#472 Reinventing Cooling: Faizan Ahmed’s Solid-State Revolution

Episode 472

[00:00:00] 

Mehmet: Hello, and we come back to any episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me from the west coast of the US Faizan Ahmed, his CEO, and founder of Invesnsify Faizan. As I was explaining to you before, the way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce [00:01:00] themselves. So, uh, just giving some hints to, to the audience.

Today, we're discussing a really cool topic, um, touching on, you know. Multiple aspects of technologies that I didn't cover before. I'm myself excited. I would not like, keep it long, so I'm gonna, you know, pass it to you. Faizan, , the floor is yours. 

Faizan: Yeah. Hi Mehmet. Thanks for having me on on your show. Uh, my name is Faizan Ahmed.

I'm the CEO and founder of Invesnsify. Uh, my background is in electrical engineering and solid state physics. Um, this is my second startup actually. Uh, before this I started a company called Genxsys, which was in the camera space where my. Co-founder and I had developed a special, special lean lens def deflector, a rain deflector system for cameras that, uh, was an accessory that would plug onto a regular, uh, Nikon DSLR camera.

Um, and it would basically detect rain or snow [00:02:00] and spin really fast. And, uh, push the rain or snow out of the perimeter of, uh, an image or a movie that you're shooting with the, shooting with the accessory. That technology was acquired by, um, a Hollywood equipment rental company. And it was a pretty quick exit within a, a year and a half to two years I would say.

And before that, I worked for, um, straight out of college I was recruited into a, uh, a defense startup where I was the, uh, fourth engineer I. And basically became head of r and d within a very short period of time and was responsible for architecting a, a system that enabled precision, coordinate scanning and night vision goggles.

That technology was acquired by the US Air Force. So having gone through that experience of first working for a startup street outta college and then starting my own company and selling it, um. I had a lot of experience in, in building stuff from scratch. So hence Invensify was [00:03:00] not that hard as, as I had imagined in the beginning, but definitely has his own challenges.

I. 

Mehmet: Cool. And thank you again, for example, for being here with me today. Like it's, it's like a very fascinating background in engineering. And this is, you know, I was trying to give the hints to, to the audience, we're gonna talk about like something related to deep tech, right? And, uh, all the aspects of it, but traditional question I asked to all the founders, um, and co-founders with me here, uh, Faizan.

What was the spark that, you know, came to you and you said, Hey, you know what? There is this problem. No one touched on it, or maybe there were some tries to, to overcome it, and then you decided to start the Invensify. 

Faizan: So right after selling Gen Xs, I had, uh, a lot of time on my hands and I was spending time with my family.

Um, I noticed that, uh, my dad, you know, he's been diabetic since I've known him, and, [00:04:00] um, every time we traveled my dad would, uh, carry his insulin pens in an ice pack or an evaporated pouch. I. And, uh, when passing through the TSA, uh, agents in the United States, they, they would throw away the ice packs and my dad would have to, he would get on a plane and ask, the steward is if, you know, she could put it on the, in, uh, uh, the airplane fridge.

'cause he was paranoid about the insulin using, losing its potency. Um, so as a physicist I started thinking, uh, why is there no reliable solution to move these temperature sets and medications? I know we're still, I. Relying on ice packs and styrofoams, even though we're in the 21st century. So that was the impetus that, uh, sparked in sify, um, as I wanted to build a solution, a portable solution for moving temperature sensitive drugs.

And, uh, lo and behold, when I looked at the industry, I realized that it, [00:05:00] uh, it, the biopharma cold chain packaging industry is a $6.2 billion market. That was still using ice packs and gel packs, uh, styrofoam boxes to move very highly valuable drugs, stem cells, tissues, vaccines. Um, and after going through that process of studying the market, I realized that there is a huge problem with a big market that needs a solution.

And hence, Invesnsify was born. For, 

Mehmet: you know, I love, you know, uh, these stories Faizan because also you're solving something like not only from business perspective, it has the human. Aspect also as well that you just described. And I think, you know, this is really important, uh, you know, as, as a founder, because you have a mission, you have, you know, something that you want to solve really in addition to trying to, you know, come out with a [00:06:00] business model for it.

But first I want to focus on the technology. So, uh, and I did my research and of course, I'm not the expert. You're the expert. You're gonna help, help us like here a little bit. So. You know, solid state cooling as, as it's called replacing, you know, ice packs that you mentioned, or maybe even traditional compressors is something like kind of imaginary, right.

So, uh, and what I love mainly about, you know, anything that's related to hardware, to deep tech is, you know, we have, and you come from an engineering background, so always we need to overcome some, some challenges, right? And, um, finding like trade offs. So. What were like some of these, you know, engineering trade offs that you had to make to make this work, actually.

Faizan: So I'm gonna start from a very foundational level. Um, sure. The refrigerators that we are used to seeing in our kitchens, I'm not sure if you ever had a chance to look on the backside [00:07:00] of the refrigerator. You would notice that, uh, it's a compilation of compressors and, uh, coils and CFC gas flow flowing through.

And this technology has been around for decades. The reason why the cold chain industry relies on Opax and Styrofoams is because refrigerators by themselves are very, very power hungry. A typical refrigerator, an efficient one, uses about a thousand watts a day. And if you were to run it, uh, using battery, you're looking at, uh, 20 laptop batteries to run a refrigerator for one day.

And each battery, a typical laptop battery is about 50 watts and 200 grams. So you're looking at about four kilograms of just battery, battery weight to run a refrigerator for one day. And if it has to run for three days or four days because it's going through a shipping process, then you're looking at almost 12 kilograms of battery weight.

Um, and, uh, almost uh. You know, 40 [00:08:00] to 60 batteries themselves. So this is a problem, uh, because, uh, the transportation agencies, especially in the United States, you do not allow for more than a hundred watts to be on a product because lithium ion, um, batteries, which is what is powering most electronic devices these days are very flammable and dangerous.

So, uh, anything above a hundred watts cannot go on a plane. And most of transportation agencies do not want to deal with, with a product with that much battery. Plus the weight. You know, the more weight you have, the more cost you incur with transportation. Uh, and then, uh, because like I said, you know, 12 kilograms is just battery weight, you know, we're not even talking about the product.

Uh, and then, uh, that's just for three days. If you're doing four days looking at 16 kilograms, uh, just an estimation. So. The problem was very simple. The problem is, uh, the problem was that, you know, refrigeration, uh, uh, elements were, were bulky, very power hungry. So [00:09:00] we knew, I knew that it was, uh, uh, an opportune time to, to, to focus on solid state cooling.

And the problem with Allstates Cooling was, um, it's been around for, for quite some time in academia and also, um, you could hear about it and read about it online. It's called Thermal electric Cooling. Um, it's always had a na bad name for being inefficient, where you would power put more power into it than the amount of heat that it would absorb.

Um, so what we did was we actually put together a team of, uh, people from, uh, Stanford, uc, Berkeley. Boston University. And we, we, we, you know, the idea was very simple. We want to create a very highly efficient soil state clothing module. Um, the physics behind it, uh, was basically, uh, material science, a combination of material science, uh, to generate enough heat absorption, uh, with the least [00:10:00] amount of power input.

So to explain it in simple words, imagine having, uh, two materials with two different conduction levels. Mm-hmm. Um, the junction at which these two materials meet. Uh, that junction essentially is, is you're trying to force electricity to pass through these two materials, and at the junction there is a reaction that occurs and that that reaction essentially depends on the conduction level of the second element.

So if I'm making some sense here. Two materials. One has really good conduction, one has bad conduction, right? And now you're force forcing electricity to pass through this, um, module. So the electrons, when they get to this part or electricity, they essentially have to absorb a lot of energy before they can flow through this second portion where the conduction is not really good because, um, the, it's like, you know, running through a [00:11:00] forest, um, it's very dense.

So in order for them, for anyone to go through that kind of pathway, they need a lot of energy. And the same thing applies to electricity and electrons. They need a lot of energy to flow through this dense material. And that energy absorption results in heat, heat absorption, and that results in cooling.

So that's the basic foundation behind creating a very highly power efficient uhs stick cooling module is to, was to create, uh, uh, a mixture of materials. With the right amount of electron conductivity or, um, to, to, to enable, uh, heat absor, high amounts of heat absorption with little as little power input as possible.

Mehmet: And I think one of the, you know, things that you solve also as well, keeping it lightweight also as well, right? 

Faizan: Yes, yes. So, so now the, the, the process started with essentially first. Focusing on the core tech. And the [00:12:00] core tech was, you know, creating this module, which was a mixture of materials, right? So it's kind of like a solid state chip.

Uh, and inside that solid state chip was, as I mentioned earlier, mixture of materials with the materials having different, uh, conduction levels, right? So that's the first, the fir that was the first foundation was to create this module. Once this module was designed now. We wanted to put it inside a device and put it in, put, build an enclosure around it and kind of give it, uh, uh, like a full uh, product.

Uh uh, finish. So that involved like building the materials around it and you know, so I have something here, for example, this is like a typical refrigeration system that I have. So, so the core tech is the solid state, and then you've got the, the fridge on top. So the one liter box that we built, so, you know, this is [00:13:00] a smaller version, but this is what I was talking about.

So you build the product around it and it's pretty lightweight 'cause we use plastic. And, uh, we use, uh, foam for the, for the larger sizes, so on the outside. So that makes it pretty lightweight. 

Mehmet: Wow. You know, like if someone is listening, I advise them to go and watch their YouTube because you can't see what just like showed me.

Now I get like a little bit shocked. It looks like a very, uh, also practical, I would say. Yeah. So no move, no moving po no moving parts. Well, I can actually 

Faizan: do a quick demo for you too if, if there's time, but you know, uh, it's up to you. But tech, technically the idea is very simple. We're using a chip to bring the temperature down of a, of a, of an area.

Uh, to a set temperature very quickly. And then the idea is to have that device maintain that temperature for a hundred hours without any wall power running on a battery that fits into your shirt pocket. 

Mehmet: Wow. Wow. 

Faizan: Yeah. 

Mehmet: Coming, [00:14:00] coming from, you know, um, the first two years in college, uh, I was actually.

Deciding to do electrical and electric engineering and shift it later to computer. But you know, like this is why anything, when you say chips, when you say hardware, like, I get hooked and uh, you managed to get me hooked by then. So, so no moving parts, um, you know, no maintenance. I think much, maybe just the battery, right?

And the battery's. 

Faizan: Okay. 

Mehmet: Okay. That's, 

Faizan: the battery is not our, our ip, the main, our IP is the solid stick cooling chip, right? That module, that's our ip. Uh, the fact that it consumes very less power is the unique selling point. So we just buy an off the shelf battery, which is about 40 watts, 40 watt hours, uh, 30 watt hours actually.

Um, and it's about this size weighs what? 20 grams. 

Mehmet: So, so it end up also like not only solving the main problems, you, you, you mentioned before, but [00:15:00] also it's kind of, uh, um, sustainable climate friendly also as well, because when you. We're talking about the compressors and you know, for people who doesn't know compressors are not climate friendly.

Yeah. So they are bulky. They are noisy and they are not very much climate. So was this like something you put in mind or like just, it's something that evolved when, when the end product came, came out. 

Faizan: It was something that got evolved, that was evolving. The end product came out. Uh, just to be very honest, uh, the main, the main, uh, purpose of, in, of, of, um, inventing or designing this product was to solve the cold chain, uh, pain point.

And the, the sustainable aspects, the environmental friendly aspects, the, the green aspect of this product was something that came along as the product was evolving, but it was not [00:16:00] something that. Uh, I started this company with, where I had this intuition. I wanted to, where I wanted to create something that was, you know, good for the environment.

That wasn't my first intuition. Um, but it's something definitely that got evolved as the product was being developed and it, it created such an interesting, uh. Uh, twist to the product, uh, because now we had investors putting money into the company, not only because we were solving the cold chain problem, but because we were a green alternative in solving the problem.

So it was an, uh, uh, uh, something that, uh, added a lot of, uh, bells and whistles to the product development process. 

Mehmet: Fantastic. F like, um. You mentioned the insulin case, right? And the, the main use case I, when you were describing the process, so correct me if I'm wrong, like it's like anything [00:17:00] related to healthcare that needs, you know, the schooling all the time, like maybe organ, trans, uh, you know, transportation and so on.

So beside, or be other than like the healthcare use cases is where you envision this to be used. 

Faizan: So. The technology, uh, itself is very, um, it has multiple applications. Uh, there are several verticals where this can go into. A couple of that come to my mind are the, the first one is, uh, solving the ev battery charging problem.

I'm not sure if you own an electric vehicle, but I own one and it takes me about 30 to 40 minutes to charge an elec my electric vehicle. And the reason why an electric vehicle takes so long to charge is because the battery inside is very flammable and it has to, uh, uh, be, be charged, uh, through, uh, uh, a process that doesn't, uh, [00:18:00] try to charge it to, or, or, well, they, you know, in more technical words, they try to limit the amount of s and ions that are flowing inside the batteries.

Uh, because if too much of them flow at some, uh, at, at a certain period of time, the battery can blow up. And that's why they have to distribute it through a, through a period of time. But if there was a very cooling, uh, efficient cooling process embedded into this battery module, which there is right now, there's water liquid that is being circulated over the battery.

But if there was an active cooling module that would help bring the temperature down to a really, uh, good level, then the electric vehicle battery time would go down, uh, almost a third. Allowing the electric vehicle battery manufacturers to pack more batteries into their electric vehicles, hence, resulting, resulting in more, uh, miles per kilowatt hour, increasing the mileage of the card.

And also, um, um, like I said, so reducing the charge time and increasing the [00:19:00] mileage. So that's a vertical we think we want to take on, um, uh, at, uh, a couple of quarters down. Uh, and then there's the, uh. Uh, the, the, um, solid state, uh, chip cooling space where these days, because of the AI rush, there's a lot of, uh, emphasis on, uh, AI chips producing a lot of heat.

We believe that this technology can be very, very helpful in cooling these AI chips that are, uh, super, super hot and in, and as an adjacent vertical to that data centers as well. Uh, which produce a lot of heat. Uh, we believe that this technology can be, um, is, is applicable to that industry as well. So a couple of verticals that come to my mind right now are these, I.

There's a lot more. I mean, just, just the, uh, simple cooler market, uh, you know, these typical igloo coolers that we use to take for [00:20:00] picnics, that industry itself can be completely revolutionized, where people don't have to rely on coolers anymore. They could use something like this where, because keep in mind our product is plug and play.

Once you plug it into a wall supply wall, wall power supply, it gets down to set temperature within uh, minutes actually. But if you wanna charge the battery, it basically charges the entire system in, uh, four to five hours, and then it maintains that temperature for a hundred plus hours without any wall power.

And in addition to the Cort tech, it's also connected to the internet. So there's a sim card that goes inside of here. So the data, temperature data and GPS coordinates, they, uh, get uploaded to the cloud every four minutes. So this entire package itself is something that, um, like I said, you know, it might be too overkill for the, for the consumer camping, hiking market, but definitely it could be something that could revolutionize that space.

Mehmet: [00:21:00] Absolutely. So let's discuss now the business model phase design a little bit. So you decided to do something which is not traditional. So you decided instead of selling it as a hardware to do it, the product as a service. Uh, first of all, why and second. And because now we are focusing more on, you know, the, the health, uh, care, you know, use cases, uh, of it.

Um, and, you know, these folks have been used to buying maybe the, the traditional. Stuff that they've been doing for decades. Uh, so how, how, how did that, you know, uh, get acceptance from your point of view? 

Faizan: So, product as a service model is, is one that, um, a lot of investors, like, it's one that, uh. Is, is, is, is very lucrative in terms of, uh, in terms of revenue and as a business model.

Um, so that was one [00:22:00] of the driving factors behind, uh, establishing that as a business model is, and the, the factor that really helped in shaping that, uh, business model was the fact that our current, uh, the current process. Basically is so labor intensive. Uh, the technicians have to take these specialized ice packs that are of a certain shape and form, and they have to, it's not just about throwing them in a fridge and then, you know, removing them and placing inside about box.

It's not as simple as that. Essentially, they ha it's a process. They have to have it insider. A freezer for 24 hours and then they have to have it inside a fridge for another 24. They have to have these ice packs inside a fridge for another 24 hours. So you're looking at a 48 hour cycle of just preparing these ice packs.

And then they have to be assemble inside a styrofoam foam shaped box. So there's the assembly time that goes in, and then they have to put in [00:23:00] loggers. So this entire process is very time consuming. It's very labor intensive and very real estate heavy. 'cause you're looking at. Um, refrigerators and freezers specifically, um, uh, uh, uh, being maintained for cooling these ice packs in larger logistic firms like UPS healthcare, FedEx Critical, which I've, I've been to these facilities.

They have a hundred thousand square foot facilities just dedicated to, uh, cooling ice packs and, and, and, uh, uh, for the small clinical trial boxes that they assemble. So I figured, and you know, we figured that. Uh, this entire process is so labor intensive and our process is just, our product is just plug and play.

So we're saving everyone, each one of these logistic companies, so much money in the amount of time and, uh, uh, processes that they, they, they would not be requiring anymore. So, hence, it made a lot of sense to just tell these guys, Hey, instead of going [00:24:00] through this entire process, just pay us a few extra bucks.

Mehmet: Right. Have you seen also Faizan, this headwind, uh, sorry, the tailwind as they call it, uh, of every business and of course including pharmas and hospitals, you know, and even other verticals as well, where they have these initiatives, you know, coming from ESGs and so on to have like lower footprint of carbon.

Uh, so were these like kind of, um, tailwinds for you that also like people, hey, yeah, like if we adopt. This technology. So basically we'll be reducing our carbon footprint and you know, like a more green technology. Plus maybe on the long run everything is going to subscription. Like, uh, even cars today, cars manufacturers and are like trying to sell their cars as a service.

So basically just rent a car instead of owning it. So were like, did you see these, uh, you know, um, I would say initiatives coming to, to your side when, when you started [00:25:00] to position the product in the market? 

Faizan: Uh, yes, definitely. Uh, these things were, uh, a major part in, in, in shaping the, the business, uh, process sustainability, using it as a selling point by, you know, the, the green, uh, uh, aspect, uh, reducing the carbon footprint.

These were all, uh, these, all these aspects kind of came to us at an opportune time. Um. When the world itself was kind of, you know, dictating these terms, a lot of regulations are coming out, uh, across the globe to, to limit the carbon footprint, to, to, uh, deploy sustainable models, to, to reduce waste. So we were fortunate to step into this commercialization space at this time, uh, because all of these aspects really helped us promote our product.

Um, because the, the [00:26:00] ice packs and styrofoam boxes that the current, uh, pharmaceutical and logistic companies use, they don't last for more than two, three cycles. And sometimes they're just single use, so they have to throw them away every time. Literally, they just, uh, uh, toss 'em into the trash. And, uh, it's, it's not biodegradable.

It's not good for the environment. So a lot of these pharmaceutical companies started coming out with regulations. This is separate from us. Uh, promoting sustainability. We just came in at the right time and. We use that say, you guys have sustainable programs. This is perfect to, you know, you know, to fit into your, your, your model that you're trying to promote.

So that really helped in, you know, in, in, in promoting the product, uh, the energy aspect. Also, the fact that it requires. Uh, minimal energy, uh, in getting, uh, up and running, and then no technicians required to solve, uh, self-explanatory. Everything is embedded inside. Temperature, logging, GPS, [00:27:00] logging, coordinate, logging, all that is embedded.

So that really kind of helped, you know, get the product out and the, the, the, the product as a service model. Um, definitely, so one of our biggest investors, uh, uh, is a contract manufacturer. And because of this relationship, we're able to build this product at a, uh, at a price that is, uh, probably most hardware companies can't build because of this relationship we have, which allows us to provide these units to customers as a service rather than putting the capital expense on the customer and say, Hey, you have to pay for this upfront.

'cause we have enough funding where we, uh, manage the expenses upfront. And that's, again, that's, uh, that's, uh, a fortunate place for us to be in compared to other companies. Um, because we are able to, to take up the upfront cost of the product and not put it on the customer and have them pay for it either per [00:28:00] month or per day or per delivery.

We have different models, so we, we tell them you pay when you get paid or you pay as you go. 

Mehmet: Absolutely. You know, very creative way and, uh. Fascinating way, I would say. You mentioned investors a couple of time, and I know like, uh, you've raised, um, for the company now when we talk about fundraising, so look like, uh, fundraising is hard by itself.

Uh, building hardware is also hard, right? So it's not something easy. And usually we know in, in, in the investors world, in VC world and, and so on, like. It's more software obsessed. So of course now we started to see the ai maybe, you know, uh, you know, re initiated this, um, you know, investor, uh, appetite for deep tech again and investing in hardware.

So, but from your perspective, like what were like some of the unexpected challenges, uh, you faced while RA [00:29:00] fundraising and how did you overcome them? 

Faizan: So, fundraising, as you mentioned, is very hard. It's very, very hard. Uh, it's, it's definitely not easy. Uh, what makes it slightly easier is having, uh, uh, some credibility in this space, which I had in terms of me working for a, a, a defense startup straight out of college and then selling a company.

Right before Invesnsify, which was Al Al also a hardware company. So these two things really helped in, in shaping the credibility, uh, uh, of, of Invesnsify the idea, et cetera. Uh, the second thing is, uh, uh, the fact that we never positioned Invesnsify as, as a a, a purely hardwired play. We kept focusing on the fact that this is a product as a service company, and, uh, the fact that hardware is, uh, actually helps in, in controlling the ecosystem and gives us an edge [00:30:00] and, and, uh, the, with competitors, uh, because we have the full process, uh, or the full, all the elements under our controlling in the ecosystem, the hardware, the software service.

So these aspects. Uh, so that was the second aspect that really helped. The third aspect that really helped is, uh, when you're doing hardware, and this is my personal opinion mm-hmm. You one has to really, uh, develop something that's 10 times, uh, better than the current solution, 10 or 15 times better than the current solution.

Uh. I think that really sells to the investors. When you are, when you're developing a me too product, for example, a hardware product, uh, something that's maybe two times better than what's out in the market, then you know you're gonna run into issues with investors saying, Hey, you know, it's hardware, it's gonna have reliability issues, manufacturing, there's a [00:31:00] lot of elements at play, you know, it's too risky.

And we faced that too with our company. But the fact that we were building or we're building something that's, uh, where we, where we try to frame it as Tesla for cooling, uh, is, is, is something that changes the mind of the investors a lot of times where we say, okay, you know, we're building something that, that is, uh, the future and it's 10 times more powerful than what's out there in the market.

No, there's no other competitor out there that can offer the kind of efficiencies we're offering with our product. Uh, so that, those three aspects, as I mentioned, right, the, the, the business model, uh, the credibility aspect, the fact that we're building something that's 10 times 10, that's 10 times more powerful than what's out in the market.

All these things, three things help in the fundraising process. 

Mehmet: Absolutely. Uh, fib, because you just mentioned, and maybe it, we can relate this to multiple, uh, [00:32:00] places of this discussion. So your previous work, and you just mentioned, you know, it's because like you are a second time founder, you work with, uh, you know, in the defense, uh, industry.

So other than, you know this for folks who usually, you know. Start with one vertical and then they go, not jump. I mean they go and they find the next problem to solve in the next vertical. So is there like some transferable, I would say knowledge or transferable experience, even if the verticals are different.

And is there something that help you also as well from your first company when you started, uh, uh, Invesnsify? 

Faizan: Yeah. So there are a lot of things that, uh, are. Independent of the core tech, uh, that one learns when they are part of an organization. Um, having worked at a startup straight out of college and then doing my own startup, [00:33:00] it basically, uh, gave me the experience of wearing multiple hats, uh, and doing multiple things in a short period of time, being very efficient.

Uh. And it, it sort of became part of my DNA to, to produce the most amount of work in less the least amount of time, uh, and, uh, properly positioning a solution to have the most impact, uh, and working with the right partners, working, hiring the right kind of people, building the right team. Uh, ensuring that when you're building your product, you go out there, talk to the customers, uh, get and understand their pain points, um, getting some big names [00:34:00] around your, uh, idea early on.

Um, these are things that, that, you know, are independent of any vertical. These are things that, uh, you can apply to any vertical, um, and, and help establish a business. So, I, like I said, you know, I learned a lot of things upfront in my career. Uh, working for a startup wearing several hats where I was not only designing product but marketing it, writing, I even wrote the manual for it and then, uh, went and, uh, became an applications engineer where I installed it at the, at the customer site.

Um, so having that versatile experience. Being able to address the exact pain points of the customer listening to them. These are things that I think, uh, one should be, it would, should learn, uh, regardless of the core tech of the business. 

Mehmet: [00:35:00] Absolutely a hundred. You know, like this is key and you just, uh, hit the nail on the head.

Uh, like it's talking to customers, understanding are we solving, you know, problems for them. Um, what I think also in, in your case, uh, especially because you can, you know, the, the tangibility of, of, you know, um, how the solution really fit. It's very, very important because, uh, you know. Are we solving the real pain that you have?

And of course you can do this regardless of, you know, as you mentioned, where you are in this is, this is the key, uh, indeed. Now, if I want to, you know. See from your perspective the future of, uh, temperature sensitive logistics right. In the future. So, um, and maybe how this might affect, you know, the traditional refrigeration in general.

So, do you envision a world where we don't have to have these, uh, bulky compressors in the future? [00:36:00] Uh, you know, what, what are like some of the, maybe other, um, trends or maybe some of, of the other. Um, I would say visions that you might have, you, you want to share with us here today? 

Faizan: Yeah. So I definitely believe in, um, the future where we don't rely on compressor based refrigeration techniques.

I, I believe that. A lot more research and development has to occur in what we started, uh, with our cooling module. There's a lot of, um, work that can be done here in terms of improving the efficiency of, of, of our current, uh, baseline, uh, offering. Um, and the future is, is. Really, uh, dependent on, um, uh, uh, building [00:37:00] systems that are efficient, uh, and, and good for the environment.

I think we're going in that direction, uh, as, as a human race where we're trying to build, uh, green, uh, sustainable environment friendly climate friendly climate friendly products. Uh. And in that, uh, with that sort of, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, framework, I think, uh, our technology is definitely one where we, I strongly believe would, would be replacing, uh.

Uh, big traditional refrigeration systems, uh, that rely on these, um, you know, old techniques. Uh, and we will, we will be investing a lot of time and a lot of effort in building more and more efficient models of our current tech right now. And that's where I feel like I, I want to be able to [00:38:00] see, uh, and by the way, I won't mention the name of a, of a big.

Uh, multinational company that approached us, uh, two years ago, um, 'cause of confidentiality reasons, but, uh, we were approached by, uh, a huge soda company and we all know who this company is. Uh, and they wanted us to build fridges for, um, countries where electricity was not, uh, constant. In order to house their sodas.

And they wanted to sell this, uh, uh, their sodas along with this phrase that they wanted us to build, um, using our technology. So we had to put that project on hold, and we did mention that we will come back to it once, uh, once we have a team, uh, uh, and we want to go into this vertical. Um, but because the, that we were approached with this, with this opportunity, uh, we know that there's a market we want to go after.

Uh, completely transforming huge, big traditional refrigeration systems with our tech. 

Mehmet: [00:39:00] Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, exciting times also as well, uh, Anne, like, because again, these solutions, especially that touch human lives, you know, like, uh. And day to day life, I would say they, um, there's a lot of, uh, uh, place for innovation still because people's mind, usually they go, when we talk technology to go to more software.

I tell them guys, like the real innovation is still in that space, in these areas that no one touch on, you know, for long time. And, you know, whenever I speak with people like yourself who are like in this space, I feel like more excited because I tell people, Hey, like it's not only about like. SaaS and, you know, me Too product.

And with two couple clicks here and there, of course I'm, I'm not like saying this to, uh, minimize, you know, the effort that teams put there, but, you know, these are like the impact projects, uh, that we see, which is, you know, mind blowing in my opinion. Now, [00:40:00] uh. If, if, uh, I want also to, to ask you, because you, you did this, uh, multiple times and this is your second company.

So which one do you think is harder to build a cutting edge technology or, uh, is to changing the industry mindset itself? Which one do you, you feel is the harder one? 

Faizan: Uh, changing the industry mindset is definitely harder. Um, building a cutting edge. Building, cutting edge technology. Uh, you need, uh, an idea, you need a team of people, uh, who are experts in their particular disciplines and everyone can basically put their head down and work in that, in, in a lab environment and come up with this cutting edge technology.

By the way, this is my opinion, um, and I think with AI it makes it even. More easy because [00:41:00] AI makes information so accessible. You know, you can go learn about building things, uh, just by accessing some of some of these, uh, you know, uh, LLMs, uh, chat, GPT and ask them questions on what materials to use for what example.

You know, so there's information is so accessible today. That building, cutting edge technology. I'm not saying it's not, it's not hard, it's gonna be very hard, but I feel like building cutting edge technology. You can still do that with, with, with a team of engineers sitting together with their heads down, working on it day and night, but turning it into business, turning it in, into something that makes money is hard.

Uh, because you could build something that is amazing, is cutting edge. But if it's not solving a problem in a meaningful way for a customer, it becomes something that could sit in a museum. It's not going to be, [00:42:00] uh, something that's gonna make a lot of money. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, people have built products that, uh, never sold, you know, I mean, uh, there's, there's a time and place for everything, right?

Um, we have seen products that have come out earlier than their time, and they weren't successful and they became successful later on. Like the Macintosh, for example, when it came on in 1984, it didn't create the huge waves that. Uh, uh, later on this, you know, the, the Apple products did. Uh, but the idea of, you know, user interface, having a gui, having a mouse, uh, you know, making it something that was accessible to local con people, local consumers.

Um, that was something that unheard of in 1984. I mean, I wasn't even born at that time, but, you know, just looking at the videos and understanding how people perceive, oh my God. Like, how? 'cause they looked at computers as a big thing. So what I'm trying to say is that, um, the reason why it didn't take off was people were not convinced at that time [00:43:00] people didn't wanna spend a lot of money.

Uh, and you know what an interesting thing, uh, one of the things that, uh, Elon Musk did, uh, with Tesla was he made, uh. Teslas, like, I think maybe seven, eight years ago, he made Teslas patents, uh, accessible to everybody. And the reason why he did that was because he wanted to, uh, change the infrastructure. Uh.

Where he was building something that required an infrastructural mindset change where people are no longer going to gas stations, they're going to electric chargers, which the people need to understand that you're gonna be waiting for 30 minutes to charge your car. Um. It's not, you're, you are no longer going to be able to go to a mechanic.

Like there's so many mechanic shops that you cannot go to anymore because your car, if it breaks down, you have to call the dealership. You have to call. I mean, it's just, by thinking about it, a lot of people are like, oh my God, I don't want to buy something that nobody else has. Uh, and what if I spend all this money, my car breaks down.

I can't even find a, a mechanic like, you know, you [00:44:00] live in Dubai and you can find a mechanic anywhere. Just take your gas car, you'll fix it. But when you have another car, they're like, call the dealer. I don't know how to fix this. So one of the ways he did that was he actually made the patents accessible so that the industry, uh, everybody starts building this.

So the industry is forced to change. 

Mehmet: Right. Uh, I was just checking something. I don't want to give the wrong thing. So this is why I was checking something. So to your point, Faizan, I think, um. There's the famous early adoption cycle, right? So it looks like some technologies, they don't get the enough early adopters to move them to the next point.

And this is, you know, to your example about the Macintosh. And I agree with you, again, it's my opinion, it's shifting the mindset. I'm not, yeah, as, as you said, it's, it's not, we're not saying it's easy to come up with cutting edge technologies. Of course it takes like time, effort, and a lot of research, sometimes, especially in a domain like yours.

But I mean, yeah, to go and convince [00:45:00] someone like, Hey, you've been doing this for decades. Look, I've came with a better solution. Cheaper in your case, you have a lot of edges to talk about. And yeah, it's, it's like, um, you know, economically better. But again, because no one else used the technology. So this is, you know, I always say, you know, what drives, um, you know, people to be able, not only to innovate, but also to push them as an ecosystem is to find these early adopters, the people who are willing to try at least to give feedback.

Because I tell people, if you are in a startup ecosystem where you don't have enough of these early adopters, like, don't get me wrong, you're gonna. Hit the wall because you will think that you are not innovative enough. But the problem is not you or your technology. The problem is you don't have enough early adopters to try this.

And I think, you know, some, um, uh, I would say ecosystems like Silicon Valley is most [00:46:00] obvious one. So I think one of the major successes, uh, reasons for Silicon Valley is having these. Early adopters chunk, I would say, which are willing to try, even if it's not, you know, perfect. Whereas like other ecosystems are like now of course changing with time, but I'm telling people like, guys, you need to have this early adopter mentality within the community, so at least we can encourage these innovators.

Otherwise they're gonna go. You know, turn their backs and go somewhere else. So, to your point, a hundred percent Faizan, Faizan, like really, you know, it's, it's an amazing discussion with you today. Uh, if you, you know, to, to, to like summarize or if you want to give like some advice to, to fellow entrepreneurs, fellow technologists, engineers, what you tell them and how they can find out more and get in touch.

Faizan: Um. So just as an advice to, um, you know, founders. I, I don't think I'm in a position to give a lot of [00:47:00] advice. I have still a lot to learn, but, uh, if I were to maybe give some advice, um, I would, uh, basically say this, that, you know, startup, uh, work is really hard. Uh, what you see on LinkedIn, what you see, uh, out there is usually the beginning and the end process.

Uh, but you don't get to hear about, you know, um, the tons of companies that never made it. So if, if you really believe in something and you have the grit and the emotional intelligence and strength to pursue it, then go for your, uh, uh, uh, uh, go for it. Go, go build that idea you have, uh. And you will most likely succeed if you have the, uh, the capacity, the strength, the, the, the, the grid to, to withstand through, uh, you know, this entire process of building, selling, exiting, going IPO or that entire, you know, process from zero to a hundred.[00:48:00] 

Um. Um, that's, that's one advice I would give you is have to have that grit and emotional strength to go through this. 'cause it's not, it's not an easy process. Um, if, if somebody wants to learn more about the company, they could always, you know, go on our website. They could add me on LinkedIn. And I've, I'm more than happy to discuss ideas with people, uh, and give them, and help them in, in any way I can.

And if they're doing something, 'cause people have helped me, um, I've, I've been very fortunate of. People helping me, introducing me to some investors, introducing to some vendors or customers that have gotten me to where I am. So I, I, you know, I, I try to give back as much as I can as well. 

Mehmet: Sure. One thing I forgot to ask, if I, uh, did you start expansion outside the, the US or still, you know, you are focusing on the US market?

Faizan: Uh, so interestingly enough, we have our ba, our main customer base is in the us but our manufacturing's actually in Malaysia. So we have a manufacturing facility in Malaysia where we [00:49:00] build these units. Um, we are looking to expand into Europe, uh, this year. So, um, and also the Middle East, uh, you know, we, we plan to maybe expand around, uh, next year in into Asia and middle least.

But, uh, this year we're looking to expand into Europe. 

Mehmet: Great. Um, at least it's a good market because of the heat and the severe weather, heat. So it's, I I believe it's gonna be a very good market for you, Faizan. And for the audience, you're gonna find, I'm gonna put Zen's, uh, LinkedIn, uh, profile. I'm gonna put the company, uh, website address in the show notes.

If you're listening, uh, on, on your favorite podcasting app or even watching this on YouTube, you can find the description. Faizan, I can't thank you enough. Really, I enjoyed the conversation as an engineer, you know, I always love. To talk to other engineers and learn from them and, you know, uh, learn more about the technologies that they're using to solve real world problems.

So thank you again for being here with me today. Thank you. I appreciate the time. And as always, this is how I end [00:50:00] my episode. This is for the audience guys. If you just discover this podcast by luck, I hope you enjoyed it. I'm sure you did. So please subscribe. And share it with your friends and colleagues.

We're trying to make an impact. We're trying to, you know, get all this information from, uh, awesome founders, like fa all over the place. And if you are one of the people who keep coming again and again and send me their questions, suggestions, and, you know, just their thank yous. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Keep them coming. I read them all and thank you. Actually this for the community for making the CTO Show podcast this year trending into the top 200 charts of Apple Podcast across multiple countries. So we are now in April, like I think last week we were in five countries at the same time. So really thank you for all this.

And of course, as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon. Thank you. Bye-bye. 

Faizan: Thank you.