- Just Go Grind
- Posts
- #349: Brennan Spellacy of Patch, on Value-Driven Category Creation, Strategic Hiring at a High-Growth Startup, and Enabling Trust through Transparency
#349: Brennan Spellacy of Patch, on Value-Driven Category Creation, Strategic Hiring at a High-Growth Startup, and Enabling Trust through Transparency

Brennan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Patch, the platform for negative emissions and scaling unified climate action. Patch is building the infrastructure for a sustainable economy by enabling gigatonne scale carbon removal. With Patch, companies can embed climate action into their own products, neutralizing the carbon impact of everyday transactions like shipping, travel, and financial services. From an API-integration to direct purchase, Patch is the carbon removal platform for businesses and consumers to seamlessly contribute to trusted removal and reduction projects at any scale.
Prior to founding Patch with co-founder Aaron Grunfeld, Brennan worked in a range of product & engineering roles at Sonder and Shopify. He received a degree in chemical engineering from McGill University.
Topics Covered by Brennan Spellacy in this Episode
What Patch is and how they’re helping companies achieve their environmental goals
Patch’s origin story
Deciding to found Patch with his co-founder Aaron Grunfeld after a collaborating on a challenging project at Sonder
The early days of Patch and the benefits of starting right at the beginning of the pandemic
How they tackled the challenge of fundraising
Using their $1.2M pre-seed raise to build their founding team
Patch’s original platform
Category creation and their values-centric sales pitch
Getting approached by Andreessen Horowitz for investment
Patch’s product evolution and the three facets of the problem they’re solving
Leveraging PR to fuel Patch’s growth and shifting their strategy
The logic behind their slow-to-hire approach
Vetting in the carbon credit marketplace and enabling trust through transparency
Patch’s business model and how it has evolved
Interesting climate solutions Brennan has seen
The strategic timing of their rebrand
What’s next for Patch and where to connect with Brennan and his company
Subscribe to the Just Go Grind Podcast
Want to Join a Supportive Community of Ambitious Founders?
Learn more about the Just Go Grind Founder Community, a group of more than 90 founders learning and building together each week 👇
Reply