Female Founder Interview - Tinia Pina

1. Why and how did you get involved in agtech?

Food became personal for me as a former volunteer Prep-SAT teacher in Harlem with New York Cares. Every Saturday at 9 am, I noticed how the options for nutritious food within a two-block radius from where I was teaching not only impacted the productivity of my kids in class but also ultimately dictated their future. By working to indirectly help increase the production of more produce supply, I am committed to helping more healthy food become affordable as a result of more organic farms servicing densely populated areas.

2. How have you personally grown in this entrepreneurial journey? Things you did not know about yourself till you became an entrepreneur.

I've been through a lot and I never lose sight of that formerly bootstrapping the company for many years. This was never an easy feat, having designed our product from scratch, our manufacturing process sequence from scratch, and a new category from scratch. This has made me incredibly grateful for every small win as well as loss because, as I have learned, there's a silver lining in every experience that always prepares you for your next success. If I have learned anything about myself, it's the unwavering amount of patience and balance that I have that has shocked me at times, ironically. Maintaining a peaceful state of mind is what has allowed our team to stay incredibly motivated, optimistic, and authentic with any reservations or different perspectives. It's because of this that we have been incredibly prudent and resilient in navigating these unprecedented times that COVID has presented to us.

3. What's your day like? How are you working with your team and your customers with the COVID constraints?

I start my day at 8 and often end it around 7 pm each day and because of this, I have hard boundaries on trying to protect my weekends for personal time dedicated to my own mental health and keeping connections with family and friends. Every day, I first check-in with our team first on their personal well-being and then on how we can, together, move the company forward so that their professional well-being is not being overworked. There are so many things occurring in this world that I'm not too happy about and many that are blind to my personal bubble that I try to be hyper-aware of what may be affecting everyone without my knowing. I think maintaining this pulse, this culture is what has allowed us to move swiftly on getting an incredible amount achieved, with an incredibly lean team and with less resources than venture-backed companies - a competitive advantage that I think more companies can easily create. COVID has just made us incredibly hyper-vigilant about how to deliver value not only to our customers and partner but also across our ecosystem's supply chain in ways that others in our space haven't explored. I vigilantly focus on this, as well as our cash management and our team's welfare while managing sales, investor relationships, and product management. 

4. How do you envisage your future? What's your vision for Re-Nuble and for yourself?

I’m most interested in regenerative agriculture and how to incorporate more of the unique synergies that occur at the microbial level to enhance the nutrition of plants and, eventually, consumers. Personalized nutrition stemming from unadulterated biological mechanisms to grow our food fascinates me because it truly provides a direct impact to food being your medicine. Imagine if you can visit your local supermarket and farm and purchase freshly grown local produce that will contain sufficient levels of minerals and vitamins to displace the need for supplements because it was grown according to your nutritional needs. Or the ability to purchase a drink that has probiotics that address your acute medical need such as Depression, Hyperthyroidism, or Eczema simply because it returned your gut to a balanced environment of pH and nutrient levels. Studying an individual’s dietary needs and empowering our farmers to elevate the nutrient profile of their produce in order to meet that characterization proves that there is so much more to be explored in the realms of food science, food technology, and agriculture.

Join us for Season 3, Sept to Nov 2020.