Ep. 193 - The Billion-Bird Problem Hiding in Plain Sight: Birdshades’s Glass to the Rescue
SHOW NOTES
Every year, billions, birds die not from hunters, pesticides, or habitat destruction, but from something hiding in plain sight: glass.
Windows, glass corridors, and reflective buildings create invisible traps for birds, who often see sky, trees, or open space where humans see a pane of glass. For most of us, a bird hitting a window is an occasional sad accident. But globally, it’s a massive and ongoing animal-welfare and biodiversity problem.
For Dominique Waddoup, the issue became impossible to ignore while she was studying biology with focus on animal behavior at university. There, a beautiful glass corridor was killing bird after bird. Existing solutions could help, but many were too visible or aesthetically unappealing for building owners to accept. So instead of continuing down the career path she had trained for, Dominique took a very different leap: she became an entrepreneur on a mission to prevent such collisions.
Her company, BirdShades, is trying to make glass visible to birds while remaining nearly invisible to humans, turning a preventable animal tragedy into a design and materials-science problem we can actually solve.
DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE
GET TO KNOW DOMINIQUE WADDOUP
Dominique Waddoup is the founder and CEO of BirdShades, an Austria-based company creating transparent window films designed to prevent bird-window collisions. Trained in biology with focus on animal behavior, Dominique first encountered the problem while studying at university, where a glass corridor was causing repeated bird deaths.
Rather than continue on a conventional academic path, she turned her scientific background into an entrepreneurial mission: making glass visible to birds while keeping it nearly invisible to humans.
TRANSCRIPT
Dominique Waddoup 0:00
I hope the bird winter collisions will be a thing of the past and really old fashioned, because there are products out there working now. Welcome to the Business for Good podcast, where we spotlight people making money by solving some of the world's most pressing problems.
Paul Shapiro 0:15
I'm your host, Paul Shapiro, author of a nationally best-selling book on food sustainability, and CEO of a company in the same space. On this show, I speak with founders, investors, and thought leaders who prove that doing good and doing well can go hand in hand. The biggest challenges facing humanity are solvable and are often profitable too. My hope is that this podcast informs, inspires, and maybe even helps repel you to build a business that makes the world a better place. I'm glad you're here.
Paul Shapiro 0:42
Hello, friend, and welcome to episode 193 of the Business for Good podcast. All right, first and foremost, here's your wild random fact for this episode. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the US, was a near vegetarian? He wrote that, quote, I have lived temporarily, eating little animal food, and that not as much as an element, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet. Pretty interesting. All right, now listen. I've spent a lot of time in the animal protection movement, and as a teenager, I even worked in an anti-hunting and wildlife advocacy group. What struck me then and now, however, is how widow attention is placed by wildlife advocates on ways in which we harm animals that are unintentional. It's easy to criticize the game hunter who goes out into the wild to enjoy the thrill of taking an animal's life, but what if the bigger danger to wildlife isn't our mao intent, but just our indifference? While hunters in the US kill more than 100 million animals annually, billions of birds die not from hunters globally, not pesticides or habitat destruction, but something hiding in plain sight. Glass windows, glass corridors, and reflective buildings create invisible traps for birds, who often see sky, trees, or open space where humans see a pane of glass. For most of us, a bird hitting a window is an occasional sad accident, but globally it is a massive and ongoing animal welfare and biodiversity problem. Enter Dominique. What up for her? The issue became impossible to ignore when she was studying animal behavior and biology as a student. There, a beautiful glass corridor was killing bird after bird. Existing solutions might help, but many were too visible or esthetically unappealing for building owners to accept. So, instead of continuing down the career path that she trained for Dominique. Took a very different leap. She became an entrepreneur on a mission to prevent such collisions. Her company, Bird Shades, is trying to make glass visible to birds while remaining nearly invisible to humans, turning a preventable animal tragedy into a design and material science problem that we can actually solve. Alright, as always, here are your three key takeaways for this episode: first, bird window collisions are huge, but overlooked animal welfare problem. Glass kills staggeringly large numbers of birds because they see sky and trees and open space where we see a window. Second, Dominique saw the problem firsthand, and she decided to act. When she was a university student, she thought she was going to become an animal behaviorist, and instead she decided to become an entrepreneur to solve this problem that was troubling her so much at her university. Third, and finally, Bird Shades, her company, turns biology into a practical business solution by making less visible to birds but invisible to humans. The company is trying to solve a major human wildlife conflict through entrepreneurship rather than advocacy alone, I'll let Dominique tell you her story herself.
Paul Shapiro 3:24
Dominique, welcome to the Business for Good podcast. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. When I was a kid, I wanted to do what I imagined you wanted to do, which is I really liked animals, and I first thought, you know, people when you're a kid and they tell you, oh, well, you should be a veterinarian, and then I learned it takes like really a lot of scientific training and years of expertise that I thought that I probably would lack to be a veterinarian, but then I learned that there were like these animal behaviorists, right, ethologists who studied animals often in the wild, and I thought, ah, I want to do that. My parents sent me to a science camp when I was in fifth grade over the summer, remember where I was watching prairie dog towns in Colorado, and I was thinking this is going to be my life, is doing this, but eventually I found some other way that I thought could be in service to helping the animal kingdom, that wasn't that, but you went much further with it. You are an actual animal biologist. What happened for you that you wanted to do that?
Dominique Waddoup 4:14
I wanted to do it since I was a kid. At first, I wanted to be a vet too, but then I was really interested in animal behavior and the way how animals act and behave and I had dog as a child and that really inspired me and then I found at university that there is that you can study biology with special focus on animal behavior and that was my absolute dream and I started with that and I loved studying it. I went to Nepal to study the thermal behavior of giant honey bees, and it was amazing to work with high-tech equipment in the middle of the jungle, and to have hardly any electricity, and after that I just really wanted to create. It an impact or to support to help with the animal wildlife conflict, and yeah, that's how I came across the idea with bird chains.
Paul Shapiro 5:10
That's definitely too tantalizing for me not to want to double click on that. If you could sum up in one or two sentences what you learned about the thermal behavior of wild honeybees in Nepal. What did you learn?
Dominique Waddoup 5:22
So they do cry, they do fascinating things. For example, they build open nests in comparison to the honeybees we know and keep in stock, and they have special bees, which make sure that the stock doesn't get too hot, and that it eventually doesn't melt away. So it's they do pretty fascinating things.
Paul Shapiro 5:43
Oh, interesting. I recently read a book by a friend of mine named Ryan Hewling. It's a brand new book called The Hidden Nations of Animals, and it's really excellent. He basically does a survey throughout the world of different animal civilizations, including ants and bees, and so on, of the ways that they construct their architecture, and it is fascinating just how severely humanity has underestimated the mental lives of other animals. You know, even when you think about ants having these cities where they've got morgues and they're performing opera, they're performing operations on one another, they've got air conditioning, they've got breeding, you know, like nursing chamber, so the baby ants, it's really an incredible thing. So, eventually, Dominique, you decided that you did not want to become an animal behaviorist full time, that you want to be an entrepreneur instead. So, what happened? You, you have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in animal behavior, and ultimately you decided, no, I'm going to become the CEO of a startup. Why? What happened?
Dominique Waddoup 6:40
So I wanted to do a PhD, but hands on on the human wildlife conflict, but I couldn't find a subject there. And then actually, at my university, I became aware of a glass corridor where many birds collided, so just within a few months there were lots of birds, and I wanted to take action, and there were products on the market at that time, but they were visible, and the trouble with that was the customer acceptance. So, the university simply didn't want to do it, and because it was my background, I knew there would be other solutions, and this was the beginning of BirdShades.
Paul Shapiro 7:18
So, what was the solution? Because there is bird-friendly glass on the market, like Ornalux and others, right. So, why did you think that those were insufficient solutions that you had to be the one to start some new company?
Dominique Waddoup 7:28
Well, from the idea, it was so my feeling was that it was designed a bit, not with the bird in focus, but with great technical abilities, and we took it from the animal behavior aspect, so we really looked at animal behavior, how the birds perceive, how they interact with glass, and I've teamed up with my partner, who is an expert in material science chemistry, and this is how we started.
Paul Shapiro 7:55
And so, when you're thinking about material science, you're thinking about creating a company here. Did you know anything at all about creating a company? You know, I would imagine a lot of people who are sitting there studying Nepalese honeybees are probably not that well fluent in the creation of a new corporation, and how you're going to raise capital and create the corporate structure. So, what happened? Like, why did you think I'm the one to do this, instead of encouraging somebody else to do it.
Dominique Waddoup 8:23
I just wanted to have a go, but you right, the beginning was a bit bumpy. My first pitch decks were terrible, because I had all these scientific fancy charts on it, but I knew some founders who were biologists who turned into entrepreneurs, and they were huge inspiration, and these were the first steps which we took.
Paul Shapiro 8:44
Who were those people who had paved the way that were an inspiration to you,
Dominique Waddoup 8:47
Especially a company here in Graz, the cool Kilo Baser? They do a kind of, they call it an espresso machine, where you print DNA, and I was really fascinated how they did it, because before I always thought you need a lot of money to found a company, and these guys just started.
Paul Shapiro 9:04
Interesting, yeah, there's a lot of people who also have been on the show who just started, right? They did not have big backing, they didn't have a lot of credentials themselves. In fact, I think about the guys who started, for example, the company Perfect Day, that you may have heard of. It's a company that manufactures dairy proteins without cows, and these guys were just fresh out of college, right? They had an undergraduate degree, they were like 22 years old, they had never met each other in person, they met, in fact, in an online video chat, and they both had this same idea to create dairy proteins without cows, and they thought, well, let's start a company, and next thing you know, these guys have raised $900 million of venture capital to bring their cow-free dairy proteins to the world. It's really an incredible story, and there have been other stories like that too, where people who really had very little experience, like Geltor, and if you're familiar with them, but these are. Guys who are similar to you, they were scientists first, who decided they wanted to make collagen and gelatin without animals, and started a company, and ultimately raised huge amounts of money to do that and bring that to the market as well. But I think it does take a unique type of person to think, well, I'm the one to do this, right? Lots of people have ideas for lots of things, it doesn't mean that they're going to be the one to do it, you know. I could have said that I wanted to have a supercomputer in my pocket. It doesn't mean I'm the inventor of the iPhone, right? Like, lots of people think about things, but you decided to actually take that step. Seeing other people was what was the catalyst for you, seeing other people in your shoes who had done something similar, but what was the original catalyst for the actual idea, right, because there are other companies, you're saying they're not taking the bird focus, you know, they're making actual glass that is, according to them, visible to birds, but you're creating something that goes as a coating on the glass, right, it's not actually in the glass, is that the correct distinction between what others have done and what Bird shades is doing
Dominique Waddoup 11:01
as well, for for now we're a retrofit product, so it's a window film, which you put on the glass when the glass is already existing.
Paul Shapiro 11:08
and so, so you, you don't need to be at the manufacturing site of the glass, you could do this at an existing building, like the one at your university.
Dominique Waddoup 11:16
exactly.
Paul Shapiro 11:17
Okay, and have they put this on to the birthplace for bird shades, have have they put it on yet?
Dominique Waddoup 11:22
Unfortunately, not there at this site, but many others have. So, I'm happy about that.
Paul Shapiro 11:27
So, how did you get to work? You had no money, you had a co-founder who was an expert in material science. You wanted to create something, presumably that was some UV that the birds could see, but that humans couldn't see, so what did you do? Did you have a lab space? Like, what was the actual genesis of the company?
Dominique Waddoup 11:45
That was a big challenge at the beginning, so to get a lab space. So, at first, we've read lots and lots of publications and contacted scientists to find out what is missing. How can we offer a benefit? And then we managed to get into SSV, Rebel Bio, so that's a cohort where they'd turn scientists into entrepreneurs, and that was really helpful for us, because that helped us with our change in mindset, and also how we present ourselves, because we were very, very data focused and very heavy on how we present our work, and it didn't quite work well at the beginning, but we've learned that.
Paul Shapiro 12:30
Okay, well, we'll include in the show notes for this episode Rebel Bio at Business for Good podcast.com so people can learn more about it. But let's just explain the product, like what does a bird see when he or she approaches Birch's treated glass that a human doesn't see? Is it as simple as it just saying it's UV, or what are they actually seeing?
Dominique Waddoup 12:49
They birds actually see more than we do, just to see more colors, and they will see some additional colors than we do in the glass, because it's transparent for the human eye, but it's highly noticeable to birds. I've got a sample here, but I'm not sure if you want me to show that in the podcast.
Paul Shapiro 13:06
Oh, yeah, yeah, that would be great. There's a lot of people who consume this podcast on YouTube, and some of them consume it audio only. But yeah, show it to me, and we'll describe it for those who are listening by audio.
Dominique Waddoup 13:15
This is a piece of glasses that can't, so yeah, okay.
Paul Shapiro 13:20
So you're holding what looks to be, you know, maybe a quarter of a meter squared, and it's a queer piece of glass that I can see through, I can see your face easily through it. Okay,
Dominique Waddoup 13:32
exactly. And there's a little trick, how I can make it visible to us to just make it more understandable. So I'm holding a black light UV torch, and with that you can actually see the pattern.
Paul Shapiro 13:45
Oh, it's like a, it's like little squares on there. Yeah, I see that
Dominique Waddoup 13:48
it's actually it's stripes.
Paul Shapiro 13:50
stripes. Okay, yeah, okay, cool. And so that's what the bird sees, is stripes.
Dominique Waddoup 13:57
Yes, so they see these stripes.
Paul Shapiro 14:00
And is this true for all birds, like I'm not aware enough about the ophthalmology of avians, but do all birds see this, or is it only useful for certain species?
Dominique Waddoup 14:09
It's only useful for certain species, but a lot of bird species can see the UV part of daylight, but there are also birds which probably can't see it, so we're working pretty extensively on that, but we've made sure in our development to get a lot of different bird species, especially the ones which are, which are endangered to collide with glass.
Paul Shapiro 14:32
and can can bird shades go on homes and buildings, or is this suitable for only one type of window? For example.
Dominique Waddoup 14:39
it can go in on homes and buildings as well,
Paul Shapiro 14:42
yeah. And do you, can you install it yourself? Like, can I go out and put this on the the windows on my own home, or do you need a professional to put this to retrofit it onto your glass?
Dominique Waddoup 14:51
It's better to have it retrofitted onto your glass, because you can get easily bubbles and dust pieces into the film, and then it's just my. So nice, but we're working with professional window installation companies, and they're really good at installing worksheets.
Paul Shapiro 15:06
I can't even put, like, the privacy screen on my own iPhone on by myself without getting bubbles. It's like, it's like unbelievable how incompetent I am at this. My wife, I have to ask her to do it for me, and I think she's better. I'll tell you, she's not perfect at it, but I think she's better at it, but I would not want to put this on my own window, that is for sure. Okay, so you now have installations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and I believe you're selling in the US too, is that correct?
Dominique Waddoup 15:32
Yes, that's correct.
Paul Shapiro 15:34
So, how can people get bird shades if they want to put it on their house? Like, how can they actually do it if they're in the US or Europe or anywhere
Dominique Waddoup 15:40
it's best to check on our website, so we have a button where you can check, and it shows you a map where we're available, so you can check there if there's a window installation company near you, and if there is not one list that it's best to reach out to us, because we're working with many distribution partners, and our list gets gets larger every day.
Paul Shapiro 16:03
so I understand that it has a lifespan of about a decade or so, depending on location and maintenance, but is there some other benefit to installing this, aside from just the fact that you're not going to have your house or your building be a graveyard for birds, you know, a lot of the times we think about sustainable technologies, and the sustainability may be the motivation for the entrepreneur, but for the customer it's a side thought, right? So, if you're putting in, let's say, solar, you may be doing it because it's going to save you money compared to coal, and it's just a side benefit that it actually doesn't emit in the way that coal does. Is the benefit to the birds the sole benefit, or is there any other benefit I'm getting if I put bird shades on the windows in my house?
Dominique Waddoup 16:45
Well, this current product version, it has the main benefit is to make glass safe for birds, but it's also it helps with UV protection, so it helps with to protect your skin from harmful UV rays, but also interior from fading.
Paul Shapiro 17:02
Interesting. What does that mean? Interior from fading, you mean the inside, the things inside of my house will fade less because they're not getting the UV. That's what you mean.
Dominique Waddoup 17:09
Yes, exactly.
Paul Shapiro 17:10
Interesting. So, in some way, would you consider touting this as something that would, let's say, reduce your risk of cancer? Then, if you have the windows in your house that are putting on sunscreen on your house.
Dominique Waddoup 17:21
I wouldn't go as far as that. It's just an add-on for now, and this is the current product version, but our actual vision is to make bird shades in general an add-on to make, to have it added into other products, for example, sun protection window film, which help to not get so much heat inside the houses and other ways, and our motivation is pretty much from Intel with the Intel processors to at some stage have bird shades inside with different window film products.
Paul Shapiro 17:55
Yes, so Intel inside will be the new birdshades inside, so that people installing new windows will just have that as part of it. This brings me to a thought that I've had for some time, Dominique, which is that it is unbelievable to me how many birds perish in windows around the world - literally billions, literally billions, like vastly more than are killed by hunters, and a lot of people who care about animals are very offended by the thought that people go out and shoot birds for fun, yet our buildings kill far more wild birds, far more wild birds than hunters could ever dream of killing. And this has not become a campaign, to my knowledge, for any animal protection group. And even in building certification codes, like the LEED certification, which is a sustainability certification, to my knowledge, it's not mandatory to have LEED certified buildings have bird friendly class. Am I accurate about this? And why? Why has this not been more of a rallying cry for those who would like to see wildlife live?
Dominique Waddoup 18:54
It's more and more growing now, so it's, it's moving out from a niche problem, or, you know perceived as a niche problem, and it becomes more and more mandatory. So, there are groups which actively advocate for this issue, and there are existing laws which are used, but also new laws which I now worked on to actively save birds from class.
Paul Shapiro 19:18
I am aware, and we'll include some of this in the show notes for this episode at Business for Good podcast.com That there are some bird-friendly building ordinances, like in Washington, D.C. and New York City, are these helping to create demand for bird shades? Is that part of the pressure? So I'm thinking, like, if I'm a, if I'm a building owner or somebody who's an architect building a building, there's no, at least as of now, there's no economic benefit to me to use bird shades, right? It's really probably going to cost me more, actually. So the question then becomes, why? Why would I use it? And if there are ordinances requiring it, I can see that being the genesis of the demand for it. Am I right in that? Are these city ordinances actually. A reason that people would use bird shades, now
Dominique Waddoup 20:02
part of, so it depends on which country. I just, for example, for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, existing laws, for example, are used because in many nature conservation laws, you're not actually allowed to actively kill birds, and this is now more actively, actually, yeah, enacted that you have to do something. Also, the ordinances, it depends per country, but it's in general, it's growing, and it's a growing trend. We notice really strongly from when we started with bird shades. I remember the architecture said, "Why, why should we do this? But now they're they're becoming much more aware, and there is a lot of work, which has been done by nonprofit organizations.
Paul Shapiro 20:46
Who are the countries you mentioned that it varies by geographic region? Are there particular cities and or countries that you think are leaders in the bird protection space here.
Dominique Waddoup 20:54
certainly the German-speaking countries, but also the US, Canada, and South Korea. So that's what I see from my perspective.
Paul Shapiro 21:03
What have they done? What is the US and Canada and South Korea like? What have they done that make you think that they're a leader on this issue?
Dominique Waddoup 21:09
Canada, for example, they created a bird safe building design standard. This is what Dave then says Korea did. There's a lot of scientific studies, so they did a lot of monitoring studies with products, and I believe they're also now creating a law for federal federal buildings in the US. It's a lot which the American Bird Conservancy has done, so they evaluate products and they do a lot in the advocacy part, and for German-speaking areas, it's also a test setup, which was then used to, yeah, to create laws to make, to enact bird-safe building standards.
Paul Shapiro 21:57
Yeah, I believe, and I'll verify this, but I think that the federal government in the United States has some rules relating federal buildings on this particular issue. I'm not sure, but I'll check this out. But that leads me to wonder. I mean, bird window collisions are largely invisible because the victims disappear very quickly, right? I talked to one guy who was a janitor at a big building. He said every morning he goes out and he's got basically a broom and he just sweeps up all the dead birds who flew in overnight, but how do you make an invisible problem visible? Right, most people don't see these bird graveyards each morning because the birds are swept up, and almost everybody has the experience of having seen a bird who has flown into their home or a building laying on the ground. How do you make this problem visible for people? Most people don't even think about this ever. Why should they? What would you say?
Dominique Waddoup 22:48
especially monitoring studies show how big the problem is. So we're quite involved with universities who do active monitoring at the university campuses, so you get a feeling how many birds collide there with glass, and I know from the US, for example, there are many groups which actively monitor each morning, so they have actual numbers on the birds which collide there, and then they can confront the building owners.
Paul Shapiro 23:15
I feel like we need a story of one individual bird, like some bird who was banded and people were following her around the world as she migrated, and then unfortunately perished in a window, right? Because hearing numbers, like hearing that a billion birds fly into windows, is just a statistic. You could say it's 2 billion, 5,001,000,000 like it's all the same to people, right? No matter what, those are all emotionally the same amount of animals to them, but when you talk about one animal that actually seems to me, even if it's a fictional animal, like if you think about the horse in Black Beauty, the, you know, which is the most successful animal protection book of all time, and it's about a fictional horse, and yet it led to actual laws being enacted to protect horses in the 19th century, maybe we, that's what we need, is like some some story, like a black beauty for a bird who is migratory. I don't know, maybe there should be a bird shade story about a fictional bird who you know has a close encounter with a window, but maybe makes it because of birdshade. I don't know. What do you think?
Dominique Waddoup 24:16
It's a great idea to make it more, yeah, more relatable, instead of these huge numbers, which are still so, so distant.
Paul Shapiro 24:23
Yeah, yeah. I don't think that the human brain is designed to think about those type of astronomical numbers. So, Dominique, let's talk about the business that you are now scaling. So, you started it several years ago, I think in 2019 is that right?
Dominique Waddoup 24:36
Exactly. Yeah.
Paul Shapiro 24:37
Okay. So, how far have you come? Use that you have installations now in several countries. You are actually on the market. What will it take to get you to the place where you want to be, where you can be a profitable company, not reliant on venture capital, and you're making a dent in the problem that you founded the company to solve.
Dominique Waddoup 24:59
We didn't quite go. The speed we wanted to, but we've managed to take the path from a mere idea to a product which is on the market, and we slowly getting to profitability, and we're now in the next steps with our business model. So we've showed with our product now that it works, and it was validated several times in scientific studies, and now we're looking for the next step to look for licensing models, so we really want to make a dent with that to just make it more accessible.
Paul Shapiro 25:30
You have a patent on this technology, so that's what you mean by licensing model. You don't envision yourself, you don't envision yourself selling bird shades the way you are, you envision selling a license so somebody else could make it, that's what you're saying.
Dominique Waddoup 25:42
Yes, this is one of the ideas we have, and where we see a strong market pull already now. When we work with different distribution companies, it's great to work with them and collaborate with them, and they have a huge knowledge on architectural window films, and this is where we could team up instead of creating the whole thing new again,
Paul Shapiro 26:02
and so if you fast forward, let's say a few years, and you have been successful in that, what type of revenue do you think the company is doing?
Dominique Waddoup 26:10
That's a tricky question. I don't really have numbers to that. It's that's probably more mythology heart, which really wants to see a dent in the bird collisions. I don't have a number for that,
Paul Shapiro 26:21
so then think about it like this. What does success look like for birdshades? What would you declare? I presume you would say so far you've had some encouraging signs, but not yet a successful company. What does success look like if you let's say go forward five or 10 years from now, and the company is more mature, you're in lots of windows. What would it take for you to think that Bird Shades has been successful?
Dominique Waddoup 26:44
Well, that would definitely be if Bird Shades, for one, is still available as the Bird Protection window film, which we have now, but then it's also an add-on for different other products. That would be a huge success, because it would overcome the mandatory part, which is important, but it would just make to save birds something you can do easily, and that would be a huge success to us.
Paul Shapiro 27:08
Do you try to keep tabs on how many birds you think you save so far, like on average, if you think about the buildings, like approximately how many birds would have flown into them if they weren't for your bird shades?
Dominique Waddoup 27:18
We try to, but it's, it's difficult because not every building is the same. We do know a lot from the scientific studies we do, so from the monitoring studies, where we've had buildings monitored before and then after Burchades was installed, so we know the before and after there.
Paul Shapiro 27:34
So you're now eight years in to, or seven years in, excuse me, to the company. You have learned a lot. You said your pitch decks really sucked at the beginning of the company. I presume you think that they're better now, but is there something else that you would recommend if you were going back to the Dominique of 2019 and telling her, "Hey, watch out, here's something that you should be aware of, or that you should think about doing differently than you might be inclined to do? Is there anything over that seven year journey that was instructive to you as a more mature CEO and entrepreneur, now that you would think about.
Dominique Waddoup 28:07
would be quite a lot of things, but it was more the bureaucratic work, which was hard, and to find the right people to work with. So, once you've got your right network, things are much easier, and this just took some time to get and find the people where you just, yeah, have the right understanding. So, it starts with the patent attorney, and these, when you have the right people, it's much easier to work together.
Paul Shapiro 28:32
What were the resources for you, Dominique? So, you talk about getting a patent attorney. I'd imagine a lot of animal behaviorists have no clue as to what it takes to get a patent. What were the resources that were useful for you in your own effort to learn how to actually run a company?
Dominique Waddoup 28:48
It was certainly the support by SSV with Rebel Bio. So, this just shifted our mindset and gave us a lot of support there. We've also went into other incubation programs, and this paved path to just, yeah, to get an understanding for the beginning. For example, how to file a patent and what you have to look for, because, yeah, you're right, the biologist me would have done it totally different.
Paul Shapiro 29:16
Yeah, and so were any of your early employees or your co-founder, like, were any of them knowledgeable on this, or was it entirely green information for you?
Dominique Waddoup 29:24
It actually, at the beginning, was entirely green information for us.
Paul Shapiro 29:28
And were there any books, or this all came from Rebel Bio?
Dominique Waddoup 29:31
There were books as well, but honestly, the most information we got, and to me it's the hands-on information which helps the most, and that was from Rebel Bio, but also by talking to other founders, because you get so much ideas, and although their companies are totally different, they sometimes have similar challenges or struggles, and it's good to at least avoid the common pitfalls and make new mistakes, so as other people can learn. From these, but not repeat the same mistakes all over again.
Paul Shapiro 30:03
I found something very similar, which, when I started my own company, which was in 2018 and I had very little knowledge on what to do, and I did read some books, but it became very clear to me that, actually, you know, if I wanted to become a great soccer player, let's say, we know we're in the World Cup right now, I wouldn't read books about how to play soccer. Right, I would get out on the field and actually start playing and talk to people who have played and learn from them, and that was far more useful for me than anything else. There were some books that I read that I, that I liked and found useful, but actually playing and talking to other players was more useful for me than just reading about it, and I just thought there is no substitute for talking to people who have already walked this path and getting their advice, for sure. So, I am grateful to those who took the time to chat with me, and I always try to pay that forward anytime somebody else is thinking about starting a company. And not that I perceive myself as some fount of knowledge and wisdom about this, but as somebody who's done it for some years now, I might have something to offer them that could be beneficial for them. So, speaking of people who might want to start other companies, Dominique, you've now been at Bird Shades for seven years. I presume you think you're going to be there for many more years since you have a lot more birds left to save, but a lot of the times people who start their own companies have lots of ideas for companies. Is there anything else that you hope that somebody else might start? If somebody's listening, thinking, 'Wow, I'm so impressed that she went from being a biologist to an entrepreneur. What is it that I could do that maybe is outside of my own educational or even my own comfort zone? What do you think? What do you hope somebody else might start?
Dominique Waddoup 31:37
I really hope somebody starts with monitoring, so to find some to work on a device to help with bird window collision monitoring, because right now it's still done by people walking and monitoring the places, and we've tried some ourselves, and I'm sure there is a good way to use, yeah, to use cameras and not to use AI to detect how the birds interact with glass facades, there, and it would also hugely help with mandatory legislation. And another thing, where I think there would be a huge opportunity, is to look into the wild roaming cats. This is a huge problem, cats killing birds, and it also has this customer acceptance problem, and I'm sure there are ways to find which make it more acceptable to the cat owners. I think there is some way, and I have actually a third idea as well, is to protect corps. So, this is a huge issue with using bird netting, and it creates, I think, quite a significant amount of damage as well to bird populations, and I'm sure there would be some smart ways there as well.
Paul Shapiro 32:49
Okay, well, those are all good and interesting ideas. I have my own views on this cat issue, which are not that popular with a lot of my friends, because I seem to be friends with more people who like cats than like birds, I guess. I don't know, but I have wondered, right? So, you know, you have huge amounts of predation upon birds by cats who are an invasive species in North America, at least, and you're talking like literally over a billion birds who are killed by these cats every single year, and you know a lot of it is just people who get their cats outdoors, not. They're not all feral cats. There's a lot of people who just love their cats outdoors. And my question is, like, would it be effective to put bells on cats' collars to make them less effective at predation? I don't know the answer to this, but is there some way, even if you can't compel or convince the cat owner to keep their cats indoors, is there something you can do to make the cat a less effective predator. Do you know?
Dominique Waddoup 33:43
Came across a company which had a kind of cat color, and they.. I loved the way they approached it, because they had a very scientific approach, as we did. So they have several scientific studies, which proved successfully that it works. But unfortunately, I forgot the name of the product.
Paul Shapiro 33:59
And what is it? What I can look this up and include this at the show notes, Business for Good podcast.com But is it a color that emits a noise that birds hear? Like, what is the color actually doing that reduces their effectiveness?
Dominique Waddoup 34:12
If I remember correct, it's.. it's just it makes the cat very visible, visible to the bird, because it more or less looks a bit like a clown, and I believe they were also quite clever, because I know many cat owners are concerned when they put a bell or something on the cat that it might get hurt when it climbs, and I think this one breaks when it's in case the cat gets stuck on a tree or something.
Paul Shapiro 34:39
Yeah, I see this. I see this one of them is called Rainbow Billy, which is like a reflective bird saver collar for cats, and it definitely - I can imagine many cat owners not wanting their cats to wear these, since it definitely does look like a clown's outfit. But I'm going to look into this more. I think that there must be some collar that emits poise, like a bell that rings or something. That maybe would be effective at alerting birds that there is a cat butt nearby.
Dominique Waddoup 35:05
I will look the company up and send it to you, and I think there are other ways as well, because I know of companies which then, with these cat door traps, where the cat can't come back in when it's called something, so maybe there is some better connection to stop before the cat.
Paul Shapiro 35:22
interesting. Okay, finally, Dominique, you are somebody who is obviously far more of a missionary than a mercenary, right? You are on a mission to save birds, you don't know how much revenue you might be making in the future. What do you hope for when you look at the world and the human animal conflicts that you're trying to prevent, if you were to think about what you perceive as an ideal or even just an improved future, let's say by 2036 so 10 years from now, what do you think that world looks like? And then we'll talk about how we're going to get there.
Dominique Waddoup 36:00
I hope the bird window collisions will be a thing of the past, and really old-fashioned, because there are products out there working now, so from visible products to invisible products, and it's a quite easy topic to solve in comparison to other far more complex issues. I mean, bird window collisions can be complex as well, but it's way easier than other challenges out there.
Paul Shapiro 36:27
Well, with that said, I will be rooting for birdshade success, and I hope that you have huge amounts of revenue coming in, because that will correlate with huge amounts of lives who you are saving. So, congratulations on the success that you've had so far, Dominique, and I will hope to see more of it in the future.
Dominique Waddoup 36:46
Thank you so much for having me.
Paul Shapiro 36:49
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