Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tim Sperry. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tim, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
It all started with a deep rooted motivation to find a solution to air pollution. When I was younger I lost family members to lung cancer from someone else polluting their air. As I have always been an entrepreneur and understood what it takes to create something from nothing and build a business around it, I quickly taught myself chemistry and material science related to nature based negative emission nanotechnology. When I say quickly, it was really months of researching every published research I could find through Google Scholar, and I am still researching everyday, four years later.
The first problem we wanted to solve was the emissions problem from cars and trucks. The solution was an exhaust tip filter that would go over your car or truck’s exhaust pipe. So, I ordered some off the shelf exhaust tips as well as minerals & materials for the filter from Amazon to make our first prototype. After that, we ordered different air monitoring devices to see how much CO2 & other air pollutants we had reduced, and the results were incredible! From there, the nature based technology that I had formulated transformed into a powerful nanotechnology that birthed our first company, Smog Armor, where we pivoted from the exhaust tip filter into an air purifying paint powered by our technology.
The business kept growing and we ended up licensing our technology to other companies that used it for paints, coatings, cardboard, and other integrations that are still being developed and launching in the near future. After all of the lab tests we had performed showing how effective it was at removing CO2 from the air, we started thinking about an even bigger mission that is much needed today; decarbonizing the atmosphere and giant industries contributing to global air pollution. So then, Carbon Limit was born.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Sure. My name is Tim Sperry, I’m a self taught chemist dedicated to finding impactful solutions that protect our environment. After the loss of family members to lung cancer due to air pollution, I followed my passion and it led me straight into the Climate Tech industry. Smog Armor, our first company, was founded. We found success in creating an air purifying technology and integrating into different applications, reducing up to 95.1% of indoor air pollutants from the spaces we live and work in.
This led us to aim for an ever larger positive impact and move the needle on reducing CO2 pollution. We came up with a mission and a goal to remove over 1 billion tons of CO2 pollution from our environment and with that the Carbon Limit company was born. We decided to focus on the cement and concrete industry and create a solution that would turn any construction project into an active solution for CO2 pollution. What sets it apart is that our technology is currently the only one of its kind that gives concrete the ability to capture and store CO2 pollution directly from the air into the concrete while improving the properties of the concrete.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2021 Carbon Limit was a Climate Tech company that had a very unique solution which was a portable direct air capture machine that we had been developing for 2 years. We were in the midst of working on iterations and improving the effectiveness through lots of research, pilots, prototypes, and trial and error, when we got into a coveted Techstars and The Heritage Group’s accelerator program. We then had to relocate from south Florida to Indianapolis/Indiana for 3 month, in order to attend the accelerator program. Little did we know, that would be one of the best experiences of our lives and a pivotal point in our journey with Carbon Limit. What set our big pivot into motion was the first part of the accelerator program, called mentor madness, where we met with 87 mentors in a 3 week period from all walks of life. What we realized by week 3 is that our business model and more specifically our financial model was not what investors would be very interested in, and would make it difficult to scale. A lightbulb moment happened at that moment during a white boarding session with one of our mentors and a huge pivot occurred that changed the trajectory, business plan, financial model, and most of what we had worked on in the past two years! But, the new direction made much more sense, so we transitioned without hesitation and it was the best decision we could have made. All the stars started aligning and the amount of interest from investors and the industry skyrocketed overnight.
We basically took our technology out of the container, reformulated it and used it as a Green Cement replacement in concrete to not only reduce the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process of concrete, but more importantly, turn it into an active CO2 sponge!
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
As a lifelong entrepreneur, I had multiple solo business ventures as well as bringing on co-founders and business partners. Up until I founded Smog Armor, my business before Carbon Limit, I didn’t have the best experience with business partners. So with Smog Armor I did all I could on my own and outsourced everything else, but I quickly learned I couldn’t go further on my own. I had created the flagship product prototype and wanted to get it on Kickstarter to gain interest as well as generate some capital for the company. Not having a strong production and video background – which is very helpful for getting engagement and success on Kickstarter- I decided I wanted to find someone to help with this. Just at that moment, I opened my IG and the first thing I saw was a video my friend Oro had done, and it was like a sign from the universe. So I quickly reached out to him to set up a meeting. Right after we had that meeting, Oro was in, coming up with some great ideas on what we could do, and shared a video with me that we would use as a basis. Directly from that meeting, I went to see another friend of mine, Angel, who we had been involved in real estate together and just good friends, and I wanted to catch up with him and show him the video Oro had shared. As soon as the video was over and I told him what we were doing, he wanted in. He invested and became our partner. So basically, http://airmail.calendar/2022-
Contact Info:
- Website: Carbonlimit.com
- Instagram: @carbonlimit
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/carbonlimit0/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/carbonlimit
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCkKDCE9RZW8-a6qJRrONuNQ
Image Credits
Oro Padron