Russ: This is a BusinessMakers WebXtra, a continuation of the radio broadcast interview with Terry Hazell. We pick up the discussion where I ask her to tell us about those heady days in the startup period of Chesapeake Perl.

Terry: You know, as I said, I quit my job and went about writing the first business plan. And when I had finished my opus, my rev one, I went to mail it to the State's Entrepreneurship Investment Financing Group.

Russ: Thinking you were going to raise some automatic money from them, right?

Terry: That's right.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: But I couldn't put it in the envelope. I was thinking, I don't have anything else to do, so I might as well just deliver it personally.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: So I got my suit on, and went up to Baltimore to hand in the business plan. And as I'm walking down the street towards the Investment Financing building, the entire Investment Financing Group is walking down the street toward me.

[Laughter]

Russ: Sounds like a movie scene.

Terry: It did. So I just got my business plan. I ran up to the head of the – well, not ran, but I walked up to the head of the Investment Financing Group, and I said, "Dan Healy, I'm Terry Chase. This is my business plan. I want to run a company that grows insects and makes pharmaceutical proteins. I've been doing this since I was 16. This is a better process." And he was scared.

[Laughter]

Terry: So he just said, you know, "Just take it upstairs and, you know, give it to the receptionist."

Russ: Right.

Terry: I must have looked crestfallen or hungry or something. So he invited me to lunch. And I sat down to lunch with all of the members of the Investment Financing Group, and walked through the business plan. So it must have went okay, because then he said, "Well, the next step in our process is to give a venture pitch. Do you think you could do that today?" I didn't know what a venture pitch was.

Russ: Okay. All right.

Terry: So of course I said yes.

Russ: Yeah.

Terry: I was ready. And so we went up to the room, and – where you do these pitches. And had a beautiful, you know, view of the Baltimore Bay. And I gave my pitch by just kind of holding up my business plan and showing different charts that were in the plan. And not all of them could see it, so I did have to walk around a little bit.

Russ: Right.

Terry: Then they said, "Okay. You know, this looks like a really good idea. We're going to do some due diligence, but you've got a yes. We're going to invest $50,000.00 in your company."

Russ: Incredible.

Terry: Right. Well, it was just an amazing experience. You know, I got in the car, you know, called my husband. I said, "We got the money. I got it." He's like, "What?" Now unfortunately that did set up expectations for me –

Russ: Right. Okay.

Terry: And eight weeks later, we actually did have a check from the State of Maryland.

Russ: Wow. Well, that is a success story. So you think that perhaps maybe if you hadn't been walking down the street, and run into the whole group, who knows how it would have turned out?

Terry: Yeah. Who knows? The luck of them being there –

Russ: Well, now, Terry, were there other challenging chapters at Chesapeake Perl?

Terry: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Amazingly, we were starting a company to mass rear insects.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: And you must imagine it's a relatively small field.

Russ: Right.

Terry: But a big player, DuPont, was in this field, and they had decided that – they were growing insects for another purpose, but they were mass rearing millions of insects.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: And they decided, after they commissioned their brand new automated factory to do this, that they didn't want it anymore.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: And somewhere, they found my name and called me up. And I got a call from the man who had designed the facility, and he wanted to know if I wanted to buy it.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: And it – you know, it was going for about $15 million.

Russ: Right.

Terry: And we did have our $50,000.00.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: So I'm like, "Well, it's a big negotiation, but I'll go for it." So I said yes, I was interested in seeing it first, of course –

Russ: Right.

Terry: – and wanted to take a tour. So I toured the facility. You know, I had been in manufacturing, so many of the – the small advantages that he had designed into the facility were things that I noticed.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: So we got on well from the start.

Russ: So it was impressive?

Terry: It was an amazing facility.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: So here, you know, mass rearing insects by the millions –

Russ: Right

Terry: – was just sitting right there. This is what I'd have to raise $20 million to build.

Russ: Right.

Terry: It was just sitting there.

Russ: Right.

Terry: And for sale.

Russ: Right.

Terry: So after, you know, we toured, he said, "We'd like to sell it. You know, it's $15 million." I really thought that equity would be a better choice –

Russ: Right. Right.

Terry: – for DuPont, because why would they want to take the cash from a company that they owned equity in?

Russ: That's true.

Terry: And wouldn't that be a better option?

Russ: Absolutely.

Terry: And they were fascinated by that story.

Russ: Cool.

Terry: And then I left. For a while, they tried to sell it, and then they decided they were going to donate it –

Russ: Wow.

Terry: – to a university. So I was involved with the University of Maryland, and I proposed to the provost of the University of Maryland that they ought to – they ought to take this factory in Delaware in order to allow me to run it –

Russ: Right.

Terry: – and continue to grow as a University of Maryland graduate, and spin-out company. And they agreed to actually go for the donation. And so as it moved up to the provost, it also moved up to the VP of DuPont, and I was no longer invited to the meetings.

Russ: Oh, no.

Terry: I know. I was like, "Wait a minute." So I did find out where one of the meetings was taking place.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: And they were having lunch at a restaurant.

Russ: Terry, is this another stalking story?

Terry: Well, it was more of a waiting story.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: Because this time, I was at the restaurant –

Russ: Oh, okay.

Terry: – versus me going –

Russ: Oh, okay.

Terry: Yeah. So I stayed in the – you know, in the entrance area –

Russ: Right.

Terry: – of the restaurant, and I didn't know what the people looked like, even.

Russ: Right.

Terry: So I had to ask people as they came up, people who looked like they might be from DuPont, "Hi, are you from DuPont?" And most people said no. But then finally someone said, "Yes, I am." And I had my rev two of my business plan now, and I said, "You know, I'm Terry Chase, and I'm running a company called Chesapeake Perl. And if you donate this factory to the University of Maryland, I'm going to use it, and this is what we're going to use it for."

And once again, you know, he was a little taken aback, but then invited me to lunch. So I got free food, again, and I got to walk through the business plan again, and talk about how we would move it forward. And actually, 75 days later, they – sure enough, they donated it to the University of Maryland, and the University of Maryland licensed it to me.

And then I went back to DuPont and got – for us to sell them a product, and also for the scientists who built that factory to come on board as our chief scientist.

Russ: Wow. These are –

Terry: So it was a great coup.

Russ: These are incredible stories. These are all success stories. I love these, Terry.

Terry: Now unfortunately, there we had $50,000.00, and a very expensive facility.

Russ: Okay. So here you are at your first company, Chesapeake Perl, and you finally bring the first product to market. Was that a big deal?

Terry: Oh, yes.

Russ: Okay.

Terry: Yes. Very exciting –

Russ: Okay.

Terry: – to have the first sales coming in.

Russ: Okay. And so it was your first success?

Terry: Yes.

Russ: What do you sort of attribute the success to?

Terry: Absolutely the people that joined the company after me. Certainly the scientists that we brought in, the business development people that we brought in, the investors that helped us, the advisors. Absolutely the group that we put together.

Russ: Okay. That was critical when you selected these people, right?

Terry: Oh, absolutely.

Russ: Yeah. Did you go through quite a few potential candidates before you honed in on these, or was it a area that was so rare that there weren't a lot of candidates?

Terry: I think most of the candidates that we hired were people that we started working with for a variety of reasons, like our chief scientist came from DuPont.

Russ: Right.

Terry: And then our manufacturing VP also then came from DuPont.

Russ: Oh, cool.

Terry: And again, with the best business development person that we had was recommended by one of our investors and stockholders. So a lot of recommendations from our extended group.

Russ: All right. Well, listen. Before I let you go, I have this special question I like to ask people that have had your experiences. Let's imagine that there's an aspiring entrepreneur that's been listening to the stories of Terry Chase Hazell. What sort of advice would you give to them?

Terry: Well, as I'm involved in ACTiVATE and helping women in technology, and you pointed out that is it hard to find women in technology?

Russ: Right.

Terry: I would advise entrepreneurs, you know, not to get hung up by the statistics, and to instead look at the examples of people that have been successful, because certainly if I had looked at the statistics of how many biotech companies turn profitable, how many women-founded biotech companies become successful, I would have been daunted by that. So just ignore it.

Russ: Great advice. Terry, I really appreciate you sharing your story with us.

Terry: Thank you, Russ.

Russ: Okay and that wraps up this BusinessMakers WebXtra discussion with Terry Chase Hazell. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at Thebusinessmakers.com.