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Entrepreneurship can come from anyone and anywhere. Founders come from a variety of backgrounds, applying different insights resulting in different experiences.

When first started thinking about the idea that would eventually become Vycarb, he wasn’t approaching it as a business opportunity. At the time, he was focused on climate science, studying how carbon moves through natural systems and searching for ways to better understand the environmental changes shaping the planet.

Today, Boudinot is the founder and CEO of , a climate technology startup developing solutions to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The company is built around an idea that grew from years of scientific research into ocean chemistry and the global carbon cycle.

But when he first began exploring the concept, entrepreneurship was nowhere on his radar. His background was firmly rooted in research, and starting a company simply wasn’t part of the plan.

“It all just kind of happened. Six months before Vycarb was launched, I did not think I would be starting a company.”

At the time, Boudinot was unaware of the path ahead, but it would prove to be a life-changing one. Scientific discovery was about to merge with entrepreneurial curiosity, leading to a major solution to one of the world’s most complex environmental challenges.

A Diverse Academia Background

Climate technology has always been a part of Boudinot’s background. However, his academic background is incredibly diverse. He completed his undergraduate at College of Charleston in geology, religious studies and environmental studies.��

A common misconception is that fields like science and religious studies don’t naturally intersect. But for Boudinot, studying religion helped answer a question he had long been curious about:

Why did he care so deeply about climate change when many others did not?��

During his undergraduate years, he explored that question through religious studies, examining how beliefs, worldviews and cultural narratives shape the way people think about the environment.

“I went into college saying, ‘I care about climate change, and a lot of people don’t. Why is that?’ I would call it almost a religious belief about caring for the natural world.”

That integrative curiosity continued when Boudinot pursued a PhD in Organic Geochemistry��in the Geology department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Working with Dr. Julio Sepúlveda, his research focused on environmental chemistry and the way carbon moves through natural systems, particularly the ocean. Much of his time was spent studying how chemical signals in environmental samples reveal the ways carbon cycles through ecosystems.��

After conducting his research, Boudinot wanted to share its potential beyond academia. This idea would eventually become Vycarb. The company is built around accelerating a natural ocean process that already removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Normally, the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide and converts it into bicarbonate, a dissolved and stable molecule that safely stores carbon in water. Vycarb’s technology speeds up that process by taking carbon dioxide from different sources and triggering the chemical reaction that converts it into bicarbonate almost immediately.

“We’ve developed a technology that accelerates a lot of that natural ocean carbon chemistry to permanently pull CO₂ out of the atmosphere.”.

For Boudinot, the company represents the convergence of the scientific and human questions that shaped his academic journey. His background in environmental science provided the technical foundation, while his studies in human belief systems helped frame the larger challenge of getting societies to adopt climate solutions in the first place.

An Unexpected Shift Towards Entrepreneurship

Despite the scientific breakthrough that led to Vycarb, entrepreneurship was never part of Boudinot’s original plan. His focus had always been research, studying climate systems and looking for ways to understand environmental change. The idea of building a company came later.

In fact, the shift toward entrepreneurship began somewhat unexpectedly during his time at Cornell, where colleagues encouraged him to consider whether the research he was working on could be commercialized. At first, the idea felt unfamiliar.

Curious about the possibility, he joined the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, which helps scientists evaluate whether their research could translate into real-world products. The program introduced him to a new process, talking directly with potential customers to understand what problems they were actually trying to solve.

“Go out and talk to people who might be customers. Nine times out of ten, when scientists actually do that, they realize people don’t want what they thought they wanted.”

These conversations shaped his knowledge of the business world. From here, it became more than just publishing research, and he began exploring how his work could become a practical climate solution.

As the idea for Vycarb began to take shape, Boudinot applied for the Activate Fellowship, a program supporting scientists working on high-impact technologies. The fellowship provided funding, mentorship and training that allowed him to launch Vycarb and begin turning his research into a scalable company. Soon after, he also connected with , a Boulder-based venture fund that invests in startups with ties to the University of Colorado. The firm supports emerging founders with both capital and mentorship, helping university innovations transition into scalable businesses.

Establishing a Balance

Turning a scientific concept into a company meant stepping into entirely new roles. As Vycarb began to grow, Boudinot found himself responsible for roles beyond just technology. He had to build his company, including operations like compiling a team and managing day-to-day operations.

Like most founders, he found himself initially handling nearly every responsibility. Eventually, he realized the importance of building a team consisting of people with different areas of expertise - or as Boudinot jokingly put it, “firing himself.”

“I started doing every job, and I constantly think, ‘what is the job that I’m doing that I need to fire myself from?’”

From that realization, every addition has helped the company move forward. For Boudinot, learning how to delegate and trust others with key responsibilities became one of the most important skills of building a startup.

Developing Crucial Career Habits

Looking back, Boudinot’s journey into entrepreneurship highlights how unconventional the path to building a company can be. To him, it is less about following a specific formula and more about identifying meaningful problems and finding ways to solve them.

Throughout his career, one of the most valuable habits he developed was connecting with people outside his academic field. He regularly reached out to professionals across industries, often sending cold emails to individuals whose work he admired.

“I was very active in sending cold emails to people. I’d say, ‘Hey, I think what you’re doing is cool. Can I buy you coffee?’”

Those conversations helped him understand the entrepreneurship world in ways that research alone could not. Ultimately, Boudinot’s path demonstrates that entrepreneurship can emerge from many different places.

For students considering their own path, his experience serves as a reminder that careers often evolve in unexpected ways. His story shows how small habits, like reaching out for spontaneous connections or going beyond comfort zones, can eventually lead to something much bigger.