Episode 79 - Enhancing Workplace Wellness with Biophilic Design: Jonathan Cremer’s Mission

Written By Mark Williams

Episode #79 | Jonathon Cremer | Enhancing Workplace Wellness with Biophilic Design

In this episode of The Curious Builder, Mark Williams chats with Jonathan Cremer from Evrsphere about the importance of creating sustainable and healthy commercial spaces, especially post-COVID. Jonathan shares fascinating insights on biophilic design, innovative air purification technologies, and the benefits of indoor farming. Plus, Mark gives a shoutout to their unique waterproof and tear-proof stone notebooks—perfect for any builder out there!

Listen to the full episode:

 
 

About Evrsphere

At Evrsphere, we are driven by a vision to revolutionize the world of commercial spaces and places through sustainable innovation. As the Founder and Principal, we're committed to leading with purpose, merging entrepreneurial spirit with a deep dedication to enhancing organizational health and performance. Our mission is to forge a path where strategic business development not only creates value but also drives meaningful, positive change. Together, we are shaping the future of high-performance environments and making a lasting impact.

  • Mark Williams:

    Lake Society magazine is Minneapolis premier target market boutique lifestyle and design publication. It embodies the unique lifestyles and design of the Minneapolis city Lakes neighborhoods. From Lake of the Isles to Lake Harriet. It showcases the best in local design projects by both premier builders, architects and interior designers in this area. Lakes Society magazine has the look and feel of a national publication with glossy covers, high end finishes. It's mailed directly to upper bracket single family homeowners in the city Lakes area and it's the perfect local coffee table top publication. Subscriptions can also be available through the website lakesocietymagazine.com. additionally, publisher and founder Karen Steckel has over 27 years in the local magazine publishing industry and has a passion for high end photography and quality graphics.

    Thoughtful Host [00:00:46]:

    Her commitment to quality visual simplicity and beauty are strongly reflected in her beautiful Lake Society magazine.

    Mark Williams [00:00:54]:

    Today on the curious Builder podcast, we had Jonathan Kramer on from Eversphere and it was really interesting. They're kind of a leading forefront of a, not only a really gathering of new technology, so they've collected a bunch of partners that can really help transform commercial spaces for breathing. 90% of your life is spent indoors and it's kind of a shocking statistic and one of the ways that they can help bring people back into office spaces is to create a healthier environment. We talked a little bit about biophilic design. We don't talk a lot about the, the residential market because it really hasn't hit there yet. But this is going to be a very interesting episode for those that are interested in health consciousness and in wellness and the things that we breathe. There's some really new cool technologies that we're going to be talking about. So if you're interested in that, this episode is for you.

    Mark Williams [00:01:41]:

    Without further ado, here's Jonathan Kramer. Welcome to the Curious Builder podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today I'm joined with Jonathan Kramer from Eversphere. Welcome, Jonathan.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:01:57]:

    Thank you. Thank you for having me.

    Mark Williams [00:01:58]:

    So I thought before we do the full normal intro, I thought it'd be pretty funny to just explain how we first met in the confusion. So Jonathan Kramer is spelled Jonathan a o n, not a n. Cramer. C r e m e r. Which would have been helpful to know. So we met because I was asked to be a speaker at a recent powerhouse smart event. And the person who was leading it all up was like, oh yeah, you know, Jonathan Kramer is, you know, going to be. We've asked him to come talk about his company.

    Mark Williams [00:02:28]:

    I'm like, great. And of course I'm thinking like, wow, she must really know who I thought was John Kramer from JK and sons, a builder who I just interviewed, like, you know, a month before this had happened. And so, like, I'm like, oh, great. So John and I can talk about hospitality. Like, this is going to be great. John and I haven't shared the stage together like this before. So I called John Kramer, and yet with a k, and I'm like, I left him a voicemail. I'm like, hey, John, really excited that you're joining us for this hospitality deal with powerhouse smart.

    Mark Williams [00:02:53]:

    I think that's really cool that you're gonna, you know, what do you wanna talk about? You know, I'm kind of playing the host. You know, what kind of angles do you wanna talk about? He left me this voicemail. I think he was on vacation. He's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. It was hilarious. And then come to find out that it was not the same, it was a Jonathan Kramer. So anyway, so funny for the audience that is local in Minnesota, he'll know who that John Kramer is. For those that aren't, this probably isn't nearly as funny as it was for me.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:03:18]:

    Right? I definitely admire John Kramer's work as well, along with yours too, of course. But yeah, no, that's a great story.

    Mark Williams [00:03:25]:

    So what, back to Jonathan Kramer, tell us a little bit about eversphere. I mean, you and I have a few other mutual contacts. I mean, through Mark Ostrom, the Joy collaborative. That'll come up a little bit later, but why don't you give us a brief intro of kind of where you started, what the company is and kind of where you're going and we'll dive in deep.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:03:43]:

    Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we launched, my business partner and I, we launched Eversphere, which is a sustainability consultancy focusing on accelerating resiliency in every environment. So we're really blending environmental and human sustainability to ultimately create healthy spaces for people to work, learn, heal, whatever it may be. In a post Covid world, people have anxieties about coming back to spaces. So how can we create more resilient applications worldwide to make people feel comfortable and really diving into high performance real estate market transformation? And what is the future of commercial spaces? We dabble a little bit in residential, but not a whole lot. But yeah, we're eleven months old and just hit the ground running and excited to be here.

    Mark Williams [00:04:26]:

    So I'd love to dive into where you came from, but maybe before we get in there, because I still don't know and I know some of it is a bit of smoke and mirrors as you kind of go through this pr process. Even with your website, which we'll have tagged later in the show notes, is like understanding, like what is it, like, what is eversphere, like, what is it that you do? Is it. I think it's error testing. It's help me understand what it is that you actually do because all the things that you said are super helpful, but I don't actually know what that means from a, let's say I own a, you know, a condo building or a, you know, giant, you know, building that, you know, my tenant left to your point, you know, maybe everyone was working it from home and now I have to draw my employees back to the office, which is a huge buzz thing in most big cities, and I know you're playing in that market pretty big. So what is your pitch to people? How are you getting them sort of to buy into what it is you're doing and let's walk through what it is you're actually doing for them.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:05:19]:

    Yeah, absolutely. Yes. We have a curated portfolio of different partners, different products and data driven solutions to really capture data and what's going on in spaces. So we come in as a consultant, for example, partnering with a commercial real estate firm that has a portfolio of different spaces that are sitting empty. So in this type of route, what are we going to do to create a stronger, more high performing space and really delving. You kind of mentioned that air quality and air performance is really our bread and butter. And the foundation of Eversphere has really been evolved around the elements of the well building standards. So spaces that you have access to, clean water, natural light, nourishment, essentials to really do your best work.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:06:02]:

    So really bringing what you would have at home into the office, but in a commercial setting. So from a consulting side, we can come in, create workshops, different elements needed to really curate a need for a space in the commercial real estate world. So right now we have a partner called poppy where we're able to go into any commercial building and in live time we mimic human breath. So we have the world's first air particle tracing system that essentially we capture what's going on in live time. And in a post Covid world, most buildings are over ventilated. So we're really bridging the gap between the health of buildings and people and really through a data element driven type of design.

    Mark Williams [00:06:44]:

    So a lot to unpack there. So you're analyzing what the carbon, you know, monoxide given off by people's breath, like what is it that you're actually testing and we say they're over ventilated. So does that mean the space is that good, bad, from what you're trying to do, like looks, how are you interacting with that? Yeah, because I would, and maybe balance is a better word, but, you know, I think of residential. If you. If you over ventilate or under ventilate, it can lead to equal problems. There's actually issues with both. But in a giant, huge building, I have to imagine over ventilation is better than under ventilator. Or am I wrong on that?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:07:20]:

    No, no, you're spot on. So it's really, you know, the buildings that are under ventilated that we're seeing that have the need for more air driven solutions to purify the air. So we come in, we gather data, capture the data, excuse me, with Poppy. And then we have other partners that actually purify the air. So without the data piece to collect really what's going on. So we're testing pathogens and really particulates in the air and benchmarking that against compliance. So we're figuring out how many air exchanges are going through a space in a given time, and benchmarking that against Ashrae 241 is the standard that we're following. So, really, if you're over ventilated, let's scale back.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:07:57]:

    Let's partner with your H VaC provider and figure out how do we scale back to really hit target and therefore saving money from an energy consumption when you're under ventilated? We're discovering what's really going on at the same time, more driven about, we need to scale up, we need to fine tune and really address the problem at hand.

    Mark Williams [00:08:16]:

    Would it be a proper analogy? I mean, do you have proprietary technology or anything like that within eversphere, not through a partner but yourself?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:08:25]:

    We do, not ourselves.

    Mark Williams [00:08:26]:

    So is it appropriate analogy to say, like, I'm a general contractor, I build custom homes, and people hire me to build their home, but I physically myself, I'm not an electrician, I'm not a cabinet maker, I'm not a window provider, but I essentially am the point person for all of these things under my construction, and then I'm subcontracting all these out. But they're hiring Mark Williams custom homes to build their home. Is it a similar analogy that people are hiring eversphere to manage all of these things, and it's all your contacts and relationships, and now those companies might have proprietary technology like this. Poppy sounds pretty cool. Is that. Doesn't that, is that accurate?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:08:59]:

    No, that's spot on.

    Mark Williams [00:09:00]:

    Okay. This makes way more sense now. And if I was to reread your website.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:09:04]:

    Yes, yes. And we've evolved so much in the last eleven months. You know, we started off right away, you know, focusing on a lot of talking about ESG and different things that.

    Mark Williams [00:09:12]:

    What is ESG?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:09:13]:

    It stands for environmental, social, and governance. So different pillars that organizations are following to focus on creating a healthier planet and healthier people.

    Mark Williams [00:09:22]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:09:23]:

    And we learned in the sustainability space, it gets super political, goes left to right and everywhere in between. And we're really honing in on our focus of creating healthy spaces and investing in health from a business owner's perspective. And what is health? Is it your financial health? Is it your physical health? What is health to you personally and what is health to your organization?

    Mark Williams [00:09:43]:

    I would imagine design has got to be a huge part of this. I'm just thinking of. And maybe this is. You would maybe be able to speak to this, or maybe there's consultants that are in studying human behavior. But like, let's say, like when people go to a church pew row, people usually sit on the ends, but people don't sit in the middle. If you are, you know, in an office space, people often want to sit by a window. You know, obviously you look at, like in movies and just. I've never been in corporate America, but, you know, the CEO's are in the corner office with windows.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:10:13]:

    Right.

    Mark Williams [00:10:13]:

    Because people want to be by natural light. But evidently, all the other people get stuffed into cubicles in the middle of these big spaces. But there's a lot of human tendencies wherever people, people like, I know for myself, I go to a coffee shop. I like to sit in a corner with my back against the wall where I'm facing out and open. These are just things that come to mind right now, does this come up in design or how does this. I imagine it would make its way into, you know, redesign of build outs for office spaces. If you're trying to get people out of their home, which is very comfortable, it's their refuge, it's their, you know, their, their dwelling. They're very comfortable there.

    Mark Williams [00:10:44]:

    If. What are some tricks and things that you've seen that entice people to come back? Because if you go to a really well done office space, you're like, ooh, this is pretty cool. I can see myself working here. How do you capture that essence?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:10:56]:

    Yeah, I mean, I feel that, you know, the days of the free coffees and the free, you know, extra little things that back in the day were, oh, it's super cool now. It's like, well, what else are you going to do to get me to want to come back, you know, to corporate America and this example and kind of speaking from an outer lens, we're really trying to use this technologies and these different applications to help build communities at the same time. So here in our backyard downtown Minneapolis, how do we create more of a resilient city and bring people back and, you know, really ignite different empty spaces and figure out what's next for that from that kind of design lens, but.

    Mark Williams [00:11:29]:

    And what are some things that trigger that?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:11:32]:

    Yeah. So the redesign of furniture in different spaces, to your point? That's actually my previous background came from selling commercial technology and architectural solutions and furniture to help create high performing spaces. Really? So I've been studying this for quite some time. Been blessed to work with one of the largest steel case dealers, furniture manufacturer in North America and learned a lot. I'm no designer, but got to work with some really, really incredible designers and architects throughout the years. So I just kept following this design trend of what are we doing for individual spaces? But to take it a little bit further, how do we, and this is where adversary kind of came from. How do we make them visible? Visible and really focusing on air? Because if you're going to tell me that I need to be back at the office, okay, well, is it healthy? Like, at the end of the day, is my boss or my organization that I'm with, are they really investing in my health and the health of my family? You know, because if I'm going to go to the office and whether it's personal safety or, you know, whatever it may be that you don't want the reasons why you don't want to go back, let's try to fix that. So really focusing on the human health element, which I'll keep kind of diving back to those human centric places.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:12:41]:

    So, you know, let's focus on clean air solutions. Instead of paying you a couple extra thousand dollars, an extra vacation week or whatever, let's make sure that where you're coming to work is actually healthy and clean.

    Mark Williams [00:12:53]:

    I would imagine education's got to be a big part of this, probably twofold. One is you have to educate, I imagine, a lot of tenant owners or building owners. Plus I think you, I would imagine it gets complicated because most people that are in the space, I'm guessing, don't actually own the building. Well, let's start there. How do you. So let's say, let us pick a company a big company like target. I have no idea if any of this is true. So this is an asterisk for those listening.

    Mark Williams [00:13:19]:

    But let's say you're targeting, you own this giant building, but you don't, or, sorry, you don't own it, you rent it, but you obviously are have a vested interest in your people. So you, it's no different than if you're up because they're gonna have to spend quite a bit of money to put all the stuff together, but it's part of their build out. Or do you have to get a hold of the owner of the building to sort of get their blessing on whatever this stuff is? How do you navigate some of those decisions?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:13:42]:

    I, in this type of example, I would start with the building owner.

    Mark Williams [00:13:45]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:13:46]:

    You know, it's kind of their direction because they're hoping that their client target, which is target example, you're going to hope that they're going to want to stay, you know, eventually when that lease is up, you know, you don't really want to have an empty building that you're still paying to operate.

    Mark Williams [00:13:59]:

    Gotcha.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:13:59]:

    So it's like, what's that key? What's that, that missing piece of, you know, we. New workstations. That's great.

    Mark Williams [00:14:06]:

    Which makes sense, actually, because if you can help, if you are the building owner and you can help target in this example, make their clients happy, you've made your client happy, and therefore you create the cycle of benefit. Plus, if they do leave, you've got something to attract. I mean, it makes way more sense for the owners. I am friends with. Shout out to Paul Crummuch from Greenway solar. But he's, you know, he always says that he's trying to do a lot of solar work on commercial buildings. But again, the hardest part part is like getting to the owners of the buildings. And if they own them for long periods of times where maybe they paid it off, they're like, oh, we're just getting making, why do this? And so it's just sort of interesting, kind of the chain of command, who makes these decisions? But going back to the second part of that question, which is education, I imagine a big part of it is you either reaching out to them for education or if their spaces are empty, I imagine they're probably listening to a lot of people.

    Mark Williams [00:14:53]:

    If you're coming to them and saying, hey, I can help get people back. I can see why that now is a great time to launch that business, considering the vacancy rates of large buildings. But then the second part of this would be educating the tenants. Do you guys perform? I mean, do you guys have a lot of, you know, digital creators or brand, you know, copywriters, essentially, that help deliver some of the stuff to an owner of a building so they can distribute it to their tenants?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:15:18]:

    Absolutely. Yeah. We're kind of that unique blend of there. Like, as I mentioned, there's a ton of sustainability consultancies across the world, which is awesome, but there's not many that really have that hard focus on the human sustainability and environmental. So we're really blending that together, bridging the gap between health and built environment. But from, from that lens to an educational standpoint all day long. And it's one of those that this industry is evolving by the day and things are changing and, you know, bringing it back to what's going on across the world. It's not just happening here.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:15:49]:

    What are the big, big cities doing to that will then trickle on this way? Type of, a, type of vision is what we have, starting from outside in and then providing different educational applications like CES and things like that. And it's been, it's been great.

    Mark Williams [00:16:03]:

    I mean, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the podcast was threefold. Wanted to hear your business story. Two, we had mutual friends. The third was about that indoor air quality. I don't think there are some builders on market that test for air, and there is certification out there for it. And we, and maybe we do a good job with our area exchangers, and we have a lot of it that we're doing from a heating and ventilation standpoint. But I don't know too many people that are, that are builders that are spending a ton of time talking or educating, at least at large, that I can tell about indoor air quality. In fact, there's only one builder I can think of, and part of it is understanding that we spend a lot of time, let's say, like, I'm a big runner, and so it's like, okay, you're running, you're exercising, all these things, the things you eat matter.

    Mark Williams [00:16:43]:

    But very few people are testing their own indoor air. And I can tell you as a builder that, you know, a lot of times people will complain about, let's say they're ac, not working in the summer. Well, when is the last time you change your filter and you get it out there and it's just completely, you know, filled up. Right. And so it's like, you know, that is, it's catching indoor air particles. Right. You know, if you have, you know, kids, dogs, pets, you know, if you're in the country, you know, city. I mean, I just know because we live in the city, you know, if I wipe down my windowsill, the amount of dirt, it's like, this is not out in the country, but just the amount that dirt and air is kind of shocking.

    Mark Williams [00:17:15]:

    And you think, wow, when I'm biking or running, somehow I'm filtering that out, or not filtering out, that's in my lungs. And when. But for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be a very well talked about discussion in a home. So it's something that I'm going to look into personally after this to kind of see what. What does the residential, um, indoor air quality standards like, how do we. How do we get more awareness about it? Because I imagine if we educate people, it's going to be a pretty powerful message.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:17:44]:

    Absolutely. And, you know, we spend 90% of our lives indoors. I.

    Mark Williams [00:17:47]:

    90%.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:17:48]:

    And, wow. I mean, on average.

    Mark Williams [00:17:50]:

    And based on what, Minnesota or the country or the world. The world. The world spends 90% of their time.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:17:57]:

    Indoors, if you think about it, working eight to five all day in an office type of activity, and then you sleep.

    Mark Williams [00:18:02]:

    I see, it's.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:18:04]:

    So why aren't we, to your point, why aren't we more focused on what's going on inside? I mean, all we do our entire lives is breathe. And if we're not breathing, that's not good, as we all know. So, you know, why don't we look through that lens? And it's funny, I have these discussions. My sister's on the residential side and has a super successful design firm. And we talk about these things, like, how do we. How do we create the future of healthy homes? By making it aesthetically pleasing. And some of our partners have those solutions right now. Small uvc lights that are flush with your ceiling, that are all times, at all times sanitizing your surfaces and reducing pathogens by 99.9%.

    Mark Williams [00:18:39]:

    Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. We had a client about three years ago, and he had. It was right around. It was Covid, because I remember he wore, like, double masks because he had a. He had some immune disease where if he did get sick, it was lights out. And he. We ended up doing a HEPA filter, an air to air exchanger. But we also had a uv filter in the furnace.

    Mark Williams [00:19:00]:

    I think I remember reading killed, like, 99% of bacteria, and then the filter would catch, you know, it just kills it, but doesn't take the dust out, essentially. Right. So I've never heard of that before. Where you have uv lights that would just shine on surfaces before. Oh, it's, I mean, I'm thinking of like a, you know, like a seventies disco party when everyone's wearing white and the lights are off and everyone's, like, shining and white. Like that kind of uv light. Like, how is this light different?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:19:23]:

    Yeah, it's a far uvc, and it's. It's one of the healthiest solutions out there to kill all the bad stuff in the air to really simplify it.

    Mark Williams [00:19:30]:

    Can you kill it in a furnace so you don't actually have to see it? Or what is the benefit of it being, you know, like, shining down on.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:19:35]:

    Your surfaces just directly above you to be able to sanitize yourself, you know, youre, any surface in general and the air. So it's, we can, we have them either flush or pendant and depending, and there's different subscriptions per se that we can add to it to really enhance. And it's really. How clean do you want to make your air? And then you have a live dashboard that you can see, as example, floor plan in our, my world is we're talking about a daycare, a child care learning center. So as a parent, when you walk into the learning center, you see a screen with the entire space, air quality levels in every single room.

    Mark Williams [00:20:08]:

    Oh, wow. That would be powerful messaging right there.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:20:11]:

    Follow our Instagram and LinkedIn, because we'll be sharing a press release here in about two weeks. We're going to be installing this at a childcare learning center. It's actually my mom's learning center. And in small town USA, because small town USA, we're short staff, and kids are sick, teachers are sick, you know, parents are sick, and everyone's sick. We can't have that.

    Mark Williams [00:20:29]:

    That's so funny. I have three kids, and so the joke is, I mean, my immune system is, you know, like that of a, you know, rhinoceros. I don't know if they have strong immune systems, but it sounds tough.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:20:39]:

    Sounds aggressive.

    Mark Williams [00:20:39]:

    It sounds aggressive. But the point is, you have three kids. They're constantly being exposed to stuff. And so it's like, you know, if you can, if you can build up, and I'm kind of someone who prescribes, like, you know what? Get dirty, get sick, because, like, just builds your immune system, right? You can't, you know, if you try to stay healthy from everything, then it takes you down. So you got to build up your immunity. But I, you look at parents that you know, or, like, doctor, my wife is a physician, so she's obviously in a hospital, people aren't going to the hospital healthy, they're going there sick. And so, you know, just all the things that we combat, I mean, that would. Now that I think about it, your applications are endless hospitals, because to your point, we breathe.

    Mark Williams [00:21:15]:

    So every single place that we are.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:21:17]:

    We need to breathe literally any, anywhere from. And it's not just helping humans, too, where, you know, we've delved into the cannabis world, too, from a growing application. So it literally can be anywhere and everywhere. We're working with some major airlines and looking at integrating this within airplanes because I don't want to get sick when I'm traveling and, you know, no one does. So really anywhere that there are people.

    Mark Williams [00:21:42]:

    Because they're just recycling that air up in the tin box up 30,000ft.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:21:46]:

    Yeah, I. I don't really know what's going on up there, to be honest. But I know we can, we can make it better, and it really ties into our, you know, accelerating resiliency in every environment, everywhere we go. And that, and that's just from the air purification standpoint, but it's, it's really that data collecting piece without the data from a commercial side and residential, it's a little bit different, a little bit easier. But it's. It's that, that unlocks the door to really what's going on.

    Mark Williams [00:22:13]:

    Think of a kitchen like the open air kitchens. I mean, you could see every single kitchen having, you know, a high end restaurant, right? And you'd have these uv lights. But so what is. Is there an advantage between. I mean, obviously, if you have a duct system that's circulating air, ventilating the air in a space couldn't. Why can't. Is there. What is the difference between the uv just living in the furnace application so that it's, you know, in there? So.

    Mark Williams [00:22:37]:

    Cause that air is eventually cycling through everything versus the uv lights being in the space that you are. You know, I'm thinking a little bit of ambience, too. It's like if you're in a high end restaurant, you really want to look up and see a bunch of uv lights, but maybe you have filters and diffusers where you don't see it. I don't know.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:22:53]:

    Yeah, you see about this much of it.

    Mark Williams [00:22:55]:

    Is it, is it purple?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:22:56]:

    It's purple, but it's very light. You can barely tell it's up there. Okay, so in a corporate setting, you, you know, conference rooms and stuff, you have speakers everywhere. Most people don't even know that it's there.

    Mark Williams [00:23:06]:

    But, but going back to my question, can it, can it live in the furnace? Because it's killing. It's cycling all the air in that room or building anyway. Or does it have to be in like, every open space for our solutions.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:23:17]:

    That we have right now, it's just for individual spaces and, you know, we can add more and whatnot to. From a cost perspective, what you're talking about is incredibly expensive.

    Mark Williams [00:23:25]:

    The furnace one. Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:23:26]:

    Wow. It's just more space to cover as well. So depending in kind of diving into what I kind of told you about last time we met about layered technologies. So we have, from an air purification system, we have mobile solutions as well. So let's say you have spaces that are not really frequently built. So instead of investing in a uv sleep light to sit there at all times, we could have a mobile solution that we can come in, plug in, and also does the same thing from a different type of cost perspective. So depending on the application itself, if it's a school, but if we're talking disaster relief, having these mobile solutions, definitely the route to go.

    Mark Williams [00:24:04]:

    I can say I wonder about, like, a hospital, like a surgery.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:24:08]:

    Oh, 100%.

    Mark Williams [00:24:09]:

    Are they already in surgery rooms? Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:24:11]:

    Yeah. Correct. Yep. And, I mean, it's. It's a very unique technology that we were blessed to be introduced to about six months ago.

    Mark Williams [00:24:19]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:24:19]:

    And, I mean, everything from kids to.

    Mark Williams [00:24:23]:

    All the daycare thing now that one I totally makes sense because they're constantly. Their feet are in their mouth, their hands are in. Everything's in their mouth.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:24:29]:

    Toys everywhere.

    Mark Williams [00:24:29]:

    They're everywhere.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:24:30]:

    I don't touch. Deal. I I've got a bunch of nieces and nephews, and I get it. And most of my friends have kids, and so I'm always around the kids and love them all, but it's like, I know what it. What happens when my friend's kid gets sick and then she's the teacher and then my mom's there?

    Mark Williams [00:24:44]:

    Oh, yeah.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:24:45]:

    And then part of the incentive of living in small town USA, where I'm from, is this learning center is part of our family owned recycling manufacturing company. So it's an incentive to move to small town USA, work at a really, really cool recycling company, but be able to take your kids literally across the parking lot for childcare at a crazy good rate. And it's. I swear those kids are going into kindergarten smarter than was in the fifth grade.

    Mark Williams [00:25:07]:

    I know what they're educating them now is pretty impressive.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:25:10]:

    It's amazing. So really just accelerating resiliency back to that.

    Mark Williams [00:25:14]:

    Everywhere we go, one of the things that we want. I don't want to forget this, the little timeout here. How did you come up with the name Eversphere? What? There must be a meaning behind it. And the way it's spelled is interesting. It's e v r s. Well, sphere. But there's obviously it's missing an e. What is the, what's the thought on the name?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:25:31]:

    Yeah, it's, it took us quite some time. We had worked at the marketing company out of Minneapolis and really just dug deep and we are all over the place. And I wanted to be my business partner and I wanted it to be continual and something forever, you know, ever so kind of looking at that lens. And I've always had this global vision in my mind of conquering the world and not just here locally. Yes, but I want to help everyone. And we joke that, you know, we're, we're not doctors, but we want to be doctors and we just really want to help people. And of course there's energy savings and people are saving money, but at the end of the day, if we can just make an impact on people and healthy spaces, we're happy.

    Mark Williams [00:26:13]:

    Are there much for like federal grants and things like that? Because I'm thinking obviously the prevention is worth a pound of cure comment, just that if you're keeping, and I can see why again, goes back to education, if you can keep people working less sick days. I think of like our medical care system, which obviously, obviously some help and it's not an easy solution. But again, if you can keep people out of the hospital, this is all, there's a cost of this. And while there's a cost to what you're doing, I'm sure, and maybe we can talk a little bit about that. You know, it's easier. I think someone said recently, someone had just downloaded and said, hey, you know what? It's really expensive to be active or to travel or to, you know, buy the equipment if you're into biking or triathlons or whatever you're into. And the comment was, if you think health is expensive, try being sick. And the comment was, it's much, much cheaper to stay healthy and be healthy than it is to try to fix when you're broken or sick.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:27:07]:

    Oh, absolutely. I mean, look at, I mean, I had the flu a few weeks ago. I was out for about two days, and I know that I don't have two days just to be sick, you know. And what did those two days really equal up to be from a cost perspective of me not working as an example I still work, don't get me wrong. But, you know, not to the typical performance.

    Mark Williams [00:27:25]:

    Right.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:27:26]:

    And from a corporate America setting, too. You know, if I'm a big organization trying to attract people that want to work for us, I would like to personally want to, as an employee, want to work in a space that, for a company that really cares about me, you know, because when I go home, I'm going to bring whatever I got here to my children or my partner or whatever that may be. So investing in, or if someone's bringing.

    Mark Williams [00:27:46]:

    It from home to the office space, they can obviously keep them healthier as well.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:27:51]:

    Absolutely.

    Mark Williams [00:27:52]:

    Where does, you know, you'd mentioned this when we had met, you know, a month or two ago when we were doing the powerhouse smart about biophilic design. I didn't know what the term was, and now I talk about it all the time. So I know a little more than I did previously. But can you kind of explain to the audience, to those that don't know what it is and how you're seeing it? I feel like the commercial world is far ahead of this, but, you know, we've had plants and homes for a long time, but that seems to be more of a homeowner issue. But why don't you tell us a little bit about where you see that, how often you recommend it, and kind of where you maybe even see the field emerging, because there's some pretty cool stuff, like those little pods you were telling me about were pretty cool.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:28:25]:

    Yeah, no, definitely. The, the whole concept of bringing nature into space is something I was introduced to back when I first started in my target commercial interiors day when I was working with design designers and designing spaces. And like I said, I have zero background. So I had the conversation about bringing a bunch of plants in. I was like, well, what is this place? Like, is this home? Or what is this? And I quickly learned the benefits of being surrounded about things like that. It's like, would you do your best work in a big cubicle in a corner with no light or in a space that you're inspired and you feel rejuvenated? I personally would go the rejuvenated route personally from a productivity and creativity perspective. So back to that, bringing nature into space, helping from a cognitive perspective, and really just helping, creating healthier air at the same time. So there are, of course, a lot of faux options, but there's some really, really, really cool companies out there that have data driven technologies.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:29:15]:

    Like one of our partners. It's called Babylon Micro Farm. So Babylon Micro Farm is a vertical farm company out of Richmond, Virginia. And essentially it's virtual vertical farming. So you order these pre seed little pods, like a k cup or an espresso pod. You pop it in, you scan the QR code and you grow together. So they're, they're regulating, you know, the air and the lighting and temperature and things like that. You just have to be able to water it and have it connected to water line essentially.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:29:42]:

    But the ROI in ordering these pre seeded pods are quite impressive. I mean, I personally waste a ton of money on getting produce. I, I try not to. It's just me. But am I going to finish all of my entire thing of spinach? Probably not. So if I would be able to grow and from kind of tying it back to the commercial real estate perspective and building owners, if my building sitting empty, why would I want to get creative and create more of an aesthetically pleasing space through biophilia? Also bringing in this element of wellness through a vertical farm that has a biophilic application already built within, but also producing produce to help create wellness within a space.

    Mark Williams [00:30:18]:

    So let me get this straight. So you're going to have, this is what, a vertical wall, like an art wall or someplace within an office space. And you're going to have these little pods. So the art feature is going to have like a spot or indentation for these little pods to go. And then you're just going to be, it must be all of a setup system. So there's somehow a water line, you know, for lack of a better description of a sprinkler line of some sort hooked up to this. And so it's a, that system then is, is regulating how much water so no one has to feed it water manually. Right.

    Mark Williams [00:30:50]:

    It's all going through this whole system. And then those plants are growing. And so in this case you're saying like, you're growing like basil or tomatoes or like vegetables or like, what are we growing here? And then someone has to like harvest them or what are we doing?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:31:03]:

    Yep.

    Mark Williams [00:31:05]:

    I mean, it sounds good. It's like a vertical, like, hey, if you're hungry for lunch, come in and grab some corn on the cob. You know, grab it off the wall.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:31:11]:

    I mean, sounds kind of good. It's really. Yeah, more leafy greens.

    Mark Williams [00:31:17]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:31:18]:

    Is really kind of the focus. And it'll evolve over time, the company and the technology. But leafy greens. So let's have the basils and mint and microgreens and edible flowers and things like that. And I also, it's one of those things that can be installed anywhere you really think about. So if we think of a building owner's perspective, downtown Minneapolis, there's a building that's quite empty, or about 50% occupancy. Why don't people want to work out here? It's a beautiful place, but there's not a really lot of life. So if we can create a community, a space where people can come as a tenant, come pick your greens, come, you know, create a challenge, let's say, within your own organization, who can make the best salad each month or something like that.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:31:58]:

    So there's ways of learning and growing and evolving in wellness all in one, too. But yeah, anyone can go.

    Mark Williams [00:32:04]:

    I mean, because I usually, it's interesting, I did nothing. Caught that part of it. So I was thinking, I guess you can grow anything, and in this case, you're growing the produce that you're actually going to eat, which is actually pretty wild. I was thinking just like, you know, aesthetically pleasing plants of some sort, which obviously, my limited understanding of this is, like, plants scrub the air naturally anyway, right? Just like trees and anything else it's got. I assume there's options. If people don't want to grow produce, they could have just plants or greens that just kind of like a aesthetically looking plant to look at.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:32:35]:

    Yeah, absolutely. There's. There's a wide menu part of the subscription base where you have a certain amount of different options each month, and you can order, you know, curated blends of different things and packages and stuff like that. But in the. We're seeing this as senior living.

    Mark Williams [00:32:49]:

    Oh, okay. Now I could see that, you know.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:32:52]:

    You'Ve had a garden and a yard your entire life and now you're in a home. But don't you want to be able to grow together and learn? And that incorporates wellness and health and, you know, from a mental and physical side, too, you're eating better. And from a sustainability side, you're not waiting for a ship to send a crate and this and that and shipping and driving from. So you're reducing your carbon footprint. We're growing everything right here. The ROI is wild, and the company is really based around sustainability. And from on a global lens as well, similar to us. You know, if we can bring these to different places and spaces throughout the world where nourishment isn't available and we can grow and have an incredibly strong Roi and provide and actually help people, why not?

    Mark Williams [00:33:33]:

    This episode is brought to you by Pella Northland. For 19 and a half years, I've been building homes and 95% of all my homes have used pella windows. I couldn't be happier to call them a partner in our builds and our remodels. Whether you're an architect, a designer, or a remodeler, I'd highly recommend Pella windows. They can fit old homes, new homes, reclaimed, commercial, and really everything in between. Pella is a company that we trust and that we recommend to our clients. Additionally in management, Peter and N have just been absolutely fantastic people to work with as well as mentors to me personally. So when it comes time to look for a window, I'd highly recommend Pella windows.

    Mark Williams [00:34:10]:

    Find more@pellinorthland.com also, if you're interested, you can hear episode one where I interview Peter and ed together for a great lesson on business and pella windows. I mean, it sounds kind of like a Sci-Fi movie where you're on a spaceship or like, you know, the martian, right? Where you're growing it all on your wall of your spaceship. That's pretty cool. How do, how are they sourcing natural light? Does it have to be designed in a certain place? Or are you putting uv lights in a space? Or how are you creating the natural light? Or it can only be in certain places.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:34:39]:

    It can go really anywhere. And having the lighting already inside and incorporated, it's already taken care of. So the natural light part is great, of course. But these things weren't installing in cruise lines, as an example, in kitchens, because you can't rely on produce to last. Or what if there's a bad batch of all your lettuces? And this is amazing.

    Mark Williams [00:35:00]:

    Wow, this is kind of my cool, hearing this. Yeah, it's super cool. Yeah.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:35:03]:

    And education too. Like, let's learn together. Let's grow together anywhere. Corporate America. Like, hey, come back. Like, let's, instead of going down the road and spending, like, my $17 salad. That's awesome. And it's great.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:35:16]:

    And I love supporting, you know, the local economy. But if we can grow here together and we spend more time and we're learning, and from a culture standpoint, where.

    Mark Williams [00:35:24]:

    Are you seeing the, I mean, the adoption of people responding to this? I mean, how, how are people, when you're sitting down and, you know, either designing or what's, like, walk us through maybe some of your sales pitches or, like, when you're meeting with people, like, walk us through, like, what are, what are the things that are, like, yes, sign me up. Or what are some harder sells? But then after a little while in, you know, because you go, granted, it's pretty early. You're, you've done this for about a year already. Like, what's working and what's not working.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:35:48]:

    Yeah. The fun part is that we get to really tailor our message to every vertical market. So great success has been in higher ed professional sporting applications. So if you're, let's say you're a sophomore basketball player at a university and you want to be, you know, of course, as healthy as you possibly can be, but to be able to have applications like this near, within your campus where you can go grab your leafy greens and create this and that, so really ties into clean air and having that, the human health element driven right to the table, literally. So things like that, higher ed, have been really great in professional sporting. The cruise lines, absolutely. Hotels, actually, you're going all over the.

    Mark Williams [00:36:32]:

    Country because there's not a liners coming out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm taking it correct.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:36:36]:

    There's a few installed in Minneapolis now with Babylon. But it's really neat too, from a branding perspective. Let's say we're University of Minnesota, we can add the branding to the bottom of it. And it's beautiful, it's lit up, it's aesthetically pleased. It's a conversation piece, honestly. I got to see one live last summer when I was at a summit in DC and I instantly walked up and saw the owner. I was like, what is this? And how do I learn more? And from there, it just kind of flourished. And I mean, like I said, it can go anywhere.

    Mark Williams [00:37:05]:

    Wow.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:37:06]:

    Same kind of thing. And homes too. If you have an in home daycare, I mean, yes. Is it expensive? It is, but the ROI, when you.

    Mark Williams [00:37:14]:

    Say more expensive, can you give us some? I mean, how do you even. I mean, because the application is so different. But like, what should we. Even when we're thinking about this plant wall or, you know, a vertical garden in my home or business or cruise liner, like, what kind of cost ranges are we talking about?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:37:29]:

    Absolutely. So there's two versions of this, and the first one is called the gallery. It's about 5ft wide, 6ft high, and about a foot and a half deep. So for that alone, the product and all the technology is about $15,000. And so it's.

    Mark Williams [00:37:45]:

    It.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:37:45]:

    People sometimes think, wow, that's a lot. But also, I may take a peek to the right and look at the $40,000 conference table sitting right there too, or the hundred thousand dollar private office. So when you look at from that lens, it's not too crazy. And then there is a price for the subscription right. Each month as well.

    Mark Williams [00:38:02]:

    And what would something like that be on. On that size of the wall?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:38:05]:

    About $3.95 a month for the full subscription.

    Mark Williams [00:38:08]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:38:08]:

    So you get your leafy greens, everything shipped to you, and then you have your dedicated farmer, per se.

    Mark Williams [00:38:14]:

    And are you. So is eversphere managing all of that under its umbrella?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:38:18]:

    Or.

    Mark Williams [00:38:18]:

    I think Babylon, by the sounds of it, is the company or you. Then Babylon kind of takes that over.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:38:22]:

    Babylon kind of takes that over.

    Mark Williams [00:38:24]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:38:24]:

    We kind of connect, and we know we're still a partner of our client, but it's really the data that's conversed back and forth between Babylon. And because at all times, you can also look at your app, or whatever it may be, and see what's going on, or let's say row to Trey XYZ. Something's going on. You know how to address it. And they catch on live time, which is kind of fun. So you'll get an alert and then you work together to.

    Mark Williams [00:38:46]:

    That's super cool. I can't wait to see some of the videos of this stuff being installed. How from a, you know, from a future standpoint, like, where are you at now? I mean, I assume a lot of the last year has been education, I guess, like, two parts of this question. One, as you mentioned before, about partners and layer technology, like, how have you discovered your partners? Was it from previous jobs? Is it, you know, there's competition out there? How do you set yourself up apart? It sounds like some of it's pretty unique because of your real time data with Poppy. But, you know, how do you. I guess, how do you pitch this? Like, why should a company go with you if there's someone else out there? Or, you know, the number of partners that you're bringing to the table, I imagine are pretty powerful sales message as well.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:39:31]:

    Absolutely. Yeah. Kind of a unique way to look at it is that with all of our different partners, the end of the day, our focus is they all help create healthy spaces. So to be able to tailor the conversation or the client based on the needs. And a lot of these companies already are publishing to the world through these ESG reports, as I mentioned, what they're trying to do. So you can go online and see that, let's say, let's call it best buy, you can see their sustainability goals for the future. So then we can then tailor our conversations to that. Exactly.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:40:04]:

    Which is kind of a unique approach. But really, our vision is to bring these partners to the table, to really, really, really dive into what's going on from a human side and environment. And I'll keep saying that because that's what really makes us stand out is our really focus for creating human centric spaces that are high performing. So with Poppy and having that alone to really drive, to open up the door, the ROI is absolutely insane. And from kind of our world of thinking about commercial real estate, it's about five cents per square foot to monitor, also subscription based. But I mean, if I can save a company, a big box store, let's call it $200 million a year, absolutely most people are going to say yes, and we get to help create a better, a better brand at the same time, or creating healthier spaces. There's a lot to it. And having the technology and our partners, and we curated these partners really based on my business partner, I really, truly feel that they are the best of the best, most high performing and really the best support.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:41:05]:

    And with the collaborations and layered technologies of bringing different, for example, air purification systems into the world at the same time to achieve needs of creating high performing spaces, it just works. There aren't a lot of. We don't really have a competitor, a.

    Mark Williams [00:41:19]:

    Direct competitor, truly, because it's so unique. Just the number, the variety of partners. And really, I mean, I've never heard of this. I mean, it's really unique. I mean, that's what drew me into wanting to talk to you more about it. How do you, from the time that you sit down with a company to the time they implement it, I think I read somewhere on the website that was like 80 days for kind of ESG investing, like that period. So that's. Walk me through what happens in this 80 days.

    Mark Williams [00:41:45]:

    So you're getting all the data. Walk me through kind of that process. So we're like, okay, I don't know if you've got kind of, like, a menu of things that I'm considering, but I imagine there's probably a trial period or, like, I'm thinking of a design retainer. Like, hey, let's start here. Let's get all your data so that we can recommend things that will fit the best for you and then show you kind of the ROI on each different platform you might be interested in. Is that about how it goes?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:42:11]:

    Yeah. Correct. Correct. It's that first. And. And we talked a lot about ESG before, and we're kind of reshaping our message, talking more about sustainability, business strategies. ESG gets quite political, and we're really here to be more of a partner and a consultant than to battle through some of those conversations that aren't it's not what we do. There are companies that do that.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:42:35]:

    So really we can create a sustainability roadmap throughout this 80 day process. Partnering with another partner of ours called Good Lab. They're based out of California and they are an actual ESG reporting software company. So helping organizations, especially in the construction world, in the development space, when their clients are saying, hey, x, our primary vendor, we need you to provide the scorecard of what you're doing for the people on the planet. And whether you believe it or you don't, if your clients are asking for that, and that's going to be the draw to make the next move, you probably want to follow the direction of that. And from a legislative perspective, too, you know, companies over certain sizes do need to report XYZ in different states. So it's, it's different, but it's really driving those business strategies versus ESG reporting, which is interesting conversation itself.

    Mark Williams [00:43:27]:

    How from a lead, like what you. From a sales cycle? Because right now you're still very heavily involved, I imagine, with sales. Isn't, is it just you and your partner right now?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:43:35]:

    Correct.

    Mark Williams [00:43:36]:

    At the top. So what is your, I mean, what is your sales funnel? I mean, is it. I know you're very active on LinkedIn. We were joking about that ahead of time. You know, how are you reaching out to these companies? How do you find out who the owners are? I know you're very strong communicator and connector. And so I imagine a lot of it is word of mouth. A lot of, oh, hey, you have to meet Jonathan. Oh, you have to meet this person.

    Mark Williams [00:43:57]:

    So I. Matt, walk us through a little bit about how are you getting the message out there and how are you meeting people and how do you, how do you get in front of these, these, you know, the right people?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:44:05]:

    Absolutely. Yeah. To your point, LinkedIn heavy. Our Instagram is getting better and growing, but being so new, we don't have a whole lot of projects to be able to showcase to the world and really to get our message out there, we're partnering with other organizations that do similar things, but they don't have the resources and tools that we have. So working with different design firms and engineering firms across the world that want to deploy our technologies on behalf of everyone sphere, so kind of growing from that lens where we can't be everywhere at the same time. But I'm proud to say we're working on opportunities in France, Germany, Spain, throughout the US and Canada right now through our different partners that we've met that are you know, we're in the same space, but they don't have the tools and the resources that we have, which makes us stand out and being a little bit more unique that way.

    Mark Williams [00:44:53]:

    Are some of the relationships you have, are they exclusive or how do you, how do you prevent somebody from saying, oh, hey, we love your partners? Well, we'll just contact partner directly.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:45:04]:

    We're protected and our partners are, they have our backs with that.

    Mark Williams [00:45:08]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:45:08]:

    And the, the poppy, it's a different business model, too. So the more that we're able to bring on and grow together under our eversphere umbrella in different major cities, the better.

    Mark Williams [00:45:19]:

    Okay.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:45:19]:

    The more testing that we can do.

    Mark Williams [00:45:20]:

    It'S, it helps them because they have more data, too.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:45:23]:

    Absolutely. And it's, it's a powerful way of growing a really, really incredible message versus hiring individual salespeople and really growing that way. So it's partnering with like minded organizations and, you know, you kind of dance a fine line because some are competitors in a way, although, like I said, we don't have anyone that's directly doing what we're doing, so a lot of partnerships in that way. But if I could be in every major city every week. Absolutely. But it's a, it's, it's getting challenging to be able to do that.

    Mark Williams [00:45:51]:

    How do you, from a, you know, from a business model standpoint, how do you charge for your services? Or I, you know, how does that go?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:45:58]:

    Yep. So we have a retainer as well. So if you want to go more the consulting route. So we think of every sphere as the consulting arm of the business, and then we have our products. So if we have some clients that just want solutions for air purification, we can just sell you product direct. But if we want to set up an actual strategy and a roadmap, that's more of the consulting work. So we'll, you know, we'll provide our workshops and different things like that through retainer. But really, we invite anyone just to, to reach out.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:46:24]:

    And we'd love having conversations and learning if I, you know, this is maybe a good fit or if it's not. But really, at the end of the day, we just, we just want to share our message of what we're, what we're trying to do. And it's been well received and happy to say a lot of people have reached out that want to invest or whatever it may be. And our focus is growing the business and, you know, keeping our core vision at heart of creating those healthy spaces and bright futures and really helping shape the future of the world. And the planet for the kids and the future generations.

    Mark Williams [00:46:53]:

    Do you think that if Covid had not happened, which obviously is an impossible thing to say, that the opportunity would be far less because people would never even considered trying to get people. I mean, for you, like a lot of businesses, Covid was a huge boom because it opened up all kinds of new, not only technologies, but way we think about stuff. Would that be accurate for your business as well?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:47:13]:

    That would be accurate, correct?

    Mark Williams [00:47:14]:

    Yeah.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:47:14]:

    Yeah. It's one of those that, you know, we. I feel like the world, we should have focused on more what's going on in the air before, I mean, and for the last however many years. And, you know, people are always sick or whatever it may be, but why hasn't anyone really dialed in and focused on. And it was Covid that really opened eyes across the world, of course, and really realized what's going on. So end of the day, if we can help reduce the amount of sick days and, you know, create a better experience, we joke around, we want people to leave work feeling better than they did going in. But if we can do that and help the building owner and the business owner and everyone just be happier and healthier, no, I love.

    Mark Williams [00:47:56]:

    I love everything about the wellness side of it, for sure. How. Let's go. We usually dive into this in the very beginning, but we got a little not sidetracked because we went down where I wanted to go. But let's talk a little bit. How did you even get into this? I mean, you obviously had a previous career or careers, and how did you decide that this was the business you want to get into? And it sounds like you have some family business inspiration as well. And it sounds like you have a few other businesses that you're managing on top of all of this.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:48:24]:

    Yeah. Yeah. So the. The foundation and the vision really came from. I'm from a small town called Harmony, Minnesota, and we have a family owned recycling manufacturing company called Harmony Enterprises. Been around since the sixties, and it started as really trying to provide a community and provide jobs in a small town in the USA for people to come work here and grow and live in a beautiful community. So started selling canvases for ice shacks way back in the day that evolved to hydraulics. And in the early nineties, my dad had moved back to Minnesota, met my mom in Texas, and they moved back, and he really drove to an international scale with the business and introduced recycling, which is something that we had never really thought of, but received a fax from a company out of Taiwan asking for solutions for cardboard and plastic.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:49:11]:

    And that was the start of Harmony enterprises. So we manufacture compactors and different data driven sustainable solutions on a global scale and have product in about 93 countries right now. And I manage a team in southern France. It's called Harmony Europe, subsidiary of Harmony Enterprises, and sit on our board of directors as well. So my brother is the active president and we've got some incredible product and some really, really great people and a strong community. But the whole vision was to build that. So I grew up around that entrepreneurial spirit of my family. My sister has a high end, very successful design company and has, she's a great designer, but is really first into an incredible entrepreneur.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:49:52]:

    And so seeing these businesses grow and growing up, I always, my dad had a rule out of college, he won't hire his kids, go learn the world, see if it's a right fit down the road, which I'm so blessed that that was a thing because I did learn. I, I wanted to work at Target out of college. I didn't know what target commercial interiors was, to be honest. I saw sales and I was like, cool, let's do it. And after a bunch of interviews, I got the job. I was like, sweet. So what am I exactly doing here? And so it was the, the furniture arm of the business, working for a steel case dealer. So got into the commercial development space and really figure out how do we design high performing spaces through furniture and different design applications.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:50:30]:

    So it got me thinking of like, huh, how do we bring the next generation of recycling solutions or sustainable solutions across the board to the world? Through what I've learned and through what our family business is already doing. And my business partner and I had this idea of creating this company ever sphere that we can curate a portfolio of really unique products and solutions to help really drive more of that resiliency. It was through all these different backgrounds that really brought in the vision of, you know, let's, let's do something different and something that doesn't exist. People are like, we don't really get it. And like, oh, because it doesn't exist. And that, that was the most beautiful thing. We have an open canvas and a blank page to really write this. And it's evolved so fast in the last eleven months that we joke, we haven't slept or anything like that.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:51:17]:

    And, but it's been a grind, but it's been absolutely fantastic and excited to be able to help grow our family business at the same time through Eversphere, where we're talking sustainability, high performing spaces through recycling and air quality. And really overall energy savings from that kind of. So it, there's a lot going on. It was the blend of recycling in the past and then vision of always wanting to help people. I love helping people. So if we can blend that together, what does that look like? And here we are.

    Mark Williams [00:51:46]:

    I love that passion side of it for sure because, you know, it's kind of like that concept that you don't work a day in your life when you love what you do. And past client of mine, I've mentioned it before in the podcast, he was just talking when you're a young Mandev, but you know, it's talking about retirement and some, he was an older gentleman, but young at heart for sure. And he said, you know, a lot of his friends, he said he hated the r word, which was retire. And he said, you know, if you're constantly thinking about retirement, perhaps you've chosen the wrong, you know, field or practice. And I just, I love, you know, even having kids, I think about like whatever they're passionate about, I want them to do. And I, you know, your dad was smart having a successful business. How do you get new blood? And it sounds like your brother, you know, I don't know his story, but, you know, did he go out? Did he come back? We had Mark Scherer from Shear Brothers lumber here locally on and he had a similar story that he shared that you couldn't work for the family business till you, I think, had to work five years at a different company, get a promotion or something to that effect. And it just makes a lot of sense for these multi generational companies to how do you get new ideas? Because it's not that.

    Mark Williams [00:52:52]:

    And we've interviewed a number of, you know, father, son and, you know, husband and wife teams and excuse me, daughter. We've had, you know, Kate O'Hara and Martha O'Hara interiors on. And like, I love hearing the succession of family to the next family and how they hand off the torch is not an easy thing to do. And so it's just kind of interesting to hear there, there seems to be similar thought process. You want the, you want the next generation to be passionate. You want them to sort of feel like, you know, I don't like the word handed because it's anyone who has taken over a family business, you aren't handed anything. It's a colossal amount of work and expectations that go with it. But, you know, to the outside world looking on, there can be a lot of preconceived notions of what that is.

    Mark Williams [00:53:34]:

    But so many businesses, especially within my field of construction. I mean, there's tons of family businesses, and they do very well. How do you sort of ensure that the next generation is armed with new information, new ideas, and can kind of push it forward? And then there's the transition period. You know, sometimes when you have, you know, my dad used to always say that you can't have two, you know, lead dogs on the sled. You know, we were fortunate because we were really good friends and still are, but he and I never actually worked together, and I'm sure we would have figured it out, but he and I are so similar. I'm not sure how we would have called the shots, because we're both, you know, delegators and kind of the same. I'm so much like my dad, so how would that have worked? But, you know, at what, at what point, I guess, on this thought, did your brother come back into the family business? Did he leave for a while and then come back?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:54:19]:

    Yeah, absolutely. I came to college in Texas and worked for Ch. Robinson for many years and very successful and learned a lot and really brought in a new element of customer service to harmony enterprises and moved his family here and has grown. And now he's the fire chief and does an incredible job with our organization and the power of us together. And I'm not there every day, and he absolutely is. And he is definitely the integrator and innovator, and he's getting a lot done, and we're able to kind of help figure out what else is going on in the world from a sustainability perspective. So we're out here gathering these insights of what's going on and generating new ideas and new opportunities that no one would ever have thought of. So would love to blend, you know, what I'm doing now with Harmony enterprises and really so what we can do, and I'll be in Europe in September for about a week and have a ton of great meetings already set up for harmony enterprises and for eversphere.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:55:18]:

    And we'll be testing, using tech, our poppy technologies already throughout Europe and excited to see where this goes.

    Mark Williams [00:55:24]:

    And I can imagine that for whatever reason, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the european culture is probably more primed to be interested and talk about this. Am I accurate in that spot on. And I think, like, you know, tying it into residential a little bit, but I think it's just a cultural difference because I think in the United States, and I've mentioned this before, I mean, nobody builds that I'm aware of homes faster and at scale, better than the United States. And I think, you know, ever since, you know, I think they called it the post, you know, world war two baby boom generation, the boom. We needed cheap housing and we needed it fast. Well, we really haven't. We've slowed down. We're actually well behind our curve.

    Mark Williams [00:56:04]:

    We need to build a lot more housing than our population has right now. But we think, I looked this up in a previous interview. I think the average person lives in a home for twelve and a half years as an ad average. Now, as builders, who we're going to probably move a lot more than that number suggests. But the point is that in a lifetime, you're probably going to live in five homes, you know, four to five homes. And, but in Europe, you know, there's a reason, like, you think of like triple, triple pane windows, you know, long term sustainability. You know, we visited family that lived in Switzerland and it was like four generations have lived in the same home. And they sort of do an addition for like the family, for the tweener, but then eventually the granddaddy grandparents will pass or, you know, and it's different because they're thinking, they're not about just themselves, they're thinking about the next generation.

    Mark Williams [00:56:50]:

    And I could see how that would translate very, very well to kind of what you're trying to design in terms of health and wellness. Because like, well, hey, if we're already investing in our home, we're going to spend more on the windows and the energy performance and all these things because also gas and electricity is a lot more expensive in Europe than it is the United States. So there's a cost thing, I know, at least from a free market point of view, gas and electricity has been historically very inexpensive in the United States, and obviously Europe's got its own supply and demand issues and so they're sort of forced to get smart on some of this stuff. But I could see how that would take off really, really well just given some of their, um, I suppose, attitudes towards those topics.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:57:38]:

    Yeah, no, you completely nailed it. And they're far ahead of what we're trying to do here. So the conversation is well received. And to be able to have unique solutions and technologies that no one in Europe is talking about right now, it's a game changer. And to be able to have that spread like wildfire.

    Mark Williams [00:57:55]:

    Are all your, are mostly, are all your partners us based?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:57:58]:

    Correct? Yes.

    Mark Williams [00:58:00]:

    Will that be any sort of issues to implement it over there?

    Jonathan Cremer [00:58:03]:

    Nope, I already got that approved and we're good to go. And it's unique. I'm always used to selling physical things. Selling tech is a little bit different. So we're blending tech with actual physical solutions. But I'm used to lugging. I mean, a big car full of stuff and all these things. And now I'm walking in with a little nebulizer that we drop a little saltwater tablet in, disperses in the air, and one little sensor about this pig.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:58:26]:

    And we let it go for about 30 minutes and we log in, see what's going on live time, and we take it with us and we go.

    Mark Williams [00:58:33]:

    It's.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:58:34]:

    It's really very techy and it's. It's almost too good to be true. It feels like.

    Mark Williams [00:58:38]:

    And do a lot of. Do a lot of the people that hire you want to be there when it happens just because. Sort of intrigued at like, what this whole thing looks like.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:58:46]:

    Absolutely. People just stand around like, you get the oohs and wows and what is that? But it's pretty unique.

    Mark Williams [00:58:54]:

    It's like a Star Trek analyzers. Like, this planet has 24% carbon.

    Jonathan Cremer [00:58:59]:

    Yeah, no, it's pretty cool. And the designs are amazing. To be able to see on a large, let's say it's a 34th floor of a building that's 30,000. See, where you should be testing based on the design is really, really impressive. And then to get accurate live data, these work based on the different zones where you're testing is just.

    Mark Williams [00:59:20]:

    We're seeing, I mean, in housing, we're seeing quite a bit of, I think lighting is having its moment and automation control. So, you know, you can have, you know, control for Lutron, whoever, whatever the brain cpu power is. And then you have, you know, whether it's lighting control, there's a fixture called ketra, which is, I think it can mimic, like, the path of the sun and temperature settings. So it's a lot. A big part of that lighting is how do you feel so, like in the morning? You know, actually you're trying to wake up. So brighter lights in the evening, lower lights, but it's actually following a very similar cadence. I think it's. It can follow the circadian rhythm.

    Mark Williams [00:59:57]:

    And so how. I think people are going to be much more primed to receive what you're talking about, not only in commercial spaces, which makes total sense because that's where we're working. But I do think I could see. It'd be interesting to see how this evolves into the home space. And, you know, it could obviously be much smaller scale just because the home is obviously smaller. But, you know, if it's going to be good in the office, why wouldn't it be good at home? To your point, if you're living 90% indoors, you know, half of that or more is in your own personal home. Probably will probably be more because obviously you are there on the weekends too.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:00:32]:

    If you're sleeping and you're spending that time with your loved ones too. So it's. To your point, it's, it's something that people hadn't really thought about in great depth, but it's. I love hearing the, the technologies about you just mentioned. That's, that's really cool.

    Mark Williams [01:00:46]:

    Have you, have you had any conversations with the residential. There's residential designs and architecture or there's just simply so much in the commercial space. It's just right now that doesn't pay to even go there.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:00:57]:

    We haven't dabbled quite yet getting there, but we're getting closer through depending, trying to find a big developer that focuses on multi housing on the peer residential side. Not yet, but definitely 100%. Would love to because I could see.

    Mark Williams [01:01:12]:

    Apartment buildings, you know, that would, that would be a scalable thing that could be very attractive.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:01:17]:

    Oh, absolutely. Pay a higher premium to live in a healthier space right there. And there are a few apartments that are well certified, similar to leed, but Wells focused on the insides of space. I've been seeing those pop up downtown Minneapolis and well certified buildings too. So when you walk into one of those buildings, you realize that, you know, the building owner invested a significant amount of money and making sure that this building is healthy. So it's, it's one of those things. Before, I'd always just look for LEED certifications on buildings. And now if you see, well, you automatically know that there is a factor of human health, elements of design factored into the building.

    Mark Williams [01:01:53]:

    As we kind of close out the interview, I know we both have a mutual admiration and love for, you know, the joy collaborative. We've had Mark Ostrom on. We've done some, you know, charity fundraising here, the summer for them. What is some of your tie ins? I know you guys like to give back, talk a little bit about your. Like, what you've done with either Joy collaborative or other agencies.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:02:14]:

    Absolutely. Yeah, no, we love. I said, as mentioned, we loved helping, so giving back and I was blessed that Mark Ostrom shout out to you, Mark, you're awesome. Had connected us and being able to be on the board of Joy collaborative in the past but three months has been a game changer.

    Mark Williams [01:02:27]:

    Oh, I didn't know. You're on the board.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:02:28]:

    I am. I'm officially on the board.

    Mark Williams [01:02:30]:

    Excellent.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:02:31]:

    We're hyper focused right now on getting ready for the state fair, so enjoy. Collaborative. We create life enriching spaces for kids with life limited conditions. So designing these beautiful, high performing, very similar to what we do spaces have been. It's been amazing so far, working with different developers and, you know, construction firms and designers to help create these in home applications. But Mark and the team had launched the Joy mobile, which is a mobile sensory application, as it's been everywhere, and we're bringing it to pretty much every major event going on, including the state fair. So been focused on trying to get volunteers, starting here really soon. Tomorrow?

    Mark Williams [01:03:10]:

    Yeah.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:03:11]:

    Today? Yeah.

    Mark Williams [01:03:13]:

    By the time this episode airs, which will probably be mid September, that'll be a thing of the past. Either got the volunteers or you didn't. Let's.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:03:19]:

    Let's.

    Mark Williams [01:03:19]:

    Let's hope so. How? I mean, I think they just announced that they got their patent pending on that joy mobile technology. And for those that haven't listened to the previous episode, I can't pull it off the top of my head which one it was. But, you know, Mark did his entire, you know, spiel on what it is that they do in quite detail. But the thing that impacts you sort of the most visually is that Joy mobile, the fact that you have got a, you know, a mobile unit that can go anywhere and, you know, regardless if you have any sort of disabilities or learning to, you know, autism or anything like that, even, like I go in there, someone who has probably undiagnosed ADHD, it is a very calm environment, and it's like the sound, the way the sound, the acoustic ability, it just kind of calms you down. And so maybe I should park one of those down at my office.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:04:07]:

    So, I mean, it's one of those kind of similar to what we do. It can go everywhere. And to be able to have those places and spaces, to be able to, you know, rejuvenate and just divert from life is.

    Mark Williams [01:04:19]:

    Do you think that you'd be able to do any sort of cross work with eversphere and the joy collaborative spaces? Because they're going into, obviously, hospitals. I know there's talks about them going into the airport for a joy room and kind of all over, but obviously, if you're creating a space that has sensory issues, you know, that's augmenting whatever the special need is for the children, that it's helping, you know, air quality affects everyone, to your point. Everybody breathes everything. Breathes pretty much. And so it's like especially in commercial application, it would tie in very nicely with some eversphere options. Correct?

    Jonathan Cremer [01:04:51]:

    100%. Everything that we do in the products partners that we represent could be applied. And so I am a big motorhead. I love cars. So I've been tasked to work on the Joy mobile 2.0.

    Mark Williams [01:05:02]:

    Oh really?

    Jonathan Cremer [01:05:03]:

    So I'm engaging with different companies that in the automotive world that trying to get crafty and creative and how do we really design something that's beautiful but high performing, kind of integrating what we do at eversphere into that design.

    Mark Williams [01:05:18]:

    Oh, that's pretty cool.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:05:20]:

    Ultimate. I'm gonna make like the most resilient set of four wheels on the road, right?

    Mark Williams [01:05:26]:

    Oh, that sounds.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:05:26]:

    I eventually want to make this huge motor home and all this great stuff. I need to chill out for a little bit on that.

    Mark Williams [01:05:31]:

    You got a few irons in the fire.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:05:33]:

    Exactly.

    Mark Williams [01:05:33]:

    Well, that's very exciting. Well, I appreciate your time coming on. We'll have your website and your contact information. The best place to reach out to you is probably LinkedIn or the website.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:05:42]:

    Absolutely. That'd be fantastic.

    Mark Williams [01:05:43]:

    Excellent. Well, I appreciate you coming on very much, Jonathan, and until next time.

    Jonathan Cremer [01:05:47]:

    Yeah, thank you so much, Mark. I appreciate it.

    Mark Williams [01:05:49]:

    Very good. Thank you. We are happy to announce that we have a one to one coaching session that can be found on our curious builder podcast platform. So you can book a time with me and it'll be 1 hour to ask any sort of questions that you want. Talk about business, talk about life. Maybe you're dealing with a difficult client and you just want to maybe shop with another builder and say, hey, how do I handle this? Or maybe you're looking to rebrand your company, whatever it might be. You can head to our website and book a time and I'd be happy to sit down and give you that hour and we can talk about whatever's on your mind. The podcast has now been running for the last two years and it's because of people like you that are listening to the podcast, spreading the word that our audience continues to grow.

    Mark Williams [01:06:27]:

    One of the ways that you as listeners can help support the show is head to our merch page, our shop page. On thecarousbuilderpodcast.com, you'll see that we have three different offerings now. We have a shirt that we partnered with harnish on. We have a hat from Bogo that I use for ultra running. It's also just incredibly sweat resistant. So for any of you guys are outside in the sun working, the hat looks great, but it's also extremely resilient to sweat. And then, of course, our hive notebooks. These notebooks are amazing.

    Mark Williams [01:06:52]:

    I was given one a couple years ago, and I've fallen in love with it. The paper is made out of stone. It's waterproof. It's tear proof. It's amazing. So if you like what you listen to, you appreciate the show and the content that we're producing, please head to the shop page. You know, buy a notebook, buy two. Give some to your employees, give some to the guys in the field.

    Mark Williams [01:07:08]:

    We'd really appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the curious Builder podcast. If you like what you listen to, please give us a five star rating and write us a review. It really means a lot. It's a great way for us to just understand what you like about the podcast and what we can keep doing. So like and review. And please share with your friends and family. Find out more@curiousbuilderpodcast.com.

This episode is sponsored by:

 
 
Mark Williams
Previous

Episode 80 - How Adaptive AI is Revolutionizing Builder Financials: A Chat with Matt Calvano & Reece Barnes
Next

Episode 78 - Levity and Lessons: Building Authenticity in Podcasting and Construction with the Levelheads