What Vow taught me
Since Oct '21, I've worked at Australia's most exciting start-up. Here are my reflections.
Today is my last day at Vow….
Many of you reading this would already know - Vow is one of the most exciting start-ups and the most advanced cultured meat company in the world.
And since Oct ‘21, Vow has become a core part of my identity:
Vow was the sole reason I moved to Sydney, Australia.
It was the finishing touch on the application that got me accepted to the Schwarzman Scholarship, a dream of mine since 2018.
Over the last 4 years, Vow has been the source of some of my greatest accomplishments, friendships, successes, failures, and heartaches.
Given my departure, I wanted to share reflections on how I and Vow have changed since I joined, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
⭐ If you stay until the end of this post, you’ll be rewarded with some fun stats about my time at Vow and my top experiences.
How I’ve changed
Before Vow
When I joined Vow, I was a 24 year old who had just finished up two years of management consulting.
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t that good of a consultant. I just simply couldn’t do the mental gymnastics required to convince myself that my day-to-day work mattered.
Thus, I wasn’t always that motivated to give my full effort at work. I’d usually receive OK to decent ratings. At one point however, due to an especially bad case - bad in all senses, including sustainability, subject matter, and my performance - I was given direct and brutal feedback. I had 3 months to turn things around or I’d have to find another job.
That ushered in a prolonged period (~6 months) of the lowest professional confidence I had ever had. I started questioning myself: “Am I even smart?”, “Am I capable of doing good work?”, and “Could I even positively contribute to a high performance team”. No bueno.
One year into consulting, I 100% knew that I didn’t want to stay.
And although I didn’t know what I wanted to do next, I knew I wanted more ownership of and intrinsic passion behind my work.
So I guess you could say I was the ‘classic’ ambitious-yet-directionless young professional trying to find something more meaningful while also re-building his confidence.
After Vow (now)
Fast forward to today (August 15, 2025).
I leave Vow today as a 28 year old who feels simultaneously like the same person as before in many ways, yet totally different in others.
In the ~4 years since starting at Vow, I’ve gotten to do some cool stuff, including:
Kickstart one of the world’s first successful cultured meat regulatory approval processes
Play a part in launching Vow into Singapore
Product manage’d new brands and products
Most importantly, launch Vow into Australia
And more.
Because of my work and the people I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by, I’m supremely confident in my ability to tackle tough problems, bring something from 0 —> 1, and contribute positively to teams working on impactful missions.
I also feel a much greater sense of purpose in what I want to do next, which I’d describe as:
Help a team bring impactful technology to the world to create value for the world and for the team behind it.
On the personal side, I feel I’ve grown into more of who I want to be. Someone whose values show up in how he acts day-to-day. Someone who actively contributes positively to those around him. And most importantly, someone who acts with extreme agency in life in a way that benefits himself and those around him.
These experiences have translated into both a personal and professional confidence and grounded-ness that make me believe I can take on anything. And for that, I’m eternally grateful.
How Vow has changed
Before
When I joined in Oct ‘21, Vow was a biological R&D project of 30 people.
We were focused on the novel biological problems related to cell-culturing while figuring out what species we’d want to double down to scale.
At the time, we faced three massive existential risks as a company and didn’t have solid answers for any of them:
Regulatory risk: could we get approvals in enough countries before our runway expired? At the time, we hadn’t yet started the regulatory process.
Science / manufacturing risk: Could we actually make cultured meat at scale (in kg’s or tons) with reasonable cost? Then, if we grew 10 - 50 grams, we’d be elated. We didn’t even concern ourselves with cost.
Product / market risk: Could we make products / ingredients that people would buy? We didn’t know what species of meat we would grow, much less why anyone would by it.
My first brief was to tackle the regulatory risk above. I was told: “We know we need to get regulatory approval but don’t really know what we need to do or how. Go figure it out and get it done.
But over the ensuing months and years, we made rapid progress toward alleviating those risks and finding our identity as a company. We eventually overcame the “1 in 1000” odds our CEO had for us to make it to market with cultured meat.
Back in 2021, our biggest assets were (1) an exciting mission and vision, (2) a growing team of intelligent and hard-working folks, and (3) a CEO / leadership team willing to make big, bold bets.
Turns out, that’s all that really mattered.
Now
Vow is now the largest cultured meat company in the world*, fully commercially selling across two continents (in Singapore and Australia) with a team of nearly 80.
*largest in terms of production capacity and scale, as well as culture meat sold
If I look at the risks listed above:
Regulatory risk✅ we’ve received approvals to sell in Singapore and Australia / New Zealand, with more on the way.Science / manufacturing risk✅ we can produce tons of cultured meat on a monthly basis at a cost that isn’t out of place in the premium meats category.Product / market risk 🤏🏽 (we’re close) we’ve made a brand (Forged) with delicious, premium products that are gaining traction in Singapore and are gaining traction in Australia! Check them out here.
Our main objective as a company now is finding product-market fit while improving unit economics and revenue. So, we’ve survived long enough to be a real (even if currently unprofitable 😂) business!
In short, we’ve accomplished what so many people have said we could not accomplish: e.g., scale cultured meat, make products people love, reduce costs as low as we have.
Now, it’s less about doing the impossible (which we’ve already done), and instead focusing on making really damn good food for people, at scale.
What have I learned?
Here, I’ll share my most impactful stories / lessons. And then you’ll get the section with the fun stats about my time at Vow after.
Acting with agency starts smaller than you think
When I first joined Vow, I worked remotely from the US (Australia’s borders were closed for COVID).
Among my first tasks was to cold-call crocodile farms across Australia to get biopsy samples from recently deceased crocodiles.
I made a spreadsheet of farms to call, wrote a simple script, and asked if anyone on the ground in Sydney could help make calls for me. I was in the US, and thus couldn’t directly call Australian numbers.
As soon as I posted that ask for help, our Head of Engineering at the time Soroush Pour slack huddled me immediately and said: “You can download Skype International and do this yourself. No need to be block yourself artificially and rope someone else in.”
That two-minute call left me mind blown. I immediately thought - “how many other times have I been a blocker for myself instead of taking direct action??”
From that moment on, I became much hyper aware of spotting - and removing - any places where I was making similar false assumptions.
How to reframe my weakness into potential strength (cliché, I know)
Within my first several months at Vow, I was tasked with conducting a competitor analysis of other cultured meat companies. I remember dragging my feet on the project here and there, but ultimately didn’t think much of it once it was finished.
A few months later in my review, my manager Ellen made a fantastic point that has since stuck with me.
When she brought up my lack of urgency about that competitor analysis, I got a bit nervous because I knew it wasn’t my best piece of work - thus, there was lots of room for her to provide negative feedback.
However, she took a route that caught me off guard.
“I notice that you tend to slow down on work when you don’t believe it’ll be useful. Did you feel that was the case with the competitor analysis?”
She was spot-on. I actually didn’t think it was too useful of work, but I also hadn’t raised that point. She continued:
“You should use that feeling as a radar. If you don’t believe in work you’re doing, then make sure to immediately call that out to either get more context or pivot.”
That reframe was a gift. Instead of accusing me of being lazy / slow / not acting with urgency, Ellen gave me positive way to interpret my reaction. A frame I’ve used many times since.
Growth doesn't come without discomfort.
On January 1, 2025, I started my most ambitious undertaking at Vow to-date. Leading the launch of our brand Forged Australia / New Zealand. If it went to plan, this would be the largest launch of cultured meat (by # of venue partners, kg’s sold, revenue, etc) ever.
However, I was someone with no experience in sales and no industry connections, trying to sell something that no chef had ever bought before in Australia. And doing so in a country that has a deep pride for its agricultural and farmer history and an aversion to ‘technology’ in their food.
I was super excited, but quickly realised how tough hitting our goals (setting up distribution, having ~30 launch partner venues) would be.
Week-on-week, I was forced to do things I’d previously never done. And go to lengths that stretched me. Some of my favourite examples were:
Taking back-to-back red-eye flights to Perth (meaning for two nights straight, my only sleep was on 5 hour flights), so I could present to 3 hotels in one day without losing any other days in Sydney for sales.
Cold calling over 50 restaurants in person over 2 weeks, by simply walking straight into their kitchen to try to talk to the head chef who didn’t know who the fuck I was
Hosting 100’s of cultured meat tastings throughout Australia, having to personally cook for Australia’s best chefs
And more.
And while this was all fun, it definitely came at the detriment of my routined personal life (e.g., skipped workouts, less sleep, more stress).
Truthfully, there were moments where I thought the level of stress I was experiencing would never end.
But now that I’ve come to the other end and can look back, it’s obvious (as the cliche always has it) that those periods of relative extremeness were also the ones that translated to the strongest learnings and outcomes.
How giving feedback saved my career (at least twice)
Vow’s a tough place to work. The performance bar is always raising.
There were a couple distinct points during my time at Vow where I knew I was underperforming. Without fail, each of the situations was underpinned by a rocky relationship with my manager at the time.
In one instance, the friction with my manager was the biggest negative influence on my life. I felt like I couldn’t meet his expectations, like he wasn’t properly utilising my strengths or setting me up for success, and much more.
I spoke with mentors (both at Vow and not) and friends about how to solve this, all to come to one realisation: I should just honestly and transparently tell my manager exactly how I’m feeling.
So I did.
I wrote a feedback document that outlined the following (these are direct quotes BTW):
Ideal outcomes of our relationship:
“I feel empowered and motivated to own explicit outcomes that I know will drive company goals and outcomes. You feel confident in and knowledgeable of the direction of my work and my ability to drive it quickly.”
The context:
As we’ve discussed before, I haven’t enjoyed or performed my best during my last ~3 months in Product, as much as I expected. There have been times where I’ve thoroughly not enjoyed work. And I fear that if I continue down this trajectory, I will come to resent work, Vow, and our working relationship.
Commentary on the problem I felt, observations, examples, and potential solutions
Problem: I feel I don’t have the space for my ideas, voice, or direction.
Example: On X piece of work, I found you provided lots of tactical and small pushes or steers in direction that made me feel like I wasn’t even getting the little stuff right.
Solution: In the case you already have a strong opinion of the direct, be direct early on. That way, I can know where you stand and make progress where you / we have less confidence.
To his credit, my manager approached this conversation beautifully. He was open, honest, thankful for the feedback, and the best thought-partner I could have imagined to help fix our problems.
Our working relationship experienced an immediate 180-degree turn after the hour conversation we had. And since then, my work, motivation, and our working relationship together was super positive.
The takeaway for me: the time when giving feedback feels the most awkward is the exact time when you need to give it most.
⚡ “Energy Management” is necessary ⚡
I’d never heard of ‘energy management’ as a phrase until I got to Vow.
It’s similar to ‘work-life balance.’ However, I like ‘energy management’ more because it:
Focuses on what really matters, which is your energy
Doesn’t falsely assume that work and life are zero-sum against each other. I’d argue that my work life is better when my personal life is better, and vice versa.
At Vow, I noticed that the people who are the best leaders and colleagues also were the ones who were generally in the highest of spirits, despite also being those who tackled the ugliest problems.
And it was because of their ‘energy management’ - their ability to make their life holistically fulfilling - that enabled them to simultaneously be a joy to work with and someone who was highly effective.
They were in control of their work and life, as opposed to letting work dictate how their life went. That meant prioritising daily workouts or swims, date nights, and all of the other things that I believe we falsely assume we need to shed away in the pursuit of excellence at work.
Here’s a semi-cringe ChatGPT add-on I’ll leave you with: “They were disciplined about rest and rhythm, which let them lead with energy. I now think of energy like a company’s cash flow: if you don’t manage it, everything else collapses eventually. And the ROI on doing it well? Massive.”
Now, your reward for staying: my time at Vow, in statistics
Countries traveled to: 5 (Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, US)
Times I’ve carried cultured meat on a plane: 22 times
Tastings hosted with chefs (e.g., sales meetings): 252*
*this number is rough, but is definitely in the right ball park
KG’s of cultured meat consumed: 10kg+ (that’s ~33 lbs for my American friends)
And now the big one…selfies taken with Vowzer: 501 🤯
All found in this album. And here’s the leaderboards.
To end, my Vow top memories
Spending ~2 months between Singapore and Hong Kong (went back and forth 10 times) on 5-days notice to sell cultured meat - which I had never done before
Flying to NYC on 3-day notice to hand-deliver cultured crocodile + quail meat, help George and Ellen fundraise, and attend a cultured meat conference where he delivered an stellar speech
Media dinner at the Art Gallery of NSW, where we officially kicked off our launch of cultured meat into Australia. Culmination of all of my work from 2025.
If you’d stayed till this far, you’re amazing. Vow has meant a lot to me, so I hope I’ve done my time there justice with this post. I’m glad I could share it with you.
Love,
Neel
Amazing post Neel :)
Really helpful insights. Thanks for sharing!