The Designer Who Brought 3D Printing to the World — What’s Next? | PI Apparel

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another Seamless Conversation. Today I'm joined by Janne Kytänen, someone who's been breaking rules and pushing boundaries in design, tech, and manufacturing for the better half of 3 decades. From pioneering 3D printing to reimagining how we make food and footwear, Janne has never been afraid of what others might call moonshots. These days, as founder and CPO of What The Future, he's trying to completely reinvent how we make things more local, more efficient, more sustainable, without losing the creativity that makes it all very exciting. Exciting. So with that, Janne, so good to have you here. Thanks for joining.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. So you and I actually met last December at the Footwearise event. So a shout out to Anika Van Enter as well for making that a reality. But look, Janne, let's start with you. You know, you've been called a pioneer in 3D printing and you've dabbled everywhere from food to footwear. Let's strip it back. Let's start with Who are you? How did this whole journey start? And what's been driving you for the last 3 decades?

Ooh, that might be a long story. I'll try to be as brief as I possibly can. So let's say, like, 30 years ago, I was a design student and we had to make a graduation project. So it was a product design study and I was tasked to make a design. And I was more curious about how things were made globally, you know. So I kind of started dabbling into, into supply chains and so forth, you know. So kind of dabbling outside of the realm of making just pretty things and designing a couch and a sofa and a lamp and so forth, you know. So I was more curious about, you know, how do we make— if we were to rewire the entire planet in a, in an efficient and sustainable way, how would we make things locally instead of making these massive chunks of products in China or Far East? And let's say I'm going to make a certain product, you never know how many you're going to sell. So you have to make a gazillion pieces, and then at the end of the day, those things which are not sold will end up in the ocean. So I was more challenging the way of how do we make things, and that's kind of when I started dabbling into 3D printing and augmented reality and different ways of how to make this kind of a digital production locally possible. So that was the foundation for me to get really curious about 3D printing. I'm like, hey, this might be the answer on how to make things locally and only make what we need. And that's kind of— this was a foundation. That's where it all started. So it was more curiosity about manufacturing and the nature rather than making pretty designs.

Amazing. Thank you for that. And for people who haven't come across What the Futur yet, how would you describe it simply? Like if you were at a dinner party, how would you describe what The Futur does? And also as part of that, Why focus on food and footwear, which in my mind are two completely different spaces, but perhaps they are more similar than I think?

Yeah, and again, because I look at it from a different perspective, you know, so there's more than meets the eye, you know. So when we started the ice cream vertical from our technology business, of course, once you make an ice cream product, people will ask me, you know, over the years, like, well, so how is the ice cream business doing? And I'm like, "No, we're not actually in the ice cream business." And that makes it kind of complicated for people to understand. Like, "Yeah, but you're selling ice cream." Like, "Yes, but we're actually making a high-velocity local manufacturing production technique that can be deployed anywhere in the world in any kind of liquid, paste, or gel ingredient, and we can make one or a billion. The production line is the same." So funny enough, I'm literally on the same journey I started 30 years ago. But of course, you learn a lot over the years, you know? So when you're in your 20s and you look at 3D printing and like, hey, this is going to save the planet and all of that. And to a certain extent, things have exceeded in that area and the technology had its merits and its place and all that. But I got frustrated about the scale and the speed and the costs and other things that just didn't work. So I saw an opportunity of creating a hybrid technology instead. Like, it's just not gonna be a linear technology that is gonna give me the answers. We have to think of something completely different. And now if you look at food and footwear, that's kind of also how my brain works. So I'm pretty good in connecting the hybrid dots of different things. Instead of looking at a linear path and just trying to make a 3D printer work faster, because there is a limit, like, you know, how fast you can stack little layers on top of each other. There's a fundamental limit to it, and limited materials, limited costs, all these different things, you know. So I hit a ceiling. I'm like, okay, it's just not— it will have its place in certain applications, certain industries, but I'm interested in impact. And by impact, I mean two things. There's sustainability, and there's economics. So these can't work in silos, so they have to come together. So you have to make— you have to be able to make sustainable products for the environment and sustainable for the business. Then we have, have an opportunity to, uh, to make it work and create an impact.

Amazing. And for anyone who hasn't seen, I would, uh, very much recommend that you follow Jan on, on LinkedIn and What the Fu— Future as well, because on the food side, I've seen the amazing Shrek, um, ice creams and all these different characters that being made all around the world. They're so much fun. Um, I want to talk a little bit about the facility that you're currently building in Amsterdam. So unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to come and visit before I left, but, um, you know, you're building, as far as I'm aware, a 3-story shoe plant right in the heart of Amsterdam, which I imagine must be one of the most expensive places in the world to do it. What's the thinking behind that? Uh, what's the goal? And, and I guess, what's been the biggest obstacle so far in getting that set up?

Um, so what we've realized also, like dabbling into these, these different industries, you know, so nobody wants to take any risks. So if you're going to show somebody a PowerPoint, here's a machine, here's a factory, here's this and that, great economics, uh, what have you, you know, nobody will believe you until you make it yourself. So we have now done that in, uh, in ice cream. We have built several factories, uh, around the world. So only after you make the big investments yourself, then all of a sudden, hey, well, it's working and now we want to join you. So I'm like, yeah, okay. So we are taking all the risk because, you know, we have a lot of belief in our technology. So, but in order to make something like that work on a local scale in one of the most expensive real estate and labor markets in the world, whether it's London, Paris, Amsterdam, you know, that's kind of really similar pricing. You have to rethink how things are made. So we have, in terms of food, so now we're busy with two sectors in ice cream and chocolate. So we're reimagining how that manufacturing happens. So once you completely peel the onion to its core, you start realizing, well, this is inefficient. We don't need this, we don't need this, we don't need that, and we don't need the other. So same thing in footwear. In order for you to be able to make these things in a commercially viable way in a very expensive place, you have to rethink how you make a shoe. So our shoes are incredibly simple, and, and there's only two parts, and we're directly, uh, um, injecting the, the shoes. There's an upper and there's a bottom part, and they come from the end of the line as a, as a ready shoe. So there's no human hands dabbling into, into the manufacturing and trying to put 100 different parts together. No, none of that. So we're not here to replicate what China makes. We're trying to simplify what everybody makes.

Nice. And is the idea that you will just make your own shoes in the facility, or is there also a plan to kind of become an on-demand production partner for other brands too, if they obviously adopt the same kind of design thinking?

Now, I mean, just to be clear, this is a manufacturing technology that should be open for everybody, and we welcome all the brands, big or small. And also, just to be clear, you know, the facility in Amsterdam, it is not our goal to be a factory making millions of pairs in Amsterdam. No, it's more of a pilot factory, and we will have, let's say, capacity maybe for 100,000 pairs right in the center of Amsterdam. But it's a licensing model. So we wanna prove the point, and also we realize like when you build a factory, if you wanna make an efficient factory, and gladly we started in the food sector 'cause the margins are so small, even if you have your door opening in the wrong direction, that 5 seconds that somebody goes through a door, it's inefficiency. So we have to take everything out of it. So in order for us to know how to make shoes at scale, if we don't build a factory by ourselves, we can't deploy the factory anywhere else. Um, so we're making a mini factory here and also de-risking the entire, uh, let's say, licensing adventure for, for our partners. So once I see the machine working and there's, you know, thousands of products being made from, from the machine, it's easier for them to understand, like, okay, now we can deploy this into any, any country you like.

Nice. And I think Amsterdam, having lived there for 2 years, I think it's an amazing place to do it. I know that there's a lot of brands and companies companies there that are trying to kind of push the envelope when it comes to innovation and doing things differently. So, uh, so yeah, I think if anyone is in Amsterdam at any point, please reach out to Tijana. And when I'm there next, I would love to come and see the, uh, the facility too and see what you're doing.

Anybody, anybody is welcome. We give tours every day. It's quite an amazing, amazing building. It's one of the last monuments in Amsterdam to be, to be rebuilt. So the entire building is, uh, it's about 30,000 square meters and 2 levels. Of course, the factory is not the entire, entire building, But it's quite something. It's a bit of a crazy project. It's been going on now for about 10 years in the building. So a lot to do.

Amazing. And do you have a date yet in mind when you hope to go live?

Yes, our factory is going to be— we're going to be operational towards the end of September. So just a few weeks and we're going to be We're going to be up and running.

Incredible.

I mean, we've been up and running all this time, but basically you can imagine we've been making a mini factory on a construction site for the last 3 years, you know. So we've been making a factory and then we have to move within the construction site to another place. We've learned quite a bit of how to, you know, deploy factories really quickly. So, you know, your plumbing and your electricity and your gases and your hoses and whatnot. So even if you move the factory by 1 meter, well, it's the same as moving it 100 meters. So, but now there's going to be a dedicated place. So it's quite exciting.

Incredible. I can't wait to see it. One of the other things that I want to talk about is that, and again, people should follow you on LinkedIn because you're never afraid to call out the BS and the big statements that brands or the industry are making. I saw a recent post in which you said something along the lines of sustainability sustainability is dead. What's going to be the next kind of trendy gimmick? And I tend to agree with that. You know, we work with a lot of brands. They always say that sustainability is big on their priority list. The reality is, in practice, it's not. Can you elaborate?

Yeah, I can just kind of go to that for one second, you know, and it's, it was also, you know, the post was about kind of stirring the conversation. And then I got like comments from certain parties. Again, I just want to be flat out, you know, just open about these comments. You know, like when, when you start commenting about the big S&P 500 companies, let's say, let's say Coca-Cola, and somebody says, well, they're really sustainable because they've got solar panels on their EV trucks, uh, transporting their, uh, poisonous sugar drinks. And I'm like, no, I don't see that as sustainable. Sustainable, that's more It's creating efficiency to make more profit and making more products. But still the company remains the biggest plastic polluter on the planet. So it's not— it just doesn't work for me, you know, and I want to be honest about it. This does.

Yeah, 100%. What do you think brands need to be doing more of right now in order to actually be meaningfully sustainable and make kind of like a positive step to change?

Oh man, that's a, that's a pretty big question because you've got brands who make one shoe and you have brands who make hundreds of millions of, you know, shoes, you know. So it's really difficult. It's far more difficult for the big ones to, to move, and it's more easy for the small ones to, uh, be, uh, be nimble, but they don't have the scale. Um, so for me, again, like, really the core— I want to just reiterate this again, you know. So the goal that we have is literally compete with the costs of Asia by making fully bio-inert shoes. And it requires for you to rethink the entire supply chain, the entire planet. How are these things made? Why are they made in a certain way? Why are they made there? And what kind of technology would be able to solve these problems? So I would say the— what is the best way for brands to be sustainable? Well, looking the most sustainable way of making things and most cost-effective. So give me a call. Happy to make you—

amazing. I want to talk about local production a little bit more generally. Obviously, there's a huge push, especially over in the States at the moment with tariffs and everything that's going on there to try and locally produce more. What have you found to be the biggest myth that brands believe about local production?

What is the biggest myth? I think that again, like kind of boils down to creativity. You know, a lot of the big, big brands have been trying to bring the China shoe, how they make it, and now let's bring it to the Western world and just with robots and try to automate and all that, you know. So that's one of the myths. Why just don't see that working. It hasn't worked so far unless you get the automation really to a level of— and also the supply chain, you know, because you can automate whatever you want, but if you don't have the material companies next to you, then that again doesn't work, you know. So it's more— I think the myth is about trying to replicate Asian way of making things in Europe. Um, I, I haven't seen that working. So you have to rethink how to make shoes in the Western world. Your market is going to be then the The product might look a bit different, but you need to design it for the local market by using local technologies and local materials.

100%. I want to ask, I mean, this is obviously like a very hypothetical thing to ask. If you could restart the footwear industry from scratch and the way that all of these, particularly the legacy brands, make things, what would that new system look like in your ideal scenario?

It would look exactly like the machine we're making. I like it.

I like it.

But again, like, let's not confuse the audience, you know. So there's the legacy way of making things, and I don't think that's going to go anywhere. That's perfectly fine. These products are on the shelf, and people use them, and there's billions of shoes being made. But, uh, we are just creating a different kind of market. We're creating a different kind of product, and it's a different kind of experience, uh, and there's maybe a different kind of sales channel. There's just different things, you know. And I want to kind of bring our Ice Cream, uh, project as an example here, you know. So if you look at these, these, these creations that we have made, there's just a really small portion of, uh, of these products. But if you're— if you just focus on one of the kind of simple ways to explain it. If you look at the Shrek here, for example, so also wrote a LinkedIn post about that as well. There's only one kiosk in the world that sells this particular product, but we reimagined the sales channels, which, you know, normally ice cream products are sold in retail. That's your, you know, most of the sales going through from, from that, from the channel. And there is no channel for creating an experience and selling it directly from a factory to a small kiosk. That just didn't exist before, you know. So we're reimagining not just the production technique but also the sales channels and the margin structures and, and, and the entire experience, you know. So, but what you might not know is that that particular popsicle is sold in a Universal Studios park in Orlando, and they have 10 million visitors. So just a small key, so that that particular product is embedded into the experience of that one ride. But then we can multiply that to every aquarium, every zoo, every what have you, you know. So it's, it's an entirely different way of looking at things.

Amazing. And do they actually have the technology themselves in the kiosk to make it, or are you making it somewhere else?

We have a factory in Miami, so we ship these products from Miami to Orlando, and that's it. But we are working with other, other parks now, and where we might be making ice cream on the spot, so inside the park themselves.

That would be very cool. I think, you know, again, as you say, from a consumer experience standpoint as well. But yeah, I love the Shrek one. It always stands out. I always see that post because it's such a striking image.

It's a very simple, you know, of course we can make these things for any birthday party or marketing launch or whatever, but it's like, these are still a marketing launch of a product. It's a one-off adventure, but this is a repeat sale for high value, high, uh, high profit for, for everybody. And the consumers love it, and it's a repeat business. So that's— it's an entirely— it's a really good example to, to showcase our technology.

Absolutely. Um, so you've built chemistry software, the, the plants from scratch. You also, before we started the interview, you were saying that you were, you know, you had the cap of the fundraiser as well, and all of these different things. From your experience and perspective, what's one technical, um, challenge that people perhaps underestimate when it comes to, uh, decentralized production?

Um, scale. So it's easy to make one and a 10 and 100, but once you start going into the thousands and the tens of thousands, you know, so it's kind of like, okay, this is a different story. I can make a 3D-printed shoe and I can put it online and make 10, make a limited edition, or what I want. But once you really need to repeat, repeat, repeat, it's not just from a technical perspective, but also from a culture perspective. Let's say normally have an engineer running a 3D printer, but now give this engineer a consumer hat at the same time. Like, is it— what is the quality level that the consumer needs to kind of experience this product when they open the box and the wrapping and the whole thing, you know? So it's not a kind of coming from that one-off local to, to making millions of the same. That's an entirely different, uh, different ball game.

Yeah, 100%. I'd also love your, your opinion. I, I, I won't mention any names, but you'll know who I'm talking about. There's obviously big, uh, people making waves at the moment in the news with 3D print printing and they're partnering, you know, with big brands in the space. Do you think that these are one-off gimmicks in that case, or do you hope that those brands really are thinking about a new way of making, but also of engaging with their consumer base?

No, no, absolutely. And I fully support them. I think it's great and something that, of course, I tried many, many years ago and I didn't succeed with it. And I'm like, Meh. But again, like, it's always the timing and what's the team and the pricing and how the world evolves and whatever, you know? So we're making these things, of course, you know, decades ago, but the technology was far too expensive. I'm like, this is just not gonna work, you know? And then, of course, here come the other guys, like, we're actually making it work, which is, like, amazing, you know? Great, you know? So for sure there's a market niche for these things, you know, limited editions, smaller batches, and then every week you might have a new launch with a brand what have you, you know, so collectibles and whatnot, you know, so absolutely, I don't think those shoes are gonna go anywhere away, you know, that whole thing will carve itself into a nice, interesting niche, but of course, you're, what I mean by niche is you're limited by the materials and you will kind of keep on creating a particular kind of shoe with a particular type of performance, so you're not all of a sudden gonna start 3D printing cotton or, you know, a tensile or wool or what have you, you know, so, And what is also really kind of refreshing for me to see is that, you know, if you look at this particular large brand, for example, that they, they've been very performance-driven through their entire life cycle. And then all of a sudden you're able to take these, uh, products that don't have, let's say for example, the kind of ground contact quality that, you know, you used to be making for decades, you know. So kind of breaking their internal barriers on those performance levels that are required for specific brands, that's really refreshing. So, you know, it's— I'm really happy that they're kind of like opening up their minds and, and all that, because we have similar challenges, you know. We have, we have natural materials that we're working with, and, and they just do not— I'm not saying that they don't perform as well as synthetic materials, but they perform differently. So these material testing, ASTM tests, have been created for synthetic materials, and we have a different kind of material that performs differently, you know. So it's just you have to create different kinds of, you know, parameters and different, you know, test procedures and so forth, you know. So same thing with 3D printed footwear as well. They will have a different kind of performance and feel and look and all that. So So I'm happy. I mean, again, like, there's like two major big brands have been kind of looking into this 3D space, and they're both, uh, going out there with lower performance, uh, ground contact products. I'm like, great, you know, good, good for you.

Yeah, amazing to hear. Um, you've been quite vocal as well on LinkedIn about AI, so I just want to quickly take a moment to ask you, as it relates to what you're doing, your model, your technology, your facility, um, does AI play a role in any of that? Are you seeing it more as hype at the moment, or do you think it genuinely has like an opportunity to change the game? Absolutely.

I mean, AI, I mean, it's like we have a number of AI projects that are going on. And, but the difference is here, I mean, when the whole kind of hype, yes, it is a hype like anything else, you know, so there's a, you know, billions are poured into it and, but they're all based on, you know, these big companies, let's say, fundamental code, whether it's OpenAI or Google or Meta or so forth. So whoever is kind of building something on top of that, it's like you might go out there with a company and raise a lot of money and a month later there's another tool that is gonna just go like 10 times better than what you are. You're just kind of out of the business. So these are the kind of things that will keep on happening. A lot of companies will come in the market, raise a lot of money, and they will disappear next month. Um, because again, these are for me based on really short-term thinking and kind of gimmicks, right? And there's a lot of digital noise. Hey, I'm hugging a celebrity and I'm doing, uh, or what have you, you know. And, um, keeps on going. But what interests us mainly is, is how do we translate and connect the digital dots to the tangible, right? Um, So let me give you an example. So the difference is that if I were to run a farm of 3D printers and I go out there with an AI product, we could potentially 3D print this product and make a launch, which doesn't cost anything. So you don't have to make that physical sample. You just go there with a thing, whatever the thing is. But once you get a big hit on that, and let's say you have a million hits, look great, we all love it, can you make it? Uh, no, we can make 100 or we can make 1,000 or we can, but that's kind of where, where it stops. So the difference is, and we have the scale, so we can go out there with the thing and they go, let's make a million, we can make a million. So that's the difference. So we're creating this digital, tangible, uh, uh, uh, uh, let's say, um, workflows. And then we'll, we'll see what happens. So we're going to be doing some fun, fun experiments, experiments towards the end of the year, and then we'll, we'll see where it goes. But we're very, very open and curious about the space.

Nice, looking forward to seeing what you do there. Um, a couple of things on footwear. So you've also said that a lot of footwear innovation is just, it's just decor. It doesn't add anything else except for kind of like a change to the actual aesthetic of the shoe, and it kind of just adds more, more layers and complexity. What does meaningful design look like to you in a world where hype is cheap and simplicity is hard?

Well, let me give you a little bit of a longer answer on this. So the challenge, I think, especially with these bigger brand companies, you have an innovation team. But majority of the time, the innovation team is more focused on a look of a shoe, right? Or certain material innovation or whatever, but it's still primarily based on what does Vietnam and the Chinese have, what kind of machines and materials do they have. So they kind of innovate within the constraints of the machines and the materials and the uppers and fibers and whatever they have. So in order for the Western designers to change their processes, it's, uh, that's quite, quite complex. But what I think what most of these companies miss is you have this creative power, but creativity is in everything. It's in fintech, it's in supply chains, it's in materials, it's in processes. But it's really difficult because the way that most of these companies are structured, you have an innovation team and they come up with an innovation and now they hand it to the sourcing. But the sourcing guy has the contacts in Asia. So it's not like, hey, we made this design, now let's make it in New York. Well, no, my contact's trying. So it's like, these departments are kind of, they're just not talking to each other, which is just, I think it's a shame, you know? So of course smaller companies, different thing, you're more nimble and whatnot, but this is especially the bigger, bigger companies' challenges. So I have a lot of creative people, friends of mine who are really frustrated. So they work with this big company and they're like, I can't change anything. I can only change the blue color hue or the tone. I'm gonna move to the next company and then the same problems, you know? So then they keep on running around in circles.

Yeah, absolutely. I also want to ask you, you know, from the consumer standpoint, I think a lot of brands think that if consumers are spending X amount of money, they expect a more lavish product. How much do you agree with that? You know, can a consumer still be willing to part with X amount of money for a simpler, a simpler shoe or a simpler product, whatever it might be?

I talking about like, um, if I make a basic shoe but now I make it out of sustainable materials, that would be more expensive?

And yes, exactly.

Um, to be very blunt, no. So I think it's a short-lived, uh, um, scenario where, let's say, again, the challenge is the following. So what happened, let's say, in the sustainability trend, like, hey, we're going to make these sustainable materials, hype this, that, blah blah blah. But then at the end of the day, then of course the big guys will follow up. They also make a sustainable shoe. Let's say these guys have a, what have you, 100% bio nerd shoe and has a cost of X. And then these guys make, well, same same but different, we're 95%, but we're selling it for $50 and you're selling it for $500. The, the word sustainability becomes a gray blur with that, with the consumers, you know. So it's like, it, it literally happens across all these different, I mean, verticals. I mean, I don't know, let's take, uh, meat. I mean, the same thing, you know, you got this whole vegan movement coming on, all these plant-based burgers and, and whatnot. They raise a lot of money, and here comes Unilever, and they're like, well, we just use the same kind of recipe, and we also make a vegan, uh, vegan patty and a vegan burger. And it's like, yeah, same, same. Yours is $5, ours is $1. And they go, we just obliterate you. Like, and there you go.

Yeah, okay, um I also wanted to ask you, you know, we've talked about food, we've talked about the footwear, footwear side, and you've also talked about the fact that, you know, at the end of the day, your priority is just kind of taking your, your model and seeing where it applies. So are there any other verticals that you've got in mind that you think that your technology could be applied, um, applied to? What— yeah, I guess like what's next for you?

Um, well, it's again, like, it's more Let me put it in this way. It's really a process that can take any liquid, paste, or gel kind of material. You know, it's like if it flows, we can process it, whether it's a soap or candle or natural rubber or, you know, polyurethane or ice cream or chocolate gummies. It doesn't really matter. But for us, it's more about connecting the dots with new partners. So we can make a, let's say I'm going to make a custom soap product for every hotel on the planet. They can have their own custom soap. Great, fine. But we don't have the expertise on selling soap to a hotel chain, right? So it's more like, okay, if the CEO of Marriott or Hyatt or whoever walks in the door and listen, we're going to make this. Great. Now we want to find those launching customers. Who understands the sales channels very well. So we don't wanna— we did the big gamble on ice cream to kind of first make those factories, build our channels. You know, you can imagine these millions, you know, you're looking at really expensive ways of proving the point. And with footwear, really similar scenario. Of course, as an entrepreneur, you always dabble into these things and go like, well, how hard can it be? It's the famous last word of a bankrupt. You know, it should be simple. Um, so it's more like I open the dialogue towards people who are listening, you know. Do you have a liquid-based gel process? You have a good scalable, uh, channel for it, um, and you like the custom enough value proposition that we have. And also want to be clear about that we believe in the custom enough but we can also make the scale and the mass and the one. But I just believe that there is a— there is this middle ground where we can make the mass product, uh, um, but we don't want to replicate what is in the market today. We want to make those custom enough products that people are able to, uh, find the right channels for.

100%, I get that. Um, I want to talk a little bit about investment too, uh, and and raising funds. You know, we said a minute ago that currently you're building your, uh, a facility in Amsterdam. Some people might, might call you nuts for trying that. How do you convince these people that it isn't a moonshot and it's a credible model that is going to work and, and that does work?

Yeah, and again, like, give me an example of, uh, of natural rubber. Um, so I started dabbling into this chemistry in my garden shed, and I bought this 1-liter bottle of, you know, it cost me €20 to, uh, to buy it and make, you know, really basic mixtures myself. I learned something from YouTube, like became a YouTube chemist. And but from them, from that experiment, I went to figure out the economics, like, okay, I got this 20-liter €20 per liter material. But I went to the Singapore Commodities Rubber Index and see the price. I'm like, wait a minute, so the raw material costs are cheaper than the synthetic variants that the Chinese use for making shoes, right? What's going on here? This is, this is just crazy. But again, it comes from, again, two things: sustainability and economics. So That's kind of the curiosity. And then I started peeling the onion more. I'm like, okay, so how do they— why is a natural rubber product so expensive in retail? You know, you take the baby teether, you take the, uh, the Doka toy, you take the shoe sole, what have you. Why are they so expensive? Um, and then you kind of peel the onion further, go, okay, so they dry the rubber, they process it, they compound it, they use this compression, uh, you know, high pressure metal molds and all that. I'm like, okay, so the production is so inefficient and expensive, and that's why the cost is so high on these consumer products. So then again, peeling the onion. So the material cost is cheap. Here's the process and here's the end product. The process is the problem. Let's fix the process, right? So that's the fundamental. So then you start peeling the onion more. I go, okay, If we work with natural rubber as a liquid and not as a solid material, okay, then you're in an entirely different economical, uh, standpoint, and the process is entirely different. But the shoe industry is not going to go on and go to the kind of combining the packing industry and the liquid latex and then making shoes out of it. It doesn't make any sense, you know. It doesn't make sense for the packing industry. It doesn't make sense for the the guy tapping the rubber trees. So again, you have to come into the middle from an entirely different hybrid perspective and connect the dots that for most don't make any sense.

Yeah, absolutely. I also wanted to ask you, you know, no industry at the moment has avoided being steeped in kind of a legacy way of doing things. But is there any particular industry that you think is is pushing the envelope the most and inspires you the most with what it's doing at the moment?

Well, in terms of manufacturing, not really. I mean, because we're still, we're kind of optimizing the industrial revolution technologies. You know, let's say after the Second World, you know, the First World War and the Second World War, you know, so that kind of, those kinds of technologies that were created at that time, whether it's an ice cream machine or what have you. So, it's still that same big metal industry. Of course, there's automation, but what's happening, all these technologies is that you're still basing the fundamental architecture of a product on that thing. So, again, I'm an outsider for the shoe industry. And, when I went to the shoe factories the first time, I'm like, My initial thought is like, well, they're getting these robots to replicate the human hands. So you're literally making those— how, you know, there's a last and they pull the upper on a shoe and use a hammer and you glue the thing and countless parts and all that. I'm like, so they, they're replicating the human inefficiencies now with a robot. But from an industry perspective, of course, it's really efficient because the shoe comes out, we make it all these different steps. Final well. But fundamentally, they're not really rethinking, do you even need a last? Do you even need this? No, they're just trying to make this existing process more and more and more and more efficient and effective. And, and of course, they're doing a great job, you know. So especially the Asians, you know, like the labor also there is getting, getting, getting more costly, you know. So these factories are more starting to look like fully autonomous car factories. But again, we're looking at it from a different perspective. We're not optimizing the existing way of making things. We're just creating an entirely new way of making things from scratch, um, because we just don't want to compete. We want to create new markets.

I love that. Okay, well, look, that's everything that I had for you today. So thank you so, so much for your time. I think, as I mentioned before, um, at the very least, uh, follow Jan on, um, uh, LinkedIn. I love your posts. There, there's always a lot of thought that goes in into them, and they always really challenge you to think about, about things in a different way. Um, if you're ever in Amsterdam, give him a call. He can show you around his, uh, facility. But even if you don't have plans to be, to be there and you're intrigued to learn more about what, um, what you guys are doing, I think reach out to you on LinkedIn, give you a call. I know that you're always, uh, open and willing to tell people more about what it is that you're doing and how you're changing the way that we make. So thank you so, so much for your time. Cheers!

Ciao ciao!