Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Laurence, welcome to the business for good podcast.

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Great. Thanks so much. Delighted to be here.

Paul Shapiro: All right. So I had to look up how to pronounce piezoelectric energy, but I also had to look up what it is. So first for those people who have never heard piezoelectric energy, what is it? And am I pronouncing it correctly?

Or is there a difference between UK and American pronunciations?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Really good question. we call it piezoelectric. Ah, okay. I think in America, you're probably right, on that. It's kind of an academic word, so it's used in different ways.

Paul Shapiro: This is like aluminum and aluminum. So, I, yeah, I think in America it's piezoelectric.

But okay, we're going to include a link to it. But just so people know, this is P I E Z O, electric energy. So what is piezo or piezoelectric energy, Lawrence?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: So piezoelectric energy is when you depress a crystal and the crystal produces power. So if you imagine an electric cigarette lighter or your cooker at [00:01:00] home, when you push the button to ignite the gas, it makes a little clicking sound, click, click, click.

And that is a piezoelectric crystal, deflecting producing power. however, I must say paved in technology doesn't use piezoelectric. we use I've built many piezoelectric floors before, and people have tried it, and we actually use an electromechanical system that is around a thousand times more powerful than piezoelectric, and I've got many a story to tell about the differences between piezoelectric and electromechanical power.

it's up to you. If you,

Paul Shapiro: well, what's it? So, I mean, to me, it sounded kind of like electromechanical, right? Like I, to a lay person like myself, who is not an engineer or doesn't really know much about electricity in general, actually, like it sounds to me like you're applying a mechanical force and you're creating energy, which sounds like electric, you know, so tell me, like, what is it?

What is, how is what you're doing different? Why is it a thousand times more powerful? [00:02:00]

Laurence Kemball-Cook: So P electric works when you, you depress this crystal and you get really high voltage, but it's a millisecond. So we're talking, 1000th of a of a second if you're lucky. Like a, like a burst, like a click burst of power.

Now, if you try and store that energy and do something me meaningful with it, think of it just like filling up a bathtub. If I fill up a bathtub with a rush of water that lasts one millisecond. Imagine how long it would take to fill up a bath. Now, my normal bath takes, let's say, eight minutes to fill.

You're going to need, like, millions of me clicking my fingers of power to fill it. And so I've built these products with Piers Electricity and I've realized that it just doesn't work besides trying to send the energy as, like, you can use the energy for something like a sensor. And what I realized is you need to, if you're going to fill up the bathtub, you need to have energy that lasts longer than one thousandth of a second.

So what we [00:03:00] did is we found a solution that would provide energy for four to five seconds, of a footstep. And how that works is it's a electromechanical flywheel. So when you stand on the product, they will downward force. is converted into a rotational force. Now we do that through this flywheel technology.

It's an incredibly efficient like machine and one step will spin the flywheel for five seconds and hopefully the next person will step on it after four seconds and you can continuously rotate this flywheel embedded in the floor and the flywheel has magnets and copper and as the magnets pass the copper generates power.

So. a common way of generating energy. But I basically realized that this is so much more powerful than Piazza electric. I blew up every Piazza electric circuit I had because they weren't designed to take so much energy. You know, I get four joules of power, which equates to four watt seconds of power and.

If you're talking in layman's terms, it's four watts of energy, which can charge a phone, something piece of electricity will never do. so [00:04:00] it's a very different, technology base. All right, that's

Paul Shapiro: very helpful. So I'm glad that you have corrected me on that because it's very, very useful, to comprehend that.

So you're using electromechanical flywheels, and this is something where you've had literally hundreds. Of iterations to try to get to your current prototypes. And so, you know, a lot of people who listen to the show, they're interested in innovation and invention, and obviously we know like very rarely are things that are successful, successful overnight, but you spent years.

Trying to invent something, tell me that story, like what happened back in 2009 when you were thinking, are you thinking I'm going to start a company? Do you just want to create an invention that you might license to somebody else? Like, what were you thinking back 14 years ago when you were thinking about trying to harness the power of footsteps to create energy?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Yeah, I think when I first started, I was a designer. I was in school. I was chucked out of school, didn't get on it in academic scenarios, but I did [00:05:00] love design and I chose to study industrial design and technology at Loughborough University, which is the UK's version of MIT. I go there and I get more into sustainable design because I realize designers have so much power.

The decision a designer makes has so much impact on the world we live in today to the carbon footprint of an iPhone, through to the latest Tesla design. there's a huge impact. So when I was at Loughborough University, I got the chance to do an internship at Eon. Now Eon is one of the largest utility companies in Europe.

And they said to me, Lawrence, We like your work. Would you like to come and work for us and design us a new range of street lighting to be used in our cities? I was like, great, my first ever job. I'm 21. Let's go do this. So I spent a year engineering, designing, refining solar powered streetlights with integrated wind turbines.

Now the problem is... It failed. It [00:06:00] didn't work in. Solar works great in cities, only on rooftops. If you have lots of shade, you don't have really, really great solar. And similarly with, with wind, wind works fantastically well, in in the sea. In Britain, we have lots of ocean around us, or up in the mountains or on field.

So wind doesn't work at sea. So I basically failed. Elon fired me. I went back to uni depressed and sat in my bedroom. I was crying. My parents cried. We all cried a bit because it was a sad moment to be fired from your first ever job. And I just kept thinking about this problem of energy, specifically in cities.

And I kept thinking, like, what other power sources are there? So. My first idea was, hey, people have lots of energy in cities, especially young people. I grew up in a place called Brixton in South London, which is, commonly known for having young people with lots of energy. And I thought, look, can we harness the energy of them kicking a streetlight?

Let's allow young people to kick [00:07:00] it and generate energy from them playing on it. Then I thought, hold on, it's probably not a very good idea to let kids do ninja flying kicks in front of, like, buses and cars on the street. So I thought, okay, let's think about it. What about, instead of kicking the bus stop or the street light or whatever it was that needed power, why don't they just walk on it?

Why don't we let young people, old people, babies, everyone walk on a floor that can be connected to anything you want? And so I had this kind of eureka moment, and look, people have tried this idea before. This is not like the first time anyone's ever tried to harness the idea of a footstep. But I just went and started building prototype after prototype after prototype.

The one that kind of worked and gave me this light moment of this is possible. None of them were piezoelectric. Piezoelectric is like a dead technology when it comes to doing meaningful things. And I've seen every week someone sends me a design for a piezoelectric floor, and they're amazing, but they're really not going to do anything useful, I believe.[00:08:00]

And so... I built this kind of flywheel technology, and I came out, and one step on this prototype, and it was made out of wood, it was creaking, it was held together by duct tape, it wasn't great, but one step, powered a light, this little light, LED, for 20 seconds, and I looked and I was like, wow, and the academic staff at the uni were like, Lawrence, this is fake, there's no way you've made this work, like, this light is on for a long time, and if you jump up and down on it, the light was down for like a minute, it was, it was incredible.

And I realized that like there was something there. So I, I kind of left uni, got some interest with my idea and I started this long journey of, I didn't go on an MBA. I didn't, I didn't go to like the best business school in the world. I literally made every mistake possible. And I knew as a designer, I had to validate the idea.

So I went around London laying green floors on Oxford street because I wanted to know, I had this green rubber floor that was about an inch thick. If I [00:09:00] just lay on a floor. Do people want to walk on it? Yes or no. And I laid it down. Admittedly, I did trip a few people up, but I wasn't even a company. So no one could sue me, but I laid it down and basically people started like, Oh my God, it's a green floor.

I want to walk on this. People were jumping on it, even though it didn't do anything. So I knew that people like walking on it. Then I took it to some schools because that was the only place where I wouldn't get sued for testing and technology with no insurance, no compliance, no building standards, nothing.

And, students just. They loved it. Like, students went crazy on it. The teachers were like, Run! Don't walk down this corridor. Because the faster you run, the more energy we produce. So I'm like, three or four years in, I've been living off winning design awards. I had like, some schools interested. It was me in my bedroom.

Like, just kind of, everyone else had a job who I graduated with. And it was literally me, four years in, still a bit of a hobo in my apartment in London. And, I'd slowly been refining the products, like every time I won some prize money, I would then go and [00:10:00] like, get a new metal drive shaft for my product or whatever I could afford at the time.

And after four years, I was like, look, I've got to give up. I need to get a job. Like, come on, what I'm all, this has got to be successful. And I'd had loads of interest, but no, no serious interest in like giving me a million pounds to, to, you know, buy lots of products because the product didn't exist. And also no one would invest because I had no revenue.

So after four years I was like, okay, I know I'm going to install my prototype in central London illegally and I'm going to prove everyone this, this works. So I broke into a place called London South Bank. It's very near Big Ben. It's near the river Thames, right in the center of town. And I dug a hole with my friend two in the morning.

We got pickaxes out. We submerged our tile, and the tile was about three or four inches thick. We submerged it in the, in the paving slabs, the sidewalk. we were mixing concrete at four in the morning, looking around, making sure there's no security. We troweled in the concrete to [00:11:00] fix it, and we ran cables.

Into lights. So when you walked on the floor, hundreds of these little lights would come on and the whole area would light up. And it was amazing and rather weirdly eyed. At 6:00 AM we creeped away with a couple of photographs. And on my website I posted The Future of Energy is here Rather Bold and a photo.

And I woke up a couple of hours later and Westfield Shopping Mall was on the line, you know, the, the equivalent of like a Nordstrom in the US and they were like. Do you do an installation last night? And I said, well, yes, I did. I said, did it work? And I said, well, yeah, it did actually. And I said, we'd like to buy one.

I'm like, oh my God, you want to buy one? Okay. And they're like, how much? And I'm like, I looked to my friends who was like, help me. I was like, how much is it? I just guessed it was like half a million dollars. And they paid me half a million dollars the next day. So the idea, the idea went from weird guy in his, in his bedroom, four years playing with bits of technology to like, [00:12:00] I suddenly started to like get a small design office.

We started to really focus on the electric, the electrical aspects of like storage and how to, store that energy in an efficient way. And it was so hard to do because you're, you're generating energy, as AC. Alternating current, you got to convert it to DC without losing half the power, which is a really big challenge.

So nothing worked off the shelf and we had to start working hard on that. And then I, So let me ask you, so

Paul Shapiro: is the prototype that you made and that you installed in London, what you sold to Westfield or did you have to invent something else first?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Oh, I had to invent something else. Yeah, I'm laughing is look, this was an extremely basic product.

And when you work with a company like Westfield, they have. Very very stringent building codes. you've got to be compliant with the american disabilities act 2012 There's so much compliance that goes into it. We have to have Minimum of 10 million dollars liability insurance to install there. So the company was like a baby, like a one year [00:13:00] old, and we had to become a teenager very quickly to deliver to Westfield.

So there was a huge change. And so around that time, I got the chance to go to favela in Brazil. And I got a one entrepreneur of the year with shell, and they funded me to go and dig up a favela soccer pitch and replace the soccer pitch with my kinetic energy tiles. And the idea is, is that your step would store the energy in the battery and then use be used to power the fog lights.

And I don't know if any of your listeners have spent much time in Brazil, but these favelas are an amazing community of, really rich culture, amazing people. But it's obviously it's really, it's really tough. Like economically, it's incredibly tough environment, but it was like the warmest, most beautiful environment I've ever spent time in.

And we put this floor in the community, started to understand what was going on, really get behind us. And so I would be there with shell with all their security and they'd all go. And I just stay and spend time with the [00:14:00] children, the adults, because they just really saw the power of. How a sustainable technology can inspire them to look differently at engineering and science.

And then, lo and behold, we launch it a month later. And I'm sitting next door to none other than Pele, the most famous footballer in the world, who's launching it with me. So we're doing this press conference. It's me and Pele. I'm like, I'm just a guy who's been digging out floors around the world. I've suddenly got Pele there.

Pele starts crying halfway through it because he realizes the importance of energy in a favela community. And then it's like our journey really started, you know, we, we started to work across Africa, taking it to other communities there and start to really work on the engineering behind the product.

And it's a really difficult product to build because ultimately it's one of the harshest environments known to man. You've got the rain, you've got incredible point loading forces, you've got. Differential expansion rates between different materials getting hot and cold at different times. you've got like probably a soccer team or American football team jumping [00:15:00] up and down on it.

You've got to be able to deal with not only the force of the American football team jumping on it, but the huge amount of energy they could possibly produce one moment in a course of 10 years. And you've got to make sure it won't catch fire. So you have to build like over engineered heat sinks. It was it was a wild challenge and I think we've kind of been on this journey now and we probably got properly like commercial about five years ago and we've been scaling up the business in around 37 different countries now from you know working with the federal U.

S. government to Yosemite National Park visitor centers to a whole array of really interesting locations for our product.

Paul Shapiro: That's really incredible, Lauren. So let me ask you, how many years and how much money did it take before you started really commercializing this? So you talked about how you tried a lot of different, prototypes and how you had to really work out things that, for example, let's say aren't going to catch fire, which would be a pretty good thing to avoid, but also you're winning [00:16:00] awards.

So you're getting some grant money. You get some deal from Westfield, like how much money and how many years did it take? Thank you. Before you actually could start a commercial business here.

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Yeah, great question. So like the last five years has been good. So like 2017, 2018, we started really kind of having a real product that was stable, that could work in these environments before then it was around like testing technology.

I think a few elements here are one, like I did my R and D in real time. You know, I put it in the ground. I tested it. It broke. iterated. I didn't just sit in a lab for years on end. We were literally out there. I say, look, in England, we were pounding pavements, but I was going to dance festivals putting in the floor.

I was going to running tracks. I was going to, the busiest shopping malls in the world. I was finding like Whatever I could find a new test for it. I'd go and learn. I have a whole list of things that went wrong. Like you have no idea how much went wrong that a lot of it was out of our control, but you have to put it in the [00:17:00] ground to know if it's going to work or not.

So, I've raised my first round of funding was about. 50k dollars that was like friends and family investment. then we went and did a small business angel round of 350k And since then we've gone on to raise in another 10 million on on top of that from like the institutional investors, you know vcs and like family offices have invested in us since that journey.

So i've done a transition from like a A wacky inventor and I am in my heart like I am a wacky inventor. but to, to more of like a corporate CEO who's looking at like long term growth and a trade sale, you know, an exit one day for this kind of this technology.

Paul Shapiro: So really about eight years then, right?

So if 2017 is when you got commercialized, you started this thing in 2009. So it's really like eight years essentially of tinkering and of spending like hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to try to create something that could become a viable business. You said that you're in over 30 different countries.

[00:18:00] Today, you know, you've had billions of footsteps on these products. So, what is the headcount right now that you guys have and what is the, the, what is the revenue that you're able to bring in now?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Yeah. So the, the team in London, we have a headquarters in London and a tech facility in Cambridge, which we call Silicon Fen, our mini Silicon Valley, where we do a lot of our deep tech.

So yeah, team of 40. And we've, we've delivered, last year we grew revenue a hundred percent. so we delivered around 3 million and we've got really big plans for the next 24 months. We scale up. I think like one of the important things here is like, you see all these stories of like super fast growth companies and you know, they take venture capital money and they go fast, quick as they can.

Like we had offers. For like VC money and the way I looked at it is like, I don't necessarily want to give away a huge amount of my business and also a huge amount of control because I knew that this technology like we are on a crusade. This is a whole new product category. [00:19:00] We're not just selling another me to product and I knew that if you try and force this to sail like like many VCs would, I just felt like it would be sold early and it wouldn't allow us to achieve our goals and our goals are.

We, we want to empower communities all around the world from every city, every town, every village, but every community should have a chance to access our technology and access to energy is so important for everyone, but mainly people in these developing worlds. and we take it for granted a bit in the lives we live today when we can charge our phone and we can walk around at nighttime in cities and have light there.

So I think we've got this big, big mission and. And we've just done a kind of a final fundraise now that's live in the UK, like a crowdfunds to allow people to own part of the business. So it's a really interesting time as we scale up and look towards the future. Nice, nice. Well,

Paul Shapiro: that's great. So I do want to go back just to the technology a little bit here because you talked about how well, you know, you have to have the sun shining for solar panels to work.

You [00:20:00] have to have wind blowing in order to make wind work. But in your case, you just need. People to walk around, right? Or people to run around or people to dance around. And it doesn't really matter what the sun or wind is doing at that time. However, you know, solar panels and wind turbines are hooked up to the grid, right?

Like, I have solar panels on my roof. They, you know, that energy goes into the grid. And so people can utilize it. This is off grid, right? Like, you're not actually. Putting this into the energy system, so it can only be used either instantly or locally. Like, tell me, how does it work? Like, are you able to store it?

I know there's, you can have a battery associated with this, but what is the actual practical application here? So that people create this electromechanical energy when they step and

Laurence Kemball-Cook: then where does the energy go? Yeah, so when people walk on, on PaveGen, that energy can be used instantly, so it can light a light, you know, it can charge your phone, or we can store the energy in batteries.

So it's really important. So if you look [00:21:00] at, say, one of our, our largest installations, it's, DuPont Circle, very near the White House in Washington. And the energy of 10, 000 people a day is, is used. We store the energy in batteries and then at nighttime it powers all the lights in this little pocket park area and they're powered for around seven hours.

Now, look, it's just a dumb title. People make it smart. People give it energy. Like the product is nothing without people. So we're like, we're really aware of where that sits. And it's a small amount of energy that you can generate from a footstep. If you compare it to a huge solar panel and the, well, the problem we're addressing is that, look, we know that.

So the works and has been around since 1950 has had a trillion dollars invested in it, and it works. It's a really sound technology. Now, if you don't have a desert, if you don't, you know, in Arizona, it's brilliant. But if you're in a dense urban environment, you're really limited on using things like solar.

So we offer a way that [00:22:00] Say, especially in a subway where you can generate power where there's no chance you can use solar or a ground level where so is really limited. We offer that solution and I think that we're not trying to replace solar and it is a small amount of power. You'll never power New York City from people alone, but it can take a small amount of that city's demand.

Off grid and we see as part of this energy mix of the future. We need new technologies. You know, there's, there's that maybe nuclear fusion will be already one day and can feed in, you know, 60 percent of the grid's requirement, but you still have that application requirement for solar and wind and people power too.

Paul Shapiro: So how much can it actually generate, right? So you're using it essentially locally. Like you've put up these, these tiles where people step on them and it instantly generates light right there, which is pretty cool, right? Like you could see that working and like, let's say a music festival where you need to power the whites and you got a lot of people dancing and so they can use the energy that people are from people's dancing to power those lights.

But how much energy [00:23:00] can it create? You're talking about how many watts that is, but translate that into a person's terms for us. Lawrence, like, yeah. What is it that a bunch of people dancing can actually power? Could they power an entire concert's light system?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Yeah. So depending on the amount of people you can power, you probably could power a whole concert lighting system.

And now LEDs are really efficient. So those lights, they, they use a very, very small amount of power. So I think you need to be aware of the constraints. Now, if you're trying to earn dollars. From the energy. we call it a feed in tariff in the UK. If you want dollars and energy in your bank account using kinetic energy from people walking isn't the right way.

But what it is really good is generating energy for specific applications because one step can do amazing things based on how efficient things that led lighting is. And one of the key things that we really realized is we did one of our early installations at Heathrow Airport. Now Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest European airports.

Many of your listeners would have flown through it. [00:24:00] And what we realized there is, you know, I'd left this energy company. I'd been playing with prototypes in my bedroom for years. But then I realized I saw like old ladies playing on it with their husbands. I saw like small kids. See it from a distance, have no idea what it was, but run and start jumping on it and power lights on the wall.

And I, I looked at it and funny, you know, every time I flew from there, I would be sitting like a weirdo, just watching people on the floor. Because obviously it was paper as my baby. And, I realized, I said, look. I've made energy fun. I've actually made energy fun. And that's really, really important. And so one of the big areas we're addressing now is we realize that like, a huge part of the climate change battle is about education, like people need to be aware of what's going on and change their lifestyles and change their buying behavior.

And so we believe that like paving is a way now to bring people along on the journey. And although it produces like a small amount of dollars in form of energy, if you're, if you've spent millions of dollars on [00:25:00] solar in Arizona or any hot environment with lots of sunlight, Paging is the final part that brings it together.

It's a bit like hugging a solar panel. You can't do that, but you have a solution when you walk on paved and you are helping with a government, with the companies or with a public municipalities plan to transition for a greener future. And I think that's an element that really picked up more than we ever could imagine, and that it really is this.

People are desperate to make change, but I think as a consumer, you feel a bit limited of what you can do. Yes. You can recycle your plastics, but really, you know, it's, it's really hard for people to feel empowered and paved in is that solution that you take people on a journey with you. You are delighted by a footstep.

You can see the energy you produce, but it really does like help to change people's perception of what energy is and probably even realize how hard it is to generate power, you know, Cool.

Paul Shapiro: yeah, it's really interesting once you start learning about energy and how much it takes like looking at energy density of various types of energy sources.

And you realize like [00:26:00] why we use fossil fuels because they are so good at creating energy, even though they're also good at creating emissions that warm up the planet. Unfortunately, what about a treadmill Lawrence? Like I use a treadmill. Is it possible to have a treadmill that is self powered that just from your own steps this thing can run or is that too much energy for what a average.

Sure. You know, an average sized human is gonna create by running on it.

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Yeah. So I think when I go to the gym, I always go like, why, why are we like plugging our phones in and powering all these screens from means power when all we're doing is we're, we're wasting all this energy. Like you humans, when they metabolize food, they use their energy and it comes out in heat and they, you know it, and it's wasted like.

There must be a way to use that power. So I've been really intrigued. The idea of a treadmill on the kick play on the bottom, you could harness power. I'm not sure if you could like generate, I'm just trying to think about if you generate enough energy to power the motor, you'd have to have a battery with a, like a really good amount of stored in there, to do it.

[00:27:00] But I think you could like run all the lights for a gym and charge everyone's phones and power all the signage and screens and all the advertising is up there from people on the gym. We'd love to do it. It's been my passion. I found. And so I haven't found a gym who's like ready to commit that kind of budget because we don't have the product.

Yeah, but it'd be great. And I also thought like when you stand up at work and everyone has a standing desk now, why don't you just stand up and rock backwards and forwards and generate power to power your workstation? Why are you taking power from the grid when these people have treadmills? Why don't we actually like create a balance board that is an energy board that could actually like do something?

So I've got some big ideas for the future with with those kind of, application. So, yeah, you're right. If you, if you want me to build you a treadmill, like a generate energy, maybe we can just shout out and find a sponsor and we could, we can make something happen.

Paul Shapiro: Well, here you have it. If you own a gym, if you are listening and you own a gym and you wanna have a really major international news story about your gym, get some earned media here.

This is your way to have self-powered treadmill. So that would be [00:28:00] pretty awesome. I live in Sacramento, California, where sadly, energy blackouts are not that uncommon here in California, and I have often thought. You know, about why we don't have off grid energy sources, like in our homes that could at least power something, right?

So you could charge your phone or something in the event of a power outage. so that would be cool. Also, like, you could envision home, like new homes being built. I presume ripping up the floors of current homes is pretty uneconomical to do. But in new homes, if this type of technology were included, you could hopefully help people to generate their own energy during blackouts.

But that leads me to the question Lawrence about the cost, right? Like, Because the question, of course, for all of this is, is it economical, right? Is it? It's cool. No doubt. And it's fun. Assuredly. But how can you get to a place where it's actually economical to do this where, you know, somebody puts in an upfront cost to install this technology and then over a certain amount of time, they use enough less energy from the grid that this thing pays itself off.

[00:29:00] So what is the cost structure looking like for for this type of technology now?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Yeah, so really good question. So at the moment we're still in small production. We manufacture all our products in London. So, you know, London is not renowned as a high tech, high volume manufacturing hub. so the product is still expensive.

So we're not seeing like you wouldn't get a payback today from our, our projects. but I think the things that we're really interested about are we're interested in, we're building a new suite. of low energy screens that are self powered from PaveGen. So imagine every advertising sign, a thousand signs across the city like New York.

If you could take them all off grid and make them people power, there's a huge saving there. secondly, we're building green walls that You may see when you walk into nice office buildings of irrigation, and we can actually power the irrigation system. So you're greening the office in two ways through lighting up from your footsteps, but also through literally watering irrigation and making the green foliage grow.

[00:30:00] And we're also doing things like we're integrating. solar panels into the tiles. Now I said earlier that I don't like solar in cities, but there is a place, especially in really hot countries. So I'll give you an example. You know, we've, we've got really great deployment across the Middle East, but in summer, no one's outside.

People are not walking outside at all. And we're like, well, that's such a waste because paid in is a dumb tile and there's no energy if you don't walk on it. But if you can make it a hybrid solution, You're gonna get the sun energy when it's really, really hard. No one's on it. But when in colder times, you've got the people power.

So I think that's a really interesting use case. And then the final one is look, we've become world experts in kinetic energy. I can take this tiny bit of movement and generate power. And so we're looking at Making the most of our global pattern protection and building like the next phase, which will be using the energy of vehicles on roads.

So, you know, think about six axle trucks and generating energy of them. You know, compare the weight of a truck to the energy of a human being. So I think there's [00:31:00] like massive area that's untapped in that space. And, you know, today, you know, patient is like I guess uneconomical because I'm hand building them myself and I'm quite expensive compared to a robot.

we've got a small team of people. We are building, you know, batches of thousands, but we've got to get into the millions to allow us to really bring that price down. So we're raising them around. Now there's gonna allow us to really scale up our production, and then bring that price down to get the unit economics to a level that we see like it can just be everywhere.

You know, and allow us to get it close to our mission of like empowering communities all around the planet.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, that would be amazing to have highways where, for example, the whites on the highways are powered by trucks driving over them. And it would also be pretty amazing. I was thinking, like, you know, if really a small amount of movement can generate energy, like if your cell phone, just by moving it.

Was creating battery power. So for example, you know, like I have a hand crank radio, right? Like you crank this thing and you get enough energy to, you know, actually listen to something. and [00:32:00] that's old school technology obviously has been around for decades, but wouldn't it be awesome if Apple had an iPhone, like something where every time the phone moves, it offers a little bit of charge to your battery.

That would

Laurence Kemball-Cook: be amazing. Definitely. I mean, there have been various patents that I kind of have looked out along the years of people thinking about it. I think if we were still using blackberries. Like we probably would have it now because the problem is we don't have those. No one really has keyboards anymore.

It's all done on screen. but there are, there are some companies looking at it. I think the nearest we're getting to is, you know, this is a, I've got a sports watch on, I'm showing you over the camera. It's a, it's a Garmin, but you can get Garmin now with integrated solar. However. The solar does not power your watch forever in perpetuity, it will extend the life of your your watch, which is in a way a bit a bit of a shame because I'm thinking it's 2023.

Solar's been in development since 1950. It's a real shame that they can't even run a simple, you know, Garmin watch. so I [00:33:00] just released a new one, but when I last looked at it, it was only like extending lifetime rather than giving you power permanently.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, it is definitely sobering. And it reminds me of, a, thing that happened in my own workplace where we produce ingredients for the, animal free meat market, like the alternative meat market.

And we were looking at what it would cost to run our process on solar panels. And it's not that incredibly energy intensive, but it was still acres. It literally acres of solar panels that would be needed to do that. And it's just, you know, you look at that and you think we need some better solution. And, hopefully nuclear fusion is, is going to someday save us here because, it's really tough to, when you look at how, solar panels are great, but just not capable of satiating the energy demands that we have as a civilization

Laurence Kemball-Cook: today.

Yeah. I mean, there's so much to unpick in that. I think. Look in Europe with the energy crisis caused by Ukraine. that's meant that the LG host. [00:34:00]

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, cause by Russia. But yeah, I get what you're

Laurence Kemball-Cook: saying. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the, the, the battle in Ukraine, if you like, so, but that that's been that the wholesale energy prices have gone up a lot more for us in, in the UK.

but that's meant that. Solar has got a lot more viable here because we really felt the brunt of it in terms of cost rises. So that's, that's good because it drives more people to adopt solar because those grumpy people who didn't want to spend the money now it's financially viable. Obviously in America, energy is cheaper.

but you could argue that they're not really costing in the full environmental impact of that, of that energy. So there's a lot to unpick there, but I think we need to like, we massive government stimulus and support to make these renewables more widespread. And the great thing is that once you've got them, you're just not paying the energy company every single month.

Cause who wants to do that? If you, if you roll up 50 years of paying an energy company, that's a hell of a lot of money that you'll be, you'll be paying. So I think, you know, in the longterm, it does make sense. Yeah,

Paul Shapiro: and, you know, it's interesting in California where [00:35:00] a lot of people have, solar panels on our roofs, including my wife and me, because California under governor Schwarzenegger had this million solar roofs program to try to incentivize people to put a solar panel on the roofs.

You know, what ended up happening is so many people have solar on our roofs now that, you know, we're not. Paying energy into the, we're not paying right for energy, right? Cause we're tapped into the grid and we're providing our solar into the grid. Cause most of us are generating more energy than we use in our own homes.

And as a result, they've implemented basically a tax so that it's a grid use tax for people who don't purchase from the grid. So they just, I mean, the maintenance of the grid requires payments into it, even if you're not buying energy. And so that is, quite an interesting thing that happened because of.

Just how prolific solar roofs have become in the state of California. but hopefully we'll get, not just, solar roofs, but paved gen floors on our houses and other things, which would be really phenomenal. So let me ask you Lawrence, like, you know, you've had quite a journey here, like a [00:36:00] decade and a half of, well, I guess, as you would put it a lot of attempts and failures and then eventual success at creating something where you are generating millions of dollars of revenue.

You got hundreds of projects and deals around the world. And I'm sure are looking to. I'm going to be talking about how you can scale this, not just into a single digit millions, but hundreds of millions and eventually billions of dollars of revenue for pay of gen. So looking at this, have there been resources that were useful for you, like anything that you've read or seen or heard that might be useful for listeners of this show who are thinking, man, this Lawrence guy sounds pretty cool.

I would love to do something like him. What's been useful for him.

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Yeah, really? I mean, there's, there's a lot. So I guess like the first thing is like it's a bit contrived, but like the lean startup, everyone's familiar with the book by Eric rise. I think the interesting thing about that is it's by like quick wins and fast fails and like to get your product out there quickly.

Like, although it's taken me a long time, like I did get the product out there before it was ready. I just got it, got it out there, got it tested. Yes, it caught fire. Yes, it broke.[00:37:00] but that was really important to, to get it out there. yeah. One thing I've really enjoyed like in the last couple of years is the the story of Jamie Simeroff of how he did the ring doorbell and sold it for a billion dollars to Amazon.

and it was I think how I built this by Guy Raz, obviously not to promote another podcast because this is this is the best. But obviously Guy Raz is like a, you know, super well known guy. And I love the idea that like Jamie Simeroff just sat In his, in his shed, trying to build something that was going to have impact.

He tried five or six things, the six things failed, and then he thought, well, I'm not getting any deliveries because I haven't, I can't hear the doorbell. So I'm going to build something. And lo and behold, the thing he built just as a coincidence was the product that was sold for a billion. So it's amazing how you stumble across ideas.

And I think that really gives, gives me a bit of inspiration. Every time I think about. Things not working and, and getting up and go from there. So that's been a really good, yeah, driver for me. [00:38:00]

Paul Shapiro: Nice. Well, we'll definitely link both to the lean startup, which of course is very popular and also to how I built this, which is justifiably very popular since it's a great podcast.

So I will, I'll, I'll link to both of those in the show notes for this episode at business for good podcast. com and Lawrence finally. there's a lot of people who want to do something good in the world. They're not really sure what to do, what's needed, what should they be in their shed, tinkering around, trying to invent.

So if you had one company that could exist solving some problem that doesn't yet exist, what would you hope that somebody listening to the show is going to do, what should

Laurence Kemball-Cook: they start? Well, look, I could give you a million answers, and I've got to make sure I don't give you anything that I actually want to do, but there is one thing, and you might have to correct the English translation, because it might sound strange, but like, if you look at a toilet, okay, a toilet, It's based on like a design from over a hundred years ago.

It uses like huge amounts of water for its normal operation. it needs to be cleaned regularly and it just seems so archaic. I [00:39:00] keep thinking like, why do we still use, do you still, what do you call those porcelain? Are they still called toilets in America? The porcelain white things. They are called toilets, yes.

In the restroom. Because we have a toilet in a toilet in England.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. And you have a loo also, but you know, for us, it's just toilet in a restroom, but all right. So what do you want? What, what does somebody, how's somebody going to reinvent the toilet to have a, a water free toilet?

Laurence Kemball-Cook: I mean, you could start with that, at least start with that.

Like, why are we using? Cause like water is a precious resource. Like why are we using six liters of water per flush on a product that is like a fundamentally, I believe like designed wrong. The Japanese tried something. It's cool. If you've been to Japan and you want one that plays water and heats your toilet seat, but actually.

I think that someone can build a toilet that uses no water at all. That is hygienic. It doesn't need, regular cleaning. And imagine if, imagine how many toilets there are across America. I just think there's a huge opportunity. And like people just, I think it's not sexy. So no one's thought about it enough.

And I just think if you could find a way, you know, maybe you [00:40:00] could use the energy from the waste product that goes down it somehow. I just think that's a huge area that is just. Because it's not sexy. No one wants to talk about it, but I think there's a massive opportunity there from a hundred year archaic old technology.

Paul Shapiro: All right. Well, you know, Bill Gates has been working on this, so it's, I'll link to that because I remember Netflix did a docuseries, like a three part docuseries on. On Bill Gates, and part of it was on these water free toilets. So they were trying to develop how successful they've been. I don't know.

They're primarily, it seemed like they were going to be used in places where there wasn't a strong water infrastructure, like in rural Africa. but we'll link to that and hopefully it'll inspire somebody who wants to try to do something to actually not just provide toilets to the developing world, but reduce water use in the developed world as well, like you're prescribing here, Lawrence.

So that's a cool one. I really appreciate that. And we'll include. Some, more info on that in the links in this, episode at business for good podcast. com. Thanks so much. Really [00:41:00] glad for everything that you were doing at pay of Jen. Very glad that you did not give up after all these years of, of trying and struggling to make this work.

And we'll certainly be rooting for your success. And I hope I get to take a step on a page and tile sometime soon.

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Awesome. Thanks so much, Paul. Well, if you go to Yosemite national park and a visitor center, you can have a jump on one. So, yeah, thanks so much for your time. I'll, I'll send a video to you.

Great stuff. Thank you.

Paul Shapiro: I actually live not that far from there, so hopefully I'll get to do it.

Laurence Kemball-Cook: Awesome.