Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture via Locally Grown Fertilizer with Jared Criscuolo

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Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge San Diego technologies and the builders making it happen. I'm your host, Neil Blum, San Diego's tech ambassador and together you're going to put a face to the name of today's tech leaders with our own blend of local lifestyle.

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Welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom and I am thrilled to have longtime friend on the podcast, founder and CEO of Upcycle, Jared Chris Colo. Hey Jared, thanks for being on, Neil.

Thanks a ton for having me on and for being such a great friend and supporter over all the years, man. It's an honor to be here with you today.

Oh, likewise, likewise. We go back, huh, about seven, eight years when we were sitting in Evo Nexus, working on different companies.

Yeah, I remember what's back in the days when San Diego decided it needed to be a hub for startups and you know, the city and a lot of businesses and some intrepid individuals all kind of came together, got that space started and then, yeah, we crash landed a couple of pods away from each Other.

Yeah, that's pretty fun. What company were you working on then?

I was doing a few things then. So at that point in time, I was still working on Below the Surface, which was Street View for Rivers, that nonprofit. And then I was. I had also just started Rising Tide Partners, which you know, a thing or two about these days. Yeah. So it was kind of those two things and then I had a, you know, a billion crazy ideas that I was kind of iterating through, trying to figure out how do I go from kind of consulting to building a scalable business and particularly something that would have a huge impact on the environment.

Well, that is what you're doing now with Upcycle. You want to give us a quick one minute overview of what Upcycle is?

Yeah, definitely. Thanks again for the opportunity to do this. So upcycling company is a company focused on, as the name implies, upcycling waste into new products. But really, as the theory and thesis talks about, is breaking the cycle of consumption and getting things returned to a more natural state. So what we're focused on right now is specifically fertilizer. We've created a new class and category of fertilizer, and the goal is actually to get our customers to the point where they don't need fertilizer anymore. So it's kind of counterintuitive to the industry standard, but we believe that by focusing on soil, in addition to providing nutrients plants need, we can actually help get soil back to a natural or sort of regenerative state. Hmm.

I'm excited for you to tell that whole story of how you learned how to do this, but we want to get to know you first a little bit. Where did you grow up? Where are you from and how'd you. How'd you end up here in. In good old San Diego?

Yeah. So San Diego for me was kind of a magnetic draw on a lot of levels. There was no logical or practical reason other than I kind of felt it my gut. But originally I'm from Connecticut. I grew up in a small town called Cheshire. So it was when I was growing up, it was a transitioning farm town, kind of moving from farm to some more of a suburban feel. But really this great agricultural legacy that goes back to the late 1600s. When the town was first founded, Cheshire was considered the bedding capital of New England. So bedding plants like mums and poppies and things that you'd put kind of in the front stoop of your yard to improve the curb appeal. So, yeah, I grew up in that town. My first well, my first kind of job, if you will, was working in a greenhouse at first 14, cleaning greenhouses, out moving plants around. So it's kind of imbued in that. From the time I was little, like six months old, we had gardens at my mom and dad's house, then at my grandparents house. You know, he had blueberry patches and rhubarb and strawberries and all sorts of great things that we used to feast on over the summer. So I guess, you know, without realizing I would end up doing what I'm doing right now, gardening and. And to some extent agriculture is something that is, you know, is the soil from which I grew. So yeah, that was kind of my background and made my way out to California when I was about 24, 25. So my whole path professionally was to be an environmental lawyer or a prosecutor, going back to my grandfather, starting when I was about six months old. He, and then my parents used to take me hiking in the hills that surrounded the valley we grew up in. So kind of being outside was always an important thing for me. And I decided as I got older I wanted to fight to protect that. Ended up not getting into law school. So I kind of put the kibosh on that dream for a bit. But the advice that I got was to get a job in finance, to go work with a nonprofit organization on the environmental realm and to read the Economist. And it's really, it's that advice and then a series of personal interactions and some kind of, you know, odd religious interactions that happened that pointed me to San Diego and just kind of validated this was a place that I was supposed to go. So after eight months of trying to find a job back east to no success, I flew out here. Within four and a half days, I had 26 interviews and I landed a job at UBS on Friday of that week. So that was kind of the first sign to me I should be in Southern California. And then, you know, the kind of. The next thing that happened was in that first week I got out here, I got really sick in the ocean surfing and came to realize that it's due to the pollution and the runoff and kind of all the things that load up over the course of a fairly dry year and then end up in the ocean. So that led me to the Surfrider Foundation. The work I did at the Surfrider Foundation San Diego chapter was instrumental for me. The old CEO of the organization, when I was there, used to talk about Surfrider being a springboard to greater activism and I thought conceptually that sounded really cool, but I didn't know what that would mean in my life. That set the stage for me as an activist, as a board member for the local chapter. Being involved in some, some pretty heavy campaigns that are, you know, had been 20 years in the making and kind of seeing them through. At the end of it, realizing, you know, the gravity of what's going on in our environment, but then also looking for solutions, I kind of came to a point where I realized that law school probably wouldn't be the best use of my time and talents, but entrepreneurship was. So, you know, around 26, 27, I kind of got in my head that that was the path I needed to go. I needed to find a way to use business to solve ecological problems. And then that started this journey of founding a non profit with a friend, focused on looking at rivers and coastline and what was happening along the way. So we built a version of Street View for Rivers that kind of evolved into Rising Tide Partners, which again, you know, a thing or two about now. We can talk a bit about that later. Through my work at Rising Tide Partners, kind of helping to coordinate environmental groups and municipal wastewater projects, kind of water quality improvement projects, I learned about this notion of resource recovery, which is sterilizing wastewater and reusing it for irrigation or drinking water, taking the gas and methane that comes off of the digesters that process that waste and turning it into electricity, and then taking our waste, you know, our, literally our human waste and food scraps and, and turning that into fertilizer. That kind of set the stage for me. And the general manager of one of the wastewater treatment plants here in town challenged me, said, hey, can you figure out a way to create, you know, a great quality fertilizer that's good for the environment? Can you figure out a way to take it to market? And if you can, we'll get you set up with a supply. So I said what any, you know, ambitious entrepreneur would say is, yes, I'll figure that out. And yeah, that's kind of my background of how I got here, what I've done since I've been here in Southern California for the last 15 years. And then, you know, obviously you and I have kind of our wives have layered on as we've gone through that. And, you know, here we stand now.

Here we stand indeed. For sure, you know, we keep alluding to rising type partners, but I think we should just get the spoiler alert out of the way. I bought into the business and then I bought the business from you, but take me through, you know, some of the things that you were starting to learn while working through wastewater agencies, especially like Encina Wastewater, both from the public outreach perspective of, like, what their wastewater agencies were saying, help us connect with community, but also the waste side of, like, thinking through the process where they didn't know what to do with it per se, or wanted or wanted, like, a more feasible solution for it. Like, some of those projects you do, it would be awesome to hear about.

Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah. So with. With Rising Tide Partners, the way it started was it was kind of fortuitous. I was working for a solar company here in town, and the. Well, my mom always said, if you don't have anything nice to say about somebody, don't say anything at all. So I'm not going to talk about the solar company, but there's a wastewater agency here in town, this guy, Mike Thornton at the San Elijah Joint Powers Authority. And Mike's. Mike's always been one of those guys that, you know, kind of like a Wizard of Oz. Like, he always was, like, taking people that he sees talent in and, like, kind of orienting them and helping them, like, grow and evolve. I mean, he's. He's. He mentors young kids. He mentors young entrepreneurs. He was in the private sector as well before he moved over to the. The public side. But Mike and I were talking one day, and he kind of, you know, off the cuff, asked me like, you know, why are you still working for other people? And I said, what do you mean? He's like, you. You should be an entrepreneur. He's like, you. You just. He's like, I know that. I can see that in you. And I said, well, Mike, I don't know what I would do. And he's like, that's a fair point. He's like, well, how about this? He's like, I have a problem. I said, what's your problem? And he said, I've got this project that I really want to get approved. So their wastewater agency is really progressive. They take all of the water side of the waste that flows in from Escondido from the Encinitas area, kind of that whole surrounding area, Rancho Santa Fe, they treat it and then they actually get it to the point where it's safe to use for irrigation. So, like, if you're driving up the five, you know, really through Cardiff, Solana beach area, Del Mar, all of the plants on the side of the highway are actually sustainably watered using recycled water that Mike and his team generate at San Ellejo. So what he wanted to do was, like, this really cool idea, which was to capture the first flush runoff. So literally, the stuff that I got sick from, you know, this was six years prior to us having this conversation. He said, I want to divert that back into the wastewater agency to increase our water supply and keep that stuff out of the surf break so it doesn't pollute. And I was like, that's awesome. Why don't you do it? He's like, well, we need a few million dollars to finance it. And he's like, I just want to make sure that, like, our board is comfortable with it, the community is comfortable with it. Like, we just want to make sure that there's, like, there's buy in. Right. He was really proactive about wanting to communicate with the. With the local community, in particular the environmental groups. So he's like, how about you take your contacts with Surfrider and Coastkeeper and all these environmental groups that you've worked with over the last few years, bring them to the table. Let's have a conversation. Let's talk about what we're doing and just see if they're interested in supporting it. And he's like, if we can get that kind of coalition support, it'll be easier for us to get the financing that we need for our board to feel like the communities behind it. And he's like, I think it'd be a big win for all of us. And I said, yeah, that's. Like, if that's working for myself, I can definitely do that. So, yeah, he gave me a contract. I quit my job with the company that remains unnamed, you know, and that was my first, like, really big, like, wow, okay, I can make money on my own, and I can add some real value to my community. Awesome. So that's the genesis of Rising Tide Partners. And the name in and of itself comes from an old Warren Buffett saying, in a rising tide, all boats float. And then he also says, and then when the tide goes out, you find out who's swimming naked. Kind of referring to people taking on too much leverage. But the thing that I really liked about that name is what it stands for, and that is unification. Bringing people together, bringing different stakeholders together and sort of raising up those communities as a whole. So that project went forward. Mike was able to build the advanced water treatment system. And it's capturing. You know, people don't even know it because it's. It's quiet, it's behind the scenes in terms of how it operates. But this is an important piece of taking water that would otherwise pollute Cardiff Reef in the coastline there, Getting it out of the ocean and getting it back into beneficial reuse in a place like Southern California, where we have drought problems all the time. I think for me that was one of those aha moments like, wow, this is bringing people together to solve major ecological problems is something that needs to happen. So from there, Mike was always really supportive. He'd give me work where he could gotten introduced to the Encino Wastewater Authority. Through Mike and through some other friends in town who knew the old general manager, Kevin, we ended up scaling up in a big way. So all of a sudden we were learning about what Encino was doing, which. They're one of 39 wastewater agencies in the country, about 39,8000 that take their water and recycle it. They take all the solid waste. So what we defecate and what goes down our drains, they put that in an anaerobic digester to break it down, but they capture all the methane that comes off it. They generate enough electricity every year to power 2,000 San Diego homes per year. So about 12 million kilowatt hours, literally from just gas. And then they take all that solid, they dewater, they sterilize it in a huge drum. It's like 1200 degrees Fahrenheit inside of that. And. And they make these little pellets that they call pure green. So pure green and a human derived manure source is far, far, far better for soil than any type of animal manure out there. They make like 50 tons a day of this at their facility. And they wanted, really wanted a way to get it back into the environment and into the community. You know, their board is really progressive. It's city council members from Encinitas and Carlsbad Vista San Marcos area. So between those board members who also serve on the boards of six different wastewater districts that feed into Encina, they kind of gave that direction to management. And we said, all right, well let's, as I sort of learned about this, let's try to find a way to make a viable fertilizer product that's going to improve soil quality. And I would say over the last five years, as we've looked into other waste streams. So for example, San Diego, as you know, Neil, is a big brewing community. Over 140 some odd breweries in San Diego, ranging from stone and ballast on down to, you know, a couple people in their garage making, making beer grain waste. So the two row barley, the hops, all the grains that are utilized to brew the initial wart are a waste source, oftentimes shipped anywhere, really, across the country or across the world for cattle feed, for pig feed, kind of in dairies. Interestingly enough, it's also a really great source of organic matter, which helps to absorb water in soil. And it also has carbohydrates and amino acids, which are great feedstock for microbes, which are like one of the most important, important part of the soil ecosystem. So we use those two ingredients, and then we looked at kelp, because it's San Diego and we have this beautiful coastline of 70 miles that is a big driver of our economy, of our tourism economy. Realized that kelp would be a little tough to work with because of the salt. But we were able to identify some algae sources. San Diego is also a big hub of algae research at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. You know, we've had companies like Sapphire Energy come through that were endeavoring to reuse algae in some unique and novel ways. So we started taking the waste that comes out of algae farm production, the stuff that can't be used but would otherwise get landfilled, and incorporated those three ingredients. We built a patent around it and created this product that sequesters carbon and soil, that helps to reduce watering, that feeds microbes in the soil, that has beneficial plant and human hormones that actually increase the uptake of nitrogen to the plant, and it also has your basic nutrients that are needed to grow a healthy plant plant. So instead of doing what other fertilizer companies do, where they've got dozens of different products and custom blends, we have one product, one solution that's going to get you off of fertilizer long term.

What a journey to figure that out. And not only to figure out what to do with, you know, pure green, but more to just be flexible and listen to your customer. Starting with Mike Thornton and real and following this path and this journey to go from consultancy to helping community to productizing something, you've been pretty opportunistic, which is pretty cool to see for sure.

You know, I think the biggest thing, Neil, and one of the most important takeaways from me in this is I've had periods of my life when I was less than humble, and I've had periods of my life when I was humble and listened. And I've learned that, you know, rather than trying to ramrod a solution or an ideology, but rather just kind of focus on listening and absorbing people's feedback and guidance and sort of their thoughts, even if it seems completely irrelevant in the moment. I've found a lot of times, like, some of those seemingly irrelevant moments are actually really impactful. You know, you can. You can adjust and give the world what it needs, not necessarily what you think the world needs. I think it's an important distinction to make as a entrepreneur, as a business person, as somebody in a relationship, just as a human being, as, you know, separating our perceptions of reality from what reality is.

Yeah. It wasn't obvious to come up with the ingredients for upcycle, like, how much work went into figuring out and what did you. Because I'm guessing you didn't have the skill sets of an agronomist. Like, what did you have to do to really take, like, this raw material of pure green and be like, how do I get it on the shelves to sell to someone?

It was kind of an interesting journey and almost a little backwards in some ways. So I came at it from a brand perspective and a sellability perspective. Right. So the notion of, like, you know, if you strip away any good marketing and branding, we were putting human poop in a bag and trying to sell it to people is effectively what that is now. You know, any type of fertilizer, especially on the organic side, is going to have some degree of manure in it. So that's just how it is. But from my perspective, and I think from, you know, the wastewater industry tends to be a lot more conservative, you know, and very pragmatic. So the concern that I got fed with was people aren't necessarily going to comfortably buy this. So then the brand question was, okay, well, what if we wanted to create a product that's fully upcycled? Right. It's all different types of waste. How do we do that in a way that's relatable, meaningful, and kind of engaging, and then back into the right ingredients? So again, this goes to things sort of being fortuitous and this journey and just listening. So what I knew about San Diego, I kind of alluded to before is the food movement was really hot at that point in time. So there's a lot of, you know, craft restaurants popping up. That was a time when a lot of chefs were starting to put hydroponic towers inside of their restaurants in downtown and uptown to really kind of cultivate that farm to table experience, that sort of farm to fork experience that was happening. And there was this interest in the nuances of food and where it came from and what the life cycle of food was that's kind of grown and proliferated over the last decade, seven to 10 years. Keeping that in mind, we thought, okay, well, we need to have some type of relatable components and relatable story behind why we made our brand. So that was sort of the first level. Look at it. The second was, okay, you know, the original plan was locally sourced, manufactured and sold, right? So we were trying to do everything within 200 miles in terms of our supply chain of each kind of city core that we worked in. So then I said, all right, well, inside San Diego, what's like authentically, uniquely us? And the answer to that was, you know, there's a variety of different industries in town, but on the food side, and in terms of what's like, really nutrient dense that we could use, we kind of narrowed it down to brewing beer, right? Beer brewing is really exciting. I used to brew beer with some buddies. Like, it's just a fun social activity, but it's a big part of the food movement is pairing good wine or beer with that food. So we started looking into brewers grains. I called up a friend of mine who was connected to Ballast Point and was able to get in touch with their Little Italy brewery. And I said, hey, I wanted to, you know, see if we can turn your grain waste into fertilizer. And Julia Kane, the kind of their innovation director there, was like, that sounds really cool. Come on down, let's talk. So, you know, she invited me in, we had a beer, of course, and sort of talked about it. And she showed me what they had there locally versus up in Miramar. I took a couple buckets home with me, dried it in the oven, and stunk up my apartment for like two weeks because of it. But we realized, okay, so we've got something here that's, as we tested it, rich in organic matter. It has nutrients, it has carbohydrates and aminos and all these different nutrient properties. And I was like, all right, well, this seems like it makes sense. And then same thing with the, you know, with the third piece. The kelp is like. We thought, like, what would be a cool brand that represents San Diego? Something beach related. I know kelp has always been used, used in fertilizer. So I thought, okay, well, maybe we can integrate the kelp in there from kelp beds. Kelco is a big company that was here that used to harvest the beds to make shampoos and other products. So we thought, okay, well, they've got to have some type of biomass waste left over. And most biomass waste still has some nutrients in it. Just the core components for other products are already stripped out. So we created this conceptual brand of something that was Like San Diego beaches, San Diego, like hospitality, brewing, food industry. And then our waste, like that root functional piece that returns everything full circle back to the soil. So we started playing around with that brand concept in the meantime, part of my contract with Encino Wastewater back at that time was to help visualize the whole process and kind of close the loop on waste treatment was we pitched and built a 50 by 70 foot garden inside of the wastewater agency. We took a piece of like rock hard ground that had been used to lay construction equipment on. Like, it was so hard that my friend Mark, that came to work with me on it, who helped develop our blend, to your question, had to take a jackhammer to blast out holes to put the trees in. And we spent like a day just jackhammering holes just big enough to put a five gallon plant in in dirt. It's just in raw, hard, like clay dirt. Interestingly enough though, with are with some of the different blends that we tried there and the pure green and our blend that is now the active fertilizer, we were able to loosen up that soil over time and kind of reconstitute it and get it growing some beautiful plants. So people would tour the factory and they'd come out of the facility that made the pure green pellets and walk right on into the garden so they could see, as Kevin, the old gm, called it, a visual metaphor for what they do at Encina.

I love that. I remember a bunch of us from Evo Nexus came out and worked that a little bit.

You were out there getting your hands dirty. I got some photos of you doing it actually. Yeah, a bunch of friends showed up for that. That was again, it was really cool. So friends from evil Nexus, some other groups of friends of mine, all came together to help on a workday and we built up this cool site. So Mark, the guy who I brought on to help there, we've got our own interesting backstory of how we met. So Mark has a master's in forestry from Duke and he's built organic farms in Madagascar. He worked for the Ann Taylor foundation and Africa, helping restore habitat and build space to preserve wild lion populations. So he's had all of this kind of interesting, diverse but overlapping ecological experience. So Mark called up a couple of his professors from grad school and said, hey, we're trying to build a fertilizer. Can you help us out with it? And he and I worked together on that blend and figured out the right proportions. He built a blending calculator and before we knew, we said, okay, cool, this sounds about right. You know, the, the proportions were right from a cost perspective that it wouldn't get too out of control. And we started testing it and it worked well. And then I would take a bag to a friend's place and say, try this. And they would try it and say, man, my tomatoes are going nuts. And then I tried it in my yard and then I brought it to Walter Anderson Nursery here in town. I gave some to James, the buyer there and just started passing it out to people and then started selling it to people. As we kind of, you know, did our angel round and created a brand, one thing led to another. We went from, you know, Walter Anderson to go Grand Jettos to Mission Hills Nursery and all these like iconic local San Diego nurseries in Orange county in LA and then Target picked us up in 2020. So that, that was a couple year process. But we launched in 515 Target stores with our consumer brand. So really had this interesting kind of growth curve into the consumer space.

Yeah, it's, it's pretty cool. I still have some that I sprinkle out in our backyard, which is pretty great to have, especially knowing also right next to it is pure green and upcycle, you know, be able to do some side by side comparisons of fertilizer. It's the best part. But take us through kind of up till today, like what have you learned by being on the shelf at Target? Really just like learning from the consumer. Obviously the pandemic changed a little bit of consumer gardening habits as well as industrial uses as well. I'd love to hear kind of where the product has found its way into the market now.

Yeah, so we, we've been kind of pivoting away from retail. It's a fun space to be in. You know, I really like, it's been a huge honor to work with brands like Target, Home Depot to get on shelves. The problem for us is, you know, looking at the bigger picture of how do we improve the environment, you know, and how do we accomplish some of those bigger like mission focused goals that we have as a company. It's a lot harder to quantify on the homeowner side. And also the volumes are a lot smaller. Smaller. There's a handful of companies that really control that industry and unless we're, you know, we're kind of going by the standards of shelving and buying space and doing rebates and all these things that, you know, for a company of our size, we just really can't compete. But we did realize through some personal contacts and some Suggestions and again, just listening to other people that there's an interesting space within corporate campuses, private golf courses in hoas that have strong sustainability mandates and initiatives. So they're doing a lot of things like on the property management side, you know, a large tech company might have a hundred acre campus and they may have a variety of controls and mechanisms that make their building LEED Gold certified. They may do some plants that are native to their region, but you know, when you kind of trickle down to the soil, there's still a lot of chemical fertilizers, in some cases organic, you know, fertilizers and soil prep products that are being used. But again, it perpetuates the problem and there's not a greater dialogue about, well, how do we sequester carbon while fertilizing and how do we reduce water use over time and how do we take soil quality, which on like a business park campus is usually like 3 or 4 inches of topsoil and then like rocks and dirt and just basically stuff that can't support life below that. So how do we improve that quality as well, in addition to providing some real like fungible sustainability metrics that can go back to the landowner that they can then say, okay, here's how we're achieving our sustainability objectives literally all the way down to the dirt. So that's kind of, you know, there's been a lot of learning through like Fresno State University, one of our academic partners, through an accelerator program. We did up there talking to the agronomists that we've met there, talking to folks at Cushman Wakefield and cbre, Brightview Landscaping, Gothic Gachena. Like we've just done a lot of work to get in touch with these companies. We got really lucky last June. One of my contacts at Brightview ended her employment there and was looking for an opportunity so brought her over. She was there for 13 years between consulting and in house. So she's come over and really helped us to build those relationships, which has completely changed the direction and trajectory of the company away from a brand that was just a consumer brand with an aspiration for commercial and agricultural, to a brand that's like almost exclusively commercial now with aspirations to become agriculture and you know, very, very small trickle of kind of remaining retail products. But again, I think the big thing is, you know, we're realizing that we're not selling fertilizer, we're selling a sustainable solution for landscaping. And in particular we're selling carbon sequestration and water savings and that the byproduct of that ends up being really great looking plants that don't have, you know, random issues and sort of inconsistencies and growth over the course of the year.

That's awesome. I mean it's cool to hear the master plan come into effect, right? The world domination of it. I know, I think, I feel like you once told me like the goal was to keep all waste within a 50 mile radius one day. Right. Or is that, was that the original plan?

The original plan was to try to keep all of our sourcing, manufacturing and sales within sort of 200 mile circles. Right. So we sort of punch that out and have regional co packers are our own factories.

Got it. So you're on your way in regard to, at least from the supply chain of figuring out where, where to put waste. And I know that you're working to connect the dots to keep everything within that radius to how does it feel looking back and kind of seeing this all come to fruition over a few different careers?

It's pretty incredible. I mean, I think it, you know, the takeaway for me is follow your instinct and intuition and don't have any attachment to like a perception of what the outcome should be. Just kind of do and listen and evolve and adjust accordingly and surround yourself with people who understand that and like will support you on that.

That's awesome. I love, love hearing those takeaways, especially for other entrepreneurs listening.

Yeah, it's, it's really important to know your boundaries and kind of like what you need to as an individual. And you know, it's, there's different approaches in life. Right. You know, if a person can take a more traditional approach or kind of follow a career versus God on their own. And even in going out on your own, there's sort of permutations of, you know, trying to keep to a specific path. But I think you just, you got to keep an open mind. It keeps life more interesting. You'll learn more that way. And you know, if you, if you cultivate relationships and friendships with people that kind of get that and understand that, you know, this is a journey of learning and a journey of kind of serving your customer, serving your community, you're going to be successful. It does, you know, it's not an issue and success is not about money. It's about the doing of things and it's about engaging other people in the doing of things. And I think it will perpetuate and grow from there, you know, and anything that we take on of real meaning.

And purpose, something we constantly obviously are talking about on Tacos and tech podcasts, a lot of tech. And you've been surrounded by a lot of tech companies even while growing out, you know, different businesses. I'm curious to know your perspective within San Diego. Is there a how's the community for entrepreneurs in kind of the clean tech and add to ag tech space? Would you consider this a cluster and a density with a support system here for it?

You know, I used to have this, my attitude shifted on that. So my attitude used to be we're sort of this rogue renegade thing that doesn't really have a home and we're just kind of like morphing. I think the bigger picture though is a lot of the lessons that I learned in Evo, Nexus and like working with you and other entrepreneurs that are really more on the tech side when looking, you know, taking those lessons and then peering through the lens of ag or clean tech is that a lot of the fundamental principles are the same. And frankly, I think any industry could use a dose of the sense of urgency that exists within the tech world. You know, I think where businesses stagnate is when they stop like pushing themselves and stop trying to find lessons from other industries that could work for theirs. Right. You know, if I followed the rule book on how to build a fertilizer company, we probably wouldn't be here still. I mean, I just, you know, there's ways that other companies have done it and if they're well capitalized enough for the right personal connections, that's all well and good, but in terms of, you know, ecosystem and support, I think it's very much, there's a lot of, a lot of like, interesting, talented people in this town that have done a variety of different things, things. Ag ironically, is one of the oldest industries in San Diego. There's over 5200 family owned farms in San Diego County. You know, San Diego, a lot of the town names like Lemon Grove was Lemon Groves. You know, you sort of look into like down to Chula Vista in the south where there are oranges and grapefruits and a variety of things that, you know, prior to the population density that we've known in the last 40, 50 years, this was an agtown. You know, it was a military base in an agtown. It's grown and evolved into what it is today. But I think, you know, what's been kind of fun is bridging that gap between companies that are looking for venture capital to build, you know, trying to build unicorns versus some of the old farmers out in Escondido. And kind of out in the hills there, you know, you kind of connect with them. There's things that you can learn from them. There's things that you learn from the tech community. So I think for somebody who's sort of dexterous and can fluidly move between those spaces and just keep like an open mind and an open ear and you know, also adjust your approach. You know, like the way you talk to a tech VC or a tech company is very different than how you talk with a farmer. And I maybe not even talk with it. Listen to. I guess the key is listening. So yeah, in terms of support, look, I mean, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing right now if it wasn't for you and if it wasn't for Tech Coast Angels. There's a lot of stuff that went in to the background behind that. But I did not know how to get a company to the point where, you know, the largest angel group in the country would fund it at such a big level. Frankly, I never thought that we would get funded in San Diego. And more than 65% of the money that we've raised has come from San Diego, actually probably 70. So I think the thing is, you know, San Diego is the kind of place where if you're patient, if you give to others, if you kind of take your time and learn and listen, you can take an idea that's as hair brained as we're gonna, you know, make a bag of fertilizer and sell it to evolve it into what it is now and then have the supporting coaching like, I mean, you know, because you were one of the three, but you, Caitlin Wege and Kelly Marcel coached me for almost two years before we went before TCA for our last round of funding. And it was really listening to what y' all had to say and thinking about, you know, taking my preconceived of notions about my business, throwing them out and saying, okay, let me take this advice and see how we integrate that into our growth model and doing that and evolving. I remember when you finally said in 2019, you're like, okay, I think you're ready. And we dove in and six months later raised a blockbuster round of capital. So to your question, yes, the infrastructure is here. I just think a person has to be patient and focus on developing relationships and listening to people and contributing to others and letting others contribute to you and you'll be successful.

That's awesome. Well, as much as you've gotten from the community, I know you've given as well too. Which is also a very San Diego trait for sure. Another trait of ours is our taco scene, which also goes way back, just like some of our other older industries. Do you have some favorite taco spots?

I do, and I think it depends on what mood I'm in. That's the nice thing about San Diego is we can, you know, we can assign moods to tacos. One of my favorite little spots, and largely because it reminds me of, like, some of the spots you get down, down in Baja, is Torres Tacos. It's behind Border X down in Barrio Logan. So if you walk into Border X, there's like a little tiny gate around the side and sneak in the back, and there's like a. A larger sitting area where you can bring your beer back there and hang out. There's a little, little taco stand back there that's pretty on point. There's another place, and I honestly don't think it has a name, but it's. It's up Sherman in Logan Heights. And it's literally the front of a house. It's probably like the adu of a house. It's this lady and her mom own it. And I went there with. With Kelly Abbott once, actually, and literally you walk in and they just got a little list of things, and you sit down, they've got all these old little tables. It kind of feels like cuatros milpas. But I was looking for the name before and I couldn't find it. But it's. Yeah, it's like I could drive you there in a heartbeat. Just one of those offbeat spots. And in terms of, like, you know, established brands, I like taco stand. They make a pretty damn good breakfast burrito.

Yeah, everyone's got to have their spot. Like that unnamed spot, you know, that. That taco truck in the. That goes in that parking lot of that place, you know, kind of thing. So, yeah, I love it.

Totally. Well, on that end, actually, there's one. You got to try this out. So I live in Sherman Heights right now, and about 4:35 o', clock, I'm surprised we haven't heard her yet. A lady walks around screaming tamales. And it's literally just a lady from the neighborhood with a little, like, food truck, and she makes fresh tamales every day, and she walks around like five bucks. You get three, you know, and, you know, it's one of those things you can sit on the, on the sidewalk and have a couple tamales, and it's just about as good as you get in any restaurant in town.

I love that. Okay, I got to come by for the five o' clock tamale round.

Yeah, Tamales and reposado, man.

Yes. I love it. Well, Jared, it's. It's so good to have you here on the podcast and hear kind of the story of how it's all played out. I mean, I've. I feel like I've seen it and lived it with you, but to hear how it's kind of culminated in this purpose and this direction is pretty incredible. So congrats on that.

Yeah, Neil, you've been an incredible friend and mentor and support system through a lot of ups and downs over the last seven, eight years here, kind of culminating in this incredible win and opportunity that we've had this past year. So, you know, thank you for, for doing that, man. I appreciate you.

No, I'm honored to be along for the ride, that's for sure. So thanks for that and thanks for being on the pod. Thanks, Jared.

You got it. Take care.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. Big shout out to School of Rap for our rad intro music. And thanks as well to Nest Podcast Network where we are recording live inside their studio at Ness Co Working in Bankers Hill. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter eelbloom as well as Fresh brewed tech and Tacos in Tech pod on Twitter too.

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