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Exploring the mindset that fuels young, passionate entrepreneurs to succeed.
Welcome to the Irrepressibles podcast. I'm the producer, Eric Waev, and I'm here with our host. Hello, mother.
Dannie:Hello, son.
Eric Waev:You know, the mom wants a podcast, the mom gets a podcast, so here we are.
Dannie:And I'm so excited to be here. And thank you, Eric, for agreeing to produce this podcast for me and, to embark on this project with me. And I have to say, I'm so excited about our first guests. And the 2 guests, the 2 cofounders of our first startup company, couldn't be more fitting to illustrate what it is we mean when we say we wanna explore the irrepressible spirit.
Eric Waev:That's right. We're not just exploring the startups themselves. We're looking at what fuels the people behind them to succeed.
Dannie:Our 2 first guests in fact had an idea, a vision that most of us would find daunting to say the least. They say that they're on a mission to feed the world. You heard me right. Yeah. You heard me right.
Dannie:This is their dream, and it's, and it feeds their impressive drive. Their company is called Plantiform, and they sell indoor gardens that run on technology that requires very little water. The company is only 3 years old and is now already piercing worldwide markets. It's turning the heads of investors. One of which has already offered to buy it for millions of dollars.
Eric Waev:Yeah. That's right. Spoiler alert. They turned it down.
Dannie:Their journey is remarkable. They have had a lot of setbacks. They lost their whole team. They lost all of the money that they put forward, they lost the money that certain investors put forward, and most puzzling, they at one point had to try to comprehend why their prototypes, the plants that they were trying to grow were growing upside down. Would you keep going if you had that many setbacks?
Eric Waev:Yeah. Of course.
Dannie:Absolutely. I think most of us would. Yeah. Most of us would. Absolutely.
Dannie:No doubt about it. And in fact, our 2 guests absolutely did and it's really paying off. What fascinates me though is and what I wanna share through this conversation is the irprincipal spirit that drives these young entrepreneurs.
Eric Waev:Yeah. That spirit really shines through in your conversation.
Dannie:Absolutely. And I promise you, in fact, you cannot listen in on this conversation and not feel uplifted and taken on a ride on their high frequency positive vibes. You cannot help but smile throughout this conversation. Right. So, let's get right to it.
Dannie:Here's the conversation with Plantiform cofounders, Alvaro Aguilar and Kiwa Lang. In a few words, can you explain to me what the innovation is and and what is the REJUVENATE?
Alberto Aguilar:So I think the main innovation around Plantiform revolves around fogponics. It's essentially the most water efficient technology in agriculture known. Which NASA left behind and we took over. The REJUVENATE, where it is, it's the Nespresso indoor gardens. So essentially Tech.
Alberto Aguilar:This cool system that allows you to grow 15 different vegetables or herbs using this technology called
Dannie:fog pond. So people kind of know about hydroponics because there are indoor gardens already that exist, but this fog pondics, how is it different? Because you still need water.
Alberto Aguilar:It still just water, but it uses 50% less water than hydroponics and grows plants 30% faster. So, productivity wise, you get a lot more yields. The fact that it's just less water means less maintenance. So to put to translate that, you'll only have to refill the water tank once every 3 weeks, You can have harvest ready as fast as 4 weeks.
Dannie:Okay. So there's a whole bunch of implications about that. And also, I wanna know about how this this came about. But before, I'll ask you questions that I'm gonna ask every guest on this podcast. I'd like you to tell me what is the top mindset quality, and I'll ask both of you, actually.
Dannie:What is the top mindset quality that got you to where you are?
Kiwa Lang:You wanna go first?
Alberto Aguilar:I think you can go, mate.
Kiwa Lang:Top mindset quality. Oh, that's, I honestly think it's it was, the passion, like, wanting to do something that you actually want to do. Right? Like a lot of people don't don't necessarily have a day to day job or even daily activities that they even wanna do. Like, they they kind of wake up in the morning and, like, oh, I have to go to work and, like, they're like, oh, I can't wait to, like, not do it or, like, be off work.
Kiwa Lang:Right? But whereas Plan to Form and Rejuvenate purely started because it was, like, a passion thing, like, a passion project.
Alberto Aguilar:Mhmm.
Kiwa Lang:And it's, like, being able to see it from start to the start from to now, it's, like, it's it's really satisfying, rewarding, and it's I think it all came from just the the passion at the beginning. It's like, oh, I wanna see something. Well, from my eyes as a product designer, it's like, I wanted to make something that people would actually use and benefit from. Like designing a chair is nice and all, but, like, having a product that actually benefits your day to day life was something that I would was wanting to do. So that came from the the passion mindset.
Dannie:Right because you used to be working in a company that designed furniture.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah.
Dannie:And chair that's why you mentioned designing chairs.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Designing chairs, street furniture and just like office sound acoustic stuff but it's not like rewarding, you know, it's not like it's, it's not something that you thought of and it's, like, in people's homes whereas this is more like it's, something that is our creation.
Alberto Aguilar:So
Dannie:Right. Okay. So passion. And what about you, Alberto? Top mindset quality that you could say this is what got me here despite all of the obstacles and challenges?
Alberto Aguilar:I mean, I think it's to add on to to passion, which is a must, it's perseverance. Right? We're doing
Kiwa Lang:We love P's. Double P's.
Dannie:Passion and perseverance.
Alberto Aguilar:What we're doing is unheard of. Right? Like, as you've heard hydroponics, as you've heard people trying to to do vertical farms or be able to help people grow food, but nobody's trying to innovate it the way we're doing. And so I wouldn't say it's even 1%.
Alberto Aguilar:It's even less than 1% of the world that could even have an opportunity like this where they can make a huge impact. So we're not necessarily only driven and I say only because, of course, there's a monetary value to be driven by, but it's not by the revenue or the cash that you can generate. The way we measure the success of Pantaform, right, is can we impact millions of lives, with our technology, with our innovation, not just with these indoor gardens, but also with our next ambitious projects, which is vertical farming. Right. The one motto that we live for is helping feed the world of the future.
Dannie:Wow.
Alberto Aguilar:So for us, it's not about, oh, can we make a $1,000,000?
Dannie:That's not a small task.
Alberto Aguilar:It's not. It's not. And this is what the perseverance is around. Right? Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:It's it's if you wanna be able to feed the world of the future, then you must do what 99.9% of the world cannot do. And that is literally what pushes us every single day to go to push to the limits and have the perseverance to know that what we're doing is it's a massive mission.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:And to do that, well, it's it's every single day, the odds of succeeding are gonna be very slim. But when you compound those little successes and those little wins Right. We will eventually be able to achieve that goal of giving our fair share of contribution to feeding the world of the future.
Dannie:So that's very inspiring and, we're gonna get back to, like, how that plays into, like, different events that might have happened to you or or things that you're dealing with now. But first, I just kinda wanna set the stage for the listeners. Obviously, Kiwa, you have an Australian accent, you're from Australia, and Alberto, you're here in Canada and, but you guys knew each other before, being worlds apart and now you're back together here, in Canada. So can you explain to me a little bit how how this idea or how this, this dream sort of made you guys reconnect and and how it was working in the early days on, you know, 2 completely different continents during COVID, I might add. So talk to me a little bit about that.
Kiwa Lang:So, the initial idea, as Albert mentioned, it stems off the the motto of feeding the world of the future but, was looking at how well, it was conceptual like, oh, how cool would it be if you can grow fresh produce on Mars and then that's what stemmed the initial idea of looking at the most advanced technology for horticulture on Earth and then was looking at also NASA and how they were growing produce in space and then that's when I came across the article regarding, this new tech revolving around fog and that was really fascinating because it's
Dannie:And this is you're in Australia and you're are you working now or are you in university? Like, where were you at in your life when you're starting to become interested?
Kiwa Lang:This was, 6 months before I finished university.
Dannie:Okay.
Kiwa Lang:So that's when the ideas kind of started.
Dannie:Okay.
Kiwa Lang:And then yeah, so it was a had to design something as my last year project, but the idea came from, yeah, just something revolutionary, something very not normal, and, looking at, yeah, just Mars and how they might how we could probably make fresh produce on Mars, and then, that's when the tech initially started, and then the design was I had to design a physical product as well.
Dannie:And when did you decide that I need to get Alberto in on this and and reach out to him?
Kiwa Lang:It was it was around, maybe 6 months after I graduated, when I was working actually as well. So I was working at the furniture design place, but, I I reached out to Alberto because I knew I knew he was entrepreneur and then he also had some stake in a medicinal like, what was it, bio? Biotech company so it was kind of relevant as well and then also we were very close in high school and I knew how he was in high school and I was like well he has an entrepreneur like background even in high school it was the same.
Dannie:He knew he had it in him and just to be clear you guys did you were in high school together in Dubai?
Kiwa Lang:Yes. Yeah.
Dannie:Okay. And, Alberto, tell me about that phone call.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. I mean, it was actually a common friend of ours that met with Kiwa in Dubai during one of his vacations. And Kiwa shared with him the idea of, like, you know, what his project was about. His his purpose of calling me was actually to ask if this could grow weed.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. That was the first idea.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. And, you know, I thought it...
Kiwa Lang:It was like just around the time I think Canada legalized it. So that's kinda when I was like, oh, this could grow weed.
Alberto Aguilar:But yeah. October 13, 2019, 4 AM in the morning.
Dannie:4 AM.
Alberto Aguilar:4 AM. Yeah.
Dannie:You must have been wondering why who's calling me at 4 AM? And I
Alberto Aguilar:I was excited. Not gonna lie. I saw his name, and I was like, why does he care about me now? But I picked up, and then we started chatting. We you know, caught up, and he was telling me, like, how he met our friend Ishmael in Dubai.
Alberto Aguilar:He was like, "Yeah, I heard that you had a biotech company where you were dealing with cannabis."
Dannie:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:"And I'm wondering if, like, these are cool these are project I've been working on for, like, since university, and, you know, I was wondering if you knew how to turn this into a reality for cannabis." I'm like, I don't know. Like, maybe. Let's see. Let's figure it out.
Alberto Aguilar:Let's see. Let's do some research and and try to find out. But then as we're talking, he sends me a photo, and then I was so tired. And I, like, my eyes, like, like, open up. As soon as I get on my WhatsApp message, I'm like, holy crap.
Alberto Aguilar:Like, this thing is, like, this thing is sick. It looks so futuristic. And just to give a quick background, it did not look like this at all.
Kiwa Lang:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:Like, it was a very futuristic conceptual design, which Kiwa actually made into a reality, but it never really worked. Right? It was still a
Kiwa Lang:A prototype. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:A prototype. To give a background as well why he asked me about the biotech. I had a company that lasted 8 months only called Denova Technologies, where we did bacteria mutation to grow CBD stem cells instead of weed. So the same way you grow grains, but to extract CBD out of it.
Alberto Aguilar:So that's why Kiwa reached out asking me because of that background that I had. Okay. And then, yeah, I thought it was very cool. We didn't decide to go all in. We just said, like, okay, let's do some research.
Alberto Aguilar:Let's study the market. Let's see if this is feasible. And so we decided to work on this on our spare time. We call once a week. We do some follow ups, and then
Kiwa Lang:it just became testing and yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:It became more and more exciting as it went, and then we're like, okay. Well, I think there's something a bigger challenge ahead of us, which is we're trying to build a product and manufacture a product. And that's when,
Kiwa Lang:Well, the first step was like, can we grow plants?
Alberto Aguilar:Can we grow plants?
Kiwa Lang:Is it even is it even possible?
Dannie:Indoors. Yeah. With minimal water.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Exactly. That was the first thing we're like, oh, Can it even, does it even work?
Dannie:What was the first plant you tried to grow?
Kiwa Lang:Lettuce? Lettuce. Yeah.
Dannie:Lettuce.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Some yeah. Some lettuce.
Alberto Aguilar:It didn't grow yet. It just died.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was so many tests and it never worked, but the first time it actually grew pretty big was, like, the the coolest moment.
Dannie:So just to give listeners an idea, between the moment where you started trying to grow the lettuce back in 2019, 2020, and today, can you just list off some of the things that we can grow with your technology?
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. We have over like, in terms of in our pod packs that we give for like that we sell, we have over like 50, 55 varieties of different plants like multiple herbs, tomatoes, bunch of lettuces, leafy greens, like rainbow Swiss chard, spinach, kale, bok choy, basil, mint, thyme, dill.
Alberto Aguilar:You don't have to go through all 50.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. Well, pretty much everything.
Dannie:Something for everyone, basically. Yeah.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Just like no root vegetables as of now, like no potatoes and stuff.
Dannie:Right.
Kiwa Lang:But, that would be cool.
Dannie:Yeah. But you do have like small tomatoes now and little peppers and not just leafy.
Kiwa Lang:Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Fruit and stuff and yeah.
Dannie:Alright. So let's go back. So, back to let's try and grow lettuce. So, you guys are talking and, at one point, you start deciding to build physically build, this
Alberto Aguilar:Indoor garden?
Dannie:Indoor garden. I was gonna say a cocoon. It's got sort of the shape of an egg. It's very beautiful. It's got lights inside, and you can see the plants.
Dannie:But there was a lot of prototypes and a lot of trial and error. Alberto, tell me a little bit about those days in your apartment.
Alberto Aguilar:It was it was painful. We actually started
Kiwa Lang:The Alberto sweatshop.
Alberto Aguilar:Well, I went to Indonesia. Remember that's when we started learning about manufacturing? So I spent a month in in Jakarta in February of 2020.
Dannie:In what kind of, manufacture?
Alberto Aguilar:Injection molding facility.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:So it was in the outskirts of Jakarta.
Dannie:And you were there specifically for the for that reason? Yeah. To try and and find out the most efficient way of building this stuff.
Alberto Aguilar:Manufacturing, what are the processes to see if Kiwa's design was feasible. Yeah. And the guy that we met, actually, is a Dutch man called, what's his name? Hans?
Alberto Aguilar:No. What's his name again?
Kiwa Lang:Something Van. No. I don't know.
Alberto Aguilar:It was Van something. Anyway, he's a Dutch guy who, like, became an expat in Indonesia, and he he he decided to acquire this manufacturing business. And I reached out, through LinkedIn, and he allowed me to work at the factory and learn a little bit from him and learn how the machines were working.
Dannie:Because I was gonna ask you why Jakarta. So it's through a LinkedIn contact? Yeah. Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:So it's a random guy that just decided to, like...
Dannie:And you happened to be in Jakarta, and you're like, no problem.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. Because I'm from Indonesia. So I was like, take advantage and go enjoy some days in Bali.
Dannie:Okay.
Kiwa Lang:Some bintangs
Dannie:That's a nice place to, if you're gonna choose a place to do it, Bali is definitely...
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah, so you know, went there, learned about manufacturing, injection molding, blow molding, the assembly process, exporting to Canada. And so we decided that, yeah, it's feasible.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:So came back from the trip, and then COVID hit. And the startup I had at that time called Realomigo, we got hit very badly because of COVID. Mhmm. And so me and my 2 other cofounders, we decided to part ways, and I let them run the business and continue with the business, and I sold my equity.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And I remember calling Keywa. I mean, like, hey. I finally sold my part of the company. Let's do this full time now. And that same day, we went on Facebook Marketplace, and the first step was, like, let's start prototyping.
Alberto Aguilar:So I found a 3D printer, which I still have photos. I I bought it at 12 like, at midnight and got it home, called Kiwa because it was daytime for him. It was morning.
Dannie:So Kiwa's still in Australia at this point
Eric Waev:Kiwa's still in Australia.
Alberto Aguilar:And then we got their 3D printer running at, like, 3 AM.
Dannie:So you got the printer running together?
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. Over video.
Dannie:Over video. Wow.
Alberto Aguilar:And then you sent me some files that you had, and then we started 3D printing. It took, like, a month and a half to print one full prototype.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Because we just seeing for context, like, it's big. Mhmm.
Kiwa Lang:The unit's big. So in prototyping, the printer bed is not big and printing takes a long time. So, we had to print, like, even this section in 4 parts.
Kiwa Lang:And then one part may take 20 something hours. So you times that by 16 and then you gotta once that's done, you gotta put a new one on. Even if it screws up at like the 18 hour mark, you gotta redo it. So it's like, oh man printing is a nightmare.
Dannie:So okay. So, from what I gather, I don't know much about 3D printing, but from what I gather, a lot of trial and errors, a lot of frustration probably.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Dannie:Were there any moments where you're like, this is insane. It's not doable.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. At the end of the summer, we we actually assembled the first team. These were university kids specializing in the different aspects that we needed, including, like, the R&D side, a little bit of the marketing side to do some market analysis. And, Yeah. I remember, like, we raised some money to friends and family.
Alberto Aguilar:What? Like, $40,000. Yeah. That all went into prototyping.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And then at the end of the summer, nothing worked. No plants actually grew. The team was fed up and they ended up, you know, slowly quitting. And the ones that wanted to remain, we told them, like, look. Like, I'm not sure if this is actually gonna work out.
Alberto Aguilar:So we decided, let's scrap everything.
Dannie:Mhmm. How did you feel at that time? Were you discouraged or, like, were you fearful that this would sort of, disintegrate?
Alberto Aguilar:Of course yeah. It was a scary moment because, like, we raised $40,000, and we put all of it into it. We also personally invested, like, $30,000 each on the on the business.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Dannie:And this was from friends and family, the investments initially too.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly.
Dannie:It was like an emotional...
Alberto Aguilar:So it's a $100 in total that went into investments and just testing.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:So that first design did not work.
Dannie:And what was it about it that didn't work?
Alberto Aguilar:Everything. Everything. Like, the the conceptual side of how the fog would transport to the top, plants growing upside down. It's impossible for plants to germinate upside down. It's impossible for fog to transport all the way up without airflow.
Alberto Aguilar:Everything was just...
Kiwa Lang:In context, it it didn't look like this. Like, there it was we've just re reiterated it, like, so many times. But the initial idea had, like, this weird rack and pinion system in the middle where it was like, plants would grow upside down and upwards. Right. So but now it doesn't do that, but
Dannie:Right. Right.
Kiwa Lang:And then yeah.
Dannie:So a lot of learning by trial and error.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly. And this was also COVID. Right? So everything was starting to shut down.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:We were getting on video calls with professors at the University of Guelph, the NRC. We talked to some...
Dannie:NRC being the National Research Council of Canada?
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly.
Dannie:How did you get them, hooked or interested in this?
Alberto Aguilar:I met a guy called Evan Steeg who used to be a director at the NRC. So I reached out to him. It was the idea, and he really liked it and decided to join join us in our board of advisors. So he gave us other contacts at universities.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:Talk to, like we saw a guy posting on Instagram once talking about fogponics, who's based in the Netherlands, and we reached out to him on Instagram and booked a meeting and learned more about it. And that's how we started pivoting. So by September of 2020, we had no team. We had $20,000 left in the account, and we had a design that did not work. So we decided let's go start over again.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:Instead of 3D printing it fully...
Dannie:But wait a minute. So when you decided let's start over again, that's kind of what I'm intrigued by. Like, a lot of people would have said this is not gonna work. It's too much money. It's too much risk.
Dannie:Let's let it go and move on to something else.
Alberto Aguilar:Yes.
Dannie:So what is it about what's inside of you at your core that thought, no, we need to keep going and we're not gonna let this get us down?
Kiwa Lang:I would say it's like the excitement and also the the gut feeling or you're like, oh, it's so close like we're so close.
Dannie:A gut feeling.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. Like it's just like there's some small things that we know like if we change would like may not be perfect after that but we know it's a progress and a step forward so I think it's like the tenacity and I think Alberto mentioned the perseverance like it's very true. I guess it's like ingrained in that day to day mentality of what we go through.
Dannie:Passion and perseverance.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. The P's. We need another P.
Dannie:Yeah. Well, we'll find it by the end of the show.
Kiwa Lang:Perseverance, passion, Power. Power?
Alberto Aguilar:But, yeah. It was that. So we we we designed a second one and it looked like a phone booth. Like, was it literally the size of a phone booth.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. It was massive.
Kiwa Lang:Like that fridge. Like the fridge size.
Dannie:Oh, yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:Plants grew a little bit, but then they died again, but we understood why they died. So now we we got all into the topics of aerodynamics. We had to study about how aerodynamics work. We need to understand how fog populates and how the droplet size work. And we had to all these sciences.
Dannie:And are are you doing this still on your own, the 2 of you, or or have you got another team around you to sort of, you know, someone who knows about horticulture or
Kiwa Lang:No.
Dannie:No. So you're you're basically self taught about everything that you're talking about.
Alberto Aguilar:Yep. Everything here, you're talking about articles, calling Yeah.
Kiwa Lang:Calling. Professors. YouTube. Trial and error.
Kiwa Lang:Lots of YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of Youtube.
Alberto Aguilar:Even building, like, a PCB board, like, an electrical system right, we learned on YouTube.
Dannie:Oh my gosh.
Alberto Aguilar:I did one, actually. It caught on fire, the power supply, because I didn't know it had to convert. And then that's when we reached out. We're like, okay. We need to contact an electrical engineer.
Alberto Aguilar:And that's when we got Andres, our current CTO, who's actually the older brother of a good friend of mine.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:So he joined us. He helped us build the PCB board better.
Dannie:And how did you convince him that this was worth his time?
Alberto Aguilar:I told him we're gonna change the world.
Dannie:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:And gave him a very good story, a good pitch. He knew me. He knew I had 2 other startups before as well. Yeah. So he believed in it.
Alberto Aguilar:He believed that we're able to push it and make it reality. So he came his cousin as well, Juancho, came for a bit as a software engineer, and we told them we're gonna pay them in shares.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And so they agreed, very part time. Andres' wife hated us for, like, a year. Right? Because he had 2 kids. Right.
Alberto Aguilar:You know, he had a job, a full time job, and now he was working on the other side. Yeah. So, like, she hated us.
Dannie:So well, that brings me back to a question I wanted to ask because when you're you've decided to give it a second go, do you still have your other jobs? Is this a project you're doing on the side?
Kiwa Lang:I was working like, 2 days a week. So I was working, like, yeah, I was working very part time.
Dannie:You had time to put into this.
Kiwa Lang:Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Like, we needed to... when Albert went full time, I dropped my work to 2 days a week.
Kiwa Lang:So that was...
Alberto Aguilar:That was May May of 22. Yeah.
Dannie:Right at the beginning of COVID and, the shutdown.
Alberto Aguilar:The day after I sold my my shares, I went full time on this.
Dannie:Okay. So you're so we're in confinement. Right? Because it's the early days of COVID, and you're working on this in your apartment, videoing with the Kiwa who's in Australia and trying to troubleshoot, multiple systems. You know, the like you were saying, there there's the actual, plastic, you know, component, but then there's the the fog system and everything, you know, the the electrical
Dannie:board that you mentioned, all this. So so you guys are are doing this, a a new Kiwa in Australia. Are you doing the same thing in your living room, you know, with the 3D printers and
Kiwa Lang:So I actually had, really, like, helpful friends, in Australia that they pretty much owned fabrication labs. They own multiple printers. So when Albert was testing, I would test and send him stuff and then he would be like actually try changing this and then I would print it myself and then he would print it as well and we'll kind of simultaneously do testing and we also had another guy, unfortunately, he's not with us, but Sean. He was, like, my roommate for 5 years, but, he was a designer as well, and he was helping me with all the prototyping because it's a lot of, like, sanding and a lot of you have when it's 3D printed, the parts don't feel like this. They're not smooth.
Kiwa Lang:Like, you got, like, to sand it, fill it with, like, all this poly filling and all this. So it's a it's a whole It's complicated. It's a whole mission.
Kiwa Lang:It's like a little construction thing. So we had a lot of help in Australia as well with, with labs and all that which was nice.
Dannie:So can you talk a little bit about the the challenges of working across time zones of this magnitude?
Kiwa Lang:It's mainly, the communication is difficult like, because obviously it's like very polar opposites so once once Albert's waking up I would be probably going to sleep unless we stay up like till absurd times. Right? So that would be the hardest part because your different time zones and morning day, you only get to really kind of converse for like a couple hours Right. Unless you, yeah, stay up.
Dannie:It's like a short window there where you can actually get together and talk about problems.
Kiwa Lang:The only like good thing I would say is that it was kinda like you're working on a 24 hour clock because like someone would be like I would be in the day and then it would be his sleep time and I'll be like actually Alberto when you wake up print this and then...
Dannie:That's a great point. So there was never, there was always someone working on it.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Exactly. That was kinda like the only good thing I would say.
Dannie:Okay. It's good to see, you know, the positive side of, of all these challenges. I love that. I love that. And when did you know that you had something big?
Dannie:Was there a turning point, a moment where you're like, you know, Eureka. This is it.
Alberto Aguilar:I think it was when the first prototype actually grew plants.
Kiwa Lang:Oh, okay. Yeah. I was I was thinking that, but also when we actually got a random to invest quite a lot of money.
Alberto Aguilar:There's that too. I think first came the prototype.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:Grow all the vegetables. It was not perfect, but it grew vegetables. Then we're like, okay. Now we're onto something.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:CTV News contacted us because we made a post on Instagram.
Dannie:Oh, yeah?
Alberto Aguilar:Okay. And then Okay. We were in CTV News, the next day we were in Ottawa Business Journal, the next day we're at the Ottawa Life Magazine, so it was like back to back to back. We actually got people paying upfront, so we got preorders.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:We got random investors, friends and family that put 5, 10 k investments. We raised around, like, a 100, 150 k initially from that from little like, from smaller checks. And then, you know, we got an introduction to Olivier Benloulou.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:And Olivier...
Dannie:Who's a businessman in the Gatineau region.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly. And Olivier, he gave us the opportunity to dream, and he actually allowed us to turn it into a reality.
Dannie:So did he reach out to you after seeing the the media coverage, or did you reach out to him? How did this happen?
Alberto Aguilar:It was a friend, William Fisher, who actually introduced us to to Olivier. He was like, oh, I know someone who might wanna invest. So I I did not know who Olivier was. He brought me to his dealership. We met Olivier.
Alberto Aguilar:I saw all the nice cars around. So I was like, oh, goodness. The big guy. And then we sat down. We pitched for, like, you know, we talked for, like, an hour, and, Olivier loved it.
Alberto Aguilar:Loved the project. He loved the people. And then he decided to invest in the company.
Dannie:Right. So it's a far cry from that moment when all of your your investors and your early team decided to, you know, to move on. And now you have more facility, I guess, in in, getting investors to embark Yeah. On this journey with you.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly. So bringing Olivier on board attracted other investors as well. So we raised around half a $1,000,000 in our pre seed round. And that allowed us to onboard, Andres,
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Like a proper proper team and, like, with pay. So that, I think that was big as well.
Alberto Aguilar:We were 5 people, I think. Yeah. We were 5 people in the team. So that allows us to create a team, get into an incubator, and now focus on perfecting the product and preparing it to go to market.
Dannie:And at this point, are you still working out of your apartment?
Alberto Aguilar:No. At this point
Kiwa Lang:at this point, I was in his apartment on the sofa.
Alberto Aguilar:Actually, yeah. So at that point, we got a little office in Gatineau, and then a few months after that while we're prototyping, Kiwa moved to Canada. So he came here and obviously he didn't have a place or a girlfriend. You sound like a loser when I say that.
Alberto Aguilar:And then you stayed and lived at my place. How long? Like couple months?
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Like a few months.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. Slept on my couch.
Kiwa Lang:Slept on the couch with all these animals. Yeah. Like the cats. And also your son Louis.
Dannie:That's right.
Kiwa Lang:Yep. I didn't sleep with him, but he was in the house, you know.
Dannie:That's right. That's right. And actually, it's true because I dropped probably food off at your place for my son at one point and that's when I saw all the 3D printers and I thought what's going on here? And, Louis explained to me, what was happening, but it was fascinating, which leads me to the fact that, Alberto, you you documented this journey in a very interesting way. You wanna talk a little bit about, about this?
Alberto Aguilar:Every single prototype or milestone that we did was I took a photo or a video.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:At the exact time that it happened. Lots of it was also because I was sending Kiwa images or photos of, like, for him to know what was the feedback.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:But that ended up becoming that, like, a journey that we would keep track on and, you know, little wins would take a photo of the product, take a photo
Alberto Aguilar:of the plants, take a photo of, like, sanding devices at 4 AM in the morning in the middle of winter and,
Alberto Aguilar:like, you know, someone's garage. So it's like we were able to take a photo of everything. And funny enough, documenting the journey led to a lot more investors.
Dannie:Okay. How so?
Alberto Aguilar:Because I would show investors, like, look. Here's when we achieved this. Here's where we achieved that. And it's when they notice the time
Dannie:On the screen.
Alberto Aguilar:On the screen, they're like, you know what? I'm gonna invest in you. I'm gonna invest in you and Kiwa. The product is great. I think the product can be something huge, but people is what leads to successful startups.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:And they saw pictures at 2 AM in the morning, at 6 AM, at 11 AM, at 4 PM
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:Lunchtime. They'd, like, all day around, they would see the photos. And they would see that it went from day after day because Kiwa and I were working 16 hours a day.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:That's been a habit since day 1. We've never slowed down in 4 years 8 months, we've never slowed down to 16 hour grinds per day.
Dannie:And the that's the passion that you were talking about initially, Kiwa, which has been maintained throughout. Is the passion growing or is it...
Kiwa Lang:I would say it adapts.
Kiwa Lang:Because like there's certain stages that you're like oh, there's new challenges and new passion projects that is involving around Plantaform so I'd say it's constantly there, like it's obviously our baby. So it's like when your baby gets older, you know, you got you got to, like, nurture it differently.
Dannie:Right. Right.
Kiwa Lang:So it's, that's kind of where it is now.
Kiwa Lang:It's like a little toddler.
Dannie:So you'd say it's an adolescent now or young adult?
Kiwa Lang:Maybe not quite adolescent yet, but, like, it's
Alberto Aguilar:getting rebel.
Kiwa Lang:Yes. It's getting rebel. Yeah. It's pretty rebellious as of now, but it's yeah. I would say it's, in school for sure.
Dannie:It's in school.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. The goal is for it for it to get to 18 and kick it out.
Dannie:Yeah. Yeah.
Kiwa Lang:That's it. You gotta leave home.
Dannie:That's great. So okay. So getting back to the picture, I find that fascinating that, you know, a lot of people will write journals and and but your whole phone, your iPhone is filled with years worth of, what's been 3 years now? 4 years. 4 years, of of pictures, from the very early days.
Dannie:So you knew to do that at the very beginning. Is there a picture or a couple of pictures that for you are significant in the journey that that you'd like to share with us?
Alberto Aguilar:There is there's one which is the factory in Indonesia, which I always like to loop back to.
Dannie:Why?
Alberto Aguilar:Because that's what started everything. Right? It it's it was such a risk too to go and spend some couple weeks in the stranger's factory, and also was an eye opener to us, understanding that there is a way to making this a reality. The second one, I'd say, the that's the the picture I told you, the sanding devices at 4 AM, like, at 4, 3, 4 AM in the morning.
Kiwa Lang:Sanding is the worst.
Alberto Aguilar:In the middle of winter, it was so painful, but we took a selfie. There was the part where the first plants grew.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. That one I loved the most.
Alberto Aguilar:There's a photo actually of, like, removing a pod of the device and all the smoke coming out and the roots look so puffy.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:And that's the thing. Right? The puffy roots is the sign of healthy plants. It's only only fogponics can show that. That's all the research, all the papers we've read about.
Alberto Aguilar:Because remember, there was not that was not really a proven technology yet.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:But all the documents and paperwork that was showed puffy roots with microhairs. Yeah. And that picture captured that.
Dannie:Oh,
Kiwa Lang:That was the best pic, I think. Yeah. Because it was, like, still a hypothesis, like, whereas hydroponics, the roots are long and stuff, but these roots, you could tell they weren't growing, like, normally. And they're like puffy and like hairy and like it was really different and I think that photo was my favorite.
Dannie:And so they were happy roots. It was a good sign.
Kiwa Lang:Happy roots.
Dannie:Happy
Dannie:roots make happy inventors, and happy investors. Happy sanders.
Dannie:So would you guys be willing to share those pictures on our on our website so listeners can go, have a look at the what what what it was like in the early days.
Dannie:Of course.
Dannie:Also, take advantage of, this moment just to tell the listeners that, if you wanna go look at the video recording, you'll be able to see the Plantform sitting here right next to us with beautiful kale and bok choy.
Dannie:And what else do we have in there?
Kiwa Lang:We have spinach. We have spinach, like arugula, Swiss chard. Swiss chard. Yeah.
Dannie:And it's at the point now where it's ready for harvesting. So you you actually harvest and it keeps growing.
Alberto Aguilar:Actually, this is the 3rd time we harvest.
Dannie:3rd time. Yeah.
Dannie:So once you harvest with this, you you can it goes on for a certain time.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly.
Dannie:Yeah. That's great.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:It's more sustainable.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. You can, keep eating every week kind of with herbs as well. Uh-huh.
Dannie:So Uh-huh. Well, and in fact, I think, Alberto, I remember you telling me a story about, someone, who was, building a bunker in case of doomsday and heard about, your product and reached out to you.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. We talked to, it's funny because...
Dannie:That's a whole market, you know, that could be...
Alberto Aguilar:It was actually through also through Olivier. They were talking to someone, but they were like, oh, yeah. This would be very interesting to have it in in my bunker for, like, the day that we have an apocalypse to have 2 rejuvenates and have a 100 pot packs so I can eat fresh produce.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:We actually haven't we haven't pursued that yet.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:But, I mean, it was a very interesting sign of, like, oh, actually, yeah, it's it's we have an we have a doomsday video. Remember?
Kiwa Lang:Oh, that video is cool. We should try to show you someday.
Dannie:What is this?
Kiwa Lang:It's like a dystopian future video but like with plantaform in it.
Dannie:That you made?
Kiwa Lang:No. No. Actually some random some random person made it for us.
Dannie:Okay. A customer.
Kiwa Lang:Not even, like, someone I don't even know how we met them.
Alberto Aguilar:At a trade show.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. And there's like oh we love your product let me do free marketing for you and the production of the video was really good. I was super surprised.
Dannie:Did you use it for marketing purposes?
Kiwa Lang:We haven't actually.
Alberto Aguilar:We've been waiting for the next apocalypse.
Dannie:Yeah. Obviously there's an interest for people preparing for the next apocalypse.
Kiwa Lang:But it's a really cool video.
Dannie:Yeah.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Very, very different to like what we've ever done like in terms of videos so it's, interesting.
Dannie:That's really interesting. Is it like a funny video or a scary video?
Kiwa Lang:No. It's like proper like dark.
Dannie:It's dark.
Kiwa Lang:It's it's like proper dark yeah. Like, oh, the world's ending kind of thing.
Alberto Aguilar:But the rejuvenate can...
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. But this could save you kind of thing, which was really cool. Like, I love the video. It's very different.
Dannie:Yeah. No. That's really, it's true though. Like, So that that leads us to the idea that, this could be, a very interesting product for people that have a difficult access to water, for example, or, you know, difficulty with agriculture depending on where we are, on the planet. You've started visiting certain parts of the world, the Middle East, Africa.
Alberto Aguilar:Yep.
Dannie:Tell me about how that came about and how people are reacting to the REJUVENATE.
Alberto Aguilar:I think the first expansion plan was in Djibouti. Remember that vertical farm? So this guy from the, the United Nations, reached out to us. Actually, he even flew all the way to our office wanted to talk about how we can grow a vertical farm with them and be able to create a farm that can sustain Djibouti. Which Djibouti, for those who do not know, is across of Yemen Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:And their neighboring country...
Dannie:Tiny little country.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. Very, very tiny. Very poor. Lots of civil war going around.
Alberto Aguilar:And unfortunately, Djibouti imports all of its produce, and they usually get the leftovers from its neighboring countries.
Dannie:I see.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Like Ethiopia and stuff.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly. So they were trying to build a project for for them, like, to grow their own farms and create a food waste kind of, like, facility next to it that would turn it into, like, fuel. So that really is what sparked the interest of being able to go international and go to a larger scale.
Dannie:And how did this person reach out to you? Was it through
Alberto Aguilar:An article.
Kiwa Lang:They saw us in an article. Yeah.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And then, that kept evolving and eventually they had to raise a lot of capital. That did not work out for them. We continue moving forward. Then we had what was the other vertical farm? There's a couple of vertical farming companies that kept reaching out.
Alberto Aguilar:So funny enough, actually 2022, we got, we got approached by a vertical farming company in Toronto.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And they
Dannie:What what is a vertical farm? Just for for listeners who might not know, what it is.
Alberto Aguilar:It's essentially a factory with multiple rows that have trays of vegetables that just grow.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And has robots moving around that push the vegetables out. So essentially just picture a vegetable factory. Okay.
Kiwa Lang:Where you grow and harvest from.
Dannie:And at the moment, these vertical farms are using hydroponics, I guess, as a technology. So they're reaching out to you because of the Fogponics.
Alberto Aguilar:Of the fogponics. They like the team. They knew that we grew this much very lean, and they offered to buy us out
Dannie:Is that right?
Alberto Aguilar:For $6,500,000.
Dannie:And when this was in 2022, so it was, 2 years into your journey.
Kiwa Lang:Yep. It was, like, 2 years ago. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:We didn't even go into production yet. We didn't even have the factory yet.
Dannie:That must have been very tempting.
Alberto Aguilar:It was.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. It was tempting. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:We went for dinners with the CEO in Toronto, in Montreal, and met their facility in London, Ontario. But after talking to Olivier...
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:He told us to decline it. He's like, it's not it's not bright. It's not smart right now. It's sketchy. Something makes no sense.
Alberto Aguilar:Like, it's too early. Like, we're going for a bigger market. You let go of that now, that company will probably take the technology and take it for themselves and just make their farms more efficient. And it goes against our mission, right, of feeding the world to the future.
Dannie:Yeah. You hadn't fed the world yet.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly. Mhmm. So we haven't fed a single person yet actually. So we decided that, you know what? Let's decline it.
Alberto Aguilar:We're going for a way higher valuation. We're trying to make this something bigger, not just for one company.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:So we politely declined that offer and kept our heads...
Dannie:So that takes guts.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah.
Dannie:I understand you got some prompting by your mentor, you know, Olivier. But at the same time, it was your decision to make and $6,500,000, you know, early on, in this journey must have seemed like a lot of money to turn down.
Alberto Aguilar:It was a lot.
Alberto Aguilar:But we had investors who made a promise of, of a certain ROI as well, and we wanna impact in millions of homes. So we said let's move on.
Kiwa Lang:But it was also very early, like, I think we didn't even go to production yet. So
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly.
Kiwa Lang:We wanted to actually, like, do it, you know, ourselves. Right. Like Get the product out there, do it and see it from our own perspective, like, not just kinda hand it off before we even start, you know. So
Dannie:Yeah. I can see that because like you said, there was so much passion behind it and a lot of a lot of sacrifices too and and to let go of it before you had, brought it to its, like, 18 year birthday, I guess.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Exactly. It's legally able to drink.
Dannie:Okay. So so that's really cool. So so you got, very interested, investors starting to look, little country in Africa, but it's more than that. You you've, tell me a little bit about the Middle East and other potentially interested markets.
Alberto Aguilar:So UAE, it's where obviously, Kiwa and I went to high school together. We've been talking to home developers, incubators, even government officials. The consulate. The consulate general of Canada, gave us introductions to a few potential partners. And right now, we're actually talking to one of the largest home developers in the UAE, whose main objective is to add the REJUVENATE in every single brand new home that they're gonna be making.
Dannie:Wow.
Alberto Aguilar:So there's a project of 900 units that they wanna create.
Dannie:So it would it would come with the new house?
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Like,
Dannie:Like it would be one of the appliances.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:And the reason behind that is because in the UAE, you cannot grow anything outdoors. It's impossible to have a garden.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:So having indoor garden.
Kiwa Lang:Opposite of here where it's too cold here, it's too hot there.
Dannie:So Uh-huh. Yeah. So so that would help them make some sales and at the same time, feed?
Alberto Aguilar:Feed people, add value to their properties, and the need of growing organic food in the UAE is a lot larger than it is in Canada. The UAE imports are 90, 98, 95, 98 percent of its produce. Mhmm. While Canada, we import between 85 to 90% of our leafy greens from the US and Mexico, but during the summertime, we're more self sustainable.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:So in the UAE, it's year round. It's impossible to grow almost anything. That's where they invest so much in vertical farms.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:So it's a market that we're trying to penetrate into and acquire, since there's the problem that we're trying to solve is a lot larger.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:So we're working right now with people in, the UAE, specifically in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Kuwait as well. We did an event actually for Formula 1 2 weeks ago, and we had, one of our potential partners from Kuwait fly in, for the event because it's that very serious to bring it over there. Mhmm. We've talked to investment bankers in Saudi Arabia, who, again, were interested in the investments. The REJUVENATE just ship 1 to Dubai.
Alberto Aguilar:That's the one going to Dubai.
Kiwa Lang:We shipped a pallet. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. And it got there this week?
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. It's, my dad's picking it up actually tomorrow. So There you go. So
Alberto Aguilar:We have some already starting to hit the ground in the Middle East. We already had 3 or 2, I think. Right? 2. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:We had 2 already in Dubai. Now we're gonna have a full pallet that we've been picked up tomorrow. So our first seeds are being planted right now in the Middle East. And in Miami as well.
Alberto Aguilar:So our expansion doesn't just go to the Middle East, but also goes to, in the US. Right. So we're registering now another Plantaform entity in Miami, because we're getting also partners there, finding certain distribution channels. Mhmm. So we're really now trying to focus how to export the product outside of Canada.
Dannie:Right. Right. And so just for the listeners to the so you you've got investors and and exports are starting to happen, but, we haven't talked about your team. So you mentioned Andreas, but there's also, you have a whole team, that's working for you now and, full time. So tell me a little bit about that.
Dannie:Like, how do you keep the team, motivated? Because even though all this is going on, we're we're still not at the point where you're able to necessarily pay salaries if I'm not mistaken. Still shareholders that are part of your team?
Alberto Aguilar:We've everyone's in a payroll, luckily, except Kiwa and I, of course. The main founders, we eat lasts and it's also a promise that we made to our investors. Right. Like, we're we we don't wanna take a salary until the company is, like, fully profitable.
Alberto Aguilar:we have Andres as our CTO. We have George as our COO. So he takes care of the operations and fulfillment and a bit of the finances. We have Brendan, our head of marketing and head of customer success. We have Daniel, our lead engineer.
Alberto Aguilar:We have Sam, who's actually Olivier's son.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:So Sam Benloulou, joined our company this summer. And then we have around 5 people at the factory working in the injection molding facility in Montreal and around 12 to 15 people in the assembly line, in Gatineau.
Dannie:Right. Because I've seen, your your, your warehouse in Gatineau and people are actually putting this together by hand. Yeah. And that's That's amazing.
Alberto Aguilar:Definitely, Gabe and and Jessica were in the in the assembly line in the back. Mhmm. But we're working on...
Kiwa Lang:In our office. Yeah. We have a assembly team in our office, but we also have a assembly line near our office, at La Ro. So they have around 20 something people assembling these.
Alberto Aguilar:So there's around 25, around 30 people working technically under Plantaform with this.
Dannie:So that's amazing and it sounds great. But I remember once, Alberto, you once told me when I was visiting your your warehouse, you said 95% of my day is problems. Yeah. But you said this with a big smile on your face.
Alberto Aguilar:Because there's 5% that's not problems.
Dannie:Like when that one leaf came out of the the the that day, the the very first leaf. That was that 5% not problems.
Alberto Aguilar:That was that 5% of happiness.
Dannie:But so so okay. So you're you're it's going well, but you're dealing with a lot of, troubleshooting and, you know, dealing with the different, adversity.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah.
Dannie:How do you keep the team, motivated, when when you're in problem solving mode so much all the time? And how do you keep yourself motivated too?
Alberto Aguilar:We we bring a pizza on Friday. Yeah.
Kiwa Lang:With cookies.
Dannie:Cookies, yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:We honestly, everyone has equity. So the good thing about our team is after 1 year of working at Plantaform, we give you shares from the employee stock option plan.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:So everyone has some sort of skin in the game. Right? Everyone has a better interest. The problem a lot of startups have is that they keep all the equity to themselves, and therefore, the team, they're just employees. Right?
Alberto Aguilar:We don't wanna we never make anyone in our team feel like an employee.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And we've made it very clear to all of them since day 1, and we keep reminding them, like, we work for you.
Kiwa Lang:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:Like, it's not that you guys work for us. We technically work for you. Let us know what you need, what resources you require, what doors do you need open so you can succeed in your role. And at the end of the day, we also remind them, like, hey. It's our company.
Alberto Aguilar:If someone owns more than another one, it doesn't matter. Everyone has a piece of the pie. Mhmm. So we need to make this company succeed for everyone's best interest.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:And so to keep them motivated, we just remind them, like, hey. Like, it's not an easy route. And you also have equity, which is something most companies don't give you. Mhmm. So might be hard, but we remind everyone that, you know, we spend more time with each other than with our own spouses.
Dannie:Is that right?
Alberto Aguilar:Right? So Yeah. Everyone has to remember that we're in this together, fights happen every day. Mhmm. So when arguments happen, after the conclusion has been made, we become partners again.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:And so it's just an ongoing battle that we keep going through and there's challenges. And the one thing we just don't lose is respect and we keep reminding each other that we're in the same boat.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:And so we need each member to excel in order for the boat to keep sailing properly.
Dannie:Right. I love that image.
Alberto Aguilar:So it's kind of how our mindset works around Plantaform.
Dannie:Mhmm. So everyone has skin in the game. I like that. And and you created that. You decided that that was how you're gonna build your team and,
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly. We've never been greedy with equity.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:And we give bonuses, you know, at the end of the year. We do lots of retreats that we get the team together. But remind everyone, it's also not the thing that I love about this team, they're not chasing money.
Dannie:Okay.
Alberto Aguilar:Like, it is really about the impact that we're trying to make. And this of course, money is nice and everyone gets paid and and and and the equity when we sell the company is gonna be a fantastic bonus for everyone.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:But everyone knows that they're doing something that's they go home, proud of what they did today.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:They don't leave the job thinking, oh, I just exchanged 10 hours of my time for making all of this money. No. No. They left. They did they they they allocated 10 hours of their time that day on building something that's gonna help feed the world.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:And that's really the passion that everyone has. Again, to what Kiwa said, everyone has some sort of passion on sustainability, on leading or making an impact in the world. Mhmm. Andres has kids. He always tells us, well, I just wanna create a better future for my kids as well.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:And so and Brandon, the same thing. Brandon's so Brandon's so incredibly passionate actually about this start up. He's Yeah. He loved the company. He breathed for the company.
Alberto Aguilar:Like, in the weekends, he responds. He's coming to us to us with us to trade shows.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:He's dealing with the frustration. And, you know, there's days that every member is being close to crying and, you know, they are like, you know what? It's okay. Like, we're doing something that most people couldn't even have the privilege of working on.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:And so it's that it's the persistence and the passion.
Dannie:I love how you see it as a privilege. That that's a really great way to see it.
Dannie:So a lot of challenges,
Dannie:but it's also a privilege.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Like, you wouldn't get this kind of, opportunity if you're working in a corporate structure. Like, it's like, the thing about the team is that no matter, like, the we always push everyone to, like, voice their opinions no matter what it is. Like, please, like because it's not like, like, a 100 people, 200 people where it's like you you have a boss on a boss on a boss, and then, like, you say something and it's like, oh, I have to ask this person. They're like, I have to ask this person.
Kiwa Lang:No. It's more like we wanna hear everyone's thoughts and then we wanna work like as a group, as a team. Like, that's the main thing, like, that I think is very very different to just a regular 9 to 5 because it's because it's not like everyone as Alberto said, like, on the weekends, we go trade shows altogether or, like, few members, whatever it is. And then everyone's constantly thinking about it and and working on Plantaform. So it's, like, it's not really a job.
Kiwa Lang:It's more of, like, a way of life, I would say.
Dannie:Yeah. And so the ultimate mission, feed the world, how many have you sold so far?
Alberto Aguilar:Since last summer, which was the first delivery, we have over 500 units right now in the market.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Around 550 now.
Alberto Aguilar:And we're expecting that by the end of the year, we'll be around 1500. So we we got some big deals coming up, lots of distribution channels. We actually just got into the Ottawa, Carlton District School Board.
Dannie:Oh, okay.
Alberto Aguilar:Now we're entering schools.
Dannie:Is oh, that's very interesting.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah.
Dannie:So in classrooms themselves or Yeah. Like the teachers lounge?
Alberto Aguilar:For classrooms, so now we're gonna be able to actually impact the educational system as well.
Dannie:Exactly.
Alberto Aguilar:Starting with all...
Dannie:Children will will be able to see.
Kiwa Lang:Well, children have been using it already, like, in a couple schools, and we've seen many photos the past few months of them, like, harvesting and using it and eating it, like, it's cute.
Dannie:Yeah. Definitely cute.
Alberto Aguilar:That's one of them. Rona and Reno Depot, we just got there online. We're selling a lot through Ottawa retailers. Right now we're in the final stages of negotiations with Costco.
Alberto Aguilar:So there's lots of...
Kiwa Lang:We're on Amazon.
Alberto Aguilar:We're on Amazon, which we sold out actually in less than a month. So now the traction is starting to pick up.
Dannie:But that must create some stress too because with all this interest, you need to produce.
Kiwa Lang:Of course. Yeah.
Kiwa Lang:That's why I think he said, 95% problems.
Dannie:The 95% exactly. There there's a 95% problems.
Kiwa Lang:Because every good, there's a problem, you know.
Dannie:So how do you deal with that? Because now it seems to be going to overdrive, and, your team probably feels that.
Alberto Aguilar:Honestly, I don't know. You get used to it.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:You get used to it. We've been facing problems since day 1 as we told you. Like, the first prototype that we were even testing did not work. Mhmm. That means it was 95% problems already.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:We've been living with 95% problems. We've never been comfortable. We've never had that commodity. So we are used to it that to grow, you have to be very uncomfortable.
Kiwa Lang:To be honest, I've I would find it weird if, one day it's like
Alberto Aguilar:Everything's good.
Kiwa Lang:Everything's perfect. You're like, what the hell? Like, it would feel so strange.
Alberto Aguilar:Let's break something.
Kiwa Lang:It would feel so weird. Like, if there's nothing to worry about, you'll be like, oh...
Dannie:So there's something about problem solving that's part of the passion too.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. Being an entrepreneur, it's problem solving.
Dannie:Yeah. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:It's if you're not solving problems, you're not progressing. And so it's new challenges that we wanna face. It's new. There's always something to
Kiwa Lang:Maybe not problem. Problem is a wrong word. Maybe like challenges. It's not always like a problem, you know.
Alberto Aguilar:Yes. It is.
Alberto Aguilar:It's always a problem.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. I feel like...
Alberto Aguilar:You wanna grow? We have a problem. We don't have this.
Kiwa Lang:I would say there's like issues or challenges. Something some kind of like hiccups. Hiccups maybe.
Alberto Aguilar:Problem sounds too harsh.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Problem sounds hard...
Dannie:But the the word problem also implies that there's a solution which is what you're after.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah. But once there's a solution then there's another
Dannie:Another problem.
Alberto Aguilar:Another challenge. With every solution comes another challenge.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Exactly.
Dannie:And do those challenges or problems get bigger with time or
Kiwa Lang:I would say so. Yeah.
Dannie:So the stakes are higher in that sense or just a bigger in the sense that it requires a lot of minds, to solve?
Kiwa Lang:It depends. I would say like because like growing plants with a plant growing product is pretty big problem, but that was solved so...
Kiwa Lang:I think it's a different problem, like, different, challenges or issues or problems whatever comes up. I would say it's, if it's on a largest because, like, as the company grows, the problems get more, like, harsh, maybe.
Alberto Aguilar:Well, I also need to remember that, like, it's also a race. Right? It's about a race to being the best option and to keep innovating. Right? If you if you're comfortable or there's no problems anymore or you're there's nothing to solve, then you stop innovating as well.
Dannie:That's a good point.
Alberto Aguilar:Always trying to keep above, like, market trends. We're always trying to find ways of how to improve the product. We're always trying to find new opportunities to expand. We're always doing customer interviews. Right?
Alberto Aguilar:We're always trying to learn about customers. We're always trying to learn about what the industry is doing. We're always trying to learn about what went wrong in this scenario. Or because, again, like, we're only 27. Everything that we've been doing is new to us.
Alberto Aguilar:Right. Everything. Like, how to go overseas, that's new to us.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. What is a plane?
Alberto Aguilar:How to build a vertical farm. It's new to us. How to deal with 3PLs, that's new to us. How to deal with, like, shipping, how to deal with the packaging, how to deal with new regulations, like, it's always something new.
Dannie:And there's so much involved.
Alberto Aguilar:Exactly.
Dannie:Such a huge learning curve.
Alberto Aguilar:And we're always trying to connect with people in our industry. Right? Like, I'm always I'm connected with different boards of CEOs to learn from each other. Kiwa it's the same thing with our product designers. We're trying to pick each other's brains on how to keep growing and expanding and what are the new opportunities in the market.
Alberto Aguilar:We keep learning from our own customers. We allocate time to also study our customers. Right? We interview them. Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:What are the new customer behaviors that are changing? Right? And and this is something that's ongoing that leads to more and more problems. But it feels good because whenever you solve it, you have a little win. It makes the entire thing worth it.
Alberto Aguilar:You're like, okay. We're advancing the way we want to.
Dannie:And I think customer service is something that's very important to you. Like, among everything that you just mentioned, and I and I'm saying it because we all all we have to do is look on your website or the Facebook group, and people's responses are very favorable to the way you deal with, you know, solving their own problems that they sometimes have at home with the with the REJUVENATE.
Alberto Aguilar:So Absolutely. Yeah. It's actually the biggest the proudest that we have because, like, most of the devices in the first batch had problems. 2nd batch, less had problems, but there were still problems.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:3rd, 4th, 5th, they all had problems. Right? So it's very easy for our customer to be, like, oh, this this product is garbage or oh, this is a scam. But we've never had a negative review. Right.
Alberto Aguilar:Not once.
Dannie:Not a single negative review.
Alberto Aguilar:Not a single negative review.
Dannie:That's astounding.
Alberto Aguilar:Right? And it's because people, what they do is they complain to us, we respond within a couple of hours, and the next day...
Kiwa Lang:Or we figure out a solution, like Mhmm. Or like the how to fix it or whatever the issue is.
Alberto Aguilar:We're at their house.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Or issues.
Dannie:Just because listeners probably don't know but the the REJUVENATE comes with an app. And, you have access to the the machine's behavior if you will, from your office. So when a when a customer has a problem, you're able to sort of diagnose it...
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Yeah.
Dannie:From where you are and help the customer from a distance. Yeah. But like you say, Albert, you also, go into people's houses and help out, with whatever it is that's needed.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah. We have people all the way in, like, Sainte-Julie or, like, Oka, Toronto and, like, we send our engineers all the way to their house. And we give them extra pod back to, like, you know, say thank you for their patience.
Alberto Aguilar:And in 24 hours, they go from a bad experience to, like, wow. This is worth the money, and these people actually care about me, and these people actually wanna build something great.
Dannie:Mhmm.
Alberto Aguilar:And these people who were angry at first, now not only do they have a device that actually works like the way it's supposed to, they brag about how good the customer service is because we're not gonna leave them by their side. I mean, if they're not happy. We tell them, we'll refund you. And we've done, like, 3 refunds maybe up to date, which is not that much.
Kiwa Lang:But Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:We told people, like, hey, please. Like, you're not happy, you're not satisfied, and we understand the experience was bad. No questions asked. We refund you, and for your time, you know, and they're always sending us long paragraphs saying, like, wow, this is incredible. Like, nobody's ever treated me like that in any other company.
Dannie:Right.
Alberto Aguilar:So it's the pride in us that we have is how we care about the product.
Dannie:Something very precious because like you say, it's not, commonplace to get that kind of customer service.
Alberto Aguilar:We prefer to lose money on our customer knowing that they're walking out happy. And that we're not scamming them and that we're not making them feel like they lost their money. Like, even if it's something that they thought it was something else, no question to us.
Alberto Aguilar:We'll take it back.
Dannie:So now that we there's all these projects, on the horizon, and a lot of expansion on the horizon for both of you, what is the biggest challenge you're facing right now?
Alberto Aguilar:Manufacturing, number 1.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. Manufacturing.
Alberto Aguilar:How capital intensive expansions is because obviously we need to pay inventory ahead. Mhmm. So we're talking about hundreds and thousands of dollars to pay upfront
Kiwa Lang:Cash flow.
Alberto Aguilar:To have inventory. We need to reduce the the cost of the product because right now we're not making much margins. Right? Making it Canada is expensive, so we're looking at other options of how to create a second facility in Mexico, for example, to reduce, like, costs over there. So I'd say that manufacturing, scaling our sales distributions, and being able to actually even find new members.
Alberto Aguilar:We're always trying to find more talented members in the market who can bring this to the next stage.
Dannie:Right. When you say members, you mean team members.
Alberto Aguilar:Team members.
Dannie:right.
Alberto Aguilar:So those are the three main things. Team, scalability due to cash flow, and then manufacturing for scalability and to reduce the cost.
Dannie:Okay. So a lot of work, coming up. Okay. So, to finish up, I'd like to kind of ask you about and I know it's, you can't say too much about it, but you guys were on Dragon's Den recently.
Alberto Aguilar:Yeah.
Dannie:Which just in itself, speaks to all the work that you've done, with Plantaform. Tell me a little bit about how how that when you found out that you were gonna go, like, this is a big moment.
Alberto Aguilar:We were thrilled.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah. That's super big news.
Alberto Aguilar:We got a call. Well, I got a call at, like it was super early in the morning. We're at the office already, and it was one of the producers told me, like, Alberto, it's, it's Kylie here. Like, just wanted to let you know that, like, we we selected Plantaform to come and show and and and get the show, and we're gonna be filming this day in Toronto, blah, blah, blah. And I was so ex I thought
Kiwa Lang:A prank call?
Alberto Aguilar:A prank call actually, because I had no caller ID. I'm like
Kiwa Lang:It was just me pretending to be a dragon's den.
Dannie:You thought it was a prank call.
Alberto Aguilar:Anyway, because it says no caller, and I get like trillions of calls a day. So I was like, oh, I'm sorry. Whatever. And then she's telling me all this stuff and my eyes open up.
Alberto Aguilar:I'm like oh, okay. Well, thank you so much. I look forward to your email, blah blah blah. And I had to go and I started yelling across the office, like, guys, we made it to Dragon's Den. And then Kiwa was like, no way.
Alberto Aguilar:Like, we made it to Dragon's den!
Dannie:Wow.
Alberto Aguilar:And then we prepared ahead of time. We did a whole scene of how to be on the show and make it all wow factors and all that stuff. And then we drove to Toronto literally the day after we came back from our trip in Miami.
Kiwa Lang:Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:And then the next day we went to Toronto, we spent most of the night practicing, like, you know, what we were gonna do with the show and the pitch and everything. Mhmm.
Dannie:And
Alberto Aguilar:the next day, we spent the entire day at the CBC Tower in in Dundas. I think it was Dundas Tower.
Kiwa Lang:No. No. It's neither Blue Jays. That's all I know. Yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:And, yeah.
Alberto Aguilar:We went on the show. We can say we got the outcome that we wanted.
Dannie:Congrats. That's really good news.
Alberto Aguilar:Can't share much details there, so that will have to be for the next episode.
Dannie:Well, and would you guys be prepared to come back and, when we're able to talk about it and tell us a little bit about the experience and where you're gonna go from there?
Alberto Aguilar:Absolutely. Yeah.
Dannie:I think our listeners would really love to hear, what the next steps are, but congratulations for Dragon's Den. That's wonderful news and congrats for, you know, making it this far. It's a it's a very cute I don't know if that's a good word, but it's a very cute product and it looks great in in someone's home, and, like you said, if if your objective is to feed the world, then how can, how can we go wrong? Right? We need that.
Dannie:We need that kind of dream or vision, from passionate young people like yourselves, and, you know, given everything that's going on in the world today to to to sit there and listen to you guys say this is our objective and we're doing it, and we've let everything else go, to to put a 100% of our attention, and effort into this project. It's very, it's fantastic. So congrats.
Alberto Aguilar:Thank you.
Kiwa Lang:Thank you.
Eric Waev:Thank you so much for making it all the way to the end of our first episode. It truly means a lot. We hope you enjoyed the conversation, and we'd like to remind you if you're interested in more details about it, you can go to irrepressiblespodcast.com for pictures, videos, and more details about Alberto and Kiwa. If you're at all interested by the REJUVENATE Plantaform's indoor garden, you can go to plantaform.com and use, promo code IRREPRESSIBLES for $100 OFF at checkout. If you made it all the way here, I'll have to assume you like what we're trying to get at with this mindset conversation.
Eric Waev:We already have 2 episodes recorded and in the editing process ready to go. Our next guest, Prestige Home Improvement, is actually the company of 2 cofounders. One of which is Louis, who is the host's son, and my brother, who was mentioned by Kiwa. They started out just 2 guys in a car going to appointments at people's homes, and they're now a company of over 15 employees expanding across provinces in Canada, and they're really on their way to some serious success, not counting the success they've already had. So we invite you to subscribe on Youtube, follow us on whichever platform you use to listen to your podcasts, and also follow us on Instagram, which is where we'll be most active with behind the scenes, bloopers, and fun stuff like that.
Eric Waev:It's @irrepressibles.podcast. We hope to see you there.