S10E135 Edwin McClure/Bio520 - A Vertical Farming Solution 10 Million Years in the Making

Harry Duran

0:00 - 0:05

So, Edwin McClure, CEO of Bio 520, thank you so much for joining me on vertical Farming podcast.

Edward McClure

0:06 - 0:07

Thanks, Harry. It's great to be here.

Harry Duran

0:08 - 0:15Ignore this for outputs

So it's always nice to kind of put people in a time and a place for these because people are normally listening from all over the world. So where are you today?

Edward McClure

0:15 - 0:21

I'm in San Diego. Carlsbad, specifically. Yeah. Southern California. The weather's beautiful again.

Harry Duran

0:23 - 0:34

Yeah. I always remember as a kid when we would travel and we would go to San Diego because we lived in New York at the time, and it was like, people would talk about it as being, like, the perfect climate because it was always, like, 76 and sunny.

Edward McClure

0:34 - 0:41

It's beautiful. I mean, it does rain once in a blue moon, but I've lived. I've been to a lot of the US, and there's nothing quite like San Diego.

Harry Duran

0:41 - 0:43

Were you born and raised there?

Edward McClure

0:44 - 0:45

No, I grew up in Miami.

Harry Duran

0:45 - 0:48

Okay. And how has that changed for you?

Edward McClure

0:49 - 1:00

So, I mean, Miami is great, but it can be hot and humid and there's tons of bugs and, you know, it's just. It's better than being, you know, in Illinois, where I lived for a while.

Harry Duran

1:00 - 1:00

Yeah.

Edward McClure

1:01 - 1:03

But San Diego is definitely a step up.

Harry Duran

1:03 - 1:06

Yeah. What brought you to San Diego?

Edward McClure

1:06 - 1:39

I've been into finance my whole life, and we can talk more about that, maybe, but I studied finance at University of Illinois, so I grew up in Miami, went to school in Illinois, ended up being an illiterate for five years, and I basically just drew a line across the country and, like, I'm not living north of this line ever again, you know? And so I had some good friends that had already moved to San Diego, and my parents were in Orange county. My mom and stepdad were in Orange county at the time, and so that was just close enough, you know, where I could visit them when I wanted to, but they weren't going to come visit me on when I didn't want them to, so it was. That's how I got down.

Harry Duran

1:39 - 1:54

Yeah. And talk a little bit about. We're going to talk a little bit how you got into ag, and I'm sure the interesting journey that got you to where you are today, but the quick 32nd synopsis of, like, your previous background in terms of, like, you mentioned finance and business as well.

Edward McClure

1:54 - 4:06

Yeah. So I've always been. I've just. My whole life, since I was a little kid, I've always been interested in business, you know, small companies, and there's nothing more american to me than some guy or woman putting it on the line. Blood, sweat, and tears and trying to create something out of nothing, you know? So that's just been how I've been built since I was little. And so I studied finance in school. I came out to San Diego, and jobs were tough then. And I got a job cold calling it Smith Barney, and I became a financial planner. And that's a whole other conversation. But that was a brutal way to start a business. And I didn't know anybody in San Diego, so I was just, you know, cold calling, essentially. But that's my background. So because I love business, most of my clients are business owners or they're clients that I've got, that I've met at the business. I'll do the retirement plan for the business, or I'll work with the CEO, and then I meet somebody else and they become a client. And so for me, you know, I got into ag, kind of a backdoor. I mean, I learned about it in Illinois. I learned to really respect farmers when I was there. You know, most of my school is from Chicago, but there are a lot of farmers there. And you realize really quick, like, how, first of all, how satisfying it is, what they do, but also how hard it is. Like, these guys work hard, and I've worked hard my whole life, so anybody who works hard, like, has my respect. And so I actually, you know, things been going well lately, and I teach my students that, you know, I teach class once in a while, and I teach my students, like, you got to take the money, put it into an asset, right? It's going to be a retirement plan or stocks, bonds, or real estate or whatever, but one of the things you can do is try to create a business. Well, that's my thing. That's what I've been interested in my whole life. Right? So I went looking. I got together with a sales salesman. A guy that I've known for a long time is a fantastic salesman who ended up not doing this with me, but we started it together, and we just went looking for some product that we thought would be a really good product to take to market. And I found bio 520. So I wasn't the inventor of it or anything, but we just really liked it. And I've always been interested in tech stuff, science. And so we started talking about hydroponics, and it's like, okay, that's the perfect spot for this product, right? And so that's just. It's kind of snowballed from there, so.

Harry Duran

4:06 - 4:16

A lot to unpack there. Where do you think you got that drive? Is it from your family, if your parents that sort of like business drive. Work drive, entrepreneurial drive, whatever you like to call it.

Edward McClure

4:16 - 5:13

these blow pops. So I'd sell: 6700

Harry Duran

5:13 - 6:12

It's interesting because I think about we did the same with my brothers because the good humor truck would always come back and I don't know if that's a local reference or it's the ice cream truck and you need to hear the bell. So we're like, well we could do the same thing because we'd go to the supermarket and buy the pop and buy twelve pack of pops and buy the bulk, you know, the blow pops. And we had like a little garage and a little candy store basically set up in our garage. And it was mainly my little brother and little sister. But they made like really good money over the summer and they used that, you know, they did a trip, they went back home to I'm from El Salvador and they went back home and they were like kings over there and kings and queens because they had all this money, they were treating everyone to snacks. But it's so interesting to develop that self sufficiency or that ability to know that you can at a minor scale, at a micro scale. They understand the importance of markets and creating product that people want and seeing what sells, what doesn't. And then you experience firsthand competition. People get a whiff that something's working and they swoop right in.

Edward McClure

6:13 - 7:10

Exactly. And the entrepreneur mindset, I just love it. A lot of my clients are entrepreneurs and they just think differently. They're always looking for opportunity, they're always looking for efficiency. They're always looking. Their time is really, really valuable. For me, this is just as much about trying to start a good, efficient company and trying to help good companies become efficient as it is about AG along the way. Honestly, I have fallen in love with the Ag stuff, our product right now, we've really narrowed our focus, and we're in cannabis and indoor and greenhouse, but the vertical farm, and we've had some really good tracks in cannabis, and those guys are extremely passionate about what they do. They want to change the world. And the indoor ag guys are the same way. They want to change the world. And when you get around people that are passionate, you just kind of want to be part of that. It kind of sucks you in.

Harry Duran

7:10 - 7:58

Yeah, for sure. Given your experience in finance. It's interesting, because when we think about the conversations that I've had over the past three years, three, four years now on the show, there's a lot of talk about capex, opex expenses, energy expenses, putting together a plan to make sure a farm is successful, people who have come in with high hopes and thinking of this as a sass play versus an actual farm play, and then finding out the hard way that doesn't work when all the money dries up. So it's interesting that you bring that expertise and that perspective in terms of those conversations. So I don't know to what extent you've had in some of those in depth conversations with some of the farmers, but how important is that? If you could kind of just touch on that in your experience, just with business in general, about like the importance of finance and having a solid plan?

Edward McClure

-: 10:17

Absolutely. I think it's incredibly important. Any business. But let's just talk about the indoor ag. I've got some guys on my team that have grown, and they've been in the space for a while, and they're my experts and they know all that stuff. I'm still learning it, but there's some things I've definitely noticed and some things that I'm still trying to learn. I'm still trying to really wrap my brain around the economics of some of the farms. You're selling stuff that per unit, you're not getting much for it, and your margins are razor thin. So any efficiency you can have is absolutely critical, and there's no room for any mistake. I've seen a lot of mistakes. One of the big mistakes I've seen two years ago, or however many years ago, there was a bunch of investment that came into Indorag and everybody scaled up and they did all this automation and it was too early. I've learned this from other people. I didn't make this up. But you want to really get your process down, do it. Do it again. Get it efficient. And it has to be efficient before you scale, because you spend all that money and you've scaled the wrong thing and now you're hosed, the money's gone. Right. So it's better to move a little slower and make sure you're really, really efficient. The other thing is, I think every business has their key. People are focused on something, but they're not always focused on all the things they need to be focused on. So if there's a lot of accountants, then they're focused on keeping the costs low. Well, sometimes you need to spend that money to become automated or to really create a higher quality product. Other people are focused just on the farming. You can have the best frigging product in the world, but if you can't sell it, if you don't have anybody to sell it to, you are screwed. Pardon my French. So I'm a sales guy, so I tend to focus on the sales stuff. And I'm a numbers guy, so I focus on the numbers. I'm counting on other people to figure out how to really grow it. So the thing I love about the space is I go in these people, by and large, the people that we're getting introduced to, they're already really good growers. They already, they've got their process. They've been doing it for years. We're just trying to enhance it a little bit. We're just trying to add a little bit to it, create a little bit of efficiency. Right? A little bit of efficiency is a big deal. I mean, you get 510 percent more efficient, you might double your profit margin. So that's all we're trying to do. Like, that's our whole story.

Harry Duran

-: 10:42

So given that experience, you had the financial discipline, which is really important, and I had to learn it the hard way as an entrepreneur. Like, hey, maybe you should pay your taxes on time and maybe you should set aside a budget for all this, you know, because coming from the nine to five world, you magically get money deposited in your account every twice a month. And it's just there. Taxes are taken care of. And, you know, it's a really shift in mindset when you become an entrepreneur. You start thinking about all the things you didn't have to worry about before.

Edward McClure

-: 10:50

Absolutely. I mean, until you have had to meet a payroll and not pay yourself because there wasn't quite enough money for both you're not really an entrepreneur.

Harry Duran

-: 11:08

Yeah, for sure. Like, you wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, oh, I forgot to, like, email that one client, or I forgot to, like, think about, like, invoice and just, like, it just never stops. And I think you just have to find a way to manage it and not let it kind of overlap too much with your personal world. And that's really where the challenge becomes.

Edward McClure

-: 11:14

I couldn't agree more, and I'm getting better and better at it, but I still struggle with that. It's like it never, it's hard to turn it off.

Harry Duran

-: 11:33

So I love the fact that you come from a world where if you don't have the discipline and the numbers don't make sense, you're not getting involved because it's literally, like, as black and white as it can get when it comes to numbers. And are you profitable or not? That's a binary answer. It's either yes or no.

Edward McClure

-: 12:12

Yes. And I don't care how you think about money. You know, a business has to make money. If you want your people to stay employed, if you want your product to make a difference in the world, you've got to have a profitable company. So I'm learning that in this industry, everybody is on a mission, and I friggin I love that. But I want to make sure that everybody's, make sure that they're focused on having a profitable business, because you can have a profitable business now. You can scale it, you can grow it, you can really make an impact. And if you don't, eventually it's going to shut down and your people aren't going to have jobs, and the product is never going to make a difference. So you have to have a business mindset, whether you want to or not. It just, it has to make sense, and it has to be profitable.

Harry Duran

-: 12:32

So you talked a little bit about the journey as to, in terms of, like, finding where you wanted to put your time and investment and what space you wanted to play in next. So talk a little bit about the story of, like, how you discovered the bio 520 team and a little bit of their history and background, because I'm sure people who have not learned about it yet would be fascinating to hear that.

Edward McClure

-: 13:57

Sure. Yeah. Given just the way I've built. I've started a couple of companies over the years, and I'm a financial planner. I still am doing my financial planning practice. That's a full time gig for me, and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to give it up. I just really love it. I really. I feel like I'm good at it. And frankly, you know, this business is really difficult. So starting in the beginning is, like, really, really challenging. Once you get beyond a certain point and you get enough clients, it actually becomes much easier, and it's very stable. One of my big challenges is just time, right? I've got this. I've got two businesses now, and my big thing is I'm trying to find the right people to run the bio 520 business. But in the beginning, I was just looking for a good product, and I knew I wanted certain things. I wanted a product that was, you know, that was something that I could believe in, something that I felt good about bring into the world. I wanted a product that was repeatable, that if people were going to buy it, they were going to keep buying it. I do a lot of 401 ks, and they're kind of like that. If I can keep the client and do a good job for them, they keep putting more money in. And in the beginning, you make nothing, but over time, it works out really well. And I wanted it to be something that had enough margin in it that we could build a good system. And so I had several ideas to begin with. I've been thinking about it for a while. I've been talking to my friend who I was going to build this thing with, you know, because he's a sales guy, and I knew I wasn't gonna have time to sell it. Like, I'm already doing this.

Harry Duran

-: 14:13

And, you know, I'm curious because I always hear about that example of Thomas Edison, who, like, had however many thousands of iterations before he finally discovered the light bulb. So were there any interesting, like, products that you passed on that you thought might have been interesting?

Edward McClure

-: 15:32

Yeah, there's a few, and it didn't take me long to find, you know, to find bio 520. Once I found it, I already liked the idea of hydroponics, even though I didn't really. All I knew was what you could read in a journal or what you would see on. There's a bunch of different things. There was a kind of a really interesting chemical company that I shouldn't say chemical because it's 100% organic, but they used it for cleaning, like, hospitals, and they have a product that can clean up oil spills. It's just really, really interesting stuff. But when I looked more into it, the product was perfect. But the company, I just didn't trust that at the end of the day, you know, and they're getting their act together and they're changing things. And I might eventually, some of those products might be usable in the ag space, so I may eventually bring some of that back in. But it was a great product. But I just, I didn't trust that, like, if I got a really big order that they were going to be able to deliver it. At the end of the day, what were some other ones? There were a bunch of different things we looked at. There's some hardware things, and those can be really interesting. One of your podcasts I was listening to recently, back, just recently, they're focused on robotics, and I'm fascinated by robots. Right. And I think those are fantastic companies. But I wanted something where once it was sold, it wasn't just done. I could, as long as I did a good job for the client, they would keep wanting to buy it. Right. So, yeah, there's a bunch of different things we looked at.

Harry Duran

-: 16:03

No, it's interesting because when you're on the other end of that conversation and you're working and you're looking to find someone who may come in and join your company to help in with an expertise like you have. Right. It's important as a business owner to know, like, hey, my financials better be solid, my product better, you know, be really good and does what it says on the label. I be, I gotta have my processes in place because otherwise, you know, as you just pointed out, those are the things that someone, like, with your background and looking to make that sort of investment in a company, those are the things they look for.

Edward McClure

-: 16:41

Yeah. And I found it through a guy that I had known in a prior business, and he said, I've got a couple things to look at. And we started talking, and that was kind of the beginning of the end. The product itself comes from Japan. It was developed by a PhD in Japan and developed for the indoor ag industry, fruits and vegetables. We actually got our first traction, really, in cannabis. And so the first thing I did was I knew some people in the cannabis industry who I thought of as really good growers, and I sent it to them. I'm like, okay, look, this is how it's supposed to work. You've got to try it. Now, one of those guys has become my head grower with our company. Now.

Harry Duran

-: 16:42

He's bought in.

Edward McClure

-: 17:59

He's bought in. So that was, I believe, the guy who brought it to me, but I had to test it out. So it's the very first thing I did. And after a few tests, you realize, okay, there's something here. This really, really works and so basically it just processed in Japan. It's completely organic product. It's just basically ground minerals. And they've got a specialized process where they grind it really, really fine. It's very easy for the plants to uptake, and it has this sort of unusual ability of helping whatever nutrients you're already using. It kind of helps those, helps you uptake those as well. So there's sort of a synergy that happens. And I apologize. I can't really explain, like why, but we know we're new to the US. We know we've only been here a couple of years. Most people don't know us, but we also know the product works. And so our entire sales process is basically, look, do you believe us enough just to give it a try? And that's it. And we'll send them the product and have them try it out and they'll learn for themselves. And that's, you know, eventually maybe we won't have to do that, but for now, that's our model. And so people that are research oriented or people that are looking for new ideas, those are the people we want to talk to, and those are people I love working with anyway, so that's how we found it. I mean, that's kind of what I think.

Harry Duran

-: 18:44

What's interesting is that type of, we talked about earlier about this incremental improvement, right? Because sometimes people are looking for like, you know, swinging for the fences and what's the big thing? But to your point, if you could improve, grow your capacity by 20%, you know, or grow the quality or, you know, like the yields and stuff like that, because these are really important numbers because when you start looking at, you know, how much you can squeeze out of a farm, this is the big, big concern for farmers. And I think they're willing and probably more open than in other areas to try different things. And to your point, it probably needs to make sure, and maybe this is some guidance that you provide, like it's a control test. So, you know, like, this is the one knob you turn, like the bio 520 knob, as opposed to like, lighting, you know, all the other environmental factors that can impact the growth of the crop.

Edward McClure

-: 20:11

Yeah, two of my, so I've got two partners in my business. I'm the CEO, and these guys are part of the business as well. They're both, they've both been grown with it. They both understand the indoor space really well. And so part of what we're trying to do as a company is not just provide this product that we think is great. And have you tested and have it work, but also, you know, sort of like a minor consultant and help you improve processes. Because we've seen so many farms, we've got, we've kind of got that knowledge. They have that knowledge and there's a lot of knowledge you can change, a lot of knobs you can play with. What we found is that everybody, first of all, thinks they're the best grower. A lot of these guys are really sharp, but there's usually room for improvement a little bit here or there. And a good grower we can increase a little bit more. A great grower, the increase is a little bit less, but they're already super efficient. So 10% might be all they need to really make it run, whereas somebody else, maybe we can get them 15 or 20. You know, it depends on the crop, it depends on their process, depends on so many things we're learning that we want to definitely run our product, you know, full cycle from very, from seed or clone or that rooting process all the way through. And because we seem to be able to have this effect on having the roots grow a little bit more and be the plants like ready to rock and roll once it transitions over. So, you know, that's enough about that.

Harry Duran

-: 20:28

Yeah, no, what's interesting is like when you talk, when I was reading about it and when we got first introduced, and also thank you for your partnership with this podcast because it's been really, really fun to get to know you and get to know the team and get to see you and meet you in person, indoor icon. So.

Edward McClure

-: 20:31

Well, I really appreciate it. This is fantastic for us. So thank you.

Harry Duran

-: 21:40

Yeah. And what I, you know, obviously doing a little research when we first got started and I was looking at the site that the technology, the way they describe it is it's like a composition of these polarized minerals extracted from ores that were formed like 10 million years ago, containing a mix of like volcanic magma, igneous rocks and sea sediments. So it's interesting because you think about like, it's almost the elements of the earth, you know, used in a way that, that the plants respond to, you know, because that's, you know, it's, there's like in their genes, you know, they're naturally like probably craving some of this that over the course of like these thousands of years and soil erosion and just like we're losing all the nutrients. And we had a conversation recently with Rick Langeo from harvest today about how much more nutrient dense we can make our food if we're just like, growing it the right way, because now what we get is so, like, watered down this bag of lettuce that comes from California, and it's just, like, doesn't last more than a day or two in the bag, and it just. You taste it. It just tastes like, you know, just, like, watery and just. There's no content there, you know? So it's been interesting to see how we can kind of go back to the basics of just, like, let's give the plant and the crops, like, what they really need and been asking for.

Edward McClure

-: 23:03

We didn't invent this stuff. Right. I mean, it's just a matter of, can we deliver it a little bit more efficiently? And that's what we're trying to do. And, yeah, one of my partner, Keith in particular, is always on me about, you know, nutrition and getting the plants what they need and making sure that. And he's right. And, you know, that is part of our mission. We're trying to. We're trying to make these places more productive, and in the indoor ag space, it matters even more. Right, because you've got this limited space, and you're spending a lot for that space, right? You've got air conditioning and you've got, you know, water and you've got labor and you got. And every room or whatever space costs a certain amount. If we can increase the yield in that space, it makes all the difference in the world, you know? So that's why we're focusing on the indoor stuff right now. Eventually, we do. We plan to get outdoor as well and see what we can do to, you know, help the soils and help the big farmers and revitalize some of the soils out there. We're very excited about that. And one of the hardest decisions we had to make was figuring out what to focus on because we're still new and we're not this huge, giant company. And, you know, we had to, like, we had several things that we were looking at all at once, and it's. And you can't do everything at once. You just need to do one thing really well. Right. And then once that happens, you can move on. And that would be my advice to anybody that's starting a farm. Like, figure out what your niche is and what you're going to do that you can do better than everybody else and just be really good at that and then.

Harry Duran

-: 23:05

Right, yeah.

Edward McClure

-: 23:06

Scale it up.

Harry Duran

-: 23:21

And also shout out to Suzanne at the indoor ag for making the intro. And, you know, obviously, it's always a great experience to get there and get on the ground and shake people's hands and just, you know, we do a lot virtually nowadays, so it's always refreshing to be able to, like, meet person face to meet people face to face.

Edward McClure

-: 23:24

There's some interactions that happen face to face face that are just.

Harry Duran

-: 23:35

Yeah, so you guys had a nice, well positioned booth at indoor AG. So talk a little bit about, was that the first major, like, conference you had been to? And I just was just curious about your experience there and having those firsthand conversations with farmers.

Edward McClure

-: 24:46

Yeah, it was. We've done a few minor things in the cannabis space, but that was our first, you know, I would call it real show, and it was exciting for us. I mean, we met so many good farmers and so many people that wanted to test. And the thing that for me is fascinating is, you know, I love technology, and we met people doing all different kinds of stuff. We've got a couple people that are testing us right now that use fog ponics, right, where they're agitating it and they're creating this fog, and the roots just sit down there and the fog gets on the roof, and it's more efficient than even hydroponics. Right. It was developed for space, I suppose, and just different crops. Right. We had a guy in Colorado that we actually had started with him before the show, and he came back and he was real excited about the results he was getting. He was doing lettuce and basil, and so that was fun to watch. We've got a bunch now that we're testing, so we're very excited to see, and we'll be writing up some of those tests and putting them on the website and so forth. But for us, it was fantastic. It was great exposure. Shout out to Suzanne because it was wonderful her helping us set that up and helping us meet some people. But we really enjoyed that show, and we're going to be at the CEA summit in October as well.

Harry Duran

-: 25:04

Oh, yeah, that's. Virginia is making a huge effort play, you know, to sort of take the lead in terms of, at least for the United States of, like, putting their, you know, their stake in the ground of, like, Virginia is the place to be if you want to, like, you know, that indoor ag day last year as well.

Edward McClure

-: 25:13

We're going to be the Netherlands of America, and it makes you want to be there, you know, because they really, they want to take this space and really run with it in a way that nobody else is doing yet.

Harry Duran

-: 25:49

Yeah. I think, as is the case with all Americans, you get this friendly rivalry, rivalry happening between states now. So I think I just saw today that the mayor of Chicago is going to be an indoor agtech in the event in Chicago. So I'm sure they're going to be like, because as you mentioned, talk about the heartland of America, you know, noise. So they'll be, you know, all of it is good because it's sort of this rising tide lifts all boats. You know, it's all hands on deck moment. We need all this. The climate change stuff is real, and we need to be prepared for it in terms of planning for our food security. And then supply chain disruptions are happening on the regular now.

Edward McClure

-: 26:27

And I'm an optimist. I mean, I look at the technology and I think people will be able to overcome, and I think this industry is going to grow even faster than people think. And it can't solve every problem. There's only so much lettuce people can eat, right? But there's a lot of other things. It's going to be, the industry is going to become more broad and it's going to become more efficient, and so it's going to be able to compete in more and more areas. You know, every few years you'll see some new stuff coming out, and it's going to be a lot of fun to watch. That's the other reason we chose to be part of it, is I want to be a place where the new stuff is happening, and I think it's going to grow just immensely over the next ten years.

Harry Duran

-: 26:36

So this might have changed after your attendance at indoor AG, but who really would be an ideal client for bio 520?

Edward McClure

-: 27:20

So for us, we're not really looking for the small retail grower, the home grower. It's great the product will work there, and we're going to be setting up some distributors that can kind of serve that market. We're looking for the commercial growers, and the more finicky they are, and the better growers they think they are, the more we want to talk to them. If they're willing to do a little bit of research and they're willing to take a little bit of product and test it, we'll provide that for them. And whether it's lettuce or tomatoes or whatever it is, we want to learn about their process. We want to help them dial it in. And so indoor and greenhouse is really what we're looking for. We think we can make a huge difference in large scale agricultural, outdoor, but we just not there yet.

Harry Duran

-: 27:29

Yeah. And so have you noticed or has there been enough testing to see if certain crops respond better to Biofar 20 than others.

Edward McClure

-: 27:35

We've had luck pretty much across the board. I'd have to be careful what I say. Right. But we really haven't had luck across the board.

Harry Duran

-: 27:36

Results may differ.

Edward McClure

-: 28:11

Yeah. But at the same time, I mean, we. Zucchini and tomatoes, we saw some, like, I don't know if we just were in with bad growers or what, but, you know, we seem to be able to make more of a difference even there, than normal. You know, lettuce will work. We've got. We've done so much cannabis at this point point that we've really kind of. We've really got that dialed in, and, you know, obviously, there's a bunch of different strains and so forth, but we've definitely made a big difference there. But I want to try. So if somebody out there is a tomato grower and they're looking for something new to try, please call us, because we've seen some really nice differences with that kind of stuff.

Harry Duran

-: 28:22

And what type of infrastructure do they need, like a drip irrigation system in place already, or is that something you provide guidance on? Or how does the. The actual, you know, bio 520 get applied?

Edward McClure

-: 29:12

So it's a liquid fertilizer, so it's ground really fine. It stays suspended so it won't clog your lines or anything. So we just add it to the gear. Irrigation water. So however they're irrigating, we add it to that. So drip irrigation works beautifully. If they're spraying it on, that works great. We've had weird results. We haven't tried this on, you know, some of the ag crops, but in cannabis, we've used it as a foliar spray, and we've been able to get rid of powdery mildew. We just had that a couple weeks ago, and we had it several times, but we just did it again a couple weeks ago. So it can be applied as a foliar spray. You know, just however your roots are, your plants are getting the water, the fog ponics guys, they understand, like, how finely ground we are, and they've got these little tiny particles of water. Right? And so for them, it's just about that. They believe that our product will kind of stay with them and work in their process. Right?

Harry Duran

-: 29:30

Yeah. It's interesting because if it works at the fog ponics level, that's almost like a testament to how fine it is in terms of absorbability. And if it can work at that level, that's probably a good talking point. As a reminder to folks, if it works there. It'll work in your hydroponic system as well.

Edward McClure

-: 29:39

Yeah, that's part of the fun for us. It's like we're seeing all these different things and then somebody this new thing works. Now we got some whole new thing we can talk about. It's been a lot of fun for me to learn this space.

Harry Duran

-: 30:21

So I'm curious, having run businesses before and having the discipline of being finance and entrepreneur as well, how do you think about starting a new company? Who do you think about as your first hire? Because it's the same type of mindset and process business owners go through, whether they're starting a farm or they're starting a new business like you are as well mostly any entrepreneur, as they start to grow or they start to think about building a team, do you work on marketing first? Do you get your finances in place first? You get a solid finance guide. Do you get the people who are going out there and make the sales? And I'm curious from your experience, and every answer is going to be differently. But as you think about building the bio 520 team, how do you think about that?

Edward McClure

-: 32:47

That's a great question. And some of this I'm getting from my personal experience and some I'm getting from just all the clients that I've watched. There's a few things that I've learned. First, you have to have a good salesperson or two or three, right. You have to have somebody that understands the numbers. Those two spaces need to be just identified and put in place right in the beginning, like you said, you know, you got to make sure the taxes get paid and the payroll gets paid and all the money and somebody that can kind of project the cash flows going forward, you know, you may be spending a certain amount every month, but one month is three x times and another, you know, so you've got to be planned for that stuff. The most important piece I think is, is I don't want to call it marketing because you have to be careful about marketing versus sales, but you must have a process, in my opinion, you have to have a process to get new clients, whatever that looks like. You have to have a definable, repeatable process for bringing in new clients and growing the business. Without that, I mean, I can't tell you how many incredible products I've seen. Stuff that you look at, you think, wow, that is like world changing. And the guy is an engineer, and having a great engineer and a great product is everything but by himself. He couldn't sell it. And so the product sits on the shelf. So you've got to have the sales piece and the process to get those sales and make that product move. I think to me that's the most important piece, and then you can figure out the numbers and so forth. One of the things I've learned about the numbers, it's not exactly what you asked, but I think this is really important is you can start a business with this much money. You can start a business with this much money, right. It's very easy to go through all the money. No matter how much you start with, you can go through it all. So you want to be whoever is the person making that decision. You want to be very careful and very calculated about when and how you go through the money because money is the lifeblood, right? You have this great marketing plan, but you just ran out of money, your host, right? So some people like this happened in Agtech, but it happens everywhere. But a couple years ago, all this money came into the system and everybody's like, oh, I have all this money and let this, and they will find ways for you to spend it. People will sell you stuff, right? And oh, this automation is going to work great. Just you want to be really, really careful and calculated about how you do that and that I had to learn the hard way.

Harry Duran

-: 32:57

So how did all those lessons learned? How did you apply that knowledge and, you know, making it through the school of hard knocks there to apply that to bio 520.

Edward McClure

-: 33:50

So, and this is related to what I just said, but the key piece to that is you have to have really good people, right? One really good, high quality person that knows what they're doing, they can go out and make stuff happen, is worth more than ten people that are just kind of, you know, running on the treadmill and, you know, doing their job, but they're not really dialed in, right. So the first thing I did was I went out to try to find some really good people. And, you know, without that, I really wasn't even going to take the next step. Like, I wasn't even going to do the marketing program or put the money into it because in my case, I'm funding a lot of it myself and I wasn't going to put the money into it until I figured I had the people in place and I could then take that marketing system and have it go. And I'm still figuring it out. I mean, this is a new industry for me and I still a lot to learn, but the good people getting that in place first.

Harry Duran

-: 34:01

How do you know when you have a good person or how do you go about, what's your thought process for you when you think to yourself, I need to find a good person? Like, what do you do then?

Edward McClure

-: 36:43

That's a hard, yeah, that's really difficult. Right. One of these, I'm going to quote Elon Musk here, but when you're talking to, like, an engineer or a person that is really technical, you can find out pretty fast they know what they're doing or not. Now, you have to know enough to know what questions to ask. You don't necessarily even have to completely understand their answers, but you have to understand their answers enough to know if they're b's in you or not. Right? So somebody who's technical, like my grower, first, I had him test the products, and I saw the way he put the data together and everything. I already knew this guy, so I was already biased towards him anyway or I wouldn't have sent him the product appropriate. But I talked to him and I talked to other people that are in the industry. Okay, how do you grow? What do you do and what do you think is important? Okay, how do you grow? What do you do? What do you think is important? And pretty fast you realize some people really know what they're talking about, and some people are just not quite there. And so the technical people are a little easier, in my opinion. The salespeople, you kind of have to rely on history because salespeople, by nature are just really good bser. Right. And so you want to be real careful with your salespeople and your consultants there. What I try to do is, for a consultant, you want to hopefully know something that they did before, get them referred to you by somebody else, and know what they did and how it worked. You can ask them some technical questions, but it's a little more difficult. The salespeople, you need to find out, like, you know, what did they sell? How did they sell it? How did they do? What would they do in this situation? Like, okay, I've got these kinds of customers that I want to go get. What would you do with that? Right. And part of it, big part of being an entrepreneur and frankly, an investor, right, in anything, is you have to trust your own gut. Like, whatever. At the end of the day, I'll talk about stocks for a minute. So there's always analyzing all these stocks, right? And they've got this quarterly mindset. Maybe they're thinking a year out, but you have to think ten years out or 20 years out. So it's a completely different process. And what I learned really quick in the investing industry is the analysts have a different mindset. They've got a different motivation. And you want to be real careful about paying attention to what they're saying. You want to very quickly, you know, you want to develop your own process, your own thought process and your own gut level reaction to what you know and what you believe, and you need to stick with it. And if you try something and it doesn't work, you need to re, you know, you need to learn from that and reevaluate your process. But what other, what these other people are telling you, you want to take everything with a grain of salt. And you, at the end of the day, you have to kind of trust yourself.

Harry Duran

-: 36:43

Got.

Edward McClure

-: 37:24

And so, you know, as a CEO, that's your job. You've got, somebody else should be making all the small decisions, the day to day decisions. There's a very, just a handful of very big decisions as a CEO that you have to make. What market are you going to go into? How are you going to sell it? What key people, not everybody, but what key people are you going to hire? Right. How are you going to promote the product? What things are you going to focus on? Just there's key things that you have to decide and you have to learn enough about the industry yourself, in my opinion, to be able to understand the motivations of all these people you're trying to provide this product to and so that you can make those good decisions. So that's my answer. Yeah.

Harry Duran

-: 37:33

It's helpful for people and leaders to think about that process because I think I've heard it explained on this show several times that you hire slow and fire fast.

Edward McClure

-: 37:35

Yes. I couldn't agree more.

Harry Duran

-: 37:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Edward McClure

-: 37:47

My head sales guy, I've known him for over a year. We got to know each other and I got to understand what he was doing. It's just absolutely makes a lot of sense.

Harry Duran

-: 37:50

What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently?

Edward McClure

-: 39:02

There's been a few. One of the biggest actually was really deciding we have this product that we just love and we're really proud of it and we want it to be everywhere and we want to be in all these different industries. And one of the hardest things we've had to do is really as a new company that doesn't have millions of dollars to spend, we've had to really narrow it down. And so deciding what market we wanted to go to and where we're going to focus and just forgetting about everything else, that was really hard because we wanted what if we do get a great client over here? You're not going to do that. If they come and talk to me, I'll talk to them. But as far as where we focus our marketing dollars and where we focus our time and energy, we have to be really, really careful about that because you just can't do everything. So that's been one of them. And then within that. That marketing plan I was talking about, it's completely different than it was when I started a couple of years ago. Right. And so just constantly dialing that in and realizing you don't know what you thought you knew, things you thought were going to work didn't work, and other things that were really, really simple worked much better. And so just being willing to kind of change that process and keep reiterating it was challenging.

Harry Duran

-: 39:11

Yeah. It's this idea of having the blinders on the horses when they're in the races. You know, they have those blinders on for a reason, so they don't look like left and right and get distracted. And that's definitely. That's the metaphor.

Edward McClure

-: 39:36

That's exactly it. That's exactly it. You can't do everything well. And so, you know, just if you can focus and do one thing really well, you can make money, and then, you know, then you can start looking at this other stuff. But if you got to climb this mountain, you can't try to climb all five mountains at once. You got to climb this mountain and it's do or die, right? You're going to climb the top of this mountain or you're going to fall off and die. But that's the metaphor, right?

Harry Duran

-: 39:55

So, that said, how do you think about this? Industry changes so fast? Just being in it for a couple of years like I have, is interesting and fun to see so many things happening that are exciting. So, as you think about having those blinders on, having your revised marketing plan in place, like, what's the next six to twelve months look like for you for bio 520?

Edward McClure

-: 41:27

So we're completely going to be focused on cannabis, which most of our clients are growing indoor and the indoor ag space. That's it. Right? And I'm very excited about where the industry is going. Like, I love seeing the new technologies and the robotics and AI, and just everything is really, really interesting. And that's why I think that it's going to keep getting more and more efficient and will become more and more competitive over time. Our focus is in those two industries. Most people still don't know us, and so our entire focus is going to be getting our name out there and convincing people that it's worth the time and effort, because I know how important time is, right. If you, anybody who works with entrepreneurs, time is everything. The money is no big deal. They'll throw away a little bit of money if it can give them some time. Right? Time is everything. So if you're willing to kind of take a little bit of time and energy, try the product. So that's our entire goal, get people to know us and get them to try their product. We know if they try it, they're going to like it. And then it's just a matter of dialing in the efficiency. You know, what's the perfect amount? What's the most efficient way for you to use it? What other things can you dial back on that would help you pay for this? And that takes a little bit of work, but the product itself is really easy to use. You just kind of add it to your current system. You don't need to really change anything. So testing, it's not as big a deal as maybe testing some other products. What are you doing now? I'm doing this. Okay, great. Add this to it. Right? That's it. And so that's our entire goal is, you know, get people to know who we are and the people that are really research oriented, seeing if they're willing to test the product.

Harry Duran

-: 41:56

Yeah, it sounds like the, probably the, you know, being at the event in Virginia is going to help and just more visibility for you guys in terms of, like, being at the right conferences where, you know, like indoor icon, you know, where it makes sense to just have those face to face conversations with people who have a interest in, like, growing their yields by, you know, that 10%, that 20%, because, like, as we just talked about ad nauseam here, but, like, those little changes can really move the lever in a positive direction.

Edward McClure

-: 42:54

They really can. You know, if we can get you four or five x on top of what you, whatever you spend on our product, get you four to five times that and move that needle, it makes all the difference in the world. And what the other thing, that kind of goes to one of your previous questions. But one of the really big challenges, I think, with the indoor ag industry is the margins are small. If you look at a company like Apple or all these software companies, they have these huge margins, and that allows them to put money back into R and D and to do marketing that money. Sometimes a product that costs a little bit more and has a bigger margin allows you a lot more room to actually grow the product. You know, a lot of these, a lot of companies are just starved, right? They're just not enough margin to do the R and D and all that other stuff. So if we can make that room to give you that little extra so now you can market a little bit more, hire that one more salesperson, you know, do a little bit more R and D to get even more efficient. It's a difference between being around and really surviving in five years and not.

Harry Duran

-: 43:19

Yeah, makes sense. So as we wrap up, I like to leave some time at the end of these conversations for any messages you have because of the leadership that listens to the show, lots of your colleagues, CEO's, founders of these companies, some of whom you've met in person, just to continue this conversation, to foster this conversation among everyone in the industry. Any thoughts come to mind about any messages do you have for the indoor ag space?

Edward McClure

-: 46:02

Yes, and I saw this for the first time at CEA last year. I started really understanding the industry better. And some of your other guests have talked about this, but collaborate, there's, forget the idea of a small, certain size pie, right? And everybody only gets a slice of it. And so if you give up part of your slice and, you know, let's grow the pie, right. Everybody can get better and grow and, you know, find your key people that you trust and learn from each other and share ideas about technology and research. And I think everybody's scared. Everybody has their own secret sauce and nobody wants to let that out. But at the end of the day, we all have to get more efficient for this to work. The whole industry has to get more efficient. And it's always going to be a challenge. It's always going to be a challenge to compete with some full grown lettuce in California, and I'm in California, so I'm not going to knock them, but that's always going to be a challenge. But there's so many advantages, so definitely collaborate would be part of my message as a finance guy, you know, and I don't do a lot of individual stock investing. I'll find one stock that I really like and I'll buy that for a lot of people. And everything else is kind of just very diversified. But one of the things you learn is companies that are doing a certain amount of research. And again, it depends on who's running that research department. But if you're going to be viable ten years from now, you have to be doing the R and D today. You have to be, you have to always be getting better because the industry is going to get better. So if you don't, you're not going to be able to survive eventually. Somebody else is going to be more efficient, somebody else is going to figure out, you know, so you want to always be improving and testing, and you got to figure out some way to get enough margin in there so that you can do that as well. And it's challenging. I mean, I understand, like, how difficult that is, but I think whatever you can do, you want to make sure that you keep trying to improve. And I think people need to collaborate and work with each other. I'm so excited about how AI is going to in robotics, and the other thing I'll say is, going forward, I think the larger scale companies are going to have a little bit of an advantage because they're going to be able to spend on the capex and they're going to be able to spend on the robotics and the AI in a way that maybe the smaller companies can't, but the smaller companies can have some advantages, too. And if you want to get to that, you want to be. If you're going to stay small, you need to have a niche, a way that you can provide a certain thing that's good for your local area or whatever. If you're going to try and compete with these big places, you're probably going to need to try to grow bigger. That's just what I see.

Harry Duran

-: 46:53

Yeah. And it's helpful to have the perspective. So that's why I love asking the question, because you get a variety of answers, you know, in terms of, like, people where they're coming from, their backgrounds and their experiences so far in industry. But I think the common theme is collaboration. And I think if we could just be a little more comfortable about, like, you know, as the saying goes, like, open up the kimono a bit. A little bit, and just like, see where there's operations, you know, to collaborate for better efficiencies, operability. That's always a long word, but it just, like, you know, making all these pieces that we, all the farms use, like, connect with each other and not having these. I remember hearing someone say something about, like, a farm was using some parts from, like, the EU and the US, and then the systems are off, so they had to, like, create another, like, MacGyver thing to connect them together. And it's like, just let's think about how we, you know, overall, how we can just operate better and leaner and just by even just talking a little bit more and having these types of conversations.

Edward McClure

-: 47:22

Yeah. There's a lot of really good growers out there. I want people to be careful about thinking that they've already figured it all out. Right. There's usually no matter how good you are, and we've met a lot of just fantastic growers, stuff that I never even would have thought to do. There's usually room for improvement, and obviously, you don't want to change your entire process until you've figured out what that improvement is going to look like. But I want people to keep looking for that. You have to keep getting more efficient if you're going to survive.

Harry Duran

-: 48:16

Well, thanks again for taking the time to come on here and share the story. It's always interesting. I never get tired of hearing all the different ways people are finding indoor ag and myself included, and just to hear these stories and you coming from a completely different industry and you saw something in this space that attracted you and you found the right product. And now you're getting to have these conversations and hearing the inspiring stories of these farmers who are, you know, need that little bit of improvement in their yields. You know, it's because every little bit helps when you're a small farmer and the fact that bio 520 is able to help them do that, I'm sure that makes you feel good and that you're on the right track and that if you got the right product for their needs right now. So I definitely appreciate everything you're doing to find this product, to bring it to the US also, because I'm sure, like you said, it's something new that people hadn't heard of. And if it's having the success that you're demonstrating that it's happening, that's always a good thing as well. So thank you for everything you're doing to spread the word about and just increase visibility for the indoor egg space as well.

Edward McClure

-: 48:26

Well, I appreciate what you're doing, too, Harry. I thank you for what you're bringing to the industry. I'm falling in love with this industry. So, you know, I really appreciate you having me on. I've enjoyed it.

Harry Duran

-: 48:39

Yeah. And thanks again for your support and sponsorship of the podcast. Really appreciate it. It helps us a lot and to get the word about what you're doing. So if people want to learn more, there's the website bio 520 USA.com. is that the best place to send them?

Edward McClure

-: 48:40

It is, yeah.

Harry Duran

-: 48:50

Okay. All right. So we'll make sure that link is in the show notes, and if people want to connect there and learn more, they can do that or hopefully catch you at an upcoming conference. Definitely. You'll be in Virginia, like you said. Said, right.

Edward McClure

-: 48:53

I'll definitely be in Virginia. And we already signed up for indoor Ag next year.

Harry Duran

-: 48:59

Okay, perfect. Okay, then. That'll be great, then. Well, I appreciate your time and sharing your story. Very inspiring.

Edward McClure

-: 49:00

Beautiful. Thanks a lot, Erin.