SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
First thing, when you've got this big idea like ours that turning waste into something useful with all the waste compression devices and IoT system, you quickly learn that getting money for it isn't straightforward.
Nobody is lining up to throw the cash at the startup that is basically trying to be three startups as one.
So what we did, we broke down into smaller manageable chunks.
Our first step was to prove we could do just one part of it well.
For us, this meant building a prototype that wasn't fancy, but it was a noisy tube spitting out glass covet.
And it worked because our first product was a glass crusher.
After that, we did the reverse vending machine because the glass crusher is for the pubs, restaurants, and hotels.
Because we are, thanks to the crushing the glass, they are paying five times less for the collection of them.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Welcome back to the CleanTechies Podcast, where we interview the top climatech founders and investors to share their stories, advice, and lessons when it comes to building and investing in climate.
Today we are joined by Paweł Ciesielski, the co-founder and CEO of MaasLoop, a Poland-based company building reverse vending machines to help collect various recyclables.
He has a background in marketing, branding, trend projection, and specifically had a focus on demonstrating where the world could be or what it could look like in 10 or 20 years, especially from a climate perspective.
And one night, while catching up with his longtime friends at a pub, they decided they wanted to build their own business together to leave their mark on the climate fight.
They ended up settling on a grand vision for helping companies set up their own recycling plants by offering them blueprints and support to achieve that outcome, which would reduce the amount of products ending up in landfills.
The first step was helping solve an emerging problem for small businesses across Europe.
Given the deposit return schemes the EU has in place, each bottle sold has a deposit fee against it when you purchase, and when you return it in the right place, you get your deposit back, or apply it to your next purchase.
Many small stores are lacking large amounts of space and sufficient capital to invest in these large collection bins, so they are losing customers to the larger chains where they can get their deposit back.
MaasLoop is solving this with a smaller-footprint product that also can be obtained with a hardware as a service model.
Paweł Ciesielski MaasLoop
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Boom.
Welcome to the show.
How's it going Paweł?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Very well.
Thank you for the invitation.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Yeah, absolutely.
Super.
I'm actually pretty excited to have you on about this.
I really like your technology.
I think it's pretty fascinating.
It's not something that is super common for us to kind of think about in the US.
So really, really interested to get into it.
So I guess with that, you know, give us just a quick background on who you are and what you're doing.
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
I'm leading MaasLoop and we are turning waste to globally needed products.
Back 15 years ago, I was a guy behind a branding agency shaping how products look and feel all around the world.
And a big part of my job was predicting the future trends for my clients, showing them what the world could look like in the next 20 years, especially focusing on climate change, just giving advice.
And I wanted to roll up my sleeves and actually do something about it.
So three years back, I decided it was time to step up and make my own mark on sustainability, not just talk about it.
So this is my background for what I'm doing here in MaasLoop.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Yeah.
So when you say you're taking waste products, can you talk to us more about that specifically?
What exactly are you doing?
Where in the value chain are you taking the waste?
What are you doing with it?
And maybe some of the context around why you chose that?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Yeah.
So, well, we're basically giving waste management companies the tech and tools that they need to make more money from waste.
Think of things like glass crushers, reverse vending machines.
The idea is to help them to make more cash from the waste they collect.
and what's our trick?
We squash down waste by 80% slashing their operation cost by five times and here's the kicker in the next two years we are not just stopping and helping them crash and collect waste but also we are going to hand them the blueprints to set up their own recycling plants and the whole range of products that can make from the recycling materials like we're talking about stuff like modular formwork, rainwater absorbing pavement tiles
Paweł Ciesielski
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
This is something until I obviously I've heard you say the term before when we had a prep call, but Reverse vending machines.
I've never you know, I don't think that's really talked about in the US unless I'm missing something So could you explain to to people what exactly that is?
I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but we just like to get you to clarify that
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Yeah, this is like the regular vending machines, but we are not giving the products to the clients, but we are taking the empty packaging and giving the deposit back.
In the European Union, we've got something like a deposit return scheme.
So when you are bringing the empty packaging to the retailers, to the stores, like plastic bottles or aluminium cans or glass bottles,
Okay, got it.
So basically it's something that's partially because of the culture, but also because of the regulations are requiring a kind of return of these.
I've heard.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Paweł Ciesielski MaasLoop
Hey there, thanks for listening to this episode.
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Links can be found in the description.
Thanks for your help in growing the reach of this show.
I guess, backing up a little bit, what made you decide to actually go and become an entrepreneur?
You mentioned a little bit about making the jump, but what really kicked you into gear to say, you know what, I'm willing to go make this leap and go do it?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
The story behind the MaasLoops actually started in the pub, believe it or not.
I was there with my longtime friends, Łukasz Święk and Szczepan Dantusiak.
We were just hanging out, chatting about everything under the sun.
future books, philosophy, the usual stuff you dive into after a few drinks and we always talk about doing something together but the right chance never seemed to come up and Łukasz with his PhD was splitting time between the work at the university and the aviation sector Szczepan was busy with his family's brewery and I had my own branding agency and that night we circled around the climate changes that we realized
We all wanted to make a real difference.
And we saw this huge untapped potential in Waze.
And there were so many glass bottles in that pub.
And so we didn't see Waze as just trash, but as a goldmine of resources just waiting to be transformed.
And that's how the MaasLoop was born.
Not just a typical recycling gig, but as a mission to turn Waze into products that people really want, need and want.
So we just really wanted to make some kind of difference and we'd always think about it.
Okay, how can we and how can we achieve this?
And this was very important for me because when I was leading my branding agency, I always prepared this forecast for my clients and I categorized mega trends into six areas.
Climate Change, Agriculture, Urbanization, Tech, Medicine, Social Issues
So this is what we, um, this is our, this was our framework.
Uh, and we just think about, okay, what, what is the most important, what can we achieve?
Uh, what will be this, uh, what, what will be the cool idea?
Um, it doesn't matter.
It will be more or less innovative, but we wanted to think about it.
Okay.
What, what are we capable as a startup in Poland and, uh, where it's where the fundraising is very challenging.
Uh, so, uh, we need to find the.
Simple thing that we can do and started from building from that and make this whole thing running
SPEAKER 1: Somil Aggarwal
That it's a really interesting founding story, because you're, it's clearly personal, and you're able to go back in time to remember the problem you're trying to solve, which is, you know, we had a guest on recently.
And we were, you know, rehashing the idea that ultimately, new technology should be solving problems.
And that's most important.
And you just try and spread those solutions.
And eventually, over time, you grow.
One thing I'm curious, you talked about, like how you got the inspiration, and then you wanted to do something
Cool.
How did you find the very specific thing that's different from the other solutions?
Because there's a lot of like, I think, especially as of recent, in the past couple of years, there's a lot of waste reduction technologies, the circular economy space is really blown up.
So how do you express yourself as a different differentiator compared to other existing technologies?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Sure, we are always thinking about about the whole ecosystem.
And because if you are thinking about the circular economy,
Most of the time you need to build the infrastructure, infrastructure, making the IOT system, some kind of apps.
And in the end you, you need to produce something out of it.
And that's, that's the whole point.
So in the thing, you've got three startups at least.
So when you are trying to think about it more like and how to sell to your, not even to clients, but to the VC, how to do the fundraising, you need to just broke it down just to make it simpler and more achievable.
Like you need to have some kind of milestone because you will not achieve everything in one run.
So when you think about how we differentiate from other startups, most of them are just focusing on let's say IoT system.
Most of the startups are doing the software, the application, how can you track the waste, how you can track the wastes, how can you make this more
in terms of operation costs for the waste management companies or for the end clients.
But you still need the hardware.
And if you think about it, how many hardware solutions are in the world, there are not so many.
Most of them focusing on the industry, waste upstream and downstream.
But if you think about it, okay, but still there are
Paweł Ciesielski
That's the whole point.
Because the capex needs to be as low as possible for your client to make it real value for them.
And most of the hardwares are very expensive, very high-tech, very complicated.
So if you want to be a big player and have a scale, you need to simplify it and make it as cheap as possible.
----another pod to check out----
SPEAKER 1: Somil Aggarwal
We wanted to take a quick break to tell you about another climate tech podcast.
Well, literally, Ryan Grant Little hosts a podcast called Another Climate Tech Podcast, where he interviews climate tech founders and VCs, which, as I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, you will love.
So we highly recommend checking him out.
The link will be in the description to this episode.
Now back to the show.
--------
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
So, okay.
So on the topic of cost and everything, I want to understand, you mentioned earlier, I think you said it saves them five, five times, five times cheaper compared to what they're existing.
So could you talk about a couple of things?
What is the existing solution for this?
If it's, if it's mandated by the government, what is the existing solution and who are the people taking this in?
Is it a grocery store or whatever?
And then how is yours saving them?
How are you saving them so much money?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Yeah, most of the reverse vending machines, because we got two products, so let's start with the reverse vending machines.
Most of them cost something like 50,000 to 20,000 euro per unit.
Our reverse vending machine costs 5,000 euro.
So it's three times cheaper for them.
Paweł Ciesielski
that they are not seeing as a potential.
Because 90% of the stores in Europe are small size stores, the convenience stores, the stores that have something like 50 meters to 150 meters.
And most of them, they will not
Spend €50,000 to €20,000 for the reverse vending machine.
If they will not be the collection point, because this is a regulation in Europe, most every store needs to take the deposit from the customer.
Because when you're selling the product, like let's say
Paweł Ciesielski
Take the plastic bottles to the bigger retailer and get the deposit back.
So if you want to be competitive, you need to be the collection point.
And you've got two options.
First one, you can do it manually through your employees.
Or the second one, you can buy, invest the reverse vending machine.
And if you want to buy reverse vending machine for the 15, 20,000 euro, it's not going to happen.
So it's very hard for them.
And if they don't be competitive, they will lose clients.
And the data is that 15 to almost 20% of clients migrates to the stores that are the collection points for the plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
And so currently, what are they doing?
Are they using manual labor?
and how is it working and how is the hardware working?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Yeah, because right now in Europe and by the 2028 every European country will have the deposit return schemes implemented.
So this is the new law and that is coming from 2025 to 2028.
Right now you've got the deposit return schemes in Norway, Sweden, Germany, Croatia this year, Slovakia, Estonia.
but there is in the European Union is above 20 countries and most of them don't have the deposit written schemes and they are implementing this deposit written schemes right now in 2024-2025 this is where this flow starts so we know that before yeah because if you are thinking about how to make the product and how to
what your go-to-market strategy should look like, you should always do the research.
Because when you are meeting the regulations, they always have some timeline.
So we know that from 2025 to 2028, all European countries will have to be in the deposit and schemes.
So this is a new market and you can just go there and say, okay, you can buy the
expensive device or you can buy our small size reverse vending machines that you can put it between the shelves it's cheaper you can you can rent it you can buy it and that's it of course you can do the manual work just the cashier will take the the plastic bottles from from you and give you deposit back but still it costs more because the manual work cost more in the end
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Hey there, quick break to remind any founders or VCs listening.
If you are looking for deal flow, seeking to raise funding, looking for partners to help service your needs, or perhaps you're looking for corporate investment partners, feel free to reach out to us through our Slack channel, which can be found in the description.
Because we meet a lot of people in this space, we set aside time each week to make introductions to the various people that we encounter.
This is something we do free of charge in order to help these incredible companies solving climate change to scale.
Looking forward to hearing from you in the Slack channel.
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
And then so the machine itself, so is it, I think if I remember correctly, you, you put the bottles in and it's crushing them.
So you actually don't, don't take up that much space.
Can you talk about that a bit more and that, and in particular, compared to maybe the existing technology?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
The technology is almost the same.
I mean, we've got different type of squashing device because it's smaller.
Yeah, that's the biggest idea.
That's the biggest difference.
But we got the visual recognition that we did ourselves, we got the transparent recognition, we've got the electromagnetic technology just to
Paweł Ciesielski
So because we did it on our own, not make, not buying the license out of the market.
SPEAKER 1: Somil Aggarwal
Building this like, yeah, yeah, for sure.
And building this technology, of course, like, like you said, so that's, it's, it's, there's some existing infrastructure that already exists.
You're looking at this and understanding, okay, what are the ways in which I can insert a lot of the founders that we have on the show and a lot of people that are, that listen.
Climate, understand that climate tech is an industry where, you know, you can imagine it's not really that easy to come up with a hardware MVP like that, right?
Or to put out a new hardware technology, even if it does build upon in your case, like other existing solutions that you can draw inspiration from.
So I'd love to know, just dive in deeply how you actually went through the process of making your MVP once you had this inspiration.
And it sounds like you did a lot of learning from other things that existed.
So could you walk through that process on how you made an MVP?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
First thing, when you've got this big idea, you've got a big idea like ours that turning waste into something useful with all the waste compression devices and IoT system, you quickly learn that getting money for it isn't straightforward.
Nobody's lining up to throw the cash at the startup that is basically trying to be three startups one.
Yeah.
So what we did, we broke down into smaller manageable chunks.
Our first step was to prove we could do just one part of it well.
For us, this meant building a prototype that wasn't fancy, but it was a noisy tube spitting out glass pellets.
And it worked, because our first product was a glass crusher.
After that, we did the reverse vending machine, because the glass crusher is for the pubs, restaurants, and hotels, because we are, thanks to the crushing the glass, they are paying five times less for the collection of them.
Because when you are the pub, restaurant, and hotel,
You are paying per bin, mostly, for lifting the bin.
So when the waste management companies are collecting not five bins, but one, you're paying five times less.
Simple.
So we started from the glass crusher, so we know this is what we started.
And leaving the European Union can be here.
We were able to get our hands on a grant to build up an MVP of our Glass Crusher and then led to even more funding something like 250k euro for the further development so my two cents for anyone in a similar boat look into UA grants and find the UA grants that you can start with
The pubs, restaurants and hotels are very homogenic clients category.
They got the similar, it doesn't matter if you are the pub in London or you are the pub in Warsaw or anything, you've got the same problems.
You've got the problem with staff, with clients and with your operation costs, yeah?
So, and the waste, waste is something like
It doesn't matter.
So we've, we always started with the client first.
We always thinking about who will pay for our product in the end.
Okay.
We, we are managing something like the climate change sustainability, of course, but we, but you need to think about it.
Okay.
Who will pay for my solution?
Besides that, this could be more sustainable.
Cash is the king, baby.
SPEAKER 1: Somil Aggarwal
I think I want to double tap exactly on that.
Cash is king.
I mean, it's actually you say something that I believe Sean Abramson from Third Sphere, which the episode is coming out, but it isn't out yet, talks about a lot in his work about cash being relevant, right?
And revenue being important.
So like you said, cash is king.
A lot of founders end up in a situation where they're trying to get traction.
And they're trying to also define what traction is.
And so I know that it's almost, you know, it seems obvious, get cash.
But when you're debating, do I give them a pilot, unpaid pilot?
Do I let them use it free for a month and then charge?
Do I give them a discount?
You're balancing a lot of different choices about exactly how much money do you make?
So what was your process like?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
First, we started with selling the device per unit.
No renting, no hardware as a service, just straight to the point.
We make this device, this device doing this.
You will be paying five times less for the waste collection.
Paweł Ciesielski
yeah something like that if of course if you are renting and if you are if we are selling this this device in London it will be half a year in Germany in Berlin something like half a year so it depends on where where do you live and how big you are but most of the most of the cases you are the return of investment for that will be half year to one and a half year something so
When you are talking with your potential clients, from my perspective, it's easier to convince them saying, okay, this is one time purchase.
You can do what you want with our device and you will save money.
At least, let's say, 5,000 pounds per year.
It's simple.
You don't have to be... Okay, you can make a pilot, you can make a discount, sure.
Yeah, but straightforward is just... This is a very simple device.
This device is doing this.
And I think that...
The pricing is not the problem with the most startups.
But the problem is, are they solve the real problem?
And if there is a client that want to pay for it?
I think that's the major problem.
Most of the startups, because most of them, we've got a, we, we are trying to invent, invent a problem and make the solution for that invented problem.
And, and trying to convince the client that, that he, that he has, or she has a problem with, with that.
When you are doing the hardware and when you are doing some kind of physical device, it's, it's much more easier for, to convince them that this is do, this is doing this, you can pay for or not.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Makes a lot of sense.
So on this kind of, in this vein, I wanted to ask one thing about, so when you talked about, you raised, you got grant money to help build a prototype and things like that.
That's basically engineering risk.
Engineering risk is relatively manageable, right?
It's just eventually figured out.
How did you, on the MVP topic, how did you go about identifying that people were willing to pay for it?
Did you go and
Paweł Ciesielski
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Something like one year or three years ago.
So it was something like 100 to 200 owners or managers of the pub, restaurant, hotels.
And we just asked them simple question, how much they are paying for the waste collection.
If we can provide them with the device that will cut down the cost five times, will they be willing, willingly to pay?
And that was the basic stuff before we before we start the MVP.
Yeah, before we started doing the engineering work before we started to think about how the glass crusher should look like on what was the case.
The first MVP was just two.
that was crushing the glass.
So we just wanted to know if we are able to crush the glass.
And it was very simple.
Yeah, we can.
So the next thing was, okay, who will pay for it and how much we would pay for it.
So when you know the ground level, so in Poland, the waste collection is not so expensive.
Yeah, so if you're thinking about it, okay, if this will work in Poland,
It will work in London, it will work well in Rome or Berlin or in Washington, because the prices will be higher for the collection.
So we started to ask potential clients and they said, okay, this could work.
And we got before the, after, after that, we know that we can crash.
We make the design.
We make the renders and we go to the potential client and say, this is the device, do you want to pay for that?
And we just take the orders for them.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
So you did just assess market risk, right?
Because I just think about it from an investment perspective.
Usually people are talking about science and then market risk, right?
So you were able to get rid of one of those and then you had to raise money from the grant funding for figuring out the engineering risk, which is relatively manageable.
So anyways, yeah, we can move on.
We can move on from that, but I appreciate that insight.
SPEAKER 1: Somil Aggarwal
So, you know, we're coming towards the end of the show, but one or two other topics we'd love to touch on.
On your end, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you're raising now?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Just finished raising.
On Monday, I will, I can tell you, okay, that we probably start, stop the, stop the raising.
We, right now we are in the investment agreement situation.
So in the end, we are going through the due diligence.
So we basically wrapping up the
SPEAKER 1: Somil Aggarwal
Well, well, perfect.
So, so congrats to you.
That's even better than I think the last time that we'd catched up and gotten some information.
Thank you very much.
And on that, I guess you, you have, you can speak to like the exact current investing situation.
So please, can you tell us a little bit about what fundraising is like right now and anything that stood out to you as a surprise that you didn't really think about or expect going into it?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
For us, it was a tough year.
Well, let's say we started three years ago.
Yeah.
From that, uh, from that point, there was the global pandemic that most of the pub restaurant, the hotels were closed, especially in Europe.
Uh, we've got war, uh, just across our borders in Ukraine.
Uh, the global market collapse, almost everything that could go wrong went wrong.
So, it was very tough to raise cash right now, but I'm thinking that in the next year, it should be easier for next startups.
I don't have any insights, or maybe I don't have any good advice for you, or maybe some kind of insight on how this looks like.
Besides that, it's fucking hell, yeah, right now.
But after that, yeah.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
What were the, I guess, biggest things that you finally, as you were raising that you're like, hey, we messed, like we were pitching wrong or we were spending too much time on this topic of the problem versus the solution.
Like what really was getting through to investors and what was the best thing and the best way you were able to actually get people on the phone and stuff like that?
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Traction.
Keep it simple and say that you've got the traction.
I think that almost no VCs right now is investing in idea.
Maybe it can be a combination, but most of them just want to see numbers.
And if you've got numbers, you can start raising right now, especially in Poland.
I don't know how it looks like in the US, but in Poland, you need to show the numbers to the investors.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Yeah.
Okay.
Interesting.
Yeah.
That's helpful.
I think if you can see that people are already buying everything, it's just a matter of scaling, then it makes it a little bit easier for investors.
They love to see it, right?
So I think this has been pretty good.
I think we've gotten through quite a lot.
Maybe just last things to close things out would be perhaps
What do you see as the biggest challenges ahead now as you're, you know, hopefully your race should be kind of buttoned up here and you're going forward.
What are the next biggest challenges for what you guys are doing at MaasLoop?
And then maybe some other challenges that you see.
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Scaling up the production because the deposition scheme will be in Poland in 2025.
So we are already trying to sign the contract for that.
Probably it will be something like 1000-2000 units next year.
So we need to prepare for the manufacturing of the products.
Paweł Ciesielski
of our idea, because right now we are selling the infrastructure, selling the devices.
We are doing the software next year, because we got the MVP for our software, but we need to upgrade it.
So this will be a topic.
And in the next two years, we need to have this portfolio of products that you can make from the waste.
So next two years, we'll be scaling up the production, doing the software and making the portfolio of products.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Perfect.
Nice.
Well, I appreciate it.
I think this is good.
I really do think this is fascinating technology, maybe just partially because we don't have something like this in the US and I think we could use it.
I'm also very fascinated by the need for this tech because of the regulation, right?
It seems like an interesting situation where regulation is doing a really, really good job of forcing demand from people to go and do it because they're going to miss out on customers, right?
So it thinks about, makes small businesses think a little bit more sophisticated in how they're managing.
Paweł Ciesielski
SPEAKER 3: Paweł Ciesielski
Yeah, sure.
Thank you for having me.
You can go on the maasloop.com on our website, but we're selling our products through our strategic partners.
So probably nobody can, right now, nobody can buy directly besides the big retailers.
Yeah.
SPEAKER 2: Silas Mahner
Sure.
Makes sense.
Very good.
Well, it's a pleasure to have you on.
