Jason E. Barkaloo left a 15-year Army career to start Knowbella Tech and Open Therapeutics. He argues that researchers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are siloed from global collaboration due to lack of funding, and that building an A-team matters more than product or market conditions.
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Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Jason E. Barkaloo with us. He's the founder and chair of Nobella Tech and Open Therapeutics. So welcome to the show, man.
Hey, thank you so much, Tyler. It's a pleasure to be here.
Of course, grateful to have you here, man. Um, we'll dive into the first one. The first question I have for you, Jason, is What is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Oh, boy. I've got a lot of those. Probably the best one is, you know, I spent a career in the US Army and worked really, really hard in that environment. And after my career was over, I decided to become an entrepreneur. And there were so many life lessons from my career in the Army that I was able to transplant over to being an entrepreneur, things such as being really stubborn, but being very passionate, no-quit attitude, those kinds of things really gave me a great boost as being an entrepreneur. And I wouldn't have made 15 years of entrepreneurial success had I not been well prepared for that tenacity and ability to have a leadership role to have come to me through the Army.
Hmm. And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Well, I, I think in my industry is understanding the culture of the scientific community around the world, particularly the underserved scientists in areas like Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The, these are scientists that really wanna collaborate with their colleagues around the world. But due to their financial situations, they're really unable to do that. And so we've ended up with some siloization around the world in the scientific arena, which is kind of sad because in 1676, a very famous scientist said that if I see far into the future, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants. And that was no other than Sir Isaac Newton. And so Newton recognized that long ago that science is built upon collaboration. And one of the things that we see today is an erosion of collaboration in science.
And what's your best piece of overall business advice, not necessarily industry-specific?
So my, my biggest takeaway is, no, you know, you have to have an A-team. You can have an A team, a B product, a B market, and a B ROI and be successful. But if you have a B team, A market, A ROI, you, you just can't make it. That, that A team is everything.
I agree. And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Be smarter, be wiser, listen a whole lot more.
And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Winning.
I like that. And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Oh boy, probably the best book I've ever read is by John Rawls and it was about contractarianism. I would say that Rawls is— what was the name of that book? Justice is Fairness. Yeah, The Theory of Justice. John Rawls' Theory of Justice, probably my favorite book because it gave me a foundation for understanding contractarianism, which is how our society is put together with the basis of contracts. So it really, from a philosophical level, gave me a really solid foundation for how, how to put business together from a contract perspective, and how society works as a contractarian society.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
Oh, my favorite quote is, everything that we see or seem is but a dream. And that was Edgar Allan Poe. And that's really my favorite quote, because we really run around every day and and work really hard and think that we know what we're doing, but in reality is what we're doing just may not have any connection at all to what's going on around us in the world. So we're disconnected.
Thank you so much for coming on, man. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find you online?
To find us online, the best place to find us is knobella.tech, and that's K-N-O-W-B-E-L-L-A.tech. And we're going to be launching a securities token offering there here in a few months. And so anybody that's interested in cryptocurrency and crowdsourcing scientists can enjoy that opportunity. And then Open Therapeutics, my other sister company, is at therapoid.net, and that's T-H-E-R-A-P-O-I-D.net. ApoID.net.
Perfect, man. Thank you again for coming on. We appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks, Tyler, for having me. It was really good.
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