This is the full transcript for Episode #274 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Aleks Gosiewski – Seaweed Designer, Co-Founder of Keel Labs. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Aleks Gosiewski 0:00
If there’s something that you really believe in, you have to pursue it regardless of what people are saying.
Max Branstetter 0:22
Hey, you welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, and you can email me at that think my voice is cracked. I’m gonna keep it in there. to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 274 and today’s guest is Aleks Gosiewski. Spelled, like Coach K that that’s all I got for you. Alex is the Co-Founder and COO of Keel Labs, a super innovative company who is creating a more sustainable future by turning seaweed into clothes. Their flagship product Kelsun fiber is significantly more sustainable than legacy fibers. And in this interview, we talk the incredible journey of Keel Labs, how Kelsun actually works, why seaweed is better, how there’s even a McCartney in the mix, and a little Bojangles. It is Aleks Gosiewski. Enjoyyyyyy the showwwwww!
Alllllrightyyyyyy we’re here with Aleks Gosiewski, which I have been practicing since before even coming across your name Aleks now. Really, really cool Co-founder and COO of Keel Labs doing just truly game changing things. I think that word gets overstated, but game changing things in the in the fashion and fiber space and beyond. Aleks, thank you so much for joining. How you doing today?
Aleks Gosiewski 2:19
I’m good. Thanks for having me. Thanks for getting my name right. That was perfect.
Max Branstetter 2:24
Course, of course. And you know, a little behind the scenes here. We’ve spent the past hour practicing that. So thank you for, you know, for doing that. But I had heard it before and I had an inkling that it was similar pronunciation to help Coach K pronounce his last name, but you never know for sure. So I’m sure. I mean, right off the bat, how often do people butcher your last name? I
Aleks Gosiewski 2:49
can’t blame them for butchering it. The spelling isn’t the easiest. So you know it happens. Some people know some people don’t. But I usually expect it to be wrong at this point.
Max Branstetter 3:01
Exactly. And I’m the same as last name Branstetter. I think even though mine is like super phonetic. I have this theory that once your last name is longer than like, I don’t know, maybe six or seven letters. People just automatically get it wrong.
Aleks Gosiewski 3:15
So well, then I’m in that boat, for sure. Yeah.
Max Branstetter 3:19
So let’s Go Chef Ski together. Before we get to Keel Labs, I know that you spent time at FIT Fashion Institute of Technology. And I don’t know much about it, besides, you know, context clues. And it’s got a great reputation. And you can guess what you focus on there. But how different was your time and fit from what most people would think about like going to like a traditional, you know, general college or university? Yeah,
Aleks Gosiewski 3:51
so fit was my top school. When I was looking where to apply. I knew I wanted to do something creative. And in high school, I didn’t really have access to many creative outlets, especially within the school. So I was looking for programs outside and I had started going to fit when I was in high school. So it was my target for college. I was like, This is what I want to do. I want to do something creative. I want to make stuff. I want to design things. I want to be in fashion. Although I didn’t experience a traditional college experience. I had many friends that were going to liberal arts schools, you know, my sister going to a liberal arts school. So I got to experience it in some capacity through stories and by by going to to visit them. And fit was unlike your traditional experience completely. First of all, there’s no Greek life. Second of all, it’s more like a trade school. And so there is a heavy emphasis on skills and industry knowledge, rather than let’s say your General Liberal Studies, you have those classes, of course, you have to take them, they’re required as part of your curriculum. But most of it is very much like a hands on practice. Your classes are long studio classes where you have projects assigned to you to make some sort of garment to make some sort of artwork. And so it was very creative in a way that I really wanted. And I felt like I was lacking in my past. And I appreciated that. But it was extremely intense. We had very, very packed schedules, like I said, most classes were studio classes. So your classes were typically three to four hours, you had maybe six, seven classes a week. So it was intense. And on top of that, you also usually had an internship of some sort, so that you also had firsthand industry experience. And so fit basically wanted to prepare you for the industry. And they did that really well.
Max Branstetter 6:03
Was it just devastating not to participate in sorority rush tiktoks.
Aleks Gosiewski 6:11
I don’t think I missed it. I got to go to you know, different parties with my friends when I would visit them. But I’m not necessarily sad that I didn’t get to be part of Greek life.
Max Branstetter 6:23
Exactly. No, I can imagine. But no, it sounds like an incredible and pretty unique experience there. And uses the word intense. What was the most intense thing about your studies there?
Aleks Gosiewski 6:37
It was the expectations and the competition, everyone, our professors would often say like everyone in your class, at some point or another is going to be a colleague of yours, like just, you know, these are people you’re going to be working with. But at the same time, they were our competition, the way it worked, it fit like at the end of every year, you always had, they basically like trimmed the fat, right? Like it got the groups got smaller and smaller and smaller. So you’re competing for certain spots within programs or within shows to display your work. It became really competitive. And you always wanted to give a like your your all. Again, if you had six classes or seven classes, you had projects from all those classes that you were trying to give your all like there was no half assing I mean, you could but then your chances of you know, moving on were slim.
Max Branstetter 7:32
Is there a particular project or exercise in class that you can look back on that you’re like, oh, my god, that was that was like the gauntlet?
Aleks Gosiewski 7:42
Yeah, my thesis. So that was my final project for my senior year, where I had to design a collection and I wanted to do something using organic materials. And I actually started introducing some of the ideas I had around key labs into that project too. And I was like, this is gonna kill me this thing is going to kill me. But I those pieces ended up looking really great. And I also ended up getting an award for it. So I guess it was worth it.
Max Branstetter 8:16
Speaking of trimming fat, and Keeling, let’s get to kill labs as part of research for this. One of the first things I came up with besides just being blown away by how cool it is what you’re doing. One of the things I kept going back to thinking it was like What in the world is the difference between seaweed and kelp, an algae, if there is one. Algae
Aleks Gosiewski 8:39
is a generic term and you have micro and macro algae. Seaweed is a category within algae, I guess that’s more specific. And within seaweed then you also have three general categories of seaweed. You have red seaweed, brown, seaweed, green seaweed. So that’s kind of the basics. For us what we work with, we work with brown seaweeds, generally macro seaweed, so the really large, long leafy types of seaweeds you see in the beautiful apple screensavers and when you’re like out on the coastlines, and then we also work with other species as well, including some invasive species that we’re trying to get a control under.
Max Branstetter 9:35
And how about kelp? Where’s kelp workin?
Aleks Gosiewski 9:39
So kelp is a specific type of large brown seaweed.
Max Branstetter 9:45
Okay, wait, so kelps actually Brown I just assumed it was green. See, I had no idea. Yeah, it’s
Aleks Gosiewski 9:53
a specific brown seaweed. And the distinction between the red the green and the brown is really the composition of the seaweeds and the general temperatures that they grow in.
Max Branstetter 10:05
This is the most we’ve ever talked about, we’d have any form on the podcast. So this is new territory, but no appreciate the background there. And it kind of it sounds like it’s the I’m so bad with this stuff but the the classes of how you the hierarchy of the scientific terms for biology like order phylum, genus, but like it’s kind of like that. Right. So that’s within it. Perfect. Appreciate the background, the grounding there. Yeah. So whether whether it was seaweed, or kelp, or algae, whichever one of these, like piqued your interest first, how in the world, literally, how in the world did that catch your interest? It’s
Aleks Gosiewski 10:45
really hard to even explain how this happened. And it’s quite unbelievable, because it kind of just fell on the table. Like it just fell on our labs. So maybe a little bit more backstory, my business partners and I met in school. Tess and I in particular, were studying knitwear, and fashion and textiles. And we were seeing the same things like there’s a huge amount of pollution in the fashion sector. We’re using really toxic materials to create the fashion we wear. And ultimately, those toxic materials are ending up in our bodies, right? That that’s no secret, like fashion is not a clean industry. So taking all those things into account, we’re like, how do we make things better? How do we make help brands make commitments to sustainability or help achieve the commitments they’re making to sustainability, through the fundamental building block of their products, which is the materials they work with. And so we started by researching whatever we could on new materials, and worked with, or investigated mycelium and SCOBY. And all these things people had already spent a lot of time working on, those things were incredible, but were not able to help us accomplish the targets we had, which really were to create a fiber and like a continuous filament. We were like, Okay, how do we get there? And we went back to the drawing board and did a little bit more research and like, see, we just kept coming up, and we were like, Okay, well, why don’t we try this out?
Max Branstetter 12:24
It says everywhere. It’s literally everywhere. But yeah, yeah, that’s like, I think somebody from the outside might hear your story and be like, wow, like Alex must love seaweed from age one. I
Aleks Gosiewski 12:35
had no connection to seaweed or the ocean. I mean, I just other than just loving, you know, being in the water, but never like, Oh, I’m gonna do something with seaweed one day.
Max Branstetter 12:47
I’m also kicking myself, because, you know, a few minutes ago, you mentioned that, when you were at fit, you know, you knew you were all either going to work together or be competitors. And you literally started this business with some of your classmates. So like, right, then it’s like, proof is in the pudding there. So you met you mentioned, it’s cool to think about how to use this stuff. And it’s obviously great for the environment. But at some point, you actually have to, you know, go pedal to the metal money where your mouth is, would be a better idiom, and actually create the fiber which sounds like the easiest thing in the world I’m sure people do in their sleep, but like, not that you’ve spent much time on it. Now, flash forward, you have this fast forward, you have this Kelson fiber, which is like your your flagship fiber and we’ll talk more about that in a bit but in terms of development, developing that like how did how did you make that jump of going from like, alright, we need a fiber to here’s how actually we we turned seaweed into like, this thing that can be wearable?
Aleks Gosiewski 13:50
Well, I will just address you know, the fact that I’m not a scientist, first of all, so
Max Branstetter 13:55
you said mycelium pretty well,
Aleks Gosiewski 13:58
thank you. We’re starting there. So the the scientific knowledge that the team had in the beginning was basic, like it was very rudimentary science. Again, we had the idea, we had the vision, we had the concept, and we knew what we wanted to make. So we were able to do, we were able to prototype we were able to show an example of what we were trying to accomplish through trial and error. At one point, I remember, you know, we had been mixing different things together and you know, working with seaweed and I was like, Guys, do you think we should be measuring some of this stuff? And it was like, oh, yeah, we should probably be measured. You know, like, again, we’re creatives, right? So that’s
Max Branstetter 14:43
the first step of the scientific method right there.
Aleks Gosiewski 14:47
So we started measuring and we do measure now the important thing is here, we got to a point where we able, we were able to prove our idea, and we were able to garner interest when we were able to bring in fun During those initial funds went to individuals that had experience expertise, careers in chemistry to help us further develop our product.
Max Branstetter 15:12
Like you had to learn really quickly how to start a business. And then also like how to do all the sciency stuff to at the same time? How did you manage to be, I guess, like a learner of both of those worlds at the same time and fast. I
Aleks Gosiewski 15:28
think through curiosity, I never quite knew what keel was going to kill Ops is going to turn into I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a project. Again, this was something we started in school, it was unclear if we were all going to pursue this further or, yeah, what it was going to be. And I remember at one point, a friend of mine was like, I think this is going to be a company. And I was like, what? And I think, you know, she was the one that really got me to think about the potential of Keel Labs, I was really open to it, I was really curious, I understood the risks and challenges that came with it. But I was like, why not give it a shot? Why not see what happens? Like, the worst thing that like happens is that I just learned a whole bunch of stuff that I can use, you know, further down the line, did
Max Branstetter 16:19
it help when seaweed was legalized in many US states.
Aleks Gosiewski 16:26
We need to keep spreading, it needs to grow more.
Max Branstetter 16:31
Now, we’ve had previous guests on who turn you know, what were then class projects into real things. And it’s a really, like cool and unique opportunity to be able to do that. Because I think when you’re able to start something in the classroom, or maybe you know, per safe for a thesis, it’s almost like a playground, like you have room to experiment there with without the like, full financial repercussions of like, if you were to fail in the business world, you know, and kind of test things and prototype things out before you get started. So that’s like, that’s a phenomenal place to, you know, skyrocket your your business launch there.
Aleks Gosiewski 17:06
Well, there’s definitely I do want to be real to like, there’s definitely some insecurities that come with it, especially like at that point in time. For me, I didn’t have any business experience, I barely had any like work experience, and to be going out and starting a company in an industry that I also don’t have any experience in was pretty ballsy. Like I understand, like, why people would second guess like what we were doing or if we were even able to do it. So I just want to say, if there’s something that you really believing you have to pursue it regardless of what people are saying.
Max Branstetter 17:47
And people don’t use the term ballsy enough, so I appreciate you throw it in there. It is so true. And this actual fiber Kelsun I don’t know why I’m talking about it, like it doesn’t have a name. How does it like from an outsider’s standpoint? How does it actually work? Because it’s like mind blowing. To me that even like as much as we’ve talked to them, as much as I learned about it, it’s mind blowing that you can literally take seaweed and turn it into like the fiber that it is today. And that will keep you know, keep becoming many places.
Aleks Gosiewski 18:19
Yeah, so let me tell you what we actually do. So we start with the seaweed, again, generally brown different barrel, brown seaweed varieties. And we extract polymers from that that we then mix with into a solution that’s like our proprietary formula. After that step, we use a wet spinning process that is used traditionally, in fiber manufacturing, for materials like viscose or rayon. If you look at your fabric label, you know, in the clothes you wear, you’ll probably see these names, we follow that same process, however, we eliminate all the toxic chemicals that they typically use. And then at the end of it, we ended up with a filament that we cut and crimp into fiber that looks and feels much like cotton. So it’s a really, really incredible process. And yeah, it’s it’s kind of crazy. Now that I’m explaining it to think about, you know, we go from CV to basically a material that feels like something you’ve worn before. I
Max Branstetter 19:25
mean, who doesn’t do that in their spare time as a science project, but no, no, it’s incredible how you’ve done that. How much speaking of the scientific method, how much testing and learning has there been just to get to like this point,
Aleks Gosiewski 19:41
constant? I don’t think it ever stops. It’s it’s always an iteration. How can we make things better? Okay, great. What is the priority today? What is the most important thing today? What is the biggest fire that we’re trying to put out? Let’s tackle that. Okay, and then we move on to the next one. Like it’s never or the list is never done. There’s always something to look at to learn about to investigate and to try.
Max Branstetter 20:10
Yeah, there’s always I think that’s one of the one of the most exhausting things about being an entrepreneur is like, there’s no I mean, the same thing. If you’re like a marketer, there’s always more you can be doing. And so it’s like, you have to be so good at prioritizing and fire drill, taking care of in, if that’s a word.
Aleks Gosiewski 20:28
Yeah, I agree. I don’t think it’s exhausting because I well, I find it to be very engaging. And I think it does sometimes take a certain type of person to be willing to work on something that might not have a clear end or a clear end date. And that might not have a clear destination either. I think it’s amazing to be able to, you know, have all these different ideas and execute and see what happens.
Max Branstetter 20:59
Yeah, and see would be spelled s EA see what you did there.
Aleks Gosiewski 21:03
Exactly.
Max Branstetter 21:06
On that note of not exactly having a clear end, you know, the world is your oyster just to stick with the nautical puns here. What sort of possibilities are you most excited about for Kelson fiber? And like anything else that you might, you know, whip up in the future?
Aleks Gosiewski 21:25
That’s a great question. So Kelsun we are officially launched last year with Stella McCartney and we started with the fashion industry because my background and antacids background are in fashion. And so it was a very familiar space for us. However, we’re dealing with a fiber and fibers can be put into so many different products. So we’re really looking forward to expanding the portfolio of products and brands that we’re working with, to account for home goods to account for automotive, other areas where where you experience materials, because at the end of the day, what we’re creating is so much more sustainable than your traditional materials. And for us to have the impact on the world that we’re trying to have in terms of, you know, preserving our environment preserving our planet, we want this to be an access inaccessible material.
Max Branstetter 22:28
And can you give a quick crash course on that? Which is tough to say? What is it about seaweed and the like, that is so much better for the environment than you know, cotton and other traditional materials like that?
Aleks Gosiewski 22:41
Well just start with the basics. Seaweed is grown in water. So you could
Max Branstetter 22:48
you imagine if I didn’t know that, like man, I really should have done my research.
Aleks Gosiewski 22:54
Sorry, that might have been too basic.
Max Branstetter 22:57
No, I understand. You know, I really shine a bright light for myself on this ship.
Aleks Gosiewski 23:04
Well, the comparison is you’re dealing with raw materials for other fibers that are either grown on lands that have really long growing seasons that require a lot of harsh chemicals. You know, herbicides, pesticides require a lot of water use to grade our soil or are being drilled out of our Earth to you know, create petroleum based products. So in both cases, we’re dealing with a really rough start for the raw material in our case, seaweed, we really don’t need to do anything, it grows on its own. You don’t need to water it, you don’t need to give it any herbicides or pesticides. It filters the waterways it grows in it absorbs co2. It has all these benefits it has all these like it inherently has an upper hand from the get go.
Max Branstetter 23:54
And by the way, as she was talking about watering, I just had a flashback, I’m pretty sure and SpongeBob they had like plants that they would water underwater and that always that always like irked me it’s like wait a second this Something doesn’t add up here but the tongue in cheek but no I but on the serious note is awesome that it has so many benefits in that. Like, you can see the possibilities there. In terms of partnerships, the fact that you’ve kind of made you know headlines in launch this and like partnered with Stella McCartney is incredible. And you know, obviously she and the brand are so influential in the space. How did that come up in the first place? She just came and knocked on your door. Yeah.
Aleks Gosiewski 24:39
Kinda. I think Stella has been a supporter. While she has been a supporter of the business from the early days. She was really curious about what we were doing and wanted to help us, you know, get to a point where we came create something together. And we did that it took a couple of years. But we were ultimately able to do that. And, you know, we’re super excited to be able to launch with her. She is a powerhouse. And she has, I think pushed the rest of the industry to also reconsider what materials are working with. So a lot of kudos to her for doing that. That is a that is a hard fight to fight. But it does require certain people to get it started in order to have the ripple effects that we want.
Max Branstetter 25:33
Absolutely. What was your first reaction? When you found out that, hey, they not only were like, you know, Stella, and like the company interested in partnering with you, but like, literally, like Paris Fashion Week, like you’re like, you’re gonna be featured there.
Aleks Gosiewski 25:49
Yeah, it’s unbelievable. Like, there’s no way of even putting words to it. It was such an exciting moment to find out, but also to actually be there and see this idea we had in school come to life, like it was a moment of, Wow, we did this, you know, it was it was a proud moment.
Max Branstetter 26:12
And on the notice of doing this, and recently, at the time of this recording, you know, you were you were seeing speaking and you’ve been promoting the Kelsun t-shirt. And so that’s a really, really cool development, can you shed a little light on? What makes this t shirt so cool.
Aleks Gosiewski 26:29
We have been wanting to show brands, what’s possible with our material. And so we decided to also start, you know, developing some unique products on our own. We’re not going crazy here just to basically contextualize what we do. And so this t shirt was something that we knew early on we wanted to make because it helps portray what we do. But it’s also a relatable item. Everyone owns a t shirt, right? Like everyone knows what a t shirt is like?
Max Branstetter 27:01
Is that something that’s underwater?
Aleks Gosiewski 27:06
So, us being able to create the shirt was just like a way to exemplify like, here’s this idea of the seaweed fiber, and we can turn it into a product and we can we can help you get there too. We can show you how to do that. It’s super easy. It’s a drop in solution. Let’s work together.
Max Branstetter 27:24
Well, it’s an incredible journey you’ve had and we you’ve been doing this for years, like when you look back at everything. What advice do you have for any entrepreneur out there who is in a company like yours where like you have a really strong mission behind it, you have like a really like it’s really cool and easy to be passionate about what you’re doing. But like, it might take a long time even years to see like public payout or, you know, support or recognition for that. One
Aleks Gosiewski 27:54
believing that like in the end game and that you’ll get there and to find supporters that also believe in it. And that will help you achieve that. If you bring in the wrong people, it’s going to make it difficult because you guys are just going to have different expectations. So believe in yourself and find the people that believe in your to
Max Branstetter 28:21
Believe like the great Ted Lasso believes in. If you want to subscribe to a newsletter that Ted Lasso would be proud of if for nothing except for the worst puns known to humans in the US or in the Premier League, the Premier League, then you’d love the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. It is where podcasting meets entrepreneurship, and said puns and maybe sad puns. You can sign up and MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Now, for yet another Ted Lasso reference. And I believe it is time to wrap up with some rapid-fire q&a. You’re ready for it. Okay, let’s hear it. All right, shoutout Ted Lasso believe. If you could, you know, in some fictional world, hang out and be best friends with the marine animal. What would the animal be?
Aleks Gosiewski 29:17
Oh, man. It’s always a tie for me between like a starfish and an octopus.
Max Branstetter 29:24
So a starfishtopus. We’ll work on the name. Though those are quite the I love how unique both of those animals are. Lots of lots of character personality there. Yeah. What is the coolest place besides Paris, potentially, that this Keel Labs journey has taken you to?
Aleks Gosiewski 29:55
We’ve seen so many amazing parts of the world and I know we’ll see more I guess Southeast Asia was a really amazing experience for me recently. You
Max Branstetter 30:06
are somebody who grew up in Jersey, shout out New Providence shoutout my wife, Dana. And you spent many, many years in New York, Brooklyn. And now you’re in North Carolina, which is, you know, same exact thing right now, what has been the biggest difference you’ve noticed, since you know, spending all your time that besides you know, your time in Southeast Asia, spending all your time in North Carolina these days,
Aleks Gosiewski 30:33
the biggest difference has been perspective. I think New York just has so much stimulation, and you’re constantly like, I don’t know, looking at the next shiny object. I think North Carolina’s a little bit calmer, and it’s given me better perspective of my life and, and Keel Labs. And also in terms of the company more specifically, like the talent, we have an amazing team that we were able to build here because of the textile history that North Carolina has to offer.
Max Branstetter 31:08
And how many days a week do you have Bojangles
Aleks Gosiewski 31:14
shocked you know, that?
Max Branstetter 31:16
I know lots of random food chains.
Aleks Gosiewski 31:20
I’ve had Bojangles once. I’m always down to try things and it’s a you know, it’s a classic chain down here, so I had to give it a go.
Max Branstetter 31:27
It is we used to spend a lot of time going down to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina and we were on those long road trips from Ohio. We would we would stop for that. Just depends if you want biscuits and gravy or more like the sweet biscuits, but they Yeah, I got a special place in my heart rate for Bojangles. And it was funny and sweet tea. Oh yeah, of course. Why not? And how often do you get COOK OUT? No, I’m just gonna
Aleks Gosiewski 31:57
try it once.
Max Branstetter 31:58
Try everything wants even seaweed. Now Aleks, thank you so much. This has been an absolute blast. Just absolutely love what you’re doing. And it’s so cool to see it go from you know, thesis and idea to real business and literally at like Paris like top fashion show in the world like that. That’s incredible. So thanks. Thank you so much for coming on. Where’s the best place for people to find out more about Keel Labs and if they want to connect with you online?
Aleks Gosiewski 32:23
Yeah, we are all on we’re on all social media platforms. You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, follow us on any of those we also have a really great newsletter we send out every month or so with some updates on what we’re doing and you know links to forums that you know you can participate in if you’re interested in working with us. So yeah, any of those work
Max Branstetter 32:46
perfect and then last thing stages yours Final Thoughts, it could be a quote, a line words to live by whatever you want. Send us home here.
Aleks Gosiewski 32:54
Honestly, just go for it like give anything a try.
Max Branstetter 33:01
Even Bojangles. Thank you so much, Aleks for sharing your incredible Keylab story and beyond. And thank you Wild Listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one that may be from deep in the sea or maybe from outer space or maybe something else involving algae you never know, which is deep in the sea, Make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast and share this episode with them it will be sure to blow their mind and maybe even even doing the butterfly across an ocean. You can also find us on Goodpods, where there are good good podcasts and podcast recommendations and people, and for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That is at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, from Bikini Bottom. Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!
