The Sounding Line
The Sounding Line
Startups in the 21st Century Blue Economy
Blaine Grimes (Host) is the Chief Ventures Officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and supports the development of innovative mission-driven businesses within the blue economy. Blaine is a business advisor, confidant, coach, strategist and executive board member for Jen Levin, President and CEO of True Fin and also served in the same capacity for Mark Hager, CEO of New England Marine Monitoring, until the sale of his company earlier in 2021. Since 2019 Blaine has spoken with both Jen and Mark weekly, and sometimes daily, as they've led their startups through the many trials and tribulations of early-stage growth alongside the additional challenges spurred on by the global pandemic. In this conversation, we're going to hear Mark and Jen reflect on the process of starting a company.
Host:
Blaine Grimes, Chief Ventures Officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute
Guests:
Jen Levin, President and CEO of True Fin
Mark Hager, CEO of New England Marine Monitoring
You're listening to the sounding line from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
Blaine Grimes:Hi, I'm Blaine Grimes. I'm the chief ventures officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Thanks for joining us. In my work at GMRI. I support the development of innovative mission driven businesses within the blue economy. I'm currently a business advisor, confidant, coach, strategist and executive board member for Jen Levin, President and CEO of TrueFin. And I serve in the same capacity for Mark Hager, CEO of New England Marine Monitoring until the sale of his company earlier this year. For the past two years, I've spoken with both Jen and Mark weekly and sometimes daily, as they've led their startups through the many trials and tribulations of early stage growth and the additional challenges of a global pandemic. In today's conversation, we're going to hear Mark and Jen reflect on the process of starting a company.
Mark Hager:Yeah, so no memory monitoring, most simply put, is a business where we put cameras and technology on fishing boats to collect data, as opposed to the historical way of collecting that data, which is putting human scientists on the boat to spend time at sea and collect that data. And we have a pretty high focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, in an attempt to make it much more efficient to watch through hours hours of video back at the dock.
Jen Levin:Well, at TrueFin, we buy fish directly from commercial harvesters out of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, who use specialized handling practices aboard their boats to accomplish really high quality seafood. And in exchange for the special handling, we pay them a premium price. And our whole mission with our business is to build more value for our region's seafood industry, and help fishermen make a living on the water. So they can harvest more of our sustainable fish stocks. And we can have fresh, local seafood available long into the future.
Unknown:That's awesome. Alright, so I just want to get us going on a fun conversation because I think what's unique about this little group is that we all started together two years ago, each of you all had an idea. And you started within the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and then each of you has become CEO of your own company. So I'd love to just kind of get the conversation kicked off with some reflections about where were you two years ago? And then how, how did this come about? So maybe I'll let you guys just get going and talk a little about whoever feels like jumping in first. I had the entrepreneurial itch. And I certainly wanted to start a company. But not just any company was really starting electronic bonding company, because that's what I had been doing pretty much as a career. And I saw a really strong opportunity for a successful business. But also, I felt we'd been working in electronic monitoring of the Gulf main research for quite some time and the program was growing. And to properly back it and have resources to develop technologies, such as artificial intelligence takes a lot of resources and money. And so bringing into the private sector where we could get that kind of support felt really like the right move. And it was kind of a hard, it was a really hard road. Actually, there's a whole bunch of stuff that you don't think about when you're trying to start a business, you have a good idea. And maybe you're driven but there's all sorts of stuff in the back end that is really challenging. And if you're not from a business background, it can be, you know, extremely challenging. And one of the cool things about what, what the experience Jen and I have had is that we kind of did this together. And I actually benefited from Jen always being about six months ahead. So a lot of lessons learned trickle down, which was really beneficial. So sorry, Jen. Yeah, I mean, I think I've been really motivated and inspired by the fishermen I've worked with along the Gulf of Maine coast for the past 17 years. And I've seen over that time, so many, so many fishermen leave the industry and so many fewer boats catching fish, and while we import the vast majority of the seafood we consume in the United States, and so I was really motivated by finding a solution to this problem of a lack of market access for local fish. Depressed prices, like fishermen literally saying that they could not afford to go fishing With the prices that they were getting for their catch, and which seems silly, I mean, it's food, you know, they're producing food, and we all need to eat. And there, there are markets for it. And so I was really driven by figuring out how we can, how we can get more fish out of the Gulf of Maine and build more value for these fishermen and have a fishing fleet because the writing is on the wall like that, if we keep going down this path, we're literally not going to have people who can harvest this wonderfully managed resource right off of our own coast. So yeah, like I said, I tried to convince other companies to work with local fishermen on, on providing a higher quality product and getting more for the catch and getting it to high end buyers across the country. And everybody turned me down. And I guess we all looked at each other at GMRI. And Blaine, you know, you and others at GMRI, we thought, well, either we walk away from this idea, because you have to have somebody creating that connection between fishermen in the marketplace, or we do it ourselves. And I think it's really great, because GMRI, the leadership at GMRI basically said, we care about the fishing industry. And we don't want to walk away from this idea. So let's do it ourselves. And here we are.
Blaine Grimes:Yeah, so So that sort of makes me think a little bit about where the industry overall is headed. I mean, you guys are both centered in the middle of the wild fishery and the huge struggles that the commercial fishermen are having. At the same time, we have this emerging term called the Blue economy, which is happening around this. So I'm curious how you all see yourself fitting into this emerging new blue economy and what opportunities or challenges you see as a result of that.
Unknown:I think, for NEMM, for New England Marine Monitoring, we kind of are focused on the what we think is like the basis or maybe the most traditional part of the blue economy, which is fishermen going out and catching fish and making a living living off that. That's where we're focused and trying to provide a solution to make monitoring affordable to make it safe. And to make it something that we can continue to do for fishermen without putting them out of business. So that's like where we're hitting the base of the blue economy, which I think is the most traditional part. But on another level, we're really participating in the blue economy, because we're collecting data in new ways where we're actually collecting data in ways that either hadn't been done before, or collecting data that has been collected for using technology. And we're really trying to weigh the change the way that we make decisions on the ocean. And if we can extract value from that data that we're harnessing, then I think we'll be able to participate very broadly in the blue economy across all sectors,
Jen Levin:everybody has to eat. And that is just a fundamental need of the human race. And I think when you look at resource extraction required to feed people, what we're doing with seafood is by far, one of the one of the most environmentally friendly ways you can feed a growing planet, it's a really healthy protein. It has very low greenhouse gas emissions, compared to other as particularly land based protein production systems. And so I think it's a really important part of a sustainable future. And people talk about, about environmental sustainability, but I really think about the environment that sustains us. And so it's a critical aspect of the blue economy. Right now, what we're what we're dealing with is a wild capture resource, and which actually is pretty great, because it does require so few inputs, it's it's a naturally renewable resource, and so long as we're managing it appropriately, it can really provide us with an important important protein source in perpetuity. And so I think, you know, it's just but having said that, even though it's a wild capture resource that we're dealing with today, I would add that I think aquaculture is a really critical part of the blue economy and seafood production and certainly even with our business, that's certainly something that that we'd have dealt with and that we would deal with in the future.
Unknown:Cast me forward, let's say five years from now, where are you going to be what's gonna what's you know, Paint me a Picture five years and where you hope to be.
Mark Hager:That's impossible. Given what I've learned in the last two years, I think that's an uncomfortable thing. But what I hope to be doing is working with a lot of fishermen we're working with today, working with a lot of their, their dock mates and other members from the fleet. And providing them a service date keeps them on the water, there's probably going to be a whole bunch of new flavors and offerings that we provide. We do have some some really grandiose plans about data and business analytics that we are really passionate about. But really deep down, what we enjoy is working with fishermen and I really opened five years, it's still at the forefront of the business.
Jen Levin:And five years, I anticipate we're going to be moving a lot more, a lot more volume of fish, of course. And I think what's interesting is that we find that the more volume we move, the easier it gets, the more efficient it can be. Mark always said that his goal was to like get, get off the water, right Mark, like more in an office and, and my goal and starting this was to, like be more in boots, blue jeans and ball caps and kind of get out of the office. I think in five years, it's going to be I'll be back at the well oiled machine moving all of this fish around. And my hope is that what we're doing has a bigger impact, even outside of true fan, which is we're talking about a cultural shift, and how we look at our seafood resources and how fishermen handle their catch aboard their boats and how we the reputation that we have as a region, across the country and beyond for exceptional quality fish. So my hope is that in five years, we see other people copying us and that we're not the only ones at this game, which means that we're really going to have to step it up and do it even better and better all the time in order to remain competitive. And that's my hope.
Unknown:That was Jen Levin, who's the president and CEO of true fin and Mark Hager, CEO of New England Maine Monitoring. I'm Blaine Grimes, Chief Ventures Officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
Narrator:Sounding line is a production of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. And you can find more episodes and read more about our work at gmri.org. Thanks for listening