ofNature
I invented the technology. War destroyed the company. McDonald's adopted it worldwide.
The Story
The Innovation
The problem: Plastic straws got banned worldwide. The alternatives — paper (soggy), bamboo (inconsistent), hay (variable) — couldn't scale. QSR chains needed something machine-made, standardized, and identical every time.
The insight: Acetate cellulose was already everywhere — the material in your kitchen right now. But nobody had thought to use it for disposable straws. It could be mass-produced with existing manufacturing techniques. Same quality every time. Compostable. And it actually worked.
Products
In Action
What I Built
Manufacturing
- Built custom beta manufacturing facility in Ukraine
- Developed production processes from scratch
- Scaled to $120K/month output capacity
- Managed international supply chain
Certification
- Secured food-safety certifications
- Filed patents for manufacturing process
- Registered trademarks
- Met compliance for US/EU markets
Fundraising
- Raised $150K pre-seed (found investors 3x, lost them 3x before closing)
- Built investor materials and pitch deck
- Managed cap table and legal
- Navigated complex investor relations post-war
GTM & Sales
- Landed first commercial contract with coffee chain
- Developed B2B sales strategy for QSR segment
- Created brand identity and packaging design
- Built product line and pricing structure
Results
What I Learned
- The best innovations are often obvious in hindsight — acetate cellulose was everywhere
- Hardware is brutal: manufacturing, certification, supply chain all have to work simultaneously
- Geopolitical risk is real — we built everything in Ukraine 2 years before the invasion
- Good investors understand risk: "What happened was out of your control"
- You can be first and still not win — but the idea lives on
- Resilience means promising to make it right, then actually building something new