Coal Land Deal Success

Shaan tells a story about how his biotech company secured land deals for their coal-conversion technology by using a no-risk offer strategy.

"We had this technology where you don't have to mine coal from the ground. Instead, you pump microbes into the ground that eat the coal and release natural gas. But to get customers, you needed someone who owned land with coal and would let you use their property.

We couldn't go to people who valued their coal because we couldn't afford to buy it. So we targeted people with 'stranded coal' - coal that was uneconomic to mine. We would find these landowners through geographic surveys and property records.

We'd knock on their door and say, 'Did you know you're sitting on coal?' They'd say 'Yeah, but you can't really mine it.' Then we'd offer: 'What if I told you there was a way to make money without mining it? We'll do this at our cost - if it works, we share the upside. If it doesn't work, you lose nothing.'

One of the interested customers came back and said, 'How about we give you $5 million and the land and handle the permitting, but if this works, we want to be able to buy 50% of the technology for $50 million.' We took the deal, though I left after it was signed and I'm not sure what happened to the project after that."