Bursting Bubbles

Our guest today is Nicholas Deeney, an engaging and talented entrepreneur from Dublin.

Nicholas is the founder and CEO of Biovit Technologies in Dublin, however, his background is in science.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Trinity College and a Master’s in Biotechnology from University College and is now balancing his passion for science with his dedication to scaling his business way beyond the shores of Ireland.

In this fascinating episode of our podcast “Kinore Real Business Conversations”, Nicholas discusses his journey from a neuroscience background to developing a technology to enhance nutrient absorption in health products.

Admitting that he often “bursts a lot of bubbles”, he explains that up to 99% of nutrients in fortified food or within supplements are wasted and just end up “in our pee”.

This discovery was the inspiration for Nicholas to create Biovit Technologies, and his determination to develop an effective solution to this “preposterous” problem.

Biovit Technologies is now targeting manufacturers of fortified foods and supplements, aiming for market entry by 2026. https://www.biovit.ie/

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription.

Larissa Feeney  0:00

Today, my guest is an engaging and talented entrepreneur whose passion for science is now matched equally by his passion and dedication to business success.

Nicholas Deeney  0:10

Many of the nutrients in health products, whether it’s foods or supplements, they don’t actually reach the bloodstream. Sometimes up to 99% is wasted. It’s all going out through your pee.

Nicholas Deeney  0:22

We’ve created technology that makes food and health products much more effective since the first business inception,

Nicholas Deeney  0:31

I’ve probably done about 40 to 50 courses. I think that’s really important to be the best leader you can when you’re when you’re kind of navigating the choppy waters of a startup,

Voiceover  0:41

No unicorns, no brands, just hard-working people who built their business from the ground up, sharing their experience so others can learn. Presented by Larisa Feeney from Kinore, this is Real Business Conversations.

Larissa Feeney  1:00

Hello. I’m Larissa Feeney, CEO and founder at Kinore Finance and Business Services. In this episode, we’ll explore how scientific knowledge, startup, grit and market awareness come together to build something truly impactful. We’ll talk about spotting a gap in the wellness industry, developing proprietary technology, navigating early-stage funding and the challenges of scaling a science led business in a competitive space, our guest today has a background in neuroscience, biotechnology and diagnostics, and previously founded a CBD wellness brand that sparked the idea for his latest venture. Now he’s applying those lessons to a new challenge, making nutrients work better for the body. It’s a pleasure to welcome the founder and CEO of Biovit technologies. Nicholas Deeney, hi, Nicholas…

Nicholas Deeney  1:52

Hi. How are you? Pleasure to be here!

Larissa Feeney  1:58

So you must have had an interest in science. I know you did your degree in Trinity. I know you did a master’s in, was it UCD?

Nicholas Deeney  2:04

Yeah, and biotech…

Larissa Feeney  2:06

 and biotech. So you must have had an interest in science right back to secondary school. Did you or before that?

Nicholas Deeney  2:11

Oh, yeah, a long way before that, really, since as long as I can remember, yeah.

Larissa Feeney  2:16

And was there anybody in the family that led you in that direction? Or how did you develop that interest in the first place? Do you remember

Nicholas Deeney  2:22

I was the total black sheep of my whole family? Are in finance, stop broken backgrounds so well, I remember at the very start, when I was maybe 14 or 15, I wanted to be a doctor, originally, and then how that just evolved into different things. I was not I was specific interests, and then that led me away. So I thought, doctor, being doctors very specific, I didn’t want to be just tied down to one medical profession. So I thought, okay, get into science. If I still like it, I’ll go and do kind of post grad medicine. And then ended up finding different niches and different interests. But yeah, when it comes to family, all finance. Are

Larissa Feeney  3:01

there any entrepreneurs in the family? Yes,

Nicholas Deeney  3:04

I’m no, okay, none of them really had had their own business for a number of years. So it was bits here and there, you know.

Larissa Feeney  3:13

So you graduated from UCD, what led you to start the first business? And maybe tell us a little bit about what that was. Okay.

Nicholas Deeney  3:23

I saw a job product development, working on HIV diagnostic devices, and went into a company called Trinity biotech. I worked on the COVID test except for HIV, so instead of putting a drop of saliva, we put in a drop of blood, and you’re testing the presence the two lines, control and test the two lines for HIV instead of COVID. And then at the same time, I was offered a PhD in UCD. Ended up taking it, re entered academia. This was the start of COVID. Started the PhD in September. And then, with less than, I think it was, nine months later, started my own start of the business. I didn’t really hesitate to be honest,

Larissa Feeney  4:05

what made the decision so easy for you?

Nicholas Deeney  4:07

I was just fascinated in it. I realized I was spending more time on the business than the PhD itself, the research that I probably should have been doing on the PhD I was actually doing on the interactions of different anti inflammatories with the nervous system, because the neuroscience background. And I thought it was really leaning into the business research as opposed to the PhD research. So that was really the kind of okay, look, you need to make a decision here. And so I just based it on logic, really as in on how much, based on how much time I was spending

Larissa Feeney  4:36

on it. So it made sense, you could see the potential in it, maybe

Nicholas Deeney  4:39

the the unknown excited me. Obviously, I was fearful of it, but at the same time, that’s what got me going, that’s what got me ticking. So I thought, okay, let’s let’s go for it.

Larissa Feeney  4:48

Talk to us about that business. What was the product?

Nicholas Deeney  4:51

It was this, mainly CBD brand. I was sort of taking this product for sleep and kind of anxiety and stress, and I. After a week, nothing didn’t really work. Of two weeks didn’t really work. Three to four, okay, this is something’s happening here after about five or six weeks, which is a decent amount of time to stick with something without feeling much results. At the start, I thought, Okay, this is great. Why isn’t this on every shelf? So then I started going into, I suppose, the COAs, which is like the batch analysis of the what, as in what is exactly in this bottle versus what says on the label.

Larissa Feeney  5:27

Just to be clear, this is CBD oil that you would put under your tongue. Yes, that’s right, yeah. And the idea is that it helps with anxiety, yes, or helps to calm in stressful situations,

Nicholas Deeney  5:40

yeah, so it’s supposed to interact with your nervous system and essentially bring it down a bit. So if you’re, let’s say, hyper stressed, it’s supposed to bring it down slightly to the normal levels, if you want to call it that. But it was only when I realized that a lot of the CBD products out there shouldn’t be out there. They shouldn’t be on the shelves in that for example, one would say we have 1000 milligrams, but when you look at the Batch Records, it may have 500 and then in the next batch it may have 1500 so the variance was just unbelievable based on this information and the potential. I thought, Okay, well, it’s growing, so let’s create a brand that’s based on quality and consistency, and then that’ll be the USP. I didn’t really think about a huge amount. I just thought, Look opportunity, plus, I’ll just make a better product. Because there’s so many different manufacturers. You

Larissa Feeney  6:28

were thinking, from your own experience, this product took six weeks to work. And with your scientific background, you were thinking, well, it shouldn’t take six weeks to work. Yeah, something’s not right here. I can create something that works a lot quicker,

Nicholas Deeney  6:41

yeah, yeah. And have something that’s safer and more consistent on the on the market. It’s only when I started Reese, going into the published papers, getting into the nitty gritties of it, I saw a tiny little section one of these papers saying, Oh, well, there’s only so effective these ingredients and products can be because they have poor absorption, what’s called bioavailability. So by availability is basically how much gets into your bloodstream versus how much you take. They were saying that the bioavailability of some of these were as low as 1% and an average around 10% so I thought, well, I’m selling a bottle for 30 mils, and there’s you’re saying there’s by availability 10% so I’m only delivering roughly 15 Euro worth of value to this, 150 Euro bottle. That’s what then begun everything. That was the starting point.

Larissa Feeney  7:32

Okay, so this is what fascinates me, and I know we’ll get to this later, whenever we’re talking about your current business. So I mean, because we’re sold so much, you know, online, we’re told we should be, you know, taking all of these supplements. And, you know, are, you know, yes, this is going to help us, yeah, and we trust it. But the reality is that it that’s not the case at all. Unfortunately,

Nicholas Deeney  7:54

not. And I tend to burst a lot of bubbles, and I don’t mean to when I say this, because people are saying I’m taking these turmeric shots and I’m taking these anti inflammatories and taking all these vitamins, minerals, whatever may be, and I’m there kind of thinking in my head, okay, yeah, oh, that only has about 5% by availability. So you’re really not unless you eat it by the kilo with a spoon. You’re there’s only so beneficial they can be, you know, so and I thought this was kind of preposterous, and I thought it was just unacceptable, really. So I just went around to manufacturers and said, Here I went to about 40 around the world. And I said, Look, first of all, one, I assume you’re aware of the problem. Two, what’s the solution? Let me just repackage it. Let me white label it and sell it on. And there’s my USP and that sound. That’s how I differentiate. Either they were presenting ideas that were, it was kind of putting lipstick on a pig, if you want to call it that, in that if they were, they were trying to give you a solution that wasn’t actually a solution. It was no scientific evidence behind it. There was no there was nothing to it. They just said, oh, yeah, this works. And that makes that increases. It’s okay, right? How does it do that? And what? And where’s the where’s the evidence? Oh well, you know, like, oh yeah, this that. And the other just waffle. They just eat around the bush. And then the other ones that were validated were so expensive and also outdated and also not very efficient. And so like liposomal, you’ll see it in pharmacies. Liposomal, vitamin C, liposomal, this. Look at some of that’s been around since the 60s, but there are gaps. So this is when I thought, okay, I briefly studied drug delivery systems in my master’s, and I thought, right, I’ll apply one of them to this, to one of the drug delivery systems to nutrients. And that obviously doesn’t work. So I went about just putting together version one, version 1.1 version 1.2 of creating a delivery system for nutrients.

Larissa Feeney  9:46

So this is the current business you’re talking about. Now, is it Nicholas for right? Yes, okay, okay, okay. So whenever you identify this challenge, and it’s a challenge worldwide, essentially what you’re trying to do is you’re. Trying to get as much as possible of the nutrient into the bloodstream.

Nicholas Deeney  10:03

We’re trying to exactly do that maximize the nutritional value of everyday food and drink products. You go into a supermarket, let’s take one section. You go into the refrigerated drinks aisle, you pick up a drink, you’ll struggle to find a drink that’s not full and fortified with different nutrients, from vitamins to minerals to salt to whatever it is. You can look at a thing, added nutrients, added this, added that, in a positive way. I don’t I’m not saying it’s negative, but while they’re all full of fortified different nutrients, that means they’ve the same problem. They face the same problem in that a lot of these nutrients don’t effectively get into the body, actually, someone who I’m working with moment only recently, they said, Oh, it’s like putting premium fuel into your car, but before the fuel reaches the engine, it leaks out onto the floor. It’s all going out through your pee. So

Larissa Feeney  10:54

is what you’re telling me, that I’m not getting all the nutrients from those products.

Nicholas Deeney  10:59

Well, no. So there’s different ways that are better than others, you know. And so for example, like effervescent tablets, they’d be quite they’re quite good absorbed and versus, let’s say, a tablet or a capsule. So it’s specific nutrients. Not every nutrient is the same. So for example, vitamin A absorbs quite poorly into the body, roughly 5% whereas Vitamin C is about 85% so I’m not saying that. I’m saying some nutrients. For example, the ones we’re working on are the ones that are porous by availability, and they are vitamins A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K. You can get into more niche ones, like turmeric, co Q, 10, quercetin, all this. There’s a list of about 10 or 12 that we’re working on, and then we will eventually expand into the other ones. Okay,

Larissa Feeney  11:45

as well. Okay, so those specific ones that you’re working on now, so say the turmeric, for example. Yes, a lot of people will buy the shots or, you know, they’ll, they’ll include them in their shakes or whatever. There’s good recognition now on the benefits of nutrients like that. Yeah. So as you say, You’re bursting a lot of bubbles. If you tell us all that we’re taking this stuff and it doesn’t actually do us any good, what’s the solution that you’re developing to help overcome this challenge?

Nicholas Deeney  12:12

So we’ve created a technology that, essentially it looks at two two sides, or it solves two problems. So first of all, let’s say you ingest a protein shake that has added vitamins to it. One thing is it needs to get to the side of absorption in the human body, which is the small intestine. The internal environment of the body is very harsh. There’s different pH changes, different enzymes. The liver is there. Everything is there to break down these ingredients, these nutrients. So first of all, you need to protect against this degradation to ensure that it gets and reaches the side of absorption. Then once you’re at the site of absorption, then it can’t absorb across the small intestinal wall. It can’t get across that wall into the bloodstream. It needs to get around into the bloodstream so it can distribute around the body and have positive effect. So what we do is we provide that protection, and we also provide that delivery in that the absorption across the intestinal wall to get into the bloodstream. So there’s two sides of it, the technology, protection and absorption. That’s a that’s what we look at. So

Larissa Feeney  13:15

once you have it developed, and you’re you’re developing at the moment, is that right?

Nicholas Deeney  13:19

Yeah, we’re doing our first, I suppose, early stage human testing at the moment.

Larissa Feeney  13:23

Okay, so good luck. Good luck. Yeah, yeah. Who is your customer? Because I’m not your customer, if I understand it correctly, you’re not selling to me directly. Who you sell into if you want

Nicholas Deeney  13:33

to get into, I suppose the business side of it, there’s two business models. We’re taking a target approach, a phased approach. We’re using a contract manufacturer that will use our process and use our formulations to bulk produce, let’s say one ton or 10 tons, whatever the customer wants, of vitamins. So we’ll be a bulk ingredient supplier. And then the phase two approach, and this is depending on IP, because we’re in the middle of progressing the IP and for the patent that will be licensing up the technology directly to the manufacturers and producers. So the manufacturers of fortified foods, fortified beverages and health supplements, they’re our target customers, not not really brands, because the brands go to the manufacturers. So we’re going earlier than the brands. We’re not We’re not consumer based, not be to see we’re going directly targeting these large manufacturing facilities, and, let’s say multinationals, you know. So

Larissa Feeney  14:28

you’re going directly to them, and then the brands would be buying off, buying off them exactly, and your USP, I understand the USB to me, right? I understand that I’m going to be buying the same thing as I’ve always bought, but it’ll work better. We’ve

Nicholas Deeney  14:41

two actually USBs, more effective end products through enhanced absorption, but then also lower lower cogs, lower cost of goods for manufacturers. If you can elevate the absorption of an ingredient by 1020, 50x you’re not going to typically add in the same amount. You’re going to reduce the amount you put in. So your inputs are reduced, your manufacturing costs go down, and while you also have the more effective end product, therefore the manufacturers can can increase their margins that way, so they have a win, win on both sides.

Larissa Feeney  15:11

I was wondering, you see, because I was getting the benefit to me as a consumer, but in my head, I was thinking, what’s in it for the manufacturer? Because are they going to have to charge more, but actually it’ll cost them less?

Nicholas Deeney  15:23

Yeah, so funny say that I initially came into this thing, oh, reduce cogs. Reduce the cogs, and then manufacturers, multinationals, will be happy. Let’s say you talk to the likes of Danone or Nestle or something they they buy at such large volumes that they can almost dictate what price they pay for. You know, like as in, they are ordering 1000s of tons. But I, when I actually speak to them, there’s about 60% of them that lean into No, we’re actually going to add in. Of course, we’ll add in less, but we’re not going to add in. Let’s say, if we 10x the absorption for something, we’re not going to add in 10% and just keep the same efficacy. If you want to call that. They said we’re going to add in still a significant amount. Just have Bucha. We’ll have a much better product. Because they want to scream and shout from mountain top saying we have the best product in the market that they want to be the differentiators, costs, obviously, unless it’s some crazy extortion of costs, they’ll start talking about that, but we’re not. So they can almost dictate the costs and but they want the they want the effective product that’s they want.

Larissa Feeney  16:28

So they want to be able to say that they have the best product, but they need to say why they have the best Yes, and if they can get hold of your solution, then they can say, we have the best product because we have the highest efficacy. That’s the word, isn’t

Nicholas Deeney  16:41

it? Well, efficacy is more pharma word, but yeah, the most effective product based on the absorption, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Larissa Feeney  16:48

okay, okay, okay, fascinating. Okay, so sticking with the business side of it, then, because I understand the science, I think it’s great. It makes sense to me. But whenever you start up a business like you’ve started, obviously revenue generation is way, way in the future, because you have to develop the product. You have to get it market ready. You have to get to the customer. What about the competition? Nicholas, do you have? You must have competition. There must be other companies that are trying to do what you do. It’s

Nicholas Deeney  17:17

really only a new enough space. So the competitors, they’re certainly out there. There’s competitors out there that we’re certainly not aware of. One of them we are aware of and has good results for raising the absorption, impressive technology, but their limitation is their technology only works, one in liquid form and two in high concentration liquids. So for example, they can only do liquid soft gels. So think of like Omega three fish oils. So you have, let’s say, a vitamin or an antioxidant in that. But if you, let’s say, break open that soft gel and put it into a beverage, let’s say a smoothie or a juice or something like that, the technology breaks apart. So that’s our difference, we can go into foods, beverages and supplements, and these other guys who are producing good results, but they’re limited to supplements and soft gels. Yeah, it is

Larissa Feeney  18:10

a fast moving area, and it’s going to move faster, isn’t it? How, as awareness grows around the importance of this area, yeah,

Nicholas Deeney  18:16

especially the way there’s poster pharma involved in nutraceuticals. So yeah, you’re up against big, big competition.

Larissa Feeney  18:22

Talk to us about your fundraising journey so far. Nicholas, God,

Nicholas Deeney  18:27

it gives me so many headaches. It’s such a stress, it’s a hassle. It’s so time consuming. Yeah, it’s been really difficult because a lot of the stuff that we want to do, we’re trying to get fundraising in order to prove that we can do what we say we can do, you needed someone to make a punt, and you needed someone to to just back you and back the business plan, back you as a person, to be honest, when you’re that early, they just backed the founder, or founders, if there’s more than one vote, that’s really it. But, and that I found incredibly difficult, I was knocking on loads of doors. So the first person that opened the door, and actually was enterprise Ireland, that getting the pssf fund, basically was 100,000 CLN convertible loan out. But then on the back of that came some press, and I went into an accelerator called the further accelerator in Dublin, and then that gave more press. And then that actually people were knocking on, not knocking on the door, but people were coming saying, Oh, look, we have a bit here, like we’re, we’re looking for investments, and that came in that way. So, but it was, it’s still a journey, and it’s taken so it’s so so long. We actually have just started our second fundraise.

Larissa Feeney  19:41

So is this going to be like seed, or have you done seed already at the start, it was

Nicholas Deeney  19:45

pre seed, so now we’re in seed. So now we’re in seed. So it was so very early stage, but this is seed to get to that secure the first contract, secure clinical validation for for a few different ingredients. Scale the team and get the get the contract manufacturing and stuff. From what

Larissa Feeney  20:05

you’ve just said, I’m guessing that this whole fundraising side of the business doesn’t come easy to you. I

Nicholas Deeney  20:10

don’t think it comes easy to anyone my age or what their late 20s, very early 30s. It’s harder because your network is much smaller. You’re not friends with executives in different companies who can, one, give you advice, or two, introduce you to funders. The funding landscape in Ireland right now is very much geared towards AI SaaS software, totally and utterly obviously, out of Galway in the West, you get your med techs as well. But it is really geared towards that SaaS, and it makes it difficult, because we’ve had to just venture abroad to try and get it. And we’re talking to us VCs, European VCs, mainly, I’m actually talking to no Irish VCs right now. Oh, wow, none at all. No, but enterprise Ireland again, going back to that, they opened the door, which led to more funding, and they’ve been great to date. Actually rehab.

Larissa Feeney  21:04

It’s just a shame though that you’re not getting support from Irish VCs. Yeah,

Nicholas Deeney  21:09

we don’t fit the thesis, because the thesis is that kind of business model of low risk, high reward. We’re hard tech, as in, we’ve physical we’ve a lab, and we have equipment and machinery they want, or a lot of them seem to lean into softwares which are kind of low capital risk or lower. So yeah, it is difficult, bit frustrating, but I saw we have to just go out and target deep techs, food tech, agri tech, VCs to have lean into that. That’s their thesis, investment thesis.

Larissa Feeney  21:42

And for anybody listening, how did you even go about starting to build relationships with because Irish VCs, I get it. I mean, you can, you can find them relatively easily. There’s events and AI can support and all of that. How do you find them in the US or Europe?

Nicholas Deeney  21:56

Um, yeah, difficult. So I sign up to loads of different updates. So for example, there’s one update with the Food Institute. It’s a US company that gives you weekly updates of all the food industry news, and a segment of that is recent investments. So I would say it’s it from seed to or pre seed to up to series A and I would always look at these, it might give 10 a week, and I click into them, be like, Okay, first of all, how much do they raise? What is their company who funded it? And I ended up, over the course of maybe 12 months, building up this list of different VCs in the US, in Europe, and mainly this way, and going out and naturally doing the old Google. But that doesn’t, that doesn’t really land you many places and reaching out to them also. I got a to give you an example. I I got an automated email. I reached out to someone cold. Emailed to this VC. I went in, went into him, to the person, found his LinkedIn, managed to find his his email. I got an automated email. He just went on holidays. I receive 250 300 emails every day, and back in 10 days, I was like, Okay, so 10 days time, that could be two and a half 1000 emails later. Right on, loss on, lost in his inbox here, if it hasn’t already hit spam. So if you can again, I went to, went to San Francisco recently. That was the best way to meet VCs, getting on a plane. And it’s really difficult, because at early stages, you may not have the money to do this. And yeah, for so long, we just certainly didn’t either. So I went to San Francisco, called up my ei da, and I said, Look, you have an office everywhere. And do you have anyone in San Francisco? I can talk to it. Put me onto the head of the West Coast EI. He said, Who are you looking for? Thankfully, I said, these are the VCs. I really like. We fit them. They fit us. Do you know any of them? And he came back with a few saying, yeah, here’s an instruction. Here, here’s an instruction. We happen to have an event come to the EI offices, and that loads people at that event. And it kind of spread that way. Brilliant,

Larissa Feeney  23:59

yeah. Brilliant. Just goes to show like, but, I mean, you’re doing all the work there, Nicholas, you know, to make all of that happen. There’s nobody there doing that for you, I suppose, is the message. And

Nicholas Deeney  24:08

it won’t happen overnight. It takes months, no, months. Yeah, yeah.

Larissa Feeney  24:12

So, and then, how do you manage the or is it you in the background that’s managing the cash flow as well as the fundraising to make sure that you don’t run out of cash in the meantime, it

Nicholas Deeney  24:20

is, yeah, it is absolutely now for this one, for the fundraise that’s just happening right now, there’ll be other people involved that will be able to alleviate some of the stresses and pressures that we have right now. But like at the start, yeah, you have to wear all the hats. One day, you have to be the accountant, the next day, a digital marketer, the next day, product development also means you understand every aspect of the business. Yeah,

Larissa Feeney  24:40

and it’s, it’s necessary at the beginning. I think there’s very few that get away with with not doing that. So it so it is necessary, but it is hard and it is a slog, no doubt about it. Yeah. What about the team? Then, have you been able to bring many onto the team? So there’s

Nicholas Deeney  24:54

four of us the moment. Lewis has a PhD in medicinal chemistry and has a D. Deep, deep interest in nutrition, and Nasir as a PhD in in deliveries, drug delivery systems from Paris. He joined the team most recently, and we’ve gone a different strategy. They’ve really created, bolstered the technology to a level that I never could have so I’m now more the operations and business side. And then one of the other guys, um, Ross, is kind of business development partnership. So he he brings in, let’s say investments, gets me in front of potential customers and that kind of

Larissa Feeney  25:31

stuff. It just goes to show the importance of bringing people on better than yourself, yeah,

Nicholas Deeney  25:35

but it’s difficult though, because at the start you can’t afford them. You can’t afford people. No, exactly.

Larissa Feeney  25:38

Yeah. No, no. It’s really, really hard. And then you yourself, you have to make the transition from the doer to the leader, you know, and that and that itself, can be hard. Do you do any of the programs that are available and for your own development? I know ei have some programs, for example. Have you benefited from any of those yet, since

Nicholas Deeney  25:58

the first business inception, which was what, let’s say, four years ago. I’ve probably done about 40 to 50 courses. Could be in like imports and exports. Could be accounting, it could be whatever product development roadmaps. The further Foundry was a big accelerator. I really liked that. So I think that development is absolutely necessary. Next week, I’m doing a leadership training course for five days in the UK. I think that’s really important to be the best leader you can when you’re when you’re kind of navigating the choppy waters of a startup. Yeah,

Larissa Feeney  26:29

no, well done. Not every founder is like youth or Nicholas, where you know you can recognize the importance of self development and self awareness and stepping away from the weeds or the day to day, as much as you possibly can in such a small team. Not everybody sees that, and it’s a really limited factor. If you can’t see it, you know, totally when do you hope, if you were to look forward three or five years in the future, when are you hoping to get this product to market or to have the company revenue generation? Yeah,

Nicholas Deeney  26:57

so we’re actually drafting a proposal for our first customer. At the moment, I’m not going to go into the details of it, but it’s an end product that’ll end up in a pharmacy five supplements, and we’d be applying our technology to that end product. And then there’s other another company we’re looking about applying our technology to a singular ingredient that’s part of their big product portfolio. So I’m actually, I see it happening by the end of 2025 now, in our plan, that would be more a bonus, right? We’re not gearing towards that, because in our plan, it’s full market entry the end of 26 when I say that, that’s like your you’ve your scale up process, which could take 912, months alone. You need to protect the IP. In the meantime, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to happen in tandem, you know, for this to happen, and also sales cycles for manufacturers quite slow. Will target, initially, the strategies target the early adopters, the Agile movers, the Agile brands that are smaller. And then that will obviously build a case for the manufacturers, multinationals. But we are talking to multinationals now, at the moment, they’re household names, and we’re really excited with these opportunities, but quote, unquote, they said, We’re dinosaurs. We move really slowly. You guys will move 100 times faster than us. And I’m thinking that I’m there, okay, well, we have, in our, in our business plan, rough sales cycle of six to nine months. They said, double it, and I’m there, like, okay, that helps with my funding round. And we re strategized and re planned, and that’s fine, but then it’s certainly with the large players I’m talking about. They said they move slowly, but yeah, market entry, revenue generating, it’s going to be 12 to 18 months, I imagine, with the potential of sooner, just whenever

Larissa Feeney  28:39

you’re talking about multinationals, and you know those companies that you’re in cars, but in communication with, how do you find them? Is that your BD person that goes, that goes and finds those customers for you? Or do you play a role there?

Nicholas Deeney  28:51

It’s both okay. So for example, I went to Amsterdam last week, and I happened to be put in front of a few interesting multinationals and VCs as well. And so it was a case of going to these events trade shows, targeting who’s going to them, how to find out that is really hard. Generally, there’s networking apps that come as part of these events, the tickets you buy. So you’re targeting single people in these huge companies that you need to talk to, and seeing where they’re going to be based and where, where, how do I get there? Thankfully, with the last one was only in Amsterdam, but the other one was, as I said, West Coast of the US, and that’s a lot harder to go to. There’s another one in Chicago early July. Also, we’re in a food Works Program, which is support by three agencies in Ireland, so board Bea Chagas and EI they’re putting us in front of another major player. So it’s leaning into your network and and also, mainly doing the digging yourself, which takes a long, long time, a

Larissa Feeney  29:53

long time, you can see it on your face, just Yeah,

Nicholas Deeney  29:55

stressful time. Yeah. It is, yeah, yeah. Obviously,

Larissa Feeney  29:58

the potential. And the opportunity for the solution within the market is ginormous, so it’s going to take time. It is effort. What advice would you give? Nicholas, to anybody who’s starting where you were four or five years ago? What would you do differently?

Nicholas Deeney  30:15

What would I do differently? Lean into your network as much as you can leave your pride at the door, talk to as many people as you can, honestly, actually get into one of these accelerators, let’s say the further foundry one, because then you’re instantly in 12 other people’s networks, and then you’re in their networks, and then that go to all the events, go to everything. Because at the start, I didn’t I was like, I don’t have time to do that, because I’m focusing on the business, business, business. I need to get from x what they’re a B to C, yeah, but getting from A to C is 100 times faster when you start talking to people and you start getting into, let’s say, enterprise Ireland. You start getting into those networks. You get everyone knows everyone, especially in Ireland, everyone knows everyone, and then also people. They know people overseas as well. So I don’t know where we could be, but we’d certainly be further down the line. If I’d started that earlier. It slowed you down 100% because I had this idea, fixed idea in my head, oh, no, you don’t have time to do that. It’s like, no, yeah, that’s actually saving you time by doing that. Yeah,

Larissa Feeney  31:15

yeah. But then you have to get over if you’re not in the business doing the work, who is going to do it? And therefore you have to be able to afford to pay, or you need to get somebody in who’s going to do it for free, or for maybe for very little, yeah, and that’s hard, so you’re trying to weigh all that up, and sometimes you just have to go through the pain to figure that out, yeah, yeah, you know. Or some, some people think they can do it all, and then they burn out, yeah,

Nicholas Deeney  31:39

and I nearly did that a lot of times. I just certainly, for the first year and a half, it’s I worked a disgusting amount that was unsustainable. I needed to actively step back, like I’d be waking up at night in four in the morning, and then suddenly I’d start working then, because there’d be a problem on my head, and then you’d work directed through the day. And it’s just, it’s terrible way to work. And it’s, it’s, you’re foggy the whole time, but you’re trying so hard to not be foggy. So also, actually, another thing I would say is, if you can find a co founder, if there’s co founder events, like there’s, I know, is it republic of work and Dog Patch, they have these founder weekends that, if you know, they’re geared towards SAS and software, but yeah, if you can find someone that also has the not your strengths, obviously the opposite strengths, like if you lack in X, Y and Z, to find a founder who, who can do that. Now it’s not easy to say, find a founder. What does that mean? It’s very difficult, and don’t push it and don’t make it, try and make it work for the sake of having a co founder, but it just means that you’re sharing it with another person.

Larissa Feeney  32:42

It shared the risk as well. Yeah, every shared the risk necklace because, I mean, you’re carrying it. You don’t have a co founder. Is that right? No. So you’re carrying all of that yourself for the most part, yeah? And that’s really hard, so having somebody along for the ride is just easier. Um, two heads are just better than one, you know? Yeah, definitely hard to do it by yourself, yeah, but equally hard to find, I’ve been at those co founder events, equally hard to find a co founder. I think so many things come into it. You know, skills, as you’ve already mentioned, personality, stage of life. You know, there’s, there’s so many things that come into it there. But if you are lucky enough to find somebody, and I always look on those with those guys, with envy. You know who? If there’s two or three or four individuals who come together, they’re, they’re very lucky in that way,

Nicholas Deeney  33:25

yeah, oh no, they are absolutely but it is a case of also, yeah, you go to a founder event, you don’t know that person. So maybe having that founders agreement, everyone says it at the founders agreement in place, and maybe do it that. You trial it for three months, if one person generate the lead, or, like, if someone, if you’re bringing the business to to that person, that means you’re, I suppose, the founder, the main founder. So if we said, look a trial, a founder’s agreement for three, six months, or whatever, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll, we’ll split ways. But I don’t know, it’s very tricky. Yeah, it’s because, like, what is it? You have to be able to marry the person, but also be able to divorce them too. So it’s hard, yeah, it is hard. You have

Larissa Feeney  34:05

to go in with the end in mind. That’s always the way of these things. You know, this agreement, the shareholders agreement, founders agreement. It gets you out if you need to and when you need to. You

Nicholas Deeney  34:13

know, because I know people who’ve been pushed out of of their own companies and at early stage, or early to mid stages, and because of improper founders agreements. So, yeah, scary, yeah, it is scary. It’s terrifying. Yeah, yeah.

Larissa Feeney  34:27

And just in case there’s somebody listening who would invest in the business you’re currently raising for seed round, yes, it’s just launched. When are you hoping to close that round by we

Nicholas Deeney  34:39

have everything lined up. Thankfully, we’ve planned quite well, so we are waiting to pull the trigger. So we want to do it as soon as possible, without just taking any kind of money. We want value add money. Sorry. So what I mean by that is there are people that are willing to invest, but I need the value add I need. Can you can you bring us to customers? Can you bring us to. Distributor networks. Can you help us with manufacturing? Can you help us with scale up, whatever that kind of value add? Finding the right investor is really important at this stage, so that’s the main thing. But yeah, we’re looking to close it up, certainly in the next number of weeks. Yeah,

Larissa Feeney  35:16

  yeah, hopefully we’ll look at best of luck with the journey. It’s been fascinating to hear the progress so far, and you might come back again and update us whenever you’re a bit further down the road, and maybe you have the product to market. Yeah. Nicholas Dini, founder and director of biofit technologies. Thank you very much.

Nicholas Deeney  35:33

Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure!

Voiceover  35:35

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