Purifying Water with Greg Newbloom, CEO @ Membrion

Hey, welcome. Today on the show we have Greg Newbloom. Greg is a co-founder and current leader of the company Membrion. They spun out of the University of Washington with a proprietary new material that membranes could be made out of that make them more durable than traditional membranes. If you haven't been following along or are not familiar with why

membranes are important or even what they are, the short of it is they're extremely important in how we are able to access fresh water, period, or any type of water anywhere. So this this this innovation this proprietary material has been very significant on its impact in the wastewater industry. Not only that, but

Greg has an incredible depth of experience in entrepreneurship itself and the perspective of going from lab to what is now a company with around 40 to 50 employees actively commercializing and making stable revenue. It was a really enjoyable conversation. I know you will enjoy it, too. Shout-out to our sponsors, CleanTech Growth Lab.

If you're looking to grow in CleanTech, they're the people to do it with and the producers of this podcast, Kraze and Friends. And with that, I give you Greg. Cole, welcome to another episode of The Growth Lab. Shout-out to our sponsors mentioned just before this. Without them, it would not be possible to

interview awesome people doing awesome things like Greg. Welcome. Thanks. Great to be here. That's right. Without any more of an introduction because I've I've done a lot of reading. I've I'm trying to understand this membrane technology, but I'm excited to hear it from you.

If you could just give a brief introduction of yourself and what you're building. Absolutely. Yeah, so my name's Greg Newbloom. I'm the founder and CEO of Membrion. Membrion's just about to turn 10 years old as a CleanTech spin-out from the University of Washington and we're we're commercializing a new advanced membrane technology. So we're

the first ones to figure out how to make a ceramic membrane that can desalinate water, which allows us to go into a lot of really complex environments where it might otherwise be challenging to treat and recycle that wastewater. And so the thing that makes us really unique is unlike a traditional desalination membrane where

you are using pressure to push water across, kind of like a coffee filter, our membranes function a lot more like a kidney where you're actually able to remove the contaminants and leave clean water behind. And so it gives us a lot more flexibility in how we treat streams in handling these really harsh

environments. I can already tell this is this is going to go a lot better than my my personal research into this technology. So you guys so well, the first thing when you say ceramic, we're not talking about like a you know, ceramic mug. Like what what does ceramic mean in this context?

Yeah, so ceramic in this context means that you're you're right. It's not it's not like a mug. In fact, the membranes that we make are incredibly flexible. They're made from ceramic material. So in this case, it's silica that we use.

And actually the the material itself is you're probably familiar with as the silica gel desiccant packs you find in a shoe box, beef jerky pack that keeps, you know, your your food or clothes nice and dry is the same materials we use to make our our membranes.

And so, you know, we do a lot more kind of chemistry and structuring them into nano materials, but but the fundamental material is the same. And so so yeah, it's it's that basically that those materials are incredibly good at going into harsh environments without having things stick to them or chemically degrade them or or you know, cause them

issues that allows us to to do some interesting interesting things. So cool. All right, so obviously follow-up questions that, but taking a step back, you mentioned that this is a spin-out out of the university. Had you always gone into your life looking around saying, "I can't wait to start my own business" or

is this something that just happened? I started my first company when when I was 10. So so there was definitely some entrepreneurial spirit there that Was it ceramic? It was not ceramics. No, I I was selling snacks at my brother's baseball game.

And so became a vital part of the the community. Learned a lesson when I eventually got kicked out by the league as they found out that it's a really good way to make money from unsuspecting parents. So I learned the you know, the important lessons about competition at a young age. But no, I eventually like, you

know, for me wanted to go into engineering. Like I like solving hard interesting problems. And during my PhD, the kind of opportunity to do something entrepreneurial came back up again a couple different times. So Membrion is, you know, beyond that kind of first company as a kid, actually helped to start two other

companies during my PhD and Membrion's my third. And so from that perspective, you know, the entrepreneurial activities very much feel like a good fit for me and the types of things that I like to do in combining the like hard technical and and commercial problems together is something that I really enjoy.

Well, so for for someone that knows people doing PhDs personally, I can attest this, but also for people that may not know, it seems like again from my perspective not having done it, when you're doing PhD, you have this amount of time none to do anything else. So I'm curious how you started not

one, but two companies during your PhD and how that came about. Yeah, I mean so I think that I had I had a really great PhD advisor and she she allowed us to kind of pursue interesting side projects.

And so I had a few different of those during my PhD. One was a source of funding that we had that was really different from what I was working on at my PhD that required me to put a little bit of time towards a separate project that ended up, you know, becoming a new

technology for converting slash piles or forestry waste into biochar that could then be used as soil amendments. A way to to capture it instead. So yeah. Question, just had a really interesting conversation 2 weeks ago with one of I guess you'd call him friend, we've never met in person, but he's he's based in

Thailand and he is he is pushing a huge development of biochar over there. So just you know, quickly to whatever degree you want to talk on it, what is your take on biochar? Yeah, I mean I think that there's there's a a massive opportunity for for biochar in particular markets and applications. So I think that like it is

a really high value soil amendment, you know, good at fixing carbon long-term. I would say that for me, I didn't go far enough with it on the commercial side cuz it was during it was kind of the first couple years of my PhD that we developed the tech, the company spun out and I decided that I wasn't going to

quit my PhD in order to kind of keep tracking with the company. Wanted to instead kind of focus on my research. Um and so so from that perspective, I would say I never really got into the depths of it. So I have I've got enough of an understanding to get myself into trouble, not enough to speak super

intelligently about it. So How did they do after that? Is is the company still around? Not anymore. They stuck around for for a few years and had some I think had some good like, you know, prototypes, you know, made some adjustments beyond the initial scope, but ultimately the company ended up winding down. So Good. Appreciate that.

All right, thanks. So the second one after that. Second one was based on work that I'd done during my PhD, which was around organic solar cells and kind of materials that can absorb light. And we created this this material which we could uh tune the the shape and the size of and we were using it basically with this

company as an additive for paints and coatings to make them antistatic. So the idea being that, you know, there's a and a lot of this work was initially with Boeing where there was an interest in their composite airplanes have some challenges with static electricity.

And so being able to create a thin transparent coating that could manage that was really valuable or potentially valuable to them. And so we we had this material that showed really good progress towards towards that end. And so that was really the basis for this second company which spun out based on that core research, core patent came out

of the out of the university. Did the same thing happen where you were faced with an opportunity of that continuing to work and you said, "I don't want to leave my PhD yet." No, this one actually came right at the end of my PhD is when was when we started it. And so I

actually then kind of took that post-PhD and helped run with that with a small team and learned learned a ton. It was one of those opportunities. Company's not around anymore. Ended up going under not too long. The you know, a lot of challenges around like how do you bring a new material into the paints and

coatings space? Really complex you know, integration problems from a technology standpoint. We're working in markets with really long adoption cycles. You know, we think water is is long, aerospace is, you know, five times as long to adopt a new technology. And so, and so those were like, you know, really like great learnings. Learned a lot

about composition of like team and, you know, how to be able to pitch and work with work with investors and things like that. So, learned a lot, but ultimately, you know, got in you know, got to kind of the end of like, "Hey, we're running out of money.

What are we going to do? I got student loans. Like, you know, I got to I got to figure out what's next." And so, ended up coming back to the university and that was actually basically on a project where my advisor said like, "Hey, look, like things are not going well. Like, if you need a year, I can

get you a year of funding. Come land, figure out what you want to do next with your life." Like, you can So, it's really great. Like, right as a very soft landing. Like, okay, okay, I'll figure it out. And I came back and that project happened to be on membranes.

And so, that's like that's really where like, you know, Membrion started. was just in this interim like I got to apply for jobs. I got to figure out other things. I wasn't necessarily coming back to like, oh, I'm for sure going to start another company. Like I have an idea. Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, and

then ended up, you know, coming up with it kind of within that first year. Um And so, and then yeah, the rest is history. Oh, that's funny. So, I I think that's that's really cool that you were able to go into the water space. People were like, hey, watch out, long adoption cycles, sales cycles. And you're like,

no, this is short. Yeah, short and then short. Way shorter. I'm excited for this, exactly. Um okay, well, I a question that I love to ask, although not all the time do do I do we get people that have fully invested in companies, grown them, and then decided to walk away from them. So,

so I'm excited about this portion, but if you could choose one, two things, you rattled off a lot, but one or two things specific from that experience of running a company that you ended up walking away from that specifically shaped or shapes still how you navigate running Membrion. Mhm, yeah.

Yeah, you know, I think that I I mean, there's there's a lot that that shaped kind of the early days especially of Membrion. I I think that the first thing is definitely team composition. You know, we spun the technology out, it was really, you know, it was a team like like-minded people, right? A lot of

like scientists, engineers. And we were going to kind of figure stuff out and realized that, you know, there's a lot more to running a business than being able to create a good compelling technology that's better than you know, the next thing that's that's available.

You know, there's running a company requires lots of different functional skills and expertise and we didn't have that. And we were trying to kind of learn on the job how to how to do those things. And I think ultimately that just creates slow execution.

And, you know, I think speed is, you know, for better or for worse is often the name of the game. For a startup, it's about how quickly you can move. So, it's not, you know, could we figure it out? Yeah, absolutely. If we had the time and the money to do it, sure. But, you know, if

you're in that pressure cooker, the people you have next to you matter a lot. And so, when I started Membrion, that was one of the first things that I did was actually look and say, "Hey, who can I bring alongside me on the core team that has walked this or a similar journey before?"

So. Yeah, quick quick quick injection because another interesting conversation I had two weeks ago was with this woman who had just left this this this place called The Engine in in Boston. Nice. So, she was she was in charge of the ecosystem. She's going to lead chief of staff at a small company.

Pretty much our entire conversation was about exactly what you're speaking. Clearly, you did it well. So, how you know, when you when you have this thesis of I need to find people that you know, have walked this before and are like-minded. Did you go in your personal network? Did you you know, how did you

find them? And then ultimately, how did you arrive at the decision you know, to to bring them on? Because those are pretty biggest things. Those are things hard decisions to make. Yeah, absolutely. So, when I when I started you know, I spun Membrion out and I we had a great ecosystem within the

University of Washington that I leaned into a lot more the second time around or the third time around rather in in kind of finding this these individuals that I felt like really could add something to this. And so, I connected with via the U Dub's like tech transfer office and the entrepreneur activities and support that they had.

Really connected with an individual who had experience basically building a deep tech company from founding to exit. And he was one of the mentors in that program. And he and I just ended up really like clicking well. Like, I think I think that's really like a fundamental component is like when we started

working, it was just like "Hey, I'm trying to figure this stuff out. I need help. You've got experience. Like, let me kind of come to you." And and eventually that, you know, over the course of uh probably six months or a year morphed into me frequently going to this person and saying, "Hey, I I could

really use your help. I could really use your help." And then at some point it was like, "Hey, actually, maybe it just makes sense for you to come and like join in what we're doing." And actually at the time, I was basically stepped out of the CEO role and made him CEO of the company. He

actually ran the company for kind of the first two two and a half years that we were starting to get out. He helped do our lead our seed round and kind of get that get that spun out. He brought in a really close contact that he had had on the operations side.

You know, that also joined the company. And so, the three of us really kind of helped to to get to the company to an early stage. And so, that was, you know, bringing like like finding someone else that was non-technical, right? Like, he he knew he knew technology, but he was much more of a of a commercial leader.

Um That made a huge difference in getting the company off the ground and to a point where I could then see like, oh, hey, look, this is actually how you do those things as opposed to trying to figure it all out myself. Um is I got to shadow someone who really knew what they

were doing. Oh man, why I have a feeling I got a lot of questions for you just about the business side. But, I do want to get to your technology. So, I'll ask about just just one other thing that you could pull from the experience with the prior company, the coding company that you know,

significantly impacts Membrion. Yeah, I mean, I think that the the biggest thing is like and this continues to to be true at Membrion is you know, there is um there's nothing quite like getting the voice of your customer integrated into what you're building early. I think especially as like someone with a PhD, an

engineering background, it's really easy to fall in love with your technology and all the cool things it can do. It's amazing. It's better than the other stuff that's there. And so, you kind of build up this idea of like like, why wouldn't someone want this, right? Like, it it is better. I can prove with data that this is better.

And then you learn like there's a million reasons why someone doesn't want something better than what they're doing today. And and maybe you're not even solving a problem they really care about at the end of the day or that makes a big enough impact for them. And so, it wasn't that we didn't talk to customers,

but the way we talked to customers was more in a way to try to validate our thinking as opposed to arrive at what they needed and a problem that was truly worth solving. And so, I think for Membrion, that was something that we brought in early was really being able to identify like, you know, who who's

willing to buy this? Who's actually willing to write a check? Because that says a lot more than just someone who says, "Hey, yeah, this is cool. I'm willing to do it." Um and then, you know, really leaning into and making tough decisions to walk away from opportunities because, you know, even though it could be a good fit, it's

not going to be the right commercial fit. And you got to got to get to revenue to really make a company work. And so, so yeah, I think that was that was a really key learning around how to do customer discovery, how to really learn and understand a customer problem.

And it's a big challenge for new materials like Membrion because you know, there's dozens of different markets we can go after. Water is one of them. It's one of many. And so, from that perspective, you know, how do you pick just one when you can do so much? How do you say no to

all the other stuff, right? That's where we're at. Oh, that's that's that was my follow-up question is I think it's it might be I don't know if easy's the word, but maybe more clear, you know, this far into it. But, at the beginning, how do you know which customers are the right ones to be listening to? And even

if you choose which ones are the right ones, how do you decide that what they're saying is actually in their best interest? Yeah, so I you know, I think it's it's um it's really hard when you're in like it's it's easier to reflect on it with hindsight than it is when you're in the

middle of it. You know, I think that for us, it's really you know, it's finding people that are uh are actually willing to like pull you faster than you would otherwise maybe want to move. Um and I think that there's something cuz then, you know, at some point you have to assess like, is

this problem worth solving? Is someone going to pay me to solve this problem? And the only way you really get to that point is if you've got someone saying, "Hey, look, we we absolutely have to have this, and how do we get you to go faster than you're going today?" Because, you know, if we're not going to

win or we're not going to get where we want to go if we don't have you with us. Um and so, I think it was a lot of a lot of getting to that point of really understanding like what's a problem worth solving? What's one where you're going to get dragged kicking and

screaming by your customer to solve that problem because they must have it to be successful. Um and so, yeah, and even within, you know, even within getting to water, getting to those specific applications, use cases, really understanding it, it's a long journey.

Um so. Well, yeah, I mean, are we talk you know, are we how much you know, how much resistance to failure? Is that even the right word that you would use when in my head I'm thinking, "Okay, we have this hypothesis. We have that there's a use case. We have a particular segment we

can go after. Now we're going to go after it, and uh going to see if this works, and if it fails, understand why and how to pivot it to to make it work." Like how how do you know, just navigating through that space to get to a point where you're getting dragged, you know, by your customer?

Yeah, it's it it it's um I think some of it comes back to having a like a compelling commercial insight, right? Being able to do something like have a way of thinking about the world that's different than the people that are in it, and getting someone, you know, excited about the possibility that

your technology can unlock for them. Um and that then creates that momentum and alignment to uh to be able to move forward. And so, you know, there's a lot of like getting connected with the right people, moving through the technical proof points. Um but at the end of the day, like it it

does come back, you know, as much as and this pains me to say as like an engineer and a technical person, a lot of times it comes back to the ability to like tell a compelling story that's rooted in data, right? It has to be especially in like water, like, you know, it it has to

be rooted in data, and has to be rooted in reality and the complexity of reality, but, you know, um a lot of what we do is is centered around like there's a different way of looking at your facility, at this problem than you currently are.

Um and if you'll give us a few minutes to talk you through about what we see coming as outsiders, um that really then helps to kind of shape like, "Oh, actually, yeah, I never thought that we were making this core assumption cuz it's the way we've done things for 30 years. Why would we not

Why would we assume that that was an incorrect assumption?" And it's only incorrect because our tech can do something new that others can't. And so, yeah. Yeah, I just so difficult to get the those first data that are you know, that are really important like we're talking about. So, um it's cool. Well, uh you know, just

I'll leave a trillion more questions on the shelf, and then we can get to where we started, which was uh the technology. So, again, just run through um you know, you guys have a novel membrane technology that uh helps, to my understanding on the website, it helps specifically wastewater treatment plants uh purify

waste streams. Is that accurate? Yeah, absolutely. I think at a high level that's that's accurate, yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah, no, so a lot of like where we go into, um you know, water Water is a central um constituent of of a lot of manufacturing, kind of, you know, from from chips to um food and beverage to, you know, lots

of uh oil and gas, like lots of different industries leverage water as an intermediate to get to their product. And so, um and in that process, often you can generate There's a whole wide variety of waste that get generated, some that uh are very easy to treat um and have been treated for a long time,

and some that are particularly hard. And the hard ones usually come uh uh because they are particularly toxic or they're regulated in some way the the contaminants become very It's very Basically, there's a legal requirement to uh to address those contaminants before returning the water back to uh to the general supply. And so,

um that's where we help facilities kind of solve problems is in that space where um you know, otherwise, it might be really hard to meet uh compliance or discharge standards um given their existing capacity uh or products. And this this particular solution is not necessarily for particulates, but it is something on a molecular level, right?

It is, yeah. So, we we are separating ions from water. So, if you think about the whole range of things that you have to remove as you're filtering things, you've got things that are really big. You think like, you know, dirt, stuff like that that you might need to remove.

Uh you very large filters, uh large pore filters that you can remove that. And you start getting down to smaller and smaller things um down to particles, bacteria, viruses, and the smallest of the small are those dissolved ions. Um and from a molecular size, they actually aren't even all that different than water. Um they're a

little bit bigger than water, uh but, you know, you're talking about uh molecular sizes that you're separating. And so, that's broadly, you know, separating ions from water is broadly classified as a desalination process. Um We usually think about desalination is like, "Oh, seawater." And that's like a very particular use case of desalination, but fundamentally

separating water and ions is a is a desalination process. And so, that's the type that we do. We don't do the other stuff. So, yeah. That's That's going to be the title of this of this episode. Desalination is just ions, it's not necessarily salt. Yep, exactly. Exactly.

Uh all right, so what was happening before or what is still happening today that is less efficient than uh your solution? Yeah, absolutely. So, I think that you can actually look at the broader history of desalination and and draw parallel between what we're doing.

So, if you look at how we used to If you take seawater, it's always been possible to purify seawater. Uh you know, 60, 70 years ago, people did it thermally. Um you know, you boil water, you can basically the water will evaporate, it will leave behind the salt. You can then condense the water, and you've got pure

water, and you've got salt left behind. That's desalination. It's just using heat instead of membranes. And so, you know, when the first reverse osmosis membranes were developed 60, 70 years ago, you know, that was a revolution that you could use a material, and you could use pressure to push water across a membrane, you could leave salt behind,

and you could create, you know, this clean water without having to boil that water and take it through a different phase. Um and so, that's really the you know, the other way that people have been, you know, treating water is you can dump chemicals in, and those chemicals can cause, you know, things to

precipitate out and to fall out of that water, and that is one way that you can separate uh some of these these ions from water, but basically your your routes to being able to treat uh ions uh is either adding chemicals or adding heat. Um and so, membranes, you know, present a third route, but the challenge is that

the membranes that have existed for a long time are very delicate. You can imagine trying to separate, you know, ions from water that are all molecularly sized, you're going to have to use materials that aren't necessarily made to go into really complex or harsh environments, so they just break down. And so, there's

been a lot of large portion of uh of industry that's been left behind that are still left using chemicals or heat in order to address their wastewater treatment challenges. And so, what Membrion is doing is we're we're taking that last part of the industry that's been left behind um on the desalination journey, and we're bringing

them up to the modern age. We're allowing them to use a membrane for the first time, uh which creates a far more sustainable and cost-effective um and physically smaller footprint uh for systems that they can install uh and leverage. And so, that's the that's the core journey that we help take customers on is the same thing that

most people have gone through over the last few decades, uh but they got left behind. Uh could you could we just a little bit more detailed about what that section of the industry was? So, I know we talked about wastewater treatment plants. Is that much data, or is there anyone else?

No, it's you know, for the most part, it's it's actually like a lot of It's a lot of industrial facilities that are required to treat their waste. So, it's anyone that's got um like acidic wastewater. Um so, acids are really challenging to to deal with, uh things that have oxidizers or foulants, uh chelators. If you have

residual particles, like these can be really complex streams from a desalination perspective. Um and often what ends up happening for industry is you have to use many different steps to be able to to treat these. And so, what we're doing is we can go into these environments without needing to protect the membranes in the same way that you

would otherwise. And so, uh that's where we can deliver something that's very uh compact and efficient from a treatment perspective. What is is this like oil and gas, or is this someone that like produces paint or something? We we tend to focus on uh industries like semiconductor, um where you might have uh dissolved copper or

tin, nickel, silver, palladium, things like that, where these metals have to be treated and removed. Um they're very complex, uh but uh but you don't have a good option from a membrane basis to be able to do that. Um so.

So, another thing that I believe uh through these conversations is uh um a difficulty with uh desalination and membranes and things are membrane fouling. Mhm. So, the is this still present in this type of technology or is that mostly relevant with other approaches to desalination? It's It's mostly relevant So, fouling is uh is a perpetual challenge no matter

what. So, what we do is we don't eliminate fouling, but we are orders of magnitude more resistant to fouling, right? So, for us, what it that means is it kind of shows up in two different ways. It means, you know, uh in membranes, if you're trying to use a membrane and things are sticking to the

surface of the membrane, it makes the makes the desalination process less efficient, right? So, you have two ways of dealing with that. You either make it less likely to stick or you clean it more often. Um at some point, you're cleaning so often, you're not actually treating, right? So, there's a limit and

the balance between when you actually need to do it. And so, for us, we benefit from both sides of that equation because we have these ceramic materials. Uh typical foulants are just a lot less likely to stick to ceramics. Um it's kind of In often, it's kind of like is attracted to to like. Um and ceramics

are not like the organic foulants. They're They're different. They're inorganic as opposed to organic. So, we don't get that sort of uh sticking behavior, which makes them a lot easier than uh we don't have to clean as often. Um but then the second benefit is that because stuff doesn't like to stick to

it, when you do go to clean it, it's much faster, it's much more efficient, use less chemicals to do it. Um and so, we kind of get that double benefit where we can go into these environments where you might not be able to handle it because it has these high levels of foulants. Um but we can go in and be and

do that desalination process just fine even with those foulants present. Wow. Was Was this when the technology was being developed, IP was being uh applied for things like this? Was this always a potential vision for it or did this come about in those grind of a year, the first 2 years or 3?

Yeah, I mean, I think there was a little bit of both. I mean, I think that we the technology was developed to survive really harsh applications. Um not in water, but actually in batteries initially. Um and so, we, you know, we eventually kind of made the connection to to water. So, there were certain things that we knew,

"Hey, this was designed to do this really well. This also exists in water." Yeah, so I just That was curious to me. I don't know how that What do you mean in batteries? Yeah, so basically, there's a type of There's a type of battery um called redox flow batteries. Those are kind of grid-scale

energy storage uh devices uh for storing like city-size quantities of energy. Uh very low kind of commercial opportunities for them right now. Um but that was the initial problem we were trying to solve with the research grant that I was on.

Even with the the introduction of all this AI data center stuff now? That's There is There's absolutely I think that's actually has the potential to really make these a lot more attractive um than they have been historically. But uh but the technology's been around for a long time um and the membrane was

basically designed to work in those initially. That was like the grant that we were on. And so, um yeah, it wasn't And if initially, first couple years of the company, we were really focused on like how do we solve this problem for this market?

Um but the market wasn't big enough to sustain a company. And so, we basically ended up pivoting into water. Fascinating. Um Oh my god, I just so many directions that that that idea of pivoting I think is so important. Well, okay. Well, I think that's that's that's uh that's good then because I had I did

want to ask you quickly how running Membrion with the stage of uh growth that you're in now with your your different uh goals and things. I mean, we could have an entire single episode just talking about the different stages of growth you've been through. Uh you did mention that you had just navigated

a pivot. Um so, that's something you could speak to. But outside of uh you know, the the the getting from zero to one, which is really difficult that you guys did successfully, what's different about running it now? You know, how would you even describe the stage that you're in relative to then? Yeah, we're definitely

in We're in a growth stage for for the company, meaning that, you know, we we went from that first initial idea to early prototypes to, you know, uh being able to do pilot manufacturing to now having a full manufacturing line to having full uh commercial systems in the field. So, we've we've done that full commercial

journey from idea to fully deployed system. Um and so, right now, it's really about doing that, you know, doing the installing more systems, fundamentally. That's That's the stage of growth that we're at. So, it's about how do we build repeatable, scalable systems to to deliver these projects to customers in the core markets that we see the

greatest impact uh for our customers uh being able to leverage it. So, um so, that's really where um where the company is at from a stage perspective. So, and when you when you say repeatable, scalable systems, you're not just talking about the tech, you're also talking about business systems.

Yes. Or operationally. about business systems. That's right, exactly. All that How we communicate across the team, you know, we're we're a team of 30 um right now um and and continuing to grow. And so, from that perspective, it is it is about how do we make sure that everyone is aligned and working toward

shared goals and effectively, you know, all the way from initial customer touchpoints with marketing and sales to customer success, operations and manufacturing, implementation, product. Um they've all got to work together effectively. And so, uh and quickly cuz that's the other component is that, you know, we are uh we've got phenomenal investors that have

come on board uh with Membrion and they have expectations for how quickly we're going to grow. So, we're in the process of of meeting those expectations. Craig, that sounds like a lot. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. All right. I got uh I got two final questions that I love to ask everybody.

And uh the first one, you know, outside of all of the other questions that you have provoked, uh I will I keep to these two. And and uh I guess, you know, we'll schedule another time that I can go to.

But uh but yeah, so for you right now, running the company, um you know, for for your personal journey with the company, maybe, or uh you know, just operationally, what's the biggest hurdle for you and how is it also an opportunity?

Yeah. Um so, for me personally, you know, I think when starting Membrion, one of the things that I I felt very committed to is that like I I wanted to be an accelerant to the company, not a hindrance, right? So, like I wanted to feel like that the what I was contributing in whatever role that

is for the company, that I was moving us faster instead of slower. So, one of the key things kind of along this journey that I've been mindful of is that my rate of learning and execution um has to be such that I am continuing to move us faster uh than uh rather than slowing us down

because it's taking me too long to figure something out or I'm making the same mistake again and again um in different ways. And so, that's something that I've been very mindful of on this journey is making sure that um that that emphasis on how quickly I can learn. And I think that that is one

of the strengths that I personally bring to the team is that uh I I listen well and I learn quickly. Um and that helps in a lot of ways to drive us as an organization to be able to capitalize on opportunities or see things that might not otherwise be obvious within the market or with our

customers as ways that we can help and and support them. And I think that's created a lot of uh you know, with for sure the support of the team that embodies a lot of those similar values, creates the opportunities that we have.

Yeah, that how with within that Thank you for sharing that cuz that's really cool and nuanced. That could be easier to do something that was more tactical engineering, you know, whatever. So, and it's so important. How are there systems around you or you mentioned the team?

Like how are you held accountable for for that contribution? Mhm. Yep. So, I mean, I think that one thing that we we do really well as as a team is that we set very transparent goals um for the entire company around, you know, what we're trying to do at any given time.

And then it becomes really about how we execute towards those goals. Um and so, that's, you know, that spans everything from uh from revenue to product to uptime to uh to all sorts of things. And so, um you know, I've got, you know, for me personally, I've got the board that holds me accountable to the goals that

we set. For the team, like, you know, we And we all have kind of an individual level of accountability that, you know, no one on the team needs someone over their shoulder saying like, "Hey, you got to get this done because you committed to get it done." And it's that self-motivation that we want to be

better. We want to see how good we can get. And that's going to drive us to hit these goals that we set, which are aggressive um but attainable um you know, with focus. So. Um yep, okay. Going to continue with this filter this this uh this whole this whole theme is as um membranes and, you

know, filtering all this stuff. I'm doing this I'm doing this in my questions. That's right. Uh so, my last one for you then, all the work that you're doing, uh clearly I think your technology is uh contributing positively to the world and uh and all the people uh the industry that you're serving. For you,

with all this work, what inspires you? Yeah. Um I mean, I think I think a lot of it comes back to It is it is the uh the impact of the work that I think makes uh makes the biggest deal for me. And I think it was one of those things that coming into starting Membrion, I was

very mindful that like, you know, we we were going to be more sustainable. We were going to create, you know, opportunities to to make the world a better place. It didn't really like it's however it it started to feel really different after I had my first kid about 4 years ago where all of a

sudden like that component of like, okay, yeah, like I you know, for myself, my family, my friends want to create a a better world, um you know, that's more sustainable in the long run, more circular, uh less wasteful uh with what we're doing. And Membrion certainly enables that. But um but having my son really, you know, make

really brought that home around like, okay, yeah, and like you know, this is somewhat like there's an opportunity to create a better world for a particular uh person. And I think it's just for me like I don't know I don't know what it what it was that just really brought that idea home that like this is more

than just um you know, an opportunity to do good for society, but it's an opportunity to good for someone that I a particular person that I really love and care about. Um and so yeah, it's been even more motivating the last few years uh with that in mind. Uh but I think the you

know, we've got great opportunities in front of us to uh to really create a lot of good. Um and love the customers that we work with that join us, you know, in that. So. Well, shout out to your son. Thanks.

Shout out. Thank you uh thank you for the inspiration. Well, Greg, this has been so cool. I really appreciate all of the knowledge that you just dropped boom all across the conversation. There's a lot that I'm going to be pulling from this. Uh a lot of puns I'm going to be wanting to make about the Membrion

thing. I could have right there, but I didn't. Uh if anyone else was inspired to follow along or get in touch, what's the best way to do so? Uh I think reaching out to us uh via our website uh info@membrion.com is a great way. I'm also on LinkedIn. Um so would love to connect with folks.

Cool. Well, Greg, thank you so much. I'm excited to see you Thanks, Mike. Yeah, appreciate it.