Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Julie Kring, CEO of Khepra, a company with a mission to clean up the chemicals industry. Julie, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm really excited to chat with you as, as we were chatting before the show, any company working within a, a, a space that's, you know, focused on sustainability and, and kind of, you know, tackling the different issues, I think is, is just always exciting because a lot of the change comes.

You know, kind of a micro level and, and specific private sectors that, that need a lot of change and disruption. And it's always exciting to, to hear from the founders that are building within those sectors. But before we get into all, all that and what you're doing at Khepra, what were you doing before you started the company?

Julie: Well it's a pleasure to be here first. And so I kinda have a joke that I've been the founder of Khepra since I was 15 years old. And it all started, my dad was kind of like a serial entrepreneur, VP of startups kind of thing, and I saw a lot of that in my childhood. And he taught me a lot about how technology can solve problems.

And then my grandma's a artist out in rural Nevada and she had just built this beautiful house in this beautiful valley, central of Nevada. And at that time biofuels were very hot, but also they were planning on fracking that valley. My dad just kind of whispered in my ear and he's like, Hey, Julie, do you know that we could save your grandma's land with technology, and it was done from there. I was screwed. He really got me with that one.  

Julian: I love that. I love that. What about like, you know I, I think within solution building it's always fascinating on how to focus on tackling a specific problem. You know, a lot of founders maybe go under the, the pitfalls early on being like, you know, maybe I want to build this or build everything and don't really, you know, go at a specific point.

What, what in particular was your focus when you're like, Here's the problem. I want to tackle it. This is the solution that I wanna focus on. What was that process in developing the solution around and, and what is like the focal point of, you know, what you're working on now?  

Julie: Yeah. Well, it always, it's a little cliche, but it always starts with some big thing that you care about.

A big problem. For me it was growing up and seeing like the Koch brothers Rick havoc on the planet and several like major oil spills that gave sharks cancer and all kinds of nasty stuff. So I just really had this like deep seated hatred of petroleum when I was younger. I now have a little bit more sympathy, but I digress.

And so my big thing was like petroleum, petroleum, petroleum, petroleum, and I never really let that go. But as things progress, You know, you, when you have passion for an issue, you can get fascinated by the solutions to that issue. And you get really involved, read about them, talk to people and then you can start to get more and more niche and more specialized to a specific aspect of that problem.

It's also a cliche to say, you know, build to a problem. Don't just build something and expect people to come. And that's, that's very true. It's very easy to get completely. Sucked in on your own ideas and you're like, this is the best thing ever in the world. Everybody's gonna want it. But but yeah, it's, once you start from that big problem, find a little bite sized piece.

For me it was the petrol chemicals that go into agrochemicals, which is like this very weird, like slot canyon of an industry, but, . But yeah, there's, there's big problems in ag. There's lots of petroleum in Agrichemicals. Yeah. And for me it's like very, it's very on brand to Yeah. Try and separate our food systems from, from petroleum.

Julian: Yeah. When, when you talk about a ag agrochemicals, what for, for those who aren't familiar what does that mean? You know, are they the chemicals that we use to grow crops or is it, is it part of the soil? What, what part of the chemicals are being disrupted by the petroleum products?  

Julie: Yeah. Yeah. So industrial agriculture takes a lot of different inputs. There are fertilizers, there are herbicides, there are pesticides. And it's all important for being able to create the crop, crop yields that are sufficient for feeding entire nations, exporting massive amounts of grain all across the world. It's a, it's a huge, huge system. And it is unfortunately completely resting on a foundation of, of petrochemicals.

And there are active ingredients like the. Kills the pest or kills the, kills, the, the dandelion. But then there's also all these other things that are in, in the mix that can be used to actually reduce the amount of active ingredient you need. They can be used to kind of like spread it out over a field better and have it be higher performing.

And we do have an opportunity to very easily replace those things. Those things that kind of. These sort of more technical parts of the, the agrichemical with completely bio-based solutions.  

Julian: Yeah, the petrochemicals. There's some benefit to how they kind of support crop growth. But you're, you're, you're saying that there's other additives in there that are just.

Bad for, for humans, I guess. And also, is it bleeding into the crops that, that we're consuming? Is it is it leaving like the lamb desolate? Yeah. I'm curious on where the impact is or, or how far the impact spread.  

Julie: Yeah. So let's, let's take an example Roundup. It has a pesticide, no, it has an herbicide, sorry. And it called glyphosate. It's very, very much in the news. This this glyphosate thing. Not great for. . But in order to optimize the usage of glyphosate and reduce the amount that you have in your, in your formula that you spray out over the field, you have something in there called a surfactant or like a wedding agent.

And basically this is something that doesn't actually, doesn't actually aid in killing any, any unwanted, unwanted. But it just helps get the glyphosate into the soil, into the plant so that you can or it helps target certain, certain things that you don't want growing. The problem is a lot of these things the most notorious one is called non fennel.

Oxalate, which I, I wouldn't blame you if you weren't able to kind of get that one rolling off the tongue, so it goes by npe. And it is an endocrine disruptor and it actually hurts fish and humans. So it runs off of the fields and we're waterways. Then we, then we drink that water. And it's, it's really, it's not great for your health and it, you know, body accumulates.

And that for me is like the real unifying reason why we should get rid of as many petrochemicals as possible because the sustainability. aspect is huge. Of course, carbon emissions and all that, but the real underlying reason is like, it's actually killing us. It's it's accumulating in our bodies and causing problem.

Julian: Yeah. Why are, why are companies using it? Is it cheaper? Is it just like what people use and it's like the standards, so it's become kind of more adopted? It, yeah. What are, you know, with it being so detrimental to our health, is it because it's a monetary aspect or is it, or is it just what people use and they don't wanna change?

Julie: It's a highly nuanced issue. This is where my sympathy for petrochemical companies kind of comes in is petrochemicals are generally speaking much cheaper than like bio-based alternatives. Yeah. And when you're dealing with large food systems, differences in pennies actually does add up. And so if you have a large premium that you're paying for a healthier, cleaner surfactant, then that's raising the price of food.

You know, that's, that's actually impacting, you know, lower income people. And it's, it's not just about profit, it is actually about being able to get food to people. And, and the other issue is petroleum is just so ubiquitous and these supply chains before petroleum are massive. So yeah, you could be completely enthralled with this.

Bio surfactant could even be really, But the problem is, is it's just really hard to procure enough of these kind of novel bios, surfactants in order to completely replace, you know, like Roundup. There's so much Roundup in the world. You wouldn't be able to just like wipe out all the petrochemical in that overnight. It takes, it takes a lot of time.  

Julian: Yeah. And where, where are we in, in the timeline? Is it, you know, a manufacturing issue with these bio? Is bio replacements for, for, you know, the petrochemicals? Or is it kind of we're waiting for the cascade effect for other companies to adopt it? Yeah. Is it a supply issue? Is it an adoption issue? Where are we kind of in that timeline?  

Julie: I would say that it's, it's a chicken and egg problem. sentiments are changing quite rapidly. So 10 years ago it really actually wasn't that much of a priority to pick green alternatives and not poison the water. But the, you know, the general zeitgeist surround creating these products has changed quite a bit.

Governing bodies such as the EU have tightened their restrictions on what goes into these chemicals. And even in the US we're also kind of tightening the way that we use specifically npe. But yeah, I think companies, large companies in particular are more willing to absorb those costs now.

10 years ago it certainly wasn't the case. But you know, the regulatory side is what makes these things much more easy to  

Julian: adopt.  

Yeah. What are some of the benefits that, you know, the larger companies are seeing from, you know, taking on these costs? I'm assuming, you know, it's like the whole organic movement, you know, once they were within the guidelines of being organic and we all kind of know what those guidelines are.

Some of them are very clear, some of them are a little gray. But it, it ended up creating a, a brand trust with a lot of. What are the benefits that that companies are seeing adopting these new chemicals into their processes with, with, you know, whether it's Roundup or other petrochemicals. Are they seeing any benefits or are those or, and if they are, what are they?

Julie: Yeah, I would say it's actually, it can be an individualized benefit sometimes. A lot of the times the people who are making formulations, building equipment for, you know, extracting petrochemicals like they have kids and they, they know what they're doing. Nobody's, nobody's really in denial anymore.

They certainly were again, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, but that very much has changed. And I think there is definitely a lot of internal motivation from people in companies to actually change. Mm-hmm. . And then the other benefits are, of course, You can reduce your, your different sources of emissions, either like transportation emissions or scope three emissions are the emissions that are associated with the material materials you use.

So just kind of anecdotally IKEA set all of these goals for sustainability and they started buying carbon credits and they reduced their transportation emissions. And then they were like, oh, we actually can. Can't meet our goals unless we change the fundamental materials that we build our furniture out of.

And so then they turn to their suppliers that make like the plasticy coatings that go on their plywood furniture, and they're like, Hey, I wanna buy aplastic and I want it now. Which is, you know, a great challenge. A lot of the, the existing companies that make these things are not actually equipped to turn on a dime and make bioplastics mm-hmm.

Which is where startups come in. Yeah. And yeah. There's definitely a wave of change  

Julian: coming. Yeah. I, I must YouTube videos with you know, there's super innovative products in other countries where they're like, you know, startups building within sustainable materials and using old materials. I think there was one thing that's like, Using or creating leather out of mango, mango skin and that it's just so amazing that the unique way that they're using it.

Are we seeing kind of a large transition into, you said, you mentioned startups big companies kind of collaborating with these startups to, you know, utilize kind of better sustainable building methods. I, is that a big adoption? Is that a small adoption? Where are we?  

Julie: Yeah, so a pro tip to whoever's in the audience and wants to, you know, start a sustainable materials company.

There are scouting firms and corporate venture accelerators that are completely dedicated to sourcing startups to integrate into like different pilot, pilot projects, for example. So there is, there's lots of money being spent on finding new material. Not all big corporates are created equal. Some of them think that you, the little tiny startup is gonna act like a big corporate, and that doesn't, doesn't work very well, but some of them are pretty savvy.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And, and shifting into Kero, you know, what in particular are you focused on? And the change that Khepra is kind of making within, you know, the partnerships or the, the CU customers or consumers that you're affecting. Tell us a little bit more about, you know, what you're building and, and kind of what your target is for, whether it's, you know, the next couple years or, or the, the for forever future.

Julie: Yeah. So I would say that the priority is industry electrification cuz there are huge amounts of carbon emissions from chemicals manufacturing, just burning oil in order to make other things for energy. And and so phase one is definitely we're focusing on smaller markets, but higher value chemicals.

The tagline for that one would be, we're making higher profit carbon sequestration. So what that means is we take, so. And we break it up into, it's kind of two parts, and we take one of those parts and we turn it into the, the part that goes into the agrochemical and that, you know, is kind of high margin.

And then the other part actually becomes a product that's a lot like biochar. So it increases carbon in the soil, it sequesters carbon. It's just all around, you know, good for farmers, good for soil health, and and it generates carbon credits. It's durable carbon administration. So we kind of have. One benefit of creating a carbon negative chemical.

And on the other hand, you're also supporting a system for soil carbon. Mrb. Yeah. And then the, the third phase, and this is my my like mega NCAL master plan is to build a big reactor and get into the kind of heavy duty things like ammonia and fuels and that sort of thing.  

Julian: It's, it's incredible the, the way, you know, I, I feel like there's gonna be a huge influx.

Biochemistry and, and ways to use existing and more sustainable natural materials and use kind of all of its parts. We think about cultures who are very much, you know, when they, when they, you know, kill an animal, for instance, if you're vegan, I'm sorry. But you know, they use all the parts and components of it.

I come from a, a Mexican culture where, You know, we use every bit of any animal that that, that we choose to share with the family. And it's exciting to see people doing that with materials, whether it's saw dust or otherwise. Is this causing, do you feel that this is gonna cause a big change in, you know, the types of you know, I guess educational or industry focuses that younger generations are gonna have kind of moving into a more sustainable future?

Are we seeing any changes there? Yeah, just, I'm just curious from your point of view.  

Julie: Interesting. Yeah, no, I, I love that. I love the whole, use the whole animal concept and that's definitely something we try and integrate in, in what we do with Khepra. From an education standpoint, I think that one thing that's actually really growing quickly is the use of microorganisms as kind of like cellular factories, and that is something that's growing very.

It has its challenges for sure, but it is also, you know, a very sustainable option for making things like plastics or, or even eating plastics. Not humans eating plastics

But yeah, I think that's a, I think that's an incredible field. I think that there's a lot of different approaches to making bio-based materials or sustainable materials, and you can come at it like I have from the bio-refinery aspect. It's all about refining the biomass into different, valuable Coke products.

Or you can go about it from the sort of micro microbial aspect, the bio reactor aspect, and, and grow things from just like sugars and bacteria. And I think that's really cool. and I would say like the sky's the limit. And you know, if you're a physicist, we need you. If you're a chemist, we need you.

If you're a biologist, we need you. there are incredible systems in nature. Do all the things that we need to do. They've been refined by millions of years of evolution. So, like if you're a marine biologist and you've studied fish gills, that the way that fish gills work is actually a really efficient way for separating out different products that you want from a product stream.

They call it cross flow filtration. Where you play with the different levels of concentration of, of particle that you wanna pull out. And that's how fish actually can source oxygen from water since it's in such low concentration. So it's I draw a diagram for you, . It's really cool. Yeah. The skills are actually really useful in industry.

Julian: It's incredible how you know, everything can be taken from different disciplines. So just like this cross discipline sharing that's, that's having a really exciting renaissance. You know, especially in post covid, everything is kind of even further pushed online. And the sharing of information is that much more exciting.

People are getting super. You know, web three is coming about, so there's gonna be even more collaboration, community building. That's gonna be, you know, ultimately I think cause a lot of, a lot of positive, you know, impact and change over time. I, I'm curious, you know, building within this space and, and working within the partners that you do, like, what's particularly hard about your job?

Julie: What's hard about my job? Everyth. No, it's, I think, I think one of the really key things is staying focused. It's really easy to wanna just kind of go down all these different paths and kind of like spray and pray, but you kinda have to stick to your guns and and actually just do something with laser focus.

Otherwise, you're not really gonna get anywhere in a, in a meaningful amount of and that's, I think that's just general advice for founders is you'll, you'll have lots of different opportunities to apply your technology to lots of different things. Lots of people, particularly VCs, will tell you things that maybe you don't wanna hear.

Or they phrase it like, it's like such great sound advice, but you know, it's just kind of can confuse you and diffuse where you're going. And the main thing is just. Picking a point. Sticking to it. Yeah. Taking advice, of course, like don't have your ears closed, but you have to be able to rationalize and justify all the steps that you're taking to get to that point and justify the end point.

So, yeah. Self examination is like a really, a really key factor in being a founder.  

Julian: And in regards to your industry and, and you know, the partnerships you're making to kind of move whatever their incumbent system is for, for burning fuels to get electricity to then create these, these these chemicals.

What, what's the challenges that you face and, and kind of. Convincing someone to adopt a different method of doing something that they've been, you know, doing for so long. What are the ways that you can kind of, are you building solutions that, you know, cater to their specific system, kind of grow with them in a sense?

Or is it kind of shifting their production to be completely different? Like, wh where's the, where's the back and forth?  

Julie: Yeah. So I'd say that if you're gonna come up with a sustainable material or a sustainable product, sorry, I have, I have dogs. No worries. Then drop in is always better than trying to change somebody's entire process.

That's why at Khepra we plan on selling chemicals and not equipment, even though we manage, we build our own equipment. Mm-hmm. . Because it's, it's just way easier to have something and give it to somebody and they just swap something else out.  

Julian: What's the process behind helping somebody transition into kind of either a new style production or you know, a better way to, to produce a product or service? And, and I mean, what you said was, was pretty brilliant, which, Just swap out, make it an easy swap out, you know, it's like changing the you know, the type of milk that you use, you know, that you drink if you want a better product at home.

It's, it's really that ease of transition that you know, kind of creates a lot of the, the movement forward. Tell us a little bit more about, you know, the, the traction that you're having, the partners that you're working with. You know, how many people have you helped kind of transition into a, a more sustainable operating style?

And then where, where are you excited about kind of finishing this year and moving into next?  

Julie: Yeah. So over the next year we're planning on building our, our first ever kind of like true commercial scale pilot facility producing, you know, hundreds of tons of chemical every year. We already have a partner for that a lumber mill out in Bj, if you're watching this, you're the best. That's, it's funny, I'm a Californian, but I've, like, I've been in the deep south for a year to like work with Texans and like good old boys and Yeah. There's a lot more overlap than people really give credit to. I think that, you know, everybody's a lot sweeter and, and more understanding than, than they realize, but yeah.

Yeah. So we're looking to build this, this facility, we're looking to put it at Texas a and m. We're gonna make soil, the soil amendment, the soil carbon thing I mentioned and the surf fact. And we also have sourced some distributors for being able to put that surf fact in out in the market. from there we'd like to increase production volumes and kind of focus on that.

Again, stay, stay focused. But then in parallel, at some point we'd be looking at approaching ammonia fertilizer actually. Cuz you can actually. Ammonia with the technology that we use. Just the question is like, can you make it insufficient volumes and at sufficient cost to be able to actually build facilities around that?

But yeah, we've sourced a partnership with a facility called the International Fertilizer Development Center. So yeah, very excited about the technical development and the commercial development over the next year.  

Julian: Incredible. What are the biggest challenges that Khepra faces?  

Julie: The biggest challenges? I would say that the conditions, the geopolitical conditions of the world are a blessing and a curse. you know, in, in fertilizer and kind of like a, a winding down of globalization. People are interested in, in kind of like homegrown technologies and shorter procurement chains and all that. and if we can make fertilizers.

That's, that's great because a lot of fertilizers actually made in Russia, and that's, that's a little bit problematic right now. But but then the other thing is we are looking, you know, at inflation and, and recessions. And so people are, are a little bit, you know, they're concerned. Like they don't, they're, they wanna stay comfortable which, you know, is fair.

But, I think the, the best thing we can do to overcome that is to kind of create a really strong story about what we're. and, you know, reduce risk wherever we can and you know, it's not unheard of for, for companies to get launched out of recessions and do really, really well. So that's kind of, that's what I'm baking on.

Julian: Yeah. , I guess if everything goes well, long-term wise, where do you see what's long-term vision for Khepra?  

Julie: Yeah. The long term vision for Khepra, I would say is I wanna be, I wanna be vegan, Dow Chemical. like I said, I've always kind of had a little bit of beef with petroleum. I would like to have, you know, a big company that is servicing different industries and helping them to decarbonize through electrification and insourcing better materials. And just be completely petroleum free. That's, that's the dream.  

Julian: Love that. I love that. I always like to ask this question as, as one for selfish research, but also for my audience as well to get little bits of information and, and ways to focus on, on where to learn. What, what books are people, whether it's early in your career or currently have influenced you the most?

Julie: What books? . You know, I actually, I like to read philosophy. I, I think philosophy is really like kind of a great way to kind of, from a first principal's perspective, set yourself up with a good foundation. My brother passed along a kind of like overview of stoicism to me when I was about 20 or so, and that, that really helped me just like become an adult basically.

And. Yeah, I think like one thing that is actually, you know, really well respected in, in this world still is somebody who has principles and like a floor of principles. So those principles can be whatever you want. I mean, not whatever we want, like some things people don't really like, but you know, if you stick to like, things like how do I be a more honest person?

How do I be a more, have greater integrity? Yeah. And then you just kind of investigate that you. Like I said, self examination is a really important thing. And yeah, I think, you know, Daoism, Seneca I've also liked Carl. Y he's kind of like . I opened the Carl Yung book and I like read a little bit of it, and then I got lost and then I had to read it again.

And every time I read it, I get a little bit further, but it just doesn't take some time. But yeah. Oh, and the, the number one book I would recommend to everybody in this day and age where people are increasingly lonely and, you know, we've got like weird internet subcultures of like, I don't know, in silly Alpha Male, I don't know, all that weird stuff on the internet.

Yeah. There's a Bell Hooks book called All About Love and she creates a framework for how to live up love as an. And that completely changed my life. I you know, it just, it, it's important to have really healthy relationships and healthy communities around you. Yeah. And that begins by you kind of being able to put that out in the world and knowing who you can receive that from.

You know? And if you ever had a relationship where you're like, wow, this feels wrong, but it's like, not outwardly wrong on the outside, it's let's go to exam and say like, oh, okay, this is how this is. This is not real love. This is not love being Yeah. And pretty through an action.  

Julian: I love that and I love that. That's so fascinating. I love when founders have, you know, the book recommendations because it's like, You not only do you get different answers, but you get kind of the principles aspect behind how they view either the world or how they're building. And it's so exciting to learn new things and new bits of information.

I, I've read a little bit about the stoicism philosophies, and I agree, you know, when people are, are at least, you know, it's not about being right or wrong, but it's about at least feeling concrete about some kind of ideal that you have and, and communicating that and with either passion or, or openness.

It's exciting to see that, you know people who are building companies, kind of having that, that consciousness around it. Cuz I think, think that's the evolution of a lot of founders that I've talked to is, is having conscious kind of activity and building ways that are, are really impactful. Rather than thinking about transactional relationships and, and the bottom line.

So it's really cool to see. I know we're close to the end of the show, and I've, I've appreciated not only your special expertise in, you know, biochemistry and also sustainability and, and how are our company is, you know, looking to transition to just better alternatives for, for building and, and and manufacturing.

But last little bit. I always like to give time for my founders to give us, you know, your plugs. What are your LinkedIns, what are your Twitters, where's your website? Where can we be the part of the mission of Khepra?  

Julie: I'm so bad at social media. Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn if you Google Julie Kring Khepra.

Unfortunately my LinkedIn like URL thing is just like Julie Dash k and then just a bunch of numbers cause I never changed it. So yeah, find me on LinkedIn. I'm not on Twitter. Never have been. and I guess now that's a good thing. It seems like Twitter's kind of having facing a reckoning.

Yeah. But yeah, but you can always reach out as well. My email is julie@khepra.io. You can also look up ww.Khepra.io and, and reach out through the website. And yeah, very open to conversations of all kinds. So reach out.  

Julian: Awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Julie. I hope you enjoyed yourself and, and you know, I'm excited to share this with my audience and see how they can get involved.

So, yeah, thank you again for being on the show.  

Julie: Yeah, that was great.  

Julian: Thanks.  

Julie: Thank you.