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Ep 17. Scaling an E-textiles Startup and Soft Electronics for the Auto Industry with Madison Maxey
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Join us on this episode of No Ordinary Cloth as we welcome Madison Maxey, the visionary founder and CEO of Loomia, a pioneering company in e-textiles. Host Mili Tharakan sits down with Maddy to explore her incredible journey from fashion design at Parsons to creating cutting-edge, soft and flexible electronics that are now making way into the automotive and robotics industries.
In this episode, Maddy shares her story of resilience, innovation, and the highs and lows of building a business in a challenging industry. Loomia’s breakthrough LEL (Loomia Electronic Layer) technology is helping redefine how we think about integrating electronics with textiles for better electro-mechanical properties but the road hasn’t been easy. With limited funding and market interest in e-textiles, Maddy has successfully built a revenue-generating e-textile startup.
For many listeners working in emerging textile technologies, this conversation will resonate deeply. As you work to find that elusive product-market fit, early adopters, and the right market, Maddy’s insights offer a beacon of hope and practical strategies for navigating this complex journey.
We dive into the real challenges of turning prototypes into products, and Maddy highlights the role of perseverance and customer obsession in creating a successful business. She also shares career advice for aspiring e-textilers and her vision for the future of this rapidly evolving field. Discover the fascinating intersections of textile, electronics and engineering — and gain invaluable insights on what it takes to make an impact in e-textiles.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation packed with insights, strategies, mindsets for textile entrepreneurs.
Loomia: Website I Samples I Linkedin
Mili Tharakan: Linkedin I Instagram I Buy me a coffee
Contact me: No Ordinary Cloth
Recommended listening:
Ep 9. Disobebient Fabrics: A Journey in Smart Textiles with Linda Worbin
Ep 3. Knitting Mathematics and Musical Textiles with Sophie Skach
Ep 1. Light and Lace with Sara Robertson
Cover art: Photo by Siora, Photography on Unsplash
Music: Inspired Ambient, Orchestraman
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Textile Innovations
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome back to the No Ordinary Cloud podcast, where we stitch together a rich tapestry of textile innovations, one episode at a time. If you're curious about the art, science, and business of textile innovations, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Millie Tarakin, a textile innovator and researcher, and in this podcast, I give you a glimpse into the future and shed light on innovations bubbling up at the intersection of textiles, emerging technology, craft, and sustainability.
00:00:32
Speaker
Join me as I sit down with pioneering academics and entrepreneurs radically reimagining your practice and connect you to a community that will fuel your imagination and creativity.
Exploring New Textile Technologies
00:00:48
Speaker
On this podcast, we talk about emerging textile technologies. These are often technologies and new materials in the very early stages of development. Innovations that are trying to find a product market fit. And I know many of you listeners are on this journey and you dream of the day where you can find that perfect match and find your early adopters that will get your business off the ground and you start to see some revenue.
00:01:09
Speaker
But as many of you know, this journey can feel very long and challenging as you spend years experimenting to find this product market fit, to find your early customers, and even to figure out what your product is. And sometimes you wonder if there will ever be light at the end of the tunnel. Well, on this episode, we have light. Yes. We're speaking with Madison Maxey, the visionary CEO and founder of Lumia, who has found that light after years of hard work, perseverance, and a lot of experimenting. Lumia is a soft and flexible e-textile company that is serving the automotive and robotics industry.
00:01:45
Speaker
If you know much about the e-textile or electronic textile industry, you would know that this has been a tough technology to bring to market. There has been very little funding in this area recently and very little traction from the market. But against all odds, Maddie has found a way to build a revenue generating
Madison Maxey's Journey into E-Textiles
00:02:02
Speaker
startup. And I am so excited to have her here with us to share her insights, strategies and mindsets that got her here. From running a fashion blazer business to becoming a pioneer in the e-textile industry in our conversation today, She highlights the importance of perseverance and customer obsession as being the key to building a successful business. She also offers career advice for aspiring e-textiles and thoughts on the future of e-textile industry and what we could be doing better. There is so much to learn from Maddie, so let's join her right now.
00:02:34
Speaker
Hey Maddie, welcome to No Ordinary Club podcast. I am so excited to have this conversation with you. You've been on my list of guests for a really long time, um really since the start of this this podcast. So it's great to have you finally on it. I'm not sure if you remember when we first met. I think it was at an eTextile conference, maybe an IPC event that was organized.
00:02:55
Speaker
Maybe 2016-ish? It was just so wonderful to meet someone who was so full of energy and curiosity and passionate about developing e-textiles. Rather someone who was really seeing the potential of soft electronics to create this bond or connection between humans and technology.
00:03:14
Speaker
That's always been your focus. And I've been a huge fan of your work since. I think the reason for that is because I've just really admired how you've persevered. You know, I know Lumi is 10 years old now, almost 11. You've really persevered, worked hard and stayed very focused. And you were always about making beautifully designed, highly functional products that merge electronics and soft goods together.
00:03:40
Speaker
I mean, I stole that line from your website because that is exactly what you've achieved to do with Lumia. And I really considered Lumia as sort of like the gold standard for eTextile components. So I really want to get into that and all that you've built over the last 10 plus years.
00:03:56
Speaker
So let's start with where you are today at Lumia.
Understanding the LEL Circuit Platform
00:03:59
Speaker
You have created soft and flexible electronics, also known as e-textiles or electronic textiles. Could you tell us what products you offer at Lumia and also explain the technology development that you've done, what you call the Lumia electronic layer or the LEL tech that you have built? Absolutely. And thank you for the kind words, Millie. I appreciate it.
00:04:27
Speaker
you bring, the products you've launched. So it's nice to keep in touch and hear such nice to feedback back from people I also respect in this space. So thank you. But yeah, our LAL.
00:04:39
Speaker
is a soft and flexible circuit platform. So similar to how you could pattern a standard PCB to do lots of different things, you can pattern our technology for different functions. The main ones that we focus on are heating, cabling, antennas,
00:04:57
Speaker
HMI and pressure sensing. HMI is like switching and lighting, so human-machine interface. Right now, heating is pretty big plus. It's simple, maybe it's boring, but it's where some of our biggest clients are. And then also pressure sensing is a big one for us as well, or force-sensitive resistors. So we're really digging in on those. But we also plan to launch some new functionalities next year. So stay tuned yeah to see what comes up next.
00:05:25
Speaker
Nice. So LEL started as a project during your Artisan Residence Program at Autodesk. So can you tell us about what you were doing then and how you started creating e-textiles or um soft electronics and how it's evolved over time and the iterations that it's gone through?
Transition from Fashion to Soft Electronics
00:05:58
Speaker
facilities or machinery, ideally their software. And so prior to coming to Autodesk, I had been hired for a few wearable technology oriented projects and prototypes. And the prototypes were okay, but they really weren't robust and reliable.
00:06:21
Speaker
would be like, what's next? There's no clear way to make this commercially viable or even just more reliable. And so during my residency, I really sort of double clicked on this question and started researching conductive inks.
00:06:36
Speaker
To better understand how printed electronics worked, at in order to mix up some formulas. And I built a plotter and was printing circuits directly onto fabric.
00:06:59
Speaker
From there, I knew some people who were starting a VC fund. I think that this is one of those points where it was really just luck. And they were like, hey, if you want to make this into a company, we'll invest in you. And I was like, OK, sounds good. yeah Great. Now I don't need to get a job. so
00:07:19
Speaker
And so yeah, that's sort of how it became Lumia. And, you know, actually then the company was called The Created. We had a few more investors come on and they were like, we hate this name, you have to change it. So we're like, okay, whatever you want. You don't have that important to me with the name as long as we could make the product. So that's really how it shifted from working on other people's projects to focusing on this problem of how do we make scalable, robust, reliable, flexible soft electronics.
Business Strategy: Components vs. Consumer Products
00:07:50
Speaker
And so you started creating these modular systems, almost sort of solutions that people can plug and play into existing production lines potentially. What made you go down, I mean, you sort of answered it, but what made you go down that path of building components rather than building a product direct for consumer, which is what a lot of the industry was heading towards?
00:08:08
Speaker
Ah, I mean, part of it was resources in the sense that we just, it was a combination of resources and skills where, you know, we had this discussion a lot because I think people really like the idea of a final product. It's very easy to accept. So if you tell someone, I am making this heated back wrap that you can buy, look at the pictures, they'll be like, oh great, cool, or maybe they won't like it, who knows, but there's kind of a definitive answer. If you tell someone I'm making flexible electronic components, they'll generally like.
00:08:49
Speaker
product. There are parts of things for engineers and designers. But anyways, we definitely felt some pressure to go towards something that just was kind of easier to explain. Final commercial product, super focused. But looking at our team, we didn't feel like we were We wanted to go into really marketing-heavy direction. I yeah i i know some marketing because I need to for a business, but I definitely wouldn't say that marketing is my calling in life. you know I love the product development, and our CTO Eski also really loves the product development.
00:09:26
Speaker
And I think with that, creating a final end product really is mostly marketing. Like once you've made the product, it's about marketing it until everyone has one. And then you make new products and then you market those until everyone has one. And we were like, we just aren't going to be that good at this. And it's also really expensive. So instead we were like, let's.
00:09:47
Speaker
Mid components, we like that more. It's interesting. We want to work with engineers. We want to work with designers. And so this product was a better fit for us personally. It was a better fit for our budgets. And it felt like in the long term, it would be more feasible. ah We wouldn't get stuck in a place where we needed a huge marketing budget to make the product a success.
00:10:09
Speaker
So you actually studied fashion design at Parsons. That's where you your sort of career started. And if I and understand correctly, you're pursuing a career in fashion industry. And in fact, I found an interview of yours when you were I think about 19 years old and And where you had mentioned that you, I mean, this is something you've enjoyed doing since you were about 15 or 16 years old. Fashion was everything you wanted to do. And in that interview, they asked you what your 10 year vision for your company was as a fashion brand. And your big dream was to get your blazer line into anthropology. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, you know, at that point, when I was in college, this sort of was my first turning point.
00:10:53
Speaker
I didn't really want to go into fashion. I think the things that I loved most were the materials and the construction techniques. And so I think a lot of the work that we do now leans much more into that. I used to like to go to the mall and play the fiber identification game where you feel a fabric and you're like, oh, it feels like 20%. This goes 80% pause, you know what I mean?
00:11:18
Speaker
I still have this book I bought as a teenager, which is like a book full of fabric swatches in their fiber content. And you can like be like, that's the very times right content. Unfortunately, in the fashion industry, that's not really what you spend your time on, as technical details of software construction. And so I think, i That's sort of how I ended up on this path. And I think a lot of the work that we do still takes a lot of, because you know the fashion industry is so much about making things work to take the line from Tim Gunn, but you know it's like, you really have to do a lot of creative problem solving with materials that you have and with the skills that you have. And I think we take some of that mentality into our work, but then we try and really back it up with data and science and measurements and rigor.
00:12:14
Speaker
And so that's all really coming together. But yes, at that point, um when I was in college, in my dorm room, I asked my college roommate to start a blazer company with me. And that's what helped me get the Teal Fellowship, which was this grant to leave school for two years, because I already like had a business when I applied.
00:12:32
Speaker
But when I started the Teal Fellowship, I saw all these cool tech things that other people were
00:12:57
Speaker
a blazer business has less complications than an e-textile business, I'm guessing. Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. So that's a big transition from blazers to e-textiles. What caught your attention about wearable technology or smart textiles and how did you make that transition? It's a whole new set of skills, learning about electronics and technology. What did those early days feel like and where did you think it was going to take you?
Influence of Family on Madison's Career
00:13:23
Speaker
I mean so I think for me it never felt like a really fine line transition or a big change. I think part of this came from my father. He was an aerospace engineer and he was the one who taught me to sew because he liked to to make his own pants, and he liked to make curtains and slipcovers for our house. And he was always soldering things in the living room. So to me, it was not weird. I was like, some days you sew, some days you solder, like that's how we live our lives. Exactly. He decided he wanted to regrow to the bathroom and he read a book and he was like, I know.
00:14:00
Speaker
You know that that was sort of his amazing mentality. So yeah You know, I was like, oh
00:14:38
Speaker
needed. But the interest itself felt like a kind of natural progression. And so tell us a bit more about this. You went back to school quite recently, isn't it, a few years ago just to finish your B.S.E. in material science at Stanford. What was that like being back in school with all this experience of, you know, starting a company? How did that feel?
00:15:13
Speaker
focus and I felt like I had the tag management skills to handle the work in a way that you don't, if you don't have a lot of things pulling at you or if you're trying to fresh out of high school,
00:15:23
Speaker
The classes I saw, I feel like I looked at them with Lumi Alenza's honors like, will this help my work? Will this help my work? Like I took a life cycle analysis class that taught you how to do a product life cycle analysis because I was like, this will be relevant. And then the next year, you know, I took all of the information from that class and I worked with one of our one of my teammates gg to do an lca for our new electronic layer it's not a full lca but i had all the tools to be like this is how you choose a functional unit this is the database that we can use for all the mature properties so yeah every class i took i felt like pushed me a little bit
00:16:00
Speaker
further in terms of yeah in terms of leaving as to that was my goal think it was very helpful like i had a fire to learn
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's different when you're sort of older and you have a lot of experience behind you and then you go back to school. You just value that time so much more and you have questions that you want to ask and learn about rather than being so young and you're just not, you're just sort of sitting there being much more passive in that learning experience. So I know it's tricky for people to find that time, but I don't know how you do it. You, you're running a startup and going back to school. Amazing. The team was very important.
00:16:45
Speaker
and critically so, if not for a team, it would not have been possible.
Development Timeline and Investment in Lumia
00:16:51
Speaker
You set up Lumiere in 2014. Did you have a team? Is this a team that you sort of built up along the way? How many of you are there in your team? Yeah, look at the breakdown over time, there are definitely clear phases. So from 2014 to 2016,
00:17:15
Speaker
I incorporated this company. I did not ended up doing a lot of wearable tech when we got our first investor money in. And that's when I started hiring people and we were like, okay, we're making We're solving this particular problem. 2016-17 until 2019 was really product development. So we didn't have
00:17:59
Speaker
2019 was when we first started getting customers for joint developments or product development scopes. One of these customers was a big aerospace company. And in 2020, that all fell apart because air travel was no
00:18:24
Speaker
back on the track that we set out to be on. So there are lots of these like little chunks within the company timeline. I would say sort of in 2016, I started working with Eski, who's our CTO, and we've been working together ever since. So that's been a really great partnership for the company. And then we've kind of brought people on a along the way. What were some of the challenges that you faced in the early days of setting up Lumia in the first five years, for example?
00:18:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:19:15
Speaker
things in particular know-how, which we didn't really have. So I think there was this learning curve of figuring out, I would see
Early Challenges and Customer Focus
00:19:46
Speaker
And so I think part of it was just figuring out what models to follow. Of course, money is always hard because you need money for things and you may not have that money. So you have to figure things out. And then I think the last part was learning to sell to customers was difficult. You know, we sell a lot to large companies. We sell to someone seasoned engineers. We needed to get together a process to understand.
00:20:10
Speaker
how to earn their trust, how to position our product properly, and how to get those deals. I mean, earn the right to make and work on cool things because you can get those things to market. So that was definitely a challenge, but it's also very important.
00:20:30
Speaker
Well, from following your work over the years, at least from the outside, it seemed like there was a clear strategy. It was all very methodically worked out and you had these e-textile solutions that you offered, but I have a feeling it wasn't so straightforward. So tell us how you started figuring out where, where you're going or where there was a need or where you could find a market for what you were developing.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. I easily. But yeah, I mean, I think that the biggest North Star, especially for me and Esen's 2019, has been the customers. So we basically all do whatever people who fit into our qualified customer profile want us to do.
00:21:22
Speaker
and
00:21:31
Speaker
clear voice that we follow has helped a lot. And whenever we didn't have that clear customer voice, we were like, is our customer students, their customer makers? I think we were asking a lot of those questions around like 2018, maybe even some of 2019. That's where it becomes hard to make decisions. Right now, I think our customer feels really clear.
00:21:52
Speaker
So it's much easier to have a clear strategy because we're like, if so and so needs it, if so and so wants it, then maybe we should probably do it. We should make a plan to do it. and A lot of times within e-textiles, it's been much more of a tech forward approach. So you created this technology and they're sort of walking around trying to figure out where where it would make sense and where the market is. So when you when you had all these prototypes and you know some stage of product that you had developed, how were you trying to engage customers to find out where or who that that right fit might be?
00:22:25
Speaker
i point I don't think we were doing a lot of outbound. We had some decent press, and I think that the press was helping us to attract really early adopters. And it's like once someone fell in our net, we would do everything we could to try and capture them, try and serve them, give their needs, and then product without knowing which applications it should be used for. I definitely think we started with that
00:22:56
Speaker
technique i mean kind of lack of technique and like Technology first, let's make a thing, maybe people will go buy it. But I think over time, we started listening and refining. I wish I could see that I came up with some of these use cases that we think do well, but it's really been customers. It's like sometimes can we hear patterns, like four people ask for the same thing in the same, you know, in a period of six months, and they're all competitors. And so you're like, okay, that's a hot topic. We got to prove that we can do this to one of these people.
00:23:28
Speaker
so that we're in this market and yeah right now it's very much so about listening to the voices that we have coming in. Back then, I think the press helped us actually get people talking to us. that That was also, I think, somewhat of a um a lucky thing that we were able to at least get a few drips and drops of people interested enough to get some momentum.
00:23:53
Speaker
In 2016 to about 2019, while you're doing the product development and research, could you talk us through what what that phase looked like, what your process is for research and development?&D is a difference between something we call genesis and
00:24:22
Speaker
is sort of built for two different personality types, which I think is somewhat minded as youth personality types, where some people are very good with very little direction and a big goal. proof of concept. And that's sort of the genesis. But again, you can prove it's possible. Nobody will buy it until it's been refined. And it's a different kind of person who takes that genesis and makes it, you know, test it, evaluate it, makes the design look great, makes the performance improved. So that's the refinement period. And so all of our R&D
00:25:03
Speaker
Even for the original Lumi Alaire, we tried to slot Quick and dirty scrappy. This is the direction. OK, now let's refine it. Let's get to a place where somebody will want it. Somebody might buy it. And then the next step from there is commercialization. think That's really what we're looking at today, is OK, let's get them to buy lots of them. Let's move it to the next level. That was like the backbone process this genesis and refinement
00:25:35
Speaker
idea And now you're really in that place of marketing and getting this into sort of you know actual customers who are paying for your orders.
E-Textiles in Automotive Interiors
00:25:44
Speaker
You're really starting to scale that up. And one of the main markets that you've identified is the auto industry, um the automotive industry. And you've been working with the likes of Ford and Hyundai and others. So tell us a bit about the auto industry. I know very little about it. what what What is capturing their interest in soft and flexible technology? What problem are you solving for them?
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, so we kind of pinned down that our technology or e-textiles in general tend to serve or solve in-electromechanical problems. So and and it's a combination of electronic issues and mechanical issues where you need electronics to perform a certain way.
00:26:19
Speaker
but also have a certain set of mechanical properties, like drapeability, conformability, stretch, all these things that they normally don't have. And the automotive industry, especially the automotive interior, is covered with textiles that also often mean sound electronic functionality in dotted.
00:27:15
Speaker
You know, often people hear textile, if you textile, and they're like, you're making t-shirts, and it's like, t-shirts are $20, it's really hard. to put electronics in that in a way that's going to be so valuable that somebody doesn't care if it's, you know, 10 times the price. But for cars, they're already very expensive. They do have small margins, they are very cost sensitive, but they already have a budget line for heater. They already have a budget line for switch panel. So it's like, if we can get ours in inside of the other person's component, that's an opportunity that's so much more
00:28:03
Speaker
They want these sort of technologies for electric mechanical reasons. Sometimes they want them for manufacturing efficiency or cost saving reasons. There are reasons that people can put some money behind.
00:28:15
Speaker
So that's one of our favorites. Wow. That so seems like a match made in heaven. Again, in during my research, I found out that one of the things that you really struggled with when you were doing your blazer collection was trying to get appointments with buyers at fashion houses naturally. That's tough. I'm guessing it's equally or far more difficult to kind of get your foot into the automotive industry and get speaking to people there or not. I don't know. How did you, how did you get your foot in there? It is difficult.
00:29:03
Speaker
is very subjective. You know, you're like, I like that scarf, I don't like that one. And that's the choice. I think that for the automotive industry, it can be hard to get your foot in the door, but they don't have as many people. Like it's not, it's kind of an opaque world. So the people who are reaching out are kind of already interested in doing an automotive component. They have some sort of technological solution. It's already kind of narrowed down. And also the decision making is much more objective, not completely, of course, but it's, you know, they're like, can you pass this test? Can you pass this test? Can you meet this price? If so, maybe we could tap.
00:29:38
Speaker
If you can't, come back to us when you can. And so I think that we just kept taking that information and being like, now we can pass this test. Now we can meet this price. And that really helped us to warm up these relationships versus if you're talking to a fashion buyer, it's a lot harder to be like, do you like this season's scarf? Do you like this season's scarf? Yeah, it's hard to really ah if you're persistent it's harder to have that persistence payoff But in terms of getting our foot in the door, there is a program called Plug and Play. but so So we just announced this partnership that we're working on with Yan Feng, who's an automotive tier one supplier. We met them through Plug and Play, which is this startup accelerator program. So the program, I really love it, actually. I think they're doing just the right thing because they do invest, but their main focus is on making partnerships between corporates who want to innovate and startups.
00:30:29
Speaker
and if they see that corporates are buying your thing, then they might want to invest in you, which is really smart on their end. So they made that initial connection and it was a warm connection because they're part of Public Play because they want to meet startups. So Public Play really helped us get going. And then from there, I feel like the more we learn, the easier it is to get in the door because when you tell someone, I can pass these tests, we have auto industry, we know this, they're much more open to talking to you.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine once you've found this product market fit, your strategy has also sort of shifted a little bit because now you're thinking about the supply chain, scaling, price points. How has that been over the last, say, three, four years now that you're really honed in on who your customer is, what they need, what targets you need to meet? How has that changed the company? I mean, it's really been what it feels like.
00:31:41
Speaker
What's the best way to reach them? And that was a really hard question. Strangely enough, you know, you can think engineers at automotive tier ones. They're not really using Instagram. They're not on TikTok. They like have really strong spam blockers. So it's hard to do really good outbound. They do trade shows, but trade shows are really expensive. So we're like, is that really the best use of our budget to spend, you know, $10,000 going and showing up somewhere?
00:32:42
Speaker
process to dad get all the way to the finish line. Thinking about scaling up, how have you worked out your supply chain, making one to a hundred to a thousand to
Scaling and Manufacturing Partnerships
00:32:54
Speaker
10,000? I think the design and ah many factors of your solution would also have to be tweaked and refined. How did you work through that and how did you find the right partners for this production? Yeah, of course. So there's a supply chain. We've done a lot of sourcing over time and we've also done iterative sourcing. So I think that we've replaced all the components from when we started with cheaper, better performing,
00:33:17
Speaker
maybe more reputable vendor components for our product. But I think one of the most important parts for us for scalability is that we met our manufacturing partner in 2017 and we've been working with them ever since. So every time we so need to solve a problem, every time we need to do something for the product or, you know, we were trying this new connection method earlier this year. And so once we think it might work,
00:33:42
Speaker
we take it to our manufacturer and we're like, can you do this? Can you do trials? Is it viable for you? So with that, we didn't run into the bottleneck of one to 10,000 because we've been working with our manufacturing partner all along the way to make sure that the work that we do is at least somewhat scalable.
00:34:01
Speaker
I mean, I can imagine this is a great space to be in as a startup, as you're starting to really grow and scale and you you're selling to to customers. That's what you dream about, isn't it? Getting your products out there in the thousands. But do you still get a lot of time to do your experimental research, what you enjoy doing right at the start with just playing with materials, creating new materials? This question really comes from also one of our listeners, child. She herself is an e-textile entrepreneur. She's got set up a company. And she's kind of going through a similar transition. She was making lots of interesting experiments and developed a couple of products. Now there's a lot of interest, which is great, but she's kind of torn between being the researcher and being this person who's getting into supply and production and meeting client needs, and and also tweaking her solution to what the customers want, you which you talked about. How do you kind of keep both hats on? I think I also know her. You would, yeah. She's one of the in-textual community. So, yeah, I mean, I think.
00:34:58
Speaker
There are kind of two pathways. I think that if one is to raise a lot of money, you can hire experts to wear all of these hats and you can operate in the zone where are you like the hat the best. But I think if you don't take that approach, the unfortunate thing is that you must learn to wear every single hat.
00:35:19
Speaker
Like my, my process has very much been so, and we're a very small team. So, you know, maybe it's different for someone else, but I feel like I cannot hire someone until I know how to do that role. And so first I have to step away, you know, the operating, like the finances and operations of the company will always be a central task for me, but then I add on, okay, this year, I guess I'm learning how to market. I need to learn about SEL. I need to learn conversion rates. I need to learn.
00:35:47
Speaker
different social media platforms and what they're good for. And once I have that really ingrained, then I can hire someone to be like, this is what you need to do. And I know how to monitor if you're actually doing it well. And I think only once you've worn all of those hats and then hired someone into all of those positions, can one then come back to the thing that they want to do most. And so I do think that we have a few, we have a few of these positions to still fill out.
00:36:16
Speaker
But I am starting to sort of see that glimmer where I'm getting back a little bit into research. We're thinking about some new products. I'm doing the the genesis phase on those products. You know, the like, quick and dirty, and reading papers, getting to the doc. You know, I'm doing the is this possible phase, which I really enjoy. And I think that's only because, you know, I can pop over to marketing and be like, how are those analytics looking? Is it what I expect? Okay, great. Back to the research. I don't think that there's really a world where you can never have that phase of learning all the hats and hiring for all the hats and only focus on what you want unless you raise a bunch of money to just hire experts to do all of this stuff that is distracting you. How do you navigate when times are really difficult, when you can't quite see the light at the end of the tunnel? What is your north star? How do you keep going? really bleak.
00:37:15
Speaker
And I am a pretty persistent person, so I think I will generally push through, but I feel like there are times when people have come through for me where I may not have, you know, Eski is a big part of that, you know, her partnership in working I see this data, right?
00:37:42
Speaker
what are we gonna do? And you know, maybe my intuition would be like, this is, this is just not really feasible. Let's call it a day. But in that moment, as he is like, I'm down to take the risk. And she's not a generally, she's not someone who's like irresponsible. So I think in those moments, you're like, well, if you're down, I guess I'm down, you know, what what can I say? And I, you know, I feel like in times, my, you know, my spouse also, like, if as you know are both freaking out
00:38:20
Speaker
I feel like it will be fine. You're like, I guess that's true. I guess I'll keep trying. So yeah, there's definitely some people who have made, you know, I can like see moments in life where I'm like, without this person, I would have made a different decision.
Impact of Grant on Automotive Projects
00:38:34
Speaker
We also have this investor come in.
00:38:37
Speaker
when we were in like a really sticky spot. And I feel like I can just count those and like without Eski, without my spouse, without this investor, we would have made different decisions. I would have made different decisions, yeah.
00:38:48
Speaker
And it sounds like you have had all the sort of right support, like you said, they just came through when you needed it. And one of the the big support that you got recently is is a $275,000 grant from the American Seed Fund, which is very exciting. So congratulations on that. How are you sort of hoping to use that fund and what is the big milestone that you're aiming for?
00:39:26
Speaker
we're working on is quite large. And in our current in-house setup is a little bit too small. So we can get some new tools to work on this larger component. We are outsourcing testing so we can get third party lab results. like We are getting this component really ready for the auto market with all the validation behind it.
00:39:46
Speaker
and And we hope that this will help us make an extra step forward in getting things on cars, not just you know working together, hoping that it will be ready for production soon, but that we can come to the customer and be like, we've validated this part. Here's all the testing. Here's all the details. Here's all the costing. You buy it or you don't. But and we hope that this will help us get closer to that stage.
00:40:10
Speaker
And what is that timeline between you selling a product to a car company and it being on the road? Do you know how long that takes, the manufacturing? Working on a project now with S and&P 2026 that we've been working on since I think the very end of 2022 maybe. So, you know, that's a long time, that's four years.
00:40:33
Speaker
Wow. I mean, that's a, that's a strong partnership though. I mean, in that time, the relationship that you have to build. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just amazing what goes into putting things in cars. Like it's just super interesting. I think our team, we just came back from a Detroit visit where, you know, a lot of these customers are located and it's like the effort and time in detail that goes into wrapping one of the surfaces in your car.
00:41:01
Speaker
is its own entire project. I think that that' like that's the part of me that loves fashion was this like construction part and the material selection part and all these nitty gritty little, you know like when you're in fashion, you might care a lot about like different kinds of pleats. and like I love all the different kinds of pleats because they take different construction techniques to form. And so I feel like that part of things has come very full circle because we're like really deep in wrapping right now. It's so interesting.
00:41:30
Speaker
Let's go a bit back now to when you were growing up. Tell us a bit about where you were born, where you grew up, what life was like as a young girl. Yeah, of course. I'm from San Diego. I grew up in San Diego. I spent a lot of time with my parents when I was growing up and I appreciate that time. We traveled a lot because my mom is a flight attendant. So we have lots of really interesting adventures. I remember lots of like vignettes of my family in the airport at
00:42:23
Speaker
my childhood with lots of activities and projects and places. And i feel very yeah I feel very grateful that they can do that. That's lovely. So what were some of these hobbies or interests that you had at that point? could get me a paper slicer so that you can like slice straight lines.
00:42:50
Speaker
if you want to make like cool origami or cards or things like you need straight lines and I was like I need this slicer. She was like you can't have one because they'll slice your fingers off and it was you know
00:43:12
Speaker
You know, eventually I might be able to make the thing. Yeah. It was a lot of just like making stuff. I think that was a big part. I did sports as well, but I remember spending a lot of time with like, you know, little crafty stuff. So do you remember what got you interested in making clothes specifically? Yeah. I mean, I took a sewing class in elementary school and we had a sewing machine at home already because of my dad.
00:43:37
Speaker
And he was like, I'll show you some other cool stuff. You know, he's like, he wants the special tips. I'll show you some cool stuff on the sewing machine. that That really got me into it because, you know, I think when your parents like worked on something with you, it really like fulfills you in multiple ways. And so that was very, yeah, that was very exciting for me. I, I think my, my dad, um,
00:44:02
Speaker
told me that maybe I should also consider architecture, because you saw that I liked to do these little like maker projects and things. And the hard thing about architecture is that you can't get started. yeah You can't just like make a building by yourself. I guess that you can design it. But that was also, it was like, oh, architecture is too hard. I'm going to have to like wait too long for that. So I was like, oh, go back. You can start sewing something today. So that's sort of what also was appealing to me about fashion. Do you still make clothes for yourself?
00:44:31
Speaker
I don't anymore. I kind of like to. It'd be fine. But yeah, I don't these days. Maybe I'll get back to it like I would like to. I can see your love for fabrics and materials and and and textiles. Is there any piece of clothing or textiles or fabric that holds very special meaning for your memories for you that sort of you hold on memories and
00:45:09
Speaker
you describe that sweater? Yeah, yeah, of course. It has this kind of like, I feel like now you're not going to after all my discussion about textiles and not to describe it so well, but it's like a cream colored wool knit sweater and has like these speckled black pieces like twist into the yarn and it has a very it has like a curl in the knit so the actual textile the actual surface isn't just knit surface it has kind of like a ah curl Yeah, and the new turtleneck. I don't know. How's a nice memory to it? That's lovely. You quoted Seth Godin once, and he said, if it scares you, it might be a good thing to try. And I feel like you've really lived by that quote. so And you've also done many, many scary things to build up a company like Lumia and to, yeah, to build up not just a company, but a really successful company, I should say. What is something that you're doing today that is scary?
00:46:53
Speaker
organized, did the call. And it and it worked out. That's great. There's definitely a ah great quote to live by. Where do you see Lumi in the next 10 years? What's your vision for the company? Yeah, I mean, I especially this year, I have lots of I really enjoyed sort of dreaming and thinking about where like what would be in the next year. So i I think one of our strategies is, of course, to refine and improve the linear electronic layer, make more applications for different industries, have better testing results, cost engineer, and just make it a better product in every way we can. But also, we are working on some new products outside of the e-textile industry. I think I mentioned this to you as well.
00:47:37
Speaker
So that's been really fun, and the fashion industry in the end, which would be really fun for me to kind of get back into that industry and ah in a roundabout way. So yeah, working on some new products, and I hope in 10 years that Lumia will be a resource of next generation materials for designers and engineers. Like I would love if engineers and designers of different companies feel like Lumia materials have made their jobs easier or better or made exciting new products possible. That would be, you know, that's the goal. Oh, I love that. What are some of the things that you're really proud of from what you've achieved in the last 10 years?
00:48:32
Speaker
is our profitability, especially this year, because that gives us freedom to make our own decisions in a lot of ways. And then I think, secondarily, is just kind of sticking around. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I think that sometimes it's not always that easy, but I'm proud that we've kept going because you get to more unexciting,
00:49:00
Speaker
places. you know i'm I'm glad that I can see the things that I see today. It's only because we kept kept going over a long period of time.
Future of E-Textiles in Flexible Electronics
00:49:08
Speaker
From your experience, what would you say the future of the e-textile industry looks like in the next five to 10 years? Where do you see the big opportunities? Yeah, so I'm really hoping that e-textiles start to blend more into the flexible electronics world. I think right now, mentally, they's still people think of them as quite different.
00:49:29
Speaker
where an engineer may be like, I need a flux PCB. And if a flux PCB or maybe even like a printed ink on TPU can't do the job for them, they're like, not possible. But toolbox where someone will see these materials as just another electronics technology for solving the engineering challenges. And I think that that's where this space succeeds over time.
00:49:58
Speaker
And so we at least are doing all that we can to kind of position ourselves in that way as as an engineering tool for your toolbox. Sometimes printing on TPU is Flux PCB is always going to be cheap and reliable. If those two can't do it, maybe try something like ours. Or try a liquid model or try these other options. But kind of getting it out of this like really maker, hackery, light-up dress space and getting it more into that engineering toolbox space.
00:50:23
Speaker
I was so excited to read about this um when you were recognized as one of the inventors in the exhibition, Picturing Women Inventors, that was curated by the Smithsonian Institute and the Lemelson Center for Study of Innovation and um Invention. How did that recognition make you feel? You know, it's such an amazing way to sort of ah mark what you've achieved and what you've done in the industry. I think really quite a key moment. How did that make you feel?
Industry Recognition and Customer Feedback
00:50:50
Speaker
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I mean, I was very honored to be placed alongside people who I really admire and respect and who I feel like are far out of my league. I also really enjoyed the trip to DC. That was fun. But yeah, I mean, I was listening to another podcast recently and the woman on the podcast was saying that, you know, the highs could be high and the lows could be low. And, you know, she uses this to pass in both cases where it's like,
00:51:30
Speaker
but also I feel like, um, I think that like those honors are, are wonderful and I really appreciate them, but also I feel so much more like I've accomplished something when a customer is like, this is what I've been looking for.
00:51:48
Speaker
Or when a customer is like, great, you're not at a price point. Or you know when we send them a sample and they're like, oh, cool, it works. That's when I'm like, OK, on the right track. I think these sort of accolades, of course, I'm you know, I wouldn't prefer not to have it, but it it doesn't even mean you're on the right track in terms of a business. Like somebody found you, they put you on this list, and you know, that's all it means. So I try and kind of focus on some of the other customer business metrics.
00:52:19
Speaker
We have quite a lot of young listeners, students, recent graduates, especially in textiles. What advice would you give someone who's interested in pursuing e-textiles and um where do they start and what are the opportunities in the space? Yeah. So I mean, also something I'd love to see, maybe you've noticed this too, is that some of the big tech companies are hiring or building departments for e-textiles. Meta is one who has like a soft goods lab. I think Apple also has a soft goods lab.
00:52:48
Speaker
So I would definitely try and find some of these departments that are hiring and get your foot in the door by learning from others and seeing what they're doing. And that can sort of help you specialize and figure out exactly where you want to go. I would think, you know, at this time, at the time when I started, Lumi, I had a grant and that was very helpful for funding my life. But I think if I didn't have this grant, in my personal opinion, it's better to take the pathway of having a job, building up something on the side.
00:53:18
Speaker
int until it's profitable enough or well-defined enough where you can very confidently do it full-time. So I would say If you want to do your own thing, getting there I work really hard and like find a good space and constantly learn things that, you know, all the more information you can cross pollinate in your mind, the more original ideas you
Keys to Success in Innovation
00:53:46
Speaker
can come up with. So, you know, don't be afraid to sort of investigate new things and learn new things.
00:53:51
Speaker
What's an important mindset um that an inventor like yourself, an innovator, an entrepreneur should have in being um successful? Yeah. I mean, I, I also feel like different people find different ways to success, you know, so, so many different mindsets work, but I do think that's something that's helped me is just kind of thinking of it's a question of when.
00:54:18
Speaker
more than if. I find that it's a challenging, like it's hard for me if I start thinking about if, you know, like, will we be able to solve it? Will we be able to do it? It's kind of like, you know, what it's when if I can just stick around.
00:54:31
Speaker
I can just keep going for 10 years, I'll solve it, that sort of thing. And I think most things actually are that way. It's like if you're not trying to be a famous athlete or like a pop star, like something where you will age out of it. If you're trying to solve some And I think the way that you can spend a lot of time on something is by being consistent and kind of moderate or modest. So it's like set yourself up to just spend a lot of time on this problem. And if you can do that, you'll probably be able to solve it. And so that's really the mindset I've taken in with Lumiaz. I'm like, how do we set ourselves up to just spend a lot of time on these problems? Until, you know, but basically for me, I'm like, we stop working on these problems when the money's gone. So like, how do I make sure that doesn't happen?
00:55:27
Speaker
So you can just sort of come in forever. And with that, something good is bound to come out of it. Absolutely. I mean, your company, what you've built is a real proof that that consistency showing up every day, doing what you love, experimenting, doing things that you're scared of. And you've done that over 10 years and now you're really starting to sort of sell products and enjoy that phase, which probably seemed like a long way away even five years ago.
00:56:05
Speaker
such a big company. I'm like, oh my god, we're we're so slow, we're so tiny, but it's stuff by stuff. We get there, so I appreciate that. On my last episode, we had Nina Marenzi and Amanda Johnston, who are the brains behind ah Future Fabrics Expos. So this is really focusing on next-gen materials and sustainable solutions ah for the fashion and home textile industry. And they do an expo every year in London and New York as well, which is incredible. They've left a question for you. They did not know you were the next guest, but they left a question for the next guest. So thats this is what this one's to you from them. What books have changed your life?
00:56:45
Speaker
Hmm, yes, I I actually, I loved this book that I read in high school called The Movie-Goer by Walker Percy. It's like an American And I feel like that idea really resonated with me because his entire life was kind of constructed i around around like looking for something or answering questions. And I think that that is very much so what it means. I think you get to enjoy another level of living if every day you're kind of like, you know, but how do search that you're on, I think it'd be very enriching.
00:57:43
Speaker
I felt like it it really spoke to that idea. I'm trying to think of something that's a little bit more recent that I really enjoyed. Yeah, I would, I would say maybe that's it. There are other books that I love. Actually, there is this book by a Turkish writer called, it recently and it was just a,
00:58:11
Speaker
almost like a movie of one person's life from leaving their village to moving to Istanbul, to getting married, to having, like, just their entire, and it's a very humble life. Like, he's a yogurt seller and a boza, it's like the special drink of boza seller. But I also loved that story because, you know, I don't know, it was just like a full, complete, interesting, heartfelt life that had nothing to do with accomplishing world-changing feed. So, you know, doing something wild and crazy was very, like, humbling and heartfelt now. I think that I also really enjoyed reading that at that moment. I'd love for you to leave a question for the next guest, whoever that might be.
00:58:54
Speaker
Yeah, of course. I would ask the next guest, what is something interesting that you learned recently? Ah, okay. What are you enjoying the most today? What is peaking your curiosity and giving you energy? Anything you can share about any side project? There, so we're working on some of these new materials and I think that I have a much clearer idea of what this yarn's properties should be. So that's been really fun. But I think also if I go to the forest, I always feel much more like curious and energetic
00:59:46
Speaker
beautiful Thank you so much, Maddie. It's been such a joy. I've known you and I've seen your work, but it's it's so amazing to really just get to know you and understand you and where you know sort of see what drives you, what gives you energy, what you've what kept you going, how you navigated the through those challenging times. It's amazing. And you're such an inspiration to so many, so many people. I know that for a fact, and especially people who've been trying to to put one foot in front of the other in the space of e-textiles. I think you've really given people hope that we just need to keep going and there are opportunities out there. It's about how we sort of find them, discover the right um So yeah, thank you so much for inspiring all of us. We love the work that you do. And so curious and excited about what's coming up next year and the year after from Lumia. So we'll keep an eye out for all of it. interviewer.
01:00:48
Speaker
Really nice to speak with you. Maddie's journey is truly inspiring and I hope this glimpse into her story has sparked insights to guide your own entrepreneurial path. If you're interested to learn more about Lumia or get your hands on their soft electronic components for heating, pressure sensing and others, please be sure to check out the link in the show notes below to connect with them.
01:01:09
Speaker
And if you'd like to learn more about smart textiles and e-textiles in general for your products or are working on a project in this place, let's connect. You can book a free 20 minute appointment with me through my website, knowordinarycloth.com. So let's have a chat. Listen, there's no strings attached, just a conversation. Spotify listeners, feel free to leave a message in the comments of this episode to set up a free call and I'll be sure to get back to you. I'd love to help you. And if I don't have the answers, I probably know someone who does and I'm happy to connect you all.
01:01:38
Speaker
Please share this episode with anyone who might find it inspiring and valuable. Your support to spread the word about this podcast is deeply appreciated. And if you enjoyed this episode, consider buying me a coffee using the link in the show notes. It helps fuel those late night editing sessions as I bring these stories to you. In case you want to hear more about smart and e-textiles, I've recommended a couple of past episodes on e-textiles in the show notes below. Thank you again for joining me today. Don't forget to subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of