case study
PELA: From Flax Fires to a Nine-Figure Force for Good
How belief, branding, and brave bets helped a side project become a category-defining sustainability company
Snapshot
Client: Jeremy Lang, Founder –
Open Mind Developments → PELA
Years: 2010–2012 (foundational engagement; relationship ongoing)
What we did: Brand + packaging + website + explainer video, grant funding support, ads + content, first marketing hire, strategic coaching & key connections
Outcome (long arc): Millions of PELA cases sold, Lomi launched (hundreds of thousands of units), team scaled to 100+, and the business grew into a nine-figure enterprise with a clear North Star: eliminate 1B lbs of waste annually
The Spark
When Jeremy was ten, he asked his dad why farmers’ fields were on fire across the Saskatchewan horizon.
“They’re burning flax straw,” his dad said.
“It’s too tough for the equipment.”
“If it’s that strong, it must be good for something.”
Jeremy Lang
Decades later, on a Kauai beach with his toddler son, Jeremy saw microplastics scattered through the sand. The childhood memory clicked. He mixed flax shive with a biopolymer, experimented with molds and injection tooling, and in 2011 launched the first Pila Case — a compostable phone case designed to protect phones and the planet.
The Early Reality
Jeremy still had a full-time role in environmental consulting and a young family. Resources were thin. Confidence wavered. Friends thought he was a little crazy.
He registered Open Mind Developments quietly (“so no one could talk me out of it”), tinkered in borrowed spaces, and fulfilled orders with his wife from the kitchen table … hand-writing orders & notes after putting the kids to bed.
The personal cost was real: across those same years, Jeremy and his wife endured six miscarriages and three failed IVF cycles. Work became both a mission and a coping mechanism.
Where I came in
Jeremy and Trevor go way back … hockey buses, concerts, and late-night “what if?” talks.
When the idea turned real, belief came first, then build.
Foundations I helped set:
Brand system
Digital
Funding
Growth
Capacity
hiring support to recruit PELA’s first internal marketing lead
Environment
It wasn’t glamorous. It was the work of making a brave idea legible, fundable, and findable …
and giving a founder enough runway to keep going.
The First Big Bet
“Day one I called my wife from the hallway and said,
‘I don’t belong here.’
Day two I introduced myself to the man who became
our future CEO.”
Jeremy Lang
That conversation changed the slope of the curve. Shortly after, Jeremy partnered with a CEO (Matt) and a seasoned operator/chair (Brad). The mindset shifted from “I’ve got this” to “we’ve got this.”
Storytelling as a lever
PELA’s products were innovative, but the real unlock was story:
The flax fires origin (turning waste into value)
The Hawaii microplastics moment (making the problem visceral)
The kitchen-table years (belief, grit, and handwritten notes)
The North Star (everyday products from everyday waste)
We leaned into this truth early … packaging the mission in visuals, words, and experiences people wanted to share.
“The most successful businesses are 90% marketing and 10% idea.
If no one sees it, it doesn’t matter.”
Jeremy Lang
The Compounding
From 2017 onward, the compounding became visible: brand, team, storytelling, and performance channels reinforcing each other. Venture backing in 2019 accelerated scale.
The mission stayed simple and specific.
Milestones along the way:
Millions of compostable phone cases into the world
Lomi launched — a countertop device that turns food scraps into usable output in hours, not weeks (democratizing waste solutions at home)
100+ employees, donations of $1M+ to nonprofits, and hundreds of millions of lbs of waste eliminated and counting
An audacious, measurable goal: 1 billion pounds of waste/year by 2028
What made the difference
Belief → Structure → Scale
“Trevor believed in me when few others did.
He helped me hire, get funding, and build the foundation that allowed PELA to grow.”
Jeremy Lang
Belief: A circle that said “keep going” when it was easiest to stop.
Build: Brand, packaging, site, video, grants, ads — the unsexy essentials.
People: The right first hire internally; later, the right partners.
Place: Rooms where imposter syndrome fades (and partnerships are born).
Plot: A clear, human story repeated with craft and consistency.
Results
Impact
Scale
100+ team members;
nine-figure enterprise value
Giving
$1M+ donated; a mission that attracts top talent
Clarity
Why this story matters
This isn’t a Cinderella story. It’s a compound-interest story … of a founder who kept showing up, a family that kept writing notes at the table, and a community that kept saying “dream bigger.”
My role was to amplify the signal: make the mission look, feel, and function
like the company it would become … before the world agreed it could.