Innovating for Impact: TYE Global Winners 2025 Share their Entrepreneurial Journey

Join us as Team Kymavi, the TYE Global winner, discusses their groundbreaking solution addressing environmental challenges through biodegradable bags, and Team Key Beauty, creators of an AI-driven makeup matching platform for women of color, shares their journey in redefining inclusivity in beauty.

The teams dive into their experiences with market research, customer validation, and developing sustainable business models, highlighting how mentorship and the TYE program helped them refine their ideas, build essential entrepreneurial skills, and prepare for global success.

Brought to you by TiE Seattle
Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar
Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain

Brought to you by TiE Seattle
Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar
Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:03

In this conversation, we invite the top two teams of the TYE Global Competition to share their high school entrepreneurial journey. We have Team Kamabi, the TYE global winner, who developed a solution to address environmental issues with biodegradable bags, and Team Key Beauty, who have evolved makeup matching for women of color using AI technology. The teams share insights on market research, customer validation, and their business model, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and the skills gained through the TYE program.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Welcome to the Startup to Exit podcast, where we will bring you world-class entrepreneurs and VCs to share their hard-earned success stories and secrets. This podcast has been brought to you by Thai Seattle. We encourage you to become a Thai member so you can gain access to these great programs. To become a member, please visit www.seattle.tai.org.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

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SPEAKER_06 3:40

Hello everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Thai Seattle podcast. My name is Sriesh Nadkarni. I'm a board member of Thai Seattle. Today we are featuring uh two uh Thai Young Entrepreneur teams uh that went to the TYE Global Finals. Today we're featuring the Key Beauty team, uh, which uh went to the global finals in 25 and placed second. So an amazing achievement. We are very proud of this team, especially since they are from Seattle. So we'll be talking to them about their product, their vision, and how they're planning to continue with the uh technology. So, with that, let's start with some introductions. First, we have uh Ramia Grahma, who's a mentor for the team. So, Ramia, can you please introduce yourself and tell us why you became a mentor for the TYE team?

SPEAKER_13 4:29

Absolutely. Hello everyone. My name is Ramia Grama. I've had a privilege to be associated with Thai Seattle and especially the TYE program, as we get an opportunity to foster entrepreneurship in the Pacific Northwest. I've had a pleasure to be the mentor of the Key Beauty team, one of the most passionate and uh really energetic team that I've had a chance to work with. My background, I've been in the tech industry for over two decades now. I'm an entrepreneur myself. I'm also a small business owner, I'm a coach, I work with younger students and aspiring women who want to get into product management and uh uh try to upskill and reskill and such. So I'm a program manager at uh at Amazon currently in the space program. So I would love uh for us to be able to talk more about Key Beauty's work and uh their ideas and and uh the TYE program and and such a crucial program it is for the youth talent that exists here in the Pacific Northwest and also broader US. Great.

SPEAKER_06 5:37

Shrita and Turini, um, can you uh introduce yourself and tell us what grades uh you're in?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Okay, so I guess I'll start. I'm Rashida Kendra Kuntla. So I'm a senior at Redmond High School right now, and a bit about myself and kind of my relationship with the Thai program. I mean, I was like petrified, and that first my team did tie. I'm not even joking. We were pitching with like scripts and flipping through the pages in front of the judges. And I guess my love for the program really started then, and I owe so much of my experience in entrepreneurship and my passion for it to T White.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Right.

SPEAKER_08 6:10

I can go. My name is Tarini. I am also a senior, but I go to Juanita High School. And for me, I started Thai I actually did not know what Thai was. My parents signed me up, and I had no interest in entrepreneurship to start with. Like, I had no idea I was what I was getting into. I was like, okay, like maybe like I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I was never, I had never considered entrepreneurship before as like a possible career path since I was looking at more towards like law. But then when I got into the program, actually me and Ashrida knew each other from fourth grade, and it was like almost like it was like a reconnection moment for us because we got to meet each other after like years of not seeing each other, and that was really nice. And then through like getting the idea of key beauty and being able to pitch, like I actually learned that I really, really do like pitching and I like the rush that I get through pitching and I like coming up with new ideas, being able to present it. And really, I do owe like almost everything I know about entrepreneurship to Ty. And I just think it's a really, really nice experience.

SPEAKER_06 7:07

Great. So let's talk uh more about your idea, your vision, and where you are uh with your company. Tell us about what problem are you uh trying to solve and what is the solution that you're building.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, so I can kind of start from there. A bit of background on us. Um, I think Tarini and I really connected when we met at Thai, um, not necessarily because of the lessons, but we started talking about makeup and how hard it was to find makeup in store that worked for our skin tone. And I think when we had a session talking about like maybe think about a business from your personal problems, it was the first thing both of us really thought of. And then that's where we developed like the idea key beauty, where like help women unlock the key to perfect makeup and like let's try to loop AI into this and make this as like technology based as possible. And that's really where our like vision came from. Our vision was to help women of color find makeup easier. And at first we thought it was like a problem that was very central to us or solely based to us. But after we started sending out surveys and stuff, almost 69% of respondents self-identified as women of color. And they really like matched up with the grievances we stated. And some of them went further to explain their stories. And that was really like the fueling motivation because we're like, okay, we know there's a market gap. And it wasn't even like the fact that there's potential to make business. We empathetically connected with the idea, and that's what really enabled us to like kick it off and start.

SPEAKER_08 8:35

And I think like the whole like soul of this is like how we connect to idea. Cause for us, it's like very, very it's centered to us because both me and Ashida went through the problem of trying to figure out what shades match our skin. And like it's for a lot of people, it seems like a trivial issue, like, oh, it's just makeup. But as we talk to more people, we've learned that the people were like spending like hours just trying to mix shades up and they weren't feeling confident in their skin. And it was just almost it was almost an embarrassment for them since they weren't able to find makeup shades. And for us, like we related to that, and that really just fueled us to keep trying harder and keep progressing with the idea.

SPEAKER_06 9:11

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, uh, especially for people of color and so forth. So, what is the solution that you built and how are you using AI with that?

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, so our solution is basically a marketplace, and Torini will go more into the details of it. But we initially started with an AI-powered scanner, and so we trained a data set on multiple different brands from Ulta and Sephora and trained it on like skin tones and undertones, and then put in some lighting filters as well. And then our first starting vision was okay, let's take you from trying out multiple shades, being in store from hour to giving you like a shade match in 10 seconds with just a user-uploaded photo onto the site. And then that sort of one idea evolved into becoming a marketplace. And that's when we were like, okay, you can go and find these shade recommendations, but maybe to get people coming back, let's turn it into a place where they can buy from small businesses. And then we started getting customer feedback saying, this is all great, but for those of us who are new to makeup, can you please make this kind of like our one-stop shop for all of our beauty questions and like really making it a guiding platform to save us even more time? And that's where we started like integrating Kibot, which answers any question regarding makeup. And I still use it to this day when I'm getting ready to go out. And we started like working with locals in our community to make like user-generated content videos and like makeup tutorials and stuff. And that's really like what our product does. Initially, it did start off as like a very AI heavy idea, but then it evolved as we started getting more customer input and then feedback.

SPEAKER_08 10:46

Yeah, and also and also sort of what sets us apart from like if you you could go online, you could go to Sephora, you could go to Alta and just buy makeup products off of there. But what we did specifically was we have small businesses and boutique brands you can basically only find on our site or like maybe just their site, so that people get and like we are able to like support the small businesses in our community through that as well. But also it's exposing people to like a whole new range of makeup that maybe they have never heard of.

SPEAKER_05 11:14

Okay. So um, so it looks like uh uh is this an app or a website or both?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Um initially we wanted it to be an app, but I think once we started adding the features in, we kind of let it take its progression and it's transformed into a website.

SPEAKER_06 11:28

So the website is live at this point?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, it is live.

SPEAKER_06 11:31

How do you get to what is the URL?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

At the moment, it's like key beauty for you, but actually this week, yes. But actually, I think this week we're working with our another teammate who's a web developer to take it down and really refresh it. Um, just because there have been a lot of like progressions in the makeup market. So we're trying to like update it to stay on top of everything.

SPEAKER_06 11:52

And what kind of traffic are you getting at this point?

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Honestly, we're getting pretty good traffic. I think I'm not too sure on the number, but it's looking at like a hundred clicks per week right now. And we've actually stayed in touch with some of our user base as well. We have like an email on there and they're like sending us emails and stuff. But a lot of the people using our platform are like emailing us and letting us know, like, hey, this is my third time on the platform. I'm loving it. And they're actually coming to us with ideas too that we're like working on implementing every time we re like fresh the website.

SPEAKER_06 12:22

Got it. Do you have any uh competitors, or is it your competition is just the inertia of people trying to, you know, match the shapes themselves?

SPEAKER_08 12:30

I'd say in terms of competition, like you could say that our competition is like about like maybe like Ulta or Sephora, because people could technically go into store, get shade match, or they could find like an online scanner and get shade match, but really like what I said before, our value proposition, right? Is that we're we have like small businesses and boutiques that you can't really buy from anywhere else except our site. So that really sets us apart. And on top of that, it's like a full like it's your go-to booty assistant because we have tutorials for people who need to like get shape match. We also have people like who don't know how to use makeup, they can find a tutorial on our website. And we have people, we have it so that it gets matched to your skin tone. So you're looking at someone who looks kind of like you, and you're able to follow that as your guide to makeup. And we also have an AI chat bot which helps you with like whatever kind of questions you need.

SPEAKER_06 13:20

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah, and I mean, kind of in the nature of business, when we started, we're like okay, with the idea. We're like, oh, we're totally innovative, nobody's like us. And then as we did more research, there are obviously AI scanning tools. I mean, you can go into Ulten Sephora, but what sets us apart is like as Terenic mentioned, we tried to make it as user-focused as possible and try to really highlight that it's for a crowd that might not be as experienced with using makeup. And actually, we had our customers kind of after we developed Key Beauty and send it out to our beta testers, we gave them a list of our competitors and a lot of them said they actually worked with those competitors before to try and get like shade matches and makeup. And consistently we were ranked above them in accessibility and convenience.

SPEAKER_06 14:05

Got it. Excellent, excellent. What is your business model? Is it primarily selling? Is e-commerce selling through your marketplace? Do you have a membership fee also?

SPEAKER_08 14:16

We actually um for ours, it's like we're doing a B2B to C model. Initially, we're seeing if we could just charge members like a subscription price, like, oh, like you can use our platform for five dollars a month. We learned that like makeup is really, really expensive. So a lot of customers weren't willing to pay that additional amount on top of their makeup product. So what we changed it to was we have a B2B to C model or we have two different revenue streams where we have our commission-based stream. We're taking a 20% commission off of the custom like our the small businesses sales on our website. And then we also have a subscription-based model where we're charging small businesses$30 a month and enterprises$5,000 a month to use our platform to sell their products on.

SPEAKER_06 15:01

I see. That's great. That's great. So uh you guys are still in um high school um and you are doing this on the side. Uh, what is your what are your plans for the future? Are you going to um drop out of high school or not go to college and uh work on it full time or do this on the side? What what are your plans for this? Uh sounds like a great uh great idea.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

I think dropping not dropping out of high school and going to college at this point would give our parents like heart attacks.

SPEAKER_08 15:30

If I said, like, mama, daddy, I want to go drop out of I want to drop out of college. I don't want to go to college now, we're want to work on this full-time, they would like actually like kill me on this spot. Like that is not that is not happening right now at this stage.

SPEAKER_06 15:43

Yeah, on the on the side. You continue to uh you you're planning to continue to work on it even while you go to college and you know in high school and so forth. So do you think you can manage that effectively while you're working 20, you know, uh uh 20 hours a day on your homework and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Oh, honestly for sure. I mean, we started working on key beauty really during high school and midst of our senior year when college applications and the reality of like, okay, get ready for your future was really setting in and stuff. And even during those stressful moments, this never felt like work. It never felt like okay, we're doing this as like something we have to do. It felt like kind of an escape from like the busyness and hecticness of life. Because I think for both of us, really, this was a problem that we connected to and kind of sounding a little bit selfish. If people didn't like the we wanted it, we wanted it.

SPEAKER_08 16:34

It was for us. So that was like our kind of motivation, anyways, because we never saw it, saw it as like, oh, additional homework. Like we wanted this thing, so we built it, and now it's there.

SPEAKER_06 16:44

That's awesome. That's awesome. Are you looking for any funding at this point, or are you pretty self-sufficient in terms of um um continuing to uh run the company?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

So, in terms of funding, actually the prize money from Thai has been absolutely amazing and stuff, but additionally, kind of working through the program, we did a lot of cold emailing and working with our mentors such as Remya and to reach out to like local tech companies in Seattle and we're like, hey, we're high schoolers, we have this really amazing idea. Can you please help us? And I think because we were so young and we had so much passion, a lot of these companies were very charitable. They gave us their resources kind of part-time, um, for free. They didn't even charge. Right now, we're not looking for funding, we're pretty self-sufficient. I think our team is very dynamic in the sense that we have somebody who can focus on coding, somebody who's very into marketing. So we're able to kind of self-tackle the issues ourselves. And even in the future, we built a really good network and community of people who are willing to support us without really looking for anything in return. And like, I'm still calling up some of the mentors today, and I'm still working with the tech teams, and they're not looking for money from us, they're just looking for like the passion and dedication we have.

SPEAKER_06 17:57

So, um tell us a little bit about your experience with the uh the competition, both at the regional level and then going to the TYE global finals. How did you prepare for that? And what was the experience like at the uh finals?

SPEAKER_08 18:10

I can start basically we preparation was like a lot. We were like meeting on Saturday and Sunday, like every single week, and we were spending like six to eight hours in Ashida's basement trying to like we're practicing and we were um constantly like changing things up because I mean, yes, we have like a nice like product to deliver, but like also we want to make sure that our pitch is perfect for that. So it was like a lot of it was a lot of back and forth, and I think at one point it was very, very stressful for all of us together, but it was a good experience overall. Like I think that stress is really what motivated us to keep going and we did pretty well.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah, and kind of adding on to what Direne said, I think honestly, up until the last day before globals, we had not finalized on what we wanted our pitch deck to look like. Literally, we were making changes and we were coming up with new ideas and we're like, let's take away this, let's change the way we're phrasing this. And something super funny was on the flight to DC, I was like, why waste time? And so literally we begged the people sitting next to us to like change seats and like we negotiated something. And we were all pitching the entire flight based on it. No, yeah, we were like practicing and stuff, and a couple people behind us were like looking over their shoulder and they're like, What are these high school ladies doing? But like we did not waste a single second. And as Terrini mentioned, I think like all being in different grade levels in high school and like especially during AP seasons and like finals week, it was really stressful of like a process in terms of like figuring out time and like finding the dedication to really show up and having other people show up. But like in the end, it was totally worth it.

SPEAKER_06 19:50

So, um, uh would you recommend this program to other high schoolers, to your friends? What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I mean, I can go ahead from here, but absolutely. I think even if you're not interested in business, if public speaking is something you're scared of, I would just say go into the program because each person, based on their interest, pulls something different out of it. I think I was really lucky. I got a business out of it. I got I rekindled a friendship and found new friendships. And then I got an amazing network of people and adults who I never expected to talk to really. I think what's amazing about Thai is, and especially Thai Seattle, is you have this vast array of mentors and they're industry leaders, venture capitalists, and CEOs, and they're so invested in giving you their time. They're so invested in your idea, in your journey. And they're not just looking at it as sort of like, okay, like we'll give you a few tips and we're done. They're hands-on. I think even when we were not messaging our mentor, our mentors are messaging us and really following up and taking accountability there. And they were showing up before we even showed up. And for the kids who are scared of public speaking, I'm gonna be so honest. I was terrified. Like starting Thai as a freshman, I was so nervous to even like speak up during the session sessions and stuff. And it completely changed my experience with public speaking and really how I interact with an audience. And it taught me so many amazing valuable skills. And like even to my high school friends and family friends who are younger, I tell them this Thai puts you in a unique situation because you're literally immersed in the environment of entrepreneurship that most people kind of get later on in life. And you're doing that as a high schooler. So you're getting the real world experience, you're learning the mistakes, and it's not that high stakes of an environment. You're like, okay, if this business fails, I don't need to pay my bills like the next month. And like I can really continue with it. And to me, it's more than just a program, it's really like a launch pad into the world of entrepreneurship and stuff. And I would a hundred percent recommend it to any high schooler.

SPEAKER_08 21:52

Similarly to Srita, I would a hundred percent recommend it too. Like, if you asked me, like what, two and a half years ago, do you see yourself? Like building a company and like having that as something that you have, I would say, no, absolutely not. I would have not expected myself to go into like anything related to business. I would have never expected to build out a company. I would have never expected to like actually like speaking in front of people. Cause now, now personally, I want to be the one up there presenting. Like I actually love talking and I love presenting. And I think that program, like just like Ashridas said, even if you don't like public speaking, if you don't like anything with business, this is like gonna help you. Like, even if you don't build out a company out of this, this is like teaching you skills that you're gonna need later on in life. Because you're learning how to think on your feet, you're learning how to like pitch, you're learning how to network with people. And these are all skills, no matter what sort of career field you're gonna go into. Even if you don't like entrepreneurship, you're gonna need to know how to do all of this. So I think for like anyone, like no matter what type of person you are, this is like 100%, this is something you should be doing. And also for me personally, this sort of helped me get leadership roles at my school because I like was through like Q ⁇ A sessions, I was like learning how to think on the spot. So when I had like interviews for like leadership positions at school, I was just able to come up with an answer like so fast. And I don't think I would have been able to do that. And I think also it helped a lot with my confidence because before Ty, I was, I would talk, but I was quite like terrified of speaking in front of people. And I was not really taking initiatives and things, and I just wasn't really comfortable in sort of like a leadership role. But I think through Thai, like I've become more comfortable in like leadership roles and I've become more comfortable just like speaking in front of like a huge group of people. Cause for example, now I'm co-president of my DECA chapter, and I have to speak in front of like 150 people every single Wednesday, like in like for my meetings. And I just I'm completely fine with that. And I think three years ago, if you asked me to do that, I would have been like terrified of doing that. But I think this this is just an amazing experience overall, and I'd recommend it for like anyone.

SPEAKER_06 23:57

That's great. That's great to hear. I have one final question now for Ramiya. Um, can you talk about your experience as a mentor, um, what you got out of it, and um, you know, would you recommend it to other charter members or associate members of Thai?

SPEAKER_13 24:11

Mentoring in Thai is a very, very interesting experience. It really has i i if um if uh your person who's looking to find that connection and and find a channel to give back can also grow as you're giving back. Thai is the program for that. Thai is also a platform that helps, as you've heard these girls talk, they found their voice. When I I share this with other youths that I mentor to on the Thai program, you may have the world's best idea, you may have the world's best engineering mind, you could be building and solving the most critical problem. If you're not able to communicate that in a convincing manner, then all hard work is for no use. So, how do you do that? Um, you get out of your own way by really focusing on what drives you. You have a compelling idea and you're driven by the idea. So there is fear has no space in that in that experience. I mean, fear has no space. So you're just communicating your voice, and that's what Thai gives you. For mentoring, personally, I would highly encourage people who have been in the industry who are passionate about entrepreneurship to come forward because Thai helps you really. I've seen students come up and kind of bloom with their kaleidoscopic thinking, right? They are able to see the world with so many different colors of lattices, and that is possible only through entrepreneurship. And Thai is a platform that provides all those resources and access to those resources in one place. So why would you not want to leverage this platform? Both for being a mentor and growing and being an entrepreneur and learning the ropes of things, right? Given the AI era that we are in already, you hear me saying this, the only thing that the differentiates between a human and an AI is our hunger to create you wanna have that human edge come to tie.

SPEAKER_06 26:28

That's great. All right, there you have it, folks. Um the Key Beauty team stood second in a year uh in the TYE Global Finals, which is an amazing accomplishment. We are very proud of you. And I would encourage all our listeners uh who are into uh beauty and so forth to try it out. Uh, you can go to Key Beauty for you and hope you are there to support these young women in this endeavor. So thank you very much and all the best to you.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

With my co-host Sharish Natkarni. My name is Gaury Shankar. Sriesh and I serve on the board of Thai Seattle. Today we have the TYE global winner of the global competition winner who represented the Thai Seattle uh chapter in the global competition. I'm happy and excited to welcome Team Kaimavi. Welcome everybody. First, let me introduce Aloek. Alook mentored this team and has been a volunteer in the TYE program for a while.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Alook, can you give a little bit about your background? Thank you, Kaudi, for the introduction. I am Aluk Doshi and I am co-chair of the TYE Seattle program. I've been involved with uh TYE for the last three years. I started as a mentor the first year, the second year I ended up becoming the lead mentor, and this year I'm co-chair of the program. And my journey basically began when uh TYE program was rebooted to some extent, where we started with 67 students uh three years ago. Last year it was um 107, and this year we have 150 students, and we also have a lot of momentum with mentors where we started with 20 mentors and volunteers, and now we have 50 mentors and volunteers supporting this particular program. Personally, I'm quite uh excited about the startup space. My day job is at AWS, where I run the activate program operations. We give credits to all these state startups, but I'm very passionate about working with high school students and sort of helping the next generation of entrepreneurs. And more importantly, with TY, we get an opportunity to have experienced entrepreneurs who are part of TI to mentor the next generation of startups. Now, specifically with Kaimavi, I was first involved with them two years ago by being the mentor for them. They were a team called ScoutTrack, and uh they were actually one of the youngest students with the program. But in spite of being the youngest uh students, they actually came fourth that particular year. They took a lot of the learnings from that program two years ago, and last year they started building on Kamavi and they basically ended up winning the competition. So again, I'm really happy to see the tremendous growth from just dabbling with entrepreneurship to actually being seen as the winners of the competition. But one thing which really stood out from my perspective was last year when they were towards the end of the competition, uh Tayem, who is on the call, he reached out to me and asked for a little bit of advice around what kind of momentum they would like to see. And they actually were doing really great. They were talking to a lot of the supermarkets, etc. And a simple idea from my perspective, right? Hey, can you show a real bag during the pitch? And that's something which immediately resonated uh with them, and I think that really helped in their competition where it made their idea very real. So, look, to me, this is the age of AI, and 21st century skill sets are very important for high school students, being able to show creativity, critical thinking, uh those kind of skill sets are super important. And I'm really glad to see how Team Kaimavi has learned that as part of the TYE program. And I'm excited to see what are the great ideas come out from TI Seattle.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Hello, thank you very much both for volunteering and fostering this program for Thai Seattle. Especially, I think the youth that uh and the students you're working with represent what I think uh entrepreneurship is all going to be about for in the in the coming years and decades. So I'm so glad that you're part of the program. So, first of all, congratulations, team Kaimavi. This is uh year four. That's incredible that you kept at it. So if you each of you could go around and introduce yourself, the the name of the school you're at and the grade.

SPEAKER_12 31:22

Hi everybody, I'm Tayam Keshk. I go to Skyline High School and I'm a sophomore.

SPEAKER_09 31:27

I'm Rajameshri. I'm a sophomore and I go to Newport High School.

SPEAKER_14 31:31

Hi, I'm Abdav Mutkumkumar. I go to Skyline High School and I'm a sophomore.

SPEAKER_10 31:36

Hi, I'm Arjun Pampalia, and I'm a sophomore at Skyline High School.

SPEAKER_11 31:39

Hello, I'm Ishan Pasania, and I'm a sophomore at Skyline High School as well.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

Excellent. So a lot of uh Skyline High School and uh one from Newport. That's uh that's excellent. First question, right? Before we even get into what Kaimavi does, can one of you describe how did you all decide that this was a team to be part of? You could have been part of any team. Looks like over a hundred students enrolled, but was there something about the team that you're in? Are you happy that you were in this team? Obviously, one, so that's gotta be happy. But uh could could one of you describe how that came together?

SPEAKER_14 32:16

So originally when we started TYE, we were eighth graders, so we all couldn't go to globals, so we um were all on the same team as put together when we did Scout Track. Then when we came into ninth grade, we really knew each other pretty well, so we decided to go with the same team because we knew the ins and outs of each other, how we all work together, so we built up a lot of chemistry. Then from there, I think that was a major role of why we were able to get so far there. We worked well with each other and we were able to, you know, push each other's buttons in a good way.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

Excellent. So let's get into Kaimavi itself. So what is the problem that you identified and uh that you decided to build a solution for?

SPEAKER_09 32:58

So there's two parts of the problem. The first part is that first of all, we noticed that there's not a lot of biodegradable p plastic bags that actually degrade in marine uh environments. They often fail to degrade and which can be turned into a problem for humans, which causes diseases for us, and also it's just bad for the marine environment, right? And then the second part of the problem is it's almost a big problem for the businesses as well, because when we look at sustainability, usually customers think that paper bags are the best options. However, customers, those same customers, have many complaints about those paper bags. For example, they're very expensive, they rip a lot and things like that. And also they're not supportive by the Seattle weather because it rains a lot. So the paper bags tend to not be as durable in the rainy seasons.

SPEAKER_12 33:52

So the solution or like the idea we came up with was to make biodegradable plastic bags that completely degrade without leaving anything behind, whether it be residue or it be microplastics. And these are both marine and land biodegradable, so they degrade both in the ocean and in the soil or in the soil. And also our additional touch, because we feel that just biodegradable plastic bags wouldn't have been enough, would be to have two main ingredients, which are chidosin and calcium carbonate. And what these do is they help us combat ocean acidification by lowering the pH level, they stimulate plant growth, and they absorb metals and pollutants in the water. And then obviously we have to have a last ingredient for the plastic itself, which is PCL, which again, this is both land and marine biodegradable. And the PCL and the calcium carbonate, and the PCL and the calcium carbonate together make the plastic stronger than most paper bags. And this was something we actually demonstrated in our presentation. We had two bags, one of our bags, and then a normal paper bag that you get from any grocery store. And Arjun actually put a dumbbell inside the bag, I think it was 20 pounds, and put in the paperback first, tried to lift the paper bag, it obviously ripped instantly, and then he put it in our bag and then same position, same everything. He tried to lift it, and right in front of the judges, he was able to lift it very easily.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

Wow. So your demo in the finals was an actual work that you guys wanted to prove that these are durable. That that's amazing. To establish uh that this solution will work. Did you measure the size and the how did you figure out the traction for it? Did you go talk to customers, supermarkets, etc.? What was the first step in saying this is worth it for you to go build it as a company?

SPEAKER_10 35:30

Uh I think one of the first steps was just validating the actual science because um there's a lot of components to this that um make it work. So we talked to a professor with a PhD uh from IIT, and she kind of uh talked to us about the chemistry of it and how the actual uh bag would you know come together and how the elements react. And then we also went to Tidal Vision who are a trendsetter in the Kaito San industry, and we talked to Eric Passman, and he kind of told us the ins and outs of how Kaito San works and its exact proxies. So we we had a lot of meetings with him about how that material works, and uh, we know it very well.

SPEAKER_12 36:10

And specific and specifically just to find the actual problem itself first. We thought about a problem that actually affected us. So I'm from Egypt, the rest of them are from India, and something we see is there's litter and there's trash everywhere, whether it be on the streets or the on the beaches, and even our local lake, there's litter that you find all the time. So we wanted to do something that solved that while also also generating a profit. So we went and talked to people with environmental experience, for example, the professor with a PhD, as well as other businesses, that would be the end problem uh the end uh would be our customer for the bags.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

That's awesome. So as a follow-up to that, looks like you guys got a organic chemistry one-on-one lesson from uh from a real professor at a at a university, which I'm sure that all of you will encounter when you guys go to the university yourself, because you had to understand elements and chemistry, how they work together. Was that uh was that the starting point for this?

SPEAKER_10 37:06

Yeah, that was like the starting point the science was, but it really started with the with the problem, really. Um like that was the original starting point, just we like realized there is a lot of trash um in Egypt and like you know the lakes in India. Uh and that was like the emotional part of it, like the pathos. And then after that, the science came, yeah, and like meeting with uh the person with the PhD and the Eric Passman from Title Vision and scores after that.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

Looks like trash was the uh was the driver for you to come up with the solution. So you started with the problem of trash and worked your way back to the solution rather than saying, hey, let me come up with a new bag.

SPEAKER_10 37:47

Yeah, yeah. So we we started with that problem and we wanted to find a problem that uh obviously there that there was a gap in the market for. And then yeah, we worked back from there and it it took a lot of iteration. So the bag wasn't our first idea. We had other forms like uh, you know, a candy wrapper, you know, not just a plastic bag. And we also had different ideas for materials, but um, eventually through our market research, we found that creating a bag would be the most effective, and then through in our meetings with uh these scientific experts and uh research of our own, we found what materials would be best. But yeah, it was a lot of iterations and research and uh working back from that problem.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

So as you did your research, did you did you as a team decide how big is this market opportunity?

SPEAKER_11 38:32

What we think is a good starting point for our market is just uh coastal states in our area, which is going to be our Psalm. It's quite a big industry with a$1.8 billion. Well, we can move up to the SAM, which is across the United States, which is$4.5 billion, and our total accessible market, which is just every eco-conscious grocery store in the entire world, is around$13 billion. So our market is quite expansive.

SPEAKER_12 38:58

Yeah, so we did a lot of customer validation on that point. We talked to, I think it was over 40 grocery stores in our area, and we actually got a video letter of intent from PCC with what the let me remember his title again. Yeah, director of purpose and responsible sourcing, Mike Wenrik. And he basically sent us a minute video that we used in our presentation of him basically congratulating our thing us for our idea and saying that it would be something that they would love to implement in the line later down the line.

SPEAKER_10 39:26

Yeah. To add on to that, uh, when we met with Mike Wenrik, uh, we found that like this market, like it's it's very niche, but it's growing up very largely. PCC community markets, they're very uh eco-conscious. And Mike Wenrick, as the director of purpose and sustainability, he's in charge of all their initiatives for you know the uh packaging and sustainable sourcing. And when I talked to him, uh he said that they're already trying to find like many different materials and uh forms of packaging for you know, not just their bags, but uh their straws and uh you know the what you put your vegetables in at like you know local stores, but all kinds of packaging, they're trying to find unique materials. So it's a it's a big market and it's not just bags, there's a lot of areas that you can expand into.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

Okay. So as you discovered the market opportunity to be rather large, even though it's starting narrow, did you then come up with a business model as to were you just going to manufacture this and sell it as bags to them, or how much was it going to cost to manufacture versus how much will they buy it for compared to what they're buying?

SPEAKER_14 40:33

So we operate under like a B2B business model using a tiered pricing structure. So basically the more you buy, the less you spend. It's like sorry, the more you buy, the lower the cost per unit is. So bulk orders ordered by large companies like Trader Joe's and PCC Markets, they will order more bags, but it will cost less per bag. And then small stores like um your mom and pop shops that are in like Pike Place Market that are still eco-friendly, will buy a smaller order of bags, but the price would be higher.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

Did you calculate what the cost would be to manufacture and the and the price at which you would sell them?

SPEAKER_12 41:19

So we calculated the cost per bag to be about three and a half cents, with the PCL base costing the most at$2 and 2 cents, 2.7 cents, and then everything else costing about point or 80 cent 0.80 cents. And the tiered pricing would be for small customers for over 100,000 bags, eight cents a bag for over one million bags, 7.25 cents a bag, and then for large customers or over 10 million a bag, it cost about six cents per bag.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Okay. So so as you scale up, the price goes down for the customer, but was your cost also going down because you could achieve some economies of scale? Did you guys see that in your model?

SPEAKER_12 42:00

The cost per bag goes down. So the 350s are our end price?

SPEAKER_14 42:03

Starts around like four cents and it keeps going down year after year.

SPEAKER_12 42:08

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

Okay. Okay. Okay. And who did you see as your competition? I mean, there are bags now. People are buying in grocery stores. I everybody uses bags. Who is competing for the kind of bags you're going to produce?

SPEAKER_14 42:24

So our main competition is paper bags, because that's what most eco-friendly stores use right now. Because one, they're biodegradable, but that's really it. And most of the actual biodegradable bags that are on the market right now um are inefficient. They take a really long time to biodegrade, and some of them don't biodegrade in water, which is where a lot of your landfill ends up. So that's where copy has a huge edge over the other bags in the market. Paper bags, they're not durable at all, as we showed in our demo. And the biodegradable bags that are on the market right now are super inefficient.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

Okay. So now that you have found there is a s a solution to a real problem and it is it could be a profitable company. Are you guys thinking that you will build this further? You're all mostly are in what sophomore, right?

SPEAKER_09 43:13

We're still exploring our options because all of us are in high school. So first we're trying to figure out and do some more research about how feasible this is. But currently we're just exploring our options.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

Excellent. So nobody's dropping out of high school and starting this. Not yet. Okay.

SPEAKER_11 43:31

If it becomes feasible enough and we think there's a real possibility that we can follow through with this, and it's definitely an option.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

That's that's pretty bold. That's good. That's very good. Um now all of you I think started at TYE in your eighth grade, you said. So now we what have you learned from this experience that you've gone through for the last three or four years? And um, do you think uh skills that you have gotten out of TYE for life in general?

SPEAKER_10 43:58

Yeah, I can start. I think the most important things we got from this program was learning how to fail fast and then learn fast. As you mentioned, or as Aloke mentioned before, when we first started out as Scout Track, we got fourth place. I mean, obviously, you know, when you're the co-founders of a startup, you think you deserve first place in the world, but that doesn't happen. And we took those learnings and we took all the feedback we got and we improved uh everything we could, and then we come back with kaimavi and uh we end up winning. And it was a lot of work over two years, but we stayed persistent and we learned how to just take that feedback when you fail and then incorporate it. And then obviously, even our with our iterations, right? We didn't start with the plastic bag. We started with a problem, and then we went through like probably over 10 different materials, and you learn which material doesn't work, and then you try again, and then you learn that doesn't work, and you try again, and same thing with the structure of the bag and all that. And I think that's just such an important ability to take feedback constantly and constantly improve your product, your idea yourself.

SPEAKER_14 45:09

So the main thing for me that I learned was confidence and speaking skills. When I came into ki um TYE as an eighth grader, I wasn't that confident and my speaking skills weren't as good. But I think as we as I developed, as we did the first presentation with Scout Track and with Kaimavi, I started learning how to talk better, how to emphasize some words that so I bring out bigger meaning in my speech and when I'm talking, and having more confidence, because confidence is key. So I think for me, that was one of the biggest takeaways, just being confident and knowing what I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_12 45:46

For me personally, I think the biggest skill that Kai uh that TYA helped me with was learning how to work as a team and like actually being able to manage working with a team because after two years of arguments, it's it's been a lot. So especially with this team, we've been we've argued a lot and we still argue to this day, but you it's easier for us to argue and actually reach a resolution, versus at the beginning we were just arguing until one person gave up.

SPEAKER_09 46:09

What I've learned, especially as a high school student, is networking because I think we that we don't get a lot of exposure in schools with like businesses around us or how to talk to people that are in high positions and how to pitch our idea. So that's like one of the most important things that I've learned is networking and pitching your idea with your opinion.

SPEAKER_11 46:29

For me, the thing that I learned is that you need to stand out and really tie, really taught me different techniques of standing out now to emphasize how we're different than the rest and how we're better.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Nice. Very good. So, Rajal, uh, I have one question for you. This is the other four members of your team are from the same school and they're all boys. So, as the only woman on this team and from a different school, how did uh how did you influence them? Because they're not, I'm sure they're not staying anywhere close to you or that you meet them every day in school.

SPEAKER_09 47:02

So I think the way I got pulled into this team was because we were all eighth graders and we had to participate together. The reason I stayed in this team, because I did have an option in ninth grade to like leave this team and find a new team. But the reason I stayed was because of our bond. I think Thai T by E like made us really close. We have a great bond now, and you know, as a woman especially, I can say my opinions and I can state whatever I want to. And in fact, I do argue with them as well. So I think it's like very open at this point, and I think our bond just like kept on building.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

Excellent. So would you if you were to go to your high school today or your middle school today and talk to other students, what would you say? Would you recommend TYE? And what would you say they could get out of it? Especially parents who don't know whether to or not to enroll their their own children into TYE?

SPEAKER_10 47:56

Just all the things we have just said, and and there's so much more. Like it's it's really a type of experience that you just have to do, and you learn so many things about yourself and all these lessons just by doing it. I mean, yeah, as we touched on, like, you know, confidence and uh it just changes the way you think, right? You know, breaking down a problem and presenting to the world what you believe in and what you worked on. I mean, these are skills that literally help you in anything you do in life, and it it just changes your fundamental way of doing things.

SPEAKER_14 48:26

To add on that, to add on to that, I think another thing that Ty really helps with is rejection.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

That's excellent.

SPEAKER_14 48:33

A lot of people when they go into like entrepreneurship don't realize how bad rejection is. I feel like Ty helped that when we got fourth, we were all crushed. We thought that we were gonna win, but obviously it's never that easy. So that helped us like understand what do we actually need to do to win? How do we um develop our idea? Because we initially thought we were gonna stick with Scout Track, but then we really thought about it. We sp like three, four months just generating ideas, thinking about what we could do to make our idea better or go with the completely new idea. So I think learning how to deal with rejection was massive.

SPEAKER_12 49:07

And then lastly, other than the business skills and the life skills, especially that they both touched base on, especially to students and to parents, I know that college apps is extremely important for them. And I think at least for me, at least this program has made me feel more confident in my ability of getting me to a good college because of the experience I gained.

SPEAKER_09 49:24

And Thai Seattle also has a great mentorship program. For example, Alok helped us through this a lot. And I think this is a very safe space to learn and make mistakes as well.

SPEAKER_11 49:34

And the cherry on top, I think, is just that you get to make connections, you get to meet so many different people with different skills so they can teach you. Very good. And it's just a wonderful experience overall. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 49:45

First of all, you know, congrats once again. This is uh incredible. Alok, I think a special shout out to you for navigating this team. What would you tell to uh the parents who would listen to this to absolutely look?

SPEAKER_04 49:59

I started in the program because my son was uh part of that cohort, and when I went in, I thought, okay, I'm happy to help out as mentorship. But then when I saw the learning my son had, and as I saw this team, uh Scout Track, because I was the mentor for Scout Track um that first year, I saw the development of this team, right? Again, shout out to the growth to the team on Kaimavi as well. They came in as eighth graders. I think the common threat they had was sports among four of them, and Razzle kind of was uh pushed into this as being an eighth grader. But the amount of development which I've seen uh over the years, that is high warming. And the other teams also, which didn't necessarily win, I did see quite a few of them come back the second year, and some of them have come back a third year. They truly have learned about entrepreneurship as a life skill. And the example which I use uh with some of these uh students is that look, in life, if you need to get something, it's these entrepreneurship skills which is gonna be useful. So, for example, you want to get a car from your parents. How are you gonna be able to negotiate and tell them why they should be buying your car? What is the value proposition? What is the ROI? What is the benefit they are going to get in investing into them buying a car for you as a student? So think of entrepreneurship not just as a college application ticket or if you want to build a startup, but think of it as a life skill. And uh any parent who has a high school student who is even remotely interested in entrepreneurship, this is a safe place for you to bring your child in, have them learn about entrepreneurship. Right, we have around 15 mentors from TIE who are all established entrepreneurs or working in uh very, you know, tech intensive roles in Microsoft and Amazon and other tech companies, they are imparting their skills in a voluntary manner. So this is a great opportunity for you to gain those kind of skill sets. So again, based upon Kaimavi's experience and based upon what me as co-chair running this program, I would highly recommend having this as an opportunity for your high schooler. Thank you, alook.

SPEAKER_03 52:12

Thank you for listening to our podcast from Startup Exit brought to you by Dai Seattle. Assisting in production today are Isha Jain and Mini Varma. Please subscribe to our podcast and rate our podcast wherever you listen to them. Hope you enjoyed it.