00:00.00 bizzyweb All right? hey everybody Dave is not with me today. So I by myself with our guests. So unfortunately I won't have a lot of funny back and forth and ruparte to introduce our guest but I'm really excited about the guests we have today years ago I was asked. By a local company where we live to judge an entrepreneurial contest where a whole lot of different people would come in and they would tell you about their ideas and tell you about whether or not and and pitch whether how how they would affect. Ah, affect the world and it was an interesting experience I got to meet a lot of really interesting people and some of them had really good ideas and I think I helped a fair amount of them through that to kind of realize. That having a great idea is fine but you also have to sell it and they didn't really have a good idea on how to sell it and but they all had packages and shiny things and charts and this kind of thing and kind of towards the end of the day I was shuffled around to a different table. And I sat down with this nice nice middle-aged lady who really didn't have anything and just to sort of paint a picture if you can think of like ah, a nice and ah, a nice affable soccer mom type and I I think I even asked her like well hey, who are you here with and she's like no no, it's. 01:30.97 bizzyweb It's just me and I Oh okay, great. She had no materials or anything like that and I said well you know tell me about it and then ah after that my mind sort of was blown because what happened was as she pulled out a hockey puck that she had made herself. 01:33.00 Cora Leibig Are. 01:50.35 bizzyweb That was malleable and at the time what she was she had done was thinking that she was going to revolutionize the hockey industry by making a concussion safe hockey ball. So ah and it was one of those. Life changing experiences for me because I met somebody who was demonstrably smarter than I am in a completely different way than I'm smart and created I think one of those game changing products that will. Changed the world. So my guest today is Dr Cora Leibig she is the founder and president and Ceo and generally the head of company called chromatic 3 DMaterialsQuora has more than 20 years of experience. In product development and the commercialization of chemicals and plastics so we're probably going to make some graduate jokes. She's worked with alchemical stegis and she holds degrees from mit and is an inventor on more than 25 patents. 02:43.90 Cora Leibig Excellent. 02:56.33 bizzyweb Is that true 25 patents 02:59.13 Cora Leibig Yeah, ah it got to the point where I don't really even count them anymore. But yeah, 25 thanks chigby that's right exactly exactly. 03:04.18 bizzyweb So it's like it's like Meryl Streep with the oscars. It's just you throw it on the pile. Well what welcome for I ah, um, I've i'm. Ah I'm I'm privileged to call you a friend and I I want to talk a lot about your business and how you started and where you've got so back back to where we were at the table. Um, why don't you tell the listeners what you told me then about what what did you invent and what does it do. 03:32.51 Cora Leibig Sure, Absolutely well. First of all, thank you for the invitation to to speak with you on your on your podcast. This is this is great and I'm looking forward to it looking forward to the discussion. Um, so what? what we've done at chromatic is that we've. 03:36.65 bizzyweb I was sure. 03:51.79 Cora Leibig Basically been looking at materials that are used all over the place in industrial products and figured out how to print them and um, you know a lot of people look at 3 d printing and say wow is the cool technology is going to take over the world. 1 of the problems with. 3 d printing becoming a major mode of manufacturing is that the materials aren't strong enough because they're kind of making um in many cases I'll call them stand-ins or fakers from a material perspective and so what? Um, what we're doing at chromatic is taking materials. That are very commonplace in industrial systems and we work on the chemistry to make them also printable and so we've managed to to acquire a number of of customers who. Um, have very particular materials that are important for their applications and they're like we know we need 3 d printing. How do we Um, and and there are reasons for using 3 d printing or variety of reasons we can get into those later. Um, but they want to be able to make them printable and that's that's what we do. So some of the first products we have in the market are class of materials called elastomers and without getting very technical. All that means is that their materials. You know you you think of them often as a rubber material soft material where if you pull it. It comes back. 05:18.89 Cora Leibig And that's that's really how we're making our Mark in in the 3 d printing world because most elastmers and 3 d printing other than ours if you pull them they don't come back or they they have a very limited number of times that they can that they can move and yeah sure. 05:32.27 bizzyweb Well before before we get too deep into this. Let's level set a little on up on the chemistry of this because I you're you're you're into the seventh inning and we just got to the ballpark. So um, a typical how does a typical 3 d printer. 05:38.55 Cora Leibig Yeah. 05:42.44 Cora Leibig Sorry, that's good. So there are I mean now there's I think 7 or 8 different classifications of of 3 d printers but essentially what a 3 d printer does is that it takes material and it builds it into a shape. Without the use of a mold. So what's important there is that you can say you don't have to do all this pre-planning for a mold and before you make a part you know that whole process can take anywhere from three months to a year instead you say here's the shape I want and then you print it? um. 06:06.79 bizzyweb Got it. 06:23.28 bizzyweb What if we're considering this like you know. So if we're considering this like ten years ago if I wanted to make my own chess set I would have to create a mold for all the chess pieces. 06:25.42 Cora Leibig And they're just yes. 06:32.97 Cora Leibig Right. 06:38.51 bizzyweb And then ostensibly fill it up with plastic and then pop bottom of the mold and then I'd have my chess pieces 3 d three d printing then allows me to do that though, but without the mold got and and. 06:42.91 Cora Leibig Exactly. Exactly exactly. 06:54.43 bizzyweb What's the material that that all that gets printed on. No no, no did just traditional 3 d printing to start. 06:58.18 Cora Leibig Um, so our materials are fairly oh and traditional 3 D printing it either is a a filament so it's a piece of plastic that's melted um. And so that so you need to be able to spool the plastic and make it's almost like a sewing machine like you feed in a spool of plastic other methods. It's a um, ah a liquid resin. 07:16.83 bizzyweb Okay. 07:26.21 Cora Leibig Where it turns into solid wherever lights light hits it So you're limited by where can the light get to um, other systems. It's like a powder that gets fused in very specific locations so that those are the different types. 07:37.36 bizzyweb Yeah, but the the before you the entirety of three d printing was if I and if I understand this correctly was that you can do you can make anything you want. However. You are making rigid objects stuff that like ah, a chests pon that it might have different sculptural features and but it would be 1 hard piece of plastic so you're taking the rolls of plastic and making them into a different role of plastic now. 07:57.60 Cora Leibig For the most part? yes. 08:12.60 Cora Leibig Exactly. 08:15.40 bizzyweb Ah, here's where it gets fun now because of you How has that changed. 08:21.99 Cora Leibig So now you know that plastic that you that you can you can form that plastic piece can be a ah rubbery material. So and these are pieces that are everywhere. Um, so. An example is um, you know if you look under the hood of your car or in your car. You have a lot of pieces that need to be able to move with the motion. But then you know come back that they need to stretch and move and you know like a Cb joint or something. Um, and that's what we're able to print. And the important thing about how our printing is different and maybe this is what you were getting at um how our printing is different is that instead of bringing a spool of plastic. We actually take materials that are reacting while. The printing is happening and so that allows so we we're controlling a chemical reaction. 09:18.16 bizzyweb Your your your explanation was a lot more scientific and a lot more thoughtful than mine in the in my add the the difference between what what you can make and what a traditional 3 d printer can make is your stuff is bendy which ah you know speaking to an mit. 09:21.80 Cora Leibig Are. 09:28.90 Cora Leibig Yes, it is bendy. It is bendy. 09:35.52 bizzyweb Doctoral can scientist Bendy of course is a technical term. 09:39.87 Cora Leibig Um, it's bendy I would also add it's stretchy. 09:44.80 bizzyweb But bending and stretchy. Excellent. So love it. So um, what have you made with your materials because there's most the fun things and some of them are a little rated R but. 09:56.14 Cora Leibig Oh gosh we made all kinds of stuff. We actually haven't we haven't made the rated R ones those were just things that you and I tossed around trigby but the um yeah, but the um. 10:02.10 bizzyweb Um, what's let's do. 10:06.95 bizzyweb Okay. 10:12.82 Cora Leibig We're in the market today in hearing aids. So um and we designed a really special material for hearing aids that that softens at body temperature so you want for your hearing aid for the number. 1 reason why people don't wear their hearing aids is because they're uncomfortable. 10:28.53 bizzyweb 10 10:30.65 Cora Leibig And so we made a more comfortable hearing aid we partnered with another 3 d printing company to make that work and that's only available in Europe today. So you could. You can't um, can't find it here. Unfortunately, we're working on fixing that um the. The other place that people get really excited about excuse me is um, by the end of this year our material will be replacing under wires in bras I know. 10:59.56 bizzyweb What. 11:03.94 Cora Leibig I Know it's fantastic. So. 11:06.50 bizzyweb Well ah Cora you're doing the lord's work and I thank you on behalf just a number a number of people but you've made you've made your own your own flip flops. 11:11.95 Cora Leibig Ah. 11:17.52 Cora Leibig Yes, I've made my own flip-flops we are also we also have parts riding on trains. So we have a number of parts where you know if you think about trains you know. It's not like cars where there's a million cars traveling on I 94 every day trains. You know it's something where it's actually really hard to get the parts for for trains because it's the smaller fleet so we have parts on trains parts on buses. Um. You know sometimes they're just holding cables. Sometimes it's like something that a rod needs to move through or something like that. but um but yeah a lot of parts on trains and buses um are also things that we've made you know ast. Um. 11:52.91 bizzyweb Yeah, what? What is some of the zaniiest things that you've made why there's a great commercial application and I want to get into that too. But I want to start with the fun stuff. 12:07.69 Cora Leibig The fun stuff I mean um, we're working on Moon shoes. Yeah yeah, because everyone everyone wants a personalized pair of moon shoes I think um, yeah, absolutely. 12:11.91 bizzyweb Really. 12:21.18 bizzyweb Yeah, where Wow I Ah definitely want to sign up for that So you created this and you've um, figured out a way to literally disrupt the the world and that now um. These parts don't have to be molded. They don't have to be mass Manufactured. They can be done an individual Time. So Can how do you turn that into deciding I'm going to start my own business and and work exclusively on this because you've got. Extensive resume working with some of the biggest companies in the world. 12:59.47 Cora Leibig So that's that's a good question. Some of it is personal taste. Um, and other parts are are just knowing a best way to get things done. So I um, you know I worked many years at dowdow was a great company. Um. And I worked in a lot of new product development but 1 of the things that um that I found dissatisfying about work as as a technology developer in a large company is that when a company's got established revenue. Yeah, they need new innovations but do they really like at the end of the day they're they're going to keep making making products and and they really don't want to bring out a new product unless their customers. Force them to or unless their their life depends on it and for too many companies their life really doesn't depend on it and when I moved to um when I moved to seetttis which was a startup well was fantastic about it was that. The the life of the company depended on innovation and as an as an innovative person myself that's it's just very satisfying to work in a place where your work makes a difference. Um, and but what was. 14:23.40 Cora Leibig Ah, what I found in. Um, what I found in in that company was that really Saetttis was ahead of its time because what it was all about was sustainable materials and we and um, you know we really. Struggle to find customers who would pay for the sustainability and so what when I started 3 when I started chromatic What I was looking for was a market where they really needed materials innovation because I you know. I Love to do work that matters. That's how I make my life Matter. You know it's not just through my kids. It's through um, it's through making sure that that what I'm working on day and day out is is going to leave a mark and and or else or all some waste my time you know and um. 15:15.30 Cora Leibig And you know my kids joke that I've been quoted as saying work is life. You know you work so much at your at your at your job like if you if you just say my life. You know, just forget about that 8 hours a day I spent at my job. You know here's what my life is then. 15:33.43 bizzyweb Um, yes. 15:33.65 Cora Leibig That's kind of sad. So I like being where I like being where my work matters and so that drew me to 3 d printing because it it was obvious to me that 3 d printing was starting to take off. Um, but the materials were were still lacking and I knew I knew how to do the material side. Um, and then I asked myself. Okay, so do I want to join a 3 d printing company and. And spend a lot of time convincing them that you know to follow my ideas or do I want to start my own and um, you know, kind of surveyed the the nature of a number of 3 d printing companies and decided you know what? I'll start my own. Um and because of my experience at at suetttis. I knew a little bit about what that meant I knew it meant how to deal with legal how to deal with you know building a team and and and so that's what I did and it's been it's been great 16:31.12 bizzyweb Because you your background is your background is primarily in chemistry and when you start a company you have this idea and this notion of the passion that you're in and this game changing thing you want to do but how much time in a week. You really get to be spending in a lab because you're running the show. 16:49.58 Cora Leibig Yeah I mean I have not I probably have not been active in a lab for for 20 years now so it's um, it's but been much more around leadership and pulling the right team together I mean it doesn't you know. 16:56.80 bizzyweb How. 17:06.22 Cora Leibig I'd be lying if I said I don't get involved in the chemistry I do get involved in the chemistry but usually it's contributing an idea or making sure that that um that we're we're taking care of bottlenecks or anticipating what needs to come, but it's um so I would say that. You know, even even my Ph D was mostly computer simulations. So It was ah my mom finds it shocking that I got a Ph D without having to do any lab work but it's true is my my computer was my lab So but. 17:36.70 bizzyweb Wow. Well that sounds um, sounds like a mother's of you know hey Mom I got a phc Well did you though? Okay, um, so so you start you decided you go your own way and you've been blessed to receive a number of rounds of funding from a number of different. 17:41.80 Cora Leibig Um, exactly exactly. 17:53.78 Cora Leibig Um, we move. 17:56.45 bizzyweb Sources I'm curious how that went down because I think the nature of your product if you look at it as a finite thing. It's just basically goo. It's ah it's a fifty five gallon drum of goo but you can then make. Anything with it. So how did funding go how how did you approach getting funded and and and and and how was that a difficult process. 18:18.28 Cora Leibig Um, is who. 18:26.41 Cora Leibig Um, it's It's always difficult. It's always difficult. Um and it's always a blessing. You know it's I always look at an investment as an act of trust they are trusting you to spend their money. 18:29.29 bizzyweb Yeah, yeah. 18:42.75 Cora Leibig In a way that will lead to more money and so the reason why any given investor invests um can come from a variety of different reasons. Um I you know one of the things that happened with my last round of funding you know I. Kind of pulled the board together and you know as part of setting the strategy I went around and asked everyone. You know why did you choose to invest in chromatic and what was what was mind blowing was like literally everyone went around the room and said because of you. 19:18.29 bizzyweb Yeah, yeah. 19:20.70 Cora Leibig And it's like whoa. That's that's fantastic, but you know also a little weighty So How do you convince people to to invest it's because you say here's where I want to go here's here's what I see that in the world that needs fixing and here's why I think I can do it. And here's why I've got the team of people who can do it and it's as simple as that. Um, where you know in some people they they hear the the story and literally you know our story is from bras to tires and some people look at that and say. 19:59.16 Cora Leibig That's just way too big. Forget it, you know and and they're They're not the right and they're not the right investor and others go. 20:01.26 bizzyweb Ah. 20:03.74 bizzyweb Well and part of that part part of that is I think because of my experience in the entrepreneur Community I think well a lot of times what companies fail on is saying that Oh My my thing my special thing my mcguffin. Ah, anybody could use it and you're literally the only person I've ever imagined it. That's actually true. 20:25.30 Cora Leibig Um, right. 20:31.24 Cora Leibig And and that's where you you convince them by saying here's the customers I'm lining up and here's here's why I think that's possible and you know one of the ways that um, you know you joked with me when we got started about um the graduate. Can't remember if this the intro or before when we were getting ready. But um, one of my my pitches very early on I actually brought up a picture of of Dustin Hoffman you know with the the famous the pla you know plastics. Yeah, it's the way to go and um. 20:48.49 bizzyweb Yeah, it's yeah. 21:01.88 bizzyweb Um, yeah, plastic. Yeah. 21:07.27 Cora Leibig And ah, what I did in that pitch was I said well I listened to his advice you know and and I know all about plastics I've spent 25 years at it I know how everything is made and and you know it's been fantastic from my dow experience. That you get to see where everything goes and and literally you know where I lived sometimes I'd have to wait for the trains to go by when I lived in Texas the trains to go by to to um on my way to work and you know I think i. Invited my sister to visit me once at at my work in dow and she I said so what do you think? and I'm thinking that she's like oh this is really cool stuff corra you know I'm also wanting to be a chemist you know blah blah blah and she's like now I know where all the trains go. So. But literally I would watch the trains go by and I was like up. There are the 2 rail cars headed off to make refrigerators and they're the 15 rail cars headed off to make grocery bags and. You know you could basically so I mean it's boring sitting and waiting for a train but you could basically say I know where those are all going and so you you just learn here's where all the materials go and where there's big opportunity. You get it. Ah, kind of a ah, it's sort of like sitting and the um. 22:34.45 Cora Leibig Sitting at the top of a theater where you can kind of see where all raw materials go and so I think that's why I was able to get buy-in is that I'm able to say hey this application that you as an as an ah individual consumer might not understand I know About. You know why I'm going to go for this and not sneakers or why I'm going to go for um bras and not and not gaskets or whatever the case may be so that's how you get the buy in and bringing it back to how do you convince people to to? Um. To Invest is that you have to give them a reason to trust that you you have a good intuition of when you've got the right team and where you're going to go with it and what you're going to do with it. Um, the other thing that I think is important from the investor perspective. Um, is that I think too often entrepreneurs try to come up with something that will appeal to all investors and that just doesn't exist when you find the right investor it's because you are taking them in a direction. That meshes with their view of the world as well and how they want to make a difference in the world as Well. And so I view I view the fundraising um the fundraising process is really a sales process and I mean that not in terms of hey you've got to get out there and sell but more from the perspective of. 24:05.91 Cora Leibig You're trying to fight you're you're trying to shape a value proposition. Your value proposition is around the value of your company and um and find the customers who really want that ah resonate with that value proposition. So that's how I. 24:23.14 bizzyweb I think I think one of the because because I I bought Chora Stock law long long time ago I got ground floor stock and in in core and chromatic. One of the things that I think was a great. Ah. 24:24.37 Cora Leibig Raise money. 24:38.96 bizzyweb Thing that broke your way was your facility because I I yeah, you told me once what you pay him on for your facility and we don't have to go into that but you have an outstanding facility that you got for a song. So how did how did that one little break. And well first of all, tell us about the facility and then secondly how did because of that lucky break. How was that affected you positively. 24:58.65 Cora Leibig Um, yes. 25:05.16 Cora Leibig Oh it's been and I have an update trig v since the last time. But yeah, so um, so the the way the facility worked is that um you know essentially I'm in the same facility that I was at at Seette us. 25:06.32 bizzyweb Oh so. 25:21.30 Cora Leibig So there was ah at saetttis we had this great process chemistry lab and if you know more than $15000000 had been put into it and um, you know it's fifteen Thousand Square feet with a fully equipped lab. And um, you know sugueti essentially had to close and I was part of the group that sold the facility and its capabilities to the next um to the next you know the company that picked up the picked up the the ball and and ran with it and what I did was I said you know so. I've helped you get into this facility and get these assets. You know? do you mind if I just run rent a little counter spacece. You know for you know Thousand bucks a month and and um and I'll also help you. You know, navigate the facility know what? where everything is what to do and you know for them that was a good that was a good sweet deal and um so what has happened over the course of the the time is that now just this year we actually took over the lease. So it's entirely a chromatic facility now and um yeah it's it's great and so now we have a lot more freedom to to configure it the way we really need. Um, it's all all fifteen Thousand Square feet now 26:34.81 bizzyweb Wow. 26:43.70 bizzyweb And how much their footage. Do you have? yeah. 26:50.72 Cora Leibig It's all dedicated to and we have like a printer room. That's just one printer after another um and and so it's it's been it's been great but for a startup. What's super about that is that it meant that I could start a chemistry lab. Without having to buy all day equipment and without having to buy a lot of time and so it's just really very efficient. Um, we were able to to learn like if we had some experiment we wanted to try. We could try it on a piece of equipment and find out. You know what we get better results from this one which was great because it meant we didn't have to invest. You know one $100000 that first piece of equipment that didn't really give us the answers we needed so it was very opportunistic. Um, and you know the funny thing is seeing that you know we've actually opened a subsidiary in Germany and we're doing exactly the same thing there. Um, so we started out. You know the bart who leads our german subsidiary first rented some space from his dad. You know, literally so rented just a little counter hey dad can I just put my computer here and and maybe we can set up a printer. 27:53.34 bizzyweb By. 28:04.81 Cora Leibig And then um, within a year we essentially had taken over the facility. We left. We left his dad 1 room and then this um just this year again. There was a grocery store that that went um that was open. It was vacant and so. And we're like oh well we need a place to assemble some printers and now now it's actually our facility in Germany so we have another another five Thousand Square feet in Germany now. So basically so but it's it just comes from being. 28:34.99 bizzyweb You've taken over your German German grocery store to on top of everything else. She's. 28:43.77 Cora Leibig Opportunistic as you go and and say okay, but what can I do right now and not getting obsessed over what do I need to be in a year if you're if you need cash effective and grow when you need it. That's just um, it's just awesome. 28:57.45 bizzyweb I Think what's remarkable about what you just shared is that the idea of winning is it was relative when you you got started because well number one is you were nice and so they they helped you out but and then you slowly took over. But. 29:12.63 Cora Leibig So. 29:15.37 bizzyweb Number number 2 is the I think as a learning point for people who are listening is you're not going to get everything you want right? away, you're not going to take over the entire fifteen Thousand Square foot facility right? away. But if you can get your foot in the door and then and and then and you're nice and you you show up and you're opportunistic, good things happen. 29:41.23 Cora Leibig It's true. It's true I mean I'd rather be ah I'd rather be lucky than smart right? So it's ah it's a little bit of both. It's a little bit of both and so it's um. 29:45.35 bizzyweb Um, well a little bit of welcome as a cow. 29:55.15 Cora Leibig Yeah I think definitely not being too. Um too greedy about what it needed to be. You know just has has helped us grow and get more than we thought I mean but along those lines of of um, being opportunistic. 1 of the things that I've been just amazed at is just how much people help each other when it comes to starting a business. Um, you know they you know I would. 30:19.40 bizzyweb Yes, absolutely. 30:26.35 Cora Leibig You know? So now. There's actually someone who's going to start renting a little essentially a counter space in in our facility for a thousand bucks a month you know and um, and of course I'm open to that he's looking for a good place to get he needs to be able to do some lab work so sure come on in. Um. And and there's a lot of in the startup community. There's a lot of reaching a handout and helping to pull each other up and um, and for that reason alone, you should be nice to everybody and. You know the amazing thing too is looking at how many people I've been able to reach out to who I haven't seen in 15 years maybe someone I worked with at dow and and um, you know I'm able to reach them reach out to them call them and and get some ideas and um. And vice versa. So you know some of my first investments came from people who had worked with me ten years earlier and um and so there's you know it's one of those things where. At the time that I was in college and people told me hey you got a network you know engineers always sneer at networking they they hate networking. They're like what do you mean? I have to actually work with people that's terrible. Um, and and um, and so if I had if I gave myself this advice. 31:44.80 bizzyweb Rough and. 31:54.41 Cora Leibig You know I probably wouldn't have listened to it. Um, but the reality is that the people that are that are in your world. They keep coming back and and they can in 1 way or the other for good or for bad so you better hope it's for good. 32:05.33 bizzyweb 1 way or another you group back I I I found in my life that being right and being successful are not always the same thing and I think. 32:13.19 Cora Leibig Yeah, did. 32:23.49 Cora Leibig It's true. 32:24.39 bizzyweb As you just described, you make a conscious choice despite your lengthy academic curriculum vta which will will shame most people you've chosen to be successful which I I think is really cool. Um, so. Why Germany. 32:45.62 Cora Leibig So Germany you know I I believe in my technology development. You know I'm not someone who just stays in the lab. Well we just already covered that I'm not really in the lab anyway, but um. But I really believe strongly in in the course of technology development that you have to be paying attention to what customers want from you. And you have to be ready to to change what you are offering to meet those customer needs that that early market feedback customer feedback is just so critical and what I found was happening was that I would go to usconferences and mostly pick up german leads. So um, so essentially I was getting to the point where um, you know most of my interested customers were german customers. The other thing that I know and this was you know the group i. 33:31.24 bizzyweb 10 33:47.90 Cora Leibig I let it dow was ah ah, an international group a lot you know I think one third of my team was over in Switzerland um europeans don't necessarily trust americans very much so they don't they don't and so. 34:00.31 bizzyweb You're kidding Americans are not trustworthy around the world holdings to murgatroy. 34:07.89 Cora Leibig And the other thing I was realizing was that the um was that in for a lot of our german customers part of our sale was entailed. Convincing other german engineers or German Technicians or german you know, plant operators that our technology would solve their problems and a lot of those german operators their their um their path to to their job is much more like a votech kind of job. Path career paths. So their english isn't necessarily very good. So it became really clear that to to really make progress with the number of our german customers. We had to be doing business in german um, as ah as a language and so um and so what happened was that I had a really good. Friend here in in the Us who was german who had to go back to Germany for for family and and visa reasons and he's like corra can I help you out. It's like heck yeah, so um, he consulted for us for about a year and and helped make some progress at some of our customers and we decided to start a german subsidiary because even you know a lot of our a lot of our sales process involves smaller transactions moving to larger transactions and german german companies did not want to bother to do an international wire transfer for ah. 35:36.30 Cora Leibig For a um, small thousand dollars two thousand dollars transaction. So so we're in Germany mostly because the customers took us there if I step back and say well. Why Germany why is this happening? Um, you know. While the Us lot lost a lot of manufacturing capability in the last thirty years Germany really hasn't Germany has been protecting their their ah their industrial base and they have a lot of. Of especially manufacturing there and especially manufacturing is an especially good um business case for for 3 d printing because 3 d printing usually does well when um, there's not necessarily a ah mass production situation. Um. And and where you need custom machinery and and things like that. So. There's a lot of very good. Um, very good specially manufacturing capabilities in Germany and and they want our products so that's why I'm in Germany. 36:38.49 bizzyweb Which I think is in ah and another great illustrative teaching teaching point is that like you said that you you went where the customers were and continually trying to redefine the marketing in the market or tinker with your marketing. Because you have to have it the way you want it and sell to the people that you think you should be selling to that's 1 choice The other choice is that's being right? like we just talked about being successful is okay for some reason where. Ah, people in Germany love us. It's core and David Haselha okay so let's let's let's go to Germany. So. 37:17.30 Cora Leibig Let's go there. 37:21.62 Cora Leibig Exactly exactly and the funny thing is that my name is german so I actually have a lot of germans say oh well, you must be german it's like well actually it's my my husband's name but that's fine I'll be german today. But. 37:27.73 bizzyweb Right. 37:33.99 bizzyweb I Admit that too people start talking to me in Norwegian and like oh okay, thank you, Thank you. 37:41.67 Cora Leibig Um, exactly now. The other interesting thing is that we're actually picking up much more traction. The us um. Now and I think part of it is because of our success in in Germany because we're able to say to americans you know hey this is passing the german engineers. So um, how about we have bet we can help you too. And there's a lot of credibility from getting the the stamp of approval in Germany the other thing that we're finding is that um is that for the very same reasons that you know germans have been building up their manufacturing in the us now that we're trying to bring a lot of manufacturing back. There are a lot of things that they that americans need to source from Germany and other locations and we can say well you can bring in local manufacturing make your parts where you need them instead of sourcing them from german suppliers. And um and you could do that usingromatic technology. So that's that is sort of our second wave now as it's coming into America. 38:43.39 bizzyweb And and we've had sort of had some fun talking about flipflops and bras but it it seems like the most the most ah direct commercial application of the product is creation of gaskets of. 38:55.39 Cora Leibig Um, it Yeah, definitely. 38:56.84 bizzyweb And and that's the easiest thing to do is instead of waiting a week for a gasket you could you could ostensibly three d print your own. 39:04.39 Cora Leibig Right? exactly and and the stories on gaskets are are amazing. You know, um, a lot of people say hey 3 d printing can't possibly be fast enough and. I like to joke like we're not competing against an injection molding machine we're we're competing against a boat that's traveling across the Atlantic or across the pacific and we can beat that you know for sure so a lot of our customers they have like eight week twelve week wait times for their parts. 39:28.17 bizzyweb Or. 39:35.83 Cora Leibig And we're able to to say you could print it here and have it in two days that's easy 39:38.11 bizzyweb I mean what the use case is is if you're that you told me back in the day is if you're in an isolated area. And you only get certain amount of supplies dropped every week but then you're also dealing with like an army humvee that's been manufactured by 8 different people your ability to get parts is almost nonexistent but this gives you an opportunity to to literally in an isolated area make what you need. When you need it. 40:10.96 Cora Leibig Right? And what we're finding more and more is that that isolated area could just as well be Minneapolis as ah as you know the siberian desert exactly I mean the. 40:15.36 bizzyweb Yeah, especially with the my screen still continuing to be tremendously goofy. 40:27.80 Cora Leibig It was wild to see what happened with the pandemic with supply chain because when I started chromatic it was it was Twenty Sixteen Twenty seventeen before all the supply chain mayhem and um, what's What's interesting and I've had a couple investors point this out like Cory he knew about this is that um you know what I could tell from from you know, being in a raw material supplier is all of the I call it molecular tourism that. That materials go through I mean your your plastic before it gets to you probably traveled the world. It's insane. It's totally stupid. So um, and that's and that was sort of this that was why I had conviction around 3 d printing and why when I saw. What 3 D printing could do why I was like holy cow this can really solve this problem that I've seen ever since I started you know in the the materials industry and um and the only reason why it's kept going is because we've been able to do it so cheaply because gas is cheap. Um. And but what we learned with the pandemic is like if you start you know it's it's sort of ah a stack of cards and if you take the card out at the bottom the whole building collapses and and we're surprisingly unprepared for that situation. 41:54.22 bizzyweb Yeah, yeah, um I think one of the things and I and I and I sort of may mention to this earlier is um, you you sort of having in the industrial application of legos and is that if you look at what you're offering and selling. It's it unless you're a chemist. It's just.. It's it's ecto plasm But what you can do with it. The the possibilities are endless much like Lego So. How do you inspire customers to create. 42:28.35 Cora Leibig Um, it's really a challenge honestly, it's um, you know what? we've been working on is um. Anticipating some of their application requirements and application needs so that we can say hey here's an example of exactly what you can do. Um, we've been working on demos you know, um that that can help help people understand so um. An example of of the demos is like in 3 d printing people just start by assuming your materials are fragile and so we had to start by saying you know I think one of my first demos I'd say you know are you stronger than El Elastimmer and call call people up to the front of the the room and get them the kind of like please try to break this because mostly when people hand you a 3 d printed part people treat it like it's fragile and we shouldn't you know if your part is really good for manufacturing you shouldn't treat it that way you should treat it like the stuff you throw in your backpack. 43:21.72 bizzyweb Left. 43:30.22 bizzyweb Right. 43:32.46 Cora Leibig And um, and so we've really been working on Demos that can help make that happen and it's very interesting to see how much you can try to describe an opportunity. But then you just have to just have to make it. So. The bra opportunity is an interesting one because really, what we're doing is saving a lot of assembly steps because if you think about the underwire they have to make the wire then they kind of have to seam it in and in case it and what we're able to do instead is just print directly on fabric and. 43:55.19 bizzyweb Yes. 44:09.36 Cora Leibig And our material is sort of part glue part structured structured part. So um and I'm I'm realizing this is a podcast I'm like so tempted to just show you this part right here. It's a demo but. 44:11.00 bizzyweb Wow! yes. 44:19.29 bizzyweb Oh yeah, so she' excellently her hands that stretching it. It's really neat. It looks like a mouse pad but also a mattress I guess I don't know what is that? yeah. 44:28.81 Cora Leibig Oh What I just should so what this is is. It's just a piece of t-shirt material that we printed a structure on it and so and we can show that the structure that we've printed just moves with the t-shirt. But it's through Demos like that that we can help inspire people to to change their designs to something that's Printable. You know, um, you know this other part that I have sitting here. It's um, I'm. Also this video but maybe I'll send you photos you can show on the with the podcast so you know this is an example part where we take something that's a simple bellow. You know. So if you think about a bellow sort of like the bellow on ah an accordion. 45:01.46 bizzyweb Um, yeah, yeah. 45:15.64 Cora Leibig Yeah, that's this sort of important shape for buffering vibrations and things like that and so what we're able to do is that we can print hard material transition to a soft material and go back to a hard material and what's interesting about that is that if you think about almost every bellow you work with. 45:15.75 bizzyweb Um, depth. 45:33.95 Cora Leibig You might have to have like a steel clamp to suit to to to you know so bolt it down to whatever you're trying to connect it to. But if you have like a hard going to soft and then hard again then kind of that fixture becomes a lot easier and you can make it so it's only moving where you want it to move. Um, that's an example where we just have to Shut. We just have to come up with the the concepts and and share it with people because um, trying to inspire the creativity process in your customers is um is not easy. It's not easy. So We have to inspire we have to have examples. Um, we have to guess what's important to them and their in their applications. Um, you know I have another customer where um, you Know. We had been talking to them about how we had this chemistry Capability. We could make the make the product they had with some of the materials that are that they needed to use and they didn't They didn't really get it until we said. Okay, we know that you have a problem where that part you've been printing. Shatters when you put set it on ah on a shelf we can fix that you know and and we just really had to walk in their shoes a little ways and say that we can fix it and here's how we're going to fix it and they're like. 47:01.37 Cora Leibig Really, you know? and even though we'd been telling them hey ask tell us what you what we could do for you. Finally, we said? Okay, we're going to tell you what we can do for you and and you can um and and we'll get you there and um and so it. You really need to walk in their shoes away and you know do this examples walk around and flip flops at a conference you know for people to really understand that. No This is really different and and here's some examples of what that can mean for you. 47:28.51 bizzyweb Yeah. 47:36.90 bizzyweb I have 2 final final questions. So how long does it take to three d print a flip flop because I think everybody understands what what? a flip flo is compared to a bello. How long do it would it take a 3 d print a flip flop. 47:38.20 Cora Leibig So. 47:51.46 Cora Leibig Um, yeah, um, you know we have yeah we can you know we haven't tried recently I think I three d printed that flip flop maybe four years ago with our current. 47:55.90 bizzyweb Like I'm I'm just like 13 shoe. So. 48:07.17 Cora Leibig Tech I think we could probably 3 d print a flip flop in ah about 2 hours um the main the thing that we've been um, showing from a from a printing speed perspective is that our printers are low enough cost. 48:11.33 bizzyweb Friends. 48:26.90 Cora Leibig That if you were to look at the cost of the machine for making ah ah, ah, a million flip-flops that machine costs $1000000 at least and we can set up you know 50 printers for that cost or more you know and so the question's not. 48:34.24 bizzyweb Yeah, yeah. 48:40.35 bizzyweb Yeah, yeah. 48:45.44 Cora Leibig How long does it take for a single printer to print that part but rather how long does it take how many how many flip-flops can 50 printers churn out and that's that's how we're trying to change the equation I think it's one of the things that's been a struggle in the industry is that because most of the 3 d printing industry is focused on selling machines. 48:54.39 bizzyweb Have some ways. 49:05.15 Cora Leibig Um, they put a lot of features into the machines that make those machines expensive and then the the speed of the machine matters. But if you keep your machine fairly. Um, fairly stripped down. Um and and our approach right now. Probably last time you spoke trigby. We were not selling machines. We sell machines today. 49:22.25 bizzyweb F. 49:24.56 Cora Leibig And essentially what we do is we have this base skeleton and then we add features based on what we know a customer needs and so they're only getting the features they really need um and we're able to keep the cost of the printer fairly low and if you if you think about this this question of how long does it take to make a flip flop. Um, if if you're a Flipflop company and you're thinking oh right now I make all my flip-flops in China but all my customers are in Latin America and Florida and and Spain or something like that you can instead take that $1000000 machine and split it up 3 ways with 15 printers in in every location that you need and you and you're no longer putting flip flops on a boat. 50:12.48 bizzyweb I want to sort of end by reminding of the people person that I talked about in the beginning when back at that conference 5 or 6 or 7 ah many years ago now god we're getting old. Um, it's just so fascinating to think of all those people with all of their. Ah charts and graphs and the 1 person from that who's so wildly successful is the one who had the game changing thing and didn't need to it didn't need to make a big deal out of it. My favorite Simpsons character is a character called disco stew. Because it was ah the the joke of it was that home. It was a yard sale episode and homer was um he he tried to make ah a gene jacket a bajeled Jean Jacket that said disco to stud but he ran out of room and so the joke was is. Was selling that jacket and this guy in the disco outfit walks up and somebody says well um, ste you should get that and the answer was no man disco ste doesn't advertise that's kind of how I think about you is that you know if you're if you're that level of awesome. 51:06.50 Cora Leibig Um. 51:15.76 Cora Leibig Um, that's funny. Um. 51:21.79 bizzyweb It will come out eventually. There's no need to to to flaunt it. 51:24.21 Cora Leibig Um, but a little a little bit of flash is not a bad thing. But I I think the other you know if I if I look at the success I've had in fundraising you know coming back. You know people are investing in in me I think. Part of the appeal has been that I come across as a very um as a genuine person and um I definitely could use more improvement on marketing and flash because I think that that's ah you know I shouldn't You know if you think about that room full of people. 51:44.30 bizzyweb Yes. 51:59.31 Cora Leibig It's um, it wouldn't be a bad thing for people to to know what I was doing and what we're up to earlier rather than later. But um so I take that as room for improvement but the authenticity is important and and I think that's clear. 52:04.76 bizzyweb Yeah, but I I think but I think yeah that I think you're wrong honestly because as you said all those people around there they bought into you and then they bought in the idea and that's just more more important than it and then it than anything. So. Right? So ah Cora how can people find you um online if they want to learn more about your product and learn more about chromatic 3 d materials. 52:30.54 Cora Leibig So our website wwwwww.cthreedm.com also we have a very active Linkedin um Linkedin presence so if you like or follow chromatic 3 d materials on Linkedin. You'll get a lot of information about us. Um, also. You know feel free to connect with me personally on Linkedin and and you know I'm happy to share contact information or what have you but happy to help future entrepreneurs and and or people who just want to learn more. 52:55.48 bizzyweb And and I I think one of the thing. Yeah I think one of the things that's most disappointing about you is as we've gotten older together is that your kids aren't at home. So your husband is not doing dag jokes on the lunch bags anymore. So that. 53:11.45 Cora Leibig Um, I know I know it? um. 53:14.10 bizzyweb That's on Facebook if you if you if you search on Facebook for dad jokes on a bag. You'll get a very sweet man who thinks he's funny. So all right? So thank you Cora Wal Walter whites a good good good cousin Glenda Corera leibig thanks for joining us today. 53:28.40 Cora Leibig Very good. Thanks tricky.