Michael Markesbery is the Co-founder and CEO of OROS Labs, a game-changing material technology company. His leadership and drive for innovation have propelled OROS Labs to create some of the most advanced thermal materials on the planet. Recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 winner, Michael developed Solarcore®, a technology leveraging aerogel's properties to transform insulation in multiple industries.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [3:21] From studying zoology to creating space-grade insulation materials: Michael Markesbery’s journey
• [8:14] Michael's strategic decision to relocate his team to Portland for talent acquisition and cultural alignment
• [10:39] How OROS Labs attracted top-tier talent like Jeff Nash early in the company's growth
• [14:24] The role of advisors and mentors in OROS’ rapid growth
• [16:05] Generating product awareness through practical demonstrations
• [23:01] Advice for college students aspiring to start a business
• [26:35] OROS’ vision to expand into multiple industries
• [29:09] How Michael’s grandfather inspired him to strive for greatness
• [47:08] The inspirational backstory behind Michael's pursuit of a pilot's license

In this episode…

Many industries struggle to maintain optimal heating and cooling. Poor insulation in everything from coats to industrial buildings has created a need for more advanced technology. What does it take to become a cross-industry leader in revolutionary technology and innovation?

When climbing the Swiss Alps during a college backpacking trip in Europe, Michael Markesbery found he couldn’t stay warm without layering coats. Realizing the insufficiency of insulation in the apparel industry, he set out to develop versatile technology using aerogel to provide insulation for clothing, buildings, and vehicles. Michael demonstrated the technology’s use by creating a jacket that could withstand the below-freezing temperatures of liquid nitrogen, allowing him to demonstrate the product’s unique value in a memorable way for consumers. By differentiating his products from the mass market, Michael cultivated a strong company and transformed the industry.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris invites Michael Markesbery, the Co-founder and CEO of OROS Labs, to speak about turning a multi-industry problem into cutting-edge solutions. Michael shares how he recruited materials engineer Jeff Nash, his journey from a zoologist to a materials scientist, and how he obtained his pilot’s license.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• William Harris on LinkedIn
• Elumynt
• Michael Markesbery on LinkedIn
• Michael Markesbery’s email: michael@solarcore.tech
• OROS Labs
• Solarcore®
• “Why CRO Is The Most Profitable Marketing Investment With Allen Burt” on the Up Arrow Podcast
• Blue Stout
  
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Quotable Moments

• "We are better set for success if we view it as a science experiment because you're gonna get a lot wrong."
• "Unless you understand that there's something within man that responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, you won't understand why we go."
• "Regardless of size, one person can significantly shift your company culture."
• "Having a unique value proposition in a technology-stale market was our early adopters' hook."
• "What is your name today?"

Action Steps

1. Identify a core problem within your industry that no one else is addressing adequately and focus your innovation efforts on that problem: This mirrors Michael Markesbery’s approach to revolutionizing insulation with OROS Labs.
2. Embrace marketing channels and strategies that vividly and memorably demonstrate your product's unique value proposition: This is similar to what Michael did with the liquid nitrogen demonstration.
3. Invest time in building a strong company culture based on shared values from the start: This lays the foundation for sustainable growth and teamwork.
4. Cultivate resilience and be prepared to respond creatively to setbacks: Take inspiration from Michael's determination to secure funding despite initial VC withdrawals.
5. Commit to personal growth and health as foundational for professional success: Exemplify Michael's perspective on the importance of a leader’s well-being for the benefit of the entire organization.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now, let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:13

Hey, everyone, I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt, and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million and beyond, as well as help you apparel, your business and your personal life. The guests that I have today is Michael Markesbery, CEO and co founder of OROS Labs and Forbes 30. Under 30 Winner, OROS Labs is a material technology company, they create the most advanced thermal materials on the planet OROS Labs technology solar core leverages the thermal properties of aerogel the lowest thermal conductive, solid inexistence, to transform insulation across government, commercial and consumer industries. And, Mike I, we've known each other for a while. So I'm excited to be able to talk to you today.

Michael Markesbery 0:59

Same here, dude, William it's great to see and honored to be on the show.

William Harris 1:02

Yeah, I was trying to think about who first introduced us and I couldn't remember exactly who it was. It was either Pat O'Brien or Allen Burt figure. I'll just give them both a shout out Pat, an absolutely fantastic just growth advisor for e-commerce brands. And then Allen Burt, CEO of Blue Stout. He's been on the podcast before as well. Both these guys are smart guys and worth a follow and checking them out as well. 

Michael Markesbery 1:27

Love both those guys. They're both absolute incredible Pat ended up investing in the company and becoming an incredible advisor and mentor and it's been great to work with them.

William Harris 1:40 

Yeah, well, I'm excited to dig into some of the stuff here. I do have one quick announcement here. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired with the largest one selling for nearly 800 million in one that IPO recently. You learn more on our website@elumynt.com which is spelled elumynt.com. All right, on to the really good stuff. Forbes once said, I remember an article that OROS is the warmest jacket on the planet. And we were running ads at the time. And I can remember one of the ads had something where there was like this guy spraying like hosing down the jacket with liquid nitrogen. And the temperature is still inside the jacket still showed that it was you know, warm and toasty. which blew my mind. Are the jackets really that warm?

Michael Markesbery 2:33

Absolutely. You know the story we'll talk more about it later. But we took the same technology that NASA used to insulate spacecraft like the Mars Rovers best installation on Earth called aerogel figured out how to use it in applications here on Earth and took our version of aerogel called solar core and launched it out to the world via an apparel brand originally to create awareness around solid core and that apparel brand ended up working out really well. And jackets got picked up and PR by Forbes and Forbes called it the warmest jacket on Earth. I love that.

William Harris 3:21

Aerogel is such an interesting thing for me. So I'm going to take this back even a little bit further. You were studying Zoology at Miami University. How do you go from zoology to like NASA grade space grade materials science aerogel like, what where does that connection happened?

Michael Markesbery 3:44

I was I was in college and my sophomore year backpacked across Europe, I ended up climbing my first mountain in the Swiss Alps, which was awesome experience. One really big problem on top of the mountain I look like the Michelin man. And I'm like, this makes no sense, right? Like there's there's got to be a way to cut the ball still stay warm. So I come back to the US and tell a friend about my the challenge on top of the mountain Rithvik then on our co founder, the company COO and we start looking into insulation across not just apparel, but ever every application from buildings and structures to cold chain to aerospace and defense. And what we found really surprised us we found that all of these other industries seem to be struggling with the same challenge that we had in apparel. So for example, buildings and structures The world's energy consumption 50% trillions of dollars a year goes to producing heat, the largest consumer of that heat, buildings and structures. Said another way, if you can just improve the insulation behind these walls, a couple percentage points, you can save 10s if not hundreds of billions of dollars of energy consumption a year. Wow. That's you. Absolutely. And that's just one application called Chain packaging, batteries, aerospace, all the same story. And so, our takeaway within my takeaway was, oh, my gosh, the problems not apparel. The problem is insulation. And if we can solve this insulation problem, we can make a pretty big impact across a variety of different industries. I then got super lucky. And I ended up getting a scholarship created by the mercury seven astronauts, called the astronaut scholarship. And through the astronaut scholarship, I learned about this amazing material called aerogel. And NASA was using aerogel to insulate spacecraft like the Mars Rover. Instead, it's the lowest thermal conductive solid in existence, meaning it's the best insulation on Earth. And I'm hearing all this and thinking like, Well, wait a minute, you're saying this is the best insulation on Earth? You're using it in the most extreme environment in the universe, space. But it's not getting used across all these different applications. Like what are we? What are we missing here, this makes no sense. got our hands on the stuff immediately found out why this amazing material wasn't getting used in all these different applications. And it turned out that aerogel is really brittle. We put it in our hands. And this stuff just shattered into 1000 Little pieces. Which was pretty surprising moment. But we became passionate about figuring out how to make this really amazing installation, just not brittle, so that we could use it in whatever application we want. And that was the start or the launch of the company ces had had, you know, two zoology majors go from as well as you majors to NASA aerogel technology. That's That's yeah.

William Harris 7:51

So you grew the business first there in Ohio, and Cincinnati close to where you were in college. Right. And you grew that for a while. And then eventually you decided to move the team to Portland. I want to know a little bit more about why the move in wasn't beneficial or or you know, what was going through your mind at the time?

Michael Markesbery 8:15

Absolutely. So we we we needed a very specific type of talent on the team, particularly engineers, and especially textile engineers. And when you when you we looked across the country, looked at a bunch of different places. And Portland was one of the best if you look for textile engineers, there's only really two places in the US that have a good amount of textile engineers. It's North Carolina, with the textile industry. And it's Portland, Oregon, because Portland Oregon is the headquarters for Nike, the North American headquarters for Adidas a bunch of other really big really big apparel brands and footwear brands that new textile engineers are here. So became pretty clear that the choice was Portland. The other major benefit outside of a talent pool perspective, is candidly more of a cultural alignment, which is access to the outdoors. Oregon has that in spades and something that we're we're really lucky to get to enjoy.

William Harris 9:36

well, then the other thing I wanted to ask is, as I was digging through even your team and advisors and where you're going. Early on, you landed Jeff Nash, materials engineer from the north base, in Black Diamond as basically your third FTE. How did you swing that? How did you get somebody with that kind of clout to say, Yep, I'm ready to jump into your business when you're. You know, two, three, handful of people.

Michael Markesbery 10:00 

We had an amazing team of advisors, that, that that made the business for us, one being Pat, who we talked about earlier. But you know, Ruth and I, on our way out the door, graduating college, we knew that we, you know, had never built a business before, and decided to assemble a group of advisors that knew way more about our business than us. And one of the advisors on that advisory board was a guy named Joe Flannery. Joe at the time was CMO of the north face. And now he runs apparel for Callaway, so he heads up like Travis, Matthew, and Jack was getting all those brands. And we have built this relationship with Joe, as well as everybody on the advisory board and said, Joe, hey, look, we need a CTO to run future technology development. And Joe goes, I have just the guy connects us to Jeff, who, at the time, was, you know, heading up the innovation team at the north face when Joe was CMO. And Jeff, and I hit it off and ended up joining the company and honored to have him here.

William Harris 11:32

Yeah, I like that you talked about the very beginning, you guys put together a team of advisers. I don't know that I've ever talked to anybody successful, that didn't have a team of advisors or mentors, or something like that, helping to guide them along the way. I think there's so much wisdom in that. And I love that you guys did that.

Michael Markesbery 11:55 

Completely agree it's been even today, the mentors and advisors have been incredibly impactful on the business but also within me personally. So it's, it's been one of the best decisions we've ever made. Yeah.

William Harris 12:12

Yeah, so all of this resulted in some meteoric growth for you, that plan is somewhat intended on the space theme here. You end up basically changing a lot of outdoor apparel in a in a pretty big way. You land on the Forbes 30 under 30. list. And I just got to ask like, what was that? Like? Is that something? Did it just kind of completely surprise you? What What was that experience? Like?

Michael Markesbery 12:42 

It was it was cool. You know, someone's got to nominate you and all that. So we never did anything for it. So it certainly came as a as a bit of a surprise, I think, for better or worse. The Ruth and I are really good at keeping our heads down and focusing on the next milestone and sometimes forget to, you know, celebrate the little wins. And I think we we looked up and said, Oh, cool. That's awesome. Put our heads back down and

William Harris 13:15

true scientist. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, so I want to talk about the growth of, let's say, let's start with OROS, because that's really the one that launched all of this, the apparel brand. At least from from the context that I've seen here, what would you attribute a lot of the success to aside from having a product that is really sensational and fun? Were there certain things that you did, that you think helped to accelerate the growth of the company? Yeah,

Michael Markesbery 13:48 

you know, a lot of successes, a lot of failures to along the way. Again, we launched that apparel brand to really prove out the value of solar core across and generate a lot of awareness around the technology. So a lot of our marketing was really focused on the value proposition of, of solar core, which in apparel is more warmth, less bulk, you know, most warmest gear in the world. Don't eat any of the bulk. So for the first time in history, you don't have to Like the mitula, man to stay warm, more mobility, things like that. And a lot of that marketing really, really paid off, I think having a unique value proposition and a truly differentiated value proposition. And in candidly, a pretty, pretty technology stale market was was very helpful for us, at least with our early adopters and our, you know, niche community there. Simultaneously, I think we, we did a lot of marketing stunts that that paid off as well. You mentioned William to liquid nitrogen demo. That one, that one was a great hit, as well as some others. So I think those are some of the things that really came

William Harris 15:10

up with that one. Like, like, what made you say, like, I see a lot of brands that will do something and say, Hey, less block more warmth, and then that's the ad. But you took this to a completely different level, where you guys just sitting around and you say like, Hey, what happens by spraying with liquid nitrogen? Like, how did that come to be a thing.

Michael Markesbery 15:30 

So when we when Ruth and I launched the company, we launched it heading into the summer of our senior year. This is when we launched the apparel brand. And right away, right away, we got in contact with, believe it or not, Discovery Channel, Canada. And they said, Hey, we would love to do feature on on OROS, and OROS apparel. And so we said absolutely. What we didn't think through is they were flying down to Oxford, Ohio. We were going to college in the summertime, to show off insulated apparel. Yeah, sure. And those two things don't mix. And so all of a sudden, we go crap, we need to come up with a demo to show them you know, how well how well this stuff works. And refund I you know, both sides, geese were both working in labs. And in this lab, they kept this massive vat or container of liquid nitrogen. And so we both turned to each other. And we're like this, this is the idea. You know, like, let's bring one of us with liquid nitrogen. Put thermal sensors on either side, and show that you know, liquid nitrogen is negative 321 degrees Fahrenheit, show that this jacket could really keep you that warm. And we did the test. And candidly, the first time we did it was when we were getting recorded for for Discovery Channel, Canada. So I think we lucked out that it worked. And that's how we that's how we came up with the liquid nitrogen demo.

William Harris 17:28

Yeah, so no testing of it was like a dummy before. You're just like, hey, here we go. Let's just do it. Yeah,

Michael Markesbery 17:35

yeah, hindsight, you know, a dummy might have been might have been smarter. But uh, we did not. We did not think that went through all the way. But it worked out in the end. And we ended up solving Hey, how do you demonstrate how all these products work, and, you know, the middle of summer.

William Harris 17:51

It reminds me of a quote, I'm gonna butcher it. But it's something along the lines of, in order to come up with something truly innovative. It's like, have the idea and give it not enough time to solve it kind of thing. And it's to a point, that's kind of what happened you guys where it's like, we have to figure out how are we going to demonstrate this, and we don't have enough time to come up with something, you know, I don't know, like fake snow or whatever. It's like, if you have enough time, then to see him with something even more elaborate you like we're literally just going to hose each other down with liquid nitrogen improve it. And it's almost that that constraint on time that creates some of the most innovative ideas. And so I like that. Totally

Michael Markesbery 18:28 

agreed. Totally agreed. Other saying is works well under pressure, same thing.

William Harris 18:40

Sure. I agree. So what about other things outside of marketing, obviously, you came up with some really good ads, you got a lot of good press because it was doing what it said it was doing it was it was the warmest jacket on the planet. And so people wanted to cover this really new, exciting technology. So a focus on quality products. And I tangent here, I remember you guys made a big deal about even the zippers like everything that had to go into this coat had to be at the absolute top level. So there's this focus on really great quality product. And I think that's imperative. There's also a focus on coming up with some innovative ideas on the marketing side. What about leadership? Was there something of philosophy or anything along the lines of leadership that you think helped kind of just bring the group together to be able to have this unified vision of where you're going 100%

Michael Markesbery 19:28

This is agnostic of company to Right. Like, at the end of the day, the culture is so important for for a company. And is incredibly important to us. Ruth and I are very different people. But what makes us work so well together is shared values. And a lot of those values have become the values of the company. And we're fortunate to have a great team that we work with that shares those values as well. To the point that, you know, when we interview candidates, the final interview, is a pure culture set interview, where we've crafted, you know, 24 questions, and I'll get back to the core values of the company, purely to assess whether the, you know, the candidate aligns with the culture of the company, that we're that we're building. So, you know, to me that that is unbelievably important. And think about it this way to, you know, like, if you're, if you're a 10,000, or 1000, person company, one person makes up point 1%, of your, your company culture. But when you're just starting out, you know, and you're a group of five, one person makes up 20% of your company culture. And it's so important to get that right. That's been a key value for us.

William Harris 21:05

I've heard an interview with Steve Jobs, saying something along the lines of hiring a players instead of B, or C players. And when you get five of them in a room, they they really enjoy the idea that they're working with other A players like themselves. And so then they, they hold that to the new standard, where everybody that they recruit from then on has to be another a player like them. Because they can't imagine any other way. And I'd imagine, let's take this, remove this from just eight players, to your point like cultural fits as well, yes, that the player that's a player in many different types of varieties. But if you're careful about how you curate your early team, that translates into more of those people being attracted to work here and the wrong people saying, Yep, this isn't for me. But those people wanting to find more people like them to continue working here as well.

Michael Markesbery 21:55

Now, now that couldn't agree more. If,

William Harris 22:00

if you are going to give advice to a couple of other college kids, who are probably in over their heads, you know, with some creative, exact exciting new idea, who wanted to start a business? What's, what's the one main core piece of advice that you would give them to be successful in their new endeavor?

Michael Markesbery 22:26

If they're just starting out? And all they have is an idea? I'd say two things. The first is, figure out exactly what your problem is. What problem are you solving? And how are you solving it? Right, that problem solution set is everything. And then then you layer on top of that, who your customer is, and, and all that, but spend a lot of time figuring out what your problem and what your solution is. And I think layered on top of that is, you know, the thing that attracted me to building something is it was the first time in my life that the answer wasn't in a textbook. And there's so much truth in that that is so important. So if you're a college kid, and you're just starting out, and you have an idea, don't look for the answer in a textbook, go talk to your customer, go figure out what they need, and build a product around it. That's some of the best advice that I can give.

William Harris 23:48

I love it. And you You hinted at some of this, that you're not going to find this in a textbook. But do you have a method that you ascribe to the most or figuring out the root of a problem? And I'll give a couple of examples. I know that my dad has always told me a lot about the five why's right, and it's like, well, why then why then why? There's another Japanese one and I'm gonna drawing a blank on the name of it, but it's basically the herringbone Is there a method to your madness for figuring out the root cause the root problem that you're trying to solve?

Michael Markesbery 24:20

Yeah, honestly, yeah. I'd like to, I like to view a lot of business as, as a science experiment, one of the things we have internally at the company is science the shit out of everything you do. And what we mean by that is like, what is what is a science experiment? It's a science experiment is you have a hypothesis, whatever that hypothesis is. And you test that hypothesis, and either your hypothesis is right. Or it's wrong. If your hypothesis is right, great, okay, keep doing that and scale it up. If your hypothesis is wrong, great. Take that learning, and apply it to reformulating your hypothesis and try again. I think, you know, we, as humans have such an innate fear of failure, that when we test the hypothesis that it's wrong, we get so upset, right, like, and a lot of times will give up, I think there's this idea of if you view it as a science experiment, because you're gonna get it wrong a lot. Especially if you're trying to build something, you got to get it wrong, and you're gonna get something wrong every day. But if you if you if you learn from it, and you keep improving, and you view it as a science experiment, if you have grit, one of the core values of the company, you're much better set for success. Yeah, I love that.

William Harris 25:50

So we've talked a little bit about backstory, we talked about grilling it. Where are you at now? What is what is the new phase of where OROS Labs is going?

Michael Markesbery 26:00

Great question. So we are a material technology company. And we sell our technology solar core, across three main industries, government, consumer and commercial. Consumer is consumer brands. So today, we insulate footwear and apparel for some of the leading footwear and apparel brands in the world. Everyone from Merrill to llbean, Caballos Helly. Hansen, you name it. Commercial is everything from aerospace components to batteries to cold chain. But our one of our largest partners today is government, namely the United States Department of Defense, where we're honored to work on several contracts and programs, spanning everything from tactical shelters, to cold weather apparel, to pipe insulation, for example. So that's the business and our vision is to completely transformed thermal materials cross functionally, across all these different markets and industries.

William Harris 27:15 

That's cool. And to your point, it has significant ecological impact potential here. Because if you can reduce a lot of that energy needs, that's a big deal.

Michael Markesbery 27:28

Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. There's a there there is immense sustainability and drastically reducing energy consumption, and also drastically reducing material usage as well.

William Harris 27:43

Yeah, that's a good call out to. Michael, this has been really fun. I want to dig into some of the personal side of who is Michael Marksbury as well. Because there's some fun stories there, I think that people can learn from also, um, I like asking people about their childhood, because I feel like there's things in our childhood that shape us to be the type of person that can be successful in whatever that endeavor might be. And I understand that you used to have you were able to have dinner with your grandparents when you were young. And that your grandpa had the same set of questions in the same story. And so my my first question is, what were some of the questions that your grandpa would ask you at dinner time?

Michael Markesbery 28:33

So awesome, that you know that it was just one question that that was asked every night in the question was, What is your name today? And, you know, my, my grandfather on that side emigrated, to the US. Ultimately, a story of grit immigrated to the US, became a doctor raised, raised his family immigrated a lot of his brothers and sisters over to the country as well as overcome a lot of a lot of hardship. And I never understood why but every every night dinner would would ask me the same question when asked, Hey, Michael, what is your name today? Which even the question itself makes no sense like My name is in the Question. He knows exactly what my name is. And the older I've gotten, the more I started to realize what it is he was asking, which is, you know, who are you going to be today? And to me, that's become an internal philosophy of, you know, really, ultimately have greatness. Know who you want to be, and always strive towards it.

William Harris 29:51 

Yeah, I think that's interesting about the name idea. There's so much power in names just in general, a lot of people take significant time to think about the names of they're going to name their children, their pets, even. Because we, we associate a lot of meaning behind that. And just that idea of, you get to, to a point, define what your name is, each day. I like that concept. I think I almost wish more people would look at it that way. Or it's like, what's your name today? You know, my name is not failure today. My name is grit. Today, my name is science baby, right? Like a science the heck out of this, like you said, or whatever that might be. But it's like, there's a lot of ways that we can look at this and define who we are almost by just recognizing that name. Totally. Well said. Well said. So he also told a story, you mentioned that he told a story every night, what was the story that it would tell a

Michael Markesbery 30:40

story that I've now heard 1000 times, which was this historian of immigrating to the US versus living with a family member in New York, you know, didn't have two nickels to rub together. The typical, the typical immigrant story was, was the consistent story every night, for sure, if not that learning, learning to count to, you know, 10, or something in Arabic or something like that. Sure. And

William Harris 31:19

I think that that, also hearing that story over and over again, probably instilled that grit into you as well. So like you said, that's a part of your company culture. That's a part of what's made you you. And I think that that's played a large role in that grit.

Michael Markesbery 31:30 

Completely agreed, completely agreed. so fortunate to have that upbringing.

William Harris 31:35

There's one more question about the dinner here. Because there's, there's a lot of fun stuff that I was able to find out about this. I understand that you were quite the entertainer at dinner as a child as well. Entertainment are we talking about?

Michael Markesbery 31:56 

I don't know if this was forced or not. But my, you know, not just me, but I have two sisters as well. And they're both absolutely amazing. But our parents would force us to do, they'd argue whether or not it was forced, but highly encouraged us to, you know, do a performance every night in front of our grandparents in front of them, whether it was a song or you know, the magic tricks, or you name it. And yeah, that was that was definitely, you know, a daily occurrence growing up as well.

William Harris 32:38 

Yeah, magic tricks, like, hosing your friend down with liquid nitrogen. Yeah,

Michael Markesbery 32:43 

exactly. Exactly.

William Harris 32:44

He's still doing magic tricks as an adult. These are tricks.

Michael Markesbery 32:51

I can whip one or two out on occasion. Definitely, for sure.

William Harris 32:58

So Michael, one of the things that I like, again, going back to this idea of grit and determination is sticking it out. I understand that there was a moment where one of your advisors, Tim Holcomb, VCs pulling out cars driving through walls, what happened on this dreadful day.

Michael Markesbery 33:23

That was a pretty interesting day. We written I were raising our first round of capital. And we had gotten a term sheet from a VC and you know, anyone who's in the space knows there's there's a no shop clause in the term sheet. For those that aren't familiar, no shop clause is basically saying hey, once you sign this term sheet you company cannot go try to source a better deal. For some given period of time this term sheet was for was for I think, like four or five months or something like that. So we signed the term sheet. One month goes by deals not done two months go by deals not done three, four. We started getting up to the end of this of this, you know, no shop clause and Rick and I are starting to get a little nervous. We're like you know, normally this doesn't take so long to go from term sheet to deal close. And then on the final day A, we get a call from the VC and the VC says, hey, thanks. but no thanks. And at this point, we're almost, you know, out of money or two kids that just graduated college and we're, we're, we're panicking a little bit. And that evening, not like three hours later, we get a call from our landlord, we had set up our first office. And he goes, I don't know how to tell you guys this, but a car has just crashed into your office, destroying everything. At this point where I just start laughing a little bit like this was was quite a bit. And I didn't get a call from Tim, one of the original advisors on that advisory board, Dr. Tim Holcomb. Tim heads up the entrepreneurship program at our alma mater, Miami. And Tim goes, Hey, yeah, if you turned on the local news recently, I don't know why he goes, Oh, flip it on. We flip it on, if we just see this car, that that, you know, Caribbean off the highway, it was teetering in and out of our office. And we start laughing tell Tim, what's going on between that and the fundraiser and he goes, Hey, let's let's grab breakfast tomorrow. And let's figure this out. The first thing in the morning, the next day, seven o'clock, we're sitting down at this at this breakfast place and mapping out, you know, how we're how we're going to pull around together, come up with a plan. I spend the next, you know, couple of weeks on the road, meeting with VCs from New York to San Francisco, ended up getting a term sheet at better terms in the original round, or the original term sheet, close the round, get everything done. And that's the story. So good things in there have grit and have an incredible group of people around you.

William Harris 36:39 

I feel like again, when I talked to a lot of other founders, I can't remember the last time somebody didn't have a story similar, not exactly like that nobody that had a car driven through them. But just this idea where they're usually up against what seems like an impossible situation. And this is the turning point where everything's either gonna crumble or you're gonna succeed. And, and there's this moment where that grit is what pushes them through, into into the success that they see. And I love hearing that. Because if you're building a business and you haven't yet come up to that point, be prepared, because I think that it's almost inevitable. But also, speed, just be ready for it. Be ready knowing that you know, preparing the company in whatever the way that you can, preparing yourself mentally in whatever way you can, in preparing yourself socially to your point where it's like, make sure you have a team of advisors or mentors or whatever in place ahead of time because you don't want to get into that situation and not have those things in place. Also, um, show and tell time, from what I understand, you have got some pure aerogel right there in your in your office.

Michael Markesbery 38:04 

Yeah, let me get this out. So I keep with me, wherever I go. I feel like a traveling salesman to keep with me wherever I go. A my sales kit which which this is my sales kit here and it stays in my backpack at all times. Just for situations like this, though. William, thank you. And have you ever seen pure aerogel.

William Harris 38:38 

So I've seen pictures of it online because I also really appreciate some really interesting material science, but I've never seen it actually in my hand. So unfortunately, I still don't get that opportunity here. But this will be the closest demonstration I have outside of online pictures.

Michael Markesbery 38:54

Next time we're together. I'll put some in your in your hand but this this is aerogel. This is the same stuff used to insulate the Mars Rovers. This is the best insulation on Earth. Also the lightest solid in existence 99% air, the only thing holding this together is an amorphous silica crystalline structure. So this is is the amazing material that we use to create solar core in this is the best insulation on Earth

William Harris 39:33 

is so cool. Do you? Do you get into other material now as well? Like? Did you get into the graphene training where you're like, Oh, I gotta dig into this a little bit more now as well or is it like this is just this is the one track.

Michael Markesbery 39:48

So our vision for the company has completely transformed thermal insulation cross functionally. So our main focus is aerogel and putting aerogel into very easy to use forms, so fill up our foam and others. We do very often for end product solutions. And here are combined certain things to solo core products, whether that's for like EMI, or like electromagnetic interference, or other other properties as well. So very frequently, we're producing we're combining our stuff with other high functioning materials to create a multifunctional multifunctional and solution. 

William Harris 40:35

I like that. What is a quote that you live by?

Michael Markesbery 40:42 

Oh, I've got two. One is too long. One is too long to read. We'll stay focused on this one. It's way too long to read. But everyone knows it is The Man in the Arena quote by by Teddy Roosevelt. And it is the background on my phone. And I would encourage anyone anyone who's starting on an entrepreneurial journey to read it, cuz I think, at least for me, drew a lot of inspiration from it. So George Mallory incredible human and adventurer. And, you know, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary, were the ones first accredited with with summiting Everest. And both well before them, George Mallory made an attempt. And on his way up, he was last seen disappearing into the clouds above Everest never to be seen again. So no one really knows, you know, whether or not he made it, he made it to the top. But he did not come back from from that attempt. And before he, before he left, someone had asked him, you know, why would you? Why would you Why Why would you go and try to do this thing? Why would you go to summit this, this mountain, and I'm going to, I'm gonna butcher his response, because it's a lot more eloquent than this. But he basically said, if you can understand that there's, there's something with Inside Man, the response to the challenge of this mountain, and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upwards and forever upwards. You won't understand why we go. And I think I think that is the distillation of human spirit in the inexhaustible humans willing or adequate that that I care so much, so much about I love that

William Harris 43:05 

I got goosebumps hearing that I have not heard that before. And I'm glad that you told me that. Thank you. Um, you strike me as the type of person who's not just sciencing your business but science in your life. On the podcast, I call it up barreling which is actually from Knuth up arrow notation, which is a mathematical thing for making massively big numbers and that's the geek that I am what are some areas in your personal life that you're working to constantly improve?

Michael Markesbery 43:38

Cool. Oh, good question. Man, you know, inexhaustible human willing there's always a gap between who you are and who you want to be. Personally right now. Whenever I have free time, I'm trying to get better at something in the summertime, which is coming up on summer season, so I'm super excited. Summertime. That's kiteboarding since moving out west, that's been my my summer activity and had a great coach who who helped me get pretty good but I still have a lot to learn winter Time for me it's skiing. I'm still a Midwest gear. So I'm making my way I'm making my way up up the food chain there a little bit. And then in the shoulder seasons, I started to learn how to fly about halfway to my, my private pilot's license and super excited to do that. So those are some of the activities and things I'm working on getting better at

William Harris 44:56 

all of those sounds fun, but the pilot's license, I understand that there's more of a backstory behind the pilot's license to

Michael Markesbery 45:05 

Yeah, yeah, there is. You're gonna make fun of me, but I won't, you know, getting the scholarship from the astronaut scholarship by the mercury seven astronauts, they, they make you feel really special. They, you know, you're a kid in college, and you get the scholarship and they fly an astronaut out to meet you, and the astronaut in front of a group and, you know, several 100 People give you this oversized check, and it gives a speech and the astronaut that that came out to meet me was a guy named Robert who Gibson and who, you know, was landed the space shuttle on Mir during the Cold War. And prior to that was a Top Gun graduate and fighter pilot and has since become a friend of mine. As SF, some of the other you know, former astronauts, a lot of which were former fighter pilots and hearing their stories. I'm like, you know, it would be pretty cool. Is getting to fly a fighter jet. And there is a fighter jet called the l 39. albatross that I have my sights on, I'm always away from from, you know, having all the certifications and whatnot. But that's my uncle.

William Harris 46:32

Yeah, so not just a pilot's license, but you want to be able to fly a fighter jet.

Michael Markesbery 46:39 

That's, that's yeah, check back in and a couple of years, and we'll see how we'll see how I'm progressing towards that.

William Harris 46:47

From what I've seen, I have no doubt that you will be able to reach that goal. Again, that is a mountain that you are, you're going to climb to the top of

Michael Markesbery 46:55

Thank you. 

William Harris 47:00

What about health? I talked to a lot of founders, CEOs who, you know, health can take a toll on, you know, the business could take a toll on health. Is that something that you're also trying to work towards a borrowing in your own personal life as well.

Michael Markesbery 47:14

100% one of my, he started off as an advisor for the business and has since become a mentor to me, is a guy named Colonel John burger. And Colonel burger. Guy can run circles around me, does triathlons all the time. Also one of the busiest humans I know. With work, and the couple of years ago, we we talked at least once a month and at a conversation and it goes Hey, Michael, we got a question for you. Yeah, we'll set it goes. What do you think the most important thing that you can do is to create value for your company. And I started listing off you know, a bunch of our goals for the year or bumped into a bunch of our five year goals and yeah, because yeah, you know, all those things are great. But but I'd argue the best thing you can do is is be healthy as the leader and part of the management team so that you can accomplish those goals. Like you know what, holy crap like it's got a point and I never thought about it that way. It's a colonel burger has definitely been an inspiration for me on especially on that front and constantly striving to be to be healthier whether that means you know, physical exercise, diet, sleep all the major all the major facets

William Harris 48:55

Are you doing it scientifically? Are you are you the type who's wearing a whoop and it's something like that? You know, I

Michael Markesbery 49:00

I've tried whoop, I like whoop. i This is such a small thing. I don't like that it has to sit up higher on my on my arm than where I would put a watch. So I recently started trying Garmin. And I'll keep you posted but definitely going through trying all the different stuff seeing what I like most.

William Harris 49:26

Yeah, yeah, I figured you had to be tracking the vitals in some way. Right? There's got to be some kind of data collection that you're doing on this. Totally, totally. There absolutely is. Um, well, Michael, this has been an absolutely enjoyable conversation for me. I feel like I've learned a lot. I feel like I've gotten to know you better. If there's something, someone who's listening who wants to follow you, your thought process or connect with you or work with you in some way? What's the best way for them to stay in touch? 

Michael Markesbery 49:57 

Yeah, absolutely. You can follow the company OROS Labs on LinkedIn. Same thing with our technology, Solarcore, also on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn. And then if you ever weighing me directly, my email is Michael@solarcore.tech. So feel free to shoot me a note. 

William Harris 50:22

I really appreciate it. Thank you for your time and your wisdom here today. And everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks.

Outro 50:30

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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