267 | Surviving War and Using Social Entrepreneurship to Rebuild with Darko Mandich
Our guest this week on the pod is Darko Mandich. Darko is the co-founder and CEO of MeliBio, a company that makes real honey without the bees. He's a food entrepreneur on a mission to sustainably feed 10 billion people with delicious and nutritious foods while saving our planet's keystone specis - the bees.
And a special thanks to members of the Awarepreneurs Community for sponsoring this episode!
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Interview with Darko Mandich, CEO of MeliBio
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practice. Each episode I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested, experienced and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce our guests and our topic, I have one request, you could go over to Apple podcast or whatever app you're listening to the show on, hit the subscribe button, do a review it helps tremendously. Thanks so much for considering. Today I am thrilled to introduce you to Darko Mandich. And our topic is Surviving War and Using Social Entrepreneurship to Rebuild.
Paul Zelizer 00:47
Darko is a co founder and CEO of MeliBio, a company that makes real honey without the bees. Yup, you heard me right.
Paul Zelizer 00:55
He's also a food Entrepreneur on a mission to sustainably feed 10 billion plus people with delicious and nutritious food while saving our planet's keynote speaking the BS Darko Welcome to the show.
Darko Mandich 01:10
Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me. So Darko, were called Awarepreneurs. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or resiliency practice that you use to resource yourself for this important work. Thank you for that question, Paul. One of the things that I noticed that I'm constantly doing over the years, because you know, all of us, we get to get into some kind of trends, we do this kind of workout, or we try this sport, and then we switch to some other sport. But I realized that there's something about my behavior that my body wants so much, no matter what kind of phase of life I am, what kind of preferences do I have, across you know, fitness, nutrition, or, you know, building knowledge, there's that one thing that keeps coming up as a need. And that is constant walking, to be to be on the on the go to be moving around. And I have this same tracker that I've been using for measuring the steps and activity that I'm doing every single day. And I realized that having the same app I can I have the data for over the over the last five years, I realized that I walked the distance equivalent to the distance around the planet avert I walked distance of, you know, Egypt and Nile i walked the distance of Italy, you know, you get these cool badges. And I realized that, that's, that's a lot of walking. And I realized how I love walking and how my mind gets cleared, when when I do walks every day. Beautiful. There's so much research about the benefits of walking and how balances our brain and kind of levels out our emotions are so much research there. Thanks for sharing that.
Paul Zelizer 03:07
So this topic, very timely, not an easy topic. Right. You grown up, you had some close encounters with war. Tell us a little bit about what happened there.
Darko Mandich 03:22
Yeah, it's, you know, it's a difficult topic that, you know, it took me a lot of time to process and, you know, obviously, I'm still processing. But
Darko Mandich 03:33
recently, I decided to open up myself about certain experiences that I've gone as a child to give support to everyone who are going through the similar difficulties. So back to my journey. When I was for a war in the former Yugoslavia started, it was a civil war between different parts of the country that at the end of the war broke up in many countries. So I was born in Croatia, which is part of the former Yugoslavia and the civil war started. And when I was, when I was four years old, I had to
Darko Mandich 04:13
I had to run away from my home with my family. Because it wasn't possible for me and my family to stay in the, in the town in the village where my family's coming from because of different political and ethical issues out there. And, you know, going through that was very difficult. That was the that was the first war that I faced. And the second one happened when I was eight. I was that time in Serbia, there was a bomb being of Serbia and I was eight. And, you know, that was the second time that I had to go to the similar situation and You know, surviving two wars, you realize how that shapes you as a person and as a character?
Paul Zelizer 05:07
I'm so sorry, you had to go through that. What's it like being a young person who's living in a complex all like, I'm just trying to imagine like, what happens to schooling like, like, just trying to imagine the experiences, we might hope for a young person. So much of that would be, you know, your friends, like maybe your friends wound up in a different location, right? Like, so many of the things that would help connect and guide a young person, it seems like a lot of that would get disrupted, is that fair to say?
Darko Mandich 05:42
A lot of things get disrupted and all looking back into my life, I realized that the effects of war happen in two different realms, right? So first, that being part of the conflict, experiencing the conflict around yourself, hearing the air raids, hearing the explosions, bullets, you know, seeing people losing their lives, there's only one thing that you just think about that in those moments. And that one thing is you're hoping you're praying and you're believing that you're gonna stay alive, and your family and people around, you're gonna stay alive, and the conflict will end. So that's, that's that. It's like a, you know, it's like a shocking moment, your brain heart, your whole body just wants to stay alive and wants that conflict to go away. The second time, the secondary arm in which you exist as someone who goes through Frommers like that is how do you deal with certain things when the war is over? You know, only when I was, you know, certain things started coming up to me 20 years after I survived my second war, and I'm talking about talking about certain behaviors, certain relationship to business to relationship to with friends and family, that gets influenced by the trauma that you've gone through. So I'd say you know, it's war is one thing, postwar is a completely other thing. Both of those can be really rough, can be really hard and require processing and work to make sure that you integrate it in a way that it actually empowers you to live the rest of your life versus to block human in any way. In terms of all the things that you need to do in the peacetime
Paul Zelizer 07:53
park our listeners are really caring people and and I think might have a desire, not I think I know you listen, or do you would have a desire I adore our listeners would want to be helpful. And yeah, this is a complicated terrain, right? Somebody who's lived through a conflict, especially as young as you did, what would you want our listeners to know? If, as we're like dealing with more conflict, I'm reading more and more that as like, resources get scarce and humans get edgy, because the climate and you know, other things like, like, conflict is, unfortunately, we're likely to be living with it for a while, let's just say that even though a lot of us have done work to try to minimize it and resolve it peacefully. There's still conflict going on right now as we speak. And the people that are looking at how resource and how climate are, how they tend to show up in and certainly religion, other things like that. Anyway, a lot of the folks who are in our community are finding that these themes are showing up in communities we care about, what would you want somebody who cares about community wants people to live and adjust and have the resources they need to live in a thriving way? What would you want them to know about how they can be supportive to somebody who's lived through war?
Darko Mandich 09:32
My hearts and thoughts, first of all, are with all the people out there in Ukraine that are going through rough times. And going through this unnecessary aggression that's happening on a European country that is, you know, feeding the Europe and providing, you know, a lot to this civilization and now suffering through this aggression, my hearts and feelings are with everyone out there. And with everyone in other conflicts that exists in the world, I think one of the things that all of us can do, but it will take time for those results to be leaving to chain is that we need to be mindful and understand that every person that goes through a war trauma or conflict conflict, deep down, realizes that war is an unnecessary thing. So if we can, if all of us can connect with people that have gone through the war, and ask them to share things like I'm sharing with the audience right now, I think people that haven't experienced the war, listening to these stories, would get a certain perspective that hopefully, it will, it will help them electing, you know, people in their countries that would rather work on diplomatic solutions of any issues, and not using war as a tool, because war has victims that give their lives during the conflict, and 100x or 1,000x more people that are left after the conflict that lived through it by through their traumas and memories. So wars have gigantic consequences on the humans that we are beyond our ability to fully grasp until the years and years and years past. So the best thing that we can do for our future is to stop wars. Is that realistic? That sounds very hard to think about that as a realistic. But that's something that we need to do. Next to that is, if there's a person in your environment, if there's someone who shared with you that they're coming from conflict, or specific part of the world that is prone to conflict, reaching out to people like that, connecting with them, appreciating their position. If there's a person at work, that you know, that is coming from a conflict area, I just want you to pause for a second and maybe next time when you see a little bit more unstandard email or unstandard way of approaching or unstandard way of maybe solving some minor business conflicts that seem to you to be solved in a different way. Just remind yourself that what you have next to you is not a regular person, because it's not regular, for a person to go through traumas, such as war. So being mindful about what the future has been wanting to create, and exercising our democratic options to make sure that people represent us understand that we should work towards solutions that don't include people suffering, and also being aware of people around you, people in your company, people in your communities that have been affected by conflict, how do you approach them? How do you talk to them, and be having that extra layer of mindfulness and thoughtfulness and awareness regarding people like that, because those people, as my cell has been heard a lot. And those people have seen their families disappear in less than a few seconds. And those people lost their homes. Those people had to move to other countries.
Darko Mandich 14:12
I was a refugee moving to another country and an immigrant moving to United States. And, you know, every time I would be packing my suitcases in and boarding a plane, I'd be having a strange feeling in my stomach. I wouldn't be just boarding a plane like a regular traveler, I would be potentially in my stomach going through the traumas that I've gone when I was four and eight. So appreciating all of these things and understanding that people around you there are people around you coming from conflicts and wanting to learn their story and appreciating that you understand that, you know, it was hard, is something that can you know, create long lasting relationships because, you know, it's human to you know, It's human to bond over difficult topics. And people asked to share about their journey versus sharing about the weather last week and things like that can spark very deep, thoughtful and meaningful conversations that can lead to meaningful connections.
Paul Zelizer 15:20
You talked about how going through an experience not once, but twice before you were 10 years old, that it changes somebody. And I was thinking about, we did another episode, the wonderful entrepreneuring named Aaron Quinonez. And Aaron works with veterans. So when we see when veterans come back from active duty, and they're in conflict zones, the transition to civilian life is not easy. Let's just say that if you look at the number of people who come back from an active zone and wind up with, you know, substance abuse issues, or homeless or mental health is way higher than the average population. And that's what Aaron and his work is all about. And he said, you know, he talked about the way that that changes people, it, it's like, you're not necessarily the best person to like, sit in a cubicle somewhere and do like a boring, repetitive, you know, paperwork type job for the rest of your life, because your nervous system has been changed by that experience, right. But he said, it's also his business is around. It's called commercial cleaning, reliable commercial cleaning. in Tacoma, Washington, I'll put a link in the show notes. But he started realizing they were cleaning emergency rooms, where it's very important to clean because people can literally get sick and die if you don't clean them while but it's very chaotic, because you might be cleaning a room and then all suddenly somebody comes in an emergency, and you have to get out of there and go to the other side. But he found that better ends when there was high stress. And a lot of disruption did better than the average population, right? So he found a way that that difference actually worked for the company and it worked for the veterans, they could use their skill sets and their ability to change on the fly and adapt and be of service. His book is called healing through service, that that helped people in not only did they love the job, and were really good at it, but they also found a way through some of those challenges, because they think of being in the service. That's what people call like being in the military, right? He leveraged that and gave them a sense of meaning and purpose. And so many good things came out of that. When you think of somebody who's lived through a war, not as a, as a vet, or as a soldier, but somebody who's a civilian, maybe in your case, a child, like how does that change you? And when you show up in the workplace, like what are some of the challenges that somebody who's had that experience faces, what also might be some of the strengths that if they're understood, and cultivated and nurtured that they might be a better than average candidate in certain environments.
Darko Mandich 18:20
When you are trained at age of nine, that when you go to sleep in your house that's close to the military compound that has a risk to be rated. You have you go to sleep, all dressed up. Because, yeah, if a place near your home is being you have a certain time, that's measured in seconds in which you can run away and survive. So if you are trained that you have that 40 seconds, means a life in 45 seconds means not being on this planet anymore. Then you realize what being alive means and that realizes how much responsibility an individual has to have towards the time. You don't get laid anymore in your life. You realize what that five for 10 seconds me? So one of the strengths that you get is you get to appreciate life in a different way. You You don't get to wake up in the morning and say, oh, what I'm gonna do today, should I wake up or not? Now you're just thankful that you're awakened, Paul. You just kick yourself out there. You're bad. You go to the gym, to do your workout. You go to the meetings you show up every day because You have to face very closely, and opportunity that you show up for the last night. So that's something that surviving war builds into your character that need for action, that respect or its life respects towards time. I don't want people to think that surviving a war builds a perfect character, Paul, because there are certain downsides to, you know, especially in business, because especially when you're changing industries and building new industries, surviving a war also means that an individual can easily be prompt to be in fight or flight mode, you know, certain areas of the brain could easily be stimulated. And certain conflicts that might look like regular to other people might be emphasized to people that have been experienced the war and have PTSD in all kinds of forms and intensity. So something that I really had to work on myself and I, I need to confess I'm still working on it is making sure that I remind myself that today I'm I'm in California, and yeah, I'm in a volatile startup environment. But I'm also in a, in a in a part of the world where you can build, and you can disrupt, and you can discuss on ideas, and not to be afraid of you know, of things and not to constantly activate your fight or flight mode. So you can, you can see, with people surviving the war, they're just, they're just in action. They're just doing something with their lives. I think it's a subconscious answer to as its subconscious exercise of gratitude towards the words being alive, just just to be out there to do something with your life, because you feel very happy and fortunate. And you feel blessed that you're among the living. On the other hand, people around you can be overwhelmed. Sometimes people working with me can be overwhelmed with the amount of momentum and energy that I can create in a short amount of time to make sure that we move something that we advance progress across the company. And I also start to become cognizant about that and mindful about how certain reaction of mine that was built in a character, which was crafted by the narrative of war, how a reaction out of that pool can also be perceived by someone else who doesn't understand that. So in order, Paul, to be kind to myself and the environment around me, what I do is when I talk to people that I collaborate closely,
Darko Mandich 23:14
when I talk to my employees, I spend some time to open up a little bit, and I spend some time to give them a manual like one on one in terms of what built me and how sometimes I can come across to be overwhelming due to the nature of the life that I've gone through, repeating my best intention, efforts that are always that should always be implied.
Paul Zelizer 23:44
Thanks for sharing that. And I just want to say, if anybody's listening to this, and you've had armed conflict in your background, and you're still trying to find some resources, I don't do that work anymore. But I had a 15 year Career and Community Mental Health and I'm happy to be a thought partner and just like what might be some good resources, so feel free to reach out. And I really appreciate you serving our community in this way Darko by sharing your story and really hope our listeners take in, you can recover the fight and flight response is very real, but we understand it better than we used to. And again, this is the work I did for 15 years and really hard situations. It's not just speaking from theory. There's lots of tools you can recover. And you can go on to have a fabulous career. And Darko, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. I really appreciate it.
Darko Mandich 24:46
Thank you Paul for the opportunity and I just want to send thoughts and support to everyone out there. Going through rough times. And I just want to say that All of us that have been crafted by conflicts that we have also been given a responsibility to lift ourselves beyond that, and lift others, and live a thoughtful and meaningful life as an opportunity to be thankful that we are
Paul Zelizer 25:22
alive. So let's do this. Let's take a break, I want to hear a word from our sponsor. And when we come back, I want to hear about this incredible impact where you're doing now Darko can't wait to share with our audience. But first, a quick word from our sponsor, do you have a business that's about making the world a better place, and you want it to grow both in terms of your impact, helping more people and your income, so you could live a good quality life? If you do, I'd like to talk to you about some research for a second. When scientists look at what actually contributes to humans reaching their goals, the single biggest predictor, whether it's a wellness goal, or it's a business school, is what they call social support. In other words, a group of people who are on a similar journey, who can help you with specific strategies that work on that journey at the time and point of development that you're on, as well as emotional support for the ups and downs of that journey. Being a social entrepreneur has highs and lows, right? If you like that kind of support, or where printer's has a community called the AWARE printers community, over 270 really generous and really skillful social entrepreneurs. And that's what we do with each other. We share concrete strategies, as well as emotional support for the ups and downs of the journey. If you'd like to find out more, you can take a look at where printers.com forward slash community. And thank you to everybody in the AWARE printers community who helped sponsor this podcast. Very good. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us in the first part of the show that was really touching, I really appreciate you sharing that. And I'm sorry, you had to go through all that. In the second part of the show, Darko, we like to joke about putting on our social entrepreneur glasses, and really unpacking how this enterprise that's making the world a better place actually work. So if you're gonna like just look at a snapshot of Melly bio right now, like what your product is, like, where you're selling it how people are finding you just pure entrepreneur, like what do you see on the ground right now? What does it look like to you.
Darko Mandich 27:40
I've always considered businesses as an opportunity as a platform, to build that better future that that you want to live in, and people around you want to live that. And for me, when I think about our company, when I think about what Valley bio, and our team, what we're doing, I'm having this picture of that world, that our company help being created. And that world has a better future. And for us, the better future means keeping this planet alive, keeping this place thriving as our home, you know, as a civilization, we might be having other places that we will call home some days in the future. But until we got just this one home, I feel and we feel that we should be keeping it. And for that home to be thriving. And for the humans to be able to live on this planet that we need the bees. Alright, because bees pollinate our planet, they make sure that we are plant is green, that there's enough of plants, some of those plants, we actually turn into food. So these are really, really essential for our survival on this planet. So when we think about our business, we think about what we can do, and how we can innovate how we can bring new ideas, so that the end result is that vision of planet that's driving us humans driving an eating delicious and nutritious food, while also keeping our keystone species that are bees. Trying to so it's very exciting, Paul, you know, you know, building a business that's essentially a platform for creating the future. And being excited about the future is about you know, because our business is building businesses is hard. And sometimes you need to be connected with your why and what's the reason that you're building that business? What's the big, big Picture and for us that big picture is that future in which humans are alive and thriving and bees to
Paul Zelizer 30:09
give us a little bit of sense, like, if we were to like, step into where this awesome honey without the bees is being produced, like they're the like pull back the curtain a little bit like, I know you have a team like how many people are actually working on, you know, making the honey and packaging like like, give us give us a little bit of a run through like how does it work?
Darko Mandich 30:33
We started about three years ago. And, you know, the company was born and San Francisco Bay Area, our first headquarters was in Berkeley, California, and we recently moved into our very own space in Oakland, California, where we have, that's awesome. Thank you, Paul, you know, it's very exciting to build in the Bay Area, because, you know, you can have access to the best talents in the world. And obviously, being the San Francisco Bay Area company, you're very close to innovators and only, and also access to capital. So we are now a company of almost 10 full time employees and about 10 other people that are not full time employees, but that are helping us on a weekly level. So myself as a CEO, I communicate with Around 20 people on a weekly level. And we are still in the r&d process, we're finalizing our first product and getting into the market this year, which is which is very, very, very exciting, Paul, you know, bees took 9000 years, to come up with a way to make honey and you know, for humans to interact with them. And we are changing a 9000 years old industry in less than three years. So you know, it's very exciting. It's very busy, we're buzzing around. And, you know, building that future of honey from Oakland, California to the entire world.
Paul Zelizer 32:03
So, it as you mentioned, having access to capital has been really important in this process. And you've I should remind everybody that you know, we met Thank you, Jenny stone, which the again, Women's Summit founder, who was also previously on this pod said to me, Paul, you need to interview Darko and here we are. So thank you, Tony, big shout out, I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes. That we know that some of these future food businesses take more capital than let's say, if you were gonna make a salsa, you're gonna make a new kind of tea. Right? So talk to us a little bit about the raising capital and how that conversation has looked like when you've approached people with a future food kind of business. And it would, you know, be the startup cost would be higher than like I said, somebody who had a new salsa or a new kind, you know, other kinds of food businesses might have less startup costs. Is that fair to say?
Darko Mandich 33:07
It's completely fair to say and before we deep dive into that, echoing what you said about Jenny, I just want to share that, you know, Jennifer's story. COVID is an amazing thought leader. She is really helping creating the future food space, and advocating for all these innovation, especially advocating for them and in business and female leadership that's very necessary for the world to transform into a better place. Back to capital and building the future of food. I need to say that this field of interest to investors was something that's very recent, I would say about 10 years ago, I would say software tech investors started looking into different areas that require disruption. And obviously food as a something that we interact with at least three times a day is a place that requires to be looking into it, especially because all the impact that our food is making our planet. I don't know if all the people know on this podcast, but I always like to emphasize that the way how we impact our planet more than the way how we move around the planet. You know, turning plant based and looking into your nutrition and making changes there can actually help more than, you know, reducing your showers or not taking flights and the science is clear there. And the reports are clear that the way how we eat right now, and using animals is not good for the planet, regardless if you're vegan or not. And you know that's a personal choice. There's a there's science telling us that something is wrong with the way how we eat and You know, investors started looking into that about 10 years ago. And, you know, pioneers of this industry are companies like beyond me that has one of the most successful IPOs, then followed by, you know, companies like Impossible Foods or just you know, making even eggs without chickens making dairy without cheese and obviously making meat without using animal factory farming. And when you look into all of that, you realize that it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of resources for industries to change. The good thing is that the capital is there in the capital started to look into the food space. And the capital allows entrepreneurs that exists today and that are going to build new ventures in the future allows them to think about endless opportunities to innovate on something that is considered to be traditional, and something that's considered not to be, you know, disrupted over many years, which is the way how we eat.
Paul Zelizer 36:10
Yeah, I'm an ultra marathoner, so I eat a lot. I might have an outsized impact on the ladder. But what do you do as much activity as be my friends do like we eat a lot and, and I think a lot about, you know, climate and impact and have definitely been shifting my diet over the years growing more and more of what I can myself here where I live with my neighbors and our community garden. And I've shifted, I'll be really transparent. I didn't mention this earlier. But I've shifted into a more open relationship about future food brands, like in the past, it's been like Grow Your Own and like, eat really good quality. But I've shifted to flexitarian, because I'm not in a position where I can raise my own meat. And even then I'm still not convinced, you know, that that's a great solution for my values, right? So I, I really have opened myself as have many of my colleagues in the impact space to the conversation that you're talking about Darko that how we feed ourselves as humans going forward on a warming planet is a very significant conversation for exactly the reason you're talking about. There's a lot of humans we eat multiple times a day. And when you add up all that impact, you know, whether you fly or drive a couple times a year compared to what you eat, every single day, multiple times a day multiplied by billions of humans, the impact of that is really, really significant. And these brands are really growing and impact investing world has really come to understand that I would agree in about that past 10 years or so. What would you say? Like, have you done other? Have you been part of other businesses that have been in conversations with investors and have sought investment? Or is this kind of your first trip down that road?
Darko Mandich 38:15
This is my first venture in the United States, I had experience with investors back in old home in Europe, where I did my projects that, you know, require all kinds of funding, should it be private or public? So I'd say that I brought to the United States a certain level of experience in terms of rallying people around ideas and projects. However, I need to say that Melly bio is my biggest, by far is my biggest endeavor in career. And, you know, something that I'm really, really excited about, because Paul as, as you, as you shared with us that you're, you know, doing things like running ultra marathons and stuff like that, I would say that life is an ultra marathon for itself in a way and the more you work on something, and the more you put yourself out there, the bigger the challenge is, the more of the more of who you are, you actually get to see because, you know, the more we're challenged, the bigger the call, the bigger the effort, the bigger the need, because if we think about the Western world, there's a lot of there's a lot of things that come up as society and, you know, individual and social issues that deep down are, in my opinion, a disconnect between what an individual is, What's their purpose, and how they are connected. with, you know themselves on an individual level and how they see their role in the society. So for me, I always was grateful for the opportunity to be alive. And for me, it was always important that I give my best to position myself in society, bringing all the bringing all the advantages, all the all the resources and knowledge and taking positions that would make an impact. And for me, that impact is equally important on individual level, showing to myself that I'm part of something bigger, and also, more importantly, impact on the community that you're part of. So that's, that's, for me. Very, very important. And building a business is a playground is a platform where you literally and symbolically launch yourself into a new world. That is, when you are at the beginning, very much unknown. But when you start running every mile, you get to see, you know, what happens, you know, as the journey progresses, you know, it's, you're not the same yourself on your 10th mile run or on your 30 mile. Or maybe on your 50th mile of front, you just made a new poll or new Darko by, you know, putting yourself out there, and seeing what each and every one of us is made up.
Paul Zelizer 41:35
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They're kind of curious about, like the second part of our episode using social entrepreneurship to rebuild and you shared some of the real adversary adversity you went through, growing up in such a complex zone, and so many challenges, what have you, this is the biggest thing you've ever done. And you learn something about overcoming some of those challenges. And using social entrepreneurship to like create a life that was really values centered, impact focused, helping our planet, helping other people, how has social entrepreneurship, been a lever for you and a bridge for you into this life after going through so much adversity as a young person?
Darko Mandich 42:28
I believe that all the things that I've gone through and you know, the entire journey before becoming a, you know, social entrepreneur was I would say a character building. And you know, the life and the journey that I shared with you will crafted the character. And then I introduced that character into the into a playground into a platform of social entrepreneurship. building businesses and making an impact is really hard to really change industries. And to build something today, for what you see that the future will be 10 years from now requires you to build in a environment where most likely you have more of the people that don't support you, clearly, than the people that are excited and see what you see. So that character that you introduce, as an entrepreneur, in that platform, provides you an opportunity to survive in times when it's hard in times when you have people around you that more of them are questioning and are not sure or concerned about what you're building versus tapping you and your back and say, Hey, thank you for doing this. Thank you for building this today. So that 10 years from now, you know, the future of honey or the future of milk or the future of meat is different in a way that it's better for everyone on this planet. So yeah, I mean, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. And what helps us build a stronger character empowers us to make a larger impact and build for the communities and societies around us.
Paul Zelizer 44:29
So Turkey year, three years in, you've got some really great funding you're almost to mark a you got a team of 10 full time 10 People part time things are really buzzing as you said earlier, I hate to be a punster but you know, who doesn't love a good dad job? When you look at three years, five years from now, where do you see Melo bio being and how about the space like where do you think this space is gone?
Darko Mandich 45:00
I'll start with a space first, I think three to five years from now, more people, significantly more people than today will realize the the way how we eat needs to change. And I think it will happen parallel to that companies like Mellie bio, will advance their sciences and technological approaches, and get delicious, nutritious, sustainable products into the US and, you know, potentially other markets. So we are currently at a very exciting time for building where all of us as the builders of the future of food, can see that our initial ideas, initial concepts, science is showing traction, and three, from three to five years from now, people not being part of that, professionally, people walking into a store, people walking into a restaurant, they're going to be able to experience the outputs of this building that's happening right now, in simple English, three to five years from now, people will go to restaurant people go to a store, and they will be able to buy amazing products that are being built today. Some of these products already exist, but the ones that are coming after the ones that exist are going to be even better, even more nutritious, delicious, sustainable, and people will be able to witness with their own taste buds. Where are we having. And I think that's, that's a very exciting moment, I, I think about those three to five years from now, as equally important, as you know, 10 to 15 years from now. And I expect, you know, a gigantic momentum to be created in the mainstream part of the market, three to five years from now. And I expect most of the people to acknowledge that we need to change. And at the same time, while acknowledging that to have an opportunity to act and have accessibility to get their favorite products to get their favorite delicious, honey, meat, dairy, eggs, all of that without compromising on taste and flavor and nutrition, while also helping save the planet. So, Paul, I'm very, very excited about what's going to happen. There's no way back, you know, there's the old industry will be fighting and trying to stop this. But that's not possible at this point anymore. You can't convince anyone anymore, should there be vegan flexitarian or omnivore that what we're doing to the chickens to the pigs, what we're doing to our precious bees, putting them in those tiny boxes, no one can actually agree that that's good for us, for the planet and for those animals. And I'd say that, you know, having these products that substitute the source, but don't compromise on taste, flavor occasion, is going to really empower the consumer. So I think we're all all of us building the future of food, we're in the business of lifting and empowering consumers so that they can have choices on a daily basis across different channels to choose something for themselves and for the planet.
Paul Zelizer 48:31
Peter Parker, thanks for sharing that vision with us. And that like front, see what you're seeing that front seat with us. So thorough, I could hang out with you all day, and you're a busy guy. And our listeners are busy too. If there was something you were hoping we were going to get to in this episode about maybe PIO, or something you wanted to share with our impact founders, something you've learned that you want to pass on to them that we haven't touched on yet so that their journey, their desire to have more impact can be more successful. What would that be?
Darko Mandich 49:08
I want to send a strong and important message to all of you out there that are building the future of your industry is surely be food materials, science, mobility, anything that you're disrupting out there. Should you be official founders or aspiring founders, should you just have ideas or develop projects, I'm going to send a strong message to everyone that you got supported by the community around you. Reach out to people approach founders reach out for help reach out for motivation, the communities out there. For my own example, only three years ago I was a foreigner in this country. I don't know anyone and looking back and looking into what belly buying our team built in the last three years there It wouldn't be possible with the amazing community and people around you, there's way more people around you that are ready to help, they're ready to give you a hand, usually for free, because that's how the process of building looks like no matter where you are, no matter what stage you are, no matter how big or small your company is, you can always move forward. And there's always someone who can help you move forward. While also you can look into who is the person next to you that you can left and that you can help push forward. So I just want to send a strong message of encouragement. And I just want to say that I'm a big fan of all of you. On the other side, building the future that's better that's sustainable. And believe in yourself, is going to be a bumpy road, building the future of something. But if you if you know What's your why, if you remind yourself why you're doing that every day, I I believe that each and every one of you will get to that desired place. Because the journey and the community around you will support you.
Paul Zelizer 51:16
Beautiful Darko, I like to if we throw in a little lingo, I like to say the entrepreneurs who are part of a ecosystem are much more successful than ones that are isolated. So I hold hard like the single biggest predictor of whether people succeed or not, is whether they're in that kind of an echo system that you just described. So thank you for that wisdom. And I couldn't agree more. Darko does. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for being on the show today. So appreciate it.
Darko Mandich 51:45
Thank you so much, Paul, for having me. And I'm cheering for you all, building something cool, awesome and sustainable out there.
Paul Zelizer 51:53
So listeners, check out the show notes for the Melanie bio site. And for all the links we talked about today. Before we go, just want to remind you, it literally happened today. We love it when listeners suggest topics and guests. That's literally how Darko got on the show. If you have an idea for the show, go to the AWARE printers website. On our contact page. We have three simple guidelines, we try to be really transparent about who we have on the show. That's what we're looking for. If you've got an idea and you say Check, check, check it fits, send it on in we'd love to hear from you. So for now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.