BUILDERS

How Vycarb's 'show, then tell' marketing strategy converts prospects | Garrett Boudinot

Vycarb is commercializing a carbon storage technology that mimics ocean chemistry, converting CO2 into bicarbonate—a stable molecule that remains sequestered for hundreds of thousands of years. Based in Brooklyn, the company operates at the intersection of hard science and market-making in carbon removal, where customers, verification standards, and pricing mechanisms are all emerging simultaneously. Garrett Boudinot shares how Vycarb navigated this complexity: closing their first deals with progressive offset aggregators, pivoting from voluntary ESG buyers to compliance-driven ICPs as market dynamics shifted in 2022-2023, and building international pipeline in Asia Pacific and Europe that became essential when US climate policy reversed in 2025.

Topics Discussed:

  • Early customer strategy with Frontier Fund and Milkywire as market-making offset aggregators 

  • The 2022-2023 market shift from voluntary ESG purchasing to compliance-driven urgency 

  • ICP evolution: identifying customers facing carbon taxes versus sustainability commitments 

  • International expansion into Singapore and Asia Pacific compliance markets pre-2025 

  • Raising a US climate tech seed round in 2025 during sector-wide funding contraction 

  • Scaling pilots iteratively while building verification methodologies for a nascent category 

  • Marketing strategy: facility tours, industry-specific PR in cement and aluminum, strategic investor logos 

  • Transition from performance metric validation to site-specific commercial design 

  • Leveraging strategic investors (Idemitsu, Rio Tinto, Mitsui, Shell) for channel partnerships 

  • Building distributed deployment capability from centralized Brooklyn pilot operations

GTM Lessons For B2B Founders:

  • Find customers where your solution impacts P&L, not just values

  • Progressive customers build category infrastructure, not just revenue

  • Geographic diversification is risk mitigation, not just expansion

  • Centralized demonstration beats distributed ops at early stage

  • Proof of execution replaces messaging in nascent categories

  • Convert strategic investors into channel partners

  • Build verification infrastructure as you scale, not after

//

Sponsors:

Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io

The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co

//

Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire

Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.

Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM