How to get more entrepreneurs building in the regeneration space? If you are a regular listener of this podcast, you have heard us discuss this so many times you probably lost count. No, we are not saying entrepreneurs and companies are the solution to all our problems. But entrepreneurial people who set up companies, but also non-profits and movements— basically people who don’t accept the status quo and get to work to change it—are always the ones who change the world.
So how do we get more of those started in the biggest challenge of all: how to regenerate a severely degraded world? And when people get bitten by the “soil” bug, how do we give them all the support and resources to make sure the chances of them succeeding against most odds are as high as possible? Or, in the words of Bart, how do we create the best enabling conditions for them and others to succeed?
Enter the venture studio. We have had Bart van der Zande, co-founder of the Fresh Ventures Studio, on the show twice before, and it really was time for a check-in. They have run three cohorts now, built 10+ regen-focused companies, and are gearing up for their fourth cohort. We talk about the venture studio and what is holding back the sector: more early-stage funding, but also why it is so difficult to get early-stage funding in. Everyone who has done a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation on starting a fund to focus on “early” stage quickly figures out that small tickets don’t really make a lot of sense. So how does Bart think they can make it work?
We also talk about the best place to look for real regen innovations: on a leading regen farm. But what usually happens? The super-forward regen farmer invents something that works for him or her (e.g. a special bio-tea compost extract sprayer that fits on the existing cover-crop planter, etc.) and then? It stops there. Maybe she or he will make a few for neighbours, and that is pretty much it. How do we commercialize and, more importantly, spread these super context-specific but super relevant innovations? Again, the answer is entrepreneurial people who set up companies around the inventions, where the farmers can choose how involved they want to be.
