Thank you so much for joining us, Sam. Could you please introduce yourself and your business?

Thanks so much for having me! My name is Sam, and I'm one of the co-founders at Co-Labs Australia. Co-Labs is an interdisciplinary innovation hub with the goal of helping support the transition toward a more circular economy. We do that primarily by focusing on biotech. But our broader vision is to tap into other disciplines and bring them together. This includes things like biodesign, clean tech, and anything trying to “move the needle” and bring about positive change in our economic systems.

Through collaboration and cross-disciplinary action, we can make the changes we need to see in the world— which includes changing or improving systems here in Australia.

Before Co-Labs Melbourne, Australia didn’t have a co-working laboratory. It was the first of its kind here. We saw that it worked overseas, and then we just decided to make it happen in Australia. So that's how it all came about.

That sounds fantastic. Congratulations on being a pioneer. What exactly are you trying to achieve with Co-Labs— and why do you think it matters?

There's so much that needs to happen and so much change coming in the next decade. So I asked myself: What's my part in it? What’s the greatest impact I can have in the smallest amount of time?

It came down to creating space for other innovators to push their work forward and catalyse that much quicker through supporting their business-support services or offering the infrastructure they need to be able to do the innovation.

In addition to supporting these innovators' initiatives, we are trying to push a change in how humans do business so that we don't repeat the same mistakes that got us to where we are today.

That could be, for example, moving toward a more life-based, or ecological way of doing business that uses thinking guided by the study of living systems and regenerative leadership principles. That is also a very important part of the work we are developing.

Do you think you could tell us a little about your early life and the path you came from?

I grew up surrounded by the world's tallest flowering trees: it was a rainforest in Olinda, Australia. Without knowing it, my environment very early on shaped who I have now become.

At one point, my grandmother was on the television show Gardening Australia for her native plant gardens, and she would exhibit them and people would come in and look at her garden.

My parents were pretty left-leaning, and I was exposed to quite a lot of politics aligned with the Australian Green Party, so I was often around climate-positive people.

I always had this innate thinking of living systems and was very curious about how the world worked. I was so engrossed in this that I didn't realise it wasn't necessarily how people normally thought.

As far back as I can really remember, I've never had that spark of curiosity put out. My parents would give me books or support my interests in other ways, and I feel very lucky for that. It’s allowed me to develop a really broad, holistic sort of understanding that enables me to weave things together from multiple different places rather than focusing on one discipline. I believe that trend started before going to university, so I decided to do a double degree instead of a single degree and I ended up studying commerce and science.

I had a great interest in biology: again, how the world works. But the business part is more about how we think the world works, according to the story we tell ourselves about capitalism. And you need to understand this because if you don't understand how it works, you won't be able to change anything. It's unusual, and interesting, to come into business from a point of view that’s not, “I want to make millions,” but one that’s about wondering how something even functions.

It's not black and white, or an either-or kind of proposition. So how can we bridge the gap between just making money and achieving a higher understanding? And how do we create strong and thriving socio-ecological systems? At first, I didn't even have the right language for it.

It was only after graduating that I sidetracked. I had a digital marketing agency and content creation company that I just fell into through university because it seemed to yield the maximum amount of income for the minimum amount of effort and work. I did modelling and content creation and grew an Instagram account to 110,000 followers. And that was my primary source of income, but it just sucked. All you're doing is promoting brands and promoting consumerism. And you see, I got to have these amazing experiences like driving a Lamborghini in Bologna or getting flown to Florence for Mont Blanc.

But none of it was what I intended to do, given my earlier stage of wanting to be the next David Attenborough. When I graduated, I didn't have an aim, so I just kept doing the same thing for a few years. I think it wasn't until going to a consciousness festival called Rainbow Serpent here in Australia around 2015 that I realised I'd followed a different path out of university because I didn't know how to study everything I wanted, from the complexity of living systems thinking to ecological design thinking. I thought I needed to go somewhere where I could study it, and I heard about an institution in Devon called Schumacher College. Then I learned about all of these other places that were speaking a language that I very quickly picked up on.

I ran across The Systems View of Life, a textbook by the Austrian-American physicist and ecological systems theorist Fritjof Capra, who’s on the faculty at Schumacher College. I also saw Daniel Wahl's book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, and from this kind of thing flowed my discoveries of the language for philosophy and science that was saying what I had been trying to articulate. It felt like coming home. It took me a while, but I'm glad I managed to find that, and a community of people who share that same interest.

When I look back at my path now, it looks so clear. But for the most part, it wasn't. I knew what I was interested in, but I was still very open and would follow paths. But then, as I said, I climbed a mountain of success in the wrong space. Everyone's always got unique and interesting stories when you hear about them, and I liked that I ventured into the territory— that capitalist-consumerist sort of space. Getting a lot of really nice things for free, even if I was just experiencing them and not owning them, was enough to make me realise that it’s not the answer. I got to viscerally feel that rather than just hearing someone talk about it. And that’s a path I could not return to. My calling is to be in the service of life, and I believe we all need to move towards a way to embody that. I'm happy I made the jump.

Another key defining moment was how I met my business partner: I passed a community science lab on a run to my gym and I popped in on a whim and started talking to him. Within 15 minutes, we had the idea for one of our science charities where we take old science equipment from labs and donate it to schools. We set that up and donated about eight tonnes of equipment in the first two years.

Off the back of that, we got the idea to start Co-Labs. It’s been fun to get it all up and running and get us to where we are now. But, like anyone in this space, you have to work ten times harder because it's going against the grain. That doesn't mean that you give up, but you have to make it happen.

And it’s not just making it happen for you: it's making sure it can happen, like, seven generations earlier for everyone else. That real long-term thinking drives what we're trying to do. Obviously, you want to have a good life for yourself and be able to see the beautiful world, but you also think of every other living being that's coming after you, and you want to make sure they get to experience lives worth living.

That’s a profoundly clear-sighted, generous way to think. Also, I liked how you dared to say no to one kind of success. I think that’s extremely hard for many people.

I agree with that. I think that socio-normative values and beliefs are a strong attractor that pulls people into conformity, and you feel obliged to be a certain way because that's what your culture deems is the right way. But I would argue that almost all people probably have a very similar innate feeling inside, but it's just whether or not you're attuned to it, or whether or not you've shut it out and are just depressed and anxious. A lot could be answered if people reflected upon how they are leading their lives and whether or not they are creating something that fulfils them.

It’s like I’ve said for years: I wish more people took the time to reflect on their own thoughts. You’re clearly a world-spirited person, so what led you to create Co-Labs? The story of how you met your co-founder is a very interesting one. How did that develop?

It happened pretty quickly, actually. I think I was very inspired by what he had done up to that point. He really had that “do it yourself” mentality. Before our meeting on the day I ran to the gym, Andrew had bought a shipping container and turned it into a laboratory because he wanted a laboratory. He’d been dumpster-diving behind universities to get all the equipment he needed, and then after a while, the security came out and they were like, “Look, if you really want equipment, just ask us rather than digging around in there, because there's contaminated stuff.” It wasn’t safe at all. It was really interesting seeing how he had just made what he needed happen with whatever resources were there.

After he’d started getting all this equipment and built a lab, he’d pretty much already set the blueprint for how Co-Labs would start. In his journey of having that lab up and running, he had multiple people ask if they could lease it out during the day. One company asked if they could move their 20-person team to it, on the assumption that it was a traditional laboratory, but he of course had to reply, like, “Ah, it's a shipping container. There are like three benches in there. It's not a proper lab.”

Before we talked, he’d been thinking he could get his lab up and running in five or ten years, but once he told me about it I was completely on board and said, “Let’s just do it now.”

It was really fun because he had the know-how and expertise to go like, “Let's do it!” We were lucky enough to get $300,000 from the Victorian Government to build our first pilot and BP lab, and that was at the start of COVID. We've been open for two years now, but for the first year, it was pretty much closed. Luckily, we had a couple of clients working on pretty innovative products, like rapid antigen tests and devices to sterilise airborne pathogens.

After the lockdown stopped in Australia— with Melbourne ending its 111-day period in October 2021, which must’ve been one of the world’s longest, craziest lockdowns— we filled the space for the next couple of months, two years ahead of schedule on what we had told the government we’d do. Because we were getting successful, they asked us to submit a proposal for additional funding. We did it and we got another $500,000. That's pretty exciting.

There's been a lot of demand for our current space. We're already over capacity and looking at building another one. From our perspective, we want to make sure that the whole point of this is to support innovation and make the innovation process more sustainable. It’s extremely expensive for a company to build its own lab, first of all, and regardless, 90% of the time their equipment just sits there unused.

A co-working lab model allows us all to save energy, equipment, and capital expenditure. It’s also inherently more sustainable because it all comes through one laboratory instead of several. They only use what they need when they need it.

On top of that, for example, science companies get a lot of stuff shipped to them. We can do batch orders and get them shipped one time rather than lots of different orders all the time. This is one of the things we're doing to make the lab as green as possible. Our vision would be a carbon-neutral lab, which is very difficult. We're only at the beginning of our journey, but it's a very exciting one.

Being around so many fascinating innovators, and being able to help and support them with research, is both intriguing and as interesting. We've been helping a company with bioaerosol testing, and then there's another breeding kelp and reforesting the ocean. Another company is developing biodegradable, clean wrapping material using potato waste and two others are doing cellular agriculture, like growing meat without cows; one company is doing cows, and the other is working on lamb.

One of the most interesting aspects of having companies like these in our Co-Lab is that they all help each other. Even though companies usually come to us a bit worried about their IP, we reassure them that even if there are companies there working in the same industry, they are in different verticals. We know it because everyone signs an NDA with us and we don’t accept just every project.

When they talk and share knowledge and information with each other, everyone benefits from it. So it’s great to see people shift from “I don't think that's how we want to operate” to “Here, let me help you with this,” and “You can borrow our equipment whenever you need it!” Being able to facilitate that nudge and create that culture is probably the most rewarding part of this entire thing.

Have you ever decided to do something completely different? Or just take a new direction that you hadn't planned before? Whether in life or your career?

At first, I'd say the biggest thing was getting started with the modelling and content creation before I started the work I’m doing now. Even though I was super successful, I realised it wasn't the right thing.

That was a very big change. I went from making money to not making any money for two years, which led me to experience the psychological pressure of not having anything.

I hadn't experienced unmet material needs for quite a while— or ever, really. It was really interesting, genuinely living in a function of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I was in a position where I literally couldn’t afford to eat, and wasn’t going to if I didn’t sell things to survive. It was a very humbling experience— and somewhat poetic, right? I had all this stuff given to me, all these fancy designer brands, and then I just got rid of all of it so I could work on what I wanted to. I ended up selling perhaps 95% of all the stuff I had.

I don't recommend that people start something without having a bit of a buffer, but then at the same time, I didn't, and I wouldn't listen to my advice if I were someone else. So, if someone else wants to do it, go for it. It's one of those things: maybe I don't recommend it, but I can see that people would still do it.

The biggest transition would have been making that switch back to what I was interested in. That's probably the defining thing I've done. I spent three or four months sitting down and asking myself: what do I value?

What happens is when you're doing that sort of work, and you’re just basically saying yes to random companies, the value of your “yes” degrades a lot because you never say no to anything. It almost feels like you have no morals.

There was a point, between leaving my creative agency and the men's fashion publication I was involved with to get into the lab, where I started to slowly put my foot down about what brands I'd work with. By the end, I just thought, “No, that’s it. I'm totally out.” During that time, I spent so much time reading about philosophy and psychology— to know how the world worked. It allowed me to understand how I could be of most service.

That period was tough, because I wasn’t making money, but I was lucky it happened during COVID. But this transitional period was probably the most important because I decided to self-educate and look out to get myself in order. I focused on my mindfulness meditation. I started doing full body workouts. My philosophy was to get myself in order before trying to help the world. After all, there's no point trying to help people if you haven't centred, and you aren't feeling good about yourself and aren't healthy, alive and vital. So I really worked on the inner self as much as the outer self. I tried to lay that foundation and to know that I had to go slow. I had to get everything sorted personally before I tried and tackle anything external to myself.

I took pages from Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, and Stoicism; I took as much as I could from Buddhism and all the parts I liked the most from different spiritual teachings, traditions, or philosophical doctrines. I asked myself how I could apply these things in a manner that allowed me to be a better human.

I think you realise that through your whole life, for the first 18 years, you're getting taught everything— told what to do and how to be. But it wasn't until this point that it really clicked for me: I have to be the one who chooses and dictates what I want to do. People are often just told to do the normal thing: go to a university, get a job. And then you do it. But a lot of us seem to never look back and reflect, “Why am I really doing this?”

I learnt a lot from this period. I'm glad I did that, because those next two years of building the lab were pretty hectic.

It’s a beautiful thing about life: we can end up in the most unexpected of places, irrespective of our origins. But as interesting your journey has been, was it always easy getting started with Co-Labs? Or were there some challenges? Did you make any mistakes, and do you think you learned anything from them?

We have yet to make any major mistakes— we've been quite lucky. We’re a team of two and we can autocorrect whenever anything happens. The biggest or best thing we've learned from making mistakes is that they're reversible if you know how to handle the situation. Something might happen where we're like, “That's going to be a write-off. Let's not bother going there.” And then I'll say, “We may as well try and turn the negative into a positive somehow.”

Let's say we want to work with a partner, and it fizzles out, or we don't think we’ll be able to make it work. My strategy here is just to pick up the conversation a bit later, reframe it, and deliver it differently, just to see what happens. When you do that, sometimes it works and the deal picks back up, and that’s very encouraging. Suddenly, this lost lead is now a major part of some deal.

We haven't done any marketing, so people come to us. We’ve landed new members a couple of times where the reason has been that I’ve followed up multiple times to ask how they’re doing with everything, and if we can help— I wouldn’t be necessarily trying to sell anything, but just asking if they’ve found lab space.

The most important thing we've learned building a lab is that it costs a lot more than you’d think. We tried to do it as cheaply as possible, and we’ve apparently succeeded by actually going under budget, but the point stands nonetheless. This wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn't been so savvy in finding cheap equipment. We even put the benches together and painted all the walls ourselves.

We very much built the thing; we've installed all the cabinetry and stuff like that in the kitchen. We’ve had to do a lot of things like that to keep costs low. In the future, I'd ask for more money; this is what it costs so we can make it happen. I think that's kind of the number one thing.

Another mistake is not valuing our time enough, which has changed. But at the very beginning, because we came from running a non-profit, we didn’t value ourselves at all. Realistically, that's just the nature of the work, which has forced us into believing you have to volunteer your time for these projects with super weird financing situations. You should be paid double what anyone else gets if you're working in a charity because you're probably doing good things. Right? That’s a bit of a paradox.

We decided to make what we were doing into a company because people don't have any issues paying a socially-minded enterprise. We came to that conclusion pretty quickly. Now we are doing consultation work for a proper consultant's rate rather than a quarter of what it should be.

I wish I had a bigger mistake to learn from that would be useful to suggest here, but they're yet to come. No doubt they're unavoidable, though, that's for sure!

You said you’ve had to make some sacrifices. What do you think was the biggest one?

Sacrificing money. At the end of the day, it's no single value, but of course, it's our main value metric. It can be very hard to make anything happen if you don't have money. Sacrificing and giving up on worldly pleasures and a luxurious lifestyle. Sacrificing those wasn't that hard; that was pretty easy because it just seemed a bit superfluous. For me, that stuff was just “fun.” The feeling was, “Oh, can I get this? Can I get that?”

But giving up on money because you might not have it is a viscerally painful experience. When you have to try to get money and can't think straight, if you’re living with constant worry about how you're paying for bills or something, you— or me, from my experience— can't think creatively and clearly. When I was in that position, I couldn’t do high-level strategy. How could anybody else?

In a detached sort of way, it was really interesting to see when life would sort of get to the bottom of the barrel, and I'd have to figure out a way to make some money appear. Those moments were just horrible— absolutely horrible. And it makes me realise how difficult it is for people who don't have a high income or people who have to live like that all the time.

It’s a very humbling experience and it also makes you realise what's important and what's not. And what you really need and what you don't. But now that I'm starting to make more money. I'm much more conscious about what I'm purchasing and ensuring that it is sustainable or slow fashion, or if it's homewares, that it's non-plastic. I’m also a lot more conscious of my habits now, generally, since enduring that temporary poverty. It's a double-edged sword. It was pretty intense.

Did you have any big “Aha!” moments throughout your journey?

Yeah, definitely. Most of my “Aha!” moments are induced by others' energy and commitment to something. It’s when I meet new people doing amazing things and I think, “How has no one thought of this before?” It’s a privilege to be at the knife's edge.

But my biggest personal “Aha!” moment was reading The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi. This book put language to something I’d been trying to work out myself, where I’d been really fumbling around in the dark. I knew everything fit together, but I didn’t know how. I drew a little dot here and a little dot there, but couldn’t connect them into a coherent narrative. So reading that book and discovering that literature about holistic science and complexity, complex adaptive systems, and ecological design thinking was extremely important. When I read that I thought, “Yes, this is it.”

The book sounds fascinating, and like something a lot of our readers might be interested in reading. Thank you! With Co-Labs, what future are you hoping to help create, and how do you envision the future?

That's a great question, and I happen to be in a good position to reply, having built Co-Labs’ “theory of change”— a developmental plan which also addresses our purpose.

In essence, Co-Labs is one part of the bigger picture. My long-term vision is to create a living systems institute that focuses on ecological design and living systems thinking. I would then like to integrate that into the educational system here in Australia. We don't yet have living systems thinking or ecological design-oriented undergraduate courses.

I would like to create a space where a collective of people can come together to share their ideas and vision. I believe I'll be able to bring together people to create something like Schumacher College, Hawkwood, the Santa Fe Institute, or the California Institute of Integral Studies. Weaving together science, spirituality, art, design, engineering, and math.

The paradigm shift in science is already happening if you look at holistic sciences that move away from the traditional role of the scientist as a “detached observer.” We’re stepping away from a materialistic, reductionist approach to perceiving reality. That old mould was great for figuring out little parts or building a computer, but that's not how biology works. That's not how humans work.

To understand the problems that we currently face in the world we need to understand how multiple systems fit together, and how the social system interacts with the natural ecosystem. The social system perpetuates monetary and economic systems. Capitalism further perpetuates inequality, and how that inequality is linked to colonialism. That approach is also linked to how we patent things in biology, which interferes with traditional indigenous knowledge.

As you can see, there are all these moving parts— things which impact other things, which impact even more things— and it’s important, then, to develop a systems-based approach to understanding each thing qualitatively, rather than simply focusing on quantitative data. So that's my big vision and hope going forward.

A new goal is to try to support more by design, which I want to expand this concept to cover.

I’d like to address subjects like the use of new biodegradable, biocompatible compostable materials. I see the need for a material revolution. How do we re-make the world we inhabit using environmentally-benign materials, instead of toxic ones?

There are a lot of paradoxes there. How do you make something that lasts for a long time but is biodegradable, and isn’t simply alive, like a tree? When we're talking the biomaterials, there's much more there when it comes to replacing concrete, plastic and other petrochemical stuff. That will be one of our big focus areas in the next couple of years.

It’s also my long-term vision to focus on social and technological innovation. A few questions are, how do we better govern as a society; how do we collectively make decisions that support everyone? How do we upgrade humanity's “operating system”? How do we phase shift to something which, to reference Buckminster Fuller’s “World Peace Game”, works for 100% of people as quickly as possible with no ecological offence, and no one gets left out?

Speaking of Buckminster Fuller, a thinker known for his versatility, you also seem to work in a lot of spheres. Is there anything you would like other people to take from your journey?

The most important thing people should take from the journey is that everyone's different and that everyone’s journey is unique. But I hope people will understand that it's never too late to change, no matter what career you're in or whatever you're doing. You can absolutely do something you feel better about.

I wish people would think more about things like, how can I contribute, and what makes me happy? Where do I feel most alive? Maybe it’s a little cliche and simple, but we need more people to do impact-oriented work and move toward a more regenerative society.

Expect it to be more difficult when you're going against the grain. That's why it's important to have a set of centring practices: meditation practices, nonviolent communication, and compassionate kindness. Things that bring you peace, and things that bring you back to yourself. The work that you're doing demands 100% from you at all times. And there's nothing worse than you burning out. A key piece of advice is to not neglect the inner for the outer, because it's one and the same.

I think a major problem that we have is that the current conflicted inner landscape is projected onto our outer landscape. This is why we're happy to destroy the planet and all of these objectively horrible things, even if we’re not horrible. We're just not happy and content on the inside.

So again, “inner work” is incredibly important. Even though much of my work is on the outer, it wouldn't have been able to happen without that.

I like this a lot because people outside obviously only see the outside.

I just want to emphasize that one of the most important things I can tell someone is not to neglect your inner experience, or “inner” things, for whatever constitutes the “outer.” Even if the world is falling down around you, it doesn't mean you need to burn yourself out. You're just going to fall away with the rest of the world if that happens.

Some people might do yoga, mindfulness practices, or go for a run, or others might be journaling or doing Tai Chi, or Chi Gong. You have to find your modalities.

Is there any tip you might like to give young and upcoming entrepreneurs, specifically?

Doing it alone is a hundred times harder. Don’t do it alone.

Try to find a good group of people or at least another person you can work with. Remember, it's kind of like a marriage. Whoever you're with, make sure you know that it will work on the best and worst days and that you have a strong ability to figure things out with one another and understand each other deeply. And make sure there's enough love and respect there that you can make things happen.

Without it, it becomes a personal battle or issue. It can be very much like putting yourself in a pressure cooker, with whoever else you're with. If anything, think of how you're going to operate at your worst because there’s going to be a lot of time when you're super stressed and having a function from that place.

It's that whole idea of not falling down to the level of your habits. Make sure you've instilled good group behaviour and everything amongst yourselves.

Entrepreneurship is a difficult path but don't let that stop you.

However, don't feel bad if you're someone who doesn't feel the spark. I don't think this path is for everyone.

That said, don't feel like you have to be an extrovert to be an entrepreneur. There are plenty of introverts I know that are amazing entrepreneurs. You don't have to be this big outward-looking bells-and-whistles type of person. The best leader is one who leads from the background and allows great things to emerge.

If you had one lasting message to share with everyone on this planet, what would that be?

Probably Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhist concept of “Interbeing.” I would like people to internalize that you don't exist without the rest of the world. For us to realise the interdependence and interconnectedness of everything. This realisation might give them the ability to transcend nihilism, or their feelings of aloneness, or disconnection because you could never really be alone in an interconnected universe. This is especially important if we want to create a better world together— because doing it together is the only way it’s going to work.

Thank you so much for sharing so much of your story and philosophy with us, Sam. It’s been incredibly inspiring. We wish you nothing but the greatest possible success with Co-Labs, and your vision of creating a more regenerative society.

If you’d like to find out more about Sam’s company, Co-Labs, visit www.colabs.com.au.

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