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Ep 13. 3D Weaving Yarns into Garments and Zero Inventory Circular Fashion with Beth Esponnette
279 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of the No Ordinary Cloth podcast, Beth Esponnette, the co-founder of Unspun, shares her groundbreaking innovation in 3D weaving technology that creates garments in a single, seamless piece, revolutionising fashion manufacturing and disrupting the current supply chain. Beth discusses her journey from an assistant professor to a pioneer and founder of Unspun, her challenges in scaling micro factories, and the leadership lessons she learned while captaining Cornell’s Nordic Ski team.
She emphasises the importance of transitioning from linear to circular life cycles to address sustainability, reduce overproduction, and the environmental impact of materials like polyester. Beth draws inspiration from influential thinkers and delves deep into the technical aspects, showcasing a visionary approach to rethinking the supply chain in the textile industry. Listen in to discover how creativity and cutting-edge technology can reshape fashion manufacturing for a more sustainable future.
Beth is fascinated by science and art, especially where they intersect: design. She earned her MFA in Design from Stanford University before serving as Assistant Professor of Product Design at the University of Oregon.
Beth has been recognised for her work by Vogue Business 100 Innovators, MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35, and Adweek Sustainability Stars. Unspun has been recognized by TIME with a Best Invention award twice.
Connect with Unspun
Unspun website I Shop for custom fit jeans I Instagram
Resources
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari
Connect with Mili Tharakan
[email protected] I LinkedIn I Instagram I Podcast survey link
Your support means the world to me! If you enjoyed this episode, consider buying me a coffee
Cover art: Photo by Siora, Photography on Unsplash
Music: Inspired Ambient, Orchestraman
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:04
Speaker
Hi everyone, great to have you back here on the No Ordinary Cloud podcast where we talk about innovations at the intersection of textiles and emerging technology that are transforming the industry.
Circular Fashion Manufacturing
00:00:15
Speaker
I'm so excited about bringing you this episode because this new technology we're going to talk about is truly revolutionary and at the cutting edge of circular fashion manufacturing.
3D Weaving Technology by Unspun
00:00:26
Speaker
Our guest today is Beth Espenette, the co-founder of Unspun, the startup that's turning the fashion world on its head with its innovative 3D weaving technology. Yes, you heard that right. This is a machine that weaves a garment in 3D. The Vega 3D weaving technology can weave yarns into parrot trousers in just 10 minutes. How amazing is that?
00:00:48
Speaker
Beth has an MFA in Design from Stanford and has been recognized for her work by Vogue magazine 100 Innovators, MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators under 35 and many others. She is laser focused and determined to create a fashion industry that is inclusive and truly circular.
Beth Espenette's Journey and Recognition
00:01:08
Speaker
Today we discuss Beth's journey from academia to startup success that is filled with fascinating insights into micro factories and cities in on-demand fashion, rethinking fashion design, construction and supply chain, finding the right co-founders for your startup, as well as her thoughts on some of the unhealthy side of the American startup culture.
00:01:27
Speaker
Plus, she shares some great book recommendations and resources on the topics discussed. So do stay with us to the end.
Impact on Garment Supply Chain
00:01:35
Speaker
Unspun is disrupting the garment manufacturing supply chain to create a model that can transform how we make and consume fashion. So let's dive right in with Beth Espenette. Hi Beth, welcome to the No Ordinary Club podcast. It is so lovely to have you here finally to sit down and chat about Unspun. Beth, you have created a 3D weaving technology that literally weaves the whole garment out in one piece and it requires very minimal stitching. I mean, that is mind boggling.
Spotlight on 3D Woven Trousers
00:02:05
Speaker
This is when I wish I actually had a video podcast and I'm sitting in your, you know, one of your factories in front of your technology.
00:02:12
Speaker
Because I don't think people can really get their heads around it. It's absolutely revolutionary. And actually, last week I was at Mills Fabrica in London to have a look at this piece of 3D woven trousers that you have on display, just to kind of get my head around, you know, what is this? like Is it like a normal pair of trousers? And it is, it's absolutely gorgeous. I would have never thought this came off as one piece from a loom. And that's what I want to pick your brains in and understand more about. I mean, I just stood there in front of those trousers and I could feel every cog in my brain just spinning, trying to like decode and understand how this was made. I know I don't have to do that. You can help me figure this out today.
Awards and Acknowledgments
00:02:49
Speaker
You've created this incredible startup Unspun and you're getting all kinds of recognitions everywhere, ah which is amazing, including being the best invention award that you've been given twice at Time Magazine. But before we dive in, I wanted to give a quick shout out to Trish. Trish Hayes-Danitz for connecting us. if She's an incredible person and with so much depth and knowledge in the textile field. I mean, she's a gem to have on any team and I'm so thankful to her for connecting us and making this possible.
00:03:17
Speaker
And with that, let's dive right in. Shall we? Great. First question.
Fashion Sustainability Challenges
00:03:23
Speaker
I'm going to quote you actually before I ask you a question. Yeah. So this was an article on business of fashion and you said, rather than going for sustainability solutions that make for good marketing, we need to focus on the root issues. What are some of the root issues that you are alluding to here and how do we start combating them? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for bringing it up. That was one of the opinion pieces I had written for a Business of Fashion. And I think a lot of times, like we're in a lot of climate circles, especially here in the Bay Area. And it's people thinking really big about about the climate issue. It's such a big problem. It's something that, you know, since industrialization that we've been causing to the world and now we need to reverse, you know, hundreds of years of this in a few years and we're just not on track. And I i feel like one thing in the fashion industry is
00:04:12
Speaker
that we get so caught up in the marketing and the and materialization of it, which is extremely important. But we look at very incremental changes like, oh, can we just can we just swap this cotton for a bamboo? Because I heard that bamboo grows faster. Yes, it's good to think about that. But let's really step back and look at what our actual like our impact is and what we're doing wrong. And to me, what I'm seeing, like what differs from what the natural world has done is that we've basically taken the resources and they're in this cycle that goes on and on. It's been going on since before we were here for, I don't know how many, millions, billions of years. And we take it and we divert it. And it's like, okay, this is no longer useful material and now let's turn it into trash. So that's one
00:04:58
Speaker
overarching issue is that our life cycles are linear, that they're not considered in a circular manner. We are starting to think about that, but you might do like a little, you know, roller coaster kind of loop a couple of times, and then you go to landfill again. So we really haven't cracked that as an industry. ah The other thing is overproduction, that this is something I think is starting to really catch, but used to be that when you talked about sustainability, it it was always just, oh, where are you getting your material from? Or is it recycled? Let's make sure that's recycled polyester. And I think we're now starting to come to terms with how much we make. I think a few things have brought that to the fore. One is just the fact that things are more transparent. We can see our data. We can see the things that we're doing in the world finally.
00:05:45
Speaker
communication lines are very becoming clearer. They're still not great. And then like in addition to that is just how big Xian, Temu, all these companies have grown so quickly with very little regulation. And I think it's slapping us all in the face finally. In some ways, i I almost appreciate them for that. that like oh no we that your issue So those are yeah overproduction and and lack of circularity.
Founding Unspun and Motivations
00:06:14
Speaker
Your startup, Unspun, is sort of taking that on head on and saying, let's let's see what we can do. And not with baby steps, with really big radical changes.
00:06:25
Speaker
So you founded Unspun in 2015 while having a full-time role at the University of Oregon as an assistant professor of product design. Amazing. I don't know how you found time and how you kept yourself sane through those early days, but tell us the story behind what motivated you to set up Unspun and where did the idea come from initially and what was your vision and philosophy back then in 2015? I think it's never really like an aha moment. I think the final straw for me, I had studied clothing in undergrad. my My parents were like, what are you doing? Like, why would you do that? That's not really like a thing. But I just kind of chase my passions and and follow my gut generally. um So I did that and could start to see a little bit behind the scenes like in 2006, you know, Inconvenient Truth came out.
00:07:10
Speaker
um as a movie and people are starting to see that that there is a problem with the amount of waste and the way we treat our world, but it still was barely discussed. So I didn't really know how negative and of an impact our industry, the clothing industry had. on the planet until I became part of it. When I studied it, they, it was very fun. I loved my program, but it was very glamorous and like, let's talk about self-expression and all the cool, like all the cool nerdy things you can get into with like fiber science as well. And so I loved that, but it didn't really dawn on me until getting into the industry and seeing behind the scenes and actually being part of the problem.
00:07:49
Speaker
of putting, of actually putting in orders for products that people don't even want yet in that guessing game. So I was working at a few different brands that I still love, but have like every other brand have fallen into this this this cycle of let's guess what people want a year ahead of time. and then cross our fingers. And there have been a lot of, it's it's clear now, I think at the time people didn't realize that this was kind of a broken model. Why why should you make stuff before you want it? And especially stuff that has a linear life cycle that you're essentially taking the world's resources and turning it into trash because you don't know, like there's some of it
Pre-Manufacturing and Demand Issues
00:08:31
Speaker
you're going to sell. Yeah, you'll probably sell 70% of it, but that other 30%
00:08:35
Speaker
you were just turning those resources into trash and nothing else. The problem is you don't know which what you know what stuff of that is going to sell and what's not going to sell. So is there a way? This is when you know the gears started going in my head. like There's so much technology out there. I had just moved to the Bay Area. I was so inspired by that you'd kind of like breathe and drink the Kool-Aid in the air of carrying around these computers in your pockets, these these new iPhones, cell phones that were around. was also like the era of 3D printing. So additive manufacturing was very much a thing. And just being like kind of at that nexus of absorbing the technology, not really being a technologist myself, but absorbing it, being
00:09:18
Speaker
very much with like a manufacturing nerd and loving fashion and all those things kind of spinning together, starting to think like, maybe we don't have to manufacture this way. Maybe there is a way that we can do it more as we need it. So if someone buys it, someone asks for it, then you produce it. But right now to do that is extremely slow because it's such a manual process to make things. So it was a lot of experimentation that kind of led to Unspun from there. And so there the first thing that you started with was the custom fit jeans, your first sort of iteration was for Unspun. Tell us a bit about that. What was the technology there and what were you hoping to achieve through the company? Yeah. So the first like go to market for Unspun was that um the very first prototypes for our company were more on the 3D weaving side. And we knew there was this overarching problem that we wanted to solve. And it was, it was I had basically been leading a team of
00:10:15
Speaker
like students at at Stanford to to create these prototypes, and then graduated. ah That's when I went to the University of Oregon and I met Walden around that time. And I basically presented these all these ah prototypes to Walden. I was like, look, like we can kind of build from the ground up with clothing, so it opens up an on-demand model. And at the time, just for the sake of like a nice presentation within a class, we had been pitching bras. It's also just cool, like from a, just putting on a product hat, you can make some really, really beautiful bras with like this 3D weaving. But when Walden and I put together, you know, this business case and commercializing, it didn't quite make sense to pigeonhole ourselves in that market. So we quickly backed out. There were a few other reasons, like even VCs said to us, they were like,
00:11:04
Speaker
Oh my gosh, you're not going to be able to talk to anyone. No VC knows anything about bras, right? So we we were very much discouraged, but more then than I did a lot of market research on the question saying we knew, we know this manufacturing should exist. What product would most benefit from an on demand model where product doesn't exist. Someone buys it and then it's made for them.
Customization and Market Potential
00:11:24
Speaker
And this idea of customization came out because you can't customize something for someone if you've already made the product, right? So that that was very clear. So we talked to about 400 people. and We did like surveys with them and and chatted. and
00:11:38
Speaker
It came out that 300 of the 400 without and soliciting any particular product brought up jeans and denim as a pain point for finding fit. and People just hate shopping for jeans, even though basically everyone has jeans or they want jeans. Like the people who don't have jeans really want them, but have just sworn off of them because they've had such painful experiences. So that's what basically led us to creating custom fit jeans line, which still exists. And still I'm wearing, I'm wearing some jeans right now. These were from a collaboration we did with Bralio Amado. So they have like ants on them. They're awesome. They're really fun. So yes, I very much care about custom jeans. I don't even know what size I am anymore, which I love. Yeah. You just do a body scale and then it's made for you. But yeah, so that, that hit the market within six months. Like we,
00:12:27
Speaker
Basically last year we launched our 3D weaving and it had been five plus years, well, almost 10 years really. Like ah building that machine hardware takes so long. There's just a lot to work through, but software is like, it's seems it's like magic to me. you You can build something in a day and and launch it the next day. And we, yeah, we built it. We built the custom fit software that basically takes in a body scan and gives out, it gives a pattern that's based on that person's scan. that was in like three months and we launched it in six months. so But you had to kind of figure out the supply chain for this, right? Once the scan came through, someone still had to make that somewhere. Yes. Yeah. So that's the thing is the the new part is really just the software. It's just that you can get a scan and have these genes made for you, but we have to tap into the preexisting supply chain, like you're saying, to make this work. And so it's still a three week turnaround time for someone to get genes. And it's $200 US dollars, which is not not affordable. It's not out of reach for
00:13:25
Speaker
jeans. like That's actually a really good deal for custom jeans, but for someone who's like not expecting to to pay a paycheck for the money, they're usually on like the order of a quarter of that right for their jeans. And then something happened in 2023. You announced the world's first automated and on-demand 3D weaving technology for Apparels. It's interesting that you call it 3D weaving technology. Is there a reason why you don't call it a loom? and That's a good question. I guess maybe I don't know I would I would be curious to get your feedback but I think we just assumed people didn't know what a loom was or it's we haven't had as much like you ah you very much have the curse of knowledge like you know what is but i don't know that everyone understands like weaving we often find that like we explain knitting versus weaving it's just not
00:14:17
Speaker
It's not common knowledge. People don't have to know why why should they have to know this. so i'm I'm a weaver at heart and I get a bit geeky about these things. so I just wondered. yeah and There have been like a number of other cool tech companies that have taken on the word loom. like there's this Actually, one of our investors like started a company called Loom and it has nothing to do with meetings. So I think it's like it's a little too far. So you talked briefly about the idea coming through from this program that you were doing with your students. Could you explain a bit to us about where the technology is right now, the machine and the software that you use or that's needed to create these 3D apparels?
00:14:55
Speaker
It is so much further than when I was creating prototypes. It's amazing what the team has done. Oh, it's it's so cool to see what they've done. So now that software still is creating custom fit jeans, we've done a number of collaborations that have been really fun on the custom fit jeans front. And we're starting slowly but surely to merge that with our hardware as well. um We haven't quite launched that, but it but it is um kind of possible to to put together. And on the 3D weaving front, we are at the scaling phase. Right now I'm sitting in our micro factory. I'm just outside of Oakland, California, and we have three machines here. They're creating development samples for a number of different brands. There's one big brand that I can talk about, and that's Walmart, and we are very deep in development with them, getting going through the whole approval process. It's kind of funny because typically when you're creating products, like you the supply chain is so broken up, so you'll get like
00:15:52
Speaker
yarn and then get the fabric from somewhere else and then cut that up and stitch together. And so you're getting like, it's different approvals at different times. So we're kind of merging them together because we go straight from yarn to the final product. But because product teams within these brands are used to working in a broken up supply chain, in some ways it's actually easier to just try to meet match their process. So we'll, we'll start and we'll um source yarn, first get approval from them on like some samples that they see of the yarn. So you can actually use different kinds of yarns. Absolutely. Yes. Wow. Okay. Oh my gosh. we've done some Right now um we have
00:16:32
Speaker
a staple polyester on one machine. And then on two other machines, we've got cotton. it's ah One's a god, someone's not. That customer didn't a want it in different sizes. But we've run leather strips, pieces of twine. I know you've got a slub yarn. The one at Moltz Fabrica is a slub yarn. Oh, yeah yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, I love that pant. i I always wanted to fit into that one. I never fit into it. And then we've yeah We've done like rope from the ocean. like We were able to put that into the conductive fiber. So there are a lot of possibilities and we want it to be agnostic, but but our customers, of course, will be asking for it. Sorry. So you were saying you start with actually sourcing yarn for them. Right. And so then we'll make the qualities of the material they'd expect to to try to match some spec sheet that they're looking for. And then beyond that, we then go after the tech pack and
00:17:28
Speaker
getting that first sample with all the construction approved testing on that, and then the first size and then the size set across that. So it's actually a very standard development process and it has worked really well within brands. But on our side, we're like, let's just go straight from the yarn to the final product. And but yeah, it's been very fun. And what's the timeline for that now that it's all under one roof in a way? Ah, yes. So right now here, we are really focused on like, small scale, so like maximum 1,000 units right here in-house. But scaling up across different manufacturers, we're able to take timelines that some some brands are over a year with lead time and bring it down to a couple weeks for them. If they're interested in an on-demand model, that's really turning it into
00:18:18
Speaker
like days, which is exciting. Most brands that we've worked with so far are not quite ready for the on demand model because I think their customers aren't there yet. It's ah it's just a different thing because like we've been doing this for years where we sell a product that doesn't exist, but there's a trust barrier that you have to really fill and can do that. Obviously, if a brand has a particular brand name and they offer like returns like that helps. but it's still, you still are making a commitment. So having like visuals of what it's going to be, having, you know, look like samples, like all of that can kind of meet that, but it's not something most brands are used to. So what we're doing right now is reducing lead time as much as we can really buy them into kind of the platform, the system, make believers of them. And then when the appetite's there in the market, then move to an on-demand model. mean It requires a lot of work from the brand to educate the customers because you're so used to buying things and getting it instantly you know online. When you say on-demand, it's within minutes. or yeah yeah it's It's so quick, we're used to such a different pace that to wait for something for a few days just seemed like a big ask and and that does need work from the brand to try and build frame that story to the to the consumers as well.
00:19:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's something I've been so torn on recently is like 10 years at five, 10 years ago, I would have said, yeah, no one's going to wait more than two days now that Amazon has really made this normalize this. But I kind of think people are walking back on that. I think people are slowing down a little bit and it really varies and it really depends on what the ah thing is. But we have found with our brand that people are willing to wait. We are building our 3D weaving machines in order to bridge that gap. I mentioned the three-week turnaround, the $200 price point. like We want to really reduce that, obviously, both of those. But I do think that mindsets are are changing a bit.
00:20:05
Speaker
What are the different kinds of garments that you're able to make on this loom weaving technology at the moment? Anything anything woven that's, we're going up to like 45 inches in diameter. So pants are ideal. We can do some tops, but it's a little bit more limited in size set, which is something, as you can tell, we have we're a custom fit jeans brand. So we we really want to make sure that we're putting product into the world that is inclusive. So we are very, very focused on on pants in the moment because we can be inclusive there. And then getting into like accessories. And we even launched pillows with one across and her and her her label, Tegette. So we did a launch with them a couple of months ago and we created
00:20:50
Speaker
is what I think are really beautiful pants with her. And then we ah we we basically took those the same outputs and made them into pillows instead, which is extremely easy. So very simple at the moment, but consider all kind of woven products are Target or just happen to be at kind of like a bottom weight at the moment. And is your plan to have brands come to you and you make everything or do you eventually want to have these machines spread across more factories, people buy into the the technology and the software rather than having the final output from you? So it's our goal like immediately to not be making anything here and instead to deploy our machines out into the world and to have this plug into the supply chains that exist. And so we have partners in Europe and we're working on partners here in North America to to basically lease our machines and build products for the customers there. So we're already on that trajectory. 3D knitting technology is quite common and out there we had Shimasaki with the whole garment that they brought out a few years ago. What is the difference between 3D knit and 3D woven fabrics? I mean, I know the difference in terms of the material, but I'd love for you to explain that.
00:21:59
Speaker
3D knitting is so cool. It definitely was part of the inspiration for what we do. It's an obvious, you know, obvious comparison on the other side. What I love about 3D knitting is it really is so seamless because knitting for millennia, really, I think I don't i don't i haven't like dug up any samples, but I I think there are people who have found very, very old, like like after null binding was like knitting and it's been around for a long time. And you can basically add loops onto to previous loops to create like new kind of pieces off. So you could build like a sleeve or you could ah change like a heel on a sock. So it's relatively easy to make something that's seamless like changes form.
00:22:41
Speaker
And so it's beautiful for that. It is extremely slow. So a Shimiseki machine is very cool, but it it almost is like a, it's like an FDM 3D printer, like a fused deposition modeling 3D printer where you're adding Z layer by Z layer. Right. And that just takes a very long time. We were just like slowly do that. What the difference for us is that we have on this machine that we've built, there's three of them here, but this particular version of the machine, which is the second generation. there are 2,500 warp yarns going into the machine at once. So you're just building this thing like almost instantly, right? um So we can do, at this moment, being relatively early and not as fast as we can go on i mean do a pant in 10 minutes.
00:23:25
Speaker
If you do that on a Kimaseki, I've heard anywhere from 45 being super fast to like 90 minutes. And so, yes, you're going to end up with a very different product because it's going to be stretchy and it'll be a little bit heavier with all those loops. And it also just takes longer. And economics for factories are a big thing. What are some of the current limitations of this technology and how are you working on overcoming them? There are a lot of limitations because you don't really want to do everything with one machine. but like Okay, strategically, what range of products do we want to cover? That's big enough that customers will be happy with it, but small enough that we can do it really, really well. And we are, at four of these machines, really optimizing for like the bottom half of the body with pants and getting the weight of the fabric right and the shape of the pant legs right. So the limitations are then
00:24:19
Speaker
and the inverse, right? Like anything else that's not pants. So one thing that we're really excited to think about more like shoes and footwear and other accessories. And those are still possible in the machine, but you kind of have to like configure, you just have to change a few like parameters on the machine to make it work. And the same thing, kind of the opposite with with the upper bodies need to go wider. So we can get to smaller body types. Or we can really increase the size of the yarn and get that coverage, but it's a different product, right? Just to get the right cover, you need to increase your size. So those are a couple of limitations. What are the other limitations? I'm sure I could explain other ones, but that's really like we are very focused on that part of the body. We probably couldn't do a yarn that's like, I don't know, more than five millimeters thick, but that's a thick yarn. and
00:25:09
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And we've also had, if anyone comes in with like, I don't know, hand spun, like wool, it's probably not strong enough versus um in a knitting machine. You could, you can run a lot of very weak burials, but here it just requires a little bit more tension. Any material that someone's like walking around that they're wearing, that was made on an industrial loom probably, and that can run on our machine. So it's, it's, it's comparable to what's done in the industry. Explain to us, Beth, then what comes off the the loom and what do you have to do to finish it off to make it a pair of trousers at the end? Right now, again, optimizing for like, what's the, what's as much as we need to cover on this machine without going overboard and making sure we're doing a good job. We have a way of creating an entire pair of pants on a machine, but they're for like speed reasons and for just the customer getting it.
00:26:01
Speaker
we're not going there yet. So right now, what comes off the machine are pant legs. So you have a pant leg that like changes in shape. it It can change in the weave pattern. There there are also sorts of like variables in that pant leg, but it's still two pant legs. So those paint legs need to be joined together at the rise, and then you add the waistband and hem the the bottom. Beautiful. Are you able to quantify the benefits of of weaving a garment on this machine compared to a traditional supply chain that we have? And is there any data points that you're able to share on the impact that you can make with this new machine? Oh, yeah. there So there's like the impact side, like you're mentioning. There's like the business side. From the impact side, we have done two LCAs with GreenStory.com. They've been awesome. so
00:26:44
Speaker
be happy to share those. And those basically bring through the process of our pant versus a traditional pant and seeing what the impact of each are. The first one was a very standard at LCA where you're going unit by unit. So you're comparing one pair of pants to another pair of pants. That's it. The second LCA was really interesting because we said, and this is actually related to an opinion piece I wrote for BOF a few months ago or a year ago, which was why, why are LCAs always unit based when a big problem in our industry is overproduction? It doesn't matter. This shirt is more sustainable than that t-shirt. If you made the t-shirts and no one actually wants them, like they're all
00:27:25
Speaker
bad. So is there a way that we can incorporate the full picture, the big process into that LCA? And Green Story is just, they're very, very intrepid in the way they do. Their LCA is like the person who led it. He is like one of the first doctorates. I think he was the first doctorate in an LCA. Like he really knew how to see this problem. And so they were able to incorporate comparing like what the waist would be with a different pant versus our pant, which would, if it's on demand, not not be overproducing. That was really neat. And we got to, I believe it was 52% CO2 savings with basically our platform. So that's really exciting. And that's even written into some of our contracts with with brands that that we should be saving them their CO2 by you know X amount and it lines up with the LCA. So that's on the LCA side for CO2. You can, there are numbers as well for water.
00:28:24
Speaker
and waste and chemicals. For waste, it's a little bit less of an impact, but it's still there. You don't have cut waste. Typically, you know, you would lay out a piece of fabric that's 2D, cut it up and stitch it together to make like a 3D form. So we are now at under 1% with, there's still that rise. cut. So that still has a little bit of waste and, but compared to 15%, typically, that's what is a big jump. I just, I'm ah so critical. I'm like, we're, we're pretty good enough. yeah good enough yes exactly exactly
00:28:57
Speaker
no So then on the other side with the business side, like that's, that's so important. ah Unfortunately, it is more important for us in some ways. Like we, we at the core, the impact is why we're doing this.
Balancing Business and Sustainability
00:29:10
Speaker
But if it is not a better business decision or a manufacturer and for a brand, then we're not going to exist anymore because that's unfortunately how the end works. But fortunately for us, there is an overlap here that if we can save that material, then we can also save the money. And if we can not make all this excess inventory, then we can also save the amount of money that would have gone into that would have gone to the management of that into the the problems there. So those those are also comparisons that we make, which are
00:29:38
Speaker
You know, very, very Excel driven. I'm not going to go through Excel right now. I'm glad you brought up the brands because it needs to make business sense to them. What has been the sort of main pushback that you've faced from some of the brands? It's great to hear the example with Walmart, but I'm sure it wasn't an easy, you know, have a chat and they're on board. So what's the pushback you're getting from brands at the moment? Oh, Walmart has been so supportive. It's been it's been amazing. but Yes, oh my gosh, so much pushback. it's It's people's jobs, like I get it and I appreciate it because it helps us grow and it helps us learn how we how we can fit in and how probably the biggest one is aren't people expecting seams in their garments and they're gonna look weird. And i I totally get that, especially from like denim heads and
00:30:24
Speaker
Especially garments like a pair of jeans where the highs and lows that you get in a wash at the seams are so important. Great, like let's keep the seam or let's like incorporate some interesting weaving pattern there to kind of get that effect. like I think that is extremely important. But for for most garments, and especially the ones that we're kind of focused on right now, we're focused on chinos and more like denim weight workwear, that sort of product, it actually makes for a cleaner, nicer product. you know It's a stronger product too. It's it's so funny to think about workwear that a consumer sometimes will will look for like a triple stitch on the seam.
00:31:03
Speaker
and like this is a stronger garment, when actually it's stronger to just not have a seam at all, you know, to not have any type of engineers, like blades are always the things that, things where they fail. And so it's the same thing with seams. If you can remove a seam, it's going to be stronger. So it's just a funny kind of thing there. You talk about micro-factories and onshoring playing a critical role in sort of reducing the environmental footprint of a garment. Everything is made in some other country these days. And so it becomes really critical to rethink that whole supply chain, that very fragmented supply chain you mentioned earlier. Could you share a bit about what micro-factories are as you describe it and how you envision it sort of scaling globally? Although we're we're talking about local factories, it needs to scale globally as well.
00:31:45
Speaker
That's a huge question. Yes. Okay. So we'll start. What's a micro factory? It is kind of like a microcosm of a factory. So what are the basic pieces that you need to prove out the model of a factory and to show that it works and to get to small scale production. Basically realize that we could create our our machine, but that we're not going to get any buy-in until we prove it to a manufacturer and to a brand that this thing works. So let's let's show them that it's that it's working in an environment that they understand and they thrive in. So that's what we've basically created here. And we imagine having some more micro factories, but also integrating into current factories. But the idea is
00:32:32
Speaker
to decentralize. Right now, so much happens. it's It's an extremely optimized industry, kind of over-optimized to the point where there are no options anymore. Everything is kind of just one one big thing. And every little piece um is the cost has been driven down so much. It's great, but then it's just, yeah, it's ah like you're like centralized in one area, but then you have like a place for the buttons and a place for like the servers It's it is a lot to wrap your head around. I don't know if you ever followed like NPR's journey of like the t-shirt that happened. i think it was like Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, that was Bangladesh, right? Trying to follow this thing. And that's a simple product compared to most. And so our idea is
00:33:18
Speaker
Can you create more like a fiber shed model where ideally this is like an ideal situation where you're relying on the resources that are local to an area where people can in that area kind of be more self-sufficient in getting what they need, but even better that when they purchase something, it doesn't exist. And then it's made for them locally and arrives at them. locally. So our, our kind of rollout is very broad to start. It's like continent based, like we're going to, this is going to be the Europe continent. This is going to be the North America continent. This is going to be the Asia continent. So it is a bit broad just because of resource standpoint and focusing our efforts on getting like getting just the best microfactories off the ground to start. But then we really want it to be
00:34:03
Speaker
based on cities. Where's the demand coming from? Let's make those products as close to those people as as possible. So creating these micro factories, then you need to have the hardware, which is these machines that you're making. It's easy to do software, like you said. Code, launch, deploy, make changes the next day. It's so fast, but making hardware is a whole other ball game. How has that been that journey been for you in trying to actually build this 3D technology for you? Yeah, the team would have so many answers for this. and And hardware, yeah once you go down one path, it is it is hard to work backwards. Fortunately, we have such an open-minded, curious, excited team that they're good at iterating. like They'll try they'll set up the but set up the first machine, and then we'll test it out with the rest of the team and see what's working, what's not working, and then iterate on particular parts and subsystems of the the machine. First, starting with 3D printing and then
00:35:02
Speaker
might go down to the local like machine shop and get something, you know, like cut locally and then have it made with like a higher fidelity kind of group with like a new type of 3D printing. And then later, maybe if you're going to scale it up, like cast it. So it's, they're very, they're very thoughtful in the way that they prototype. So it's like, they have to be excited, but also patient at the same time. Cause these things take ah weeks to turn. just in general, thinking through how do you how do you take this big vision and then like slice it up into bite sized pieces is something that we're always as a team, we've got branding, commercialization, product, hardware, software, and then some other smaller teams with their
00:35:47
Speaker
and operations, of course, we're always coming together and trying to figure out like, okay, this might be hard for the hardware team to to make, but it's not impossible. But then if we make that change, now operations is going to have to multiply that by how many machines. And so it's just a lot of of back and forth and ah ah some fun problem solving that we are always going through. And what's even more interesting is to add the customer into that. Cause we can have all these chats in a room. Like we had one this morning, actually. oh like What do we think we want to deploy first to this particular factor that we're working with? And we've got each team has their own justification for which kind of ah version. But then in the back of our minds, we're like, but it actually kind of depends on what the customer wants. And there are a lot of things that we we work through there. So it is just takes a lot of flexibility is what we've learned. And how quickly can you implement this machine into you know a factory? To get parts, it's usually about six months, and then we need to assemble them. It's best to assemble on site like instead of kind of assembling one here and then shipping it easier to to kind of have all those little parts show up and then assemble it. So it's another probably month to two months to to assemble it, and then to train someone up to run it. Probably ah so far, it's been about two weeks.
Future of US Manufacturing Jobs
00:37:03
Speaker
And how do you see this technology impacting employment in the garment industry? Because in a way you're taking away a lot of the people in the middle but having to train people in new skills and in new places and cities. It's a really good question and something that we are like we're always having conversations with the US government and especially as we think about how do we start production for Walmart and the US brands that we're working with. That is always a positive kind of conversation because less than 2%, honestly, at this point, probably less than 1% of the clothing that people wear in the US is made here. It used to be almost 100% back in the 50th, right? And then by the 90s, it was like 50% now, or almost nothing is made here. It's just the very amendment from the ah government, you know, that you have to make anything made for the military pretty much has to be made here. That's what's keeping our industry alive here, unfortunately. like i Like, I guess at least they're doing that. But it's unfortunate that they're the only one.
00:38:00
Speaker
So anytime we have a conversation around U.S. manufacturing, it's extremely positive because this is only going to increase jobs here, which is very exciting for the industry. But the harder conversation is OK, but if you were to put this in like you were talking about Bangladesh or like. or like, you know, Vietnam, like, what does it look like for them? And it would really have to be a partnership and like, we're gonna, we're gonna work with your factory. You can upskill the people coming off the sewing line to operate this machine. And it really does feel like someone has to be extremely responsible, but that is a transition that can happen. And we found that just the
00:38:42
Speaker
the the amount of injuries go down, like just the engagement goes up. It's hard to sit at a sewing machine for eight hours a day and just pump more than eight hours in a lot of cases. um so So in that sense, it is a is a positive. It's just the efficiency does decrease the number of people. So that's where we are. But where we want to kind of find that right balance is to not go into the cheap, the places where it labor is extremely you know, affordable regulation is low. Like we don't want to go there to start. we're we're We're addressing Europe and North America to start, where the industry doesn't exist. And then we start to think about where do they used to have industry, but everyone, no one wants those jobs anymore because the middle class is so big and um actually minimum wage is so high that the factory worker factories can't afford their workers anymore. And the kind of quintessential example is China. We've
00:39:36
Speaker
talked to a lot of factories there. And in the past, back when we were kind of, based we were based for a few months in Hong Kong, and we did some work in Shenzhen and met with a lot of factory workers and owners there. And they said, we need automation because people don't want these sewing jobs and the minimum wage is too high. And we're losing so much, so much of our industry to Southeast Asia, even to like Northern Africa. So even China really want, not that we, I'm not putting a particular stance on China here, but even they really feel like they need this. So those kind of in between places where they are starting to lose business would be the next step for us.
00:40:13
Speaker
And I'm curious on the other end how this can change the fashion design process and the designers themselves and how they think about what they want to create when it's made in such a different way and what they might be able to play around with it. I don't know how how much universities also have a role in preparing future fashion and textile students for these new technologies and and the jobs of the future. I love this question and I feel like I'm the wrong, I am a designer but I'm like so in it that I'm the wrong person to ask. I would love to hear Zoe Latas or like Anna Krasch's like opinion. We did collaborations with them and they're both designers and they had so much fun with how do we how do we think about merging materials like the yarn with the final garment and the fabric just kind of grows out of it. It's like you think about it more holistically it's not take the swatch okay can I imagine the swatch as a garment, which is also a beautiful process, but this is just different. It's like, how do I grow this yarn into a woven piece? And beyond that, they also get a lot of control over what that particular garment is, especially in the weave pattern. So typically when you would weave a fabric, it's just a homogenous weave. It's like a twill or it's like a herringbone, and you get that weave across the whole piece. And then when you want to make a garment,
00:41:33
Speaker
You lay your pattern pieces, cut them out, stitch them together. If you want, if you have like a plaid, you need to match up your seams. You don't have to be strategic about where you put that, and then they get it to match. But that's kind of like the engineering that happens. Like that's the most that you really get. Here we can be more like 3D knitting, where that's the knee of the garment. Okay, I'm going to change the weave pattern to like a different kind of twill. and and, you know, increase the reinforcement here or like, Oh, here's the back pocket. I'm going to actually like weave in someone's name with their jacquard optionality. So you actually weave locally, if you will, like you're like weaving off the garment. And it's been like a ah blessing and a curse for our team to be able to do that because the product like capabilities are so exciting.
00:42:22
Speaker
But it does you know add complication to the machine, because now it's also a Jacquard bloom, right? That's what I was going to say. oh It's become a Jacquard now. Exactly. Yeah, so it it is very fun for the for designers to think holistically, and they feel like they have more control over the garments they make. Can you just tell us the dimensions of this machine? um I can't quite imagine what this looks like in a room. I know. Everyone like imagines it being like a desktop, because they're like, oh, 3D printing for garments. like That probably just sits on your desk at home, and we're like, Like the size of a loom. So it's, um, Oh my gosh, I'm not good at meters, but like four meters across and then probably four meters high. And then probably 20 meters, 20, no, like 15 meters long because you got the biggest footprint are the Creoles. Like the the, they hold all the yarn, right? Got 2,500. So that's pretty big. If you could stack those really high, you can decrease the footprint, but we've just made them long.
00:43:21
Speaker
I want to see it someday, but I don't know if I'm in SF sometime, I want to come by and see it. ah So there are three of you that founded Unspun. Tell us a bit more about Walden ah Lamb and Kevin Martin. What's been their role? What are their strengths? What do they bring to the table? And what is the glue that holds you all together? I mean, three founders, it's it's not you know easy. You hear horror stories between founders. How do you sort of stick together? tell you about them. They're awesome. they I got so lucky. Got so lucky with them. Walden and I are like in some ways very similar, but in other ways, very complimentary and different. And he's extremely analytical, very like quantitative and numbers driven. He studied actuarial science as as an undergrad. But I i met i mett him at the end of our time at Stanford. he was I was studying design as a grad student. He was studying at the business school.
00:44:16
Speaker
And he got it instantly. like This was a long this a long time ago I met him, but he got it instantly and really bought into the concept and could even very obviously today bring like so many more ideas and directions and ways of ah framing what we're doing. He's very strong on commercialization and fundraising and like building that kind of business side around what we do. And I can, we balance each other out where I can be like, this is a crazy idea. And he's like, yes, let's, yes, it's crazy. I think it's too crazy in this way, but in this other way, I think someone could buy into it. Right. And then Kevin, we found, well, then I found a year after we had met. So, and definitely worth the weight of a year. A year is a long time in this startup world, but we,
00:45:05
Speaker
had worked with a few other engineers like on a trial basis and no one really got it. Working in engineering and fashion hardware, it's just a weird space. So it takes very particular people to understand it. And Kevin comes in with enough of a technical background to be able to lead from a high level with the engineering team, but extremely like personable and able to translate those concepts for for other people. So he's great with that as a co-founder where he's not actually doing any anti engineering, but he does explain it really well and help bridge a lot of like the ah teams together in that sense. and So when I was founding the ma sheet the the company, sorry I knew I was coming in with like a design background, manufacturing background, and more creative
00:45:52
Speaker
side of things. I'm very outside the box big picture thinker and not as grounded sometimes and so it was I was very intentional about like let's find someone in business and someone in engineering. I just can't imagine better two people to to find the glue that holds us together. and I think we just appreciate each other's differences so much. You would you would not say oh I bet those people all work well together or they're all friends. like ah Instead, yeah, it's very much respecting where each person's coming from and almost appreciating when there's disagreement. Like, oh, I did not think of that.
00:46:28
Speaker
It's gold to find a team like that, isn't it? Just you hold on to it. Yeah. Beautiful. It's great to learn so much about the company itself, Beth, but I'd love to get to know you a bit more as well now. And tell us where you're from, where you grew up, and maybe what your favorite band is as a teenager. if it's Oh my gosh. That was eons ago. I don't remember. Okay. So where did I grow up? I grew up in Maine, in like the middle of Maine, kind of an hour, almost an hour north of Portland, Maine. I appreciate my parents so much for like raising me there. Very relaxed, but still, there's still like the U.S. in America, so you still have opportunities and just so lucky to be here in the U.S., but without the just the craziness of the rest of the U.S. competition and all of that. And access to outdoors was just incredible there. No one lives there, right? is So you get a lot of woods time there. And then my favorite band, oh my gosh. The person I dated in high school was really into dispatch. So do you remember dispatch? They were like, okay. They were such a US, like it was kind of like a Boston centric kind of thing.
00:47:39
Speaker
I remember going to their like last lastitch dispatch. They blocked this road in Boston. and i My parents weren't going to let me go. and I escaped the house. To get to Boston, that's three hours away. like I snuck out and went there. so Anyway, I guess I was a rebel in that sense, but it wasn't was really like such a tame. and It wasn't like a rock medal or anything. And so imagine when you were about 10 years old, if someone asked you what you wanted to become when you grew up, do you remember what you, what your answer was? Did you have a clear idea yeah of what that was? 10 was two years too early. When I was 12, I would have told you a fashion designer because I really, really yeah, I had a friend at the time, her name was Ashley. I've not talked to her in years. Maybe she, she probably won't hear this, but anyway, you know, I would do, it would just like sketch and we're like, yeah, we're going to be designers. And, and I don't know what she's doing now, but.
00:48:34
Speaker
it really stuck with me. And I think I went to, I think it was the next year when I was 13, like just starting middle school or don I was between, like, should I be a fashion designer or should I be a surgeon? I wanted to be like an orthopedic surgeon because because I had gotten a lot of knee injuries. And I think I was like around, you know, or good it I didn't actually get surgery, but I think it was like, Oh, that's so interesting to like, someone's knee and like fix things. So I was very much like an art and science person. And so it's, those, those two fields are, they seem so disparate, but they're not at all. They're extremely connected and,
00:49:15
Speaker
I've been reading a lot about, i I don't know if you've ever heard of the biologist, Edward O. Wilson, but I've been reading a lot of his work recently. He he passed a few years ago, but prolific in the like biology, science world. And he, in one of his books called Consilience, talks about how everything is actually science-based when you think about it. Everything comes from the world around us and the biology that we live in. So there's no reason to believe that art is this like crazy imaginative thing it is actually if you drill it down based on on science. And so I think, i I didn't think about this as a 12 year old, but I think there was something there, like there's things can be connected. And now it kind of makes sense what I'm doing. just It is very much the like science and engineering meets fashion and creative world.
00:50:04
Speaker
You were the Cornell Nordic ski team captain, right? yeah I'm guessing a lot of knee injuries was a result of skiing maybe, I don't know. Tell us a bit about what it was like to be a captain of a ski team and maybe what lessons you carried forward from leading a team today now when you lead your company. o I loved the ski team. i my All my injuries came from soccer, like hands down. right i people are kicking you and snacking into you and such a violent I love Soccer is such a beautiful sport, but it is extremely violent. I kind of wonder now, like with the number of headers that I did, like the the goalie would like punt it from the other side of the field. I'd be like, I'm going to head this.
00:50:47
Speaker
And now I'm, you know, I'm in my thirties. I'm like, why did I have those? Oh, I probably lost years of my life. but Anyway, Nordic seeing much more intense from a endurance standpoint, but, but way less intense in terms of like physical combat. Some people run into trees, but that's like as bad as it gets. Yes. I love that sport. It's really, really demanding and so with full body. and you're just like out in the out in the woods just battling yourself really. it's ah It's extremely intrinsically driven. But what I think I learned from being a captain on that team, that team was in a like a league that included some varsity teams, but we happened to we happen to be a club team. So we were competing against some teams
00:51:37
Speaker
I remember like West Point was in there and all right and like some of these teams had coaches and they had fun funding and budgets. We did not. So I think one big learning was like riling the troops and like getting everyone excited about like, okay, we're going to do fundraising just so we can go out and race. We're going to get the vans so that we can drive the team to the little motel and all sleep on the floor. And we're going to lead our own workouts. And so it was it's it teaches you not only how to drive yourself, like like push yourself to do better, but also to learn how to push other people to do better. And I think one big
00:52:15
Speaker
you know, sub learning of that was, yes, you can try really forcing people like kind of being that leader and telling what people do. But in some ways, it's more powerful but to be the example and like, you know, lead by example. And that was I think, more effective than like the times that I would demand that people go to the parties on the weekends. you know like i wish like Very silly stuff that my teammates continue to joke about. There was one theres one email that I sent out. I was like, you need to be committed to the team. And that includes going to our party this weekend. so yeah And I think i think that like and I'll never live that one down. But instead, you know be the person who shows up at that party and just be excited about it.
00:52:59
Speaker
This is a question I ask all my guests. Is there a piece of textile or clothing that holds very personal memories for you? It doesn't have to be something that you made, or it could be something that you bought or someone gave you, but it holds some very deep meaning or value. I wish I had an answer. I think I view clothing as like fleeting and like, not ephemeral, but like, there should, there should be things that you hold on to, but I just haven't, I haven't really reached that yet. There are like a couple of rings from my grandpa, grandparents that I have, but like no clothing. And I think part of it is this mentality of, is there a way that we can turn
00:53:38
Speaker
the world around us into something that's more compatible with the world that we were born into like this biological world that we've kind of taken over that we've again that we've like diverted all these materials into things that never that never go back into a cycle again and I think I don't know maybe I'm like over analyzing myself now I'm like the fact that I don't have anything that I love does that mean that I'm fighting is it my defense mechanism because I feel like you know clothing should be circular and that we should be should always have value even when they're at and it's at the end of life and
00:54:12
Speaker
Yeah, I do wish that I had like something from my mom. My mom gave me like an old anorak that she had from like the 70s. And it's cool again, because you know, again, cycles. So I do I do love that, that anorak. I mean, today you are on the top 250 female founders list on the Ink Magazine. You've been recognized by Newsweek as one of the top 13 tech innovators really helping to change the fashion industry. And Vogue has recognized you as a sustainability thought leader in 2022. Now that you've kind of come to this place, what would be some advice that you'd give yourself when you were sort of 20 years or 18 years old? How would you have done things maybe differently or what would you tell yourself when you were 20? I'm going to need like an hour to think about this, but I guess my immediate thought is like, keep exploring, keep the doors open. Now is a good time, early career, and honestly, any time, but especially early career is a great time to to take in new ideas and try out new fields. And I think it's very helpful for me that
00:55:18
Speaker
when i When I tried to learn new things that people were generally generally open to it, like some examples, you know even though I studied clothing, I was allowed the opportunity to go like learn biomechanics from like a professor in another design department who worked in the engineering lab. And then you can kind of like weasel your way around into different things. Another opportunity was like I wanted to learn how to run them or how to work a machine shop, but I knew that's kind of a big thing to just dive into. so how can I get my foot in the door? So I taught sewing classes and then would take the other classes like just in my off time. And when when those, you know, becoming friends with the other instructors, like when they had time and then could then teach like the kind of work my way across like the spectrum. It's not like a, it's not like a pecking order. It's just like across different things where maybe the person doing welding was like, Oh, I'm kind of scared of sewing machines. And I'm like, I'm scared of welding. And it's like, but each other so I think seeing,
00:56:17
Speaker
Seeing how you can break down big gaps that way, I would just push myself to do that more and do that in fields I hadn't thought of. like I gravitated towards design, manufacturing, science, art, that sort of thing. I didn't get as much into like biology. And now now I'm starting to do that in my 30s. I was fascinated by it. I don't say I regret not doing it. I just wonder if maybe my path would have been different if I had gone about it slightly differently. But yeah, I think staying open-minded and like
00:56:56
Speaker
chasing new things and making friends who are outside of my immediate circles. Beautiful. I love that. You've managed to raise about $21 million dollars so far and you're about to raise another Series B round. It's never easy to raise money, especially for building hardware and machines for a textile industry that too. What was the first few pictures like and how do you deal with the sort of skepticism that you might've received from the initial investors? Yes. Well, it definitely hats off to Walden in the most recent rounds of funding because he has done an incredible job with that. um In a way, the story becomes easier because it does get built out a bit more. In other ways, the economy does get harder. So it's it's ah it's definitely a given take. But the first few pitches were really, yeah, they were very difficult because as you mentioned, we're in hardware, we're in fashion, like these are
00:57:46
Speaker
These are industries that are generally thought of as not fundable because fashion is so competitive and the turnover is intense and it's so brand driven and you have to be cool. like there's There's a lot there that's hard to crack. You can't just like work hard and make it work. like There's a lot. And then hardware, as you know, it's just like takes a lot of money, a lot of time. It's an investment. And a lot of times they don't physically things don't physically work. You can imagine them like, oh, let's play out this dream. But then you you put the pieces together and they run into each other, or like they just don't turn on. So that is another challenge. and And a lot of, there are very few, if you look at the landscape of venture capital, I don't know the percentage, but it must be like 95% are in software.
00:58:36
Speaker
It just makes sense. Like all you need to fund is like, are like pizzas and some soda. yeah Whatever people are eating now. Soil and salad. I don't know. Whatever people, it fuels them. And then you're with some computers and you're good to go here. where We need the space and we need the equipment and we need all the people to put it together. It's just, it's very expensive. So I think once, but once you've cracked that and like show inspired, like this is what we can do. Then it those things become defenses. They become like actually positive. You're like, whoa, you've gone that far despite these things. Or like, you're the only one doing this because of how hard it is and how crazy and stupid it is. You know, like it's it's a kind of plays in our favor once you can get beyond that. What's been like one of your biggest learning curve in bringing this technology to market?
00:59:28
Speaker
I think one that I'm still working through is how variable people's appetite, especially anyone in the supply chain or working for a brand or working for a manufacturer, understanding their appetite for new and for novelty and for innovation and for trying something that's a little different. some people you meet them and they are just so done with the industry. They're so desperate and they're like, give me anything else. I'm here for it. So that's one side of the spectrum. And then the other side is like, they're in this correct mindset that the industry is so difficult and it's, yeah, it's just like a big beast that how do you fight that? And so they don't believe anything you say. So it's, and so kind of figuring out who are the right people to to speak with, not only
01:00:16
Speaker
have the right mindset, but are in the right positions at the companies and working that all out. And so that's something our team has been, I would say really good at, but it's never, never easy. And then once you find the right thing, that person changes companies and you're like, okay, let's get this over again. Yeah, something that's been, yeah, just in the number of moving pieces and trying to navigate when people are ready for what and not looking at it as like, oh, that company is Walmart, that company is Target. It's like there are people behind there that are, can be really fun to work with. And like, how do you, how do you unlock that? Could you maybe share about a moment in your life that called you to sort of show courage and really step out of your comfort zone? A lot of times we are, we're thinking about how we want to balance what we're producing now and what we're really good at and what the industry is ready for.
01:01:11
Speaker
And so a lot of our conversations are just balancing that, engaging, how risk-taking people are willing to be. So a lot of, I guess like one example would be going to this particular brand who was expecting a product from us and they got a different one and thinking about like, okay, how do ah how do we keep them excited about the end goal here, which they were excited about? and not distract them with this thing that was just a little bit, it honestly wasn't that different, but when you're expecting a particular thing to present it to them and say, like, this is different than what you asked for, but in other ways, it's actually better. Like, look at the quality of this weave and look at the, you know, the shaping and look at this. It's a little different than what you asked for because, you know, the yarn's bigger or like the, in that case, that's what it was.
01:02:01
Speaker
and just trying to like keep that going. That's not like, it's a one-on-one conversation. It's not like a crazy thing. yeah never I've never like had the veil pulled over me in front of an audience maybe like that. I know every founder, you know, one thing they've done a lot of is, is fail and they get up and they keep going. I mean, it's clearly extremely stressful to, to, to start a startup and then run it. And now in this phase where you're really trying to scale it up. And one of the things I've seen many, many founders go through is complete burnout in that process.
Managing Burnout in Startups
01:02:35
Speaker
And then when the, when the founders burnout, the wrong decisions get made and it just sort of just has a,
01:02:41
Speaker
ripple effect on the whole team. How do you take care of yourself and your team's mental health and wellness? How do you kind of keep everyone going together? That's so hard. Yeah. For me, I'm forced to remove myself from the company every day, like to physically and mentally because I have two kids. It's really hard. Fortunately, it's very hard to be like juggling a conversation and like, okay, I'm going to need to figure out what this brand wants or like, what what is this investor asking at the same time that I'm like doing a diaper, right? It's not possible but physically and mentally. So that actually in a way has prevented for a while.
01:03:22
Speaker
It sounds very weird and I know I look extremely tired and I am extremely tired. But I don't, I definitely overwork myself like when you count the number of hours in a day. But from like, what are you thinking about? And when do you give yourself mental break standpoint? I think I'm actually doing really well because I do have to turn off on spot for a couple hours a day just to be with my kids. So in a way, it's kind of like awesome. Wow. I mean, a mom and a startup founder, and you feel like that's what gives you the balance. That's beautiful. It's a testament to the Unspun team for sure, because it would be so hard to do a one-person business as a mom, because who's going to pick up the slack when you're not there, but when you're with a team as dynamic as Unspun?
01:04:12
Speaker
It really works with people. have and we just we're not We don't call ourselves family because it's a little too much, but we we very much understand where everyone's coming from and can give that support like as needed. We can push each other when we know, hey, there's this thing and you're supposed to do it, but we also know when to back off and like, okay, they can do that later because this is where life is taking them right now. How big is the team at the moment? We're about 50 people. Okay. but it's a nice a very nice size so Yeah. and So this question came up cause I read an article this morning and I was like, we we need to talk more about this. It's so important. So the CEO of Grindr and an interview with fortune had talked about.
01:04:53
Speaker
how being a founder in America today requires being, in quote, arrogant and crazy. And Steve Blank, who's sort of considered the father of startups and all of that, he also said, you know ah founders at their core are nuts and and because they have to be insanely driven to make something out of nothing. And I can see that you're not arrogant. You're not crazy. like You're not nuts. You're just an amazing, lovely person, Beth. And I love that you have still managed to build a really successful startup in in Silicon Valley. How do you sort of keep yourself in check and and not turn into one of these monsters?
01:05:30
Speaker
But also, how do you change this culture? Because this seems to be the culture that's almost encouraged in a way. This is like, you know, the persona of of a CEO these days, which I don't think is very healthy. And it's not a way to kind of encourage other startups to feel like that's what that's how they need to behave to be successful. So how do you find that? I don't know, this is so hard. I completely agree that it's like broken and i get I get so frustrated that even going to like climate tech events, like most of our circles in the Silicon Valley world are climate tech and that skews more hardware than then software, which is nice for us, but it still skews extremely like white male and
01:06:17
Speaker
It is just um a friendlier environment for them because they might skew into the same hobbies and the same interests and things like that. So it can sometimes be intimidating going to those events and trying to fit in. From a work standpoint, I think there's no getting around, not working hard, of course, like no argue with that. But like the hustle culture that has been talked about isn't the healthiest. I think something that going into design school that my for my grads design school that my like fellow classmates and I always like tried to push each other to do is you're gonna be a bad designer and not a creative person if you hold yourself up in a room and just work all the time. You're not engaging in the world. You're not creating things that the world needs. You're just, yeah, you're just a robot. And so I think that's something to remember too. So many Silicon Valley companies
01:07:14
Speaker
i I can't even read some of the news and a lot of funding announcements that come out anymore because they're frustrating. there're They're absolutely in a bubble. It's like, do we really need another app to help pick up your dog's poop? We don't need these things in the world. like And we're not only more creative about how we do business and make things that people need, but just be more mindful and empathetic to to the world. And I think that's, anyway, but I'm going off on a tangent. I don't remember your question, but I think that that is a huge problem. It's definitely there. i I personally know investors who are trying to fight this problem.
01:07:55
Speaker
and to have funds that are about diversity. But absolutely, so many investors, it's their job to pattern match. And if they've seen something before, then they're go to they're going to expect to see it again. And we've experienced that as as a company and in various ways as well. So this is a question that was left for my previous guest, Vibeke Vespi. ah She's from Norway. And she actually created the first digital Jacquard hand loom. So she actually made a loom as well. And she's amazing. I mean, she's been doing it since the nineties. Incredible woman, but she didn't know you're the next guest. So she's just left a question and I'm slightly paraphrasing this for you, but her question was, when did you realize that this invention technology company had potential?
01:08:46
Speaker
Oh, I am. I'm so easily bought into things. I just like go with my gut. So I was like, I think seeing something, some yarns floating around in my head was enough to convince me. But then it's like you get through different stages of like fiction for me. Like that this was worth pursuing and experimenting with, like all I need is something in my head because I just chase things that that I'm curious about. But as far as like, okay, and now I'm going to commit to this being my life. I think for that I needed to see.
01:09:19
Speaker
Well, I did first some sketches. I was like, OK, can you 3D weave via sketching like how this like all comes together? And that seemed like it could work as a garment. And then it's like, OK, well, the how would a machine do this? And then some of the first prototypes just took stepper motors and some like actuators and yarn and some like hollow tubes. And it just kind of wove. as it moved around very slowly, very, very janky, using, you know, a Raspberry Pi, really, really basic stuff that I wouldn't be able to run our, like I would not be able to design our machine today, but I could design something like that. But seeing that things are not, that it's actually physically possible to do the 3D weaving, that was enough for me to start pitching venture capital. So it was actually pretty
01:10:07
Speaker
quick It was like a couple of months. Oh, wow. And I'd love for you to leave a question for our next guest. It could be anything that you want to find out. It'll be definitely someone in textiles. Textiles, okay. That helps, yeah. Okay. okay If they had to choose a a path, like a career path or a profession outside of textiles, what would they choose and why? Oh, nice. I I think it was inspired by some of your previous questions because you you got me thinking about surgery now. I'm like, oh, yeah. Glad I didn't go down that path.
01:10:42
Speaker
Are there any sort of interesting side projects? I'm guessing you you've got a lot on your plate, but anything that piques your curiosity these days that you kind of keep running along on the side. I oh my gosh at this point I'm like getting old and I'm so driven by like big like why are we here questions and and I've been reading I mentioned Edward oh Wilson and I've been reading a lot of you all know Harari and just like why are humans here and how have we evolved and I I'm getting deep into like evolution and
01:11:16
Speaker
thinking about evolution within the design field is really fascinating to me. So it's not really, it's more just like thinking about it, but I'd like to write some pieces about it eventually and and start to navigate like the bigger picture of what where Unspun can fit into where manufacturing should live, like in humanity and like the way that we exist in the world and are all of the things that we're doing good or bad and how much control should we have over our planet and over our species and the evolution of our planet and the evolution of our species and just like how that's all integrated. I'm like weirdly obsessed with that stuff. Wow. Any reading recommendations for that? Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, if your listeners haven't read sapiens, like that's far and away.
01:12:05
Speaker
one of my favorites. And I'll probably read it again soon. But yeah, so I would i would say anything in Yuval's kind of series there. And then I'm slowly working my way through Edward O. Wilson's like whole, he has, I think wrote 100 books, I'm not going to do 100. I like think I'm going to read the top 10 or so. That stuff is is fascinating to me. And someone that I haven't followed in a while that like this question is now making me think like, what is she up to now is Nari Oxman. I used to love her work. And I really want to see what she's up to now that she's transitioned from the MIT Media Lab into like her own kind of thing. So I would say
01:12:44
Speaker
If your listeners are interested in stuff I've been talking about, probably Nari and her work is interesting as well. I'll try and find some links and put that in the show notes as well to help them. Last question, what is an important or really critical topic in fashion or textile industry that we're not hearing much discussion around? And why should we highlight and talk about it? One that is actually getting a decent amount of discussion within my small circles, but not in the greater world. is, I mean, microplastics and toxicology and thinking about what we're wearing and the things that we ingest. And I read To Die For recently. and Yeah, and very much recommend that book. I think we need more discussion. This kind of ties into those concepts of like,
01:13:35
Speaker
how do we interact with the ah world around us? And we've kind of changed the molecular structure of a lot of things in the world in a way that's like poisonous to ourselves. And I worry about my kids because, I mean, for obvious reasons, like they're, they're breathing all of the things they're wearing and it's coming in through their skin. But also like when they were in my womb, I hear they're like, there was ways that they, they captured the microplastics that were within my body. And it's just, It's terrifying to me and it's you know like so personal, but it also is across the entire industry. If we're getting it, think of the factory workers. They're yeah they're getting at a much deeper level. So I think something to to do more research on is what you see in the book to die for. like More breach research money needs to go into, should we be using the materials that we use?
01:14:25
Speaker
I love the idea of recycling, but should we even still be using polyester is something that I'm kind of concerned about. Yeah. Not to end on a such a negative note. sorry No, no, that's, I mean, that's what I want to do. We should be talking about this. Absolutely. and We don't. Yeah. ah Beth that was fascinating thank you so much for just that journey that you've taken me on you've been you know just not just with Unspun but just also I feel i feel like I understand you in your thought and your you know how you work and how you think about the world
01:14:56
Speaker
So inspiring, I think, for other startups to hear your story as well and how you've navigated that space and bring some revolutionary technology. That's always exciting for someone who loves textiles and a loom. Really, really great conversation. Thank you so much for your time. What a fascinating conversation. Beth just opened up so many ideas about what the future of garment manufacturing could look like. She really is someone who can think 10 years out and reimagine the way we do things. To truly change the material hogging over production culture we have accepted as normal, we need to think radically different.
Unspun's Bold Industry Moves
01:15:34
Speaker
And that is what Beth and her team at Unspun are clearly doing.
01:15:38
Speaker
I can sense her determination and focus on solving the biggest challenges, not just by taking small steps, but big, bold steps, trying to really turn the tide of the industry. I know it's hard to visualize the Vega 3D weaving technology, but check out their website for some video simulations they've shared. It's a game changer. It eliminates the traditional processes of weaving, rolls of fabric, cutting patterns out of it, and sewing them together into
Sustainable Fashion Innovations
01:16:04
Speaker
garments. This innovation not only saves material, time, and cost for companies, but also paves the way for a more sustainable future in fashion. I've included links to the books Beth mentioned in the show. Do check that in the show notes. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari has been on my reading list for so long, and I'm finally going to dive into it this summer. I'd highly recommend it.
01:16:28
Speaker
If you follow this show, you would have listened to episode 11 with Wibekke Wetzbe and the digital Jacquard hand loom that she has invented. If you haven't listened to that, do check it out. It's another fascinating conversation with a pioneer who has reimagined the Jacquard loom. It's really incredible to see such transformational development in weaving and innovators who are disrupting one of the oldest technologies in the world.
Listener Engagement and Sign-Off
01:16:51
Speaker
I love it. If you've enjoyed this episode or have any feedback, please leave a review or connect with me via email. My address is in the show notes below. If you found this helpful, inspiring, do share the episode with your friends and colleagues as well. And if you'd like to show your appreciation, you can buy me a cup of coffee using the link below in the show notes. A cup or two helps me work late into the night as I edit these episodes and bring them to you.
01:17:17
Speaker
Thanks again for joining me for another episode of the No Ordinary Cloud Podcast. This is your host, Millie Theron.