1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,040 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn about the importance and major trends in materials selection in product design from a Ph.D. who is CTO of a materials data platform. 2 00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:19,840 Kevin Mako: This is the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in hardware product development, prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between. 3 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:24,640 Kevin Mako: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups. 4 00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:29,120 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. I'm very excited to introduce Ori Yudilevich to the show. 5 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:34,800 Kevin Mako: Ori is the CTO of Materials Zone, a materials information platform for hardware product development. 6 00:00:35,260 --> 00:00:42,400 Kevin Mako: He has a PhD and has been in academics and higher education lecturing for over 15 years before transitioning over to industry. 7 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:57,040 Kevin Mako: Today, Ori will share valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on why materials are so important to the hardware product design process, what the trends are in materials science today, and how to ensure you select the right materials for manufacturing and for product marketing together. 8 00:00:57,420 --> 00:00:58,700 Kevin Mako: Now, on to the episode. 9 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:10,720 Kevin Mako: This show is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. 10 00:01:10,860 --> 00:01:15,140 Kevin Mako: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. 11 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:16,880 Kevin Mako: Now on to the episode. 12 00:01:18,150 --> 00:01:19,510 Kevin Mako: Hi, Ori, welcome to the show. 13 00:01:20,110 --> 00:01:21,650 Ori Yudilevich: Hi, Kevin. Really nice to be here. 14 00:01:22,110 --> 00:01:25,130 Kevin Mako: Well, we're excited to have you on today to talk about materials. 15 00:01:25,630 --> 00:01:29,870 Kevin Mako: Materials are obviously important part of the product development, product, and 16 00:01:29,890 --> 00:01:34,270 Kevin Mako: engineering, product prototyping, and of course, product manufacturing process. 17 00:01:34,610 --> 00:01:39,350 Kevin Mako: And what better person than you to talk about it today, you're behind, obviously, a lot of the 18 00:01:39,350 --> 00:01:43,670 Kevin Mako: technology that brings some of these informatics to actual materials and how to choose 19 00:01:43,670 --> 00:01:48,930 Kevin Mako: materials and all these other great things about understanding materials in development and through 20 00:01:48,930 --> 00:01:54,630 Kevin Mako: to manufacturing and so on for hardware products. Before we get into all of this, give us a bit 21 00:01:54,630 --> 00:01:57,330 Kevin Mako: of a background of how you became the success story that you are today. 22 00:01:57,610 --> 00:01:59,010 Ori Yudilevich: Thanks for the introduction, Kevin. 23 00:01:59,010 --> 00:02:05,310 Ori Yudilevich: I have spent actually a lot of years in academia, studied chemistry and physics, and I have a PhD in mathematics. 24 00:02:06,350 --> 00:02:11,130 Ori Yudilevich: For academia, I actually worked in a company called Deal Time that was later bought by eBay. 25 00:02:11,530 --> 00:02:14,350 Ori Yudilevich: That was a comparison website, one of the first ones. 26 00:02:14,690 --> 00:02:16,370 Ori Yudilevich: Today, I work for four years already. 27 00:02:16,370 --> 00:02:22,010 Ori Yudilevich: I work for a company called Material Zone, a great company that's a data management platform 28 00:02:22,010 --> 00:02:28,770 Ori Yudilevich: that helps companies in any industry that produces hardware, that produces products, hard products, that 29 00:02:28,770 --> 00:02:34,450 Ori Yudilevich: are made out of materials, where materials research is being done. We empower that process. 30 00:02:35,010 --> 00:02:41,890 Kevin Mako: Let's start big picture here. What are materials? And then why are they so important to the product 31 00:02:41,890 --> 00:02:49,090 Ori Yudilevich: development process? Yeah. So, I mean, materials are basically the building pieces of everything that we 32 00:02:49,090 --> 00:02:54,130 Ori Yudilevich: have around us, right? Everything that is in your room right now, the car that you're driving, 33 00:02:54,130 --> 00:02:58,610 Ori Yudilevich: the airplane that you take, everything is made out of materials. And every, 34 00:02:58,770 --> 00:03:03,490 Ori Yudilevich: product that you use has, you know, years and years of sometimes dozens of years of research 35 00:03:03,490 --> 00:03:08,790 Ori Yudilevich: behind them. To give like a simple example, you know, like I have this mug of tea here. So it's made 36 00:03:08,790 --> 00:03:13,770 Ori Yudilevich: out of materials that can sustain the heat of my tea, right? That's like very simple. But like the solar 37 00:03:13,770 --> 00:03:17,850 Ori Yudilevich: panels on your roof, you want to get them to be more and more efficient. You want the batteries. 38 00:03:17,850 --> 00:03:22,770 Ori Yudilevich: If there's batteries inside them, you want that to store energy, all of this requires better and more 39 00:03:22,770 --> 00:03:28,750 Ori Yudilevich: optimized the materials for the job. So materials, research is really core to progress, especially 40 00:03:28,770 --> 00:03:32,930 Ori Yudilevich: when we talk today about a world of global warming, we need to be much more efficient than everything 41 00:03:32,930 --> 00:03:34,890 Ori Yudilevich: we do. So materials are our core. 42 00:03:35,770 --> 00:03:39,970 Kevin Mako: Materials is such a big part of product development. And especially for non-technical or 43 00:03:39,970 --> 00:03:44,490 Kevin Mako: non-design founders, it's often something that's relatively overlooked. It's just kind of an assumption 44 00:03:44,490 --> 00:03:48,490 Kevin Mako: that, well, you design a great product. And of course, you're going to have some materials, 45 00:03:48,790 --> 00:03:52,550 Kevin Mako: plastics, metals, et cetera, that put it together. But the reality of product development 46 00:03:52,550 --> 00:03:58,710 Kevin Mako: is that materials have a major impact on the design, the visual design of the product. 47 00:03:58,770 --> 00:04:03,850 Kevin Mako: The engineering details of the product, how the product actually works and the functionality, 48 00:04:04,090 --> 00:04:09,470 Kevin Mako: et cetera, weighs very heavily on a materials. There's lots of things that you can do with one material, 49 00:04:09,850 --> 00:04:14,530 Kevin Mako: but you can't do with another material. And that weighs into some of even the early design 50 00:04:14,530 --> 00:04:19,370 Kevin Mako: and ideation process and understanding what are those material parameters and why do you 51 00:04:19,370 --> 00:04:25,670 Kevin Mako: need to understand what they're going to be so that you can actually do the 3D CAD design around best 52 00:04:25,670 --> 00:04:28,650 Kevin Mako: practices, not just for the product, but for the underlying material. 53 00:04:28,770 --> 00:04:33,550 Kevin Mako: that that products is going to rely on. So talk a bit about the importance of this kind of 54 00:04:33,550 --> 00:04:38,850 Kevin Mako: materials research phase as you're doing the development of a new hardware product. 55 00:04:39,610 --> 00:04:44,070 Ori Yudilevich: That was a great description that you just gave. The analogy that we like to give always in our 56 00:04:44,070 --> 00:04:48,830 Ori Yudilevich: company, when we try to explain exactly the question that you ask is that building product out 57 00:04:48,830 --> 00:04:53,930 Ori Yudilevich: of materials is in a way, you know, at least for the non-chemist, is very similar to cooking. 58 00:04:53,930 --> 00:04:58,750 Ori Yudilevich: When you cook, you want to make the best pasta or lasagna, you have to use ingredients, right? 59 00:04:58,770 --> 00:05:05,910 Ori Yudilevich: Ingredients are the analogy of materials. You know, there's a huge difference if you use a whole wheat flour, white flour, right? 60 00:05:05,950 --> 00:05:11,410 Ori Yudilevich: So the analogy here would be if you use a cheap material or a very high quality material, 61 00:05:12,030 --> 00:05:14,290 Ori Yudilevich: you know, the question of the choice of materials that you use. 62 00:05:14,750 --> 00:05:20,070 Ori Yudilevich: And there's also the question of the process, right? That's also a big part of what are you going to do with those materials? 63 00:05:20,310 --> 00:05:23,050 Ori Yudilevich: How are you going to mix them? What process are they going to go through? 64 00:05:23,150 --> 00:05:26,030 Ori Yudilevich: What's going to be the temperature and the machines that you're making them? 65 00:05:26,030 --> 00:05:28,750 Ori Yudilevich: The pressure, if there's any light around. 66 00:05:28,770 --> 00:05:33,730 Ori Yudilevich: all these things, every little parameter, and these can accumulate hundreds of parameters 67 00:05:33,730 --> 00:05:40,950 Ori Yudilevich: that affect your end product, how good your end product is. So you could use sometimes cheaper materials 68 00:05:40,950 --> 00:05:45,910 Ori Yudilevich: if you do your process better, or you'll end up using more expensive materials if your process is not 69 00:05:45,910 --> 00:05:51,330 Ori Yudilevich: optimized. And there's a lot of science and a lot of research put in to reach, as I said before, 70 00:05:51,450 --> 00:05:53,470 Ori Yudilevich: all these amazing products that surround us. 71 00:05:53,890 --> 00:05:58,750 Kevin Mako: And it's so important to understand what some of the common trends are in technology. 72 00:05:58,770 --> 00:06:01,010 Kevin Mako: around those materials as well. 73 00:06:01,390 --> 00:06:06,450 Kevin Mako: Every year, I know from the design firm perspective, every year we get introduced to new properties, 74 00:06:06,950 --> 00:06:13,910 Kevin Mako: new materials, new use cases that elevate the amount of tools as designers we have in order 75 00:06:13,910 --> 00:06:16,310 Kevin Mako: to make certain things function in certain ways. 76 00:06:16,850 --> 00:06:22,510 Kevin Mako: So staying on top of what some of the latest and greatest technologies are can increase quality, 77 00:06:22,510 --> 00:06:26,710 Kevin Mako: but it can also reduce costs, and it can also have a whole bunch of other benefits like 78 00:06:26,710 --> 00:06:28,650 Kevin Mako: sustainability, time to market. 79 00:06:28,770 --> 00:06:34,390 Kevin Mako: manufacturing regions, you name it. So talk a bit about some of the trends that you're seeing 80 00:06:34,390 --> 00:06:40,150 Kevin Mako: on the materials engineering side and how that potentially could affect hardware development. 81 00:06:40,570 --> 00:06:43,910 Kevin Mako: So let's look at the trends and then potentially some of the effects or some of the nuggets from 82 00:06:43,910 --> 00:06:47,930 Kevin Mako: those trends for people who are working on the development and or manufacturing of their 83 00:06:47,930 --> 00:06:52,890 Ori Yudilevich: products today. There are a few trends that are becoming more and more dominant these days 84 00:06:52,890 --> 00:06:58,810 Ori Yudilevich: that are affecting how difficult it is to create a product, how a flexixt. 85 00:06:58,830 --> 00:07:03,570 Ori Yudilevich: we have to be in adapting to changes much more than we see in the past. I'll mention 86 00:07:03,570 --> 00:07:09,210 Ori Yudilevich: a few of these. So one of them is, as you said, sustainability. Sustainability is becoming a more 87 00:07:09,210 --> 00:07:15,950 Ori Yudilevich: and more essential part of our lives. It's about agreements between countries to reduce carbon footprint. 88 00:07:16,750 --> 00:07:20,770 Ori Yudilevich: All of these things, they have a lot of influence on how we make our products. Certain 89 00:07:20,770 --> 00:07:25,870 Ori Yudilevich: materials that we use might have a higher carbon footprint. You want to replace them with other 90 00:07:25,870 --> 00:07:28,810 Ori Yudilevich: materials. Your clients, the people buying the other product, 91 00:07:28,830 --> 00:07:32,750 Ori Yudilevich: from you, they're looking at these parameters, right? They're being also measured. Where 92 00:07:32,750 --> 00:07:37,710 Ori Yudilevich: you're buying your materials from, right? Materials are coming from far away countries that have to go 93 00:07:37,710 --> 00:07:43,790 Ori Yudilevich: by plane. Their carbon footprint is much higher. So there's even a choice in geography here. This is one 94 00:07:43,790 --> 00:07:49,310 Ori Yudilevich: example, sustainability. Another example is supply chain problems, right? We've seen a lot of these 95 00:07:49,310 --> 00:07:55,310 Ori Yudilevich: in the last couple of years with the geopolitics around the world, and these are putting a lot 96 00:07:55,310 --> 00:07:59,870 Ori Yudilevich: of constraints. So some companies that are used to using a certain supplier, a certain 97 00:07:59,870 --> 00:08:03,950 Ori Yudilevich: material, they just don't have access to that material anymore. They have to adapt quickly. 98 00:08:03,950 --> 00:08:08,670 Ori Yudilevich: They have to find alternatives for that material. Give one maybe last example, and these are 99 00:08:08,670 --> 00:08:14,030 Ori Yudilevich: regulations. Strengthening regulations. We're much more aware about what kind of packaging 100 00:08:14,030 --> 00:08:20,030 Ori Yudilevich: we put our food in. Some packaging might be toxic. In the past, we maybe weren't aware of it, 101 00:08:20,030 --> 00:08:24,670 Ori Yudilevich: or we weren't as careful about it. And today, they're strengthening regulations. And from one day to 102 00:08:24,670 --> 00:08:29,150 Ori Yudilevich: another, suddenly you're not allowed to use a certain type of material. You have to move to 103 00:08:29,150 --> 00:08:33,870 Ori Yudilevich: another kind of material. So all of these things, these are mentioned like three different trends that are 104 00:08:33,870 --> 00:08:39,070 Ori Yudilevich: affecting material development and product development highly. Absolutely. And all those things are really 105 00:08:39,070 --> 00:08:44,190 Kevin Mako: important. I love how you touched on two very different angles there. One, you're looking at the supply 106 00:08:44,190 --> 00:08:49,470 Kevin Mako: side. So how does this increase the quality of your product or the sustainability of your product or 107 00:08:49,470 --> 00:08:54,650 Kevin Mako: the regional availability of the product? So making sure that you're using materials that 108 00:08:54,670 --> 00:08:59,390 Kevin Mako: have regional flexibility so that you can move, if necessary, from one zone to another, 109 00:08:59,790 --> 00:09:04,190 Kevin Mako: without being hyper-restricted potentially to a material that's only offered in one manufacturing 110 00:09:04,190 --> 00:09:08,990 Kevin Mako: region or district or is difficult to get access to or may have supply fluctuations. Sometimes 111 00:09:08,990 --> 00:09:13,070 Kevin Mako: it's available. Sometimes it's not. Those considerations are really important from the back-end side, 112 00:09:13,070 --> 00:09:18,510 Kevin Mako: but you also mention the front-end side. Sales. Customers are more educated than ever before. 113 00:09:19,070 --> 00:09:23,950 Kevin Mako: Reviews are prevalent. The internet is a fast place where they can get informed very quickly about 114 00:09:23,950 --> 00:09:29,030 Kevin Mako: what materials should be being used depending on the type of product that you're selling. 115 00:09:29,030 --> 00:09:33,210 Kevin Mako: So it's not only thinking about materials to ensure you're making the best product, 116 00:09:33,510 --> 00:09:39,790 Kevin Mako: but also so that you're giving the best offering to your customers that matches what they believe 117 00:09:39,790 --> 00:09:44,770 Kevin Mako: and what they understand about the importance of materials. We're seeing this across the board. 118 00:09:44,950 --> 00:09:51,430 Kevin Mako: Customer demand is really sometimes pushing you into a certain way of considering materials or a certain 119 00:09:51,430 --> 00:09:55,470 Kevin Mako: approach to materials. So you've got to think about both these ends, front end and back end. 120 00:09:55,550 --> 00:09:59,670 Kevin Mako: And you address both of those, both of those especially more than ever, should always be considered 121 00:09:59,670 --> 00:10:04,410 Kevin Mako: in the design, even early design, especially as you get into manufacturing. As you get into manufacturing, 122 00:10:04,410 --> 00:10:07,770 Kevin Mako: you've really got to nail those things down because at some point you've got to pull the trigger and 123 00:10:07,770 --> 00:10:12,750 Kevin Mako: produce. So making sure that you've really designed a product that is obviously well engineered, 124 00:10:13,310 --> 00:10:17,750 Kevin Mako: but also well thought out in terms of the actual materials composition. That's what makes for a great 125 00:10:17,750 --> 00:10:20,850 Kevin Mako: product. Again, as we mentioned, both on the back end and on the front end. 126 00:10:20,850 --> 00:10:26,770 Kevin Mako: So talk a bit about Material Zone and how this helps with that process because I'm a big fan, 127 00:10:26,850 --> 00:10:33,650 Kevin Mako: obviously, from the design firm perspective of any kind of increased in flexibility ease and data 128 00:10:33,650 --> 00:10:39,490 Kevin Mako: around selecting, working with, designing for, and manufacturing using the best materials possible 129 00:10:39,490 --> 00:10:46,530 Ori Yudilevich: at modern times. Yeah. Good question, of course. I like talking about my workplace and what I do. 130 00:10:47,230 --> 00:10:50,830 Ori Yudilevich: So Material Zone helps in exactly these problems. 131 00:10:50,850 --> 00:10:55,810 Ori Yudilevich: that we discussed, right? So we discussed having to deal with very complex recipes, 132 00:10:55,810 --> 00:11:03,730 Ori Yudilevich: right, which was the number of materials we can use to make a product, the very complex process that it can 133 00:11:03,730 --> 00:11:08,610 Ori Yudilevich: go through, all the parameters that such a big wiggle space that you have when you're producing 134 00:11:08,610 --> 00:11:12,450 Ori Yudilevich: these things, and then you have all these constraints that we discussed. The carbon footprint you want 135 00:11:12,450 --> 00:11:20,690 Ori Yudilevich: to reduce, the regulations, and material zone is a platform. It's a SaaS platform that companies can 136 00:11:20,690 --> 00:11:27,070 Ori Yudilevich: use to connect all of this data end to end. So you can combine data coming all the way 137 00:11:27,070 --> 00:11:31,310 Ori Yudilevich: from procurement, right? And that's, you know, where you're buying these things from. We talked about 138 00:11:31,310 --> 00:11:36,930 Ori Yudilevich: sustainability and how distance matters. Pricing, you know, which material, the prices, of course, 139 00:11:36,930 --> 00:11:42,790 Ori Yudilevich: are a big factor. Regulation departments, everybody can feed all of this data into the platform. 140 00:11:43,410 --> 00:11:49,870 Ori Yudilevich: Then you have one unified place where all this data is being collected. Then the R&D engineer, the person 141 00:11:49,870 --> 00:11:54,750 Ori Yudilevich: that is actually designing the product that has to make these choices, that has to try out all 142 00:11:54,750 --> 00:12:00,550 Ori Yudilevich: these recipes can have like one place where they can see all the data. They can visualize it in an easy way. 143 00:12:01,150 --> 00:12:06,730 Ori Yudilevich: And most importantly, they can model the data. They can use modern AI technology, machine learning, 144 00:12:06,730 --> 00:12:14,030 Ori Yudilevich: to build models that can predict what happens in certain situations, right? So typically you would need 145 00:12:14,030 --> 00:12:19,710 Ori Yudilevich: now to try out maybe thousands of different recipes before you find what you need. This is very 146 00:12:19,710 --> 00:12:24,990 Ori Yudilevich: costly. Just the materials themselves are expensive, but also devices that you need to use. 147 00:12:25,230 --> 00:12:31,470 Ori Yudilevich: Maybe you need to outsource this and you're paying per hour, right? So modeling this and having some idea 148 00:12:31,470 --> 00:12:38,030 Ori Yudilevich: idea where to explore, right, which materials to explore, which process to explore. This can reduce the time 149 00:12:38,030 --> 00:12:42,430 Ori Yudilevich: to market substantially. It can reduce the amount of money you have to spend on all these resources. 150 00:12:42,830 --> 00:12:48,510 Ori Yudilevich: And that's what material zone does. We accelerate material discovery and we make the process much 151 00:12:48,510 --> 00:12:52,590 Ori Yudilevich: smoother. We connect the different ends of the company, proving visibility. Everybody 152 00:12:52,590 --> 00:12:58,540 Kevin Mako: can see what everybody else does. Well, it's very helpful and it's great information. I can tell you it's 153 00:12:58,540 --> 00:13:03,900 Kevin Mako: much appreciated from the design firm perspective because almost every project, you've got a number of 154 00:13:03,900 --> 00:13:09,320 Kevin Mako: materials and design elements that you've really nailed before. Even as a design firm, 155 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:13,580 Kevin Mako: you've got a bunch of these things in your library and you work with certain materials. You're 156 00:13:13,580 --> 00:13:17,840 Kevin Mako: very comfortable with certain things. You understand their properties. But then there's this fringe 157 00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:22,800 Kevin Mako: element, which is on kind of the outside, which is something that's unique or proprietary 158 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:28,120 Kevin Mako: or something like you said, you have to experiment with or test out. And that is where this can 159 00:13:28,120 --> 00:13:32,700 Kevin Mako: become very valuable, but also not just on, let's call it, the experimental portion of the 160 00:13:32,700 --> 00:13:37,620 Kevin Mako: project, but on the routine development side of the project, too, it can be kind of helpful in 161 00:13:37,620 --> 00:13:43,960 Kevin Mako: making sure that you're up to speed. So are your assumptions from last year still relevant this 162 00:13:43,960 --> 00:13:47,820 Kevin Mako: year? Are the regulation still intact? Is the supply chain availability? 163 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:51,940 Kevin Mako: still intact. So not only is it good for that new stuff, but it's good for the stuff 164 00:13:51,940 --> 00:13:57,080 Kevin Mako: that you're comfortable with as well from design, engineering, prototyping, and onto production 165 00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:02,300 Kevin Mako: process. So much appreciated for the work that you're doing. What is the website that people can 166 00:14:02,300 --> 00:14:08,760 Ori Yudilevich: learn more if they want to check it out for themselves? So people are very welcome to visit our website 167 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:16,060 Ori Yudilevich: www.materials.zone. You can find the information about our platform, our product. You can find our contact 168 00:14:16,060 --> 00:14:20,120 Ori Yudilevich: details and we're very happy to talk to anybody listening to this show. 169 00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:24,940 Kevin Mako: Ori, much appreciated it for all your words of wisdom. And as always, I will put the link in the 170 00:14:24,940 --> 00:14:29,000 Kevin Mako: show notes below so anyone can just click through. Thanks again for all your help today. 171 00:14:29,160 --> 00:14:32,580 Ori Yudilevich: And we look forward to talk it again soon. Thank you, Kevin. This was a lot of fun. 172 00:14:32,880 --> 00:14:37,310 Kevin Mako: Thanks, all right. Appreciate it and take care. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the 173 00:14:37,310 --> 00:14:42,750 Kevin Mako: Product Startup Podcast. If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and hit 174 00:14:42,750 --> 00:14:45,790 Kevin Mako: the like button and subscribe. If you have any questions, 175 00:14:46,130 --> 00:14:50,630 Kevin Mako: suggestions or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email, 176 00:14:50,930 --> 00:14:56,930 Kevin Mako: podcast at MakoDesign.com. This show is hosted by Kevin Mako, North America's 177 00:14:56,930 --> 00:15:01,750 Kevin Mako: leading expert on product development for hardware startups, and the podcast is produced by 178 00:15:01,750 --> 00:15:06,650 Kevin Mako: Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services 179 00:15:06,650 --> 00:15:11,650 Kevin Mako: tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Take your 180 00:15:11,650 --> 00:15:16,110 Kevin Mako: product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. That's M. 181 00:15:16,130 --> 00:15:20,890 Kevin Mako: a k0.com.com. Thanks for joining and see you again soon.