Founder Feature: Ashley Stallworth
October 21, 2022
As a child, Ashley attended school in a district that was impacted by asbestos. He learned more about “forever chemicals”, dangerous materials, that have negative impacts on human development and even our life expectancy. With humans spending the majority of their lives indoors, he finds it important that the buildings we live, work, and breathe in are made from clean and healthy materials. Ashley made it his personal mission to figure out a way to help safeguard the lives in our lifetime and future generations. This lifelong interest in learning about material science and how toxicity can impact people and their environment turned into his company, Bio Fiber Industries.
Meet Ashley Stallworth (he/him), Founder & CEO of Bio Fiber Industries. We interviewed Ashley to learn more about how he’s hoping to impact his community and what he wish he knew before starting. So, what are you waiting for? Continue reading to get to know more about the work that Bio Fiber Industries is doing!
Tell us about your startup:
Bio Fiber Industries is focused on the removal of carbon from our atmosphere through the use of carbon negative, non toxic commodities like hemp and other bio preferred materials in industrial manufacturing, residential & commercial construction and renewable energies.
What ONE thing would help you out the most with moving your startup to the next step?
As we start our seed round of funding, I find that this is the most pivotal portion to date; there is no doubt about it. Our TAM looks so good. As a carbon negative non toxic commodity provider economic stimulation is and will be pivotal for an expanding market in search of clean materials and clean tech products.
What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting your startup?
How non inclusive Agriculture still is. Just 1.3% of all farmers in the whole united states are BIPOC farmers; emphasis on black & indigenous. Access to sustainable resources to help empower good outcomes has historically kept BIPOC communities malnourished, poorly housed and zoned out for realtor sales forcing many into blight and then generational losses. Minorities lose land quickly and there is not much ownership of it, including water rights. Even if agreements were made, historically they were not honored. I have hope our work will help make a difference in ways that can be quantified now and for the future.
What was your biggest mistake (aka learning opportunity) when you VERY first started?
Plant what you can harvest; the mistake was made but the outcome supported constructive learnings in real time to still move forward and have more to work with for future usage.
What impact on your community are you hoping that your startup has?
We are hoping to extend quality of life expectancy for our communities. By integrating naturals materials used wisely, we can reduce toxicity in our urban and rural communities by utilizing not only climate smart commodities with built in incentives, but advance safe materials for humans that are designed to support better health and vitality for all; especially those most marginalized and impacted the most.
Name your biggest motivator/inspiration to continue doing the work that you do.
People; I Inherently care. Children, elders, my children, my friends, those who I have yet to even meet. I am also motivated by this time in history where we are re-realizing that sustainability is cool and important for all of us to not just survive but thrive in our built environments
One piece of advice that you would give to a budding tech startup entrepreneur.
Keep going, if you feel differently maybe go for a trip and then if you have the time reflect and find ways to make your vision into a reality. You can do it. If it was easy everyone would be doing it 😉
Anything else that you’d like to share with the Find Ventures and tech startup community?
We would like to announce that Bio Fiber Industries is the United States first Minority Owned Industrial Hemp processor focused on fiber, hurd, and grain milling
You can connect with Ashley on LinkedIn and keep up with Bio Fiber Industries on socials: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube
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