S10E122 Felipe Hernandez / Hexagro - The Rise of Urban Aeroponics

0:00:00 - Harry Duran

So Felipe Hernandez via Roel. Hopefully I got that right. Founder and CEO at Hexergrove. Thank you so much for joining me on the Vertical Farming podcast.

0:00:08 - Felipe Hernandez

Thank you so much, Harry. I'm happy to be here.

0:00:11 - Harry Duran

So, for the benefit of the listener, where are you calling in from this evening?

0:00:17 - Felipe Hernandez

Yeah, I'm based in Milan, in Italy, where I have lived since 10 years. Yes, in the north of Italy. And where are you originally from? I'm originally from Colombia, okay, but I grew up in Costa Rica and I came to Italy 10 years ago. And I have lived in other countries around Europe for brief periods of time, but Milani's were my homies at the moment.

0:00:43 - Harry Duran

My ex-wife is Colombian, so I'm very Salvadorian, so I'm very familiar with the Latino culture and I've been to Colombia several times, the beautiful country.

0:00:51 - Felipe Hernandez

All right, that's great and there's so much going on there in the agricultural sector. I have also dear friends from in Salvador that I appreciate a lot. Haven't been there yet, but I hope I can go.

0:01:04 - Harry Duran

And I have been to Costa Rica once on a retreat for just a week to just relax. So it's a beautiful country and I think we're trying to plan something, because Minnesota's a little cold, so we're going to try to get somewhere warm for the winter this year.

0:01:16 - Felipe Hernandez

Yeah, it's not so far away from you and it's such an amazing place to reconnect to nature and slow the pace of life a little bit. And relax.

0:01:28 - Harry Duran

So what brought you to Italy?

0:01:31 - Felipe Hernandez

Well, I'm an industrial designer, my background is in industrial design and since I was a kid I was basically in love with Italy for some reason the food, the arts, the culture and had this dream of coming to Italy to study. And I had the opportunity to pursue a scholarship to study masters in design. And well, it happened that I found opportunities in here and I stayed. So it's been a long ride already, but I enjoy it every day and I am a big believer of Italian talent and culture.

0:02:11 - Harry Duran

So I've been to Italy as well with my ex. We've traveled and I've been to Europe, so I've been to. We flew into Venice and then we went all through parts of Italy and we ended up at Rome as well, and so we drove through Tuscany. So definitely a beautiful, beautiful country. So much to see there. I think just even to have two weeks there, I felt like it wasn't enough, but there's always. I love the beauty of it, I love everything that the food, like you said, was amazing. And even just like the design, the aesthetic, I found myself like staring at the men who were just so impeccably, like well dressed. I was like, wow, this is amazing, like just the fashion. So everything about it was really like appealing to the eye.

0:02:52 - Felipe Hernandez

Exactly. If you happen to come again, please let me know. I will be happy to show you around, and there's so much going on this topic of vertical farming as well, especially in the north, so it's worth to give a visit, so tell the story about how you're in Italy now.

0:03:09 - Harry Duran

You've studied industrial design. Is there farming in your background? Is there agriculture in your background? When do those two worlds start to meet?

0:03:17 - Felipe Hernandez

Well, I'll start from zero. Let's say I was working in Colombia, as I mentioned, and in my family there is a lot of background in arts and design because my parents are both designers, so I have always seen them working. And by the end of the 90s, there was a big economic crisis in Colombia that obliged my family to migrate to Costa Rica. There were economic prosperity and things. There weren't any opportunities in that time. So since a very young age, I was like challenged. This was a drastic change for me and I saw how my parents advanced and were able to overcome all of the situations. So I got a lot from that period of my life.

And basically in Costa Rica, when I was pursuing my studies in product design, the bachelor degree, I went through something for my thesis that had an impact. I wanted to approach a topic that had some kind of meaning for people, and I discovered that in Costa Rica, as we have this kind of sustainability and natural perspectives all around the world, but very few people know that in Costa Rica we have one of the biggest per capita pesticide consumptions in the world, which is directly related to the high rates of stomach cancer in the population. So that's where I started to ask myself why this situation and understood that it was because of agricultural practices. So I decided to approach this problem with my design thesis, which was the origin of the Hexagra project. So yeah, basically I understood that the solution was growing without soil.

We're talking about 12 years ago, Harry, when this industry was really young, but the systems of the time were completely not developed. They were very basic, and I saw the opportunity to redesign them so that this technology can become part of our daily lives. And that's what I had as a vision since then making this technology accessible for people and not reserved for industry applications.

0:05:49 - Harry Duran

So back then, when you first started, you were still in Costa Rica when this was happening.

0:05:55 - Felipe Hernandez

Yeah, this was part of my bachelor thesis and after I developed the thesis, I made a design inspired by nature, by the way so that the system could provide a lot of modularity and flexibility. It was a product for growing with aeroponics and basically it received a lot of attention and a mention of honor by the university which propelled the idea, and I kind of fell in love with the project. But I arrived until there, ok, so sometime more, and things happened later that allowed me to continue with the project.

0:06:34 - Harry Duran

So talk a little bit about the transition as you were implementing it. You had it as your thesis and you developed the prototype. Did you actually try to bring it to market when you were in Costa Rica, or was this more like a proof of concept?

0:06:46 - Felipe Hernandez

Yeah, I made a prototype, a functional prototype, where I was able to grow a few plants using aeroponics. The information was very limited at the time and part of the thesis was to approach the agronomic studies, which were not my background at all. So I started and I learned a little bit and I was able to grow a few plants and at the time it was kind of impressive, right. It had a lot of impact there in the university. And then I started working in another sector and I was able to get a scholarship to come to Italy to study a master's in design and engineering.

0:07:23 - Harry Duran

OK.

0:07:23 - Felipe Hernandez

And also another master's in innovation and management. At the same time, I was able to Italy and enrolling the university, and a little after that I was invited to a graduation ceremony and they asked us to present projects that were related with sustainability. It happened that after the presentation, there was a Nobel Prize winner in the audience, called Mohan Monasinghe. He shares the Nobel Prize of 2007 with Al Gore. After the presentation, he came to me with his wife and he said hey, felipe, we want to talk to you. And he basically said I love your vision, I love what you have there. What are you thinking to do with it? And I said like nothing. I made a decision. I should say I just presented today because of the occasion, but I don't have any particular plans. And he said you should continue with. This Can make a great impact and it's a good idea. So that gave me a commitment to such a person. That gave me a lot of inspiration and I decided to then pursue some contests and competitions.

I had the opportunity to participate in the first edition of the bioemicry design challenge in 2015. It's a two-year program. It's a US-based organization called the Bioemicry Institute and they selected Hexagon Project as a finalist because of its inspiration taken from nature, using bioemicry methodologies. So that kind of accelerator program of two years gave me the first tools to understand about entrepreneurship how to make a startup project, how to build a team, because I didn't have any idea of how to pursue such a project, even though I had experience working with my family since a very young age and seeing how they built their company. I was always working with them, but I didn't know how to approach an innovative business model, so it was a great opportunity for us by the end of the accelerator in 2016. We were granted 10K and in that moment I had a first team member which decided to support this project. He was the engineer and we founded Hexagon by the end of 2016. So what took?

0:09:50 - Harry Duran

place there, as you're thinking about this, there's obviously a lot of things that maybe you weren't planning at the time and obviously a lot of skill sets, maybe, that you didn't have because you weren't thinking, maybe, to be an entrepreneur when you first started this. Obviously you're in the mindset of school and engineering. So when are you thinking that? How do you move? Like I'm just thinking about placing yourself back in 2016,. Like how you make those decisions about to think about, hey, this is something I need to pursue. Hey, this is worth my time. Hey, this is going to be a lot of work, and so I imagine a lot of those emotions are happening for you at that moment.

0:10:26 - Felipe Hernandez

Absolutely. For me. It was a huge challenge being an international student in Italy and trying to pursue like a startup, without money, without the family and with the budget of a student and international student. Of course, it was a huge goal for me and I said, why not? I'm going to give it a try and let's see what happens. And things just happened. They opportunities presented, people supported me, people really liked the idea and I also felt a lot of passion for this topic of agriculture. That I didn't know before. But specifically and I think this is still like my drive is the huge potential of impact that agriculture has, because it's a holistic topic. It regards the side engineering, agronomy, biology, sociology, economics, everything. So for me it's super stimulating to learn of so different topics and see how they can change and how they have impacted societies the invasion of agriculture to the Green Revolution and envisioning what's next for me is these technological innovations that are going to completely change how we grow and access food.

0:11:56 - Harry Duran

So talk about, from an engineering perspective, what were some of the design considerations, Because I imagine you looked at a lot of different growing systems that were out there already. You've mentioned hydroponics, aeroponics as well, so talk a little bit about your thought process in terms of deciding what the design that was eventually going to make it into what is Exeggore now.

0:12:18 - Felipe Hernandez

Sure. Well, back then the problems were related to the accessibility, which I think it's still the problem today Getting this technology into the people's everyday lives. There are people that has never heard about hydroponics. This is unbelievable from my point of view. The products were completely ugly and, for example, they were not modular, they were not easy to use, they were not automated in a lot of cases back then. So, because of the major principles that biomemichry uses, I really took them to the core of our product development, principles which are flexibility, modularity, scalability, decentralization, local production, information sharing. All of these are principles that nature uses to save energy and be efficient and provide abundance. So, with this mindset, I really tried to develop the product concept as the lead product development of our team, always with sustainability in mind and the flexibility to adapt to the different market needs.

0:13:36 - Harry Duran

I think what would be helpful is to explain the concept of biomemichry. I think maybe some people listening might be familiar with it and I've heard it and I've been fascinated with the concept before. But from your perspective, when you think of biomemichry and you think of the importance of reflecting what nature has already provided us from a functionality perspective and from a design perspective, I think those are really important considerations. But maybe how you think about it doesn't have to be like the perfect definition, but when you think of that word, like what comes to mind for you.

0:14:07 - Felipe Hernandez

Absolutely Well, since billions of years, there is a complex, very smart designer finding solutions to solve problems, to adapt to different needs. These organisms that have evolved over time are able to solve different types of challenges with certain strategies that preserve energy and are very efficient. So if you think about photosynthesis, if you think about the structures of the butterfly wings to generate color, or the hexagonal patterns in the honeybee hives, all of those structures and the strategies are meant for a reason, which is to adapt to the environment, survive and provide abundance for all the ecosystem. So those are amazing sources of inspiration that have proved to be practical to solve the humanity's greatest challenges, as biomemichry evangelizes. And I think it also has a very powerful approach towards circularity and decentralization, because these are concepts of nature. So I think they're quite smart and wise.

0:15:33 - Harry Duran

Yeah, definitely, most definitely. And you can see sometimes when people and companies are designing things that reflect biomemichry principles. There's an elegance in that design and, like you said, you only have to look to nature. You pick up a seashell. You just even, like you know, just see the certain patterns that are developing, even slicing open up a tomato, or the tourists that's in an apple, just like there's energy that's moving throughout all of these systems, and I think if we start to pay attention to them, we start to think about how we design things that can work in harmony with nature as well. I really love that. That's a core design consideration for you.

0:16:10 - Felipe Hernandez

Actually a little curiosity about this topic, and why is it related to vertical farming and so on? I don't know if that hydroponics and aeroponics are actually inspired by nature. There are plants that grow on the water, and that's why the Aztecs, I think, were the first ones to experiment this kind of cultivation method, and in the Amazon there are plants that grow hanging from trees, because they're able to get nutrients from the mist in the forest. So actually, these technologies were created, inspired by nature.

0:16:48 - Harry Duran

Yeah, that's a good point. So when you talk about the design of HexaGrow, was the original intent to create something that would be able to be used by a consumer in a consumer environment, in households?

0:17:02 - Felipe Hernandez

Okay. So to explain you a little bit more about the company now, because it's very different from the design project from my thesis. Hexagrow is an urban farming platform that has the mission to increase the access of urban farming technologies to allow anyone to grow and access healthy food. That means that as a platform, we are seeking an exponential approach and this is like our moonshot to allow people to reconnect to nature, reconnect to food and reconnect to each other, to people, by doing farming. I mean. I think we shouldn't try to disconnect people from farming, because we have been doing it since thousands of years. It's innate for our nature and therefore HexaGrow's of NATFORAN provides modular hardware that has, of course, urban farming technology, software that allows people to have a great user experience and a community of users to promote urban farming socially and create synergies and transfers of value within this platform.

0:18:21 - Harry Duran

So talk a little bit about the practical application. So what does that mean in the day to day? What does that look like from a physical product and how is it used? And who is the ideal and intended audience to? The listener and the viewer can have an idea specifically like who this is for.

0:18:37 - Felipe Hernandez

Sure, that's a great question. So in terms of hardware, we have right now, with three different product lines. We have one product line which is for outdoors and it has low tech. It's called potty and it basically is a modular base tower that doesn't have any much technology in it but is basically using the fertigation method to grow food with coconut substrate, and this happens to be ideal for balconies and terraces to grow different kinds of salads, small fruits and vegetables, and it allows it's like an entry point for people that wants to do urban farming.

Then we have a product that we just launched that is called Clovie. Actually, right now it's going in Kickstarter and this product is a little bit more technological because it has an automation device connected to the internet so you can control it from your phone. It is also modular, it is scalable, it has different kinds of finishes. It's also kind of a base stackable tower, but it provides a container that has a water level sensor. It kind of hold up to 20 liters of water.

It was the evolution of this last product that I mentioned. The price for this is slightly higher. It also can be upgraded with lights to grow indoors, so the prices are slightly higher, and it also provides a digital experience for you to grow. Something important to say hurry about our products is that, unlike other consumer products in the market, our strategy is to open the platform, open it to everyone possible. That means we don't lock you in with seedlings or seeds. We are designing our system so that you can grow whatever you want. That means that you can buy from your local garden store seeds or seedlings and grow them in our hardware.

0:20:41 - Harry Duran

And how does the software enhance the tech or the app enhance the experience?

0:20:46 - Felipe Hernandez

Sure, we are first of all, building a lot of knowledge based on all of our users' feedbacks. So we have around 4,000 consumer users right now, mostly in Italy and few countries in Europe, and that allows us to build a learning knowledge and gather data. So, basically, we filter this data, we process it and we provide it to the user in an easy to understand manner in the form of chatbot. So we basically train this chatbot and right now we are starting to apply the last AI technology on it so that people can find answers fast. So, basically, we have a directory of plant variants in which you can find the specific information about the plants that you want to grow, and we provide services on top of that for specialized knowledge. And, yeah, we have a few other tools like notifications, recipes. You can also buy our own guaranteed and tested resources for growing via our e-commerce, so it's about making it easier and more accessible for people.

0:22:00 - Harry Duran

And what's been the feedback you said you mentioned? You've had over 4,000 users across Italy and Europe, and what type of mechanism do you have in place for receiving this feedback and what do you do with it and how do you use it to make the product better?

0:22:15 - Felipe Hernandez

Well, we use different strategies because you have the quantitative part and then you have the qualitative part. The quantitative part we are able to gather it with our more technological products that have sensors integrated, but we also gather feedbacks through the application that we have developed, where we actively ask people to give us feedback about the plants, about the system, about their experience. So we basically score this feedback using different methods and based on these inputs, we prioritize the developments of our products. As they are modular, we are able to upgrade them over time, we are able to improve them and even expand their functionalities, because they are meant not for being in the erupted and throw to the trash. They are meant to evolve. This is what nature does, right. So our principle is providing the most flexible and modular solutions possible that you can improve over time with the add ons and technology that we cannot. So, yeah, we do also actively interviews and we gather a lot of feedback from our community of users.

0:23:37 - Harry Duran

Is there an example that comes to mind of some feedback you've received from your users and how you've implemented it into changes or possible thoughts about how you can improve the product.

0:23:47 - Felipe Hernandez

Absolutely. Actually, this new product that is right now in Kickstarter is called Cloby. First of all, we changed the name because we wanted to call it 42.0. But as we are approaching the American market, the name is kind of confusing. So that's the first thing. Right Then, for example, we added we made a bigger container that can hold all of the parts inside, so it's very compact and easy to distribute through sales channels.

And this is one of our competitive advantages and selling propositions, harry, because we want everyone in the world to be able to access this technology. Therefore, we need products that can be distributed everywhere in the world, but it's not like those little gadgets that allow you to grow three to five plants. These products actually allow you to grow 20, 40 plants, and even more if you buy more than one. So, as they are stackable, they are modular. We are able to sell it through big distribution channels that allow us to reach the end consumer in very, very, very broad markets all around the world.

Right now, we're starting to step into international markets and with this new product, we are improving the duration of the water. We are improving, for example, the space of the plants in the vases. We have integrated very, very innovative and new bio composite materials, for example, made of agricultural waste like rice shells and wood chips that are mixed with bio resins so that we can decrease the use of plastic. We are still using plastic, but that plastic is 100% certified recycle from locally sourced materials, so the sustainability is very strong in there. We are also designing a custom modular parts to improve the functionality, for example, of irrigation, of the product.

We just integrated into this product and IOT device that allows you not only to connect our add ons but any electronic that you want. If you want to buy our lights, you can plug them in into the IOT device. If you want to buy lights from another provider, you can still plug them into the IOT device and control them. So we really want, with this product, to open urban farming and this technology for all. So, for example, let's comment what that I think it's curious is that you can upgrade this tower also for aerophonics. So you can. It allows you to grow in using for mitigation or low pressure aerophonics by changing the components.

0:26:41 - Harry Duran

So talk a little bit about the decision to go with a Kickstarter as your source of funding. How did the decision come about?

0:26:50 - Felipe Hernandez

Well, it's a decision mostly taken because of our design thinking approach, which is test fast, crash fast, iterate measure and so on.

The best way to test the market is with such a product is through a crowdfunding campaign, especially because it allows us to reach markets that we are interested to scale up and enter, like the US and the North American market.

So, without the need of closing big distribution deals and finding certifications and making a bunch of expenses, we can just go faster with the product development by presenting the product already to the end consumer through these crowdfunding platforms that are still working great Right now. They have other kind of requisites because you basically have to show a product that is basically ready to sell. Nowadays it's not like before that you presented like a sketch and everybody was funding it. Now you need to show a lot of trust. So our background and our sales allow this trust and we're basically listening actively to what people are saying in Kickstarter to improve the product before we make investments on mass production. So we are co-creating this product with them and I think it's a great strategy for starting the development of consumer products, also because of the funding and the support that you can find with these backers.

0:28:31 - Harry Duran

Yeah, it seems like you've had success with the campaign and we'll make sure to have link to it in the show notes as well, so the listener and the viewer can look and support the campaign as well and learn more. So how big is the team now?

0:28:43 - Felipe Hernandez

We are 10 people. We're a small team. We're starting our growth stage. It's a very important and particular moment for us right now. But this team is amazing because we have very professional people. It's international. We have people from Turkey, india, mexico, italy, of course, myself from Colombia, so it's really diverse and that gives us an amazing competitive advantage. We also have engineers, agronomists, we have people for marketing, for sales, for current development. So we really are collaborative and we kind of complement and have the key roles right now to be able to scale up. But the important thing here is that they are all believers in our vision, which is having these decentralized communities of farmland farmers that can locally source what they consume. So everybody is here because of that and that's what drives us.

0:29:51 - Harry Duran

What's been the biggest challenge for you as a new CEO, as someone new to entrepreneurship and building a business? Obviously, you mentioned this is not something that you studied and something you've had to learn along the way, so what's that journey been like for you?

0:30:06 - Felipe Hernandez

Well, the journey has been very extensive. For me, it has been a personal journey of transforming, adapting, learning, falling, rising. When we found, after we founded the startup in 2016, I was still working and I was working in the evenings on the project. To be able to develop it, I participated to a challenge called Thought for Food. I don't know if you know the organization. They are a very cool foundation and I met my current co-founder there few months after establishing the society.

0:30:45 - Harry Duran

Okay.

0:30:45 - Felipe Hernandez

And having the first believers, having the first people who are living in this, was a huge lesson for me and also a huge challenge to become like a leader, so that one of the main challenges for me has been to develop that mindset, those leadership skills, and finding the resources to move forward, finding opportunities and persisting In 2020,. We faced in the first row, the pandemic here in Milan and it was amazing for me to see that we run out of money, we run out of opportunities. We were trying to sell to commercial spaces these gardens so the templates could grow, and so on. That was working. When the pandemic hit, we stayed.

We didn't have a business because all of the clients closed their offices. We were kicked out of our own office in a co-working space. We were waiting for a credit that a bank cancelled few weeks after the pandemic started. We didn't have a family that could support me economically and we had around three employees. We sat down all together and we told them what can we do? And the amazing thing here was seeing them support us in this journey and they were able to stay with us and work for free for a few months until we were able to recover and retribute this effort. So I think the biggest challenge is now over. We are used to struggling to persist and this is why I'm confident that we're going to make it happen in the future. So yeah, it has been an amazing journey and life lesson. So most of the struggle comes from those personal challenges.

0:32:49 - Harry Duran

Yeah, it sounds like you had a lot to go through and it feels like you built a team that believed in the mission and, to testament to your leadership, that they were able to make that sacrifice, to stay with you unpaid for that period of time, and that you were able to recover from that, because a lot of companies, as we know, did not recover. And I think the fact that you've been able to do that and hold on to the company, hold on to the vision and hold on to that mission and keep everyone together moving forward, I think, is, I'm sure it was a really proud moment for you and it just shows the strength of what you're building. And so, as you think about going through experiences like that, have you had relationships with mentors or people that have inspired you in the past, that have really given you some guidance for some of these challenges?

0:33:34 - Felipe Hernandez

Absolutely. We couldn't have made it without the support of so many people that also believe in us and our vision. One source of inspiration and support for me was one of my former bosses. He's the CEO of a company called the Orbit. I was working there for a while. They develop aerospace technology and basically when I started to work in the Hexagonal project, he mentored me for the development of the business model and after a few years that I was able to continue growing the project, he decided to become an advisor of the company and an investor in the company. So he really advises us, supports us, and we have an advisory board composed of C-level professionals that fill the gap of experience. So that support has been of great value for us and continues to be one of our greatest assets.

0:34:39 - Harry Duran

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

0:34:44 - Felipe Hernandez

Well, I think it's basically about how to find the resources for us. I don't know if you're aware of a startup environment in Italy, but in Italy there is not a strong investor culture. It's hard to find financing for hardware models, and one of the main questions has also been how to differentiate Hexagon from the rest and convey our message, our story, our unique selling proposition in the right way. I think that lately, we are really achieving that with the platform approach explaining how it works, telling the story. But that's one of the greatest questions that I have had to answer lately how to differentiate Hexagon from the rest, how to explain our vision and make people visualize it, and I think that lately we are making great progress with that.

0:35:48 - Harry Duran

Yeah, I think what's interesting is how you built it up slowly over time and how you were thinking about approaching it, as you mentioned earlier, from a biomembrady perspective, building those relationships early with the prototypes and with the POTI version, which allowed the consumer to get their hands on it, work with it, which has now been upgraded to Clovi.

And I think what's interesting, and seeing the success you've had with the Kickstarter, I think it speaks to this slow and steady approach that you've taken to build up this community, to iterate, to get feedback and to continue to improve the product.

So a lot of times people are looking for the. Maybe the fact that you didn't receive big funding or big money it was maybe a good sign, because then the money may not have gone to the right place. So I think making it through challenges like COVID, making it through being in a country that's not your homeland, not having community and still succeeding, and then slowly over time, building this international team that you have, I think says a lot for the progress that you're making. So I think I feel like the path that you're on has been working so far. So I think continuing where you're at and continuing to get that feedback and continuing to get that support from your what I call your power users right, your super fans because that's really going to be helpful for you to help spread the word. They're almost an extension of your marketing team.

0:37:04 - Felipe Hernandez

That's something amazing, harry, and it's something that I really don't see in vertical farming industry, to be honest is the sense of community, of engaging community, the food system in the vision of having a sustainable food system. And it's also very interesting that you mentioned about the funding, because, yes, maybe we didn't get millions and millions in funding yet, but the ones who did already crashed. So, yeah, this low approach is not bad, and learning and being able to change the course, adapt to the different situations, I think is great. Of course, learning from the experiences of other people thanks to, for example, channels like this podcast, is great, and it's very necessary, I think, for everyone to continue learning and sharing experiences.

0:38:05 - Harry Duran

So, as we, you may know what's coming next in terms of the question, because you've mentioned, you are a supporter of the show, so I really appreciate that, because every time I get to meet and engage with someone who's been listening, who spends an hour or two time or maybe more, depending on how many episodes you've listened to I'm glad that the show has been providing value for you and so I always appreciate that. So, obviously, because of the nature of the audience and they're your fellow CEOs and founders and peers in vertical farming and you've carved out a specific niche within the consumer market but do you have any comments, any feedback, any thoughts for your peers in the vertical farming industry, whether it's people getting started, whether it's people that are already in vertical farming, or anything that you want to say to connect with that audience?

0:38:50 - Felipe Hernandez

Absolutely Well. I'm a big critic of vertical farming industry I love to be here in the podcast to share that point of view and also a great admirer. So what I think is that vertical farming faces huge scalability challenges. We need to think about how can people in the world access healthy food. I think that what I'm seeing in the industry now is a lot for niche markets, a lot for high end consumers, a lot of technology being developed by companies that also want to grow. So I don't see like an scalable approach yet in the industry. So I would really advise that these companies should really focus on the results on the market and focus on developing a strategy to scale up and really make a serious impact, because it has been very overhyped. It has been very, very, very promoted with marketing and technology and robots and OK, but in the end, how many people are getting this food into their plates? That's the question, and I really well.

I don't want to criticize only because the technology is great, the initiatives are amazing, the findings, the research. I think there should be more collaboration in order to have something like happened in the Green Revolution. There needs to be less kind of IP and companies wanting to lead the technology and be the only ones in the top of the game and act more like farmers do, which is collaborating, co-venturing in different projects, and you can see this very clearly in industries like the greenhouse industry and other similar industries. I hope that we can offer a different alternative with this technology, Harry. I hope we can decentralize this technology. For me, Vertical farming is like computing in the 80s A huge room with a huge computer accessible for the top scientists that only few companies can afford. Ok, what we want to do is making the laptop that everyone can access. So yeah, the message is how can we create synergies between the different models and systems and how can we create a more collaborative industry?

0:41:43 - Harry Duran

I really love that approach.

I really love that mindset, this idea of and I say it a lot on the show the saying is rising tides lift all boats and so if we all have that mindset of doing the best we can to make sure we're all communicating well, sharing best practices and not feeling so insular and feeling like we need to protect our RIP, I think because of the need that we have on this planet to give people access to fresh food.

Obviously, one farm in someone's house is not going to solve, like the world, hunger problems, but I think if everyone does their part and everyone contributes, then everyone it's a little steps that we can all take to remember our connection to our food sources and not feeling like fresh food equals having to go to a market and getting packaged food. You can actually grow at home and you don't have to be in a rural environment, you don't have to own a farm. You can do it at home and there's ways to your point with the technology that you're creating at Hexa Grow, I think, for people to at least begin to reawaken and reconnect in terms of their relationship to fresh food.

0:42:51 - Felipe Hernandez

That's completely right, harry, and I would like to share with the audience. Why do you need to grow food, and I would like to share a few principles. First of all, growing food can potentially save you money. Second, growing your own food results in less waste. Half of fresh food is wasted by the end of supply chain, and this also happens in vertical farming supply chains. The food that you grow locally is guaranteed to be fresh. The food that you buy from supermarkets is actually already lacking nutrients. We're talking about between 15 and 40% less vitamin C, and this is also scientific papers.

Commercially grown food doesn't offer the highest amount of nutrients and basically, when you grow your own, exactly what happens with these foods what you gave it to the plant, the conditions that it was made on and that makes you feel more comfortable and basically, growing your own food makes you happier. It's an extremely social activity. You relieve your stress, you do physical activity and basically the sensation and I don't know if you have grown your own, harry, but the sensation of eating what you grow is amazing and even more, sharing what you grow. It's an amazing feeling. So gardening is simply good for your health and I think it's part of our in nature. We did it for thousands of years and unfortunately, we are forgetting about it.

0:44:27 - Harry Duran

Yeah, all great points, and I really want to thank you again for reaching out and for staying in contact with me and finding the right time to tell this story. So I'm excited to share this with our audience and I appreciate all the work that you're doing and I applaud your journey, because it sounds like it's definitely been not an easy one, and then you've been persistent and just continuing to grow. So I'm wishing you a lot of success with the company.

0:44:51 - Felipe Hernandez

Thank you so much, Harry, for the opportunity to talk about what we do in your podcast. I think it's a great activity what you're doing. It's really inspiring to hear from other entrepreneurs and other stories and I'm really happy to share mine, and I hope that we can talk again in the future and tell you the latest news. So check out our Kickstarter campaign, join our community of urban farmers, follow us in the social media and please grow your own.

0:45:22 - Harry Duran

Thank you so much, harry. Yeah, well, so we'll have the links to everything, including the website hexagrowio. Thanks again for your time, felipe. I really appreciate it.

0:45:30 - Felipe Hernandez

Thank you so much. Have a great day. Bye-bye.