Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show Interim CEO at Heilux, Michelle Bonahoom. In this episode, Harry and Michelle talk all about what’s happening in the world of lighting and it’s impact on the vertical farming industry. Michelle discusses her decision to take on the role of Interim CEO at Heilux, the impact Covid-19 has had on her consulting business and what excites her the most about the future of AgTech.

Special thanks to our Season 1 Sponsor

IGS – https://intelligentgrowthsolutions.com/

Key Takeaways

03:01 – Harry welcomes Michelle Bonahoom to the show to discuss her role at Heilux and the different technologies they develop for the vertical farming industry

08:13 – How Heilux works to address their clients’ challenges

12:39 – Michelle speaks to product development and the genesis of her entrepreneurial journey

15:51 – Where Michelle developed her passion for helping small businesses

21:36 – How Heilux operates within the vertical farming and indoor AgTech industry

27:38 – Michelle talks about the upcoming Vertical Farming Congress, where she will be a guest speaker

29:22 – Michelle discusses how Covid-19 has impacted her consulting business and Heilux

34:35 – What excites Michelle the most about the future of vertical farming

36:24 – A tough question Michelle has had to ask herself lately and where listeners can follow Michelle and Heilux

Tweetables:

“In 2016, the company [Heilux] was really, really good at knowing the science of light and how to leverage the science of light to be able to solve human problems.” (05:38)

“Instead of building it and then hoping they come, you involve the customer along the way.” (13:21)

“A lot of people, like seventy percent of the population – are afraid of change. And I love change.” (16:02)

“There’s infinite possibilities with how you can use light. And so, we’re really focusing on building a system that allows you to leverage those infinite possibilities with light spectrum.” (23:39)

“Covid-19 is an unfortunate event, but I think it’s bringing a lot of awareness to us in the industry or to others as to the need to solve some of the gaps in the food supply chain challenges.” (32:26)

Links Mentioned:

Heilux Website

Michelle’s LinkedIn

Michelle’s Consulting Group Website

Link to Vertical Farming Congress 

Intelligent Growth Solutions

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Mentioned in this episode:

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One of the first things that we did as a part of the scaling efforts

was we started to listen to our customers and find out, you know, what

they needed to be able to be more successful as an overall business,

as an overall vertical farm. And we did, we took the company

through a lean product development process and actually developed a

hard substrate product that was released last

March that was able to answer a lot of the questions and

frustrations that, you indoor growers were

experiencing.

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, welcome back. Episode 13, we are wrapping up

season 1. Thank you. Welcome to the show,

the one 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

last week's episode, we had a great round 2 conversation with David

Farkar of IGS, Intelligent Growth Solutions. We

got such good feedback from the first one, and David did not disappoint on his

return trip, talking about a lot of the innovative stuff that's happening at IGS.

So please make sure, if you haven't listened to it, check it out, episode 12.

This episode is also brought to you by the Vertical Farming World Congress.

This inaugural event will bring together vertical farming operators, investors,

retailers, technology suppliers, advisors, and

experts to debate and help advance the sector's future.

The dates for the conference are September 22nd through the

24th, and it's going to be a virtual event. We're really excited to

partner with the conference, and the lineup is a who's who in the

vertical farming industry. There'll be speakers there from 80 Acres Farms,

AeroFarms, Bowery Farming, Growing Underground, Intelligent Growth

Solutions, Jones Food Company, Lettuce Grow, Root AI, Square Roots,

The Circle, Ons Farms, Vertical Future, Yes Health,

Association heads and academics and nutrition experts from Germany, Japan,

the Netherlands, and Turkey. It is indeed going to be a global

event. Investment experts from AgFunder and Ashfords and Innovate

UK and S2G Ventures. It's clear that the team

has pulled out all the stops to make this a landmark event for the

vertical farming industry, and we're excited to participate as a

partner. Attendees will have access to extensive networking

opportunities. It's Interactive discussions, instant chat, one-on-one video

calls, and you'll also be able to log into the platform days ahead of the

event to build your profile, plan your agenda, and begin networking.

For more information, head on over to zenithglobal.com/events/vfwc2020.

We'll also have a link to that in the show notes. This episode, I get

to speak to Michelle Bonahoum, the interim CEO of Hilux. In this

conversation with Michelle, she talks about her role at Hilux and the different

technologies they're developing for the vertical farming industry, specifically around

lighting. We learn how Hilux is working to address their clients'

challenges, and Michelle speaks to the product development and the

genesis of her own journey and how she developed her passion for

helping small businesses. We learn how Hilux operates within the vertical farming

and indoor agtech industry, and we talk about the upcoming Vertical Farming

Congress, which is live as of this recording.

Remember, if you enjoyed this episode or past episodes, I'd love if you leave a

rating and a review at ratethispodcast.com/vfp.

Let's get into this conversation with Michelle. So Michelle Bonahoum,

interim CEO of Hilux, thank you so much for joining us on the Vertical Forming

Podcast. Thank you. So Michelle, I was wondering, as a bit

of background, I think this might be the first time I've had an interim CEO

on the podcast. So maybe if you can tell a little bit of your journey

in terms of how you started you know, getting into this

industry and then how you ended up in this position with HyLux.

Yeah, wonderful. I'm newer to the lighting industry and to the vertical

farming industry. My career has been coming

alongside of businesses and helping them navigate critical transitions, whether

that's scaling their business, buying and selling,

integrating, or transitioning to the next generation of leadership. And

I became an investor in this space in about

2014 and was just fascinated with the power

of light technology and the power of the application

of vertical farming. And so when Hylix

got to the point about a little over a year ago where they needed to

make that transition into scaling, I came on as interim CEO.

And for those that may not be familiar with what an interim

CEO does or the role that they play in terms of like transitioning,

a couple of questions that come to mind, 'cause I was in corporate for, For

over 18 years, I worked at JPMorgan Chase and at E-Trade. So, it

went through a lot of leadership changes there as well. I'm curious

what you look at when you decide whether or not you're going to

take that type of role, and then what the expectations

are company side, and maybe for you as well, like what you expect to

happen during that time you're interim and how long something like that lasts.

Yeah. And so, well, with all of my interim CEO roles,

it involves some sort of transition from either

startup or kind of a business that's stalled out to

the need to accelerate that growth or scale. And so, I start

by looking at what's the opportunity in the marketplace

and what are some of the strengths of the company, and then what can kind

of give that a little bit of gas to be able to get it to

a place where it's ready to scale. And that being

said, what was it about Hilux that attracted you to the

company? And what did you see in terms of the potential, either industry-wise or

what they're specifically, the technologies that they're working on, and we can go into a

little bit of depth, further depth on that as well. Perfect. So Hilux is

an LED light manufacturer. It was founded in

2011, and originally we had a flexible LED

solution that was used in architecture and design and

indoor lighting. And in 2016, they

recognized the, the company was really, really good at knowing

the science of light and how to leverage the science of light to

be able to solve human problems. And so in

2016, saw an

opportunity to be able to use that same light technology that we were using in

indoor lighting to be able to apply to plant

technology and to be able to accelerate the growth of plants and

improve the quality of plants. And so they

started a sister company called GrowLights in

2016. And we just recently, through a

part of our scaling efforts, merged those 2 companies together

into one company called Hilux. And so this audience may know

us better for our brand, GroFilm, which is the

sister brand to our LumaFilm, which is a flexible LED light

solution. How would you describe the difference between the

LumaFilm and the GroFilm for folks? How did the technology have

to change to accommodate what the needs are specifically for the vertical farming industry?

Yeah, I mean, that's a really great question. That's been a big part of my

focus at Hilux as a part of the scaling.

Originally, our light technology was a flexible

substrate light technology allowed us to be able to

do lots of flexible applications within lighting. And when we

originally went to market on the grow film side, we were using that flexible

substrate. But what we found was that that

application wasn't working well from a plant

optimization perspective. The spectrum is there, we really got

that right, but we were failing to be able to

help from a system integration optimization perspective

and an overall business optimization perspective. And so one

first things that we did as a part of the scaling efforts was we

started to listen to our customers and find out, you know, what they

needed to be able to be more successful as an overall business, as

an overall vertical farm. And we did, we took the company

through a lean product development process and actually developed a

hard substrate product that was released last

March that was able to answer a lot of the questions and

frustrations that indoor growers were

experiencing just with lighting in general, but

also with the flexible product that we've previously had. So

that was a big part of our focus and has helped us

to be able to answer some of the problems that growers are

asking in the industry today. So I'm curious what some of

those questions were, or what some of the challenges were, or

integration hurdles some of those— your

clients were expressing that they— where they were

basically driving the need and driving the

design of what they would like to see. And so

to the extent that you can, like, what were some of the challenges they were

facing with the existing solutions? Yeah, so we broke it down

into really 3 categories. What we heard was, you know, there definitely was

the solution around how do we optimize the plant, and light technology

takes you know, that, that plays a big role in how to optimize

the plant itself, because anywhere from, you know, the spectrum

to the uniformity to the distance to plants,

and, you know, just even the photoperiod and, and the intensity

and pulsing of the light. And so, yeah, we were able to really listen

to their needs and, and listen to the individual needs

of the customers, because we started out by asking, you know, first

of all, what plants are you growing? Because that takes a different type of

light recipe. But then, you know, what's the system? Is the system

hydroponic? Is it aeroponic? Is it a wall system? Is it soil-based?

You know, to try to understand those properties. And then we asked around

kind of what are their spacing needs? You know, are you growing in a warehouse?

Are you trying to grow in a small little container and growing in a greenhouse?

And then finally, you know, what type of labor are you planning on using? Are

you planning on using human labor or robotics? And so as we

started asking those questions, And looking at how does light

affect the answers to those questions, we really saw

that there were 3 key areas. And the first was around that plant

optimization. But then the second was around, you know, how

can we use our light system and integrate it in,

in order to optimize the system as a whole? So that's one of the things

we heard is, you know, our existing flexible lights, they were difficult to

mount and they were difficult to integrate into different

types of systems. And because there's so many different types of needs needs and all

kinds of different systems. We needed to come up with a way where our

lights could be modular and so that they could easily be scaled, but at the

same time customized to those different systems. And then the third

category that we, we broke it out into was the business, overall business

optimization, because, you know, the light itself is one thing,

but it affects a lot of overall total cost of business for

a vertical grower. You know, that's the spectrum itself has

impact, but the amount of power that you need and, you know, the efficacy

that you need or the uniformity you need, the amount of heat that goes

out, the labor to be able to mount those lights. All of

those things were factors that we really wanted to make

sure that we were helping to educate our customers

not to just think about the light as a component, but to think of it

as really something that can be integrated into the whole system. And we

wanted to become a partner to our customers to help them

think about what's the total cost of their operations overall. Did you

find, because you took the time to answer those

questions and spoke to the feedback that you were getting

directly from your customers, that,

you know, I would imagine that might deepen the relationship you have with customers,

and they really now see that you are a true partner because you did listen

to them. And there's probably something special when they see a

product come to the market that speaks exactly to the needs

Yeah, I mean, it was a partnership along the

way. And so we, you know, we really listened to what were

the unique individual problems that we were solving. And we've got a vast

group of customers, and we have a customer that's looking to try to grow

lights in a small little shipping container, and we've got a customer that's looking

to grow with aquaponics within a big warehouse. We

have a customer that's looking to use those same lights to be able to create

a solution for, for a COVID-19 vaccination. And so there's

a lot of different applications. And so we wanted to listen, and then

we would be able to, we would respond to those needs and have them

test along the way. And so it took our original product

development cycle was about a year and a half to 2 years to release a

new product. And we brought that down to 5 months, which has allowed us to

really be able to respond to the growing needs of the industry,

especially since it really still is a young industry.

And growers themselves are trying to figure out what they need. Can you talk a

little about the lean product development process you highlighted? Because

it's really interesting for me. I'm a big systems guy. I

love systematizing, writing standard operating procedures for everything we do

as a company. So that aspect, I think, would be helpful for folks that are

listening that are entrepreneurs that are also figuring out ways to

improve their process. And so it seems

like you've got a lot of experience there. So, can you talk a little bit

about what that process looks like and how you implemented it? Yeah. So, we use

what's called a lean startup process. It's based around the

methodology of lean manufacturing itself, which is

about, you know, how do you make sure you eliminate waste? And so, the way

that gets applied to product development is it says, instead of

building it and then hoping they come, you involve the customer along

the way. And so, it starts very early on to understand the needs of the

customers, what they see as changes in the in

the market and then what it is they really need and then

building it in segments and then allowing them to test it

with you. And so, it requires, you know, especially in

manufacturing, it requires a mindset change because a lot of times in manufacturing, you

have to get it 100% right. And in lean startup or

lean product development mindset, the saying

is, if you're proud of what you're releasing, you've waited too long. And so,

it really is about how do you make sure you stay agile

so you can

Where did you pick up some of these practices? Maybe winding

the clock back a little bit. When did this become something that was a

passion for you? Yeah. Well, so I started my first business

when I was 23, and I thought I understood business and leadership. And I learned

really quickly after 18 months when I had 35 employees that I

knew nothing about leadership. And when we sold that

business 10 years later, I decided I wanted to come alongside of young

entrepreneurs and business owners and really help them to to

not make some of the same mistakes I made, but to provide them with simple

processes and tools to be able to accelerate the growth of their business. And so

I, I've been consulting with businesses ever since.

And then as that happens, a lot of times, you know, new

entrepreneurs don't know how to kind of make that transition to the next level,

or tired business owners may not want to continue to

revitalize their business. And so it just opened up an opportunity

for us to build a team of C-level

professionals that could come in and kind of be a bridge

while that company is making that transition. Because a startup company needs to operate very

differently than a scalable company. In an industry like this

that's growing rapidly, you got to be ready for that, that rapid growth.

Yeah, it's interesting. And it's some of the challenges we've had as a company because

the way you get from, you know, $0 to $10,000, let's say monthly

revenue, is different than the $10,000 to

$100,000 in annual and then the $100,000 to $300,000. And then what we're seeing is

like the $300,000 to $1 million. And each phase, thankfully,

I have a good coach that's helping with scaling right now. But I think it's

something that you probably see because what got you there won't get

you to the next level. You have to change your mindset. And so, I'm wondering,

what is it inherently in you that where this is a passion for you, like

to help startups who are going through probably challenges that you

went through when you were younger? Well, I'm passionate about change. A lot of

people, you know, like 70% of the population's afraid of change, and I love

change. So, I think, you know what? Just to be able to make

change simple for people and especially for

business owners to help them be able to focus it in on meaningful change.

Because it's one thing to have a great idea, it's another thing to have a

business opportunity, and then to be able to deliver that to the market at a

time when it's needed. And, you know, we see this kind of with

vertical farming. When we first launched GrowFilm back in

2016, it was really new. And so we needed to

kind of be in a different place, whereas today, you know, especially with, with some

of the supply chain challenges that we've experienced through COVID,

there's a big awareness on this industry and there's a lot of

high-tech players. And, you know, I do a lot with mergers and

acquisitions and venture capital, and there's a lot of capital

resources that are paying attention to this industry. And so to kind of

be that young entrepreneur, that farmer that maybe doesn't even know how

to apply the technology to things, playing in a space when you've

got big tech players as well, it's important to kind of have some simple

tools to be able to navigate that, not to have to figure it out on

their own. I want my, you know, like in the case of vertical farming,

I want the growers to be able to grow really well and to be, for

us to be able to provide that resource along, you know,

whether it's from plant optimization to system integration

to overall business optimization, to be able to provide those

tools. And so I bring that same

What's been the most surprising thing about you

coming into the vertical farming industry that may be different than

an experience you've had before? Yeah, so I've done a lot in

manufacturing, I've done a lot in banking. You know, I think I grew

up in a rural community, and so I understood farming. I think the

biggest thing for me wasn't necessarily around the vertical farming side of

things as much as it was the lighting side of things. I mean, the lighting

industry, you know, I don't have lighting experience. And when you don't have

lighting experience, you know, sometimes you bump up against

some challenges because people are like, well, you don't have lighting experience, so how are

you going to be able to take this company to the next level? And I

think that it's important to just know that, you know, if you surround yourself with

people that do— I surround myself with really great people that can talk a lot

about the science of lighting— and you understand fundamental

business principles of how to take a business from startup to scale,

you can be successful. Can you talk a little bit about the team

that was on the ground when you showed up and thoughts about, you know, how—

what that's going to look like maybe a year from now as well? Yeah. So,

we had a really small team, had been working very hard for

many years to try to get this product released and

a new industry. And so, you know, it took some time to get that

team to kind of just take a step back and be open to some new

ways of doing things and to be, like I said, to be open to saying,

we don't have to get it 100% right. Let's take our customers on a journey

and let's try to get it 80% right. So, we didn't really

add to our team for the first year of

that scaling process. We really just said, how do we kind of get back

to basics and really listen to the customers and apply those needs?

Now, as we're at that place and we've released our new product

and we've got lots of opportunity and we're facing needing to scale very

quickly, We're looking at how can we bring on some

people that do understand that level of scale, but still

have a heart for that entrepreneurial nature. Because, you know, we're still an

entrepreneurial company at heart. And we want to make sure that we

bring in people that aren't just, you know, they're not used to sitting in corporate

companies and having lots of tools, lots of resources around

them. And so that's really been our most recent approach over the last few

months is how do we find those people? The other thing is we're looking at

how do we really find great partners? And so we're looking to who

are the partners from a system integration perspective. So

like, who are the, you know, the people that are really great at HVAC and

really great at control systems and CO2

and all of those kind of partners that we can

align to and listen to what they're challenged with so we can

go into it and approach it together? Because these growers don't want to have to

piecemeal it. We really need to as an industry figure out how do

we come together and provide some sort of a turnkey

product or a modular product, because it really is very

customizable, but to do that in a way that's working

together. And so instead of focusing on really growing our team,

we've been focusing on how do we bring those other partners. And then they have

their own supply chains and sales and marketing channels

and whatnot that we can work together on. And one of the other things we

did is on the, on our Lumifilm side, our

indoor lighting application side, we work through sales

reps. And those sales reps have started to kind of get

opportunities within the indoor growing space. And so

we said, how can we teach you that industry? Because we have the

expertise around it, but you've got the ability to go out.

So instead of us being able to add to our sales team,

Let's leverage what we already have and teach them how to

be able to meet the needs within their communities of all of the

vertical growing companies that are out there looking to expand. And so

we've been looking at, you know, how are ways that we can leverage what we

have and then leverage what's really, really great about the other people around us.

I think what's so fascinating with the podcast is understanding

that people's definition of vertical farming changes depending on who you ask.

And sometimes you have to broaden it out to indoor agtech.

And so I'm sure that's a lot of what you're seeing and also applications. So

you mentioned new companies expressing an interest in grow film, and I'm

wondering if there's anything that you've seen that

you didn't think maybe fell under the category of vertical farming. Because

as an example, I've had a couple of interviews, one with Virginia Emery

of Beta Hatch, and they're growing insects as feed

indoors. And then Andrew Carter of Smallhold,

who's focused on mushrooms as well. So I think there's so many

different aspects with what falls under vertical farming, and I'm wondering what you've seen

that's maybe new or different. Yeah, I mean, and to your point, I mean,

internally, we refer to it as indoor agtech because I think it's really

important that, you know, vertical farming is one aspect of it. And being a

light manufacturer, I mean, we've got, you know, we've got the

ability to really apply it to a lot of different applications. And so,

we've gotten it, we get involved in lots of different things, like I was mentioning

earlier, anywhere from, you know, a very highly

automated farm that grows in really, really

tight shipping containers, all the way to a large

warehouse that's leveraging light technology and

aquaponics and everything else, to the

company that, or the grower that's, you know,

growing indoor farming. They're growing basil, right?

Yeah. But really unique applications, you know,

that we've gotten involved in through the same process you know, like

the growing of turf for golf courses or

the development of vaccine for COVID. And so,

and then also getting inquiries around how do you take that same light technology and

apply it to animal science. And so— Wow. We, I mean, for us, it's a

matter more of how do we make sure we focus? Because there are

so many different applications and the, there's infinite possibilities

with how you can use light, right? And so we're really focusing

on that building a system that allows you to

leverage those infinite possibilities with light spectrum,

but then marrying it with very modular,

standardized kind of systems for that

system integration and the overall business optimization. Yeah,

that's very exciting. And what's interesting is that the technology itself is

continuing to evolve and getting smaller. And so, you know,

and so the The applications and the places where you can use some of this

stuff, it's almost a matter of keeping up with the technology because not only do

you have to implement it in the current solutions for your current partners, but

also keeping an eye to what's happening industry-wise,

what technologies are— how they're evolving in lighting

because you don't want to be early adopter or bleeding edge.

But you do want to know, should we keep— are there

enhancements that are happening that we want to keep an eye on because they could

eventually make the product better? So I imagine there's a little bit of

that Yeah, I mean, that's the beauty of having a

lean product development process, because even though we just

released our latest product and we're very proud and excited

of it, you know, we're working with some of our existing customers and

prospects to test out new technologies

and ways of using those lights along the way. And so

we really have built a culture of what-if into our

business model. And so that, you know, as a company, we're always looking for new

ways to innovate. indoor grower is implementing

their system, they're saying, what if we pulse the lights?

Or, what if we do that? And, you know, we're able to come

alongside and help some of these growers that don't have the resources to

have the R&D centers that some of the larger organizations have.

That's interesting, this idea of pulsing and how it could have a different

impact on your results and your yield. Maybe

without giving away any of the company secrets,

is there anything that The general listener that is

using lights now for their indoor farm, are there

certain techniques or things that, you know,

20,000-foot level, obviously, some maybe tips on how to make more

effective use of their growing environments? Yeah. Well, I'm not going to be able to

speak to all of the technical aspects of it because that's not really my

wheelhouse. I've got great people that can do that and great academics and

scientists that can do that. But essentially, it's really about

You know, looking at we we look at it from kind of four factors:

spectrum first of all. So we do a lot of testing around different

spectrums to use those spectrums for various

properties of the light, flavor quality, all of that. We look at

uniformity. So how can we get the lights as close as

possible to the plant? Can we spread out the lights instead of having?

And that's one nice thing about our modular lights is we're able to. We

have six-inch blades and we have big cartridges, and so you might want to full

grow or you for the purposes of what you might. you might

want to just use a little blade because you get the same uniformity that you

need. And then we look at distance to plant. And so we've really looked at,

you know, what are different ways we can get down to as little as 1

inch away from the plant so that, you know, the farmer who wants to grow

in a small shipping container can maximize their yield and output. And

then we look at photoperiod, and that's really looking at, you

know, like what's the right timing for the light when it's being used.

And we've been, you know, just testing out different scenarios around, being

able to turn the lights off and on, and which is just all those factors

together allow that grower or that

company to be able to really customize it to what they

want to accomplish overall. Yeah. And I think laying those

out specifically, I think will at least get the wheels turning for folks that are

thinking about how they can more creatively or efficiently use lighting

in their environments. Shifting gears now, we're— I noticed that

you're also speaking at the Vertical Farming Congress,

which is coming up, and we're actually proud to be a media partner

with the folks there as well. So I wonder if you could talk a little

bit about what you're planning to talk about, what your topic will

be, and anything else you're looking forward to with the Congress. Yeah, so

the topic is called Lighting for Life, but really what it's doing is it's really

walking the participants through some of the same things we've talked about,

you know, getting the growers to think about

lighting from an overall holistic perspective and not to think about it from a

component perspective. And so we're really going to be talking about the keys for

that right lighting recipe and then how to make sure to, you know, what

are the key factors around optimizing the performance of the plant? What are the

factors for optimizing your whole system and making sure that

those, the system components work together and how to leverage the light in

that? And then And then finally wrapping it up around, you know, some

of the key drivers of value for the overall business

and how your light considerations can play into that.

Because if your lights aren't easy to mount, which we found out, it

takes a lot of labor. Yeah. And as a farm, you don't want to be

spending a lot of labor. And so we've really worked at looking

at what are those drivers of value and are going to be talking about that

as well. So that does lend itself to the question of,

we're all thinking about when we're actually gonna be able to attend in-person events.

And who knows when that's gonna happen, because that's something that I do miss, the

in-person, the networking, the face-to-face. And, you know, some of those best

conversations, best meetings, as you've probably experienced, happen in the

hallways actually sometimes, or late night catching up

with people. So that ties into this question about COVID

and the impact. And so I'm wondering if you could could just, you know, to

the extent that some things jump out at you, like what has been the impact

for you as a business on either side, either on the consulting side or

in the work that you're doing with, with Helix as well? Well, I think the

benefit from the, from my work on the consulting side is we've been a

virtual office for almost 15 years, and we've come

alongside of businesses as they scale. A lot of times they need to go

more virtual because they have multiple locations. And so we've built lots

of tools and resources and have spent time through COVID helping businesses

transition to work from home. and create those water cooler

environments because they're, you know, you know, where a lot of our foundation is around

brain science. If I have the same conditions

virtually as I would have at the water cooler, my brain's not going to know

the difference if I'm in person or not, right? So, so on the

consulting side, we built that into what we've done at Hilux. And

so we've actually been, aside from a little bit of our

production staff, we've been 100% virtual from, from since

March. And actually, just moved into a new manufacturing facility, and

we were able to reduce the footprint of the facility in anticipation for

scaling through some of those concepts. I think the other thing

that we've seen through COVID is obviously there's, you know, some

serious gaps showing up in the food supply chain,

which opens up lots of opportunities, especially, you know, knowing

that, you know, for many years we've been selling into commercial

real estate and Restaurants are thinking about how do we grow

food in our location? Hotels are thinking about it. You know, it

goes beyond the farm itself. And so we've been able to kind of focus

on some of those applications as well as being able to be

ready when, as the vertical farming industry

is getting a lot more notice, you know, from not

only capital investment sources, but

the industry as a whole. Yeah, I think that was some of the common threads

that I've heard in recent interviews. This idea of

awareness of our proximity to food is top of

mind for everyone, and just empowering people with the

education, the skills, the resources

to— and lowering the barrier to entry so that more and more

folks can start to enter the space. I think because I think the sooner—

while it would be nice to feel like we all could learn how to go

to an actual farm and learn how to farm, like our ancestors did. I

think this might be the new way, the new hybrid approach where we can actually,

you know, learn some of the technologies that are becoming more and more accessible

to everyday folks to just, and learn the

basics, you know, even to tackle some of the problems of some of these food

deserts as well. Yeah. My 11-year-old son is

testing out our lights in his workshop room.

And then he's informing his elementary school on ways

that they can grow faster, better, more higher quality food.

So I'm excited to see the awareness that, you know,

unfortunately COVID's an unfortunate event, but I think it's bringing a lot of

awareness to us in the industry or to others as to

the need to solve some of the gaps in the food supply chain

challenges. So I look forward and just to see more collaboration

in the industry is wonderful because I think together we can solve those

problems much more quickly and efficiently than if we try to do it individually.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I'm curious, now I have my entrepreneurial hat

back on, when does the role of interim CEO end and how

do you make a decision like that? And when is the right time for you

to sort of hand over the reins for the folks to continue what you've

started? Yeah, I mean, so my job is to work my way out of

a job, right? And so, you know, I work, we have a really great board

that's very knowledgeable in the industry.

And we set kind of some initial milestones

originally that helped us to understand when are we ready

to kind of bring in that next-level CEO. And so,

we've been hitting most of those milestones. Now, we're in a

period of kind of starting to think about

who are the right people that we need as we've been listening along the

way. And so, it's kind of a flexible process.

Until we say, nope, now's the right time and this is the right person to

bring in to be able to get it to the next level. And then we

look at, you know, culture factors and customers and all of that too. Yeah.

And it's a, it's the same thought process that I'm sure a lot of CEOs

listening now will have to go through as they figure out how, as they grow

their team as well. Yeah. I mean, really, I mean, 5% of all

entrepreneurial owners can make that

transition to that established organization.

And a lot of times that's cuz they don't want to, they're entrepreneurial for a

reason. And in other cases, they don't want to adapt to

a different way of doing things. And so, you know, it's important as entrepreneurial

business owners to be thinking about that. And when you get to scale, especially in

an industry like this where you can scale very quickly, to be thinking

ahead to what your role needs to be so that you

can do what you do really well, and then who you want to be partnering

up with to kind of take it to the next level. So just

as we wrap up, I'm curious I guess what has you excited

about the future of vertical farming? Because when I first started getting

involved, I was excited about the potential and the opportunities, and they seem to be

growing exponentially. And so I'm wondering, you know, what's

top of mind for you when you think about the next 12 to 18 months?

Yeah, I mean, for me personally, I was just reflecting with

one of my business mentors the other day and just saying, you know, this

is the one engagement that's going to be hard to say goodbye to. Because it's

so exciting and I'm so passionate about the impact

and just the potential of being able to leverage light technology to

solve human problems. And so I know that that's my

role, and, and, but it's going to be hard to say goodbye.

So I'm super excited because I'm an investor and will continue to

invest in the space. But from, I think from an industry perspective, I think

what's got me excited is that, you know, COVID has really

shed a light on the food supply chain challenges, which I

spend a lot of time in M&A space and just

with capital providers. And, you know, to see them start to

see that this is a very real industry and that there's very real

potential has me excited. Because when, you know, I always look to

see what is private equity doing, what is venture capital doing, what is

investment banking doing, because if what they're looking to is

a good indicator of success of companies, you know, private equity

companies tend to outperform traditional companies

significantly. And so the fact that they're starting to get more

interested in the space, the problems that we're solving, the way

that we're integrating technology with application, I think is

just really, really exciting. I think there's a lot of problems,

human problems that can be solved in this space.

What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently? Yeah, I think the

biggest, the toughest question, it kind of ties to what I just talked about.

Earlier, and I mentioned it earlier in our conversation too, it's

what should we focus on, right? Because, you know, there is so

many possibilities and we have so many opportunities coming to us

all the way from vertical farming to cannabis and animal science and

helping to create vaccines for COVID, you know? And so the

toughest question is always to say, what do you

focus on and what customer segment do you want to serve right now?

Because there is so much opportunity. And what

decision-making process do you go through when you try to

make those calls? Yeah, I mean, so we go through a process where we really

look at what's the greatest need and what are our greatest strengths, and,

and then we prioritize them based on what we can

deliver, you know, in the shortest period of time.

And sometimes you have to say no to some things, you know, like when we

first came out with our Grow film product. It was early,

you know, and so that was maybe a little soon.

And so there's things like that today too, like on our indoor

light side, you know, there's lots of opportunity to start looking at human-centric

lighting, but it's like, well, now is maybe not the right time for that. And

so we just really look at, okay, what's— is this a great

idea, but is it also the right market opportunity? And is it—

are there enough customers that are ready to be able to

receive what it is that you have, and then we decide from there. Well, you

mentioned something that I hadn't heard before, so I'm going to pull that thread. Human-centric

lighting. Yeah. I mean, so what human-centric lighting is, is it's

really the same light technology that you use with plants where you take

the spectrum to be able to solve different problems and you apply

it to indoor lighting. And so, we're in an environment and

we've got the sun and the light and it affects our health and it

affects affects our ability to be productive and efficient. And so,

you know, so on the, on the indoor lighting side of things, there's a

lot of science around how do we create

kind of that controlled indoor ag-type

environment where people can get— they can be the most

productive and they can be— we can mimic the sun in the same way that

we mimic the sun for plant, plant science and animal science.

Well, it's funny as you're speaking because it lends itself well to this biohacking. And

for the benefit of the listener, I'm showing these, uh, they're called They're blue light

blocking glasses that I typically wear during the day, but it's also because of

reducing the stress of the blue light spectrum. And then, at night, there's actually another

shade that's actually a little more orangey. So, I mean,

it just makes sense because anything we can do to optimize the growing environment for

plants obviously makes sense that we should be looking at optimizing

the environment that we probably spend more of our time in now that

we're probably more indoors now than we used to be. So it's definitely

fascinating. So that's really interesting. And I'm sure for you as an

entrepreneur and looking for opportunities, it's something that's

tempting to look at, but I think that's the decision you'll have to make about

when and if to apply resources to that endeavor. Yeah, I mean, for us, we

look at, you know, as LED light costs come down,

then there's going to be more opportunity for that. Just like,

you know, when we launched GrowFilm in 2016, It

was a newer idea, but we weren't quite, you know, the market wasn't quite ready.

But I think today the market is ready, and that's why we're seeing such

explosive growth in the industry. Very cool. Well, Michelle, I want to

thank you for taking the time to jump on this interview. I was

really excited to learn more about what's happening in the world of lighting, and then

to also understand, you know, how someone who's coming into the

vertical farming space and how you make a decision to become an interim CEO. So

that was fascinating to learn about. I'm wishing you a lot of luck, the work

you're doing at Hilux. And what's the best way for folks to learn

more about the initiatives you guys have underway? Well, they can

go to our website at

hiluxllc.com or visit us at

the World Congress next week. Yes. Yeah, we'll make sure we have links

to all the socials and the website, and we'll be promoting the

Congress as well for this episode, I think, and still come out in time.

Thank you. You too. Thank you for

having me on. Thanks for listening. To read the full show notes for this episode,

which include a summary, timestamps, and any links mentioned in this episode,

please visit verticalfarmingpodcast.com. There you'll find the

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fancy. If you're enjoying the podcast, once again, leave us a rating and a

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for And we'll be sure to read these out on future

episodes. Until we meet again for season 2, 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.

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