In this episode of the Venari Podcast, Tim Hartnell speaks with Tim Silbermann, CEO of Paboco, about their pioneering sustainable packaging solution, the paper bottle. Silbermann shares insights on Paboco’s mission to revolutionize the packaging industry with a circular, fiber-based alternative to plastic, reflecting on his own journey and leadership at the company. The conversation highlights the challenges and opportunities of scaling sustainable packaging innovations and Paboco’s ambitious goal of making paper bottles a global standard.
Transcript:
Tim Hartnell: Welcome to the Venari Podcast. I'm Tim Hartnell, and in this episode of the Packaging CEO series, I'll be speaking with Tim Silbermann. Tim is CEO of Paboco who are revolutionising the packaging industry with a truly circular product, the paper bottle. Tim it's great to have you on the podcast and thank you for joining me.
Tim Silbermann: Pleasures on my side. Thanks for having me and yeah, looking forward to it.
Tim H: So in this episode, we'll hear a little bit more about the Paboco, Tim's journey more specifically, and then sort of leadership a little bit about sort of what the future of the company looks like as well. So let's get started. Tim, do you want to kick us off? Tell us a little bit about Paboco. Yeah, and how you're changing the industry for good.
Tim S: Sure. Uh, gladly to So Paboco is actually short for paper bottle company, which gives you a very that's our full legal name and it already gives you a very good. Good overview of actually what we're doing. It's not very hard to figure out and what you're trying to do here that's really developing paper bottles. And we found the name actually quite fitting, because why? You don't have to come up with a very fancy name when you're very clear in your ambition, actually. And why are we changing the industry for good or how we go about that? Well, we see ourselves as a part of a more sustainable tomorrow. So we know we'll not fix all the issues in the world, but we can be part of that. And packaging is such an integral part in our everyday life and, and especially last year's has come out of the shadow, so to say. Very prominent at the forefront of the end consumer's mind, we see, of course. Plastic swimming in the oceans with micro plastics everywhere. A lot of change also going on in legislation. Everything very much focused on the end of life and this is where our idea using paper, which has a very established end of life reuse of the material nearly global made a lot of sense and also highlighting much more of the resources super great qualities like of constraints, dirtiness, lightness, and of course it being bio based, it being renewable, it grows just makes a lot of sense. So this is our approach and like OK, how can we contribute to changing the industry for good by being a more sustainable alternative to what's out there right now?
Tim H: Yeah, I love it It's actually ironic that next to me on the screen I have one of one of these guys but.
Tim S: I'll send you over one of those.
Tim H: That's what we need. So clearly you're going toe to toe with plastics and other sort of materials out there. Do you, do you feel like, yeah, the fibre based you know, concept is, is certainly the way forwards?
Tim S: Yes. So again, there's, there's so many solutions out there, not just in packaging, but of course in other industries as well. And what we need to I think as a society need to figure out is where does what sort of solution make the most sense. And so the paper bottle might for sure not be the most effective use for really single use, mass market where a lot of like reuse can actually happen, where plastic is an amazing material and coming from the plastics industry. So like I do like plastic. I'm not here to crucify that for sure not, but to allow again, depending on the use case, the the life itself, the life cycle, their solutions out there that are better than others and we need to figure those out and push those forward. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I always, it's coming up in conversations a lot, you know, the material side of things, which is best. Everyone has a use case like you said. So there's a place for everyone. It's just, yeah, some, some are better use cases than others.
Tim H: Great. Let's get a bit into your sort of story. And I'm really keen to sort of hear how I guess you, you know, rose to the heights of, yeah, big CEO of such an awesome company.
Tim S: Yes, sure. As a little bit to me, I basically grew up with packaging since my dad is also working in the same fields. I found it always interesting. And interesting enough that I also studied process engineering for packaging in Munich. I'm German by birth and during my studies there I realised that I wanted to not go into the end like application or use of packaging. So to like fillers, etcetera, distributors, but more to the packaging supplier, to the producers. Because my belief was that if I want to do like very ambitiously young guy, of course. If I if I develop something really cool I can make an impact here and this is how I ended up working for Alpla which is at the Lake of Constance in Austria, they have the headquarters, one of the biggest plastic bottle producers and. They're went into their into their innovation and the development department worked a lot with alternative materials to conventional plastics, very much focused on still existing technologies. Again, what's coming, the trends, etcetera. All of that and then 2018, the paper bottle landed at our table, on our team's table and I saw that and I was like, OK, that's it. That's exactly what I dreamt of or what I envisioned, what I wanted to do. This is such a unique thing. This is so immediately catching. You understand the the purpose of it, what you want to try to achieve with it. It's unbelievably tactile. So it gives you, it's something different. It speaks to you. So join them back then the start up aspect out of Alpla still, who then joined the joint venture partner in that startup 2020, settled over here to Denmark where Paboco was located right now near Copenhagen, with my husband, led product development, had a brief stint as CTO in 2023, last year and then when our CEO stepped out of the company to pursue something else. I stepped in. Started opportunity to drive this even more forward yet to be again localised here and to yeah, to drive this team in product development. I always have these two sides, both of the internal development and innovation that needed to be driven by the market and end of customers or end consumers needs. So always already there viewpoint of both sides of the coin. Influencing how are we going to need to change Paboco's development strategy, but also informing what can we do on the market, pushing us there, pushing our clients there to accept the state that you are in as a startup and how to go from there. So very, very exciting and super happy that I can support the company now as as its CEO.
Tim H: Yeah, what a journey. And I've been following it very closely. So yeah, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, super. Yeah, awesome journey and. Yeah. Let's see where, where it goes from here. It's an interesting phase, isn't it? That's the commercialization period.
Tim S: Absolutely. It's. Now it gets. There was a lot of work of course done for my predecessors, so to say, but for sure I'm not sitting in a made or like lying in a made bed and everything is running very smooth from here. It's a very exciting time for the Paboco right now to really push forward, to push into the market. The technology has come a long way from when I started when we did a couple of bottles every day that wasn't more manual. I'd say cutting or production manufacturing in the in the real sense of the word. And over the years we have done tremendous work in automatizing and scaling the technology. Now we're at a point where yes, it's going to be a new site and it's going to be bigger machines. The scale is there and. It's an exciting time. So, yeah.
Tim H: And then brings me on to my next question, which is around sort of the challenges. Obviously with any scaling business, there'll be challenges. Have you, have you had any with sort of you know related to the sort of talent side, have you, have you come across challenges in terms of hiring?
Tim S: Both yes and no. So the good thing is the company is Danish, Danish based in Copenhagen, which is a great hub for I'd say sustainable innovation, the Scandinavian countries itself. So it makes very much sense that this came from here or developed here and that we are continuing to be here. There's a lot of expertise sits here as well. We have some of our team are nearly ten years with this company coming from the original startup as well. We have developed the first prototypes and machines. So there's a lot of yeah, heartfelt conviction and really dedication to this and this makes it on one sense very easy to hire or very attractive because we have a very great story, we have a very great product and we have a great. I'd say success track when you think about like where have we been like just a couple of years ago and where are we now and what are we facing? But we of course also have challenges because Denmark is a pretty stable country. We don't, we have pretty low rates of unemployment and we have a pretty successful pharmaceutical company that tries to sweep the market because they are growing at a very, very, very high pace. I think we have for sure as a startup this the startup factor for us, this if you come here, especially as a young person, just finished university or your studies or your education and very motivating in that we allow a lot of freedom. You are of course bombarded with challenges and responsibilities that you gladly take on if you're that type of person and we have a very good track record of finding exactly those people that that really want to dig down and and. Yeah, develop themselves while we develop this company. On the other side, there's of course also something that I'd say for a lack of better word explanation lacks stability, right. It's it's not yet established. There's a lot of, we have pivoting that we need to do sometimes a 180 because there's other requirements coming from outside of the market or shareholder strategy or just in general our strategy. Things have moved on. We've come up with a new idea. Let's explore that. So it's there's a lot of flexibility that is needed, which is also exciting. For some people, not so much. So when we hire or when we look for talent, we have not as many applications as I think we would like, but still enough that we can really also like look for the right talent that are driven by this pretty young company. I think our average, we have 28 people average ages I think around 33/34. So again, also young in its spirits, very driven and I think that helps a lot with trying to compete with larger companies that have a lot of benefits that they put on there. But we have the opportunity to grow and that's that's a good thing.
Tim H: That's interesting. I think some of those companies will share that same sort of those those insights. Some won't be the same, you know, in terms of that, you know, the stuff, culture, atmosphere and then the sort of local talent that's on your doorstep as well. Yeah. And then just yeah, finally leadership style, you know, what is your approach to that? And and, and and yeah, obviously startup sort of world is, is like into the corporate outlook, Yeah. How have you sort of approached that?
Tim S: When I became both CTO and and then also afterwards CEO, one very important thing for me is to be basically available and approachable because we had a leadership team on how the company was just set up etcetera. That was more remote and not here all the time. So the team lacked very much a connect like a direct connection to its leadership team, which I'm trying to really establish. And be there very, again, approachable. It's also very self manageable because we are just 28 people, we are working on a plethora of topics. As I also said or indicated, everyone is basically an expert. Everyone has multiple hats on and responsibilities. Everyone wants to drive the company forward. So there also needs to be a very high level of flexibility and ability to adapt in the leadership team for myself, but also from my leaders in finance, operations and R&D, because we need to both be able to support the needs of the different teams, the individuals to again both stay an attractive employer to bring the best out of the people here as well to be sustainable and that we retain talent and also of course juggling what the market needs are. What topics we encountered during development again this. Not being very stoic and like this is the only way etcetera, but trying to be more flexible, which also goes I think very well hand in hand with having a younger team. And again my generation, right, we are looking for different styles of leadership or different styles in our work life as well, which is something that is important especially in the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, world life balances very, very, very important. So how do you balance not working basically 24/7 or trying to do that, but still of course advancing in the speed that we have is with flexibility and with with trust by giving people autonomy. Making them responsible and really also trying to communicate or drive forward that they drive the project forward, right? It's not just another little talk. You are actually shaping the future of this company. And there is a place for you in the future here as well. Do you develop with your task? You develop with your expertise that you acquire and that needs to lead to somewhere. Sometimes it's not really clear where they're willing to, but that is also exciting if you can. Yeah, again, show the vision where this is going to go.
Tim H: Yeah, great points there. Quite a few. I think it's yeah, it's having autonomy. And then but being collaborative, but then having an overarching sort of, you know, that there needs to be a leadership, you know, within the.
Tim S: Yes, at the end, someone…
Tim H: And you'll be getting pressure from, you know, external powers as well. And then you need to be obviously the the face of that movement and growth. They're really interesting. Thank you for sharing. And then just literally final, final sort of question, you know, what's next for Paboco? What do you want to achieve in the next few years?
Tim S: Growing, growing, growing. It's. I mean, what else is new, right? Who could have guessed a startup wants to grow? As I said, it's this like super exciting time now we are on this like on this cusp of like taking this big step out of the I'd say garage, the development little garage to from a development startup into a production scale up, production able to scale up. With new lines, with a new location, starting, producing, delivering, establishing the solution on the European market 1st and then going from there and expanding first in Europe, then outside of it. There's such enormous interest in need for this kind of solutions that we can't wait to get it into every hands. And it's, I'd say like a very nice problem to have. That so many are interested, so we for sure growing with strategic partnerships with bigger companies, but also like looking very much to to smaller brands that where our sustainable agenda or the value of the product makes a lot of sense so that everything goes into hand in hand. And then yeah, to build this company even further, maybe we're looking into other products outside of our paper bottle, like what else can our technology support? What else can our expertise support? Maybe as well, just in general, navigating the legislation, the packaging landscape? That what goes on out there and we have strong support in the background, although the global company copy and pasting their principal are using those learnings already there makes a lot of sense using that network. There's great things to come. So can't wait to have a paper bottle into in every hand which is our ultimate vision goal and yes.
Tim H: Well look, I mean, yeah, how exciting is that, right. We're all, we're all rooting for you. Good luck. Sounds like, yeah, you've got your work cut out, but lots of interest. So yeah, all the best, I guess, for the future. And thank you for coming on. I think people will find this really interesting to hear. So, yeah, I appreciate your time.
Tim S: Of course. Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me, for listening and showing interest. I can't shut up about this company and the opportunity so. Always glad to have someone to talk to.
Tim H: Yes. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate your time. Speak soon, Speak soon.
Tim S: Bye.