EP 174: Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul | Funding the Next Industrial Era

Most people still treat climate solutions as a cost.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul argues that this is exactly why so many leaders miss the real opportunity.

The next industrial era will not be built by patching old systems, but by redesigning them from the ground up.

In this episode of Beginner’s Mind, Wanwipa explains why industrial decarbonization is not mainly about sacrifice, compliance, or adding expensive fixes to yesterday’s infrastructure. It is about building better systems, stronger companies, and entirely new categories of value creation.

A chemical engineer trained at MIT and Princeton, former professor, and Partner at Vectors Capital, Wanwipa works at the intersection of climate tech, synthetic biology, industrial innovation, and early-stage venture capital. Her perspective is grounded in both science and scale: what matters is not only whether a breakthrough works in the lab, but whether it can survive the journey from one gram to one ton, from prototype to product, from curiosity to adoption.

We talk about why the strongest climate companies redesign industries instead of decorating old ones, why synthetic biology is emerging as a new industrial toolkit, how startups like Huue Bio, Ingrediome, and Solidec reveal very different scale-up strategies, and why the best founders treat breakthroughs as hypotheses to test rather than theories to defend.

As Wanwipa puts it:
(01:57:02) “See climate solutions not as cost, but as funding the next industrial era.” 

What you’ll hear in this episode

1. Why decarbonization becomes far more powerful when industries are redesigned, not merely optimized 
2. How synthetic biology can replace toxic, waste-heavy industrial chemistry with cleaner production models 
3. Why great science is only the starting point, and why scale is where most companies really live or die 
4. What founders can learn about resilience, coachability, timing, and relentless customer discovery 
5. How climate tech can create competitive advantage, new revenue streams, and distributed industrial resilience 
6. Why Southeast Asia may become a powerful region for the next wave of climate and bioindustrial growth 

Selected moments

(00:00:56) From Professor to Climate Tech Venture Capital
(00:09:27) Why Climate Change Became Personal in Thailand
(00:14:11) From Pure Discovery to Real Market Impact
(00:23:00) Decarbonization by Redesigning Industry
(00:30:06) The Climate Tech Mistake Costing Investors Money
(00:34:17) Solidec and the Future of Distributed Manufacturing
(00:38:50) Why Big Companies Resist Industrial Reinvention
(00:46:21) How Great Founders Turn Pivots Into New Markets
(00:50:50) Customer Discovery in Deep Tech and Climate Startups
(00:53:08) Great Science Must Become Products People Use
(01:00:39) Synthetic Biology as the New Industrial Toolkit
(01:10:15) How Climate Startups Find Early Adopters
(01:13:19) Founder Resilience and the Stomach of Steel
(01:21:15) Venture Capital and the Crucial Why Now
(01:57:02) Climate Solutions as Funding the Next Industrial Era 

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Transcript

Why Most Climate Conversations Are Already Obsolete

Christian Soschner 0:00

Most climate conversations are already obsolete. We keep talking about reducing emissions as if the future will be built by adding costs to old systems. But the real question is far more unsettling and far more lucrative. What if the winners of the next century are not the companies that clean up the old industrial model, but the ones that redesign it from the ground up?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 0:23

We can clean up after the storm passed, but are we going to be doing this every year now?

Why Great Science Still Dies in the Real World

From Scientist and Professor to Climate Investor

Christian Soschner 0:29

And my guest today has lived that question from every single angle. One WIPA Sidivatve Jackun is a chemical engineer trained at MIT and Princeton. A former professor who trained more than 100 engineers for oil, gas, and petrochemicals, and now a partner at Vector's Capital where she backs climate and bioinnovation companies trying to rebuild industry itself. And here is the deeper tension. Great science is not enough. A beautiful lab result can still die in the real world. Because the true battle begins when you try to move from one gram to one ton, from theory to factory, from admiration to adoption. And that is where founders break, where incumbents start and where new industries are born. And in this conversation today, we go far beyond ESG songs. We talk about why synthetic biology may become the new industrial toolkits, how companies like UBio and Solidec reveal a very different future of manufacturing and why the leaders who matter now are the ones willing to rethink systems, not decorate them. I hope that we don't see climate solution as a cost, but think of it as funding the next And that is the real invitation in this episode, not to feel better about climate, but to see earlier than others where the next industrial era is being funded, built, and won. And this is my conversation with one Vipa, Sidivatve. Welcome to the show. You're a scientist, an educator, an investor, and work at the intersection of industry, climate and innovation. And to open our conversation, I would like to ask the first question to your journey. Um, which is which is amazing. Um you worked you were in at MIT, Princeton, you had uh some years as a professor in Bangkok, you work now as a venture capitalist between Palo Alto and uh Bangkok, connecting basically the whole world in between. Uh when we look at your life, which story would you choose from your life if it would just choose one story that best explains why you do this work today? Which story would you pick?

How Covid Reframed Impact and Urgency

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 3:22

Um, thank you. Um thank you for the kind introduction. And um if I were to choose one moment, I I think I have to choose COVID-19. I know it sounds like a cliche, right? But um when you uh face with kind of a global pandemic, it it makes you think uh you re-realign your priorities, right? Because um when when I was uh a professor or uh looking back, um, you know, I've always loved learning, uh love technology. So I thought, you know, going through um bachelor degree, PhD degree, uh being educated from a world-class institution like MIT in Princeton. So I thought, you know, like um I want to scale this love of learning through teaching, right? Uh being professor is very fulfilling. I've uh had great students in my life who've gone on to be um build successful venture, very interesting venture. But um when when COVID came around, when COVID hit, you know, and and I think a lot of people have gone through the same journey. They think, oh, you know, we want to help, uh, we want to um be agile, quick at reacting to uh this global event. But being restricted in kind of a university setting, I feel that it was not not allowing me to be as quick as I wanted to be. And um, you rearrange your priorities. There are things that you want to do that you think, you know, like it can wait, but now all of a sudden it cannot wait. And we we want to accomplish and we want to have impact tomorrow and we want to make it happen. That's why I feel like I want to make a change going into um developing some of these technologies so that it can impact wider audience um and have a real impact as opposed to when you are teaching, you're hopefully one day somebody will pick up your research and develop it into a product or solution.

Christian Soschner 5:46

Yeah, I totally agree. It's a completely different level. Um, you not only have academic experience and experience as a venture capitalist, you also worked in the industry, in the petrochemical industry, where you trained over a hundred engineers into oil, gas, and petrochemicals. When did it first hit you that you didn't just want to train talent for the old system but help build new systems as a venture capitalist?

Starting in Oil and Gas Before Climate Tech

Discovering Microbes as Industrial Workers

From Lab Scale to Industrial Ambition

Huue Bio and the Indigo Dye Breakthrough

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 6:17

I I think it's kind of a slow shift and it's um it's it's there there's no single moment, right? Um, and and I'll I'll I'll tell you why. Um so I actually started my career in oil and gas. So my PhD research is in fracturing fluid. So I don't know um uh if the audience are familiar with the process, right? Uh fracturing uh fracking or fracturing process is when you um uh pressurize liquid to uh fracture the rock surface so that you can um stimulate and recover more oil. So what I was working on is using uh looking at this behavior of the liquid that we pump in. So ideally, we want the liquid that can build up high pressure so it cracks the rocks easier. But but when the oil is being recovered, that these liquid does not impede, does not stop the flow back so that we can recover the oil easier. So I was doing, so um, I was working with polymers, plastics in solution. So I my early part of my career was extension of that, looking at different applications of polymers, plastic. And then in about 2010, a friend of mine who's been working with uh microbes, they said, hey, why don't we think of a new way of instead of making these chemicals, you know, like go into the lab, cranking out chemicals, having catalysts, heating them up, why don't we throw in the microbes and make them work for us, right? So that's the first time I thought, oh, wait a minute. Um yeah, we actually can redesign this process, right? But even in that process, I feel, you know, like when you grow microbes, so it's the same process as beer. So you have a big tank, you throw the yeast, you throw the sugar in, and it in the beer tank it uh forms beer. But in this case, we throw in the yeast, well, not the yeast, a different type of microbes and throw in sugar and it produces some chemicals, right? But when when you're working in that type of process, it's in research um phase. So you make at most what 10, 20 gram at a time, right? So I mean it's great. I think it was a great start. That's why I got excited about it because hey, instead of making beer or um kimchi, right, this we make industrial chemical. Um, but but it's doing a very, very small scale. So uh after COVID, I I ran into um uh Jane, who's now managing partner at Vector's Capital. So she took me to uh a company that she invested in when she was an angel investor, it's called Hubio. So they do they use genetic tools in order to make the microbes to produce indigo dye. So when you go in um in the lab, um when um when when I talked about you do beer fermentation, I don't know if you've done homemade homebrew beer. So it's um milky-like, and then you it goes through different process and then it becomes clear yellow liquid, right? But here you have everywhere you turn around, it's indigo dye color. So I'm like, wow, um, instead of making the chemicals in the lab like I did, this they can make actual um industrial chemicals, equivalent to how we make it in, you know, um uh industrial scale process. But this we just use sugar and let the bacteria grow, and then it turns out to be equivalent product. It they dry it uh and dye the genes, it's the same quality, they wash it, it's it looks exactly the same. So that was um kind of where I reach Epiphany. Hey, what I do as a professor, um, if you actually have courage and the team to build it into a company, it could be an industrial process. So that that kind of shift in me, that slow shift to to see how I go. Uh one can go from you know a totally chemical process into a benign, not high temperature, not using a lot of acid that use microbes to grow pretty much the equivalent thing and do much less harm to the environment.

Christian Soschner 11:10

That's a great story, it's basically your uh Genitech moment where you uh moved from one part from academia into the venture capital part. Um but there is still one step missing for me that I would like to explore a little bit more the step into climate tech and uh climate change. And in the preparation material I read that you described being motivated to mitigate the negative externalities of the petrochemical industry. And when you look at this mission, is this uh mainly an intellectual mission for you, or is there more a personal emotional driver behind it?

Thailand Floods and the Reality of Climate Risk

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 11:51

Um it is a little bit of both, right? For me. Um, the intellectual part of me is yes, we want to find better solutions. We add, but but then emotionally better in what way, right? And and being in Thailand, I mean, we used to be one of the top 10 countries most impacted by by climate change. Um, I think the ranking is changing a little bit, but I mean we see firsthand now the storms are getting a lot stronger. I live in Bangkok. Um, 10 years ago, we never had, well, no, we only have floodings when it's um like really major storm, but this we have every year. And I don't know if you've been following the news. In the southern part of Thailand, they got hit with the storm. This is like once in a century storm that is inundated um commercial area. This is a very lively commercial area when yes, um we can clean up after the storm passed, but are we gonna be doing this every year now? And um, I mean, there is there are things where there is no monetary value, right? You imagine um a house, the first floor is being flooded. I mean, this is um we talk about memories, photos, um, you know, things that are um of sentimental value. And this is, I'm not even talking about the loss of lives, right? And those are replaceable. So for me, um then it becomes more uh it's getting more and more personal now. How do we um mitigate these, um prevent it from going even crazier, right? Because I think um five or ten years ago, we said once in a lifetime storm, but this once in a lifetime is happening every year now.

Christian Soschner 14:07

So you experience in Thailand uh the results of climate change on on a yearly basis, basically. You see the difference?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 14:13

Yes. Yes. Now we have um every time it storms, um, it uh the every time it rains, the rain gets so uh concentrated. The the um it just it's almost like um what do we call it? Um it almost feel like the amount of rain that we used to get in a month concentrated in like a few days. So so that's why we we get um a flooding uh get flooded every year. But on the other hand, in the summer, it gets really hot and um there started to be areas of uh water shortage in Thailand. Um so so then we we go through these um natural disasters of too much water and not enough water, and it's this cycles that it's almost like you can already predict every year now. And I don't think this is unique to Thailand, right? Um I think we started to see this in other parts of the world also. Um I think Philippines also it's being hit with much stronger storm than they had experienced in the past in uh Hong Kong, Taiwan, um a lot of countries around Asia. And I'm sure um even if for you guys, you probably cycle through um a lot of snow and not enough snow and uh all the um kind of alternative um year by year as well.

Christian Soschner 15:56

Yeah, it's changing, it's changing, it's changing also also year around. Um when we tackled this topic climate change a little bit later in the conversation. Uh for the open for the opening phase, uh let's uh let's move to your life story and explore it further. Um let's just imagine you could go back in time and you could meet your younger self at the time when you were at Princeton. I think you started for a PhD. And when you would have a conversation with yourself at this time, what would surprise your younger self the most about your work that you are doing today as a climate tech investor?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 16:38

This is actually very interesting that um this actually this conversation brought up a lot of good memory. Um so, so when I I I think I did mention I love learning, uh, I love technology, right? So um when I was a young researcher or so focusing on pushing technology envelope, um, we do research for the sake of researching. You want to be the first to discover uh new technology. Uh uh, but here as I spent a few years doing investing, looking at new startup, new venture, I think um we pay a lot more attention to who will use that technology, what would the technology serve the market? Is there any other alternative technology? So it's not about being the first or being the only one who can do the uh who can crack the technology, now being an investor or a startup founder or a venture builder, it's more about how do we make good use of technology to serve the society or the pain point of the market.

Christian Soschner 18:03

That's great. And after finishing your PhD studies, you also then spent 15 years teaching. Um when you look at your time at academia and the teaching, how does this experience shape the way you talk with uh with founders and investors today?

How Teaching Shaped Founder Conversations

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 18:36

Um I think being a college professor gave you kind um gave me kind of um an insight into how somebody who has little knowledge or looking at things from a different perspective from you, think. So it's almost like I can kind of foresee what students won't understand. So so I use that to um kind of um have use that kind of mindset, right? To have conversation with founder, right? So um trying to because I understand founder would know more than me. Um, so so I I want to make sure I communicate what I don't understand to them so that they can better answer my questions. Because sometimes I feel like there's a lot of assumptions, and and I I see this in season investors as well. There are a lot of assumptions that founder would know this and that, or um, or other people they talk to would would know all the linkals, and and I think um and and having kind of experience with different, like different levels of students, right? You you come with a a certain knowledge base. So so I think kind of help grease the conversation, I guess. Um so so and and hopefully, um hopefully I don't make the founder uncomfortable. Because sometimes when you when you um ask uh questions, I I I think uh people get get self-conscious as well. But but hopefully, hopefully um that didn't make the turn the founder off.

Christian Soschner 20:41

I are you tempted sometimes to say when your founder comes in, welcome to the exam. So please sit down.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 20:48

I I you I think you're right. And I I try not to be so professorial. I I I still think I do, um, because but but hopefully um, and sometimes I just preface it to be no, I'm I'm I'm trying to be formal, I'm not interrogating you or something. I just want, yeah, I I just wanted to know because these are very important for my decision. So hopefully that doesn't uh that doesn't put them off.

Christian Soschner 21:19

What I find interesting is uh the switch between roles. So I mean basically in time it just looks like nothing. Yeah, so if you're more business card one day and another business card another day, one day you are a professor the other day you're a venture capitalist. But basically, what needs to change, I mean, these are completely different roles. So academic professor is one role, um venture capitalist is another role. When you look at yourself internally, what I'm curious to learn is what belief did you need to change about your own role in the world when you switched gears and moved to this new role?

From Knowing the Answer to Asking Better Questions

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 21:54

Oh that's a that's a actually a Great question. Um because when I wear a professor hat, people feel like I know all the answers. Versus uh if I wear like an investor hat, I think it gives me more kind of um a license to be more curious, like outright being curious, right? Um, but but anyway, um, regardless of what I do, um I tell myself that I I don't know everything. Even being a professor, I I don't know everything. And this is so difficult for students to accept. When I say I really don't know, um they say I I think they give me this puzzle look. But um I I I try to keep this curiosity, like I I guess we I try to maintain this learning mindset because I I cannot know everything, right?

Christian Soschner 23:14

That's true. Is this such a difference uh in these two roles that you that you really experience that um your students expect you to know everything and that you can be you're basically much free as a venture capitalist to ask questions or be curious and say, okay, I don't know anything. So just tell me. Is it such a huge difference that you experience?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 23:35

Um yeah, actually, actually, because um like when when when we talk to startups, right, I think um I'm I'm quite free to ask a lot of random questions versus um, yeah, in in professor role. I think there's that expectation that I I know the answer. When and and even when I said I don't know, I think it's so difficult for people to accept, like students to accept that. And um, but but then I at least will try to give them guiding questions. I at least trying to fulfill that role to to give them guiding questions. And and even um with the I I think the mindset is the same, but you're right, the role is slightly different. So be more guiding as opposed to being just curious and learn what the startup is doing. But what I can also, I I think um in both roles, I think the role that keeping this learning mindset will also hopefully help the startups uh have can provide some feedback to to the startup, whether or not they want it. Um yeah.

Christian Soschner 24:58

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Let's switch gears and move to industrial redesign. Um I picked it up from your preparation material, and in the material you talk about a fundamental shift, um, which I found quite interesting, and uh would like to dig a little bit deeper into that. It's uh I understood it as decarbonization by redesigning industries and not just reducing emissions. What's the difference between these two mindsets in practice? Decarbonization by redesigning industries versus just reducing emissions?

Why Emissions Reduction Becomes a Burden

Cement, Microbes, and the Next Industrial Process

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 25:37

So I'll um I'll I'll uh I'll give you um okay, so normally when we are talking about uh decarbonization, right? So for example, um I'll I'll I'll give you an example of automotive, right? So if you do in if you use internal combustion engine uh to reduce uh carbon dioxide, um to reduce uh carbon dioxide emission, you add different components, right? Catalytic converter, you may add uh carbon um some some sort of device to capture carbon dioxide that's released. So you add a lot more component just to solve this problem of carbon dioxide emission. But think about uh if we rethink this process, um does the car, uh does the car have to uh emit carbon dioxide? What just like what Tesla is doing, right? So um we do uh electric vehicle. So all of a sudden you don't you change the way the car is driven. It's driven by electricity, it doesn't generate greenhouse uh gas emission. So you don't have to add all these extra components, which adding costs. So I'm giving these two examples because you can imagine if you uh uh do things the usual way, you have to add more and more components. So it would only cost more. And when you think about it that way, then reducing carbon dioxide will become a burden, right? Versus if you rethink this process, redesign this car using electricity, you um you don't have to worry about CO2 emission, you build a new industry, and which is thriving actually in some uh countries, um, China being the leader, um, and having a new um company. I mean, Tesla was never a car before uh company before, and because they built um EV, right? So it's a new industry, new company. Um, so and I I think this should be how we view it, right? Uh another good example is um cement. So we see um if you study cement industry, it's highly energy intensive, right? You burn um rock at God knows a thousand Celsius, a thousand, two thousand Celsius, right? Imagine how much heat that goes into it. And not only the energy intensive uh in intensity, burning this rock generates CO2 by itself, right? Because we um burning off calcium carbonate to generate carbon uh calcium oxide. So very in uh carbon-intensive industry. Now there are a good number of um startups and companies that redesigning a new process. Uh there are a handful of startups that are using microbes to grow calcium oxide, calcium derivative that is a major component of the cement. So we don't we bypass this heating, we bypass generating CO2, and even better, we uh these microbes actually use CO2 to generate components in cement. And this is only one example. There are also uh the example of using electricity to convert some of these components. So, and if they scale successfully, that would be a new company, that would be a new business that we don't have to think about, oh, um, because right now uh semen plant has to build carbon capture that is um unit that is also very expensive, it's also energy intensive because adding on more and more components to solve the problem, it's only gonna cost more when we can redesign the process. And um, so so I think that might be something that we as a whole um industry need to rethink. And there, this is why uh new ideas from startup, new adventures, it's really going to inject new ways of thinking, how we can uh carry on industrial process that makes more sense in the next century.

Christian Soschner 30:33

Yeah, great examples, especially think for Europe. It's uh it's it's interesting to see that the the move from combustion engine to EWEs um basically caused the entire industry, I would say basically off guard. Um did nobody expected here in Europe that something is gonna happen when Tesla was laughed at, I think, until 2018, 2019, 2020. Um so your your concept basically is to really encourage startups to rethink entire industries from the ground up and not just incremental change.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 31:08

Yes, yes. And that's kind of the startups we're looking for, right? Because I already gave these two examples. If we build this incremental chains, solve the problem, then it becomes uh cost-centered, becomes cost prohibitive. So adoption will be difficult. So those may not survive at the end because industry may not want to adopt the solution as opposed to when you come up with a new solution that makes sense, that are cost competitive, at least in a long run. So then there is a chance of a better chance of adoption towards the end.

The Investor Misconception Costing Real Money

Christian Soschner 31:53

And you view it through the lens of a venture capitalist, so not from a philanthropic endeavor. And this, I think, is uh still a problem in in many regions, especially Europe with old money, where many investors still treat sustainability as we do something good to the world, it feels well. Uh some call it ESG feature, I think, uh, especially with that geopolitical change that we saw recently in the last two years. Let's let's let's challenge those people a little bit. And uh when you look at it from your perspective, what's the biggest misconception these investors have that is literally costing them money?

Data Centers, Waste Heat, and Circular Economics

Economic Sense First Environmental Benefit Second

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 32:33

Right. Um I'll I'll give the similar example, right? Um similar carbon capture example, but um in a different setting. So I'm I'm sure I mean we're all in a need with AI news and data center, right? And one of the costs uh from running these data centers is um the first energy intensity, and because of this energy intensity that is consumed in the data center, generate a lot of heat and um produce uh CO2 emissions, right? So a lot of people address this by you know buying carbon credit, um uh supporting carbon capture uh technology. In reality, uh there are a few smart uh startups that actually instead of wasting this heat, try to recycle it. Or uh, for example, um there are some uh smart technology, um some startups that are using that heat that is generated from data center uh towards carbon capture. This is um kind of a circular economy that makes sense instead of just buying carbon credit, right? Uh can we make good use of this extra heat? Uh and um I've seen some companies, uh food company uh that use a lot of steam, a lot of heating for drying. Um, they're trying to recapture that waste heat and recycle it back. So it's not about the company fulfilling their green goal or sustainability goal, but it's actually for their economic viability. So I think that's a win-win. So they can capture that green and sustainability and make them feel good, but it makes economic sense first.

Christian Soschner 34:44

So this means basically that uh in your data center example, you you find new revenue streams for them. So if they can use the heat commercially, they can just sell it, sell it as a product or as a service.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 34:56

Exactly. Right, right. And it's yeah, and it's it makes economic sense, it makes uh um environmental sense, right? Because if you uh uh kind of uh relieve that that heat, there's there is no other way to go. You have to go through heat exchanger, cooling it down before you release it into the um environment.

Christian Soschner 37:05

So you capture it twice on one hand, you reduce the needs of buying carbon credits. So you reduce the cost, and on the other hand, uh you put you create new revenue streams for them. Exactly.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 37:21

Exactly. It's you create a new revenue streams, right? Uh whether or not you uh it replaced a carbon credit, I I think it's it's up to the company to decide. And I I think it's fine. There is nothing wrong with carbon credit, but I I think um just carbon credit alone for the company to fulfill some some uh green goal, I I don't think that makes a lot of sense in this day and age.

Christian Soschner 37:50

Yeah, that's true. That's true, but still I I think uh when we look at these new new industries when they appear, there is always um many people ignore it for a very long time. Uh you mentioned Tesla. Um, do you have one other example like uh as Tesla, maybe from your own portfolio, one concrete example where this redesign model or this thinking rethinking industries from the ground up already beats the big corporations in that sector on cost, reliability, and margins?

Why Large Companies Resist Reinvention

Six Sigma and the Trap of Optimization

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 38:25

Uh already beating uh hold on, I'm trying to think. Uh because um a lot of them are still trying to scale up. Uh but I'll give you this example that that makes logical sense. Um, one of the companies we just invested in uh Solidex, they make they use electricity, electrolyzer to produce hydrogen peroxide. Okay. And um you you probably know hydrogen peroxide has been around for a long time. We use it uh to clean our wound. Um and uh and and it's used in many industrial processes. And traditionally, it's made from the process that involves chemical from petrochemical process. So um it's centralized. You you actually have a few countries that make it and you ship it in um large tank um contain uh shipping container, right? You can imagine that it's actually um highly reactive and um it's somewhat of um um explosion prone, but even with that centralized model makes more sense because it's cheaper, it's a commodity. But um they the value proposition for them is that they are making small electrolyzers, so a size of um uh uh um a washing machine. Uh and the the value of this is there are some operators, for example, hospital, um water plant treatment. Uh, they don't need a lot. So if uh they order from decentralized facility, they can only order once a year and nobody wants to drive the truck to them. And they have to build this facility that is explosion proof. But uh with Solidec, they make this small size electrolyzer that produce on site and supply as needed. So they don't have to store like a size of a one ton so they can produce at it goes, so they don't have to be worried about explosion. Um, and they don't have to, uh the the site doesn't have to pay extra costs for somebody to ship it to them once a year. Um, so so this is an example of rethinking the whole process. We don't have to have a centralized uh industrial process. You can have distributed manufacturing on site, uh manufacture as needed. So um, and and this makes sense for them because it's a small user. This is and this solution doesn't work for everyone, right? There are some people who who still need the old solution because they need what uh a thousand ton a year. So this uh truck could be shipping it in or piping it in, but for smaller users, I think this makes a lot more sense.

Christian Soschner 41:46

Yeah, that's true. And you can also encourage startups then to identify new customers that uh have needs that are not fulfilled yet.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 41:54

Exactly, exactly.

Christian Soschner 41:56

When we look, um, I recently read the book The Innovator's Dilemma. Uh it was a book, I think, written 25 years ago or something. Uh it's a great book still. There are a lot of uh learnings in it. And what I really always wonder is when I look at the large industrial players, um, for example, 25 years ago, General Electric was one of the big players, Jack Welch, the the uh I mean was like a big star as a CEO uh building the greatest company, and then she declined. What I always wondered, and you have experience in academia, in venture capital, and in the industry, what you always wondered is what is holding these big companies back? I mean, Jack Welch was a fan of this black belt uh Six Sigma system, and I always wondered why are they so reluctant to innovation? What, in your opinion, what holds them back to just redesign their own system and um avoid being taken over uh like Tesla did with the combustion engine? But what is the problem in big companies from your point of view?

Why Innovation Requires Learning to Be Uncomfortable

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 43:03

Um I think you did mention Six Sigma, right? So it's Six Sigma, it's you trying to improve each stage, uh each step, right? So when you are it's when you're so focusing on making that incremental change, it's hard to get away and rethink the process because you perfect each uh processes, each process to like optimize it to the end, right? And this is um, I have a great anecdote that I work uh, I talk to uh petrochemical conglomerate. And I think to be fair, I think uh industry these days have learned from some of these lessons, right? Uh and they have tried to rethink the process. And some of it being uh necessity, some of it uh being competition is doing it, right? So um I talked to one petrochemical sustainability officer. He said he he optimized all the process there is, right? He used all the renewable that he could, um uh all the energy efficiency software. So he's at his wit's end, right? If he the company doesn't change the process, there's no more like green or um CO2 to be reduced from the current process. So if the mandate is to reach uh carbon neutral, they need to rethink this. So that is um one way of being forced by regulation, external force. But um, if the company is so focusing on being lean and squeezing all the efficiency out of the their process, I think it's getting into that mindset of being incremental change.

Christian Soschner 45:06

Yeah, Europe is uh is an expert in regulation. Uh doesn't that doesn't work all the time, doesn't work all the time.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 45:13

Right, right. Well, I mean, um um I I that that is a very fair comment. Um but not only regulation, right? You have competition. This is why um being open to ex uh external pressure sometimes drives the change, right?

Christian Soschner 45:34

And sometimes it the fascinating thing is that sometimes it comes really, really late. Really, really late. Um, everybody's seeing it coming. It's like a Electric vehicles. Everybody saw it. Tesla didn't start building yesterday. They started thinking Elon Musk took over the company in 2003 or something. And he advocated for electric vehicles for over 20 years. Um principle. And Tesla was was was laughed at, was uh talked down, and um, especially here in Europe, nobody could imagine that uh some crazy person in California can build an entire industry from scratch. And what I always wondered is why why do companies not innovate faster by themselves? I mean, you mentioned two regulation is one way to force them into uh into this external pressure, but um could it not be more intrinsic in your opinion? So that's not external factors need to contribute, but that they set up an innovation system. How would an innovation system um internally look like, in your opinion, that motivates companies to take the first step before the pressure comes in?

Boom Supersonic and the Power of Strategic Pivots

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 46:45

Um that's a great question. Um, I and this is why um I I I I'll share from my experience. I think um people get into the routine, right? I mean, this is uh speaking from my experience because I had to cross over from being a steady professor job, you walk in, you know what to do, right? As opposed to when you work with startup. I don't know who I'm going to meet today, what industry I'm gonna be talking about today. So um I I think this is why a lot of people said it's much more difficult to unlearn um because you know what to like it's a corporate job, right? You come in, you know what to do. And I I think some corporate are being mindful, are very mindful of this. And I I I I think even um European CVC are doing a very good job. Um, I think um there are a few very um innovative uh companies in in Europe that set out to have CVC go out there and find new technologies and trying to innovate outside in, right? Trying to get that osmosis, bring the startup to work internally. But there's still some friction. And I think um definitely, and it's not, I I don't think it's only Europe. Um a lot of CBC trying to bring in um innovation startups to work with their internal team. There is still friction. Um, but but I think it's a learning process too, right? To um it's the startup that fast, fast, fast versus people who uh it's been in this job, they know what the pain points are. I think it's learning how to be uncomfortable working with something new. Uh and also it does take imagination because a lot of what startups set out to do, not that they're not successful, but it morphs into uh different things, right? We we see um we see recent announcement, boom, supersonic, they want to do a supersonic jet plane, yeah, but recently they just signed a contract to power um data center, right? So so I think it takes a little bit of imagination, having the ability to fail, having the ability to navigate this uncertainty. I I think um everybody kind of have to learn to expand their comfort zone a little bit, right?

Christian Soschner 49:54

Did you I like this example that you brought up? It was recently I saw it, I think, on on X. Yeah, it was in my news feed um that this supersonic company pivoted when part of the business uh towards providing uh I think gas, it was a gas turbine. Gas turbine to that. Did you did you have time to dig a little bit in the story how they found this pivot point? It's completely different. It's from uh air planes flying in the air to providing gas turbines for data centers. I mean, did you did you have time to think this through?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 50:31

I don't uh I I don't have um, I don't I didn't read into nitty gritty detail, but part of it is they built a jet engine, so a gas turbine jet engine that is, I I believe was um very efficient, so it's uh high energy density, and um um because data center is popping up any everywhere and they're hungry for power, so anything that can provide power, uh they'll they'll they'll be happy to sign contract. I I think that's where it happens. And this is a great point about PIVID, also, and this is what said um great founder apart uh from from regular folks, right, to to recognize that opportunity. So it's a lot of it, it's uh the founder goes out and trying to find business opportunity. And we also have um uh an example. So also for us, I've um uh for Solidec initially were I gave you example of water treatment using hydrogen peroxide, but um because rare earth has come into uh discussion. So one of the processes is using hydrogen peroxide. So they actually went and found um a mining company and signed contracts. So I think it's it's I I give the credit for the team, the company's team that go out and find business opportunity because we don't know really what different application the technology can lend itself in.

Christian Soschner 52:13

When you look at these stories, uh, both of them, and we've tried to find a principle. I mean, there's this philosophical discussion. Um are these two companies just lucky that uh they were at the right time, at the right place, they were just there and um things happen out of luck, or is this the logical end result of the process before that they really worked hard for one or two decades, prepared everything, gained a lot of insight, and then could connect the dots? When you look at these two philosophical endpoints, pure luck, pure preparation. Um how how important are these two parameters in in these scenarios?

Breakthroughs Begin as Hypotheses

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 52:55

Uh great questions, but um in in our business, we say there is um no beating timing. Um so so uh and that you can equate to luck, but uh I I do I do give the startup teams full credit that um they've done a lot of work uh to discover to find customers, and they just keep at it. They I know they talk to a lot of people. Um and probably 80% of people they talk to may not be their customer, but they still get go out there and trying to find that customer. So I I do give them all the credit that yes, it's luck, but without that preparation, I don't think they would be that lucky.

Christian Soschner 53:50

Yeah, I totally agree. It's yeah, it's it's a hard, tough work setting some business models. Yeah, when we think a little bit about the founders listening to this episode, um, you said that um rethinking and their industries is important, not just in incremental steps uh for um for getting the perspective right, you you need on one hand a lot of insight into an industry, which always risks that uh people then think in incremental steps. Um on the other hand, you need curiosity and new people who know nothing about the industry. Um, how can founders um then address this one problem point when they have an idea and think the idea can work and it's a fundamental shift? Um, how can they approach it to find out whether it's really a fundamental shift to something new or they just found the next incremental step? But what's your opinion how founders should think their idea through so that they can make an informed decision about let's move forward, it's fundamental, or maybe it's not the best idea?

Why Scientists Must Still Understand the Customer

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 54:58

Um that's um that's a great question. Uh and here's how I think about it, at least from what I observe from a founder. I think a lot of time it is a hypothesis. So they hypothesize that this could be a a major disruption, this could be um uh a game changer, but they have to do the work to validate that hypothesis, right? So um they go out and talk to customers, and that's what I said, they'll probably talk to a thousand customers or a thousand people in the field. I know um a lot of um the companies that we invested in, they talk to um customers like every day, um and each customer 10 times um before it goes anywhere. Uh so in those conversations, you validate your hypothesis. If it doesn't work, then you have a new hypothesis. And that's why often we would ask them to tell us about their customer discovery process. Who do they talk to? What have come up, um, what comes out from those conversations.

Christian Soschner 56:33

That's an interesting point. Let's stay a little bit before we move to synthetic biology. Sure. Um, one one one final question to that part, talking to customers. I I hear scientists that I worked with in the past, um, also scientists today in Europe, in the United States, also in Asia, um objecting this approach and say, Why should I talk to customers? We do science here, it's it's scientific. You don't understand our business. So this is big science. Why should we go out to talk to customers? What message would you give them if they say, okay, look, we are in a very early science stage? It doesn't make sense to go out to talk to potential customers for us. What message do you give them?

When Science Must Become Product Thinking

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 57:17

Well, I mean, at the end of the day, right? Great sign is a great sign, if but um we want to make products that people use, right? And um, I think some scientists say, oh, you know, um a pharma, for example, right? Pharmaceutical product, you don't like people you have cancer, you have to use whatever the doctors prescribe to you. But to get to the point where it becomes a product, somebody needs to make it. If a big pharma doesn't want to help you make it or sell it, then those cancer patients would never get your product. So there are even if you don't want to talk to customers, if it's a B2B business, you still need to know who's involved in this process, right? So you may not say, um you may not talk to a customer, but your partner, uh, think about, I mean, Nvidia, they design chips, but if TSMC can't make it, that's it, right? Um, so so there are a lot of people involved, and this is why it's so difficult to change processes because there's a long supply chain until things get to you.

Christian Soschner 58:36

Yeah, that's the next philosophical question. I think when does product design start? What's the right point to think in in product design terms and um turn a little bit down the scientific mind?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 58:48

Oh, say that one more time.

Christian Soschner 58:49

Um, I mean, the question that popped up in my mind is another philosophical what is the right point in time for a startup company or a scientist to think in terms of product design? Um, think for about customer and tune a little bit down his scientific mind and say, okay, it's not so much about producing for me, science is always producing new know-how, information, new knowledge. And as long as you produce new knowledge and uh insights, that's fine. That's great, it's great science. But when we get something into a company, it's more going towards the market and the product. Um, what's the right point in time for a scientific team to switch their mindset from pure scientific thinking into product-oriented thinking?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 59:36

Yeah, um, this is a great question, and I think it varies a lot from different technologies, right? So, for example, um, I'll give you a nuclear fusion example, where um there's a lot of theoretical work that's been done where you could, in theory, you could have nuclear fission reaction, but in practice, there are only a few handful of companies that has that have fusion reaction, even at pilot scale, right? And there are a lot of companies that are trying to build um equipment that can prove that their theory can generate fusion reaction. So those are still scientific risks, so you still need to prove that your science work for companies that have fusion reaction, then it becomes an engineering problem. Can you scale it up and sustain fusion reaction? And there will be a different team that say, Oh, if this happens, I need to go talk to someone, uh utility company, whatnot, whatever partner they have, to say if I have a fusion reaction that is sustained, how do we deliver it to customer? So it really depends on what stage of the company, what stage of technology. But keep in mind that often customers don't need to know, right? Or they don't care. I mean, you pick up a phone, you you don't need to know how electron is moving, or even like how program is written, right? You just use your phone and that's it, right? So it's the same way. Yes, you can yep, 5G, whatnot, um, or 10G, it could be talking into space. I I don't know, as long as I get on the phone, um, I get on the plane, I can still use it. I'm underwater, I still use it. I I think that's fine. Uh, if I dip it in water a little bit, it's still functioning. I think it's fine. So, so with that in mind, I think what scientists need to center, maybe think about yes, they need to work, get the signs to work, but what is it that they are selling to the customer? Right? And if the sign is enough to sell to the customer, then you move on and work on engineering problems, make it last longer, make it prettier, make it smaller so that customer like it that way. Does that make sense?

Synthetic Biology as the New Industrial Toolkit

Christian Soschner 1:02:46

Yeah, absolutely. I think the the core point for me is that um science is good, science is great, and it's a fundamental starting point. But at the end of the day, the team needs to connect their scientific ideas to real-world problems. And for connecting ideas to real-world problems, they don't need a product, they need first an understanding of uh what's the problem actually people help have, and does this problem connect to what they are building at the end of the day? And while you were speaking, I mean, the best example that uh pops up in my mind is uh Bill Gates, how he founded Microsoft at the end of the day. He licensed um it was a business model innovation at the end of the day. He licensed a piece of software that he didn't own at the time of uh underwriting the contract, and after he had secured the license deal. He went out on the market and purchased the product at the end of the day for a fixed sum. Um but but it underlines what you say. Go out to people and talk with potential customers to learn how to think, what problems they have, and whether their problem connects really well to your solution.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:03:58

Your solution is answering their problem, right?

Christian Soschner 1:04:01

Yeah. If there is no intersection of a solution and problem, and I think this is what happens very often with garage companies or lab companies, they build, the builds, the builds, and you can motivate a lot of investors to invest money into it, but if it doesn't connect to a real world problem, you have something nice that nobody wants.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:04:21

Exactly. Exactly.

Christian Soschner 1:04:24

And I think this is also uh important uh for your core topic, synthetic biology. That um you mentioned it earlier in the conversation, and um, in your preparation material, you wrote that it's the new industrial toolkit for carbon recycling. Um for non-scientific investors and VCs. What does it mean in simple terms?

How Disruptive Synthetic Biology Could Become

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:04:47

Uh-huh. So um so imagine uh traditionally when we make um chemical, industrial chemical, right? So we build large chemical plant, you uh uh dig up petrol chemical, you refine it, and the byproduct of this becomes um a few carbons, right? Um uh one carbon, two carbon, and we go uh we pass it through chemical reactors to convert it into products. So for synthetic biology, it's a tool where instead of making products in this very chemical way, we use biological um organisms, microbes like yeast, E. coli to convert carbon in forms of sugar, food that we eat, right, uh, into products like you see biodegradable plastic. You started to see in like in hubio in nicodye. Uh, we already use uh some of the protein are made this way too, like insulin, for example, are made this way. And you may ask, but not all E. coli can make indicodye in blue. This is where synthetic biology comes in, that it's a tool where you can change a gene of microbes so that you can insert the gene that can produce indicodye. So when it eats the, when it grows and eats sugar, then in that process it can produce indicodye. Or in the case of insulin, so the cells convert uh sugar or um whatever nutrient, just like we eat food, into insulin protein, because the steam sequence that makes insulin is inserted into these microorganisms.

Christian Soschner 1:06:53

How disruptive is this for all industries, in your opinion?

Why Huue Bio Matters for Industrial Decarbonization

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:06:58

Um I think it's it's a definitely a new way of doing things. It could be um disruptive in a lot of well, um a lot of um industrial chemical, but the ones that we already started to see it's in food. So you see uh the wave of alternative protein, right? Some of the proteins are made this way. Um you see um milk protein, where perfect day. Uh, it's by engineering uh microbes to produce milk protein. So you don't have to have a cow harvest the milk from the cow and um uh purify and get a certain protein. So you can just tell the using synthetic biology tool to make milk protein uh uh and feeding the bacteria or uh microbe with sugar, it converts it into protein. So you purify the rule from that and then get the milk protein and then you mix it with other components to make ice cream or milk or cheese.

Christian Soschner 1:08:20

Milk, I think there is uh China's uh that drinks a lot of milk, uh if I remember it right. So it's uh there's a you there are huge markets out there at the end of the day. Um you mentioned you mentioned one of your companies. Um, I hope I spell it right, UBio. Is this the direct UBio, yes?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:08:38

UBio.

Christian Soschner 1:08:38

Uh you mentioned it a couple of times with indigo and the colour. Can you walk us through the case study from the time you met the company? You what what attracted you to this company, um, why you think indigo is is is a great business case, um uh why you invested in the company and uh what challenges dissolved.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:09:01

So so um indigo it's uh started off being a natural product, right? And um and because we use so much of it, then um in order to make a lot of it cheaply, so it uh it's made by chemical process and it's very it involves a lot of toxic chemicals, a lot of waste. So um this I I what attracted me to Hubio is um because it's a natural process. We use um it's a mild, it's not a not quite natural process. We we use in synthetic biology tools, but it's a much milder process. It doesn't generate waste the way a chemical process does. Um and it's attractive because you make indigo that goes into a dyeing jean. So it's unlike any other fabric, you could have like 10 different colors, right? Jeans, there's only one color, and um, it's a great quality, and um you dry it up once you make it the uh the dye, then it's one color, you purify it, then it's used exactly the same way. Traditional in chemical um process in nickel is made. So there's it's we call it a drop-in replacement so that way it doesn't disrupt the whole supply chain. The dye mills don't have to change that process, and this is um uh um environmentally friendly alternative. So um that's why I I think it's a uh it's a great example of um synthetic bio in in an industrial process.

Christian Soschner 1:10:52

Why why is there such a difference in being environmentally friendly, uh the old process, chemical process versus the new one? I mean, process is process. Why is there so much such a difference?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:11:04

Oh, um because when you do a chemical process, right, you go through uh multiple steps. I forgot, um, I I'm not I I don't remember um the indigo process, but it involves like uh sometimes use toxic catalysts, and then uh you have to clean it. In cleaning that it takes a lot of solvent. So it takes a solvent like hexane, which is also from indigo dietis. Yeah, it's a lot of um organic solvent that um usually um you clean it, you you use about 10 times the organic solvent that will go to waste. Uh there's uh acid, there's uh very strong acid, a strong base that gets involved. So it's a very uh involved, um uh the it's a process that involves with multiple chemicals, multiple steps that generate a lot of waste.

Why New Technologies Struggle on Cost at First

Christian Soschner 1:12:06

And so sorry this at the end of the day, um, reduces the carbon output. Um so it's uh basically more environmental friendly, yes, switching from one process from the old process to the new one.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:12:19

Right, right, yes, definitely.

Christian Soschner 1:12:21

And for the industry, nothing changes basically. So they get a color they can use and all these subsequent processes are pretty much the same. So the only the input factor changed.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:12:31

Yeah, so from the um from the user perspective, right? We don't have um, we still get genes that will fade the same way, it doesn't run off. Um and that's what we all care about, right? It's not gonna stain anywhere. Like if we sit on on our chair, it's not gonna stain the chair. It still doesn't fade too fast um while being environmentally friendly.

Christian Soschner 1:12:59

Uh yeah, indigo, it's it's genes basically. So this is this is universal use.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:13:04

Right, right.

Finding the Right Niche Market for Climate Tech

Christian Soschner 1:13:05

Yeah, so at the end of uh apparel industry, does everything that's blue is a potential customer.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:13:13

Uh yes, yes. Um, but um there in in blue color, there are different different types of blue, right? But in jeans, uh mostly indigo dye. So so that's why it's a little bit less tricky than just dyeing any other fabric.

Christian Soschner 1:13:32

And what about what about a cost perspective? Uh is this company also doing the production cheaper at a cheaper price point than the other process?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:13:41

This is actually um kind of a hurdle with with new technology. So because we've been perfect, uh we perfect these industrial processes over the last what 80 years. So we've had the cost down to like the most optimized, right? Versus these are new up starts that are coming in, at least at this point where uh skills are uh at small scale. Um the it's difficult to be competitive on the cost level. And this is why we're a lot of companies start with a niche product, niche product um market so that they can corner that market. And as we scale further, uh prices have come down so that it could be competitive with the current offering in the market.

Christian Soschner 1:14:46

How how do companies like UABio find this niche market? What's what's the secret?

Founder Resilience and the Stomach of Steel

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:14:53

Uh this is actually um so it again goes back to the founding team. I think it takes a lot of strategy and planning, right? And uh this is why they try to partner up with uh partners that have uh the goals that are aligned, have their sustainability um initiative and where their customers also have sustainability initiative because at the end of the day, these are um initial product, um into initial market introduction. So the price of the product will be higher. So if the customers are not aligned with the company's mission, they're not gonna be willing to pay such high margin, right? Initial um early adopter price. So it's finding the brand, the partner that and with the customers that align with their mission, that's very important. And I I do give them credit for going out and find um find find these partners.

Christian Soschner 1:16:12

Yeah, I think this is an interesting point about scaling complex production processes, which biology is at the end of the day. Um, you have something game-changing, and then you find out okay, the costs are incredibly high at the end of the day when you produce something because you don't have the scale like uh a traditional industry, as you said, eight years of development, they could the competition could perfect everything. So, also what Christensen in his books recommends is finding finding each customer group. Who is that they are always out there, they are willing to pay, but the problem is that in order to find the small group of customers that uh get value, are willing to pay the price, are aligned with the mission of the company, and also see the potential, the founders need to go through a lot of rejection. So it's not like you make hundred calls and 90 people are super happy, it's the opposite. You make hundred calls and 99 people tell you, quite frankly, you suck. Your idea is sucked. What advice do you give founders to say, look, it's so frustrating. I called 10 people and they just said, no, this is idiotic. How should founders deal with that situation?

Test the Hypothesis Do Not Defend the Theory

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:17:28

I I think this is why um a startup is a tough business, right? But um the founders that decide to get into it, I think it's the I you have to have um a stomach of steel, it's resiliency, right? That um you can take a hundred, oh, 99 rejection just to get to that one yes, right? And um I think another thing is to be open-minded. Um I you never know where the lead is gonna come from, or that kind of pivot, right, that we talked about earlier, like be agile, open-minded, ready for suggestion. Because some of these could just be a suggestion from somebody who's very knowledgeable in the field. It could be totally out there, right? Can you imagine being a CEO of Boom Supersonic? Hey, I'm gonna make supersonic uh uh plain. If somebody suggests, hey, why don't you go talk to a data center? You said no, and that's it, right? There's no pivot for you. So, so there's um that that um um willing is to listen, resilient and ready to to pivot, ready to learn, uh, think about new way of thinking about your your different approach of thinking about your business, I think.

Christian Soschner 1:19:06

This is so in uh I think this is an important part for for for innovators. I mean, in hindsight, it's always clear. Looking at Nvidia today, it's yeah, it's clear how they did it, what they did, what was the right decision. But when people are in the game, making the decision, is this pivot just noise, adding to the noise and bringing us in the wrong direction? Or is this the fundamental shift that we were looking for that unlocks an entire new market with high margins that we were not thinking about? Um from your investment point of view, uh how do you recommend what framework do you recommend for for entrepreneurs and investors to make such such decisions when they appear in the right way?

How Venture Capital Invests in Experiments

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:19:56

I I um it's uh it's a very uh it's totally valid, but very difficult to decide, right? Because when when you're in it, um it's hard to tell. But but for me, this is why again, I go back to my earlier point about often it's not a decision, it's the hypothesis that you want to test, right? And this is why you have to have this is um some people we say fail fast, fail forward, fail often, right? That um these hypotheses you test, if it you fail, then move on, right? But but knowing that it doesn't work, it's better than not knowing at all, right? So if it doesn't like you test hypothesis, it doesn't work, move on, test more. But but you have to be deliberate in what you are testing. So it's not about trying something new, it's about we are trying to see if this market is a um willing to pay. If you talk to um a few customers making no headway, then maybe a different um um industry might be better or seek out advice, somebody who's um being in the field for a long time. And this is why find a great mentor, find great advisors, trying to use them as your resource to test some of these hypotheses. But I think there is no way to know. And you you just have to get out there and and try it. And but but I I say this with total respect for startup founder because often you are uh startup founders have very limited resources, being money or human uh capital. So I mean they they make tough decisions every day. So but but I think in order to make those decisions well, we want to be deliberate about what we test and what kind of outcome we are expecting to see, or if we have a certain outcome, how do we proceed? I think um so that that it doesn't feel too, it doesn't become such a distraction.

Christian Soschner 1:22:32

I think this is one of the most important points for investors interested in investing in early stage companies or are acting like venture capitalists, it's investing in experiments, in hypotheses, and not in proven business models at the end of the day. So how do you how do you recommend investors to approach such an environment where basically it's investing in experiments? What's your what's your recommendation?

The Three Questions Behind Early Stage Investing

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:22:58

So um one one of the things that we use, um it's not set in stone, but um a lot of investors we like repeated founder. So if you have a track record that like gets you like out of a hundred, you'll be the first one, right? Because um you've been through this cycle, you know how to test these where you make calls. Um, repeated founder one, repeated founder in the same field, in like decarbonization, for example. Or this is why we see a lot of repeated found founders in pharmaceutical industry. So you know the industry well, you know how it works, the different players, different types of partnership. Um so um that and some people because they invest because they like to work with startups, uh, they work to like uh to work with founders. So that also gives you a way into like the front seat to see how they make decisions, how they experiment, how do they test some of these ideas? And there's some people who actually go even further, they only invest in venture building model. That is, they invest and they become a CEO and then drive that. So there are different levels of involvement.

Christian Soschner 1:24:26

And as a CEO, then you have uh fulfilled your career goal and you can live happier after ever after. But there are a lot of downstream problems. Um since we are talking about investing already, uh let's talk about let's talk about your fund, what you do, how you how you pick investors, how you pick uh companies. And I think everybody wants to be uh very good at picking uh the winners. Um, my first question to you about uh vector capital is um your fund typically writes 100 to 400,000 uh US dollar checks at pre-seed and the seed stage. So for picking winners, um, you usually have a first call with the founders, uh, they come to you, it's 30 minutes to 60 minutes. What are your three to four killer questions that tell you everything you need to know about the investment case that you ask in these first 30 minutes?

Why Timing Matters More Than Most Founders Think

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:25:24

I um uh wanted to know uh who are the founders. This is um founders are very important to me. And just like I mentioned, uh repeated founder, right? Uh and what uh what pain are they trying to saw? This is actually turned out to be one of the it's not a difficult question, but often founders don't answer me. I mean they say different things, and because we do decarbonization, right? Then the pain becomes, oh, because the world is um the the globe is heating up, so it's getting hot, so climate change. So that's a pain. And then it becomes um, okay, then you can do everything you can solve everything in the Hawaii world, right? So it doesn't like I ask that a lot, but I don't never got quite get an answer. And then why you and why now, right? Um uh and often people think they have unique technology when unique, it's narrowly too narrowly defined. I think those are the three things. Who the founders, what are the pain points, and why you and why now? Because again, going back to timing, right? Right? Time you you can't be timing or luck. So so that's also very important.

Christian Soschner 1:27:03

Yeah, yeah, timing. Why why now? I think this is so often overlooked. That why now is is such such an important point. Um do you have do you have from your experience, from your portfolio and from the companies you talk to, do you have an example um of a company that succeeded not with a new idea, but they were just at the right time with the idea?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:27:30

I'm trying to think at the right times. My well, I mean, I I talk about Solidec, right? And I and I do give the founders um credit for this, right? I I like the founder a lot. I like their technology. I think uh uh because renewable energy is coming, uh the cost, it's very highly competitive. So I think the next phase of uh chemical process would be electrical, elect um electrolyzer or um electrochemical. So I I like the technology, I like the idea, but um because of this geopolitical tension, then rare earth become a big deal and they're able to pivot to serve that market. I think they they get a great contract uh when they're actually a pre-seed company. I I don't usually see pre-seed company having a joint development contract. So I think they've done a great job.

Christian Soschner 1:28:40

Yeah, rare earth is a good example. I think the with with the advent of artificial intelligence, um the energy need with it. Um now all governments in the world uh I think wake up and realize this needs a lot, a lot of uh uh raw material that nobody was thinking about 10 years ago. It was just like rare earths, yeah.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:29:01

Yeah, yeah. All the sudden rare earth, it's uh super hard. I mean, um, we were talking to a few uh rare earth recycling companies, and it was kind of like in the background. They're trying to raise funds. Nobody wants to give them even like 100k, right? And with all these geopolitical spats, all of a sudden they get money from DOD, um, grant money to yeah.

How Investors Think Five to Ten Years Ahead

Christian Soschner 1:29:31

So this is this is as I said, uh lack of preparation. And when you think about it, uh what I realized is that in order to answer this, why not? Question people already need to be building at a time where they already know that why now that now is not the right time. It's you started with COVID, for example, uh, our conversation that uh you people did in COVID and uh thought about it. It's like in the pharmaceutical industry. I mean, vaccines for a very long time were not considered to be a game-changing technology, and who needs it resolved all problems, and and suddenly you have one away that changes everything. But in 2020, starting a vaccine company was too late, basically.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:30:17

Exactly.

Christian Soschner 1:30:18

And the right time was 2010.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:30:21

Exactly.

Christian Soschner 1:30:22

So this is really, really important.

Why Nobody Can Predict the Future With Certainty

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:30:24

Yeah. So so this is why I think for early stage investors, we're trying to look ahead also to see uh, for example, like data center, if it's gonna be popping up, like what what's the implication? And people look ahead, way, way ahead, right? So data center, like you probably see in the news, data center needs to be in space because it's make more sense that we have constant supply of um um the sun, solar energy, whatnot. So that that kind of thing, I think um we and and and I know like stuff that we invest in today will probably not be commonplace like next year, but we still hope to see um a lot of um what we invested in be commonplace in what five or ten years.

Christian Soschner 1:31:20

How one question how do you train this uh forward-looking or forward-thinking muscle? Imagining a future, how it can be, and then coming back and think okay, what technology could solve these future problems? Um just to put a little bit more context around it, you mentioned data centers. Um 25 years ago, nobody was talking about data centers. So the the the usual uh approach was if you need a server, you have it in-house.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:31:49

Right.

Christian Soschner 1:31:50

Amazon was the first, I think, in 2008 or nine who said, okay, I mean, we can offer cloud storage services services. So cloud was mostly just something to store away. And uh, I remember uh from an IT conversation back in 2007, cloud services were just evil. You don't do that as a serious company. You need to protect your IP and your data, and you can only do that in-house. Now, when I talk with uh with um uh IT personnel, they just say, Yeah, uh AWS, uh what else? I mean it's the safe space for your data. Then came NVIDIA with compute, blockchain technology fired it up, and it just kept evolving and evolving and evolving. So when someone wants to do now something with with cloud storage, it's a little bit too late. So the market is taken. Um, for you as an investor, it means you always need to think ahead five to ten years. How can the future look like? Um how do you approach this? How do you train this?

What Investors Really Look for in Founders

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:32:57

To be honest, I don't think uh so so the thing is you you hear success story, right? And um and and I'm telling you good uh success stories, so um, or or investment that that we think it's it's will have a future. In reality, uh we don't know, and I don't know, right? Um that's why I think we need to be open-minded, we have to have this curiosity and experimenting. Um, not that I I don't trust, I mean, like we go through rigorous um investment process, but like any other startups, right? There's a chance of failing. And but but and and also just even a thinking exercise, right? You you see this what potentially could be the next thing, but in in all you can invest in even um public market, right, where the information is available. Some companies will fail still. So I think it's that um the ability like to accept failure, and and I'm I'm sure I'm honest, um these companies, uh all the success stories, um, I'm sure they have their fail project. They try something that fail and they may have shared or not shared. I mean, look at Google, they've had their Google X and their moonshot, and some are not working quite well. I mean, because they're public about it, so we know, but there are some like we only hear about success stories, so we think, oh, they can predict the future. But in reality, I think everybody, there's right and wrong. And and we um this is to the best of our ability, right? We read, we look in the past, uh, see what how the industry is developed, how the ecosystem of the industry is developed. But I mean, Blockbuster went away, Kodak went away. So, so there's right and wrong, and that's how we push the energy, uh, the technology envelope, right? It's because of this trial and willingness to fail sometimes. We just hope that we succeed more time than failing.

Christian Soschner 1:35:33

Yeah, that's true. At the end of the day, especially I think us men want to be the one who can predict everything, but at the end of the day, it's just experimentation. So you can't exactly experimentation. And and you mentioned an interesting point about um how you talk to founders and what's important to you. And you mentioned uh the personality, the founders, the humans. And the more I hear and learn about investing in early stage, it really seems to be less about technology, um, but more about character traits. And my question, my question to you is uh, what are you looking for in founders? What character traits do we want to see?

Resilience Mission and Coachability in Practice

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:36:14

I think it's um I I think I did mention right resilience, it's very important. Um, because you're gonna hear a lot of no's before you hear yes. And all these hypotheses that you are testing, it cannot be all succeeding. Other if if you're um a hundred percent succeed uh succeed, that means you don't try hard, like you don't experiment enough, right? So so I think that that is one, and also I think um I like to see um what um founder they're really passionate and passionate, not emotionally passionate, but you know, like married to their mission. I I see a lot of a lot of mission-driven um uh founders that they'll they'll do anything to to get to their mission, talk to a thousand customers to achieve their mission. I think that's very important. And uh the last one that we look for a lot is coachability. Uh this is not just us, right? I mean, nobody knows everything. So when an expert or their advisor suggests or um trying to coach them, I I hope that they would listen and you know adapt. And this coachability, it's also kind of related to that ability to pivot, to change that direction, to take the cue as it comes, right?

Christian Soschner 1:37:55

How many people exist in the world fulfilling this profile? I mean, uh, I noted down it's a resilience, um coachability, and what was the second in between?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:38:08

There was uh uh mission driven or passion about their mission.

Christian Soschner 1:38:12

So I just I just try to think it through. On the one hand, resilience means um that you don't for me, that you don't give up when everybody else would already give up, would say so. Um being mission-driven for me is a little bit uh also being stubborn, um otherwise you won't you you would not be mission-driven. And then the third character trait was just like for me, but but how does it work in a person? Because coachability means being open to to other people, to other ideas. Doesn't that contradict a little bit um resilience and being mission-driven?

Can This Technology Scale Technically and Economically

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:38:49

I I um so okay, I'll I'll give you an example, right? Um uh our there's we invested in a company called Ingredient. Um, they do this very interesting um uh process. They insert meat protein, a gene sequence to produce meat protein into algae. So they grow out as they grow algae, it grows meat protein and they harvest the protein and um and add it into to make um alternative protein. So it tastes very good. Um I've tried it a few times. So um um the founder has done very um using the same technique but not alternative meat, and then with a different team, and then um the founder did different, went on separate directions. Uh so he spun out and redo this, uh rethink the process. So because he used algae so that we um it it could reach cost uh price parity uh because uh algae, you don't feed it anything, it just uh photosynthesis, converting CO2 into um protein. So he's like first time around he tried, it didn't work. So he started another company and he was just talking to everyone that I know. I I know some people get annoyed talking to them too, but I love it. I and then when I suggest him to talk to a few more people, he's like, yes, set up the meeting, I'll be there. It's and and he takes all suggestions. So it's it's this is the kind of trait like be open, but being persistent, and people say no, it's but it's still okay. And he would smile, he just smiled and talking to everyone, very good humor. But um, when it comes the time to seek advice, he'd be open, he'd come out and say, you know, these are things we need to get done. Any advisor, anyone on the board, do we have an input? We're gonna go this way, who see it differently. So it's very um collaborative. I uh yeah.

Christian Soschner 1:41:16

I I don't know if that gives you a better Yeah, yeah, I would reframe it for me a little bit, uh, knowing your limitations also as a CEO, as a founder, where you need help, where you are your blind sphere, where are your blind spots? Where are you not not not the best one? At the end of the day, it's uh it's a team play. At the end of the day, building a company is a team play, it's not uh not a one-person mission.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:41:44

Yes, yes, yes.

Christian Soschner 1:41:46

And nobody can be perfect at everything.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:41:48

Yes, yes.

Christian Soschner 1:41:49

When we think about pitching uh to you, you invest in early stage, and very often I think also this this these companies, even when they can address the pain point and have the character traits, but they are still early stage. And especially in synthetic biology, it means um at one point in time the team needs to scale their production process, it's it's bacteria basically that's doing something. And from from my own experience, I know that scaling is very often a very limiting factor, and when scaling is not possible, um, the whole idea is um uh is not worth pursuing. How do you approach scalability in early stages? What are your telltale signs that you say, okay, I think this can work? This can not only scale technically but also economically.

The Catch 22 of Deep Tech Manufacturing Scale

Validating Real Demand Before Building Capacity

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:42:41

Um that is uh very tricky, and we're trying to learn or building this expertise as well. Uh often we uh we when we invest in pre-seed, right? They're probably first time out of the lab. So they'll be producing at what like 10 liter scale. This is nothing, right? It's probably like to produce a tiny bit for for the customer to try. So what we go about doing it is looking at kind of get insider information. We have scientific limits. Um, so so we ask them for their technoeconomic analysis, right? And most of the time, oh, it's at scale, it's great. But um, so we're trying to do some internal checking also. Um, if um the amount that they are gonna reach, is it beyond scientific limit? Is it scientifically possible? Then there are some operational limits, right? So for example, algae, um, I talked about ingredients too. Uh so I actually had a back channel talk to some people who invest in algae uh farms in Thailand, and all of them lost money, right? And then I said, well, you know, like what's the largest expense? It turns out that these people went after an algae species that generates uh oil because they were thinking about replacing oil, um, use growing algae, and turns out these uh special species of algae needs to be cultivated at 25 Celsius outdoor in the sun in Thailand. So a lot of energy costs going into cooling these algae. So so this is why. So when I we were looking at ingredients, we want to make sure, oh, it grows in natural condition. We don't need to heat it or cool it, it it grows in like proper environment, like normal atmospheric environment. So that kind of insider information. So we do talk to advisors, experts in the field, trying to collect that kind of information, do first reality check, right? So and and once we invest, we um as they go through these steps. Some we catch them as they doing this, but um some will kind of coach them through it. Often startups as they scale, they caught in this um catch 22. Like their off taker will say, Oh, if you can make like a ton, I'll buy it. But they they don't have money to produce a ton because off taker needs to pay them first. So it's like the off taker won't pay unless they have a ton. So so that's why it's they're caught in the middle, or sometimes they need to build a manufacturing facility that that can produce a ton, right? But they don't have cash because if this off taker does it, uh take this first ton, will they take the second ton? So what we recommend them it's first the best. If the offtaker is so married to you, willing to build the manufacturing facility, that's the best, right? If not, we have some sort of um kind of co-development, uh 50-50, or some sort of binding agreement that you're gonna off take it for the next 10 years, a ton per year. So that way you have kind of um a confidence or comfort of, hey, if I invest, somebody's gonna use it. And this is a way to prove that the need, the demand, it's real, right? It's not your imagination or it's not just your off-taker, say, oh yes, maybe we'll do it. Well, they say they'll off take it, but in reality, maybe we'll buy it from you. Right.

Christian Soschner 1:47:07

Yeah, this is an interesting point that you mentioned now. The when you talk to people, they often say, Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, when it's there, then then I need it, but they know it's it's five years in the future, so it doesn't cost the money today. And so you can easily confirm the question and say, Yeah, yeah, if if you're there, I buy it. And then you arrive there, you have it, you call them and say, No, no, no, no, now that now that they should put down money, don't this this verification is this a real need or is this just a nicety? This is really, really important, right?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:47:39

Exactly. And that is to go back to uh verify, validate, right? That it's um you are actually solving somebody's pain because they're willing to pay for it.

Christian Soschner 1:47:52

Yeah, this is this is this is one of the important things. Uh, make sure that they're really willing to pay for it at the end of the day, and for that they need to go over a tremendous internal hurdle. It's psychological, it's not easy to give away money for somehow reason. Um solving a pain is one thing, but solving a pain that is so high that it uh feels uh easier to give away money than living with the pain. This is a very special hurdle, very special psychological hurdle.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:48:21

Yeah, yeah.

Why Southeast Asia Matters in Climate Tech

Christian Soschner 1:48:23

And this brings me to the next point that in your area, usually um you're seven to ten years away from from commercial viability and having this product at the end of the day. But you also need to give money back to your LPs. So they want to see some some return at the end of the day, which means you you manage a portfolio that uh is not like um having cash on a bank account, um, linear producing returns. So it's really investing, there's a long time of nothing, and then suddenly you produce the returns. How do you manage your LPs over such a long period of time psychologically?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:49:06

Um, I right, right. Um so I think first of all, um we have a 10-year uh period. So so yes, if we return money before that, that's great, but I think the expectation is 10 years. And a lot of, well, our LP uh aligned on the mission, right? That we are driving this decarbonization. So that is lucky for us. We do uh provide them quarterly updates so they know how the portfolios are doing, so um they at least they see the progress. So that that their money is going into driving some of these companies. Um, and we have yearly uh annual general meeting. So that's kind of uh bringing in the portfolio companies to meet with the LP so that um they see the progress firsthand, they can understand what the companies are doing.

Christian Soschner 1:50:10

That's good. I just checked the time, and uh we are almost two hours in the recording. It's really interesting talking to you. Um, in the last 10-15 minutes, I hope you have uh still some some some time. Yes, yes. Let's talk a little bit about uh Southeast Asia. I have a huge audience in the US and in Europe, uh not so much in Southeast Asia. And let's help the investors in Europe and the US understand uh your region better, why it's attractive. When you look at your region and you need to sell it to LPs, in your opinion, what unfair advantage does Southeast Asia have compared to Silicon Valley, for example?

The Cultural Logic of Doing Business in Southeast Asia

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:50:54

Um so I think living here, I I do feel that um we we uh do feel a sense of urgency to have to address this climate change. Um and especially in Thailand, we are a manufacturing country, right? Um so actually in Thailand, our greenhouse gas emission profile might actually be different from the US or in in in the UK, because the nature of business is different. We actually may be more aligned with Japan or in Germany. Uh and I I think what what I see um is that first we feel the The sense of urgency because we're impacted. Second, because we have this manufacturing region, manufacturing sector is huge. So we are going to be disrupted. So we need to find a way to address this with the unfair advantage of a lot of natural resources. And this is why it drives me to want to go into synthetic biology to begin with, because we have water, we have feedstocks, it could um cellulose, sugar, because we are that basket of, at least in APAC region anyway, produced rice, uh, sugar cane, a lot of fruits. Um, and we have large food industry. So a lot of those waste need to be taken care of. So I think we can totally take advantage of these carbon sources to be a feedstock into synthetic bio or biomanufacturing processes in order to kind of shift the way we make these a lot some of these products into high-value products instead of just um exporting rice, exporting sugar cane.

A Vision for Distributed Industrial Systems

Christian Soschner 1:53:03

A lot of opportunity, a lot of opportunity on the market. Um, you're one of the few people on the planet who worked in the United States, in Thailand, in Singapore, Southeast Asia, also interview companies from Europe. Um, in your opinion, when you look at the cultural differences between Europe, the US, and Southeast Asia, what do LPs from Europe and uh the United States often misunderstand about Southeast Asian culture?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:53:35

Um I think well, I I am not sure. It's not quite a misunderstanding, but I think um we are Asian, the way we do business, it's it's it's a trust, a very um networking system. You need to know the person, you have to trust it. So you have to build relationship before before we start make working together. And um, it could be business relationship, it could be personal relationship, as opposed to, you know, in the Western world, it's a very rule-based society, right? You um this is what you do, you file report, and then you read a report, and then you understand each other, voila, you can sign on the dotted line. So it doesn't quite work like that. And that's why um it's sometimes it's perceived as things are going slower here, and a lot of it it's because it takes time to build relationships, and that's why it's very important to have boots on the ground.

Christian Soschner 1:54:50

Yeah, that's important, I think. Uh having boots on the ground and not doing everything virtually.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:54:56

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christian Soschner 1:54:59

When we come to the final questions in our conversation, uh, let's train a little bit the forward thinking muscle. When you look 20 years ahead into the future, in your opinion, if everything works out that you're investing in that uh you think uh would change society for the better, what does the industrial world look like?

The Global Coordination Problem Slowing Progress

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:55:25

Um I think there's gonna be I I really hope there's gonna be um different type of um uh what should we call it? Um different technology come into the market, and I'll explain how. For example, right now, uh the way we make industrial chemical, for example, uh we have central right and centralized humongous industrial complex, right? You can see uh one in China, one in eastern seaboard, in Thailand, one in Netherlands, I don't know if it's that active anymore. They're building one in um in Saudi Arabia, and we ship everything all over the world. I think as where the geopolitical um um conflict that is coming up and the new technology, I think we're gonna start to see more distributed, um a smaller industrial complex, more on-site, list of this global centralized location. And I think that will go into um other things too, like um with renewable energy, everybody, well, I mean, every house you can install solar cells and make sense. So I think it will be less concentrated industrial location, more distributed. Uh, and that could drive individual country resilience and at the same time kind of be minimum impact to the environment.

Christian Soschner 1:57:14

Yeah, that's that's a good points. That's a good points. Let's see how it plays out. When you now are in a position and say uh you can magically change everything today as you want, and to make the future happen, what do you see as the biggest blocking stone globally today? If we take that blocking stone away and you could do that, um what would this be to make this future happen?

Funding the Next Industrial Era

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 1:57:49

So sad, but I I feel like um everybody has good intention, but they wanted to do their own way. I feel like why can't we just harmonize and have like one regulation and we all live heavily, uh happily ever after, right? But but I'll I'll give a uh simple example, right? Um in in ASEAN, right? Um 13 country, very small region. Um so I think there's the idea is we want to you have a unifying grid so we can distribute uh electricity from you know Myanmar, Laos all the way down to uh through Malaysia and Singapore, right? And it makes sense, right? Um, that uh there are regions like Laos or Cambodia that can produce significant amount of electricity, but uh they don't use so much of it. Right now, they we we buy some uh Thailand buy some um Myanmar also the same way. They generate electricity, they have a lot of um natural gas, so we buy some electricity from them, but we also have huge renewable um project that could also be distributed to other countries, also. So it makes a lot of sense, right? But we cannot have a unified regulation. So this is why it's it's still um stuck. And the same thing with the carbon credit, right? It it makes a lot of sense. Um, it's provide great incentive to decarbonize, yet we can't get our act together. So um as a um I I think regulation is needed, but it just right now everybody has a mind of their own. So so they want to do their own thing. So I think if we could uh live cooperatively, that would be great. But I don't know if that's too much to ask.

Christian Soschner 1:59:52

Yeah, we had I think the last 25 years were a lot of cooperation globally. Um I'm hoping we can continue on this path and uh exactly and then stay in this mindset. It um I mean when I think back to the 90s from the European perspective, um, and look at the world now, I think a lot of good things happen. We are talking about data centers, data centers in space. Um China has advanced from 1989 to now. Uh China's probably going to lead innovation globally in the coming years. So a lot of good things happen through global collaboration. Exactly. And keep that mindset. I think we can bring the whole humanity to the next level.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 2:00:33

Exactly. I exactly. Um, I I really think it's it's we we together as uh col when we work collaboratively, everybody it lifts up everybody, right?

Christian Soschner 2:00:50

Yeah, couldn't agree more. My final question to you when uh when we think six months in the future and um someone listens to this episode, and if this person should only remember one sentence from this conversation, what do you want this sentence to be?

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 2:01:10

I'll tie back to my um earlier point. Um, in the first hour we had a discussion, right? I think um I hope that we don't see climate solution as a cost, but think of it as funding the next industrial era.

Christian Soschner 2:01:34

That's a good point to finish the conversation. Manvipa, thank you very much for this great conversation. Time flies when you have fun. I enjoyed every single second of it. And let's stay in touch and revisit um the situation, I think, in six, 12, 18 months.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 2:01:51

Well, thank you, Christian, for having me. I really enjoy the questions and I it makes me think, reflect on what we've been doing and kind of look ahead, what more to be done. Thank you again for having me.

Christian Soschner 2:02:06

You're welcome, and I wish you a very nice evening. Talk to you soon.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 2:02:10

Thank you. And if I don't talk to you, Merry Christmas.

Christian Soschner 2:02:14

Thank you very much to you too. See you soon. Bye-bye.

Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul 2:02:17

Bye.

Christian Soschner 2:02:18

What stayed with me most from this conversation is that the future will not be built by adding more costs to broken systems. It will be built by people willing to redesign them from the ground up. One VIPA showed us that real climate innovation is not about slogans, it is about replacing old industrial logic with something better, something that scales, something customers actually want to use, and something that creates economic value while reducing harm. She also reminded us that great science alone is never enough. The real test begins when an idea has to move from one gram to one ton, from a lab result to a product, from belief to adoption. And that journey belongs to founders and investors who are resilient, culturable, and willing to test hard hypotheses in the real world. And maybe her most important point was this climate solutions should not be seen as a cost. They should be seen as funding the next industrial era. So if this conversation gave you one new idea, one better question, or one clearer way to think about the future, do two things. Follow the show so you do not miss the next conversation. And share this episode with one person who is building, investing, or deciding where the world goes next. Because these conversations are not just about information, they are about upgrading how we see the world before the rest of the market catches up. Thank you for listening to Beginner's Mind. I will see you in the next episode.