Entrepreneur Trevor Laudate shares how Startup took 1st Place for $300K Investment Award

Trevor Laudate heads the award-winning startup Ecodrive, a B2B climate tech platform connecting companies to measurable sustainability projects such as tree planting and harvesting plastic from the ocean. Customers find these environmental and social activities appealing which companies see as strengthening loyalty and yielding other desired customer outcomes.

Trevor shares how they developed their model, formed their leadership team, and gained the attention of investors, winning a $300K investment at the San Diego Angel Conference. 

Transcript

Jeanne Gray: I'm Jean Gray, publisher of American Entrepreneurship Today and host of the podcast series, Experienced Voices, where I talk with highly accomplished people who share the critical elements that led to their success.

Being a successful entrepreneur is about seizing opportunities. Our guest today on Experienced Voices is Trevor Laudate, co-founder of EcoDrive, a B2B climate tech platform that recently took first place at the San Diego angel conference. They were awarded a $300, 000 investment. 

Today, Trevor shares how he and his partner while working at an agency learned about brands desiring to engage in social causes that resonated with their customer base. Connecting that insight with their prior experience of planting trees to offset carbon emissions triggered the funded business model they have today. 

Jeanne Gray: It was a pleasure meeting you at the San Diego Angel Conference and congratulations on winning a $300, 000 investment. So let's start off by explaining to the listeners, your business model. 

Trevor Laudate: Thanks for having me. First off, it was great to meet you as well. And I'm really excited to be here with you today.

So what EcoDrive does is we partner with businesses to power the measurable climate action into their customer journey. This is things like planting trees for online orders or pulling pounds of plastic from the ocean for every product that they sell. 

There are a lot of different ways that we're partnering with businesses across different industries, but it's really to show that customers do care about the environmental impact of their purchases or who they choose to support.

Jeanne Gray: Let's use the trees as an example. What type of client Is using sustainability and trees together. 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, we have clients in a lot of different industries. I think consumers care and just about all industries where we really have a lot of our relationships is in e-commerce. businesses that plant trees with us for online orders that they ship not only does it engage their customers at checkout, but it helps them to increase conversions through calling out to customers saying, we're planting one tree with your order and then driving retention.
 
All of the trees are verified on the ground. So we have timestamps and geo coordinates and our businesses are actually able to communicate that to their customers.

And so we have a lot of success with e-commerce brands. 

Jeanne Gray: This is quite an unusual model, which candidly it's on the climate tech side, it's on the sustainability side. So what was the origin of the idea for your business model? 

Trevor Laudate: So how we started with the eco drive was actually out of a digital marketing agency where we were working with for-purpose businesses to help them scale across e-commerce.

These are companies that have an impact when you shop from them. And so what we did was we took that impact, help them to market that across digital marketing channels, and actually not only build a really successful business for good, but make more impact on the world through this model. And we, we pretty much fell in love with that model. 

We decided to take that and build a platform around it, allowing businesses of all shapes and sizes. To take an impact and drive ROI with it. 

Jeanne Gray:  When you participated in the San Diego Angel Conference that was a great opportunity, the angels were in the room and they made the decision on the same day.

Can you share, or did you have any insight as to what in your model separated you from some of your competitors or what you thought caught the eye of those investors in the room? 

Trevor Laudate: You know, I think a lot of people resonated with what we're doing. they see the need and the problem, right? What we always say is, have you ever gone to the grocery store and have been asked to donate at checkout?

Most people say yes at that point. And then we follow that up with, okay, have you ever received any evidence that that actually happened? And so everybody has some sort of correlation with the fact that they might not trust going directly to nonprofits or where their money's actually going. And with eco drive, you can, because we have transparent technology that shows you all the way through.

 We do work with nonprofits that actually do the work on the ground too. So it's only amplifying the good work that they, that they do where we stood out compared to our peers during the conference is. We have a lot of traction. So we work with over 450 businesses now. And I think that really gave us a leg up against, you know, the rest of the competitors in the competition.

There was a ton of great companies though. A lot of cool startups being built in San Diego. And so that was really cool to see and, you know, made a lot of good friends and. Built a great network of investors out of that conference. 

Jeanne Gray: You've been gaining the eyes of investors outside of the conference. How would you describe the investors themselves?

Are they climate tech investors, sustainability investors, or like you suggested, maybe people who are just passionate about solving climate issues? 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, it's a blend, honestly. So our lead investor is a climate tech investor. Another VC fund that's involved is an impact fund. So a general impact thesis.

And then we have a lot of angel investors that are just passionate about the work we're doing, really believe in our mission and, and what we can do in the world. And then, you know, it's, it's pretty surprising when I tell most people, but a lot of VCs that are interested in us are commerce enablement. They have commerce enablement thesis is because of the way that we work with Businesses to actually drive revenue where we can be this piece of their tech stack that actually helps them to see ROI and what They're doing with us.

And so that's a lot of the traction that we have post The SDAC win is from Commerce Enablement VCs. 

Jeanne Gray: So when you were putting together the model and, coming up with a roadmap to go forward, how much of an investment did you have to make in, in, Proving out both sides of the equation. One, you're going to have a platform that's appealing to corporations or companies.

And on the other side, you're having to fulfill the verification that the trees are being planted or the plastic is being called. What were your first steps in? Making this go from just a sort of an abstract idea to something that you could demo. 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah. I mean, it's a long journey. We bootstrapped in the beginning, which allowed us to be really close to our customers, understand their needs, understand problems without making too much of an investment in.

Without product market fit yet. And so how we started was just working with some of those e commerce companies at the agency that we were at. You know, planting one tree for online orders. And we were partnered with nonprofits that were doing the tree planting at that time. That's where we learned great ways to market this.

We saw that, end customers really cared. The client loved that they were supporting environmental tool. Environmental causes, but that's also where we saw the lack of transparency. You know, when we were paying for some of the trees, we didn't get much besides a donation receipt back. And so, you know, naturally grew to building in the verification because we knew that was a key piece to help our businesses avoid greenwashing, but then also expanding from just tree planting because not all businesses.

Restoration doesn't align with a lot of businesses. And so ocean plastic removals was a key element to get a lot of partners on board. And building this platform that just makes it. Automatic for them to really embed this in a way that's not going to be a huge cost burden or time suck and allows them to start taking environmental action right away.

Jeanne Gray: it seems you were in a great position at the agency to see the pain point and also seeing how it was being solved inefficiently or, or ineptly.

Trevor Laudate: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we saw firsthand the lack of transparency from nonprofit to business and then business to consumer. And so that's where we saw the problem. But also the massive opportunity if you do just communicate what you're doing to your customers. And so that's really how it formed in the beginning.

Jeanne Gray: So when you're now positioning the startup, how important was it for you to bring on someone really with a tech skill base were you using or drawing in a co founder or you were looking for experts outside of your area who could come in and, and, and plug themselves into build out the model. 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, that's a great question.

So both me and my co founder, when we left that agency had no technical experience you know, we, we were savvy enough, but what we did initially was outsource. The initial platform that we built and that came with a lot of headaches, a lot of pain points. And what we ended up doing was bringing on a technical co founder.

As soon as we launched the platform, what ended up happening is as soon as he came on, he pretty much redid the whole initial portal and all of the work that we did the prior six months to get that live. But now it's perfect. I would recommend that to people that are just starting off if they're non technical to bring on a technical co founder, because it makes your life a lot easier and it allows you to focus on what you're good at.

Jeanne Gray: that becomes apparent, but for many. Non techie people and non techie entrepreneurs is trying to find the right tech fit for the time of the startup and the nature of the startup. So did you resource with your, your own network or were you well connected in the San Diego area that allowed people to float possible candidates in front of you?

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, that's a, that's a great point that you make. I mean, you can't just. Hire just anybody and bring on a co founder. That's a really big deal. We actually didn't give you know, the co founder later label until a year into it. I think there's a lot of development that needs to go in. It was from our network as well.

We are really fortunate to have a big network within the tech space in tech community, and it was just the perfect fit at the time. He was leaving one of his current positions. And so it made a lot of sense to bring him on. We had, he was actually one of our good friends from college too. So we have a long standing relationship and it made things a lot easier because not only could we trust him on the, on the technology side, you just.

You know, the personality and the fit and, you know, you're, you're able to bring that in, in the early days, it's really important. And that, that does make it really hard for. Entrepreneurs in the beginning, if you aren't tech savvy to go out and find a co founder like that. 

Jeanne Gray: you built the first version of your platform.

And then as you said, you brought on someone with a tech background. And the first thing he did was rebuild it. So delving a little bit into the investment side of this. So it was a certain amount of money set aside by yourself and your other co founder to get the, what we'll call the, maybe the primitive prototype of what you were trying to achieve.

And then after you got a certain amount of traction, the realization that you're going to need to raise a lot more money to build it the right way. 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, that's exactly what happened. We funded it, we self funded it a little bit at the beginning, but again, we were actually managing our initial clients.

Almost like an agency style where we were helping them to plant trees and we were partnering and the cashflow was a little bit better at that time. And so we were able to take some of that cashflow coming in and use that to develop the product initially. And so that's how the initial product got developed.

Then we realized once we formed more of a technology business in June of 2022 that, wow, Now I understand why you need a lot of funding as a tech business. And so we ended up raising our first round of capital in November of 2022. 

Jeanne Gray: So that you would consider that a seed round. 

Trevor Laudate: That was our pre seed round, technically.

Jeanne Gray: And so separate out for the listener, what a pre seed round is versus a seed round. 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, that I, I mean, that's, it's your concept in general, but it was more so just the level that we were at and the amount of clients and revenue that we took on that. That's what classified it as more seed or friends and family earlier days.

We didn't really have product market fit. And we were still trying to figure out our path forward. And so what it was, was getting early investors on that really believed in us. We did the launch accelerator program with Jason Calacanis, and that was, you know, really helpful for us to just figure out what fundraising looks like and how to go raise a large round of capital.

And so. Everything we acquired there not only helped us to build out our initial platform even more and hire some design resources and some extra developer resources. It also taught us how to go raise a larger seed round when we were ready. And so I think that's why we were so prepared going into the San Diego angel conference as well.

Jeanne Gray: Yeah. The entrepreneur who's. needing funding is sort of in a cloud or a fog as to cart before the horse. How much do I have to build before I go out to raise and how much do I have to raise so I can go out to build? And I think you just shared a really good piece of information about having gone through Jason's program and just clearing everything up for you as to how to put your path forward.

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, totally. I will say to that entrepreneur, there's no answer. There's no right answer for that. It's really tough. It depends on a lot of outside factors as well as The investor that you're talking to. I think you really just have to go with your gut and, and build the business that you want.

Jeanne Gray: So you have had funding come in. Did you start to break down the startup path into then stages or milestones as to where you were going to allocate the funds and what, what points you had to pass to keep the investors satisfied or happy that they gave you the funds? 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah. So we are still technically raising our seed round.

We're just about finished off with it. So winning SDAC gave us a 300, 000 investment into it. Which brings us to a total of 950 K committed on our 1. 6 million fundraise. It's actually was 1 million. We're over subscribing to 1. 6 with all the momentum that we currently have off of the stack win. But a lot of that is going towards fueling growth and expansion, hiring sales marketing, as well as customer success staff really with the goal of growing and scaling the company, the past fundraise.

Pretty much all went towards technology, infrastructure and our ability to find product market fit. And now that, you know, we still have a lot of work to do. On that side of things, but we're in a better position to scale what we do have now. 

Jeanne Gray: When you start getting commitments of that size, How long do you have to wait before you have access to the actual funds?

Because you're saying you have 950, but you you've been over subscribed. So it's eating up a lot of time Trying to get the release of money and let you have another sort of run. So kind of give a timing. Description of the money's coming in, but when do you really get it? 

Trevor Laudate: So it's interesting.

We're actually raising our entire round on a safe. So we are actually already collecting the funding, which has been really good for us because it's kept us in business initially and now allows us to already start making investments in growth. Before we even finish up the full fundraise. And so if you're not familiar with a safe, it's, it's a simple agreement for future equity and.

We've been able to now get in after SDAC. They actually recently wired the money as well. And so we've gotten in a total of 650, 000 of the 950 that was committed. 

Jeanne Gray: And on your build out, that's going to go on. So you have three co founders now? 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, three co founders. 

Jeanne Gray: And how quickly do you think you're going to be adding to actual hiring onto the team?

Trevor Laudate: So we are taking this. We're hiring. We have a team of nine right now. Our developers and technology side is really locked in. That's not where the initial funding is going. It'll go towards the first hire, which is going to be a CSM, a client success manager, which will allow me and my co founder Blake to free up from some of that.

As well as allow somebody to come in with experience and really take good care of our clients. And so that's gonna be a great first hire for us. Then the rest is pretty much marketing budget to really help in the initial phases of capital deployment. On the sell side of things. 

Jeanne Gray: Share a little bit about the client success manager.

Trevor Laudate: Yeah. So the primary role for that, the responsibilities will be really acting as an account manager and in the simplest terms for our business clients. working with them to ensure that they're fully set up with eco drive. They're messaging it out to their customers. Effectively. They're leveraging all of the tools that we have available for them.

They're building case studies with them. They're generating referrals and just there to handhold our customers every step of the way. We're starting to expand into the hotel industry. We're hotels are partnering with us to incentivize their guests to opt out of housekeeping at saving the hotels, a lot of money while helping them to hit their sustainability goals.

And so the CSM will work hand in hand with our hotel customers to start. 

Jeanne Gray: So one of the challenges of scaling is keeping the culture very tight knit. So when you're bringing on new people, what's your hiring process or interviewing process? Does the person? Meet with all of the co founders or is there a specific interview questionnaire that you're using to keep the mindset the same of what you're looking for?

Trevor Laudate: We're still trying to figure it out. We don't have that much experience just yet with hiring a big team. So we're using our resources, asking around the best ways to go about this. Right now, what we're doing is all of our co founders are getting on and interviewing at different stages. We have different tests and we really want to just make sure it's a good culture fit and you know, at the startup, it's tough because you're hired for this specific position, but there's a lot of moving pieces all the time.

And so just understanding it's the right, the right fit for the company is a big, a big part of what we look for in hires. 

Jeanne Gray: Are you looking for some assistance from your investors have wanted to brought their background experience that is serving as a compliment as you're going through this stage?

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, we have a few investors that are, you know, really supportive in this regard and they're, they're there if we ever need them. And so as we start to make more hires and we go through that process, we've already began reaching out to them about best practices. We don't want to be too annoying either.

So but that's a big piece of what we look for, especially now that we're over subscribing our round is. Investors that can be really value add have been there, done that, and can help us get to this next level. Because there's a lot of things that we don't know as a founding team. 

Jeanne Gray: So what, what point in your thinking, cause it's maybe just thinking no, no more than that in which you're looking for VC money is, is that already understanding that the.

The round that you've done the seed round or pre seed round, where does it get you to the larger investment money that you need? Is it like a year away from now, or is it two to three? Do you already have that in your head? 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, we have it. We have in our head. We're trying. So this is technically our seed round, right?

Where we're raising 1. 6 from us closing the round We anticipate between 14 to 20 months Until our next round of funding and it really depends on if we're hitting our goals And our milestones to get to that next step, which would be a large series a of you know seven to ten million dollars There's a lot of thresholds we have to hit in order to get there X amount of revenue, X amount of customers.

We want to launch a few products before then and have our technology really dialed in. And so there's a few different factors that go into being able to raise that larger Series A, but that's what we're building towards within the next 14 to 20 months. 

Jeanne Gray: Right. So that's exactly what I was wondering is to the scalability that you have to start moving through faster.

You're, you're still working on the current stage, but investors Are coming on board because they think you have a highly scalable model. How much of it do they ask about an exit strategy? 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, that's a big piece of it, right? Because investors want to know how they're going to get their money back again.

The impact that we're making and creating in the world is great. But we're building a real business that's going to generate return for our investment investors. And so that's a big piece of it. There's different avenues that we have. I think we're building an extremely scalable company and the investors that we have on board agree.

Yeah. So that's what we're building towards. Eventually we're not, this isn't something that we want to sell off right away. We want to build, you know, a lot of impact. We have a lot of cool things on our roadmap map that we're working towards. And a lot of businesses that we plan on supporting before we get to that point where we're ready to sell, but it is, it is our goal for, I would say, Five to seven years from now.

Jeanne Gray: So let's spend a few minutes talking about the San Diego angel conference. From what I had heard when I was out there the due diligence is, is at a very high level for the participants of the program that begins months before the actual conference. So how, how did due diligence go for you as you were approaching getting prepared for the conference?

Yeah, 

Trevor Laudate: diligence was a long process. Again, it was interesting because we, we found our lead investor, which is the climate tech VC fund in our round. And so we already went through the diligence process multiple times with the different VCs that are involved. And then this process was probably longer than the ones that we've been involved in in the past.

And so it was good for us because we already had a lot of the material prepared. But it was, it was a challenge for sure. And they were very diligent in the diligence process and asked a lot of amazing questions, made you think about things that you might not have thought about before, and it really helps you sharpen up.

I'm, I'm super happy that we went through that experience. I think it was great, you know, win or lose to have that build all those materials up because it's only making you sharper when you talk to other firms or investors. So I'm grateful for that opportunity. 

Jeanne Gray: What was the biggest thing you learned when you started to really rub elbows with investors?

You know, I'm sure there was a first one or two meetings and maybe you were a little starry eyed about, you know, what their involvement could be, but eventually you sort of learned the ropes and what did you conclude about being effective in speaking with investors? 

Trevor Laudate: I think it's just, You know, it's tough because all investors, it's not one size fits all.

Everybody is different. Everybody is looking for something different. Oftentimes there's conflicting advice that you're given from investors. And so I don't know if I've even necessarily figured it out yet. I think I have a lot of learning to go and I'm sure I'll continue to experience that. I would just say the one piece of advice that has stuck with me is Make sure you find investors that aligned with your vision because that's what's going to be really important.

Not to just get them to say yes now, but you're going to be on this journey with them for the next six years. If not longer. And so having somebody by your side that gets it is extremely important. 

Jeanne Gray: you're not going to be able to speak to all of your investors. Eventually you'll come up with a reporting style, but right now are there a couple that you kind of feel there's a a little bit of a, personal bond forming of, confidentiality and trust. 

Trevor Laudate: Yeah, I honestly feel that with all of our investors right now, I think I can call on any of them and they'll be there to support.

I don't I send monthly updates right now. So they're heavily engaged in the business. They know what's going on, whether it's good or bad. And then they always respond to that in a very supportive way, helping us out. in our monthly reports, we do different sections, you know, highlights, updates, Financials challenges that we're facing as well as asks from those investors.

And whenever I send those asks, they're always really supportive. And that, that speaks for almost everybody on our team. 

Jeanne Gray: So as we wrap up I guess I'm curious as you've gone through the startup process, you've really done a great job in getting the investors. Is this a seven day a week, 24 hour job? And are you getting enough sleep?

Trevor Laudate: Well, I don't sleep the best. I'll tell you that. But yeah, it's full time and you know, there's constant highs and lows. At what the startup as any startup will tell you, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love every second of it. So it's definitely a never ending thing. Work never stops.

There's always more work to be done. But, but I love it. And I enjoy every second. 

Jeanne Gray: Well, that's a great way to wrap up. Trevor is hearing that you're all in and you're prepared to, you know, go the 24, seven or whatever it takes. So thank you for being a guest on experienced voices.

Trevor Laudate: Thank you so much for having me. This is a lot of fun. 

Jeanne Gray: You have been listening to the podcast series, Experienced Voices. To hear more and subscribe, visit americanentrepreneurship. com forward slash podcast, where you will also find a form for listener feedback.