Why Build Nelumbo? (Part 1 of X)

This series speaks directly to those considering joining Nelumbo’s team. Background on the series is at the bottom of this post.

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash.

What is Nelumbo?

Nelumbo is an organization of people that challenge and overturn the accepted views for what materials can do, with the purpose of solving the impact of the “stuff we make” as a society. Doing this successfully, several times, with solutions that can scale, will be unbelievably rewarding in nearly any currency you can imagine — cash, social, legacy, crypto (if that’s your thing)…

Why do we believe this?

The Problem.

1. “Stuff we make” on Earth accounts for ~31% of all greenhouse gas emissions¹. This includes cement, steel, plastic and many other physical products that underpin modern society.
2. This is even greater than producing all electricity, which accounts for ~27% of emissions¹.
3. Compared to electricity generation, society’s collective plan for addressing the emissions and impact of the stuff we make is severely underdeveloped.

The Opportunity.

1. Companies that solve the climate challenge have one of the largest economic opportunities of this century².
2. “Stuff we make” is reliant on the materials we use and what they can do, but few — though the number is rapidly growing — are working to implement step function changes here.

So we need a better plan for achieving renewable products (= stuff we make that releases no greenhouse gas emissions) and part of the answer must lie in better materials solutions. There are relatively few going after this at present so this could be a winner-take-all opportunity. Sounds like a winning formula, right?

This is where you come in. People aren’t broadly doing this today because it is hard and the road is uncertain. The mission calls for adventurers, inventors, folks on the front line, and prize fighters — those that can’t live with a tomorrow that is the same as today. Our belief is these people will be successful no matter where they go, and Nelumbo exists as a vehicle to achieve their dreams and goals faster. These individuals that live boldly power the future — we seek them out, give them the resources they need, and celebrate them.

So if you are one of these people, we really want to talk to you. This is just the start of the story. There’s more to talk about — what can we uniquely deliver, what are we going after first, second, third, what are the biggest challenges in the way, and how is the organization run, to name a few. We’ll get to all of this in time. What would you like to learn? Let us know on LinkedIn or info@nelumbo.io.

If it wasn’t obvious, we’re also hiring. Check out the job postings here, and if you don’t find one for you right away, get in touch with us anyways at info@nelumbo.io.

Background on the series

This post is one of many. The series is of undefined length because a great organization should have ever more compelling reasons to be built. We believe that the story of a company, and how it is told, is highly influential to the outcome the company can achieve. Unfortunately, often the story that potential new team members receive (as opposed to customers or investors) is a scattershot of information from different points in time across different platforms. If we consider (people’s) time to be the most valuable resource, why don’t we do a better job curating stories to attract it?

This is what we want to solve with this series. An evolving story told directly to potential new team members that they can use as one way to consider joining us on our journey. For obvious reasons, no company can put everything in the public domain but we value transparency at Nelumbo and will strive to make any content as actionable as possible to you, the future member of our team. We hope to see many other organizations adopt this approach. Please let us know if you see others that already do a great job of this, we are interested to learn from them!

Citations

1. Gates, Bill. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: the Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need. Random House Large Print, 2021.
2. If you need a citation to believe this, this may not be the company for you