They want to buy it, they've come to you to buy it. So you go to them and you you look at their problems, you find the solution. It takes a lot of work that does. I'll give you a very, very brief example, and I won't I won't deviate, but this was this was a really, really nice example. I work for a valve company, been going for nine years, spent five million dollars, never sold anything, never made anything. Don't ask me why this the money went, by the way. What? Yes. So they came to me and said, we have this wonderful product, that's the best thing in the world, right? Who's told you that? Well, we know it is. No, no, who's told you that's the best thing in the world? Nobody. So it's not the best thing in the world, then, is it? That's your opinion. So, what is it? They showed me this product, and it was a very old-fashioned mechanical product, which had allowed it to be serviced under pressure, which I said was, well, that's no good. It needs to be digital. We're moving into a digital age, you need to digitize it. So who was the best person to tell me? The water industry. So, who do I go and speak to? So in the UK, I spoke to most of the COs of the water company, and I went to speak to a wonderful lady who used to run Thames Water in the UK, biggest water company in the UK. And it was just as COVID was just finishing. So everyone was at their desk at home, baking, cooking, cutting the grass, everything they every knew what was going on. We weren't working, people were doing that, but they were easy to communicate. You could get people on the phone. I rang this lady up, had a conversation, asked her if I could meet her, showed her the product, and I and if I put it on the table, didn't talk about it, put it on the table. And I said, I know the water companies in the UK are being prosecuted relentlessly for lots of reasons. Water leaks, sewage, everything you could think of. Yes. Tell me the problem. Why are you not digitizing your line? Why are you not doing what you should be doing? And the thing, one of the things, and by the way, the US was exactly the same, and so is Europe. They all shared the same problem. And he said, and she said to me, Every time I dig a hole in the floor to put a valve in, she said,£25,000. She said, and then you're gonna come and come along in another two years' time and say, Oh, by the way, here's a new one. Buy this new one because the old one's out of date. I can't do that. So what happens is we become paralyzed, we don't do anything. So I went back and I said to her, well, I said, look, if I can make something that lasts for 200 years in the ground, one, as one thing, right? If I could give you something that you can upgrade, connect to the internet and upgrade seamlessly in minutes by taking the cartridge out, leave the valve in the butt in the floor, take the couch out, put a new sensor in, put it back in, take it probably three to five minutes. Well, I'm interested. Right. If I could calibrate that on the iCloud so I never so don't have to take the thing up to calibrate it, I'm interested. So that means I can give you a product that lasts 200 years that I could put 50 sensors in it, tell you everything that's happening to your water industry, and service it in minutes. Would you be interested? Yes. Yes. If I told you you didn't have to buy it off me, would you be interested? Yes. So I told you you could rent it off me and put it on your service contract rather than your CapEx contract. You'd cap of the contract. I'm very interested. So now we're talking about something that's interesting that you like, I like, you are solving all of your problems to reduce it. It's uh all of a sudden it went from nothing to being very interesting to people.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 33:27

So it's identifying that problem. Yeah, really identifying and understanding the pain points of the customer.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

And and as and as she said, I can't afford to give you, Mark, a 10 million pound order. But I could afford to service a 50 million pound contract over X and years through my through my general running costs of my business. Right, okay. Well, let's do that. What about if I put it on a subscription model? So you can switch each of the sensors off. So if you don't want all the sensors, pay me for that one. And then if this one happens, you can pay me for those two on that one, then pay me for that three on that one. And then if you want me to monitor your system for you, I'll monitor it from Manchester in the UK. And they'll monitor all your pipelines. So they'll tell you when there's a link. All of a sudden it started to open conversations that the company before had never even thought of. So it's just like so finding the pain point is critical, absolutely critical. And most innovators, to be to be briefly honest, don't know who's paying for it. You go and say to them, well, you know, who's your classic that I use when I sit and talk to people, the first things I normally do is what does success look like? Name me your top five customers. Those two questions normally snook at them straight away. They say, Oh, I I want to deal with Google. Right? You want to deal with Google. Well, okay, so here's 25 million other competitors that we're gonna be competing with who want to trade with Google. That's number one. So, what how are you gonna stand out compared to those 25 other million competitors? Right. That's gonna make me walk into Google tomorrow and they're gonna say, come in and talk to us.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

We want to talk to you.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 35:03

Yeah, pain points, but yeah, also who's gonna pay for it. And I mean, I was yeah, talking to another CEO in in the medical devices industry, and that's one big problem they have too. It's because who's gonna pay for it? If if you know insurance isn't gonna pay for it, is it a viable product? So you definitely have to think about you know, that at the end too. Identify who's paying for it, if they're gonna be willing to pay for it, and if they have the means to pay for it.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah, they don't do all the basics. As as your potential market got a budget for this thing, is it do we need to do it? Because this is, I'm conscious of your time here, but but let's talk about Graph Marine and I'll explain with Graph Marine. Why did I come to Graph? Why did I do it with Graph Marine? Well, Graph Marine is offering something that it's a green technology. I like green technology. I think it's I have a responsibility now to give back as I'm getting older, and I need to be a bit conscious of the fact I need to do the right things. But I mean, it has to be one of the easiest things to to push into the market, you know, and and the the feedback we're getting is is phenomenal in a very short space of time. This is driven by regulation. Everybody in the world, forget whoever's in power anywhere. I'm not being disrespected to anyone that sits in power who's ahead of any state or in any country, but forget about all of those individuals for a minute. Think of us as a collective group of human beings. We all know we've got a problem with the environment. Everyone does. You can't hide from that. Everyone knows we're warming up. It's a fact. We can't hide from that. We all know that we can't sit next to a diesel engine or a petrol engine pumping out carbon monoxide because it kills us. We all agree on that fact. So the IMO, the International Maritime Organization, is squeezing the shipping industry excessively because it's the biggest polluter, one of the biggest polluters left in industry. So that's the reason why. It pollutes more than the whole of the economy of Germany. It's huge. Now, these things are going to be decarbonizing. Now, whether they want to or not, they're going to decarbonize. We now have a new generation coming through, thank God, because I think the new generations are pretty cool because now they're getting some power and they're getting some good voice. I'm not buying off you because you pollute the world, and they get together and they affect the share price. Great. That means we've got another, you know, we haven't just got governments that are legislating, we've got young individuals saying, sorry, you're not buying off that company. Don't buy off them. Because, because, because. So we've now got a double hit against companies. So companies are recognizing they've got to look after their share price. We've got to do the right things. We've got to be greener, we've got to decarbonize, we've got to reduce the carbon burn. So when I went to Graph Marine, I've just done the same with Graph Marine that I've done with the previous battle company. I've made a product that's plug and play. I've made it that you can fully upgrade it with no capital expenditure. You can you can license it, you can, you can, you can rent it, you can, there's so many different things you can do, but it's fully upgradable in line with technology development. So I'm making the iPhone for the industry, but being able to leave the platform on place of the deck and just change in certain components. So it becomes more and more and more powerful as technology allows, with no capital expensive of the shipping company. Now, when I first said that, people didn't understand what I was saying, but they're starting to understand now. So we're buying a product that's going to get more and more powerful as technology allows. Yes. Think of your phone.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 38:24

Yeah. So for those who don't know, like Graph Marines, nano like your nano deck technology, you're addressing carbonization in the maritime sector. Please explain that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Okay. Well, people get us a bit confused with a solar panel. We're making a solar tile. Um, what's happened in the industry is vast amounts of people have been putting solar panels on ships. Solar panels are land-based technology. They're very fragile, they've got a lot of aluminium in them. They're not very nice things. That's where the US has been very vocal about, and that's good they have been, because the European Union has saying the same thing now. Conventional solar panels are not very nice things, right? They're good to the environment. Yes, we stopped burning carbon fuels, great. But you can't, they're not easy to recycle. And most of this stuff is actually finding its way to landfill in China. And I'm talking millions and millions and millions of tons of this stuff. It's going back into landfill. Didn't want to do that either. This is a this is a solar tile that is ruggedized for the shipping industry. It lasts 30 years, not months, as a conventional panel will do. So it goes on, you can walk on it, you can do the things you need to do on the deck by walking on this thing. It creates power through the through the power of the sun, captures the power, it can store the power, it can intelligently let the ship use the power or store it. But what makes it very special is we can upgrade it as power letters technology lets us do that. But it's different to all the other technologies because all the other technologies are working when the ship is moving. When the ship is under sail, they can put a big sail up. Or there's a hole design change. This actually works when you when the ship is moving, but also when the ship is at port side. When the ship's at port side, there's so many ports around the world that are not and not electrified in any way. So how do you run the systems on a ship? Well, you do what you do, and the think of the biggest truck you can think that's going outside Houston today. That truck parks outside your house or your apartment and it leaves the engine on for four days. All day, all night, burning fuel. That's what's happening with ships around the world. That's happening with ships in port sides all around the world. They'll pull up and they will run a diesel-generating engine, heavy fuel engine, and they'll run that to boil their kettle, to put on the microwave, to watch the TV, to charge the phone, to run the hotel load of the ship. That's what they do. So this enables the ship then to utilize the power clean, sustainable, free energy, and switch some of the engines off. Maybe not all of them, but if we can switch two off and if they've got four, or one, if they've got four, it's a benefit to the company.

unknown 41:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Carbon credits and fuel burn.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 41:04

Now, where are you at in the development process? Have you already um is this already commercial or gone to market? It's credit.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Yeah, I've I've been I've been in place, I've been in, I've been in place as CEO for not quite a year. I've been with the company for three years as a non-exec and a part-time non-exec. Um we will go fully commercial this year. Again, Graph Marine was in the same place as most companies I came to. There was no C trials, there's no trials in the world. Um, that was one of the things I instigated, was changing the processes, bringing some of the people in, which is what I'm very passionate about. I think companies are as are only as strong as the people that are in that business. It's not about the technology. The past owner who's no longer in the business, um, it was about him. Graphme is not about any individual anymore, it's about the technology and the people that are delivering that technology. So we've appointed the chief operations officer for the maritime industry, etc. etc. So we've got a now strong board. So we'll be commercial by the end of this year, fully commercial. We're doing, we've done six trials so far. We've got a large shipping trial to go out this year. Um, and hopefully next year will be into production.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 42:13

Oh, exciting. And how much power will it generate for a vessel?

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Um, it will get it will give the vessel 10% of what they require.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 42:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

So depending on the size, it's that's a very complicated thing to answer for the simple reason we can we can create huge amounts of power using solar. Depending on the size of the ship, we put them on certain parts of the deck, depends where it is in the world. At the moment, with the technology, solar really is in a very, very good place when it comes to the the equator. You know, for the Mediterranean south at the moment, that the north up around the top of the UK, Greenland, these sort of places, it's limited. It's just a nice to have. I don't think companies want nice to have, they want something that's meaningful. So the companies we we've been trialing with have been around the Cape, they've been around Australia, they've been in the Mediterranean, they've been around the Caribbean. So we've we've had a lot of data from those sort of locations. It's it's it's really exciting times. It's it's gonna be very interesting for for the business going forward. Yeah, very interesting.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 43:12

Yeah. And what types of ships is it ideal for?

SPEAKER_00 43:16

The thing with the IMO that people don't realize the regulation about decarbonisation is every vessel that's on the ocean. Every vessel that's gonna have an engine has to decarbonize. Every vessel, everywhere in the world. Some companies are gonna push back harder than others, obviously they do, but it's coming. Well, you know, even though the IMO have changed some of their targets lately because of the change of government in the US, as I've been under pressure to change some of their targets and and not been as aggressive. But none of the shipping companies are paying any attention to that, to be honest with you. They're saying it's coming. You know, there's gonna be a change of power in the US in the next few years. There's gonna be a change of power in Russia in the next few years. We know that, they're all getting older. They're all so things will change. The world evolves, doesn't it? The shipping companies are planning 10 years ahead. They're not planning for tomorrow. So that's the only good thing.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 44:05

And as you move toward full commercialization, what does scale look like for Graft Marine?

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Scale for us, we want a manufacturing facility in it's very difficult for us at the moment because manufacturing is going to be in Europe. It's going to be in Bilbao in Europe. So we access the single market because we're a UK business, but we have an RD centre in the UK. We have an office in Bilbao. We're going to make it in Asia. We haven't decided where in Asia we're going to make it. We would like to make it in the US, but are finding it hugely difficult and complicated at the moment because we don't know where we where we stand and how we're going to do that. There's huge implications about doing anything in the US at the moment if you're if you're British or European. But again, that will pass. And they speak Spanish already in the business. So that is the problem. And I'm a very passionate European. I like the European market very much. So yeah, we will we will do it in the stage at a time. We've already um assembled two key um supply chain partners on the logistics and sales side. We've already got those on board. All our supply chain is ready for manufacturing process in in Europe, so we can make the product. So our visualization is we won't go fully manufacturable level until until next year.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 45:25

That's the point. Well, very exciting times. And I know I have so many more questions, but we're pretty much out of the ground here. So, Mark, one final question for founders, executives, and innovators listening. What's the one mindset shift that would most increase their chances of turning ideas into lasting profitable impact?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Listen to your client. Understand your client. Knowledge is power. Understand, and we we do know what we see this so much in academia, in books and everything else. And it doesn't really mean anything to people anymore. And I don't know why. Um and I say this time and time again: business is very, very simple. It's not hard, it's not complicated, it's wants, needs. And if you can, if you can actually fill those, and remember, you know, go away from your client, go away from your client, but put yourself in their position. And and again, this has got nothing to do with cultures, whatever, whether it's a man or a woman, black, white, whatever you are, Muslim, Christian, this is how it works. They close the door and you go down the road and they say to each other, is this gonna make us anything? Is this gonna save us anything? And if you haven't touched any of those points, you've got a really tough sell in your hand. You've got a really tough sell in your hand. So if you don't know your client, you're always gonna be on the back foot. And I really mean know your client. You know, people say, Yeah, well, I know, I know I know I know she does X, Y, and Z. But do you know her business? Who's she competing against? What is she frightened of? You know, what's coming down the line that's gonna impact her business? If you can find that, yeah, and you know that in a year's time this is gonna impact your business. If you can solve that before you walk in the door and you can do your elevator speech, even if you get in the in the in the elevator and say, Well, okay, Mark, what are you gonna do for me? Well, I know this is coming down the path, and in 12 months' time you're gonna have this, this, this, and this problem. I can solve those problems before they come to your desk. Tell me more. Come in and sit down. You'll talk about your product naturally anyway, but knowing your client is the most important thing you could ever learn about your business. Why are you gonna buy it? Why are they gonna buy a few? If you don't know that, go home or don't go. Just don't go.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 47:44

Yeah, no, I great perspective. And yeah. Well, Mark, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing all of your perspectives on commercialization leadership and what it really takes to turn ideas into value at scale. For listeners who want to learn more about Graft Marine or connect with you, where's the best place for them to reach you?

SPEAKER_00 48:05

We're we're on the web. You'll find us, you'll find us, google GraftMarine.com, you'll you'll you'll find us straight away. Um more than happy to have a conversation, talk to anybody. We're at the moment the business is going through the the scale up. Um, we're looking for more business partners, whether that's on the supply chain, people are interested in joining us and investing with us and growing this business, it's a huge opportunity for somebody out there. Um and and we look forward to coming to America one day. It's land of opportunity, land of where things do come true. Not upset about.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 48:37

Yeah, and we have lots of ships here, so yeah, come on over. All right, well, thank you, Mark. And to our listeners, if you enjoyed the conversation, please be sure to subscribe and share this episode. And until next time, stay bold, stay curious, and keep igniting industry.