Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Biz Talk, where we break down the real strategies behind business growth, innovation and leadership. I'm your host, Ryan Herpin, and today we are joined by Todd Thomas, a recognized voice in AI, energy, sustainability and entrepreneurship. He's the bestselling author of Hyperscale and the Unleashed Abundant Energy trilogy. He's also the founder and CEO of of Woodchuck AI, a climate impact startup. Transforming waste into value and reducing landfill usage while creating scalable business opportunities. Todd's career is built around harnessing emerging technologies to unlock efficiencies and new commercialized paths across industries. And today we're diving into how sustainability can actually drive growth, not slow it down.
So, Todd, it is such a pleasure to have you with me today on the show.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Thanks so much. Really great to be here.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: You know, I'd like to dive into things rather deep and pretty fast. So really in this first segment, I really want to start by challenging a big belief in business and that's sustainability is a cost instead of a growth strategy. So to, to make this really relatable for our audience, you know, many leaders assume sustainability, well, it really causes a lot of expense, slow down and purely, it's purely compliance driven. Right. But forward thinking companies are discovering that reducing waste and rethinking resource can really unlock revenue streams, you know, operational efficiencies and brand differentiation. So with that being kind of the common ground that a lot of owners are dealing with, entrepreneurs, we're going to start with a pretty heavy hitting question, quite loaded. Why do so many companies still see sustainability as a cost instead of a growth load?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Well, honestly, historically that's the way it's been because you're right, just as you kind of referenced in your question, historically sustainability has largely been centered around regulation and tracking and not really so much about driving efficiencies.
I would argue that sustainability done well really focuses on efficiencies reducing waste, reducing costs. In fact, I would argue that if a sustainable measure is not financially sustainable, it is by definition not sustainable. It has to be both environmentally friendly and financially sustainable.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: I like that you kept it super simple because logically that is right on the money.
Something that I like to think of as well is if it's not efficient, it's not sustainable as you addressed it truly is just the case. But you know what shifts when a leader starts viewing waste reduction as a revenue opportunity.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: So it might be best if I just give you an example. So my company is, is Woodchuck. And Woodchuck works with construction companies to divert waste and instead of taking construction waste materials to the landfill. We divert it, turn it into material streams that we can then essentially turn them into commodities and monetize them.
[00:03:09] Speaker C: So you can imagine any construction work.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Site, you've got a ton of wood and metal and plastic and cardboard. And if you throw all that stuff together in a, In a big 40 yard dumpster, that's trash and it goes to the landfill, and it costs a lot of money to haul it there, and you pay landfill fees and landfills are filling up. But that's the way people do business.
If instead you're able to segregate those materials and separate the wood, separate the cardboard, separate the plastic, separate the metal, you can consolidate those and they then become commodities.
So instead of paying a trash hauler to haul all of these materials to the landfill, instead you consolidate those and you resell them as commodities. So now you're turning waste from a cost into a soft revenue generator.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: That is really interesting. And it's kind of popping up all these different thought patterns now because, you know, a little bit of experience I have in this. My father owns a construction company in Florida where he's constantly having to deal with a lot of waste. I mean, you know, when you're doing a remodel job or re roofing a house or, you know, things that are kind of endless, but you end up with a lot of waste and what do you do with it? Right. You said it kind of all pretty much always goes to a landfill. I'm curious as to some of the strategies and how to turn those into commodities, because, you know, some of that waste I can't imagine is able to be reused in construction applications. But could you elaborate on that just a little bit?
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Sure.
One of the biggest material streams on a construction site of waste is wood.
Wood is a really versatile material that can be used in so many different ways. So if you're able to segregate that wood and process can be used for lots of different purposes. It can be used for clean energy generation, it can be remanufactured into new construction materials like press board or particle board if it, for whatever reason, isn't clean enough for either of those purposes. You can use it for all sorts of different industrial products. But it's a really valuable material that can be used for a lot of different things.
In the US last year, the construction industry sent 41 million tons of wood to the landfill. That's a lot of wood.
Landfills in the United States are filling up with wood. Landfills in the US are 30 to 40% wood by volume.
Nobody wants a new landfill near them. Right. It's hard to get a new landfill certified. So if we just don't send all of this construction wood to landfills, it's going to extend the life of our existing landfills and help solve that problem.
But probably more importantly, we're turning that wood from a waste stream to. Into a commercializable material. It can actually drive revenue back to the company. So then the question is, is that a sustainable strategy or is that just good business? Right. We're taking what used to cost us money to haul away, and instead we're turning it into a new revenue stream.
And I think that's where the, the convergence of sustainability and efficiency and just common sense business, they're all coming together. And AI is really helping with that. So at Woodchuck, we have our Woodchuck AI platform. That's an AI platform that utilizes image recognition to help us identify these materials and separate them.
And that's really kind of flipping the script on efficiency. It's allowing us to really efficiently separate these materials and really generate some nice cost savings for our clients.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: You know, I find that to be extremely interesting. Where most people see waste, you see opportunity for revenue and, well, climate improvement, you know, better use and instead of just filling up all these landfills. Because you're absolutely right. You know, it is a big pain to now put in new landfills, but nevertheless, no one wants to be around a landfill in the first place.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: No.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: So turning waste into something that can generate revenue is, is. I mean, it sounds great to any business owner. Right? But now I'm kind of curious, you know, can you elaborate more or share more on a moment when sustainability initiatives actually directly boosted the bottom line?
[00:07:16] Speaker B: So we work with a lot of big construction companies, and right now, AI data centers are all the rage, right? Everybody's building them as fast as possible. When you're building an AI data center, there is excess focus on sustainability because everybody's concerned about the energy that they consume. So we're really looking at these projects of how can we drive a sustainability message out of these projects?
And so we come in with Woodchuck and we explain to the construction company how we can help them to really reduce their waste and reduce their cost. And that will, you know, a waste hauling is a cost of doing business. You have to do something with that material. Like you mentioned your, your uncle that has a construction company, right. He is, he is paying a cost, every job he does to haul that waste away.
If we can reduce that Waste cost, that's a savings that goes directly to the bottom line. Now the contractor can choose to share that with their end client or they can use that to boost profitability. That there's, there's different options of how you use that. But, but for the construction company, it's a direct savings which directly impacts their bottom line for the end owner of that building. So the construction company is building this AI data center for Google or Amazon or Xai, whoever is getting that building. They of course like the cost reduction, but more importantly, what they really like is the diverted CO2. When you divert a ton of wood out of the waste, it diverts 1.65 tons of carbon that is not released in the atmosphere. So if we can then track all of that and provide that information to the end client, that has real value to them. Because these big tech companies have big sustainability goals that they have publicly announced.
So if we can help them reduce the CO2 on the upfront as they're actually building this facility, that's really positive for them. And in fact, a lot of investment in the US, really globally is tied to ESG ratings. And I know ESG is not as popular phrase as it used to be, but there's still a lot of investment that centers around esg. And if you are able to divert a significant amount of carbon during the construction of your building, that can have a positive impact on your ESG rating, which can actually have a oversized impact on your market capitalization. So if you're Google and you're building a new data center campus with seven buildings and you can divert tens of thousands of tons of CO2 that can have a positive impact on your ESG and literally move your market capitalization.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: You know, there's a few things I really need to highlight from what you just said, and I find it to be absolute gold because you haven't only framed it as a way to immediately impact the bottom line of a business. You also addressed the marketability, the advertising, the presentation, the core values, the, the, the growth opportunities that come with a business that want to present this sustainability and eco friendly approach.
So you're also addressing a major part of the market where a lot of businesses are trying to shift some focus.
So you're giving some additional fuel to that fire. So to say I find that to be extremely powerful. You know, we'd have a ton of time left in the segment. But what's one tactical step businesses can take now to start building profit driven sustainable strategies?
[00:10:25] Speaker B: I think the first step is understand how much waste you have and what is in there. Most companies that we talk to, we ask them, how much waste do you have today? How much waste do you expect from this project? What material is in your waste? And most people say, I don't know a lot. They have no idea. So let's just start by understanding how much waste you have and what's in there. What are the materials that are in there? Woodchuck can work with pretty much anybody and find a higher, better use for so many materials. Of course, wood, but cardboard, plastic, metal, cement, asphalt, so much material that's in our waste right now has so much additional value if we can separate it out.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: You know, with a major background of mine being in manufacturing specifically for really complicated metal type products.
You know, I find that the typical use of just scrapping materials to be remelted down, maybe that is a limiting factor of the potential for what could be done with the materials. But I'm actually loving this conversation and the depth that we can really dive into with these topics. So up next, we're talking about something every startup feels but not enough for really talking about, and that's cash flow, discipline and how mission driven companies stay financially strong. So don't go anywhere, grab coffee, stretch out, grab popcorn, whatever it is you need to do. We'll be right back.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Foreign.
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All right, we are back to another segment in a powerful conversation with Todd Thomas. And now we're shifting really from big vision to something very practical and that's financial discipline. This is a hot topic no matter how you look at it, for every business on the planet. But mission, you know, many mission driven, you know, founders focus heavily on impact and innovation. But cash flow is still the lifeline that determines whether a company survives long enough to make that impact actually real. You know, and that's it's an unfortunate truth is many businesses fall away before they can truly make that impact.
So startups often underestimate how quickly capital disappears. Balancing mission with financial rigor ensures that purpose driven companies don't run out. You know, of Runway before they reach that scale. Right. So, Todd, it is such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for joining us on the show.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Thanks so much. Really glad to be here. Excited for this topic?
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, this is a big one. I'm super eager to jump into this because this is definitely something that everyone in our audience really likes to think about. But why is cash flow still the biggest threat to early and midsize startups? I know it's a loaded question, but I think you're going to give some good insight.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Well, the reality is cash flow is what kills the vast majority of startups. 90% or more will fail, and almost every time it's because they run out of cash. And I think there's multiple pieces to that.
Number one, the founder or the CEO.
Your number one job as the CEO of a startup is to make sure you don't run out of money. That is your number one job. And I think a lot of founders, you know, they're tech people or they're software people and they have a really cool product that they love and that's where they want to spend their time. And I get that. And that's, you know, enticing. But you have to spend the time on your finances. You need to look at your finances every single day and understand where every penny goes, because that's what kills startups. So I think that's. That's number one. Number two is get your MVP done and get it into the hands of users as soon as possible and in a way that you can start charging for it. And there's multiple reasons for that. Number one is revenue solves a lot of problems. Revenue increases your Runway, but also you get real feedback from your potential users, from your potential clients. When they have to pay. If you give them a free pilot, they're going to tell you all sorts of lovely things. But when they have to pay for that, now, all of a sudden they're going to give you some real feedback. Hey, you know, we like it, but it needs to do this or we don't like that feature.
When they've got skin in the game now, you're going to get real feedback. So get your MVP done as fast as possible, get it into the hands of your users and don't give it away for free. If you're, if your product or service is driving value, don't be afraid to ask for money for it. If you're a little teeny startup and you're selling to a big corporation, money's not a problem for them. It is A problem for you. So make sure you're charging for your work, get out there and pay.
And I think the third thing that's really important is be really slow to spend money. Don't hire before you have to. Once you hire somebody, you're paying them every two weeks. No matter if you get a new client, a new revenue or not, you're paying the guy or that gal. So don't hire them until you have to.
You have to spend some money on your product. Product development takes money, but keep an eye on that. Don't overspend. Do it judiciously because again, that will eat away your funding.
So pay attention to your finances. Get your MVP out and get revenue as soon as possible.
Be slow to spend money.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Those are extremely accurate and really good points. As a matter of fact, in my firm, when I deal with clients, those are a lot of things that I have to address kind of early on and throughout the process. It's really a mindset shift, It's a cultural shift within the way we operate. Because it's something you address right from the get go is most businesses are started by people that are experts or confident in certain things. So a lot of the time business owners are the operator in the beginning. So it's transitioning from being the operator to the manager owner. And that's a hard transition to take. You know, for most people, especially in the skilled trades, I see it all the time, but really you address the mvp. You know, getting something out there that is of value and not just giving it away for free is massive to the success of a company. Especially when you do start receiving that feedback. I can't tell you how many times feedback was overlooked that once applied correctly, changed everything about the product and the way that the consumer interacted with the product. But how do you balance mission impact with financial sustainability?
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Well, I think the two go hand in hand. Right?
Getting to revenue is the lifeblood, right? Revenue is going to make it. I think too many startups have this mindset of we have to spend what we have to spend and we need to raise more money. We'll raise more money. Well, raising money is hard. Raising money takes time.
Raising money sells equity in your company.
I don't like the general mindset of keep raising and keep burning funds and you just keep raising to cover those expenses. I think that's dangerous. I think gives you a short Runway and doesn't build a sustainable business. I think as a startup, even if you are VC funded, you should be looking to build a profitable business. You should be looking to bring in clients and bring in revenue and ideally profitable projects. Right. You may have overhead, and so you may not be profitable right away because you have overhead, you have product development. But if the individual project, the service or product that you're selling can have a gross margin, you want that as soon as possible.
First of all, it helps financially, but second of all, it proves that you have something that actually is a, a long term potential business.
If you're, if your MVP or your initial services don't have a positive gross margin, how are you going to build a business on that? You know, it's the old joke of, hey, I lose money on every unit, but I make it up on volume, Right?
[00:18:30] Speaker A: Yeah. You're dressing what is truly common sense. But when you're in the mix, when you're stuck in the weeds, it is, it's easy to miss pretty much anything, you know, when you address. Right. I mean that. I could not have addressed that better myself. You've got to have something that is.
Well, you're able to have gross profit. Like you're able to be profitable if you're making a product or providing a service where you can't make money on it.
Trying the same thing again and again, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. And you're guaranteeing your downfall as a business. But you know, talking about these, these kind of bigger key things, out of all of it, what would you say the most common mistakes are that kill the Runway for leaders in business?
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Overspending, too quick to hire, too quick to spend money on product development and thinking that you're. When your current fundraise is done, that you're done fundraising. Once you launch a startup, if you're the CEO of that startup, you never stop fundraising. As soon as you close your angel, start working on your seed. As soon as you close your seed, start working on your seed two or your bridge or your Series A. But you never stop fundraising because it takes way longer than you think. Even if you get a fantastic investor and they love your concept and they're in and they're ready to write you a check for a million bucks, okay, now we got to pay for it. We got to get the attorneys involved. It might be three months after you get the yes before you actually get cash in the bank. And if you don't have three months of operational cash in the bank, you're going to die before that investor can give you his money.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Absolutely right. That is very, very true. I've definitely witnessed several business owners where they have found funding, and there's like, some kind of celebration of, hey, we've got it. We've got it locked in. It's taken care of. But the time has not yet passed, and the spending habits immediately change. Like, oh, we have money now. We can start growing immediately. And they work through their operational cash that's supposed to sustain them until the funding is truly available.
That I've seen multiple times. And it is. It is disastrous. And it's one of those things where it's like, I wish I could hit you over the head and just change the way you're looking at this whole thing, but, you know, unfortunately, we can't always do that. But I'm curious, can you share an experience of your own where tightening, you know, the financial disciplines change your trajectory?
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Sure. So at Woodchuck, we launched in October 2023, and my co founder is Dre Nietzsche Nelson, who's awesome, is our third company we've done together, and he's fantastic. So he immediately went out to build the MVP, and we built it, or he built the MVP. In 90 days. In 90 days, we had a basic woodchuck AI platform that allowed us to identify wood and divert that wood. That's all it did. It just did wood, and it just segregated wood and hauled it off site. But it worked. So during the 90 days, while Dre built the MVP, I found our first client, and it was actually a Amazon distribution center just north of Detroit.
So 90 days after we launched our company, we delivered the MVP and we started providing service to Amazon. And that was a paid gig. This wasn't a free pilot. They were paying for us to divert their wood from it.
We didn't hire anybody else. It was just me and Dre. I did the sales, Dre did the development.
And we had a backer. We had an investor that made a pretty nice investment. We said, look, let's keep as much of that in the bank as possible, because you don't know what's going to happen next. And what happened was, 90 days in, we launched this project with Amazon, and we delivered our first report to them after week one that showed them how much wood was diverted and how much CO2 was diverted. And they loved it. They thought it was great. But their immediate feedback was, hey, that's great. But what about all of our cardboard? What about all of our plastic? We have a lot of waste on this job site.
What else can you help us with? And that was fantastic and really valuable feedback. So we immediately. I mean, we built our platform to be Pretty flexible because we knew we didn't know what we didn't know. Right.
And so we quickly added cardboard and we added plastic. So this was additional development costs. And we, so we, we didn't know for sure what our next big development cost would be, but we knew there would be something and so we were very hesitant to spend money up front. So when we got this first request from Amazon, we, we still had money in the bank and we quickly expanded our platform to extend into these other materials. So month two, we delivered a report to Amazon that showed them how much wood, cardboard and plastic was diverted. And we were able to give them an overall percentage of all the materials on your job site, what total percentage of your material was diverted to a second use.
And that provided them tons of value and they were really happy and we've been doing jobs for them ever since. And honestly, if you go to our, our webpage today, you go to Woodchuck AI and look at our portal. A lot of the reason our reports now look the way they do and the data that they hold is based on feedback from Amazon because they made it very clear of what they wanted and what they, what they didn't like. So it was fantastic. So it was, it drove financial responsibility to be able to be prepared for that eventuality.
But also I'm going to jump in.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Right there because that, that's an incredible pathway of scalability change and the steps that actually compiled to become what it is now. So I'm loving this conversation. I'm excited to dive into the next thing, to be honest with you, because this is now becoming extremely, well motivating to say the least. But coming up next, how to position innovation and how to position innovative products so that market actually responds well to it. We've got a lot of products out there, but how can we truly utilize it to, well, drive some eyes foreign.
Welcome back to Biz Talk. We're continuing the conversation with Todd Thomas. And now we're tackling a challenge many investors and innovators face. Building great products that, well, struggle to gain traction. You know, innovation alone isn't enough.
The way a product is positioned in the market often truly determines whether it succeeds or stalls.
So, you know, leaders today, they often fall in love with the technology, but fail to clearly connect the solution to a customer's urgent need. Strong positioning bridges that gap and accelerates adoption. So, Todd, it is a pleasure to have you here. This is a really big topic and it can be quite complex for a lot of people. So I'm excited to Dive into this with you?
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a critical topic for any startup, so, yeah, happy to talk about it.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: So I want to kind of start by addressing, you know, a misstep. Well, you know, what big missteps leader, you know, do leaders make when launching innovative solutions?
[00:25:27] Speaker B: I think the single most common mistake is starting with a solution.
The problem is somebody builds a really cool technology and they love it, and now they go out and try to find someone who will buy it.
That just rarely works. It almost never works.
You really have to start with the problem. What is the problem that you're trying to solve?
Whose problem is it and will they pay to resolve that problem? So if you've got a problem and you've got someone that's willing to pay you to solve it, okay, now you've got something that's great, and then you let the problem define what the solution is, right?
Maybe it's an AI solution, maybe it's not. Maybe it's a software solution, maybe it's a hardware solution. But you let the problem define the solution. Now you're building a solution that addresses a real problem with a client that is willing to pay for it. Now you've got a chance of actually launching a startup.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: You know, something we talked a little bit about in one of the earlier segments of the show is really feedback from your consumer, from the customer. So I want to dive into that a little bit in a sense of how does consumer insight really shape your stronger product positioning in a crowded market?
[00:26:39] Speaker B: You want to get involved with your client as soon as possible. And I would actually suggest that the most successful startups have a client, and ideally an investor too, that are involved from day one. Right? So you've got a client with a problem that's hiring you to solve that problem, and your startup is there to build that solution and deliver it to them.
And the closer that relationship is and the more interactive and the shorter the feedback cycles, the more rapidly you can develop that and the more rapidly you can get to revenue.
And that's just vital because when you're working in a vacuum and you're just creating your own solution, you're never going to get it right. I mean, you might have a great idea, you might have something cool, but it's never going to be exactly right. So get it into the hands of your customer as soon as possible and get their feedback now at the same time, that doesn't mean the customer is always right. Right? They're often not right. Customers don't always know what they want, Steve Jobs. And he used to say, you need to educate the customers on what they should want. And there is an element of that. But at the same time, take the feedback from your clients and understand it and understand what they're really looking for.
I think another challenge with early startups is if you only have one or two clients and they're asking you for specific features or specific functionality, you as the startup really need to consider, is this productizable? If I do this, is this a custom one off for this client, or is this something I can build into my product and sell over and over and over? And if it isn't something that you can productize, maybe it's not something you want to do unless you want to be a custom software shop, which is a different story. Right. If you're trying to build a startup, you're trying to build a product. So whatever work a customer asks you for, the first thing you should ask is, is that productizable or is this a custom one off? And then you have to make that decision of whether or not you want to do it or not.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Exactly. You couldn't be more right in that regard because, you know, there's, there's different type of business owners, different missions, goals and objectives. But if you're trying to really get to a point of starting up and being profitable, you've got to stick to the basics of what do people need, how do they need it, and is it worth spending time on something that only one customer or client's gonna need?
You know, it being, being able to transition to a product that can be used over and over again is really, really a prime focus that I put into a lot of the businesses I work with that are in the early stages. Because you don't want to waste time and resources on something that's not going to turn into consistent profitability or just revenue kind of altogether.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: You know, profitability, you know, everyone's chasing that word and that concept. But even if you can get started on bringing in work and selling products and working with clients to where you're covering costs, you keep the light on and you get the time to really gain the experience and get that feedback from the customers and the market in general, you're going to be able to shape a product that is much more useful and, well, universally needed and desired. But you address something that I find to be extremely important. Don't start with a solution, start with a problem.
There's even a framework that works in keynote speaking, and it's really similar. You got to start With a problem, talk about how that problem feels and why we need to solve it, and then you get to go into the solutions. It's the same thing with a business as it is in keynote speaking. Doesn't matter. But with that being the case, it leads me to a very interesting question.
I'm curious your response. You know, what role does storytelling, you know, play in driving adoption of, you know, technical or disruptive products?
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Storytelling is huge, right? Storytelling is how you're positioning it to, to your internal teams, to your investors, to your clients.
If you have a great idea or a great product, but you can't tell the story of that product, no one's going to know, no one's going to buy it. So storytelling is key. So I think as an early startup, one of the things you really need to work on is what is your messaging? What is your story?
How do you tell it in two sentences? Right? And that sounds ridiculous, but that's really true and particularly true early on when you're soliciting initial clients or initial investors. If you can't hook them in two sentences, they've moved on, they're gone. So you need to have the longer story that hopefully you get the chance to tell.
But first off, you need that, you know, the whole elevator pitch thing, but it's shorter than an elevator. I, I think you really have two sentences.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: You know, you're, I think you're the first person to break that down in a way that truly simplifies the dynamic because you're right. You know, even just like with short form content or content you would find online, seven seconds is the average someone's viewing something before they decide to either continue watching it or move on to the next thing.
So think of it as something that's less entertaining than that, even if it's face to face. If you can hook them in, in the first two sentences, you've got a shot. But I think you're right. You know, the story is, is a major part of it.
But really refining those first two sentences can change everything, whether or not you get to actually tell that story. You know, and Todd, you know, for founders navigating both purpose, profitability and, and pretty much, you know, what does it really take? Where can they follow your work and learn more about your approach?
[00:32:00] Speaker B: So Woodchuck, we are Woodchuck AI if you want to look pretty easy to find us.
I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm pretty easy to find. I'm Todd Thomas on LinkedIn.
So yeah, we're easy to find. We're out there.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: You know, I love that it is real nice and simple because to be honest, there's plenty of experts and very unique individuals with serious experience that we bring onto our shows. And there's been several times I actually call them after the fact and connect them to clients of mine where that person can definitely elaborate on their needs better than I can. But now I'm kind of curious. I would like to dive into your book a little bit, you know, before we start recording, we got to talk about, you know, Hyperscale is a book that was pretty recent of yours. It's doing really well. I want to dig into that a little bit and see how does that apply? Can that be a really good resource for our viewers today?
[00:32:49] Speaker B: So thanks so much for that. Yeah, really excited about Hyperscale. It just came out the first week of January. It shipped, shot right to the top of Amazon, became a number one bestseller the first week. So that was really exciting. It really addresses a big topic right now. It's AI data centers and the next great global expansion of energy capacity.
And this really touches on a lot of the things that we've talked about today, which is innovation and things that are driving startups. And AI and data centers are really on the forefront right now. You're really seeing a convergence of the energy section and the technology sector, and it's really innovation that's driving success.
So I think we're really seeing a new industrial revolution that's being driven by AI and technology and energy generation. So it's pretty exciting. The book kind of level sets what are realistic expectations so we can have a true conversation of what are our real options, how can we address some of these problems and come up with positive solutions so we can have a realistic discussion about that?
And then it dives into some of the really interesting innovations that are making a real impact right now, today, but also that'll be driving what AI and energy looks like over the coming decades.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: That is really exciting. And now I'm thinking I might need to find your book as that that sounds like that's universally beneficial to any kind of business owner. There's always something to learn. And one thing that I found very quickly in my career is that if I'm not a lifelong learner, I can't expect to really reach my full potential, you know. Now I'm also kind of curious, you know, for our audience, what are some of the big projects you're working on right now? What is in the forefront of Todd's life and what's the next step for you.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: So we've got some really exciting projects right now. We're working on a couple of really large EV battery factory facilities where we are helping them to divert their waste materials and monetize those materials.
We've also got a couple of the biggest data centers that are going up right now in the US and we're able to be involved in those. And that's really interesting because part of the other thing about building a data center that most people don't realize or think about is build stands at a crossroads or an EV battery factory for that factor as well. They actually produce a lot more waste than your typical commercial construction project. And that's because all that high tech equipment, when it's arriving on site and needs to be installed, it all arrives in custom hardwood single use pallets. And then they're stuffed full of cardboard and plastic to protect the equipment inside. And right now, today, all of that material goes to the landfill, but it's all completely reusable. Wood, cardboard, plastic can all be reused. So we're really excited to be doing more and more data centers and really large hyperscale data centers. So it's exciting. There's so much room to deliver value there and really reduce waste, reduce costs and reduce carbon.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: I've got to say, you are very much leading the way in my mind when it comes to transitioning the thought of waste into potential revenue. So this is a new concept for me and I'm very glad to be doing this interview with you today. Now to our audience. We'll be right back. In our final segment, we're exploring how resource efficiency can become a long term competitive advantage.
Welcome back to Biz Talk. For our final segment with Todd Thomas, we're bringing the conversation full circle, literally with resource efficiency and the power of, of turning waste into value.
Many companies accept inefficiency as part of doing business, but circular thinking challenges that, you know, assumption and uncovers hiding opportunities.
So this, this topic is something that is becoming more and more relevant in everyday life. In business, you know, waste often hides in outdated processes, overlooked materials and inefficient systems. I see it all the time in businesses. Leaders who learn to see waste as untapped value can reduce cost, open new revenue streams and strengthen long term resilience and better market positioning. So Todd, it is such a pleasure to still have you on the show. This is our last segment, another great topic for us to dive into. So thank you for being here.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: My pleasure.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: Thanks so much.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: So once again, we're going to dive in with a pretty loaded question, and I hope you're ready for it.
You know, as I've chewed on this conversation, I'm thinking, why do so many organizations accept waste as a cost instead of rethinking it as value?
[00:37:29] Speaker C: So inertia is difficult to overcome. And companies have been doing business the way they've been doing business for forever.
So, Woodchuck, we really focus on construction and manufacturing. So if you're a construction company, you've probably been using the same waste hauler for 10, 20 years, right? You've got this guy that you got a new job and you call him up and he's got dumpsters there for you next week. So. So simply to break that cycle is difficult. Change is difficult.
But the incentive, big savings can really work. And I would suggest that if you do sustainability well, if you do waste diversion well, it's more than just a cost savings. There are additional end benefits that can potentially become strategic advantages for you as a company.
We have had several of our big clients, several of our big consumers, construction company clients that have told us our ability to not just reduce waste and reduce costs, but also to provide all of that tracking and validation of the materials diverted as well as the CO2 diverted and provide that to their end clients, that there is huge value in that. And they think that helps them to win more jobs. It's a strategic advantage in them getting more jobs.
And, you know, as we've touched on today, the world of developing new AI data centers is a huge boom right now. It's the new gold rush. And construction companies are competing hard to win these jobs from the big tech companies. So if you can come in with.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: A little ace in the ace in.
[00:39:03] Speaker C: The hole, where you can help help them on the sustainability side as well as the financial side, that can really help you win more jobs.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: You know, it's all about perspective and how you position it. I feel like, you know, and as things change, everyone's always coming up with a new pitch or a new strategy, a new, new winning edge. But it's just keeping it logical, relevant, and very practical. I feel like it's consistently the right move. But, you know, as we dive into the circular business models, what is, you know, what's the big strategic opportunity in those circular business models?
So the big opportunity, there's, there's a.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Couple of things, right? And I know we're in a, a landscape where a lot of the sustainability language is, you know, those can be triggers now.
But there's a couple things that everybody agrees on. And that's efficiency, waste reduction and cost reduction. Everybody loves those things. That's not a left, that's not a.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Right, it's non political right.
[00:40:00] Speaker C: Everybody loves those.
And the other thing that we talked about earlier or really throughout the show, people want to do the sustainable thing, they want to do the environmentally friendly thing, but they're afraid it's going to cost them more money. So if you can demonstrate and educate people on how we can utilize technology to do sustainability and actually have that as a cost reducer, not a cost add on, then people want to do that. And then you take the next step, which is not only are we going to drive efficiency within this job and we're going to reduce waste and we're going to reduce costs, but the positive outcome of that also is it's going to impact your public relations, your communications, the way that your company is viewed within the public. And it can actually even have an impact on your ESG rating that can have a really positive impact on your market capitalization. So we're going to start by reducing your costs. But when you play out the whole scenario and really see the big long term impact for these big tech companies on the back end, the, the potential impact to market capitalization could be 100x or a thousandx, the money you save up front by not throwing stuff in the landfill.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: That's a really good point. But it did lead to a kind of a curious thought here. You know, as we've talked, you know, really breaking down how the model makes sense and, and really kind of repositioning the way we look at it. It does.
You know, we've talked about like construction, waste packing, waste, things of that nature, you know, for other industries. I'm curious, how do operational leaders start identifying waste that could become revenue? Right? Not, not just the construction teams, but you know, maybe like a great example, you know, retail or even, you know, the food industry or you know, we talked a little bit about manufacturing. I'm curious if you could dive into that for everyday entrepreneurs.
What does that opportunity look like?
[00:41:53] Speaker C: So construction, manufacturing, retail, food, every one of those industries that you just listed, everything that comes or goes from any one of those facilities is being moved on a wood pallet, probably wrapped in clear plastic shrink wrap. So whatever you, wherever you go grocery shopping, next time you go to the grocery store, drive around the back side of the store and I will guarantee that every single business on that entire row has a stack of pallets behind their business.
And I would bet if you open up the dumpster and look in, and.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: You don't have to.
[00:42:29] Speaker C: I'll tell you.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: I do that, right?
[00:42:31] Speaker C: I'm going to climb up and look inside the dumpster, and it's half full of plastic and cardboard. All of those materials have value if you separate them. So a lot of times you'll talk to a company and they'll say, well.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: We don't have any wood waste.
[00:42:43] Speaker C: Really? You're a grocery store. How did all these vegetables get here? How did they arrive?
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:49] Speaker C: Everybody's got a ton of waste, but people don't think about it.
[00:42:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:54] Speaker C: It's behind the building.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: You don't think about it.
[00:42:56] Speaker C: So you asked me earlier what step one is.
It's the sill. It's still the same one.
Understand how much waste you have and what are the materials that are in that waste. I. I pretty much guarantee you have value that you're throwing in the dumpster every day.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: You know, the way you put that just completely reframes. Oh, man. There needs to be some thought, some intent and. And some real time spent on, hey, let's double check where we could be turning this from, you know, waste and cost into potential gain. You know, can. Can you share an example, you know, where turning waste into value changed, you know, financial or environmental outcomes, whether it was for your business or another?
You know, I'm curious if you have any additional examples there.
[00:43:39] Speaker C: I'll tell you a cool example. So we have a facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we, we take wood waste from all the furniture manufacturers, and we, for the most part, we turn that into. To energy with our partner, Northstar Clean Energy.
But we have a new little circle that we're really excited about. It's a true local circle economy.
So there's a great brewery in Grand Rapids called Founders Brewery, and they use old whiskey barrels to ferment their beer.
You can only do that a couple times, and the barrel is shot, and you need to get rid of it. So they have hundreds of fermenting barrels, big oak barrels that they need to get rid of, and they've always paid to take those to the landfill. So imagine these big, beautiful oak barrels just getting thrown in the landfill just makes you sick, right? So we now take those barrels, we process them, we. We take off the metal rings and we recycle the metal. But then we take all of that fantastic oak and we grind it down and we deliver it to another local partner, Michigan Wood Fuels, and they use it to make barbecue chips. So now you can get barbecue chips that are soaked in whiskey and beer from your local brewery. And you can buy those chips and grill your steak or grill your chicken. And so I love the idea of drinking a founder's beer while I grill my steak over the wood chips from a founder's barrel. So it's a true circular economy. And we're taking all those wood casts that founders used to pay to take to the trash. We're turning them into value, generating revenue for founders, generating revenue for Michigan Wood Fuels and delivering. Locals are really cool local product to make Friday or Saturday a little bit more fun.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: You know, I'll be, I'm super glad you picked that as an example because number one, it expressed and explained things very, very well. Number two, I lived in Grand Rapids for a few years and I knew exactly what you were talking about and, and thinking about it. That is a really awesome business idea. Talk about turning opportunity. Now you got me thinking, oh man, I kind of want to get those wood chips. I would love to smoke some meat over that or grill with it. I mean, my goodness.
Yeah, now you got me thinking, I might actually want to go back to the cold for a little bit and enjoy some Grand Rapids again. But you know, it does reframe a lot of the misconceptions, you know, even myself, you know, I've, I've had in the past of how to handle waste and it now begs the question, where can I even implement this for my current clients? You know, I'm once again, you know, this conversation is absolutely incredible and it's been very eye opening. Where can the people connect with you and learn more about you and Woodchuck and the work that you're really doing right now?
[00:46:13] Speaker C: So a lot of different places you can find us Woodchuck AI, you can look up our website and there's the Chucks right there.
You can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm Todd Thomas at LinkedIn. Or if you really want some kind of an in depth analysis of a lot of the things we've talked about today, you can pick up one of my books. Hyperscale is the newest one that we've talked about, but it's available on Amazon. So just go to Amazon and you can look up Hyperscale AI data centers and the next great expansion of global energy Capac me and check out one of the books, maybe you'll enjoy it.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Yeah, to our audience, you know, in between, you know, our, our segments here, we got a chance to talk about some of his books right there on Amazon. You got to check them out. Number one, they look fantastic, too. Him sharing this experience, this knowledge and this information, you can get a much deeper look and dive into each one of these topics. So, Todd, thank you so much for showing us how innovation, sustainability and financial discipline don't compete. They really reinforce each other. And for our viewers, the big takeaway today is this growth and responsibility can go hand in hand when strategy, execution and vision really truly align.
So again, I am your host, Ryan Herpin, and this has been Biz Talk, where real business leaders share the strategies that move industries forward.
I'll see you next time.
