The Plucky Bamboo Podcast

Chris Jones
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

We feature some of the top business leaders in Sustainability, talking through their growth challenges and how they're solving them. From marketing & sales to recruitment & retention, what does it actually take to grow an impact-first business today? If you're growing a Sustainability business or want to move into it, this show is a must-listen for you. Learn from the brightest and most cutting-edge minds in the sector!

  1. 5d ago

    Michael Newton of Qorium talks lab-grown leather, why there's no green premium & selling into big brands

    Michael Newton spent 15 years at Nike watching startups pitch new materials and fail. Now he's the one pitching. Michael is CEO of Qorium, which grows real leather from cow cells in weeks instead of the 2 years it takes to raise a cow. Qorium doesn't call it a leather alternative. It's leather, made in precise uniform sheets that cut waste, and priced to compete in the top third of a 100 billion euro market. The interesting part is how Qorium sells it. Michael helped build Nike's innovation department, so he knows what the buying side sees. Qorium shortlisted almost 100 luxury brands against clear criteria, built warm introductions, and treats fewer than 10 committed partners as a huge win. Its first public product with a major brand lands in 2027. We discuss: - Why there's no green premium, and what Qorium sells on instead - Why an intro from the CEO usually goes nowhere (Michael watched it happen at Nike) - The 3 groups you have to win inside a big brand, and why selling to 1 champion sinks materials startups - How to tell a real "come back later" from a polite no - What a commercial CEO sees that a scientist founder can't Michael's take is direct: "There's no green premium out there. You have to make an incredibly beautiful, high performing product." If you're a climate or materials founder with a better product, a long sales cycle, and big-brand partners who love you but haven't signed, this conversation is full of specific, hard-won lessons on selling into large companies, positioning past the sustainability story, and building a commercial engine around the science.

  2. Sep 17

    Stenver Jerkku of Soldera Talks Scaling to $1B With Under 30 People, AI Agents vs Middle Management & Founder-Led Sales

    Most founders scale by hiring layers of management. Stenver Jerkku is trying to build a billion dollar company without ever building any. Stenver is the founder of Soldera, infrastructure for global energy compliance, helping corporates and utilities navigate one of the most fragmented, old-school markets in the world. He's a serial entrepreneur who founded Soldera the same month GPT-3.5 launched, and went all in on AI from day one. Instead of hiring layers of managers as the company grows, he's staying under 30 people and giving each "star" hire a full suite of AI agents instead of a team to manage. We discuss: Why he's betting a $1 billion outcome on staying under 30 people, and giving every top hire an AI agent team instead of a management chain Why AI skill is nearly worthless without taste, and how bad taste just produces "slop at scale" Why he let go of 40% of his hires last year, and why he says he's never once regretted firing someone, only firing too slow Why AI can do every part of enterprise sales except the actual moment of human contact, and how buyers instantly pattern-match "AI slop" Why he validated Soldera's market with a bottle of wine before writing a line of code, and why he now refuses to trust "public domain" or investor narratives Stenver's take is fairly straightforward: if you can't sell it yourself, why should anybody else be able to sell it? If you're a technical founder who's brilliant at the product but avoids the sales calls, or you're weighing whether AI agents can genuinely replace headcount, this conversation is full of specific, hard-won lessons on hiring, firing, and why growth still has to start with you.

  3. Sep 10

    Sophie Tuviahu of Bioplasmar talks why bioplastics get priced out, the pivot from product to material & how EU regulation is forcing demand

    Nobody designs a product for a material made out of potato peels. Sophie Tuviahu is CEO of Bioplasmar, which makes biodegradable materials from green waste. Before this, she worked in commercial roles at UBQ Materials. When she joined Bioplasmar, the company was selling biodegradable plant pots direct to the horticultural market, a low-end, price-sensitive category where a product costing 2 to 4 times more than standard plastic never wins on a straight comparison. Her fix wasn't a better pot. It was a different business: stop selling a product that degrades and start selling a material that does, supplied to manufacturers as an injection molding or extrusion grade compound. We discuss: Why the plant pot business was a trap even though the material was genuinely better The real reason bioplastics get priced out, and it isn't the cost of the raw material Why she thinks a good salesperson beats a conference booth almost every time Who actually moves first on sustainable materials, and why it's rarely the brand you'd expect How Europe's PPWR packaging regulation is about to force new demand for compostable materials, and where the opportunity sits in the supply chain Sophie's take is direct: it is not a planting pot that degrades, it is a material that degrades, and once you find the right application, the cost difference takes care of itself. If you're a materials or climate-tech founder pricing against an incumbent commodity, this conversation is full of specific, hard-won lessons on repositioning around your actual value, reading regulation as a demand signal, and choosing your battles in go-to-market.

  4. Sep 3

    Tom Wilford of Ella talks killing his SaaS for an AI agent, selling on time saved & the new distribution moat

    Most founders protect what's working. Tom Wilford burned his own company down while it was still growing. Tom is the founder and CEO of Ella, an AI agent for sustainability data, carbon reporting and B Corp certification. For 4 years he ran Future Proof, a working ESG software platform, before deciding at a team retreat in Prague to tear it down and rebuild it from nothing as an AI-native agent. No customer was asking for it. He made the call on instinct a year before the market caught up, and spent 2025 quietly moving every existing customer onto the new platform. We discuss: Why he killed a product that was working, and what convinced him it wouldn't surviveThe moment his team went from "this is bloody scary" to genuinely excited about the rebuildWhy he prices the agent in days saved, not dollars, and who that's actually written forRunning two completely different sales motions at once, small B Corp businesses and PE-backed mid-marketWhy he thinks distribution has replaced product as the real competitive moat Tom's take? "just focus on stuff that is must-haves for businesses and not nice-to-haves." If you're a bootstrapped climate founder trying to work out whether your product is a want or a need, this conversation is full of specific, hard-won lessons on pivoting, positioning and selling sustainability as a commercial decision, not a mission statement.

  5. Aug 27

    Nick Sandland of Algenesis Labs talks biodegradable materials, off-take deals & commercialising deep science

    Great science doesn't guarantee a market. Nick Sandland spent years finding that out for other people, before he bet his own career on it. In this episode of The Plucky Bamboo Podcast, Nick Sandland, the commercial lead at Algenesis Labs, talks about what it actually takes to turn deep material science into a business. Algenesis was founded by three UC San Diego professors with a genuinely novel biodegradable polyurethane and no industry experience. Nick joined to build the commercial side from nothing, including the sales pipeline, the manufacturing logistics, and the go-to-market strategy. Nick explains why footwear became Algenesis's wedge market instead of chasing every industry that could technically use the material, and how a research paper on microplastics, published within weeks of a major New England Journal of Medicine article, unexpectedly turned an abstract sustainability pitch into something people could feel personally. We discuss: Why scientific credibility and commercial viability are two separate problems Why off-take agreements aren't the safety net most founders assume How the funding bar for materials companies has quietly risen, and what VCs actually mean when they say no Why relying on a single manufacturing plant is a bigger risk than founders realise Why giving away product converts faster than any pitch deck Nick's take is straightforward: in industrial materials, there's no way to skip the adoption curve. You win the innovators and early adopters first, and everything else follows from there. If you're commercialising deep science in a risk-averse, long-cycle industry, this conversation is full of specific, hard-won lessons on positioning, partnerships, and what actually earns trust.

  6. Aug 13

    Angelo Amicarelli of Finapp talks cosmic ray sensors, niche positioning & scaling hardware

    Most founders chase the biggest possible market. Angelo Amicarelli chased the smallest one he could own completely. In this episode of The Plucky Bamboo Podcast, Angelo Amicarelli, co-founder of FinApp, talks about building a category of one. FinApp uses cosmic ray neutron detection, technology that started as university research into homeland security, to measure water in soil, snow, and crops. There are only three companies in the world doing this. FinApp is one of them. Angelo explains why he'd rather spend an hour explaining something no one has heard of than compete in a market everyone already understands, and how that choice has shaped everything from FinApp's name to its sales cycle. We discuss: Why FinApp built the technology first and found the market second, and why Angelo wouldn't recommend that path to anyone else The reseller partnership that looked perfect and quietly went nowhere Why "the technology speaks for itself" has cost Angelo money in two separate companies How FinApp's pitch had to fragment across agriculture, meteorology, and disaster monitoring What he actually screens for when hiring salespeople for a product with a multi-year sales cycle Angelo's take is direct: technology only has value once it's tied to a client's specific pain. Without that, even genuinely novel science doesn't sell itself. If you're building hardware in a technical, long-cycle sustainability market, this conversation is full of specific, hard-earned lessons on positioning, partnerships, and sales.

  7. Jul 9

    Alexander Blum of Applied Bioplastics talks bioplastics pricing, manufacturing & profitability

    Bioplastics have existed for over 30 years. After three decades of government grants, investor capital, and charismatic founders, the industry still hasn't produced a genuinely profitable company. Alexander Blum, founder of Applied Bioplastics, is trying to be the first. In this episode, Alex breaks down why an industry the world needs has struggled to make money: the gap between scientific leadership and business leadership, a pricing problem that shuts bioplastics out of the markets where plastic actually gets used, and a funding model addicted to grants and capital instead of customers. He also gets into distributed vs. centralised manufacturing, the funding rounds Applied Bioplastics has lost to a pandemic, a crypto crash, and a war, and why "the tech will speak for itself" is the most expensive belief a founder can hold. Find Alex Blum on LinkedIn and learn more about Applied Bioplastics at applied-bioplastics.com. ———Building a climate or sustainability business and feel like the growth still runs through you?Take the free Growth Diagnostic - 6 minutes to find the biggest bottleneck holding your growth back, and see how you compare to 300+ climate founders: pluckybamboo.com/growth-diagnostic

  8. Apr 16

    Akhila Kosaraju of What If Design talks climate tech messaging, UX & selling to non-technical buyers

    Climate tech has a communication problem. And it's slowing down the entire industry. Akhila Kosaraju, co-founder of What If Design, works with deep tech climate companies on design, messaging, and product experience. She's seen brilliant founders with world-changing technology lose deals, confuse buyers, and waste months of development - all because of how they present their work. In this episode, we dig into why technical founders struggle to talk to business buyers, how to build trust with stakeholders before your product is ready, and what great design actually means beyond logos and pretty websites. If you're building in the climate space and wondering why your message isn't landing, this episode will be helpful! ———Building a climate or sustainability business and feel like the growth still runs through you?Take the free Growth Diagnostic - 6 minutes to find the biggest bottleneck holding your growth back, and see how you compare to 300+ climate founders: pluckybamboo.com/growth-diagnosticThe Plucky Bamboo Podcast: sustainability founders on how they actually grow - demand, sales, and the systems behind it. Hosted by Chris Jones.

See All (54)

About

We feature some of the top business leaders in Sustainability, talking through their growth challenges and how they're solving them. From marketing & sales to recruitment & retention, what does it actually take to grow an impact-first business today? If you're growing a Sustainability business or want to move into it, this show is a must-listen for you. Learn from the brightest and most cutting-edge minds in the sector!

Information

  • Creator
    Chris Jones
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    54
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Chris Jones
  • Show Website
    The Plucky Bamboo Podcast