Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show Aja Atwood. Aja is the co-founder and CEO of Trella Technologies, an organization that provides technical, innovative solutions to make indoor and urban farming a sustainable, long-lasting industry.

Today, Harry and Aja talk about the amazing technologies they’re developing at Trella, including automated plant-training robotics. Aja shares her entrepreneurial origin story which started with her natural curiosity and analytical mind and led her to building a company that aiming to change the vertical farming industry. She discusses the incredible work they’re doing with Trella’s partnership with Jean Charles Academy and speaks to the importance of fostering diversity in the workplace. Finally, Aja talks about what’s next for Trella and what excites her about the future of AgTech.

Episode Sponsor

CULTIVATD

Freight Farms

Key Takeaways

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• 03:41 – Harry welcomes to the show Aja Atwood, who joins the show to discuss her company, Trella, and her vertical farming origin story
• 
  
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• 11:00 – A curious and analytical mind
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• 13:15 – Aja’s podcast origin story
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• 18:39 – Partnering with Jean Charles Academy
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• 25:33 – The Trella Story and the idea to grow plants horizontally
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• 32:22 – No More Mondays: the decision to pursue entrepreneurship
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• 35:35 – Biggest lessons Aja learned throughout her career
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• 38:57 – Aja speaks to the market response to Trella
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• 41:38 – What excites Aja most about the future of Trella and vertical farming
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• 43:42 – Aja talks about some of the successful partnerships they’ve developed at Trella and some of the AgTech conferences she’s attended
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• 46:55 – Aja comments on the lack of diversity in the AgTech industry
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• 50:48 – A tough question Aja has had to ask herself recently
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• 52:38 – Harry thanks Aja for joining the show and let’s listeners know where they can learn more about Trella and connect with Aja
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Tweetable Quotes

“This is the time if you’re curious or you like to try new things. The world is open for you right now.” (13:07) (Aja)

“What’s interesting is there are some youths and some children that already know the importance of growing their own food.” (21:10) (Aja)

“So, we got into what’s called ‘low-stress’ plant-training. We were trying to figure out how to do that with robotics and not having to rely on that manual operation so much. What we came up with is a system that will automatically train a plant to grow horizontally. Essentially what it does is trick the top of the plant by light with no chemical violation of the plant.” (26:18) (Aja)

“I want to be a good leader. I want to create a company where people are thrilled and excited to come to work; they feel like they’re a part of something. I’m trying to create something that I never had. And, that’s what fuels me today.” (34:43) (Aja)

“I feel like my entire adult life has been working with people who don’t look like me, and the vertical farming indoor farming industry is no different.” (47:23) (Aja)

Links Mentioned

Aja’s LinkedIn

Trella Website

Aja’s Podcast

Aja’s Website

Trella’s YouTube

Trella’s Instagram

Link to Jean Charles Academy

Sponsor Info:

Cultivatd Website

Cultivatd Instagram

Cultivatd’s Twitter

Cultivatd’s Facebook

Freight Farms Website

Freight Farms Facebook

Freight Farms Twitter

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Mentioned in this episode:

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got into what's called, you know, low-stress training, plant training techniques, tying

things, but trying to figure out how could we do that with robotics and not

having to rely on that manual operation so much. So what we came up with

is a system that will automatically train a plant to grow

sideways, horizontally. Essentially what it does is it

tricks the top of the plant

Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations

with fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech

visionaries. Join us every week as we dive deep into the

world of vertical farming. With your host, Harry Duran.

Vertical Farming Podcast, Season 4. Welcome back. If this is your first

time listening, you're in the right place. This is the show where we interview fascinating

CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming companies from around the

world. I'm your host, Harry Duran. In case you missed it, last week we had

a great conversation with Samantha Johnson. Make sure you check that out, Episode

43. This episode, I speak to Aja Atwood.

She's the co-founder and CEO of Trella Technologies. It's an

organization that provides technical, innovative solutions to make indoor and urban

farming a sustainable, long-lasting industry. And in this episode, we talk about

the technologies they're developing at Trella, including automated plant training robotics.

She shares her entrepreneurial origin story, which started with her natural curiosity and

analytical mind, which led her to building a company that's aiming to change the vertical

farming industry. We discuss the incredible work they're doing with Trella's partnership with the Jean

Charles Academy, and it speaks to the importance of fostering diversity in the

workplace. Finally, Ada talks about what's next for Trella and what excites her about the

future of agtech. This episode is brought to you by Freight Farms. Freight Farms

manufactures and sells a leading vertical hydroponic container farm, the Greenery

S. Built inside a 40-foot shipping container, the Greenery S uses

innovative climate control technology paired with an IoT app called Farmhand

to enable anyone to grow fresh food anywhere in the world. Visit

freightfarms.com/verticalfarmingpodcast to learn

more. This episode is brought to you by the Global Vertical Farming Show, taking

place December 1st and December 2nd, It's a

trailblazing global event bringing together the complete vertical farming value chain

to explore the market, introduce brands, and make new connections. Learn

more at verticalfarmingshow.com. So, Aja Atwood,

co-founder and CEO of Trella Technologies, thank you for joining me on the Vertical

Farming Podcast. Thank you for having me. Do you remember how

we got connected? I think it was someone from your marketing team or someone who

had been listening to the podcast previously. Yeah, one of our members of the team,

Sherry, she's our community engagement lead. She reached out. Yeah.

How about yourself? What's been your journey with the podcasting world? How do

you listen or? Yeah, I enjoy podcasts, listening to

podcasts a lot. In 2020, we did, well,

on my personal brand, on my personal channel, I did a podcast where I

interviewed some people in the industry, in the cannabis

space, which is where I was focused a lot more at that time.

It went really well. I enjoyed doing it, but it's a lot of work, Harry.

So I give it up to you for doing all the editing and the processing

and the finding of the guests. It's— there's a lot to it. So yeah.

So the, the podcast journey for me started in 2014

when I started my first one, which is Podcast Junkies. It's a podcast where I

interview other podcasters. Oh, okay. And that's, that's been going since

2014, 280+ episodes. Hour-long

interviews. And then I started our agency Fullcast, which produces

shows. So we have a team that produces everything I was learning

through my first show. We started to do that for other business owners.

So it handles all the production, it handles all the marketing. And then I started

Vertical Farming Podcast after reading Peter Diamandis's

book Abundance, which regular listeners have heard. But

it took me down a rabbit hole, and then I realized I wanted to learn

more and take listeners along the journey as I was

discovering this really fascinating industry, which is why we're on season 4 now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. I'm interested to hear how vertical

farming was, you know, it's such a niche. Yeah,

yeah, I think I've always been

interested in new technologies. And, you know, this— that book is really interesting

because it really just at the time introduced me to Dickson Despommiers'

book Vertical Farming, which is like one of the very first books people come

around or come across in this space. But I, I felt what was

interesting, and the timing— I didn't plan it this way, but this is just how

it happened— as I was getting started kicking off the interviews, COVID hit.

And very quickly, you know, it started bringing

to the, the forefront to people that are like me and

introducing into these conversations this idea of access to local and fresh

food, food deserts. And so it's been really interesting supply chain

issues related to traveling and delivering and

distributing food across large distances. I think people just

take it for granted, the bananas that show up on their table

or the citrus that comes from Florida or all that food

that comes, the almonds from California. They don't think

about these things, but I think what's been interesting in these conversations is more and

more people are becoming And so going

back to your history and your education, I'm curious

when this idea of agriculture or,

you know, maybe not specifically vertical farming, but when some of these

ideas and concepts started coming to the forefront for you. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's been a journey and it's been, you know, seeds that were

planted from when I was young and that have been, you know,

fertilized and nurtured to today that got me to this point. I

wouldn't, you know, You know, when I went into college as a mechanical

engineering degree, I, if you told me that this is what I would be doing,

I wouldn't, I wouldn't have believed you. But I did have some,

some visions when I was younger of, uh, you know, I grew up in

Philadelphia most of my life in South Philadelphia. It's an area where you

don't have a lot of access to natural grow, you know, fresh food.

And I was wondering, you know, what would it be like to just have a

truck where I had a bunch of fruit on the back and I could like

old school, you know, fruit cart down the street and sell fruit. And then

kind of, you know, it was like, eh, well, you know, at the time, where's

the money in that mentality? And, and let it go to the wayside.

But then once I, I started actually

discovering plant medicine, specifically

cannabis, in like 2012, 2013, I started

getting into it to help myself with some issues. I was, you know, an

athlete and developed in my older age into like a weekend

warrior type of athlete where I had a lot of issues

that I was dealing with and decided instead of, you know, pain relief, what else

could I do? And cannabis was a great solution for that.

But while I was studying the plant and learning about the industry, I

knew there wasn't a space for me within this agtech space, but I just

didn't know where. And then I was approached by,

you know, a friend of mine who wanted to design a system that would grow

one plant in one container. And I got on

board with that project to help as, you know, the CTO developing

the technology, creating the prototypes, and enjoyed it and learned a lot

from that experience. But it wasn't something that I was truly

passionate about. It was, you know, it was kind of like, what do I want

to do? I need something that really speaks to me. So I took a break

from that project. And while I was on break, I was actually

growing in my own home. growing cannabis at the time.

And, um, also my corporate life. I mean, I was in corporate

America for about 18 years. Yeah, me too.

Yeah, so I traveled a lot at the time, so

trying to keep up on top of my plants was a little bit of a

hassle. You know, I found solutions online like a lot of people do to help

with the light control and doing the, you know, feeding the

water and checking pH levels, those things could

be automated. Um, this is like 2015,

2014, 2015 timeframe. Uh, but I couldn't figure

out how to control the shape of the plant. And when I would go away

and come back, it would be, you know, out of control growing all

over the place. Yeah. So it was

a problem that I had. And then I wondered, is there a way to come

up with a solution for this? And that's what started Trellis Technologies. But before

we went, you know, full-fledged into Trellis Technologies, I

thankfully ran into an angel investor who said, before you

spend a lot of energy on this, make sure that there's an actual

need. So I took a pause and did like a

6-week just deep dive into vertical farming.

And time after time after time after time, I just saw that

there's a need for indoor farming, vertical farming. We definitely need to move

this industry forward. We need to move it forward with sustainable, you know,

measures included. But I also noticed that a lot of the

plants that were being advertised were

microgreens, herbs, lettuce, small things.

And that's when I said, ah, I think this is where Trella could come in

handy because we could help to diversify the types of plants that you could grow

in that environment. That's how it started. That's a fascinating

journey. And I'm wondering, it's interesting, this marriage of these

skills that you learned early on and you may not realize

why you learned them. And then for you, mechanical engineering.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that you have

a sort of like a curious and analytical mind when it comes to trying to

solve these problems. And I'm wondering, was that something that actually

originally led you to pick mechanical engineering as something you wanted to study?

Yeah, yeah, that was, um, that was it. You know, we had a, um,

in high school we had a career day where a gentleman came in and, uh,

spoke to the class, and he was a, a doctor and a biomedical

engineer. And he was also, you know, a gentleman of African American descent.

So to see someone that looks like me really

went— made me open up my mind of what can I do? And I said,

if he can be both a doctor and a biomedical engineer, I can be an

engineer. So, you know, looked at all the different,

you know, types of engineering that you could become and settled on mechanical because it

had the most diversity and variety. Like at the time, it was

one of the you know, verticals that you could go into that offered

a lot of different opportunity, a lot of different industries. So I said, let's start

there. And, um, luckily, I'm glad that I made that choice.

It, it definitely fed my brain and it, it works. It suits me well.

Yeah. Do you remember, or would your parents be better suited to

answer this, how you— if that's how you were as a child? Like, were you

naturally curious? Did you like, you know, playing with stuff or just asking questions about

stuff to just try to figure them out? Yeah, yeah. If you would ask my

grandmother and my mother, they would tell you that I was a very— I watched

a lot, constantly watching, and I watched adults a lot too.

That's interesting. And just kind of naturally had this

way of being in the world where it was watch what's going on around you,

figure out what you like, figure out what you don't like, and then go in

that direction. So yeah, very observant.

And also at the time, my mother was a single parent, and when

something would break in the house or something needed to be repaired, it was, hey,

it's you and me, let's get it going. So, you know, we

would figure it out. And, you know,

then it's such a great time to be alive because now with the

internet and YouTube and Google, you could teach almost anything

if you have enough patience and you really want to do it. So, you know,

this is the time if you're curious or you like to try new things,

the world is open for you right now. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So I want to keep things in chronological order, so, and I do want to

talk about the, the work you've done at uh, John Charles Academy.

But you did touch on the podcast, and that looks like it started in

2017. So is that— was that— is the timing right on

that? Well, I did— I guest starred on a couple of podcasts, but I didn't—

okay, we didn't have our own podcast until 2020. It was right when

the pandemic started is when I— okay, got into it. Yep. And who were you

listening to at the time, and what was inspiring you to take that leap? Wow.

Well, Trying to think. I listen to a lot of talk

radio. Some of those individuals have some podcasts. There's an

individual by the name of Karen Hunter that I listen to a lot on SiriusXM.

But who really got me thinking about it was my brother,

my younger brother, who's a lot more into social media and kind of what's, you

know, what's going on. And he's also a great supporter

of mine and, you know, cheers me on. And even though he's younger,

coaches me, you know, coaches me up. And he said, you know, I think this

is something that you could possibly do. And I hemmed and hawed a little bit

and then decided to take him up on it. And I think it was really

during the time where we were in a pandemic and we couldn't really talk to

people, it was a way for me to be able to share my thoughts and

to stay connected. So. What would you say were some of the biggest

takeaways or lessons that you learned from that experience of having the podcast?

I would say I enjoyed it. There's a lot of work to it,

however. And I think if I were to do it again, it would be

a lot more well thought out and planned in advance. We

kind of did it, you know, maybe with 2 weeks prior, we'd know

what was coming, which caused a little bit of anxiety

and exhaustion trying to get things done. I know that feeling.

So I would say better planning would have been one of the things that I

learned. And then the other is to keep, you know, make sure that you

have a lot more guests. when we did it before, there were some

episodes without a guest and some episodes with guests,

and I enjoyed the one with guests a lot more. So I would do that

on the next go-round. I don't know how the experience was for you, but

what I've noticed is with my original show and with this show,

having this opportunity to meet people that if it not for the

podcast I wouldn't have met before, and getting—

I love the idea of like long-form conversations as a way to get to know

people a little better. Because, you know, a 15-minute chat, or,

you know, in the past— I'm dating myself— but when you would see someone on

the news or a special or a talk show, you'd get to hear them for

like 5 minutes and you don't really understand. Like, they just tell you— they

put their best foot forward. But I think getting to have at least in this

long-form conversation with people really helps you

connect with them on a more human level. And I'm wondering if that's something that

you found through some of your conversations as well. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I

enjoy the longer podcasts to listen to. The ones

that are a little bit shorter, I tend to just, you know, either go past

or not really get into it because I feel like I'm going to be gypped.

It's not going to be the full complete picture. You know, it'll be out of

context. So to be able to listen to

it in long form is great. And then I also find personally

You know, this is something that my team has been working with me on, is

trying to do, you know, social media. And there are things like TikTok and these

short-form videos where they're like, we just want you to say something in 30 seconds.

And I'm like, I don't think— I hear you,

I hear you loud and clear. I'm like, I'm 51, so

I, I, I have it and I, I turn it on or I log in

and then I very quickly log out. I'm just like, nope, this is way too

much for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And So yeah, I have a hard time

creating content in really short snippets. I'd rather it be long form.

I do find it amazing, and I found this out, that my

ability to talk on a podcast lends itself well

to what I'm doing now because I like to speak, I like to talk to

people. And now we're using more and more video just because of tools like

Squadcast, but in the past you would just use the audio. And I

think as people that create content or business owners that need in the

beginning to wear all the hats, you know, you quickly realize, do

I like writing? Do I like doing quick short videos? Do

I just like speaking? And so finding that fit for you,

I think, is helpful to figure out where, you know, where you

naturally like feel at ease. And it's really important because I think

in the beginning, like when especially as business owners, you're like, oh, you're supposed to

be blogging. And I'm like, I don't like writing like these long

blog posts. That's what marketers are for. That's what copywriters are for. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And that was, you know, when we first started out and we had

a very small team and had to do all those things. I struggled with the

writing. I'd much rather speak. Even, you know, on

Slack they have that audio, like, version now, and I'm like, yes, audio!

Yeah, or this— you probably— we all have our friends that, like, uh,

I was just telling my partner this this morning, who have a preference for leaving

those— even Facebook messages, right? Some people like the quick, even the

SMS. That's another form of communication, right? Like, kids are breaking up

nowadays via text messages.

Yeah. Now, I— and, you know, my friends and

family, they know I'm short with my texts. And but if you

want to pick up the phone and talk, that's when we can really get into

it. So yeah, yeah, I feel you. So

talk to me a little bit about John Charles Academy for folks that may

not be familiar with it. Yeah, yeah, Jean Charles Academy, the new school, just started

this year, founded in 2019, but we had our first— we're in the

crux of our first school year. It's

created and founded by a woman, Nakia Navarro, who also

heads up a nonprofit organization called Building Audacity.

And Building Audacity is, you know, kind of the umbrella,

and Jean Charles Academy is under that. But the goal of the

school is to teach differently, think different, you know, come

at this education aspect from a different approach. It's

really centered around Black and brown individuals that

are looking to learn different languages. So if you are,

you know, fluent in Spanish, making sure that there's a teacher in the room that

can teach you in your primary language and then supplement you with English.

You know, the, the students that attend are from all different types

of backgrounds. Some of them can afford the school, some of them cannot, but no

one's turned away. So a lot of the funding is,

you know, it's a nonprofit, so there are people that are, you know,

partnering up and donating money to help with education.

And it's in a location in Lynn, Massachusetts where there's not

enough schools. We need more schools. So it's fitting, it's filling

that need as well. One of the cool things about the John Charles Academy,

Nakia, she reached out to me, I think it was Ooh,

late 2019. And I

met her previously, but she saw that I was, you know, doing ag tech

hydroponics, and she wanted to create a hydroponics lab in the

school. So we were able to

identify and find some equipment, bring it into the school, get

it set up. So we have about 5 and eventually 6 different

stations, we call them, that are different types of you know, grow towers or,

or NFT racks, all different types of equipment. And we're,

you know, we're testing with them and growing with them, but we're also teaching, and

the students get a chance to interact with all that equipment. And it's been

interesting. It's been really interesting and fun to see how they

respond and react to something like this. What's been the most

interesting aspects? I mean, I know there's a lot of fun things that happen when

you introduce some of these topics, some of these

technologies to young minds who are open to discovering

things like this? And what was— what were you seeing as you were introducing

these and teaching them these topics? Well, what's interesting is that there are some

youth, some children, and this goes all the way down to like kindergarten, first grade,

that already know the importance of growing their own food. So that

I assumed before that there would be a lot of

having to teach the importance of why are we learning all of this stuff.

But the parents, you know, have already started some of that stuff.

I would say maybe 25% of them are already aware of the importance, and then

it's the 75% that we're working with. But they get it. They see what's going

on around them. Children are not, you know, they're not blind. They

understand the importance of these things. So the

bulk of them are extremely interested, which is great. The thing that's been interesting

though is that a lot of them don't like vegetables. They don't like They

love fruit, love the fruit. Vegetables, not so much. So when we talk about

growing, you know, lettuce and kale, you kind of get a, mm.

But what we decided to do was to allow each student to

have their own plant. And we have their towers,

lettuce grow towers. Maybe some of you listeners have seen or heard

about those. You can get, you know, you can get them

36-count plants or 24. So we have a few

of those at the school, and we were able to dedicate one little spot per

per student, so each student has their own plant. They planted

it, they come in, they maintain it, and then it's time to harvest a

little bit and test it. And we did that just a couple of weeks ago,

and a big bulk of them actually were like, I like it. And I'm

like, okay, thinking to myself, you like it because it's yours.

And, you know, they're taking it home to their parents, and then, you know, last

week I hear some of them saying that their parents made some things with it,

made some salads. Wow. For me, it's been

nice and cool to see how some kids that were kind of like,

mm, that are now saying, yeah, I want to eat more. Like, can I take

more off my plant? I'm like, no, we have to let it rest. It only

has 3 leaves left. We have to leave it so that it can

recover. That's funny. Do they get to name their own towers as

well? They get to name their own plants. So some of them have decided to

name their plants. It's been fun. You know, there are plants named Michael. Elmo, Oscar.

That's cute. Yeah, it's been, it's

been fun. But it's interesting what it teaches them, this idea—

planning, care, nutrition,

taking pride in things that they've created. And also this

idea of supply and demand, you know, on a really tiny scale, but like

that simple concept of like, no, you can't like take all the leaves because you

need to give it room to grow and rest. And, and so

it must be fascinating. And, and I don't know if you thought of all these

things, but just all these little lessons that they've learned just from

maintaining and being responsible for that one tower. Yeah, no,

you know, it's been a learning experience for me as well. This is the first

year, so we're working through the curriculum and kind of, you know,

adjusting it on the fly as, as we need to. And sometimes the

students will say something or ask about something that wasn't You

know, wasn't on the game plan, but I say let's just let them lead and

let them go in the direction that they take this class. So a lot of

interesting questions, and because we're dealing with

hydroponics, I think the other thing that intrigues them is the lack of

soil. And, you know, at first some of them were like, no, you're still using

soil, because they would see the little seed plugs that you use to

start, and you'd have to— Yeah, no cheating.

But yeah, it's been fun. And what were some of the questions that they were

asking? How could we breed? Yesterday I had a really interesting

question about trying to breed a tomato and corn together

to see what would happen with that. That's

interesting. Yeah, and could we start, could we start breeding plants? And I said,

you're adding way too much to my to-do list this year. Maybe in

the future we can, but that's a whole nother process. But yeah,

well, it's fascinating because like young minds like

that are still tapped into their like inner creativity.

And you know, they're at that depending what age they are, but sometimes you have

to just almost encourage them and just like not limit their— like there's no silly

question because that's where some of the most amazing, I'm sure,

ideas and inventions have happened in the past. Just letting like minds like that, young

minds like that, to run free sometimes is exciting to see what they come up

with. Yeah, yeah, it has been. So talk to me about the—

it sounds like you created or invented something to help

with the— to handle or address limited space in terms of which you have

to grow. So is that tied directly to Trella?

Yeah. Or— okay, can you talk a little bit about the origin story there?

Yeah, sure. That's a product that we—

it's called Trella Grow LST. So it's under

Trella Technologies. It's patented. Just got our patent in January

of 2021. When I was dealing with that problem,

you know, back in 2016 of trying to control the height of my— of

the plant, we were trying to figure out how can we

automatically, when I'm not there, I could keep my lights at a certain height and

I'm done. I don't have to like worry about it anymore. It's not going to

grow into the light. So we got into what's called,

you know, low stress training, plant training techniques, tying things,

but trying to figure out how could we do that with robotics and not having

to rely on that manual operation so much. So what we came up

with is a system that will automatically train a plant to

grow sideways, horizontally. Wow. Essentially what it, what it

does is it, it tricks the top of the plant and it's, it's all by

light. So there's no like genetic or, you know, chemical

violation of the plant. It's just the plant is going through a

green ring. And if anyone would like to see what this looks like, because visuals

really help, you could go to our website at trellahub.com.

And we'll be sure to have links to all that stuff in the show notes

as well. Yeah, great. Thank you. But if you see what it looks like,

there's a green ring with a hole in it, and the top of the plant

goes through that green ring. And as the plant grows more and more, the green

ring just moves to the side. So if the plant grows very

fast, the green ring will move as fast as the plant is growing. So it's

sensing growth rate and adjusting accordingly. So what

it does is it, you know, during that vegetation phase,

it trains the plant to grow from one side to the other. And

then once you get done with the vegetation phase and you're ready to go into

flowering or fruiting, depending on the plant that you're working with,

you can allow those branches that have been trained to grow sideways to stretch

up towards the light. And that stretch period will vary depending

on the plant, but the bulk of that of the work of making

sure that it's all at one height and taken care of during the vegetation phase.

We also have a, you know, there's data always attached to everything. You

can't have a hardware product without the software side. Yeah, yeah. So there's,

of course, there's an app that is tracking that growth rate so that you can

see how fast your plant's moving, but it's also tracking temperature,

humidity, and CO2 so we can see if there's any correlation

between your environment and how fast your plant grows. We're

also testing correlations on how fast plants will grow

with how often you interact with it. So if you go in and you

prune and cut a lot of leaves, which you don't necessarily have to, but

if you, you know, want to do so, will your plant slow down

and how much? And, you know, how long will it take to recover? So we

can track all of that with the app, which is pretty cool. Okay. Lots of

questions here, but the big one is how Talk a little bit about

your thought process, or how— I'm just curious, kind of like how your mind works,

but like what starts to click, or how do you think about a

problem like this? And maybe some of your obvious experience in mechanical

engineering, and who did you work with to sort of brainstorm

this at a high level, and then think about how you

would actually put this into a viable working model? Yeah, yeah.

Well, so when I thought of the idea, I got together with

my co-founder Andres Chamorro. We call him Dre. He's a

mechanical engineer as well. We went to school together at Northeastern University, had

a couple of classes together, worked on some other projects post-college,

and we work really well together, especially with brainstorming.

So he and I got together after I came up with this

thought or this problem and said, let's just jot down like a bunch of

ideas. So we came up with like 12 different thing,

methods that we thought would do it, all really based on

phototropism, with the understanding that the plant will go in

the direction where it sees the most light. So whatever we

develop, we just have to make sure that we're using that as the basis.

Sure. So we had a plethora of ideas, and then we

narrowed that down to 3 that we thought were viable just by

thinking it through, talking it through, and then With the

3, we decided to build like a pseudo prototype

that had elements of all 3 so we could try to figure out which

ones made more sense. And we did that with no automation, no

robotics. It was just really training it by

hand, but doing it a certain way to see whether the plant would,

would respond properly. And it worked,

but it had several issues that we still had to figure out. How much space

do you need to give the plant so that it feels that it's healthy and

it's not stressed and cramped? And you have issues with mold that you

have to consider when you're holding a plant in a certain configuration,

making sure that you have enough airflow going through there. So we had to solve

that problem. And over time, the device got bigger and

bigger and bigger, but we wanted to keep it to a certain size

constraint because we were visualizing putting it in containers, farms, or

sitting it on shelves. So we wanted to make sure that it at least didn't

get too large. And we, I

think we did 7 designs and we built all of our prototypes

in-house. My co-founder Dre is a tinkerer.

He's a mechanical engineer as well. So, and he has access to a lot of

equipment. So we were luckily able to prototype a lot of the stuff in-house, which

saved on cost. And then we brought some more people on board to help

with taking the design from the prototype stage to,

you know, MVP and then production. So it's been,

it's been a while. It's been a while. Yeah.

How many years total then would you say from, you know, thinking up

and coming up with the idea to that working prototype and

to what you have now? So we talked about the idea in November of

2016, and we had our first

prototype by 2017. Okay.

Early 2017. I think we filed our

provisional patent around that time as well, then filed our

formal patent in 2018 when we were in prototype number 3,

and then finally got to our full patent this year.

But, um, yeah, if you saw the first one, I think we've

got— there's some pictures on our Instagram, like, if you, you know, we— and

YouTube, if you go far enough back, You'll see where it started and you'll see

where we are now, and it's a total difference.

What was the thought process around

creating a company around this? Because obviously having

something that works is one thing, but then deciding like, is this

viable? Is there a market for this? And then all the things

that have to happen starting up and running a company and starting to build a

team, some I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about that journey as

well now. Yeah. I've always— well, not always. Let me be

correct with that. Around the age of 30, I got the entrepreneur bug.

What book did I read? No More Mondays or something like that.

And a gentleman that I worked with

passed away suddenly in his sleep. And he had been aiming

for some like upper management position and had been

passed over time and time again and then just suddenly passed away. And it was

kind of an eye-opening, you know, thought process for

me after reading No More Mondays and then watching what happened to this gentleman.

And I said, I got to figure out how to take my life's

direction in my own hands and to think a little bit bigger. So

at that point, I knew corporate— me working for a company was

not going to be my end-all, but it would be what I would have to

do to get to that point. So I did I did a lot of

side projects with other companies. I had my own

software trading company. It was a little thing that I put together,

but it was a way for me to figure out what does it take to

at least have a business. And then when I was a part of the other

startups, I got to see a little bit more about what it takes to have

a business and to be a leader. And I was working with a coach

who understood where I was trying to go, so helped me to develop my

You know, self-talking, you know, getting my

brain together and then figuring out how to be a good leader

and how to manage. And then once I felt that this was something that I

really wanted to do, I just created a plan of escape. I call it

escaping out of corporate America. The matrix. Yep.

Yep. And was able to do that April of 2019.

So it wasn't, it hasn't been very long. But yeah,

that's what I think pushed me in this direction that

I have a lot of different ideas.

I want to be a good leader. I want to create a

company where people are thrilled and excited to come

to work. They feel like it's a part of something. It was almost like I

was trying to create— I'm trying to create something that I never had. And

that's what fuels me today is when things are hard, it's like, no,

it's We'll get there. If it was that easy,

everybody would, would have it. So. Yeah, I think back in my

experiences, the managers that I remember the most are the ones

who supported you and made you realize that

there's no such thing as a bad question. So they would, you know, they

let people speak whatever they wanted to and what was on their mind without any

judgment on that. And then, uh, so you had some room to make mistakes.

And also just supported you in your growth. And I definitely resonate

with that. And to that point, what are some of the things that you've

picked up along the way that have been helpful for you as a new leader

for your company? I think you kind of touched on it a little bit. My

apologies, I thought I silenced that. Okay. You kind of touched on

it a little bit. It's having the ability to let people be flexible

and to try new things. I found that

A lot of corporate America is very, you're, this is the way we're going to

do it. Yeah. You just showed up. Yes. You might have a, you know, another

idea, but this is the way that we've been doing it. And there isn't that

flexibility, but when you have a

startup and then when you also make sure that it's part of the culture, you

can allow that flexibility. And I think it makes

people a lot more easy. They're at ease that they're not going to get in

trouble, that they can try different things. And

my team, that's what they do. And then they also,

each of them have their own personal goal

that might be tied to Trello. You know, there's some aspect of

Trello where they're learning something so that they can do something else. And

I think some companies might say, ooh, you know, you don't

really want— you know, you want people that are going to be dedicated to the

company, you know, from year over year over year. And I'm like—

No. I want them to be dedicated to their craft and their skill set and

what they like to do. And then I hope that they can give that value

to Trello for however they feel fit. That amount of time is

the amount of time they want to give it. And then they're free to move

on to something else because I think it allows them to really

get into Trello and to learn and be creative,

knowing that they can take whatever they're learning somewhere else if they

decide that That's what they want to do. So,

yeah, what's interesting about that is this is a complete paradigm shift. Like, the old

way of thinking, like, you know, back in the day, if you got to work

for the same company, like, like, you can work for IBM for your whole life,

or GM, or something, or Boeing, and like, you were set for life and you

had the pension. But I think, I think what's been a wake-up call,

especially with COVID and remote work and thinking about like this new

generation, you know, how they respond to this

9-to-5 box and this 40-hours-a-week box. And as

managers and business owners adjusting to that, like this new reality

of this is the workforce. And so there's a mix of that. Then to your

point also, if you really are truly invested in the

growth of this person who at the time is your employee, but as a person

you want to see them grow, I think what you just outlined makes a lot

of sense. Like it may not be at company that they're at now.

And I think as a business owner, and, uh, it's important

to have that trust that if, if and when that person can leave and grow

to a better opportunity, that you can send them on their way. And then you,

you'll trust that the right person will come in to, to fill up that slot.

It's a good— that's a good fit for your company. Yeah, that's— that is,

you know, I think having— there's so many people in the

world, and especially now when you can work with people all over the

world, you'll find someone. You know, everyone

can be replaced, including the CEO, including me. Will it have the

same flavor? Maybe not, but I could be replaced.

So let's work together while we can and

while we want to. And then when we decide we're not having fun anymore,

move on to the next thing. Very good. What's the

What's the response been since the product's been introduced to the market?

So the response has been like, it's like one side versus the, you

know, we have a pretty wide spectrum where people are like,

wow, I've never seen anything like that before. And

it's like one of a kind. Wow. You know, and they understand that

this isn't just about growing in a container, but it's where else could we

grow? We could grow in space. We could take this into, onto

railway, you know, railroads where you have rail cars that are

growing food. while they're moving, you know, growing food in transit.

So a lot of people see, when I explain it to them, they see

how big this could possibly be. And then on the other side of things, it's,

I like doing it by hand. Okay, like we're not for everybody

and it's not, you know, priced for everybody. It's priced for

people who are doing this at scale to some degree and also

are working with certain types of plants that have that, you know,

revenue generation that makes it worthwhile. Yeah. But if you're just

growing tomato plants at home because you enjoy the process of growing

tomato plants at home, this isn't something that's for you. And I

think we have to get better as a company at explaining who

our target customer is. And we've

luckily been able to bring some people on board this year to help us with

that. And then I saw that you also have a WeFunder page,

so you're looking to crowdsource some investment as well? Yeah, yeah. We

have always been supported financially by the community.

You know, when we started out, it was myself and my co-founder who bootstrapped and,

you know, put the money up for the start. And then we did an

Indiegogo campaign to raise a little bit more money. So that was, you know, mostly

friends that knew us. And we did a Regulation A

crowdfunding campaign to get a bulk of the money. We raised

about $360,000 on that round. And then

We're opening it up again for our next round on WeFunder.

And, you know, that's one of the things that I like about

crowdfunding is that it really allowed us to do 2 things at once,

to test the market. You know, a lot of our investors are our

customers, a lot of our customers are investors. So

not only were we able to find money capital, but we were actually able to,

you know, find the market and to prove that, that part of the concept.

So it's worked out really well for us. Moving forward,

will we only do regulation crowdfunding? I would say

no, but I would always like to have regulation crowdfunding open so that those in

the community can be a part of our journey. Yeah.

So what do you see as the opportunities going

forward when you look at the experiences and

conversations and connections you've made up until this point?

What has you most excited when you, when you look out for the next 2

to 3 years for Trella? Well, I think what has me most excited is

that, and, you know, we talked about this a little bit, the momentum

in the vertical farming space, the pandemic, and that people are

a lot more aware about it because prior to this, it was

not a lot of people really thought that this was important or was, you know,

had a lot of opportunity from a financial or investment perspective.

But they see it now, and there are a lot of people that are out

there working on solutions that we could partner up with and that could couple

and supplement what it is that we're trying to do. You know, I shared

that vision that I have of growing food in transit, and in

order to do that, you need to automate several things.

Automating the plant training and maintenance aspect is something that

Trella can help out with, but we're going to need to find individuals

that are developing those container systems and that are automating other things, and they're

doing it. There's lots of options out there now. So what's exciting to

me is that, you know, when we thought about this back in 2016,

2017, and we pictured, you know, growing something

on a spaceship or in a rail car, we were like, wow,

that's going to be— that's a huge system, like the whole thing, picturing the whole

thing. It's a lot. Sure, sure. And, you know, part of me said,

There's other people working on this. We'll just have to find them. And sure enough,

there are a plethora of other people that are working on the solution. So

what's been great is we are now starting to find those individuals

and see synergy from nonprofit

organizations, educational institutions, universities,

and even just communities as a whole. We

have a Native American tribe that's interested in using our technology

for what they're doing in Montana. It's, um,

it's going to be crazy to see where this goes in the next 2 to

3 years. Can you highlight 1 or 2 of the

partnerships or companies or other groups that you've had

some success working with? Yeah, well, we have a few. We call them our

R&D partners, and they are basically just individuals

who are looking to help us test the product to figure out how many different

types of plants can we, can we grow with this thing. So right now

we're developing partnerships with the University of DC. They have an urban

ag department there, and we were able to go out and meet with them, talk

about what we're trying to do. They loved the idea and

putting some units together for them for early 2022.

I also talked about the tribe, it's the Chippewa Tribe, Turtle Mountain Band,

and had a chance, you know, they're doing something in Montana, but when we first

started talking, it was North Dakota. So I had a chance to go out there

and to speak with them and find out what they're trying to do. And,

you know, they're excited to get their hands on our units. We've had testing done

with some hemp farmers local to Massachusetts, one farm called

Terrapin Farm, who's owned by— we call her, she's an

activist. She's like one of the, you know, the big activists in the cannabis and

hemp space here in Massachusetts. And, you know, she's been

really great. You know, these R&D partners like Linda, they

give feedback. on not just the product, but also on the potential of

like what you, you know, what you can do with this type of stuff. So

they, they're willing to, you know, share their network

and all types of stuff. So it's been really great to work with these R&D

partners. And as I say to everybody, you know, this is, this is

something new. It's never been done before. It's ready for the market, but it

can be so much more. And we want to work with, with people who want

to test it, try it out, give us some feedback so that we can tweak

it and make it That's very exciting.

Have you, given the timing of when you started working on

Trella, did you make it to any of the conferences or were you

able to connect any of the other players in the space? Sorry, can you repeat

that one more time? Just given the timing of when Trella started and

obviously the pandemic timing threw a lot of things

in disarray, but were you able to attend any of the agtech

conferences or vertical farming conferences? I haven't been to any of the

conferences since the pandemic started. I will be going to one in

December. It's actually a cannabis conference in Chicago.

Uh, NECAN, it's called N-E-C-A-N, and it's the Northeast

Cannabis— I don't want to mess up the— mess up saying the acronym right way,

but, um, we can look it up. Yeah. And prior to

that, like 2018, 2019, we hit it hard on the streets. We went

to a lot of events. We did some, some trade shows,

mostly in the New England area. And then when it was

time to, you know, go that next step, that's when the

pandemic hit. And it actually caused us to have to

change our manufacturing approach. So we spent a bulk of

2020 and some of 2021 adjusting

how we were going to manufacture these things. So that took precedence.

And now that things are getting, you know, things are opening up

again, I won't say back to normal, are opening up again, it's time to get

back out there. Yeah. I'm curious, I've

mentioned it a couple times on this show, but I'm cognizant of the fact that

there's very few people of color in the vertical farming

industry. I'm Latino, and so I'm conscious, and

I've been— even just women CEOs and founders and

founders that are of color, Black and brown, like folks in the

space, and I'm Is that something that was obvious to you when you were

entering it, or has it just become noticeable for you? I'm just

curious what your thoughts are on that as you've been working in the industry. Yeah,

I mean, I'd have to— I feel like my

entire adult life has

been working with people who don't look like me, or working in spaces with people

who don't look like me. And the vertical

farming, indoor farming industry is no different. Being a mechanical

engineer at Northeastern University, there weren't a lot of— there was

only one other woman of color that I know of, so I'll be

clear on that, that was in my classes

in my senior year. But it's always been kind of,

where are we in this space? And what I will say though is

I am seeing now more involvement from— and more—

I won't say involvement because I believe people were always involved, they just weren't being

highlighted and shown. or didn't have a platform to

showcase their work. And now that we have all these platforms to do so,

I can find now a lot of other examples of people doing great work

in the farming space in general. That's, you know, if I need to

find someone that looks like me, I can find them. But in the beginning, it

was, you know, pretty, pretty rough. Well, it's interesting because earlier in

our conversation, you mentioned that one of the— I think it was the teachers or

professors that you admired in the space as well. And this

continues to happen. You know, I have to imagine there's already

young boys and young girls of color that are looking to you and inspired

by you and the work that you're doing. And when they see that, that this

is a career that's possible and this is a future that's possible,

and it's an important one because it's something that's doing good for

the world. And I, I really, you know, hats off to you, and I'm

truly inspired. by your story. And I think telling the story, and I

think seeing you in action, I think is really important

for, you know, kids that are in, you know, these low to moderate income

neighborhoods who don't— to your point at John

Charles, like, didn't have the concept of fresh food and

what's bad food or what's good food. And so

all these things, there's so many things happening, but I think it's all trending towards

the positive. Yeah, yeah. I think representation is

totally key. You know, it obviously had a huge impact on

me when I was young, and I know that it has an impact on some

of the other youth and children that I'm around. I think it's

also made me think about how I'm

showing up in these spaces, being authentic. Yeah. Because

if I really want them to feel like they can be themselves in this space,

I have to be myself in this space. So, you know, If you looked

at my corporate, you know, outfit back in

the day, you know, 5 years ago, you know, had the suit

on, you know, then and all that. And, you know, but now I'm like,

this is, this is something that I'm creating and I want to show how

you can do this authentically. And maybe I'm not for everyone. It's

all good. But for the people that I'm for, I want them to see me,

um, and to, to really feel you know, that they know what they're

dealing with and who they're, who they're working with. And then we can

make sure that we're in proper alignment versus representing myself

differently. So yeah, it's a lot more comfortable there.

It's a little bit, you know, strange from time to time, but,

but at the— I would say overall, I love it. I love it. I would

not go back at all. And not at all. Yeah, super

exciting and inspiring. What's a tough question you've had to ask

yourself recently? Wow, there's been a lot.

There's been a lot. I

think when you're at a point where you're trying to, you know, we've had supply

chain issues like some of the other, you know, people that might

be listening to this podcast have been dealing with. And with electronics, we

have some components that you cannot find

for a long amount of time. So we had to make some tweaks and that

caused, you know, some backups. And when you're hitting

the wall with things like this, you're like, is this not the right— is this

the right time? Did we make the right decision in manufacturing

it ourselves? Should I hit the pause and figure out, you know,

is it now the time to pivot? I think those are the hard questions

is when you hit a hurdle or a wall of some sort.

Am I supposed to persevere through this or should I pivot?

And I think in those times it's really great to have

people around you who know what your mission is and can remind

you, and you can bounce these things off of them and go, what, what are

you seeing? Because I trust you, so I want to know what you see. And

they can say, or no, hey, remember

when you said XYZ? Stay the course, stay the course. That's good. So yeah,

it's those types of individuals are key in your life too, to help you with

those hard questions, those hard questions. Yeah, it's— and it's interesting,

sometimes just a little bit of encouragement is all you need to hear in that

moment. moment to realize that you are on the right path. Because we all, as

entrepreneurs, you know, we go through our imposter syndrome moments and

our self-doubt. And especially when we have people that are counting on us, I think,

you know, trusting the advice of people who have been there, who have your best

interest at heart, it's really important to have a circle like that. Yeah,

yeah, it is. And if my circle is listening, thank you very much. Of

course. So, Asia, thank you so much for

taking the time to join me on the show. The hour goes by pretty quickly

when you're just riffing a bit. And I'm really inspired by your

story. I'm just grateful for the way these

paths line up sometimes. And, you know, again, if not for the podcast, we would

not have met. And I just feel honored at the, uh, opportunity

to tell your story. So I want to thank you for sharing it. Yeah, Harry,

and thank you very much for setting aside some space for me to share the

story with your audience. You know, it's incredibly valuable to

be able to talk to so many people through you. And if you would've

said no, then this wouldn't have happened. So thank you very much. Yeah,

no, I mean, it's just exciting to get

to— like I said in the beginning, I'm learning along the way. So

I have the sort of enthusiasm of a child sometimes when I hear about this.

I'm like, oh, this is really cool. Like, this is exciting what you're doing. And

I want that to be carried through to the listeners as well. So

I do appreciate it. Where's the best place for folks to learn more about

Trella and to connect with you? So you can go to our website,

trella.io. And if you want to learn more

about me, I also have a website,

ajaatwood.com. And if you want to learn

more about the product Trello, go to the website. But you can also check out

YouTube, Instagram. Those are our heavy hitters. It's right there. So

@trelletech. And we'll make sure all of those are listed in the show notes as

well. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Thanks again, Aja. All right. Have a good one, Harry.

Thanks again to Asia for coming on the show and sharing her story. Full show

notes available at verticalfarmingpodcast.com. Thanks again

to Cultivated for being a fantastic sponsor. If you're looking into a vertical

farm and don't know where to start or which technology would suit your needs, make

sure you reach out to them today. The best part about it is that their

service is free, and it's because they work on behalf of their partners. So

head on over to cultivated.com, just leave off the last E.

That's Another

reminder, if you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and a review at

ratethispodcast.com/vfp. We'll be sure to

read those out on future episodes. Until we meet again, here's to your health.

Thanks for listening. To read the full show notes for this episode, which

includes any links mentioned in the episode, as well as a full show

transcription, visit verticalfarmingpodcast.com.

There, you can sign up for our email list To be notified when new

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