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Killer Quote: "You have no idea how many times I hear the two words ‘change management.’ And of course it’s hard—you know, people have their preferences and certain behaviors. However, people can change and people can be led to a better direction. A lot of times folks want that if they understand the why and it’s being repeated over and over again as to why it’s so important." - Ali Amin-Javaheri, CEO of Knowde
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Welcome to The Chemical Show, the
podcast where Chemical means business.
I'm your host, Victoria Meyer,
bringing you stories and insights
from leaders driving innovation and
growth across the chemical industry.
Each week we explore key trends,
real world challenges, and the
strategies that make an impact.
Let's get started.
Victoria: Welcome back to the Chemical
Show where Leaders Talk Business.
Today I am speaking with Ali Amin
Javari, who is the CEO of Knowde.
Ali has been previously on the
Chemical Show back in December 2023.
I'm actually gonna link to that
episode so you can hear what we
talked about then, and Knowde is
continuing to grow and develop.
And that's frankly what
we're talking about, right?
So, uh, the chemical industry and frankly
all industries are in the midst of a
digital transformation and there's a lot
of companies trying to find their way,
harness the path and help us get forward.
And Knowde is one of those.
So,
super excited to have Ali back today.
Um, we're
Victoria: gonna have a great conversation.
Ali, welcome back to the Chemical Show.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2):
It's great to see you.
Um, it's, it's been how
long, A year and a half.
Victoria: Almost two years.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Okay.
Victoria: it's been a while.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): A lot has changed.
Victoria: aged, nor have you.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2):
Well, that's awfully kind.
Victoria: So, so let's just start this.
'cause, um, for people that
don't know a lot about you,
how, who are you, Ali, and how did you get
Victoria: here?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): boy,
where, where do you even start?
Um, I don't know if I kind of mentioned
much of the backstory last time we talked.
my father used to work at DuPont
and uh, I learned about this
industry at a very young age.
I was that kid and toe that he
took to many manufacturing sites.
And, his claim to fame, I don't know if
it's true or not, but his claim to fame
is, uh, that he, he helped build the
first nylon plant in the Middle East.
Victoria: Cool.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): and, uh, and
so, you know, having been exposed
this industry at a young age, you
know, I always thought that, you
know, I'd, I'd probably work in
it, but eventually we moved around
the US and settled in Seattle.
And as you can imagine, there's
not a lot of industry in Seattle.
But I luckily found a, you know, chemical
tech company that had very big aspirations
and I was fortunate enough to join when
I was essentially coming outta school.
And I've stayed in the industry since.
Victoria: Yeah, that's cool.
Um, and in fact, you know, I think what's
important about that, I'm gonna just,
this was not part of the pre script
anyway, but what I think is important
about that is the, the chemical industry
is very unique, very relationship driven.
And frankly, we like.
Working with people that know chemicals.
So the fact that chemicals is part of
your DNA from a um, from your time as
a kid probably helps you understand
and engage a lot more effectively
with your chemical customers.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2):
Relationships certainly matter.
And, uh, I think anytime a tech
company rolls into a chemical company,
there's always this, a slight amount
of anxiety in terms of, you know,
who are you, where did you come from?
Why did you pick this industry?
You know, like those sort of
Victoria: A,
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): questions.
Victoria: a healthy dose of skepticism.
Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): And so when I
do tell, part of that story that I just
shared here, it, it usually disarms
people because it just now makes a lot
more sense as to like why I've kind
of dedicated my career to this space.
Victoria: yeah.
I love it.
So tell us a little bit about Knowde.
Who is Knowde?
What do you guys do?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Oh boy.
Okay.
So,
Victoria: I.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): um, you know, the
core of our technology is the ability
to create a singular source of truth
in a chemical company's data layer.
Right.
Our thesis when we started the company
was that it's gonna be hard for this
industry to transform if most of its
data is sitting in offline sources.
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): um, you know, a
lot of times companies get enamored with
the, the user interface of the tech.
Like the, they, they get enamored by
the shiny objects, and what they don't
see is what's sitting underneath it
that is feeding the application layer.
And so, you know, ever since day
one we've been very much focused on
building this data pipeline capability.
And that's how, I don't know if I
mentioned this last time, but that's
how we came up with the name Knowde.
Uh, we're the node that
connects all this knowledge.
Um, and so, you know, as you
know, chemical companies have a
lot of information spread across
PDF documents and PowerPoint
presentations, and lots of different
systems scattered around the world.
And.
We create the, the harmonized
clean version of, of all that data.
Victoria: that's interesting.
And so, you know, I think what's
interesting about that Allie, is,
and, and we talked about data.
and the importance of that before,
but I think most people's first
introduction to Knowde was the
storefronts that you guys were building.
Is that part still part
of what you do today?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): But what I think
most people didn't recognize is what we
were building underneath the marketplace.
So the marketplace is, an application
that sits on top of our core technology,
which is this data pipeline that
does the ingesting, extracting,
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): and
harmonizing of all the data.
Um, because from our perspective,
like that's the core problem.
That our industry has to solve first,
and then once that's solved, then um, you
know, any type of application can be built
on top of it, including marketplaces and,
and storefronts and customer experience
software and, you know, anything
else that you can possibly imagine.
Victoria: Yeah.
So, um, know, the talk
of the town is ai, right?
So I think about two years ago when the
first time we talked, I think people
could barely spell AI, by the way.
And it's just a i for those that wonder.
Um, and, um, and yet it's.
embraced it kind of.
I think there's still skepticism,
but there's also this view
that it's the Holy Grail.
and I know Knowde is embracing ai.
So what do you see as the
role of AI in all of this?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Our industry
is highly, highly technical.
it requires a lot of know-how knowledge
in order to be able to make decisions.
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): And, a lot of
that know-how today sits in SharePoint
drives and random documents and a lot
of times between people's ears and.
I think the impact of this tech is gonna
be felt a lot because, that know-how is
now gonna become transparent and people
can start making decisions without
having been in the industry for 25 years.
Um, and so if the cost of
intelligence goes down to zero.
Imagine how much faster
a sales rep can ramp.
Imagine how much faster you can,
you know, fill out a regulatory
document, imagine how much faster
you can make procurement decisions.
And so, you know, that is
the promise of the tech.
As of right now, I would say that a lot
of companies are piloting across different
use cases in their company and, um.
So far, I would say mixed results.
Victoria: Why?
Why do you see the mixed results?
What's going on there?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): I think the key in
deploying tech like this is understanding
the problem that you're trying to solve.
It's not about the tech.
It's about what problem are you
trying to solve and then how can
you apply the tech to that problem?
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): The
tech is just the solution
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri: and a lot of times
I've seen companies sort of create their
own version of a chat bot or whatever and
roll it out to their audience, and see
them use it for very rudimentary reasons
Victoria: Hmm.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2):
rather than saying, look.
The problem that we're trying to
solve is to make our sales team
more productive, as an example.
Victoria: Right.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): the use
case is helping our team cross
sell or solution sell or you know,
whatever, whatever it may be.
Now through that lens, if you
start to apply the tech, I think
that companies will have a lot
higher likelihood of success.
Victoria: Yeah, that's good.
And that's actually a great segue
'cause I know before we hit the record
button, you talked about the, Um, amount
of time you're spending on the, road
engaging with chemical leaders and,
and people across the globe, not just.
US Europe elsewhere.
And so that was actually gonna be
my question, which is What are you
hearing from your customers about what
they want to be doing with digital?
What problems they wanna be solving and
how they wanna be harnessing it today?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): um, this topic
is front of mind for most executives.
And I think right now, like I
said, they're, they're piloting and
searching for the right use cases.
But it is very, very much top of mind.
It's something they're looking to
their teams and wondering, okay.
We, how do we get these
productivity gains?
Like, what should we be using it for?
you know, they're, like I said, they're,
they're searching for the use case.
And, um, you know, as they kind of
experiment and do these different
pilots, I think they're gonna start
to see where the opportunities
are from our perspective.
We see a lot of front of house
opportunities in commercial teams.
So how do you make, sales more productive.
How do you enable customers to self-serve?
We see a lot of use cases in,
finance around reporting and being
able to make decisions faster.
We're seeing a lot of use cases in like
supply chain and procurement, related
to leveraging, global spend, um, in,
in, in better ways, um, better managing.
Tail procurement spend.
Um, we're seeing a lot of use cases
in regulatory where there's a lot of
manual effort today happening and,
you know, in, in, in this environment
there's, these regulatory teams are
getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And so there's tons of
room for efficiency there.
Knowde doesn't play as much in the
back office, like manufacturing, so I'm
not as familiar with those use cases.
But because our industry is so rooted
in in assets and chemical engineers
and process engineers, I know that
they've been certainly applying
this tech into the back office.
Victoria: Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Um, it seems like the industry has been
on this journey for a long time, right?
So I go back and I think about
my own personal experience.
I was helping shell build and start up.
Its first customer facing.
E-business system, if you will, which
is what we called it back in the day.
Now it's all digital, but
back then it was e-business.
But we were doing this in
20, uh, in the year 2000.
Right?
So the year 2000 was when, uh,
digital got super exciting.
We had, oh my gosh, that puppet
that went along with pets.com
or whatever it was.
Anyway, there was this whole
boom of startups and the.
Great Holy grail that hey,
we're all gonna be digital.
And yet here we are 25 years later,
which is kind of shocking considering
I'm only 25, but um, 25 years later
and we're still trying to figure out
how do we really harness and leverage
and create value, from digital.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Boy, 20.
It's been close.
Yeah.
20, 25 years.
I think, I think what you
said is very fair argument.
I mean, You know, back in 2000, uh, there
were certainly lots of attempts to, you
know, change this space and, um, you know,
you could certainly debate as to how many
of them had a lasting impact on the space.
You can also debate how much, you
know, the tech from the last 20 years
has really impacted these companies.
I mean, obviously everyone's
implemented ERP systems.
You know, but CRM, you know, adoption is
fairly low customer facing, technology
is, you know, from our perspective just
starting to really, really accelerate.
And so, it's certainly, you know,
this industry when it comes to tech,
we all know is a bit of a laggard and
there's a lot of like hobby projects.
And I think it goes back to what
I said earlier, which is that.
When we see projects fail or get
delayed, it's because there's not
crystal clarity in terms of the
business problem we're trying to solve.
You know, they, a lot of times
people, you know, they, they see
that, interesting idea and they want
to go apply it, but they, they're not
applying it to a top level initiative.
Victoria: Hmm.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): In other words,
whether it's AI or you know, some
digital capability, it, it has to get
applied to what the executives believe
is a top three bleeding initiative.
If it's not one of those top
three, don't spend money on it,
Victoria: Wow.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): because
what inevitably happens is
that, the project gets delayed.
The teams ask for more money.
Business runs outta patients
and the project gets canned.
I mean, we've seen that sort of motion
over and over and over again, but if
the project was tied to a top three
bleeding initiative, that's gotta
get fixed in order for the business
to grow or become more efficient.
then there would be a lot
more, um, focus on it.
There'd be a lot higher expectations
in terms of deliverables.
They would create bigger budgets in order
to make sure that it gets delivered.
And so, you know, it's not
tech for the sake of tech.
Like, you know, you gave a story
about when you were at Shell, I
don't know what problem you guys
were necessarily trying to solve.
but if the objective isn't to.
Free up a sales person's time to be
more proactive to go sell more product
and thus eliminate, all the, the
remedial requests coming through from
customers and thus why we're creating
the customer experience platform.
Then don't do it.
Victoria: Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
And actually that was, that was our
objective was to, was to streamline, the
number of just nagging calls coming in
to the customer center, or the number
of calls that a sales person and a, a
customer service person feels about.
Where's my truck?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Hmm.
Victoria: truck?
Where's my truck?
Oh my gosh.
I can give you access to the
same system I'm looking at.
That's where it is.
Um, and so figuring that out to create
that level of efficiency, what I think
is, I think what I think is really
important about what you said though,
ally, is about this fact that it, it
needs to be of the top three initiatives
and, and problems and focus areas for
the executives teams in order to really
put the right resources behind it.
To ensure and drive support, but
I sometimes wonder at, is it.
Connected to the people lower in the
organization who are frankly, really
affected by it on a day-to-day basis.
So, I mean, what do you see in
terms of user adoption, right?
So it's one thing to come
in, and implement a system.
And build a system and you know, you start
with a pilot and then you roll it out.
Are you seeing that the salespeople
are embracing it, that the
procurement people are embracing it?
What do you see?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): I think
it goes back to, you know, is
it tied to a top initiative?
And you know, don't just do it
for the sake of doing it, so
let's use CRM as an example.
Just because like, you know,
that's like everyone's thorn.
at some point, starting about 7, 8,
10 years ago, the industry woke up to
the fact that they should probably be
organizing their customer data somewhere
and everyone started buying some system.
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): And, asking
their team to fill it out every
time they go visit a client and
their people said, no, thanks.
I'd rather not do that with
my time it was a rally.
The organization was trying to.
Victoria: Hmm.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Was clear and it
was repeated over and over and over again.
'cause it's one of the
top three initiatives.
I think adoption in our industry would be
a lot different and we would stop talking
about change management all the time.
You have no idea how many times I
hear the two words change management.
And of course it's hard, you know,
people have their preferences and you
know, people have certain behaviors
and all of those sort of things.
However, people can change.
And people can be led to, um,
you know, a better direction.
And a lot of times folks want
that if they understand the why.
And it's been, and it's being
repeated over and over and over again.
It's like, why it's so important.
And so, I think it just always
comes down to, you know, what
problem we're trying to solve.
And is, is it, is it important enough?
Victoria: Yeah, I think
that's a great point.
And, um, do you see companies,
whether they're in the chemical
industry or outside of the chemical
industry doing this well, um, really
rallying around this reason, you
know, the, the top three, bleeding
initiative priorities for a company.
Do you see, um, who's doing this well?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): the commonality
amongst the ones that are doing well is
that when the C-suite is highly engaged,
Victoria: it.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): um, if
they're not around the table or
they're soft supporting this.
It's just, it's, it's, it's obvious
that, you know, this is gonna be,
you know, three years of some poor
team's time and a road's nowhere.
Victoria: Yeah.
absolutely.
So you talked about kind of the whole
aspect of harnessing AI and harnessing
digitization in these tools to really
connect all the different data points.
Um, and I know a lot of where you started
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Yeah.
Victoria: was around, um.
Ms.
DSS product, data, et cetera.
you also now connecting into
CRM systems, SAP systems?
So when you talk about how you bring
it all together, that information a
lot of times is in various places.
So is
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Yeah.
Victoria: there a connection point?
Is that still part of the,
the journey that we're at?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): There's like
four core types of data that our
industry primarily talks about, vendor,
material, product, and customer.
And there's all sorts of other
related data like, you know, bombs
and formulations and transactions
and all that other stuff.
and you know, when we started building
our capabilities, we, we did it
to be agnostic of the data type.
And so, you know, our
objective is to be able to.
cleanse and structure and harmonize
all the different types of data.
We started with product data because we
believed that it was really complex, just
imagine the different types of products
across all four corners of the industry.
Imagine all the different types of
attributes related to each product.
And if you can solve for that,
then you can probably solve
for a lot of other problems.
And so, um, today it's holistic.
But you're right, we, we
certainly started with product.
Victoria: Got it.
so we've talked a little bit about
you know, I think one of the topics
I've got on here is just what the, you
know, how AI is changing this, um, and
changing the future of the industry.
What are you seeing and how
is Knowde tying into that?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): we're
seeing all sorts of different
use cases and I mentioned some
of 'em a little bit earlier.
Um, and you know, I would say when
we're talking to like commercial
folks, the types of use cases we're
hearing are around like, how do you
give more knowledge to the sales team?
How do you make it easier
for them to answer?
Basic customer questions faster.
How do you, um, help them
recommend the right products?
Cross-selling comes up more
times than you can know.
It's like this thing that's, you know,
Victoria: always a thing.
it's, always
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): it's it's
literally this thing that this
industry just can't solve for.
so, so on the commercial side, those are
probably the, the most common use cases.
Like I mentioned earlier,
there's a lot of things happening
around supply chain procurement.
Uh, regulatory finance,
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): um, obviously
within the digital teams themselves.
yeah, it's lots and lots.
Victoria: You know, you talk about that
cross-selling and I think one of the
pieces of, One of the challenges if
I think about the chemical industry,
and so I mean, as, as users, you
and I we're interacting with all
kinds of digital applications in our
personal and business lives that are
servicing millions of people, right?
So if you think about, you know,
the Amazon storefront, right?
And, um, or um, I was, you know.
And, uh, the pandemic changed
the way I used Instacart.
When you order on Instacart and
then it says, Hey, would you
also like to add A, B, or C?
Or, it's easier to do because frankly
there's no, um, you know, you're, you're
not trying to do a technical sale.
It doesn't have to be formulated in.
there's so much more data.
Um, and yet I think as users.
Humans.
We want our chemical and business
industry tools to be as fast, seamless,
tested, evolved as we see on our
personal devices and use cases, and yet
we're actually operating at a fraction
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Yeah.
Victoria: the number of
interactions versus an Amazon.
I think there's just this, this
disparity that, um, people need to also,
you know, kind of self-regulate for
recognizing that when you have fewer
users, the evolution maybe is not on
the same pace because you've got fewer
opportunities to test, evolve and grow.
Would you agree with that?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): there's
been, over the course of history,
there's been so much m and a in this
industry, and as companies divest
and acquire, they are acquiring
bigger catalogs, larger sales teams.
A lot of like cross-functional support
and, it's hard for folks even internally
to understand what's in this catalog.
if a sales rep is in a certain
division, they don't know what that next
division next to 'EM is even selling.
And now you've got five reps
calling the same account.
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Stepping on each
other, talking about the same topics
to, to the same procurement person.
And you know, there's a
ton of inefficiency there.
And so, you know, that particular use
case, um, certainly comes up a lot.
And I think, you know, a step one
is at minimum give your customers
easier access to this catalog.
So with that, when the need originates.
They can easily browse for themselves
because like creating demand in our
industry is really, really hard, right?
Like the customer either has an r
and d project that's, that's like in
motion that you can fit into or they
don't like for, for a sales person
to show up and try to create a new
project, that's not so easy to do.
Because you're asking them to
like free up r and d dollars.
The, the, the r and d project
needs to be in motion.
But our industry, our, our, you
know, sales teams, you know,
traditionally have had a hard time
getting into the r and d office.
You know, they're spending a
lot of time with procurement.
And so, in order to be able to get
into the r and d, Department, you've
gotta have a lot of knowledge.
You gotta like know the products.
You gotta understand the applications and
the value propositions and why you should
use this product instead of that product.
And you know, I think that where
tech has gone over the past two years
makes that a very real possibility.
Now,
Victoria: Because why?
How, how, or why or how?
How
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): instant,
instant access to information
in, instant access to knowledge.
Um, you know, three years ago, just
having a product catalog online and
being able to browse and filter by
different attributes and certifications
and stuff like that was fairly novel.
But fast forward three years, nobody's
really gonna want that, that nobody's
even gonna want that experience anymore.
What they're gonna want to do
is just like, type in their
question and get their answer.
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): type in the
question and set off a workflow and
automatically take a bunch of actions.
and so, yeah, I mean, things are
just gonna, things are gonna rapidly
change over the next three to five.
Victoria: Yeah.
that makes sense.
And in fact, as, as formulators, as
procurement people, as whomever is
working on stuff to say, I need, I
need a product that does X, Y, and Z.
Go find it.
having this all digitized, having.
The information connected, and then
of course the, the AI layer that goes
with it becomes far more productive.
Right.
And, and Yeah.
because I may not know
what it's actually called.
I just need to know what it does.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Yep, that's right.
Victoria: Yeah.
And that's actually changing the way
I guess people are formulating or
that's what you, you know, that's maybe
directionally where, the industry is
evolving and when we think about product
development and formulation is based, um.
And a bit product agnostic.
Would you agree?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): the
short answer is I don't know.
Um, however, I will say that.
one of the most valuable resources in
every chemical company is the TSMD people.
Um, they're the ones that have the
most amount of application and product
knowledge, and this knowhow is trapped
in dozens and dozens of binders, angers.
Victoria: Yeah,
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): And
if that information becomes
more transparent, then you can
essentially scale your ts and D team.
Significantly and give access to all that
knowledge to your customers instantly.
And uh, I think that's
gonna change our space.
Victoria: Absolutely.
So Ellie, what are you excited about?
If you were gonna say, this is the
one thing I'm, I'm shouting from the
rooftops about, I'm super excited
about this, in terms of, gosh, I guess
almost anything, but let's frame it
in around digitization, and where,
where we're going and where Knowde is
going and where the industry is going.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Generally
speaking, I think there's a lot
of efficiency opportunities in our
industry, across, you know, customer
service, sales, operations, regulatory.
I mean, there's just tons of efficiency
opportunities and the ability to be
able to free up people's time to go
work on something more important.
And we're closer than ever to be able
to automate a lot of these workflows.
simple, simple use case, I think I
brought this up a little bit earlier.
Regulatory teams spend countless hours
filling out customer questionnaires,
and these questionnaires are long and
more and more of them come in every day.
And
Victoria: tedious, repetitive, And
sometimes you don't know the answers.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): I, you know, I
feel for the people that have to sit
down, read these documents, then go
and try to find the answers to each
of these questions by just manually
shuffling through a bunch of documents.
That workflow can now be fully automated.
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): Now, not to
put, you know, a commercial, you know,
a Knowde commercial in here, but it
does require, you know, structured
clean data in order to be, be able
to execute that sort of use case.
But it's now possible.
Whereas, a year ago that use
case was not possible to solve.
So it's, it's things like that,
that get me really, really excited.
you know, like I said at the
top, you know, this industry.
there's a lot of know-how that's
trapped and, you know, because this
industry is so technical, you have
to have that know-how in order to
be able to, like, make decisions.
But if all of that knowledge
now becomes transparent and you
can access it really quickly.
These companies can start to make
decisions a lot faster and, you know,
free up their time to go work on things
that are much, much more value add.
And it's gonna be interesting.
I mean, there's certainly lots of interest
in like applying this tech into r and d,
and a lot of interest across like, you
know, commercial use cases and some of
the other things I already mentioned.
Victoria: Yeah.
I love It, I think that's right.
I think, I think the ab absolutely,
simplifying the tedious work
so that you can go do the
value add is really critical.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): it, um, it
it was not possible 18 months ago.
It just like the, the,
the tech didn't exist.
It did not exist.
and, you know, things have
fundamentally changed.
Victoria: Yeah.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): um, You
know, thi this isn't, you know
what I'm about to say is not novel.
It's, it's quite silly.
But like, I think, when we look back
on this in 20 years, you know, the
impact of what's about to happen will
be significantly, and, I mean, 30 x
more impactful to our industry than,
you know, everything that happened
between, you know, 2000 and 2020.
Victoria: Yeah, I believe it.
And in fact, if you, if you, if you
look at the innovation curves, right?
They, the pitch on them is steep.
We're making dramatic changes
and I think that's really cool.
Alright, final question for you, Allie,
which is, it's around leadership.
So if you, you know, You've
had a unique opportunity to.
Frankly be at the front end of two digital
companies inside the chemical industry.
I'm not sure if you knew that was
gonna be the case when you first
started your career, but if you
were looking back and you're, you're
looking, talking to somebody, a young
entrant, a young alley joining the
chemical industry or looking to join
a digital platform that is adjacent
to in changing the chemical industry.
Um, what advice would you
give to that, to that person?
Somebody just starting
out in the industry?
Ali Amin Javaheri (2):
You've gotta really want it.
You've gotta really, really want it.
you know, I've had an amazing
time building Knowde for the past,
you know, seven, eight years.
Being a founder is something that I would.
I, I think everyone should, you
know, go experience at some point
because, it, it causes you to like
grow and it tests your persistence
harder than anything you can imagine.
and so, you know, in order to build
something in markets like chemicals,
where historically there's been a lot of
resistance and a lot of risk aversion,
a lot of like consensus driven thinking.
You have to have an incredible
amount of grit and persistence.
And so for anybody that wants to come
into a market like this one and try to
change the way it works, be prepared.
Um, be prepared because it, it,
it, it's, um, it's a lot of work.
It requires an amazing team,
requires amazing investors that
are willing to back you to no end.
And it, you know, there, there's a
reason why there hasn't been a lot of
tech companies in the chemical industry.
There's a reason this industry
is opaque to most people.
Most tech founders have never
even heard of this industry.
They, they, they don't know
the first thing about it.
and so coming into a market
like this where it's just sort
of, you know, hiding from.
What's happening around
the rest of the world?
You, you've gotta build a team
that has, a a lot of courage.
You know, it's, it's a lot of
persistent, a lot of courage.
And, you know, our, internally,
our, our first cultural principle is
that, you have to believe in yourself
against all reasonable logic and.
it's because what we do is hard,
you know, what we're doing is hard.
Victoria: Yeah, I love it.
And that is a great way to end this.
Allie, thank you so much.
I've really enjoyed this conversation,
um, and getting reconnected with you.
So thanks for joining me today.
Ali Amin Javaheri (2): That's great.
You, um, enjoyed the
conversation as always.
Victoria: Absolutely, and thank
you everyone for listening.
Keep listening, keep following,
keep sharing, and we will
talk with you again soon.