I had the great privilege to have Steve Weiss join me on the podcast this month. Steve Weiss, CEO and co-founder of Grey Heron, and a member of Jim Lane's notorious 'Due Diligence Wolfpack', shares key lessons in building commercial traction, securing investors and more. Building on themes that we have explored previously with Paul Bryan, Roger Wyse, Andy Shafer and Jim Lane, Steve also shares insights into how to get deals done.
Steve brings an extraordinary range of experience into our discussions, having started out from MIT into the world of software and IT and then migrating to the world of biobased economy, materials and clean technology, we explore a number of aspects of getting deals done.
We open the discussion in earnest reflecting on how interesting and/or superior technology can be interesting, but a clear and precise value proposition is a critical consideration in bringing companies and products to market. We explore a little bioproduct history, reflecting on the comparative success of companies bringing succinic acid and 1,4 butanediol to market. Steve reflected on the successes of Genomatica (who were recently acquired by Again) and the relative merits of both products and the commercial implications.
The notion of platforms and the challenges of undertaking product and market development were discussed, and the associated requirements of building new supply chains and value propositions and Steve touched on Paul Bryan's 'one miracle rule'. We then explore the importance of economics, and specifically production economics and the effect of different strategies on financing and partnering requirements. We reflect on how Contract Manufacturing Organisations (CMOs) can be partners that build value and potentially lower capital raising requirements and contrast that with what is needed to internalise manufacturing.
Steve introduced a profound question – 'What do you need to be when you grow up?'! Steve suggested that this is articulating credible and defensible pathways to scale. He then reflected on the notion of technology platforms with multiple uses and the need to focus on what creates value in identified markets to create the foundations of the business. Getting focus and delivery creates not only free cashflow but offers optionality having 'earned the right' to pursue other opportunities. This had me reflecting on wisdom from Ganesh Kishore around having a vertical that you own in contrast to a broader licensing play. Steve then offered a different angle on licensing, product distribution and market understanding: 'There's no substitute to hearing from the customer.'
We spent a little time reflecting on Letters of Intent (LOIs) and how they create customer intimacy and value for organisations raising capital. Steve offered insightful approaches to the range of LOI outcomes and how they can catalyse uncovering of interest in new products. LOIs can be a great litmus test for genuine interest in a new offering. Steve offered another perspective on how to build customer intimacy, by holding out an offer to 'love them best' by bringing them 'inside the tent'.
We closed on reflecting on 'valleys of death' and 'pivoting' – two phrases that we found respectively induced allergic reactions! These phrases may be becoming excuses and perhaps point to the need to deal with the (perhaps brutal) realities of raising funds and/or bringing new products to market and the resilience needed to do so. Amongst those 'hard lessons', Steve reflected on where there are, in my words, 'silent submarines' that are surfacing and perhaps again showing that commercial success is not necessarily correlated with 'market noise'.
