How to Pitch Terraset (and other carbon removal buyers)
Life-changing tips like "don't wait outside the bathroom in ambush"
This is episode #399 of the Reversing Climate Change podcast. You can listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your shows. You can also listen to the full thing right below this paragraph.
Quick Takeaways
Taylor Insley has been on both sides: a decade as a fundraiser soliciting donors, and now at Terraset receiving pitches from developers. The single biggest mistake she sees is developers forgetting that buyers are people. Roughly 75% of her interactions at conferences skip basic human etiquette entirely.
Terraset looks for catalytic deployments where their capital (typically a couple hundred thousand dollars) unlocks a milestone, an investment opportunity, or a loan. They’re currently seeing 6-7x leverage on every dollar deployed. But they are not funding nature-based projects right now.
Taylor’s hierarchy for approaching buyers: first, know the organization and what matters to them. Second, be a normal human who remembers they have a name and a life. The first is essential. The second is what breaks ties and gets you expedited through the process.
Counter-signaling doesn’t work. Messy decks, jargon-heavy pitches, and “we’re too busy doing science to communicate clearly” reads as unprepared, not as rigorous. The story matters more than the technical language, especially for buyers connecting projects to donors.
First impressions are less important than relationship building. Taylor doesn’t take them that seriously. Things change fast in CDR, and a project that wasn’t ready in November might be perfect by May. The developers in Terraset’s portfolio feel like partners because they check in, they offer ideas, they help Terraset do its job better.
How to Approach a Buyer Without Making Them Hide Under a Hoodie
Taylor Insley spent most of her career as a fundraiser. She knows what it’s like to see someone from a major foundation floating around the coffee stand and think: how do I get in there without immediately saying “give me money”? That experience, she told me, has actually made her better at her current job as Director of Strategic Growth at Terraset, because she understands the impulse from the inside.
But now the turntables have turned. At Terraset, Taylor is the one being pitched, and the experience has been instructive in ways she didn’t expect.
The buyer hiding under a hoodie
Taylor told me that at a recent Carbon Unbound, she found a big buyer sitting at a bar with a sweatshirt hoodie pulled over his head because he needed a few minutes to breathe. She gets it. At the same event, she was trying to sit quietly in a back row when she watched four developers approach her in sequence, each sitting down across from her to deliver their pitch. The developer sitting next to her, watching this happen without knowing who she was, finally said: “I don’t know how you just did that.” He didn’t pitch her. They now have a relationship.
The developers who work their way into Terraset’s portfolio, Taylor said, are the ones who remember that she has two kids. Who ask where she flew in from. Who meet her over scones at Unbound rather than ambushing her with a video of methane leaking from a gas well. That’s not a commentary on the quality of their projects. It’s a commentary on what happens when you treat a buyer as a vending machine rather than a collaborator.
Should any of this matter?
I pushed Taylor on this. It feels unfair that diplomacy and charm should count for anything when the climate crisis is this urgent. Shouldn’t the science and the unit economics be enough? Shouldn’t it be a pure meritocracy where the best project wins regardless of whether the founder can make small talk?
Taylor’s answer was honest: yes, she might be the problem. But Terraset is a specific kind of buyer. They’re a nonprofit connecting projects to donors who care about impact and story. They have human relationships with every company in their portfolio. If you understand that about them and pitch accordingly, you’re going to be much more successful than if you pitch them the way you’d pitch Microsoft.
And that’s really the deeper point. Every buyer cares about something slightly different. Taylor quoted her co-panelist Lauren Wiley from Oliver Wyman: what Lauren’s looking for is probably different from what Taylor’s looking for, but you could get money from both of them if you pitched it the right way.
The hierarchy
I asked Taylor to rank what matters. Her answer:
Number one: know who you’re pitching. Understand the organization, what they fund, what they don’t, what stage they’re at, what a win looks like for them. This is by far the most important thing.
Number two, the nice-to-have: be a nice human. Take the time to build a relationship. Remember that the tie goes to the person who feels like a partner rather than a transaction.
She was clear that being difficult isn’t disqualifying. If a project is impactful, unique, and aligned with what their donors want, Terraset will fund it regardless of personality. But you’ll get expedited through their pipeline if Taylor can think of you when the right money comes in. That happens when she remembers you as a person, not as pitch number 347.
What Terraset is actually looking for
Taylor laid out what she wants developers to know:
They’re looking for catalytic deployments. Their capital, usually a couple hundred thousand dollars, should unlock something bigger: a milestone, a loan, an investment round. They recently did a £200,000 pre-purchase that unlocked a £1 million loan, then brought in an offtaker at another $50,000. That kind of deal structure is what excites them.
They’re not doing nature-based right now. Not for any philosophical reason, just that their diligence process currently removes those projects. If you’re nature-based, save yourself the time.
They’re a team of three with 450 projects in their pipeline. They can only go through them as fast as they can go through them. Anything you do to make their job easier, to help them understand quickly whether you’re a fit, is working in your favor.
The email I suggested
I offered Taylor a hypothetical pitch: “Hey, I’m not ready for a proper conversation with Terraset yet, but I want to be ready six months from now. What are the steps I could take to make sure that when the next opportunity comes around, this would be a fundable project?”
Taylor said it was the first time anyone had ever sent her something like that. She immediately had three things she’d say in response. The approach worked because it was honest about timing, it asked for help rather than demanding attention, and it treated the relationship as longer than a single transaction.
Counter-signaling is dead
I brought up the phenomenon of founders who counter-signal by having terrible decks and chaotic communications, as if being too busy to present themselves well proves they’re doing serious work. Taylor confirmed she gets these all the time. They don’t work. She and some of her donors are actually exploring whether Fortune 500 advisors could volunteer their time to help CDR companies with exactly this kind of thing.
The comparison I made was to Sam Bankman-Fried on stage with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair in gym shorts. At some point, not caring about presentation stops reading as confidence and starts reading as something else entirely.
First impressions and the minor leagues
I asked whether a bad first impression is fatal. Taylor said no. She doesn’t take first impressions that seriously. Things change fast in CDR, and relationship building over time matters more than nailing a single interaction.
But there is a lifecycle to pitching buyers. I’ve seen companies go straight for Microsoft or Frontier when they’re not ready. The natural progression, which I described somewhat embarrassingly through a baseball analogy, is to start with smaller, more accessible buyers like Milkywire or Terraset, get those stamps of legitimacy, and then approach the bigger players once you’ve been pre-vetted and have a track record.
Tell me how to do my job better
Taylor’s golden piece of advice, which she repeated several times in different forms: tell me how to do my job better. She’s not a carbon removal expert. She’s a philanthropy expert. She has a diligence process and advisors, but what she really wants is developers who understand Terraset’s vision, who can identify where their capital would be most catalytic, and who help her tell stories that bring more money into the space.
If you walk up to her and say “here’s how your $200K could unlock $1.2M for this project in Kenya, and here’s the story your donors would love to tell about it,” you’re speaking her language. If you walk up with a 30-second pitch and a business card, you’re one of the 75%.
She also offered, on the record, to spend 30 minutes reviewing any developer’s pitch deck. So there’s that.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Taylor, thank you for being here. We’ve been talking about doing a Terraset show for a while now, but your recent Carbon Unbound performance, I was going to say, your panel ship. What is like, how do I speak English about this? You were on a panel and you were talking about weird experiences of being a buyer of carbon removal credits and how for some reason that confuses everyone and it turns them, turns the thinking part of their brain off and they are behaving in ways that are counter to their goals, is maybe one way to say it. Is that pretty much what happened?
Taylor Insley: That’s a phenomenal way to put it. It does feel like they turn the thinking part of their brains off sometimes and forget that we are also just real people.
Ross Kenyon: Yes. Gosh, and what is your experience like as a buyer of credits? Part of the way that I conceptualize it is I imagine many people want to be famous, but then the stories of being famous sound really annoying. It’s like you can’t really go anywhere. Everyone notices everything you do. One time a friend of mine was in town from the East Coast and we were eating at a restaurant in LA. It was not that nice of a restaurant. It was like fast casual and kinda nice. And I saw someone out of the corner of my eye and it was Adam Sandler. We didn’t even see his face. I just knew. It was like, that’s Adam Sandler for sure.
Taylor Insley: Big.
Ross Kenyon: He looked like he did in Big Daddy, which is like long gym shorts and visor, that’s all. It was just real not trying. Everyone obviously notices him. This guy’s an A-lister and has been for a super long time, and so has to walk in. Everyone’s like, has their hand up for high fives, and he doesn’t stop and chat, but he goes the high fives. He can’t just exist. Everything he does is noticed in some way. And I’m wondering, do you connect with this experience? Do you have a Sandler-esque carbon removal experience?
Taylor Insley: I think you could say that Terraset is the Adam Sandler of carbon removal.
Ross Kenyon: You’re talking about Adam keeps a neck beard. Is that what you’re saying? He needs to shave a little more thoroughly?
Taylor Insley: Yeah, exactly. No, it’s interesting because I think we are this quasi-buyer where we move money in a very specific type of way that I think is really accessible to people. But I do think that it’s complex. It’s a little complicated for people to understand. And yeah, I think sometimes, we’re not the big Googles and the Microsofts, but I do think because we are a nonprofit and we try to be more accessible, we go to places like Unbound and we try to interface with developers and projects and other partners, and it can get a little pitchy off the bat. And I feel like some of the best partnerships I’ve gotten have come from those events. But it’s like running into somebody over scones at Unbound. It’s not the running up to me with a video of methane leaking out of a gas well. That’s interesting.
Ross Kenyon: I guess when people approach you, is there an attempt to proceed with normal etiquette? Is there like a “hi, how are you, how was your flight” kind of thing? Or is it just “this is my shot, as long as I don’t stop talking they can’t walk away” kind of thing? Tell me some anecdotes, sufficiently anonymized so you’re not humiliating anyone that we can identify, but tell me about it.
Taylor Insley: I think it is a lot. I’d say 75% of the interactions I have are like that. And I will say even anonymized, there was one point at a recent Unbound where I found a buyer, a big buyer, sitting by a bar with a sweatshirt hoodie over his head because he was like, “I just need a couple minutes to breathe.” Because I think it is this... But it comes from a good place. These companies need support. They need buyers. They need money. They need capital to move their projects forward. And so I totally resonate with that, especially as a fundraiser. I am also fundraising, so I know what it’s like, and I think in some ways it’s made me a better fundraiser because I realize what works and what doesn’t. But yeah, the ones that remember that I have two kids or the ones that remember I live in Boston and ask me about that, or even just say “hey, where are you flying from?” I feel like I’m way more likely to have those conversations than the ones that run up and say “hi, I’m going to give you my 30-second pitch, and here’s my card.” I will say one other one was, again anonymizing, but there was a period of time at Unbound New York, like two years ago, where I was sitting at a chair at one of the back rows, and I was just trying to breathe for a couple minutes, because it’s a lot. Post-COVID, it’s a lot of talking. And so I just needed a couple minutes, and I was sitting next to a developer, but I had no idea it was a developer. It was someone I had never met. And they watched four different other developers come over and sit in the chair across from me and pitch me. And by the end of it, the developer that was sitting next to me was like, “I don’t know how you just did that. That was crazy.” And he’s like, “And I was going to pitch you, but now I’m not going to pitch you like that.” And now that’s somebody that we have a relationship with because we were able to kind of endure that together.
Ross Kenyon: We should create some sort of augmented reality, virtual reality Taylor experience here of just what is it like to be you at one of these things. You feel like it’s really uncomfortable and it doesn’t work, and also, how do I get out of it? Are you going to want to hang out for a super long time if you can’t just have a normal conversation with someone? My guess is probably not.
Taylor Insley: Yeah. Here’s the thing. Like I said, I think this sector needs more buyers to be accessible, and I think being honest about the interactions that get you what you need out of buyers is more valuable than us just saying, “Well, we’re not going to go to these things.”
Ross Kenyon: Espresso.
Taylor Insley: So yeah, I get tired, but espresso gets me through, you know? Espresso and honesty.
Ross Kenyon: I can imagine someone listening to this and feeling frustrated that the personal, the diplomatic, the charm matters, because something as important as climate, you should just think that unit economics and the path to scale, those are the things that should matter, how good the science is, not whether or not you enjoy goofing around and talking about scones at the breakfast buffet. Why should that matter? Does it? Or is it maybe the problem with you and not actually with her?
Taylor Insley: Maybe I’m the...
Ross Kenyon: You are the... The call’s coming from inside the house, Taylor. Sorry.
Taylor Insley: Correct. Here’s the thing. I may be the problem. I will say that we, not to be like “we’re different,” but Terraset is different in the sense that we are a different type of buyer. We are a buyer, but we are different in the sense that we do care about the impact. We care about the intersectional approaches. We care about the stories that are coming out of these projects, and we have very human relationships with all of the companies in our portfolio. Because we’re connecting them to the donors who do care about impact. So I think for us, and one of the things that I talked with Lauren Wiley about on stage at that Unbound thing was that every buyer is going to care about something a little bit differently. I’m not saying that the science doesn’t need to be sound or the methodologies don’t need to be proven or the economics need to make sense, because all of those things are also true. But if you want to break in a little bit, you’re going to get a lot further with, I think, a lot of these buyers who are one-man teams or one-woman teams, by having relationships with us. And as somebody who fundraises, I get that. I have a lot better rapport with the funders that I know more about and I can get a coffee with or have that kind of relationship with. And I think right now this sector is in such a do-or-die moment that we forget that we are all in this together and we’re all aiming for the right things and the same things, for the most part.
Ross Kenyon: How would you approach it if a project developer came to you and what they were doing was incredibly impactful, but they were a difficult person? Their social niceties are not present. They aren’t necessarily someone that you’re having fun on a call with, but this technology and/or this project is really impactful. How do you determine whether or not it’s worth entering into a medium-to-long-term relationship with someone like this?
Taylor Insley: I mean, that’s not a reason to not fund someone. I think if they have a project that’s really interesting, impactful, unique in the space and it aligns well with what our donors are looking for, it’s worth pursuing it. I think my point is more that anyone can apply through our intake form online, and we will evaluate all of them based on merits and diligence, and we will reply to them based on whether or not they fit. You’ll just be expedited through that process if I can remember, “Oh, we just got $500K that’s meant for biochar in Kenya,” and I remember talking to this person that was really wonderful for whatever reason. I want to reach out in that moment and think about them, not the people who were just through our intake.
Ross Kenyon: I will get this request sometimes of “who can you introduce me to with the buyers?” And my response, which I’m hoping you can either confirm or tell me that it doesn’t work this way, but the response that I’ve believed for a long time is that these people all have RFPs out for the most part. They want to find good projects. Your job is to do a really good job responding to the RFP, and me trying to help you backchannel or cut in line in some ways is not super helpful. In fact, you should probably spend all of your time making your application good, and then maybe a little chat after you’ve read this document super well, know what they’re looking for, and can connect with them. Maybe at that point it’s worth a conversation. But also, it’s probably just best to follow their protocol, walk through the front door with a really good app, and if it’s a fit, you will get a meeting. You don’t necessarily even need my help for this. Is that true?
Taylor Insley: Yes and no. I think for big buyers, yes, that is true. You trying to backchannel to Microsoft’s team, probably not going to be it. But I can’t speak for them because I’m moving way lower dollars than they are. For us, it is actually because we have 450 in our pipeline that have applied to us. We’re going through them, but we’re a team of three, so we can only go through them as fast as we can go through them. I think the one part I really do resonate with what you’re saying is, yes, I think there is a backchanneling that is useful. If you came to me and said, “Hey, Taylor, I know this really cool company that I think would be perfect for Terraset’s pre-purchase model,” I would absolutely take a call with them because I trust you and I trust your judgment. There are plenty of times where developers will come to us or even apply to us and be asking for $2 million in a certain type of capital that we don’t provide. And so I think there is real value to looking at just as simply as looking at a website before you talk to buyers or before you apply through their portal or intake. But yeah, I would also say not all buyers have RFPs. Some are still building. I think through our revolving fund, we’re finding it’s an on-ramp for a lot of companies that are more small and medium-sized that have never done this before, and so it’s their first time, and they don’t even know where to start. And I know Tito is running a lot of really good work with Air Miners around education for that. But a lot of that is just through relationship building and trust of other people, other peers saying, “This is what I’m doing, and I’ll go in on this with you for a first or second time.” So yes and no is my answer to you.
Ross Kenyon: There are some points at which myself or someone who has a relationship with buyers can help, but there’s also a limit to it. I can’t really browbeat Aiden into making Milky Wire do something that they’re not going to do. If the application is half-baked, then it’s probably still going to get rejected. You still need to do the work. You can’t jump over the hard work of doing a really good application, I would say. Unless, have you ever seen an application that counter-signals where it’s like, “We’re too busy to focus on communication, and we’re too busy doing the science and engineering this so well that we don’t actually have a beautiful pitch deck”? Is that...
Taylor Insley: 1000%. All...
Ross Kenyon: Oh, no. Oh, you’re saying you get that, but it doesn’t work. Or does it?
Taylor Insley: Oh, it doesn’t work, but I get them all the time. Yes, 1000%. And I think one of the things I’ve been talking about, we have these two donors that are really, they do a bunch of business advising and startup advising, and they have been like, “Do you know any companies that we would offer our time or donate our time to provide guidance on how you do some of that?” And so that’s something I want to work on with our donor network. There’s not really a way to volunteer in this sector, but that could be a very interesting way to support, you know, these are big Fortune 500 type companies that could help.
Ross Kenyon: I wrote this section of an essay recently that got cut for space that I love. Sorry, do you want to finish your thought before I go on this?
Taylor Insley: No, I want you to tell me your thought.
Ross Kenyon: In startup culture where counter-signaling was super prominent, and it would be probably closer to late 2010s, where it was like, “We’re too busy making cool product. And comms are what the dumb people do, and we don’t really care about that.” Flash is associated with less rigor. And the high water mark of that for me was seeing Sam Bankman-Fried on stage with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, and he was wearing the gym shorts and the dad shoes and a T-shirt. “You’re with former statesmen. It doesn’t do what you think it does. If this is counter-signaling, it’s dead.” It’s receded since then. I see it way less common. But even still, there are people and companies that I work with, even recently, where I’m like, “I know you’re a brilliant scientist, and I know your technology’s really cool, and I’m happy to work with you on it. This slide deck looks like it was made for GeoCities, and no one is going to give you extra credit because you’re so busy doing other stuff. You need to hire someone. You need a designer, or this is not going to work.” And sometimes they take that advice, and sometimes they disagree with me.
Taylor Insley: But it’s also, I guess it’s the designer and the making it look pretty. I mean, Terraset has a pretty simple brand on purpose. One of our board members was the head of brand at Stripe. She’s very intentional about our brand. But I think it’s less about graphic design and more about storytelling or how to communicate information. I will always go back to this. The majority of my career has been in conservation and environment and climate, and I barely knew about carbon removal. I knew what it was when you think about the bathtub, but I did not know until I took this job what ERW was. And I think so much of this field is this technical and scientific jargon that is so inaccessible, and we just assume that other people are going to do their own research and figure it out. It’s just not how it works. And so if you want to bring in new buyers to the space who have never done this before, it’s incredibly intimidating to be throwing around these scientific and technical words and phrases that make no sense to anybody else. And I remember it was my first week at Terraset and somebody showed me a video of something that was on fire and was telling me it was biochar, and I remember being like, “This doesn’t feel like a climate solution. I’m not understanding.” Because they just dove right into the science instead of being like, “No, the story here is that we’re creating something that’s going to help these farmers in this specific region, and it’s going to bring these jobs.” And I think that is the stuff that people are caring about more and more. Whether that’s more of a burden on companies or not, I think that’s a whole conversation. But it is important to be able to tell those stories better.
Ross Kenyon: I think it feels unfair to a lot of people, especially if they’re not naturally loquacious, someone who likes running their mouth on a podcast on a regular basis. I think at some point in my life I realized that diplomacy counts for potentially way more than it should, and it may not actually be fair. But some of these intangible, humanities-based, feelings-based things, they do count. And I think people who come from STEM fields have a harder time making sense of why that might be, if not fair, then just woven into the fabric of reality of interpersonal human relationships in a way that they are not naturally advantaged to succeed at, and that is very frustrating. So we should try to give some positive advice here. Let’s imagine that they are maybe someone who’s very passionate about what they’re building, but they don’t feel as comfortable with social niceties, or they feel like this is their shot and they better get this sentiment out right now. Can we coach them into... Do you watch Love on the Spectrum?
Taylor Insley: Of course.
Ross Kenyon: There’s like a coach in that show. Some of this does require a little bit of coaching. Okay, you’ve gotten by on your smarts to date in your scientific and technical engineering life, and now you’re coming up on a situation where that still matters quite a lot, but it’s not everything. How do we make sure that people at Carbon Unbound approach you in a way that might actually feel restorative, relational, good to you in a way that you would want to keep a conversation going?
Taylor Insley: Yeah. I feel like such a jerk now that I’m like, “If you want to talk to me, you have to say...” That’s not what I mean. Because here’s the thing, at the same time, I’m also thinking, I would look at anyone’s deck and give them, if they genuinely wanted feedback on, as someone who does storytelling and communications, I would have no problem taking 30 minutes to look at 15 different decks of companies who don’t have comms capacity. Asking in partnership for that, I think just to answer directly your question, you walk up to me or another buyer that happens to be at Unbound, I think asking, “Hey, you work at Terraset. What’s important to you guys right now? What’s something cool that you’re working on?” And then that answer should inform or will inform how you pitch your project, and I think some of that is just human connection. And some of that is, I also think there’s just a general etiquette bit about if somebody’s talking to somebody else, letting them finish the conversation before you jump in there with a pitch and a business card.
Ross Kenyon: Has that happened to you?
Taylor Insley: Yeah, more often than you think. But I think that’s, again, I get the urgency. The climate crisis is urgent, and us being able to pay bills and support our families with our jobs by selling XYZ is urgent. But I do think there has to be a middle ground somewhere.
Ross Kenyon: I think here I have an idea of an approach that I would share with you. Let me know, would this work on you? Okay. Project developer listening, expand your horizon time-wise a little bit and say I emailed you, Taylor, and said, “Hey, I’m so and so. This is my company. This is what we’re building. We’re not really ready for a proper conversation with Terraset yet, but we want to be ready for something like that six months from now. What are some of the steps that we could take to make sure that when the next RFP or the next opportunity comes around, we are best able to take what we have now and have it ready so that this would be a fundable Terraset project?” Would you like receiving an email like that or no?
Taylor Insley: I love that. No, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. I already, as you’re talking, I’m in my head, “Here are the three things I would say make sure you have answers to.”
Ross Kenyon: Wow. Do you have them ready?
Taylor Insley: Yeah. One is that especially right now, and I think for at least the rest of this calendar year, we’ll be looking at what opportunities are catalytic in that, and I know that’s a buzzword and I hate using it, but it’s the only one I can use in this moment, where we are deploying X amount of capital as a pre-purchase and it is unlocking a milestone, an investment opportunity. It’s backing a loan. It is, what is the thing that it is doing more of? Because we aren’t moving tons of money. We’re moving a couple hundred thousand dollars here or there. I mean, it’s a lot of money, but we’re not making $100 million offtakes. That’s not where we’re at. So great example is, I don’t know when this podcast is going to go out, but we’re announcing next week that we’ve done a £200,000 pre-purchase that’s unlocked a £1 million loan. And that was a deal that we stitched together and then we brought in an offtaker at another $50,000. And so those types of deals are the ones where we’re finding we’re able to move the needle for these companies and move them instead of from A to B, like A to C or try to help them get further. So I think a clear example of that is helpful. I also think we’re just not in nature-based right now, and there’s not really a clear reason for that other than our diligence process just removes them. It’s something we’re exploring, but we’re not doing it right now, and I think I get a lot of pitches from nature-based where I’m just like, we’re trying to be better about saying no. We’re trying to be better about just saying... Some of the best conversations I’ve had with funders is when they’re like, “I love what you’re doing, but I’m going to tell you right now, this is not a fit.” And it’s great because then you can be like, “Awesome. It’s not a fit. I’m going to move on instead of trying to chase you for six months.” So we’re trying to be better about that.
Ross Kenyon: One line I love and I know that you’re going to love it too, you probably heard it, is that a quick no is only slightly worse than a slow yes.
Taylor Insley: Hmm.
Ross Kenyon: I like it when I get that too. I didn’t have to set annoying reminders on my email.
Taylor Insley: My board member this past week actually told us, “Believe the no, but don’t believe the why, or question the why.” And I think that’s really helpful. So believe the no. Understand that whatever their why for no, you could probably change it.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. I guess you have to believe a little bit, and it’s hard to be in business or be in fundraising and not want to keep trying if you know that there’s money to be had.
Taylor Insley: Yeah. At some point you have to give up, but that’s another ongoing issue of being a nonprofit.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so that approach would work, and then the example that you gave of just having a normal human conversation with you, trying to relate in some way that isn’t going right for the close right away.
Taylor Insley: Yeah. But I do want to say though, I get it. I am also constantly fundraising. It is hard when I see somebody who works at a major foundation floating around at the coffee stand and I’m like, “How do I get in there and not just immediately say, ‘Hi, this is Terraset. I want you to give me money?’” But there’s a finesse to it, and I think it’s worth investing as a team or a company investing in people who know how to do that well. I do. That’s something that I feel like some of the best developer teams that I’ve met have first and foremost sound science, good projects, and then they have people who know how to finesse that depending on who they’re talking to.
Ross Kenyon: My version of this is that I get so many inbound pitches for podcasts and I say yes to like 1% of them, maybe less. And it’s only if it’s someone who almost didn’t even... They’re reminding me that someone that I wanted to speak with anyway is sort of on the market to be on shows. I’m like, “Oh, they have a book coming out? Sure, let’s do it.” But half the time I’ll get them like, I’ve done a couple episodes on wine and climate change, and I get pitches sometimes where it’s like, “We love your show. Here’s a show about why decanting is outdated and we’re changing the way that we decant.” I understand this is AI-driven and you probably send this slop to everyone.
Taylor Insley: Slop.
Ross Kenyon: They all come in the same package too. It’s like, “I loved your recent episode with...” and then looking at the episode and inserting it, “and that’s why I’m pitching you a thing that has literally nothing to do with it.” But even the ones that are closer, it’ll be a pitch that’s something like, “This is an episode with this founder who’s ready to talk about why business can be an environmentally positive thing.” I’m just like, “This is maybe the worst pitch I’ve ever heard. You know what? You know what? I’ve gotten this pitch 10 times this week, and also it was boring the first time I got it.” There’s 400 episodes of this show. Give me something. I think probably someone coming up to you, and if they understood me, whenever I’ve had successful pitches and had really fancy guests on, I’ve been able to get authors on. And the way that I’ll do it is, one, it’s easy if they have a book coming out, but also I will read literally everything they’ve ever written. And I’ll be like, “I’ve read your eight books, and this is why I think you should come on the show.” And I’ve been able to get guests who would never appear on any other climate podcast because they’re like, “I don’t work on this. I don’t care.” But I’m like, “Here is why you should choose me over everyone else, and I know you well enough and your work well enough to make a pitch that is very unique to you.” I feel like some of the customer discovery work as a developer in carbon removal is probably understanding you as a person, like what you like, and also what Terraset as an organization likes, and knowing your audience and making sure you’re pitching that thing right over the plate.
Taylor Insley: It is more the second one. It is more understanding Terraset than it is about me. It’s more understanding what we’re looking for, what we do, the role we occupy in the space. And I think that is relevant for all buyers. Every buyer is going to be looking for somewhat different things, and I think until we get whatever version of this market is truly up into scale, that’s just going to be kind of how pitching is.
Ross Kenyon: I keep going back and forth then. How important is it to be a normal human with you, and how important is it to just know what Terraset is interested in and do that?
Taylor Insley: Okay. Number one is know who you’re pitching. That is by far, who being the organization and what’s important to them. What’s important to, I keep going back to Lauren at Oliver Wyman because that’s who I was on that panel with, and we were in fierce agreement, was like, what she’s looking for is probably different than what I’m looking for, but you could probably get money from both of us if you pitched it the right way. And then the nice to have is when you’re nice, when you’re a nice human. That’s the, and you take the time to get to know us.
Ross Kenyon: Is it, okay, so if you had two developers who were equally good on being catalytic and the other things that are important to Terraset, are you deciding on who you want to be in business with and have to be on the phone with for the next couple years? Is that how you, the tie goes to the runner who is also nice?
Taylor Insley: I feel like this whole thing is making me look horrible.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t think so. I think it’s real. I think it’s good. You’re human.
Taylor Insley: Yes, I mean, the tie goes to, and I have a couple developers in mind that I’m thinking of. The tie goes to the people that I know understand what we’re trying to do. Now, there’s some buyers where you start to ask these questions where you’re like, “Okay, well, who are we actually... Is this valuable? Is this not?” If we didn’t have a relationship with the developer that we do, the one-to-one or the Adam and I and their two leads, they’ve said to us, “Are you sure you feel comfortable with this?” Which I realize is a risk for them. We could say, “You’re right. I don’t know if we feel comfortable about that.” But they’re checking in with us constantly, and they do feel like true partners, so that we’re then more willing to say, “Okay, yeah, this is what we’re going to do. This is how we’re going to build this deal. We’re willing to take an extra risk here on this thing.” And I think that’s just business. And maybe that’s the whole thing, right? Business is relationships. Business is conversations. So yeah, the tie would go to the person that we have a better relationship with, for sure.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t think that’s bad in any way. I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants like 20 years ago. She tells a story in there that when she was head writer at Saturday Night Live, they would try writers out and cast members out for little stints sometimes. And if this person was not someone that she would want to see at 3:00 in the morning, it didn’t matter how funny they were, how brilliant they were. If they were just someone who was not going to be someone she was relieved to see when they were trying to meet their deadline, nothing else mattered. And I think that’s true. It’s hard to separate that, though, where if you’re in a hiring position or in a way that you’re trying to put deals together, you don’t want to... There’s a way of operationalizing that that is biased, where you’re just choosing people who are very similar to yourself and maybe have this... Or too similar, so you’re not actually encouraging enough of the kinds of diversity that you might. So you have to make sure you’re checking yourself. But if you’re able to account for that, then I think overall the premise here is, are you relieved to see this person if you’re having a hard time solving a problem? Or are they someone that you’re scared to deal with, or unpredictable, or bad at responding and may not get back to you for two weeks? That makes this deal way harder. And surely if the soft skills part of this felt more unfair, maybe characterizing it this way is like, this is actually just how you collaborate with other people effectively. It’s not... It’s a proxy for understanding if you will be someone who is productive and helpful to interact with for a long period of time. Is that a safer way to put it? Do you agree with that?
Taylor Insley: Yes, because it feels so much more like a partnership. And I think, again, I can’t speak for every buyer, but at least for us, we are a nonprofit and we have to respond to our donors. We are looking for stories to tell them so that they give us more money so that we put it into the market. That is our whole ethos. And so when we have developers that we see as partners in our portfolio saying, “Hey, I had this cool idea about how Terraset capital could be really useful,” we’re way more likely... We’re only three people. We’re a tiny team. And I think we have found just so much more success and interest on both sides when we’re building things together instead of just pushing money out the door.
Ross Kenyon: So you want people to come up to you and just start telling you how you can do your job better, is what you’re saying?
Taylor Insley: Yes. Yes.
Ross Kenyon: But yes.
Taylor Insley: Tell me, yes, tell me how I can do my job better. Tell me where I can put my money that’s going to be way more catalytic. Truly, because the other thing that I think Adam says this to me a lot, I’m not a carbon removal expert. I’m a philanthropy expert. I’m a nonprofit expert. I’ve spent a decade doing it. But I’m not... We have a diligence process. We have experts that advise us on where we should put our money, but I am way more interested in what’s going to be a really interesting story for the sector. What’s going to bring people into this space that aren’t already in here? What’s that inroad? Is it livelihoods? Is it ocean health? Is it some specific community in Louisiana that cares about kelp? What is the thing that’s going to bring in more money to get us over that 2%, only 2% of philanthropy going into climate? To help us solve the climate crisis, or at least solve this very small portion of it. For me, it’s such a bigger vision, and I appreciate when people understand that that’s the vision that Terraset sees this through.
Ross Kenyon: The video thing is probably just going to be a don’t, probably just don’t do that.
Taylor Insley: I can’t wait to see who shows me a video at Unbound.
Ross Kenyon: I hope someone just copies this script exactly, and then you’re like, “Are you... You cheated.”
Taylor Insley: Did you see that?
Ross Kenyon: When I’m thinking about the companies that are doing offtakes or the organizations that are doing offtakes, I tend to split them by, Microsoft’s trying to get the price per ton for negating all of their historical emissions, that’s really important to them, and volume is really important. When I think about Milky Wire, I’m thinking, okay, they really want to be catalytic and make sure every dollar of theirs is the most catalytic use on the margin that it can be. And then when I’m thinking about Terraset, should I be thinking about, you are the most story-driven offtake, pre-purchase originator that exists? Is it about selling you a really great story that you can take to current and potential donors and say, “This is why you should put your money here,” rather than the 100 other people who have contacted you for philanthropic donations in the past month?
Taylor Insley: I would say yes, but that’s secondary to the catalytic piece. I think right now we’re seeing anywhere between, with the revolving fund model, we’re seeing anywhere between six and seven times leverage for every dollar that we’ve deployed. So we are looking for opportunities where our $1 to a developer turns into four, five, six, seven, $8.
Ross Kenyon: Get ready for how annoying I’m about to be. Get ready.
Taylor Insley: I can’t.
Ross Kenyon: Being that catalytic is incredibly story-driven. It’s all about storytelling, right? You’re able to say, for this dollar, you get six or seven back. That’s how effective we are. We have the best story.
Taylor Insley: True. Yes.
Ross Kenyon: So actually I’m right. Can you say that?
Taylor Insley: You’re right.
Ross Kenyon: I’ve extracted an admission.
Taylor Insley: You got that recorded and everything.
Ross Kenyon: How great. Is that true for many of your peers? Do you think they are also thinking this way, or do you think that is something that you and/or Terraset is uniquely obsessed with?
Taylor Insley: If you want to get real meta with it, it’s all storytelling, right? Corporates are doing this to tell the story that they care about climate. They could do it for a bottom line, they do it for a whole bunch of reasons, but the main reason is the story that there’s a better... that’s for climate. Am I wrong in that?
Ross Kenyon: I don’t think so. I say things like, “It’s all storytelling,” but also I’m a storyteller who wants to generate new clients. So of course, I mean, this is all storytelling when you think about it.
Taylor Insley: Everything’s a...
Ross Kenyon: Talk to a chemist, they’re like, “It’s all chemistry.” Everyone just has this all-you-got-is-a-hammer, everything-looks-like-a-nail kind of dynamic.
Taylor Insley: Yeah. I would say yes. I would say for all of us, especially right now, I was just at this corporate citizenship conference, and for them it’s about the story of how this work connects with the communities that they care about. And so much of that conference was explaining how you sell the things you care about to your leadership teams and convince them to put money to the things that you care about. And so it was such an interesting layer removed, because those are the people we’re raising money from, more on the corporate philanthropy side, some on the corporate buyer side. But they then go to them and say, “Hey, this is something we care about. Here’s your story.” And they’re like, “Okay, can you help me tell that story to the people who actually make decisions?” And before you know it, it’s just a story and a story and a story, and it’s crafting this thing all to get money back to this thing you care about.
Ross Kenyon: So it is all storytelling.
Taylor Insley: It’s all storytelling. Maybe you’re right. I’m actually so curious what Eridu would think about this.
Ross Kenyon: Eridu will be on here at some point. I am in such frequent communication with her that it’s only a matter of time. We just need to find the right thing. With people that I’m pals with and I talk with a lot, pressure is on to find the exact right thing because it can be anything.
Taylor Insley: That’s why our last call you just stopped me. You were like, “I’m just going to stop you there and we’re going to put this on.”
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. It is great advice too. It’s nice to be able to talk about this frankly because these things, I feel like we do cover quite a lot here that should be useful. If there was maybe one gem that we could share with people of, this is Taylor’s advice that can be carved into a monument of how to successfully pitch her slash Terraset slash maybe the... No, we’re not carving it. It’s already being commissioned as we speak. It’ll probably change over time, so maybe it’s not going to work.
Taylor Insley: Erosion.
Ross Kenyon: What’s the best single piece of advice? Because you are a fundraiser. You are soliciting donors for funds for your work. Bring that into here. What have you learned from operating in both of these worlds as a recipient of pitches, as a solicitor, as a giver of pitches? Connect it back to your donor world. What can you teach people about that space that’s relevant here?
Taylor Insley: We’re all human. Not to be really trite, but we’re all human. And I think remembering that, yes, I deploy capital to these things and Terraset deploys capital to these things, we are still people trying to... that have all of our own internal goals we’re trying to meet. And so meeting us where those goals are, trying to help us achieve the goals that our company or our organization are trying to meet is, that’s gold for us. Or the shorter version of that is tell me how to do my job better.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, God. You’re going to get a lot of that happening to you, and I think a lot of people are going to hear this and ask me for the thing where I’m like, “Oh, I actually probably could put in a word.” And people are going to be like, “Can you put in a word for me?”
Taylor Insley: Here’s the thing, I will say on this podcast, I will give 30 minutes of reviewing anybody’s pitch deck as a buyer if they’re interested.
Ross Kenyon: One thing that I’ve heard, and I’ve also given this advice, and I’m sure it depends on which buyer it is, but how important is the first impression? I’ve had some people who have applied for RFPs with not that good of applications, or they were able to take a meeting with a buyer, and it didn’t go super well because they weren’t prepared enough, or they weren’t far enough along, or they didn’t even understand what the buyer’s motivations were, so they poorly pitched to it, and they feel like that relationship has maybe been damaged. How important is it to make sure you only approach buyers at the right moment?
Taylor Insley: I think relationship building is more important. I think if you’re not ready for the type of money that we are deploying, still knowing who you are is something, I want to know who’s in the ecosystem and who’s doing interesting things. And if it’s not now, it’s six months from now that you need us, that’s great. I also just, I don’t think first impressions are as important as... To me, they’re not.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I’ve heard people say this, but I have not encountered it nearly as much, where I’m like, you had a bad pitch to Microsoft two years ago, and you came back and you pitched again. It might be a different person at that point. It might be totally fine. Maybe you’ve matured enough and it’s okay.
Taylor Insley: I also think there’s something about our... We’ve been trying to figure this out with our portfolio because things change so much in this space. Four months or six months changes a lot. So you applying to us in November, by May you’re a different project. You’re doing different things. And so I think we’re trying to figure out how to make it easier for us to get those updates so that we know where everybody’s at. But I don’t take first impressions that seriously.
Ross Kenyon: I’ve worked with companies before that have gone right to pitching Microsoft and Frontier. I don’t love putting it this way, but you’re in the minor leagues. You go to Milky Wire, Robert Hogan gives you the thumbs up, you get a Terraset. And once you have those stamps where you are pre-vetted, you are kind of already seen as more legitimate and more mature and ready for the bigger deals. Your shot at the majors. I don’t really... I re-watched Moneyball the other day. I’m not going to be...
Taylor Insley: It’s all...
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, but there’s a lifecycle to this thing, right? But sometimes people don’t even necessarily know that that’s kind of the historical route that is set up for you. And that to me, I’m like, “Oh, I wish you would’ve checked in a little bit earlier because then we could’ve prepared you better.”
Taylor Insley: Yeah. I’d agree with that. There’s a clear progression to how this all works, and I think trying to jump ahead, I can’t imagine that. I wouldn’t go to a funder and say, “Hi, I’m ready for $100 million fund,” when I’ve only raised 10 million.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. That seems like a big leap.
Taylor Insley: Team of three, we can do a lot. I don’t know about 100 million, although Adam might be mad at me.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, you’re just, “What do you mean? We just had someone on the hook for that.” Okay. Cool. Is there anything that I don’t know enough about philanthropy or what you do that I wouldn’t even think to ask about that is totally salient in your brain?
Taylor Insley: That’s a good question. I feel like you understand what Terraset does. I think the philanthropy piece, the one thing I really want people to come away with, and we’re talking about this on the Unbound panel so it’s a bit of a teaser, is that I think we as a sector need to be way more creative about how we’re moving money into the sector, especially right now, especially in this current political climate and this current market. Being creative and intentional as a developer about how and where money can come from, I think is going to be what carries us through this next year. And so I think philanthropy is a very untapped tool that people just don’t think about because they think about rescue charities for cats, and they don’t think this is a system-changing amount of money. And that’s one thing that I just love about it. For me, philanthropy and nonprofits is connecting large amounts of money with things that I deeply care about, and it’s not just raising money and it’s not just deploying it. It’s connecting a donor or a family office with something that’s really important to me and to the world. So yeah, I think that’s the one thing I would say is you can be really creative with philanthropy in a way that I don’t think our sector has fully embraced yet.
Ross Kenyon: Taylor, thanks for being here. I’m going to put this out, I think the Monday before Carbon Unbound so that people can get good information about what to do. Hopefully that’s enough time. It’s probably not, to get people geared up.
Taylor Insley: We’ll take a few hours.
Ross Kenyon: You’ve got to have urgency with the podcast, otherwise I’m just competing with true crime and the paranormal. But thank you for being here and thank you for giving real answers to some fairly difficult questions about how much charm and interpersonal skills matter. It was a very good show for that reason.
Taylor Insley: Awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me.