Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Championing and celebrating veteran founders through weekly conversations. Each episode features military entrepreneurs sharing their journey from service to success, uncovering real strategies for business growth, capital raising, and applying military leadership in the private sector.
Rod Loges: Welcome today to the Milcom Founders Forum podcast. We really appreciate your being here, Dr. Paulin. If you could just tell us a little bit about your journey in the military and beyond, and we'll start there if that's okay.
Dr. Trill: Absolutely. First and foremost, thank you so much for having me. It is an honor and a privilege to get to chat with you and your listeners.
A little bit of my background. I have. As many of us, I think in the military do a weird hodgepodge of expertise, if you will, that I've collected over the years, I joined the military when I was 17, before I graduated from high school, I joined the Army National Guard in North Dakota and deployed in 07 to 08 to Baghdad.
And then when I returned, I decided to reclass, get essentially a new job, if you will, with the military and became a survey and design engineer, , from previous work. And so since then, since 2009 or so, going to date myself now. I have been a survey and design engineer for the Florida National Guard, the North Dakota National Guard, the Idaho National Guard, and now the North Carolina Army National Guard.
And I am set. I'm going to go and knock on every piece of wood in this room. I am set to retire in April with my 20 years, which I'm very excited for. Along that way though, while working as an engineer and juggling family life and work in school and the military. I also earned my PhD. I have a PhD in cellular molecular biology that was partially funded because of the military.
Partially through the Pat Tillman Foundation as a veteran, and it eventually led me through a series of strange events to starting my own company, which quite frankly, still to this day was never the goal. Still six plus years into it. I think I'm a little bit crazy having started a company as a fully fledged scientist, whole hearted scientist.
And excited to always share the good, bad, and the ugly, what went well, what didn't, and how we can help others along their path.
Rod Loges: True. I know a little bit about your story, but I find it quite amazing. You put yourself through schools. I was a member of the guard. You went to Baghdad, you came back, you restarted your education somewhere along the way, you became a mom, I think twice now, and you run a business.
I don't know how you professional moms, business moms do it. It's incredible. We have a couple. Wonderful ladies in our company that have, I don't know how they juggle it all, but it's, you guys are miracle workers in your own way. That's for sure. With free to feed, why did you start free to feed? That's I think a core part of the, of your story.
Dr. Trill: I started free to feed because of my own personal journey with both of my children. So. I had my first daughter when I was in my last year of grad school, which is zero out of 10, do not recommend having a baby while you're trying to write a dissertation. But, uh, here we are, made it through, had her oldest daughter and she had severe reactions to proteins transferred from my diet to my breast.
And to the point where she was admitted to the hospital, she had severely bloody stools. She was covered in eczema from head to toe. She was starting to lose weight. She was inconsolable. It was. Absolutely horrendous. And even with, one, my background, I was literally finishing a PhD in protein analysis, and even as an expert in that field, I had no idea that things that I ate could transfer and cause my baby this kind of reaction.
The second piece was that I was horribly shocked at the lack of resources and, um, support. For me navigating, okay, if it's something that I'm consuming, can I remove it from my diet then and keep breastfeeding? What if we don't find a formula that is successful for her? What if I can't afford the formula because TRICARE doesn't cover it, which was the case for us?
What are my other options here and where are the resources and research and support? networks in place to help me through something like an extensive elimination diet if I'm going to keep breastfeeding. And instead of finding any of those resources, all I found was lots and lots of other parents that were in the same type of struggle.
And with my oldest, I really did the, I just put my head down and I got it done. Which I think many of us in those like, Really tragic times where, you know, you're just, you're in the hospital and you're just trying to do the next best thing for your child. I just put my head down and I got it done. I went on a really strict elimination diet for a whole year.
It had a lot of impacts on my mental health. But at that stage, like I would have done anything just to get to the other side. And when my second daughter was born, I was, thankfully, out of grad school this time around and I was working for a dairy processing facility, which is irony in all of its forms because cow's milk is the very first thing that you're told to remove from your diet if your baby has food allergies.
It's the most common trigger for a baby. And so usually it's take out the cheese, take out the cream, take out the milk, right? All the yummy stuff. No more eating that because that's probably what's causing your baby reactions. Through a series of strange events, I ended up working, running the lab for a dairy processing facility.
Had my second baby on another elimination diet because she also had food allergies, which is common with our families. If you have one kiddo with food allergies, it's more likely you will have subsequent kiddos with food allergies. And I was back to work teaching lab techs how to use a very simple little litmus test, basically, a little piece of paper that would tell us if we accidentally got allergens cross contacted in the facility.
So imagine egg, accidentally getting egg into some cow's milk, for example, because we have egg as an ingredient or eggnog. And I had just a moment of, what if I could test this? egg in my milk, right? Like, why is it that we do this for cows, but we're not doing this for women? This would change my life. If I could know exactly what was in my milk at any given moment, I would be able to pinpoint Oh, my baby's allergic to peanuts because she can't be tested at this stage.
She's young. Oh, I can find out that peanuts is what's transferring to my breast right before my baby has a reaction. That's what her allergy is to. And then I don't longer have to go on a big blind elimination diet and trial and error my way through it. I can just know. And so at that stage, I took the little test and I ran into a closet and I squirted my breast milk on it as one does.
It didn't work. And so I called the company and I was like, It's true. I ca I put my breast milk on your test strip and it didn't work, and I wanna talk about it. And the four gentlemen in sales that answered this call was like, you put your what on our, that's, that's not what that's been work. And that was the start of free to Feed.
I, I went home that day and I was like, what if we did do that for women? What if families did have the ability to just test their milk at home real time in five minutes and know what allergens were present? And I. Came up with the name that day, that evening while breastfeeding my second baby with food allergies that I was on a big blind elimination diet again with.
And so free to feed is just about four weeks younger than my second daughter. So my second daughter just turned six this year and so did free to feed.
Rod Loges: Have a second kid, start a business. Why not?
Dr. Trill: As
Rod Loges: you do. Yeah. That's interesting. Cause you, you joked around earlier about that. You're crazy to start a business.
I always say that, and you've probably heard me say this already, Trill, that business owners take, it takes a lot of courage and a little bit of crazy to be a business owner. And sometimes when I've asked, let me just fill the military community veterans, I'll ask the veterans, what was scarier, sign the papers to join the military or starting a business?
And the overwhelming majority always say starting the business because you don't know what you're signing up for. You don't know what it's going to be and it's okay, what's next. And so it's amazing. That's for sure. So you're almost 20 years of experience in the military. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. What have you learned in the military that's helped you, uh, in business and or life, those concepts, ideas, learnings that you've had?
Dr. Trill: Yeah, I would say the biggest learnings through my military career that have been impactful in life and certainly in business has been a deep sense of perspective.
What I mean by that is, yes, a hundred percent agree, it was a lot less scary to sign the label way to that Uncle Sam than it was to start my own business because in a setting like that, the goal is to set you up for success, right? The military wants to set you up for success. They want to see you successful.
They want to see you perform the mission and move forward. Whereas starting a business isn't necessarily, that's the case, right? Not everybody is looking for to move you forward and to ensure your success. And one of the things that the military has really helped me with is on my hardest days as an entrepreneur, they really can't even touch my hardest days in the military because I've deployed, I've done a lot of really cool things and I've had some really hard days in the military, but being an entrepreneur, yeah, like being stressed about taxes and having to talk to an investor that really is nothing compared to being overseas and doing patrols in Baghdad.
My day wasn't that bad.
Rod Loges: It's funny because you're, you're right. You've probably had two of the hardest jobs in the world, one serving your country and two being a mom, but both of those things are all 24 by seven. You don't get to walk away from being a mom at three in the morning and same with being in the military.
So you're right. Being an entrepreneur when you've done both of those things probably looks pretty easy. Challenging. I know, but that perspective is absolutely a great insight. That's for sure. So what other military learnings or learning from the military that you've been able to deploy or use and. As you build your business.
Dr. Trill: I think the other biggest piece for me specifically is because my military career took a different trajectory than my civilian career has, because I joined when I was so young. And so these two career paths took different. look very different now, right? On one end of the spectrum, I'm a survey and design engineer.
I can, I'm AutoCAD. I'm designing, I'm building construction sites. And on the other side, I like literally work in a lab and run an entire molecular biology department type style. And so those two things are very different. And what I think it's taught me over time is that regardless as to the topic, Whether it's how to become an entrepreneur, which there are 7 billion different topics within that umbrella, then I can figure it out as the military, the fit foe, I will figure it out.
And even though I may come to the table and be like, I don't actually know how to make a pro format. I don't actually know how to pitch to investors, but I feel very confident in my abilities that go as a 19 year old and figure out how to loosely speak some Arabic and come back and then learn how to be a survey and design engineer at 20 years old.
I can figure out a pro format. I'm going to figure it out. So maybe that's back to like perspective, but it's certainly. I feel very much, very well rounded as a scientist that I am deeply technical, yet I am very capable of learning whatever I need.
Rod Loges: That's really a great point because even in, I was in the reserves way long ago, but that sense of initiative and sense of learning, because it's not about, I know this or not.
It's about, we have an objective. How are we going to meet that objective? I've got to learn these skills or these, or learn and use these tools, whatever the case may be. Okay. To achieve the objective. I think that initiative is such a great point. So I appreciate your sharing that very much.
Dr. Trill: Yeah. I think one of the things that your audience may appreciate too is in the military, oftentimes we learn like left seat, right seat, right?
Like that learning through doing, and that's a lot of entrepreneurship, right? Not just going to, Someone to teach me to not just going to someone to do for me, this build out of this piece of the company, but for me to watch them do it. And then for them to watch me do it. And then I know how to do it. And then I can talk the talk and actually be able to build a business.
Rod Loges: Yeah. Train the trainer. Absolutely. Left seat, right seat. And I love that summary, which is so true. That's for sure. Anything else, any other major learnings, Perseverance, that's for sure. Yeah,
Dr. Trill: but I will say one of the things that maybe isn't talked about enough in the entrepreneur space as it relates to the military side is that.
It has been, while very challenging, and I will not knock that in any way, shape, or form for people who are listening, you're like, this is hard to, to juggle all of the up, it has been very powerful for me as an entrepreneur to be able to fall back on the military ads for benefits, for support, for people around me, for at times when as an entrepreneur, if you need cashflow and you're like, I'm going to go volunteer to do some active duty work.
Having that fall back. At all times has been It's something that like, I truly don't think that I would have gotten this far in free to feed, if not even just minimally for the incredible health insurance that I was able to have. That most businesses as they're just starting out and trying to raise funds, don't have access to you.
Rod Loges: That's very true. That's that community insights, just so many different things. That's great. Thanks. Trill, when you start a business, it's all paved, the streets are paved with gold, it's all easy and no problems, right? It's just. It's so simple, right?
Dr. Trill: Wouldn't that be lovely? But
Rod Loges: it wouldn't that be lovely.
That's right. That's right. You've got a great idea. You've got a very defined target market, but still there are opportunities or obstacles that we as founders, you just go, where did that come from? What are some of those opportunities or obstacles that you've powered through with keeping in mind that things that, that other Milcom founders or other people will say, gosh, that's true.
I can use that. I know some things we've talked about briefly. or grants, a couple of others, which ones do you think are important for people to, to hear and understand?
Dr. Trill: Yeah, I think that out of the gate, one of the things that I wish I would have understood a little bit better and would recommend others to really sink their teeth into is the fact that as an entrepreneur in that being of saying like grants and otherwise, that there are multiple paths to the same end point.
And what I mean by that is like, when I'm talking about getting in funds for the company or otherwise, there's never ever have I seen success by tackling it from one angle, it is tackling it from literally every single angle that I can possibly get my hands wrapped around. And so they're like, how are you doing your fundraising?
The answer is yes, whatever it is you're thinking about, yes, I'm doing that.
Rod Loges: Yeah, that's a great, that is such a trill. That's an amazing point because so many people think here's the only way I know of to raise capital. And when we hear that, our head just goes, no, there's basically, it's like Baskin Robbins, there's 31 flavors and you got to get out of your own way, whether it's funding or operations.
Or staffing, there's lots of ways to solve challenges or to work through challenges. So that's a great point. There's multiple paths to success. Great one to share.
Dr. Trill: as you're starting, or if you're in the thick of it, thinking about money in, which is oftentimes, especially in the beginning, but really at any time as an entrepreneur, , , one of the things you're tackling, not just coming at it from the angle of I'm going to go fundraise, which is oftentimes, Especially in what, in my experience in the military space and military entrepreneur space, that's often what gets pushed first is I'll go get capital, go venture capital.
And this is how it works, which is great. And that is one avenue, but there were very few spaces that I found myself in that was like, Oh, and here are all the other 30 flavors. And did you know that in your cup, in order to be most successful, you should probably have at least five of these flavors. And they may not taste well together.
You may end up with an orange sherbet and like a chocolate peanut butter, but you're going to make it work. It's going to taste funny. There were very few spaces that I was in that talked about that. Right. And it wasn't until I started experiencing struggles and it's not, this isn't working to just pound this one.
path over and over again and not find an open door and be like, Oh, there's a bunch of windows. I'll just have all the windows and see which ones I can find myself in. And so for free to feed that ended up being venture capitalists that ended up being angels that ended up being a lot of grant funding that ended up being self funding that ended up being some crowdfunding that ended up being revenue generation, right?
Like all the flavors and most of them don't taste well together. And that's going to be okay.
Rod Loges: That's right. That's right. That's a great point because there are different types of capital out there. That we can get, but we've got to be open to them. And we gotta be, we gotta be prepared. We talked about being capital ready.
Is your business capital ready? If not, what can you do to build that foundation, that financial foundation? So you are ready. So absolutely good insights. Now, what about grantee zing? Is that, is that the thing where you just wave the wand and somebody gives you a quarter million? Is that what happens, Trill?
Oh, man,
Dr. Trill: let me go find some flags. Cause I'm going to wave them everywhere and hope that's what happens. Irony is that I started as a PhD. So I have a, I PhD in Cellular Molecular Biology, I'm wholeheartedly a scientist and decided to make the active choice not to go into academics because I did not want to write grants all the time.
And the irony that I literally just spent like the last month and a half of my life writing a grant again, just so Ron, you have seen me like struggle through the grant process Out of the gate, I was able to secure a local grant. I was in Idaho at the time, we're in North Carolina now. But at the time I was in Idaho, I was able to get a pretty decent grant through the Idaho chamber of commerce that went directly to a university.
So none of the money went to my company, which was a fascinating flavor that I was not prepared for.
Rod Loges: Yeah.
Dr. Trill: And so all the money went to a university to help me get this concept off the ground, get a prototype, for example. And from there, then taking that research and trying to go get a SBIR grant. So small business innovation, innovative research grant.
And everyone that you talk to when you become an entrepreneur, especially if you're going to be in any kind of tech industry, everyone's going to be like, go apply for an SBIR, go apply for an SBIR, just like it's something that you're going to do on a Tuesday on a whim, and it's going to be super easy and no big deal.
That's not the case. As a whole scientist who literally was trained in applying for grants, I applied for the SBIR through two different Organizations because there's different organizations that offer us EIRs. I've liked seven times and these are not before, before we got our first funding from them and these are not like short applications where I can just pump them out all the time, like literally it's a six month wait for you to find out you didn't get it oftentimes.
And I've played three times through the NIH. I've played four times through the NSF. And I quite frankly, I like to joke that I think they just got tired of hearing from me. They were like, this, this chick's not going away. And she's a play so many times, just give her something bad for her.
Rod Loges: That's funny.
Dr. Trill: But once we got some of the biggest takeaways there, because I also don't want to be a naysayer, I don't want people not to apply because they're like, I don't have a PhD, I'm not going to be able to do it. That's not the case. The number one recommendation I would have is to find other entrepreneurs who have been successful in that path that you're tackling, whether it's grants.
Investors, whomever, somebody who is a couple of steps ahead of you, who has been successful in that arena and go ask for their good, bad, and ugly. I am more than happy to talk to entrepreneurs about this was the process. This is how I applied. These are companies that will offer to help you with the application.
This is the good and bad there. And I'm more than happy to give people my application that was successful. Cause quite frankly, it's. Sitting on, in a file on my computer collecting dust, uh, which makes me mostly sad. Um, so it can be helpful to other people. I absolutely will share it to, um, other entrepreneurs who are looking for assistance there.
Because that's half the battle is just being able to see it, right? Like for many veterans, like we don't get, we don't have a good example ahead of us of, Oh, that's the way to do it. Right.
Rod Loges: Well, that's the power of community again, you were very gracious when I introduced you to Olga, another founder in the women's health space.
And I really appreciate your taking the time to, to mentor her and share your insights and thoughts with her. She's a great young lady and having you to, to be able to share some of your insights and things is wonderful. I do very much appreciate your sharing your time and insights with her. Thank you for that.
What other, you've done a, you did the pivot, which we may have talked about a little bit on already, not a pivot. You broaden your scope of services. And when I was just looking at your website, I love it. It's something that I, I have to get off this call and be saying, team, what do you think, can we do something like this?
Because the, the initial consultation, a mom or family that needs help with allergens for their babies. But now you have a whole new way of delivering the service. Can you talk about what, why you did the pivot or, or how that's worked out? It's really cool that you did that pivot.
Dr. Trill: Yeah. A part of
Rod Loges: the pivot, I added that.
Dr. Trill: Yeah. The interesting thing is out of the gate today, free to feed offers many different types of products and services that help parents navigate food allergies. Out of the gate, the initial goal was quote unquote only, I hate the word only, but the, the goal was to create a test system that would detect allergens at home, real time in human milk.
That was the goal and very like scientist of me head down. I'm going to get that done. That's the thing I'm going to do. What I found is that as I talked to more and more families in similar situations of mine, overwhelmingly, they asked for help now. I can't test my milk right now because the test system isn't available, but can you just meet with me and answer some questions?
Could you spend just a little bit of time with me to explain in a, an empathetic and loving way what's going on in my body, what's going on in baby's body? Because oftentimes the parents, by the time they get to this stage, They've been dismissed, they, they've not been helped, they have felt alone, felt very isolated, and so when people came to me, and I've been someone who actively decided to be open and honest about exactly what it is that I'm working on at all times from day one, which some people will tell you, don't do that, don't tell everybody what you're doing, and for some, like I maybe can understand that sentiment, however, In my arena, I need community.
I need community and I need collaboration and partnership. Just like we just talked about with Olga, right? I need those people around me. And so I've been open and honest about exactly what I'm doing from day one. And so when parents came to me and said, will you just be kind and teach me some of the science behind what's going on?
I was like, Yeah, I think if you, if that's something that you're interested in. And so initially out of the gate, it was a, uh, I guess I'll open up my schedule. I made like a silly Calendly link. I charged next to nothing and was like, this will be really great customer discovery. I just gotten into my first venture capital in, in 20, beginning of 2021.
I was like, we'll see what happens. Before I knew it within weeks, I was doing like 18 meetings a day with parents. Oh my gosh. And I was like, Oh, I broke it. And some people talk about that, right? Some people talk about like that, that product market fit of that happening. And I won't lie. I had some like reservation about it because this wasn't the goal.
The goal was not to create like a services and telehealth company. But that's what they wanted. Right. And so having to swallow my own pride and be like, okay, we're going to do what the parents want. And, yeah. Yeah. Since leaning into that, now I have a team of over a dozen individuals who meet with parents all over the world, we're global, one on one, through a telehealth style service, where we help them navigate all of the nuances of food allergies, breastfeeding, formula feeding, all the really early stages.
Issues the parents are navigating when most of the time they cannot get into a provider yet because their baby's so young that the providers that are going to be most helpful for them won't see their children until they're at least six months, 12 months, 18 months old. And so we're a stop gap there.
And so essentially then since 2001, I have just had to listen, right? Like what do the parents want? What is it that they need right now? And so when the parents said, We want a cookbook. I was like, I guess I'm a cookbook author. Let's do this. Let's make a cookbook. So we have a cookbook that's an allergy friendly cookbook.
eCookbook on our site, that's very popular and for better, for worse. And my, my whole family got involved in it, right. And the whole team. And it's
Rod Loges: been, it's interesting because you started out as a scientist. And like you said, I have a problem. I'm going to, I'm going to solve it in a scientific way. As Dr.
Pollen should do and then she says, wait a minute, but you still have that passion, that energy to serve your community and and that is the families that have challenges with without allergies, foodborne allergies and you said, okay, let me broaden the focus and still you're still serving the same mission, the same community.
You look, like you said, you've listened and learned how to give back to your community. And that's a real sign. I think of leadership and entrepreneurship is listening and learning and being ready, willing, and able to make that pivot. That's really cool. So congratulations on that.
Dr. Trill: And it wasn't easy. And I will definitely be the first to say that there were individuals that came to me before.
This all happened just to sprinkle that, right? That have you considered, or I know this other company, they do this, they're in like money, for example, but they do like this consultation stuff and it's very popular, is that something you consider? And I'm, me just, no, I don't know, they don't want to, that doesn't sound like my science thing.
And it wasn't until, you have to actually get in front of your customers. And they'll just tell you, they'll just tell you, like, I don't like that idea or can you do this? Why don't you do it this way? As long as you're willing and able to have open, candid conversations with that.
Rod Loges: Yeah, that's great. Hey, Trill, I know time runs short, but last question, or do we have time to talk about it?
The patent process, another easy challenge you've overcome are in the process of overcoming. Do you have time to share a little bit about that, that, that journey or?
Dr. Trill: I do. And always happy if there's listeners who. Want more insight, happy to help on the patent front, certainly also was an adventure because out of the gate, I didn't have a bunch of extra funding sitting around, right?
I'm not independently wealthy and getting a patent off the ground is expensive or can be expensive. And I had to get scrappy in the beginning with finding pro bono programs through universities. You get the initial, what's called the provisional patent out there. And then you have a year to, once you file a provisional, you have a year to get your poop in a group and figure out what you're going to do as far as what are you actually filing and how are you going to fund it?
So you started the clock. And, yeah, it's been quite, quite the journey to get from a pro bono lawyer helping me just try to get something on the books with the little bit of information that I did know and have on my invention. To today where we have patents filed in over 42 countries and we're navigating every single country differently and they all have their different flavors and needs and necessities and fees, lots of fees and understanding and appreciating like two pieces.
One, that the patent process is long and arduous and expensive. And who is it valuable to? And so I think before entrepreneurs like really dive into the patent process, it's important to talk to someone who can understand and help you understand like, who's the patent for technically, because for me, the patent is for my investors, right?
There has to be a tangible thing that they can physically hold that is the thing that they have invested into. Which for me is that. The very first test system ever created for this problem. And so then the question becomes, is that something you need for your business? Or is it not? Are you tackling a monstrosity of a patent decades long process?
For funsies because somebody said that it was a cool idea or because it's actually an asset that you have to have for your company.
Rod Loges: Well, true. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and your insights today. I know that the patent process, I've never been down it. I know some people who has, and it takes a lot of again, perseverance to stick with that.
That's for sure. What are their final thoughts, ideas, insights that you would have for the Milcom founder community that people should be aware of or think about?
Dr. Trill: Yeah, I would say that, uh, kind of final. Thoughts that I would leave with anybody, Milcom side of things. And I say this a lot in the, our arena with food allergies and breastfeeding even is that wherever you're on, you are right now, you're doing a great job and you're doing an incredible job with the information that you have and continue to build that information so that you can continue to make the best possible choices for you and for your business.
And so, um, I think that really leaning into, on the military side, that, that sponge like, uh, mentality of I don't know this, but I can learn it. I don't understand, I'm not the subject matter expert here, but I can figure it out. Leaning into that and also understanding that, like, the work you've done up to this point is really incredible.
And, for me, it's been very valuable. To understand that no matter what happens today, I have been successful. So even though my test strip isn't on the market yet, technically it's in, we're in the stages of final commercialization and launch and all that fun stuff. If today, all of that, again, knocking on all the wood in this room, all of that to happen.
I have already helped tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions at this stage, families, and that is a success. And really understanding that can help the hard days be a little less hard when you're like, yeah, I had to talk to somebody who told me that my business sucks and that they would never invest in them.
Why don't moms use common sense and who knows what other crazy things people may say to you. Having the wherewithal to be like, oh no, I am wildly successful already. Whether you've helped one person or millions of people and that like that, that can't be taken away.
Rod Loges: Very cool. Well, Trill, thank you so much for your time today.
We look really appreciate this and it's fantastic. And thank you for helping so many families. That's just an amazing journey you've been on. So that's for sure.
Dr. Trill: And thank you for the space for us, which I think is so incredibly important. I really appreciate it.