Ready to have your mind blown in the best possible way?
In this episode, we’re diving into a game-changing innovation that’s turning heads in the world of glamping and unique holiday rentals. Imagine a stunning retreat space or glamping pod on your land… fully customisable, ultra-durable, and made entirely from recycled plastic bottles. Sounds like sci-fi? It’s real, it’s happening, and it’s absolutely inspiring.
I’m joined by Gean Eidelman, Co-founder of Azure Printed Homes, a trailblazing company using cutting-edge 3D printing tech to create sustainable, design-led structures from waste materials like bottles and food containers.
We explore:
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What 3D-printed homes and pods really are (and how the magic works)
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Why this approach is perfect for off-grid and eco-conscious sites
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How you can dramatically cut down build time, costs and environmental impact
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The incredible design freedom this method unlocks… from single pods to full-scale resorts
If you’re dreaming of adding something spectacular to your site, or building from the ground up with sustainability at the heart, this episode will stretch your imagination, shift your thinking, and spark a whole new wave of ideas.
The future of building is already here. Let’s get started!
The Future of Glamping: 3D-Printed Eco Pods From Recycled Plastic Bottles!
Today’s episode is brought to you by Sarah Riley, a UK-based expert who helps people start and grow profitable glamping and unique holiday rental businesses designed to help you with 3D- Printed Eco Pods From Recycled Plastic Bottles
Listen to this and previous episodes here:
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Get in touch with Sarah Riley
Glamping, retreats, events, and guest attraction – Courses. Guided Growth. Done-for-You Marketing.
Glamping Academy & Owners Club https://inspiredcourses.com
Boutique marketing studio https://inspiredcollectiveltd.com/
All show notes: https://www.inspiredcamping.com/category/podcast/
The Glamping Business Podcast Shownotes
Additional Resources And Links Mentioned
- Contact Sarah Riley through Inspired Courses
- The Ultimate Glamping Business Guide
- Guest Booking Success Marketing Masterclass
- The Glamping Business Facebook Group (+ Unique Holiday Rentals)
- Tools and resources in the Inspired Courses VIP Lounge
- How To Start A Glamping Business
Listen to the The Glamping Business podcast here:
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- Spotify (Smart Player)
- Soundcloud (Smart Player)
Want To Feature On The Business Of Glamping And Unique Holiday Rentals Podcast?
If you have something inspiring to offer the world of Glamping and Unique Holiday Rentals, then get in touch with Sarah Riley and share it on the Podcast. For more information contact Sarah here.
TRANSCRIPTION
Gene, it’s so wonderful to see you, and really grateful for you to spend some time with me today to talk about the amazingness, which is Azure printed homes.
Now, some people, they’ll be, they’ll be saying to themselves, printed homes, what on earth is that? So let’s start there. Explain what it is and how it works.
Sure. Nice to see. We, we met at the Clamping Show and it was great seeing recent Resort Network. To answer your question we were looking for ways to build faster, less expensive, and with less environmentally back.
That was the mission of the company when we started, we had no idea that we were gonna come up with a way to print them. But first, our first moment of, of just thinking through this, we just decided building structures in a factory makes a lot more sense than doing ’em on site. And it’s not a structure, but homes and it just, when you do in the factory, there is a climate control, so you’re not slowed down by weather.
Higher quality control, so you can actually monitor when every step is made. And again, it is much more critical in terms of materials so you can order just what you need. But we started this doing this during COVID and there were all kind of disruptions in supply chain. So even that didn’t move, didn’t move, the needle, didn’t move much faster.
So we saw 3D printing of buildings. It started about 10 years ago in Europe, actually in France where first family moved into a 3D printed house. But all of that was done with cement concrete, and just by definition, cement is terrible for the environment, construction industry. The third polluter primarily because cement and cement generat.
So is there any way to. 3D print, use a material, and also printing with cement. You have to do it on site for our industry, for, you know, lamping, you know, there’s just small structures, spread out places. Impractical to bring multimillion dollar piece of movement to site, to print. So we found alternative material, and so we use this material as a combination of fiberglass and recycled polymers to bring them in the factory.
The process is totally automated much faster. There’s plenty of recycled water bottles all over the world and food containers and the structures that come out. They’re much lighter than, cement or in any traditional material. So they’re easier to take to isolated places. They’re very strong being, you know, we’re based in California, which is probably the most regulated place in the world, so we have to prove that it can stay on the earthquake and the high winds and you know, but we also shipped to areas where there’s snow, snow loads.
Yeah. So we met all those con. Or developers, we really thought about how can the units be permit insured and finance? And once we answer those questions and regularized questions, make sure the structures are. Are can, can basically alternative material for, for construction codes. We started making them and started shipping them.
So
I, I wanna just in case somebody’s in their car and they’re listening to the podcast or they’re cleaning up their property because the guests have left or whatever, I just wanna make sure they heard what it’s made from, that it is made from. Plastic bottles and plastic food containers and mixed up with some fiberglass.
That’s correct. Yes,
that’s correct. Yeah. The, the fiberglass is a material that adds the strength and meets all of the criteria. So the the recycled plastic actually acts like as a resin. It basically connects the layers of fiber lines, so, well, 65% of the combined. Is the recycled plastic. It’s the, it, it really has the strengths of the fiberglass.
And if you can, if you can think of what they use. Fiberglass is boats, you know, speed boats are made from fiberglass, a lot of cars. So this is very strong material. And and to make every structure, we use 500 layers of this as goes round, round. And every layer needs.
Is recycled plastic is a great resin that allows this connection to work.
How does it work in terms of how big it is the the printer that does this? Because you are talking about printing in one go, a big structure that someone can live in. So how does that work and how big is that printer? Tell me about that process.
Right, so we use. Probably the largest industrial robots they can go up to to the required height that we have. And so we print units that are 10 and a half feet 10 and a half feet tall 20 feet long and nine feet wide. And these are modules, so then we can connect the modules together to make them five times that module.
But, a large robot cannot reach to all these dimensions I mentioned. So we’ve invented a platform. Think of it as a, basically it’s a rotating platform that, so instead of the robot reaching out to the furthest corner of the structure, the platform brings the unit to the robot. So that was the kind of the aha moment because we couldn’t find anything.
The shelf that printed the structures and the sizes that we wanted. So that what took some innovation and some, some thoughts through how can we make this primarily, we, we couldn’t find anything that prints anything over five feet tall. Four or five feet was the maximum, and we wanted to print the whole thing, like you mentioned, all in one goal that then have goal.
So. You know, it’s, it was really a an idea that, you know, I, you sometimes see this rotating in the Chinese restaurant, right? You have this you have in the uk
they call it, they call it a lazy Susan in the uk.
Lazy Susan, right? Lazy Susan brings the meal to you. This is exactly, it is. Our lot of Chinese food that made me think of this.
So
I love that. I love that. So tell me, if I was somebody in the glamping world, I’ve got my land, I want to choose structures, but I wanna have a structure that I’ve designed or my architects designed, and it’s a little bit different and I’d like to use recycled materials. Yeah. I mean, how does the design.
Aspects happen. Do you just plug it into a computer and then it just prints out exactly what you want? Explain that a bit. Yeah.
It’s somewhat like to describe, but another not, maybe not as simple. So if somebody wants to buy one or two structures, they can go to our website and pick. We have like four different designs.
If somebody wants to create a resort like the client we have now, I actually, I talked about the client eco Resort. You know, they, they’re buying 30 units. Now. We have ability to really be creative. The, the reality is de designing for 3D printer is much easier in designing for a traditional wood structure.
We’re limited by a. Square corners for anything, right? So, so we really have a process that we can take a somebody’s vision. And and, you know, combine that with some of the options that we have and create a structure that meets their criteria. And what’s exciting about current state of the world is we can actually use ai.
Somebody could send this a picture of if they saw something or just a hand of what they’d like to. Gonna create something, and maybe it doesn’t necessarily means a hundred percent of what, what that picture shows, but we can have a design agent take a look at all the different shapes that we’ve already printed, and and we can make something that really fits the criteria.
We print only four sides of the structure, so the roof, two sides and, and the floor. So really just by definition, the front and the back are totally open for customization. You can have a sliding door or a regular door. You can have more glass or no glass. So, so really to begin with, the front and the back or the way it looks, the exterior you use is totally subject to the customization.
But we really can design something very unique. And you know how in the eco resort or in people don’t necessarily wanna stay in the same unit, right? So, so we can even create four or five different variations where you can name them, whichever kind of a name ideas you have, and they will have a different look.
We can also create a we just, we’re working with a resort in Colorado. Views of the night sky. You can see Milky Way without without telescope. They wanna have a.
Much more of a view of this, of this beautiful sky when you’re in your own. So all kind of things are possible and it’s much easier because you really are just, like I said, you are not using traditional materials that have to be square or rectangular. Or, and we’re not using the. Blocks in sky, so, so we really can make it the, the other, the other advantages of what we do, they’re very well insulated.
So because we actually print as a printer, goes around it go, it prints the outside wall and then it makes a little twerk and it prints the inside wall and then it leave space in the middle for insulation. So the units are very well insulated. Any standard you look around the world, the standard scroll for higher insulation in the roof, maybe a little bit lower in the walls and very little in the floor ’cause you have a cement path.
Well, we’re insulated all the way around, so we usually take the highest in installation that’s required in the roof and it’s all the way around. And what you find with this is a couple things. First of all, you must are very quiet. I know you remember when people see our units at the shows when they come in and you close the door, people are just amazed how quiet they can be.
Secondly, because they’re so well insulated even when you install air conditioning, heating it can run. With the solar power, so many of our installations are in places. They’re off grid. And the reason is, you know, normally the unit is not well insulated, then you need a lot more power to run the air conditioning.
But if you have a, aC unit that doesn’t need to work as hard because the place is insulated. Then you can have just three solar panels with a battery run both air conditioning and it’s all electric, so it has a refrigerator, microwave, a stove. So a, a very efficient system. So it’s really good for that as well.
Mm. I remember standing inside one of your structures in Colorado and thinking how insulated it was. And as you said, as soon as you shut that door, the sound of the show was just gone. You couldn’t hear anything. It was really quite incredible. And I remember, I remember hearing you say, when someone said to me, to you so what about the interior?
How much does that cost? And you said, oh, no. Well, that’s. All done at the same time. So is that all part of the design process? It’s all happens,
yeah. What, what I meant by that, it’s done really in the factory interior is really, you can decorate on the interior anyway you want. So, so you know, the 3D printing process just.
It’s up to your imagination. It just, because it’s not in the factory, it’s done a lot quicker. You know, you just think about it. We’re have to deliver appliances to the side. We don’t have to deliver an air condition we talked about. And then all the kitchen cabinets are made inside. So subject of customization again.
You can select from what we have, what we offer. We offer a couple lighting options, three or four cabinet options. But if you really want to, you know, if you’re interior decorator and you have a real, you know, I’ve seen some beautiful eco resorts, you know, design great interior designer, so we, we can pretty much take,
you know,
take a lead from you and I mean we’re really the idea.
A unit that meets any kind of residential or commercial code, just using alternative material. On the inside. It, it can look at any, and, and actually I, I really think that once they are, because we now deliver to six different states, you know, majority of deliveries are in California, but also deliver in Texas, Georgia, Arkansas.
And what we’re hearing from people that while the owner or operator resort is really excited about this, many times the people who stay in them have no idea the, the, the what, how it was done. And I think that’s an idea. I mean, it can be novelty. To begin with, but the ultimate goal is for people just to enjoy their stay, right?
Mm-hmm. So we don’t need to get in the nitty gritty of how it was made or what was used. It is, especially for resorts that really are eco-conscious. You can start there. You can start by saying, look, we, we, we have no wasted material. We used recycled materials, and that could be used for marketing.
And it is used for marketing by. Because to really, you know, to re and, and you and I know we’ve stayed in some resorts that where the Eco Resort Conference has held. And if you have a commitment to do it. Properly, no plastic, you know it, it’s a little bit of inconvenience, but after about the first night, you get used to it.
If you need some water, you just go down to a water fountain and get your water bottle filled. So, so it just goes towards the whole commitment of the resort owner and operator to have something that doesn’t damage the environment, that actually it actually uses the.
Mm, absolutely. And, and so the, the exterior, can you mix it with a paint or a color to allow it to be any color that you choose?
So for example, you are quite a branded property and all of your structures are a bit branded. Can you do that or, yeah. Can you? Yeah.
Yeah, we apply a stain to the unit after it was finished. And, and the reason is we really achieved two things with the stain is we had fire protection. And, and it’s in that stain material, both if you v stabilizer, because again, if you think about it.
Plastic phase, right? If you leaves water bottle in the sun. So we we use, but the manufacturer workforces all kind of options. So even if you see our units in the wild out there, they’re already, they’ve already been many, many, many columns. But, you know, so you can have. Brand of color or you can decide I wanna have different colors, you know, just to, to differentiate a little village or, or how the units look.
So yeah, that’s definitely open to options.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, because so often people, they want to be different. They want their business to be different and they want people to talk about it. So it’s really good if you can give those little. Nuances, the little differences that people can choose that fits their own palette of their brand and things like that.
So, I mean, that’s fan. Fantastic. And do you think that printed homes and printed structures, do you think this is a future trend or is this something that you probably are the only one who’s actually got the, that the efforts and the fire in his belly to make it happen?
Talked this before this podcast, you know, when we invented.
It wasn’t to win any kinda awards, we’re just looking for the way to build faster and, and less expensive. Right. And using less, less waste. But it’s been great that we’ve been recognized now as innovation that’s worth paying attention. We received numerous awards in the last six months. And, and the reason people starting to pay attention is first of all, they look beautiful, right?
You.
Importantly. The shortage of housing is such a massive problem. You know, we’re, we’re, we were short for housing to begin with, not, not only in the US but all over the globe. I mean, it’s universal. I can land any place in the world and ask, you know, do, do you have a lot of housing and.
It’s not that necessarily people short on housing. It’s like people short on affordable housing, right? There are plenty of mansions that are standing around the world that are that are empty. You know, people either use them as part-time or random but it’s lack of affordable housing. And then, you know, on top of that, you have all of the.
Environmental problems that we’ve been seeing over the last couple of years are just accelerating, you know, whether you wanna believe climate crisis or not. You know, there is something that causes just huge destruction of, of properties here in Los Angeles in January. So just about five months.
16,000 structures. 10 billion of loss California. I’ve urg subject over the last hundred years. We’ve had just numerous wildfires, but they’re getting worse and worse and they. More often and more often. But also you see Hawaii lost 2200 homes the last two years ago. Still have only 20% of it has been rebuilt.
Turkey lost, you know, over 200,000 homes through earthquake. Fraction of that was rebuilt. Yeah. And then you have wars. I mean, we’re living in a world where. Instead of just losing a couple homes here and there, you know when this ballistic missiles fly destruction in hundreds of thousands, so we are losing housing.
At an accelerated pace and we cannot continue to, to do what we’ve also done. Look at the lack of innovation in construction. You, hundred years ago, there was a carpenter, was a hammer and a nail compared to other industry. There was a horse and a. Later, you know, we have electric vehicles and what do we have in construction?
The same carpenter with the same hammer and nail. So, so of all of the in and, and you can point to any other industry, the way we made clothes. Yeah. So a hundred years ago, people would solve their shirts and clothes at home. Now there are factories, on and on and on. Any kind of product we went from.
Kind of doing it at home to, or to using some very ative methods to using technology construction. Very little change. So it, it’s, on one hand, people shouldn’t be surprised that things are so expensive because because things just happen and, and you know, now, I mean, again, when we started the business, it was cost, time, and environmental impact.
Now it’s tariffs. Again, every country, by the way, has this material that we’re.
Second shortage of labor in construction. It kind of was over the years where there’s less and less young people who wanna go in construction fields because it’s hard. It’s hard. You work in a in the hard weather and cold weather. So people, you know, so you, you’ve been losing people who wanna go in the industry.
In the United States, we have this immigration enforcement now. A third of construction industry in the US is done by illegal labor. So when things were bad to begin with in terms of having enough qualified contractors, we’re losing them every day. They’re afraid to come to a job site because immigration agents might, might come and snagging.
So. It, it’s kind of, if anything, it’s getting worse and and, and what does, industry responses will just continue to do it the same way. So, so the, the, the change have to happen, we’re here to, to do
it. Mm-hmm. And I love it that it’s not just in housing, it’s also in recreation and tourism. I, I love that.
And, and a couple of figures that you said to me before, which is this eco-friendly method. 70% faster than normal construction or what’s considered normal construction and it’s 30% cheaper. So it’s, you are saving 30% of your build construction budget by going down this non-traditional route. I mean, that’s incredible.
Yeah. You know, and it’s achieved in that first day. I mean, basically the fact that we can print this module in one day,
Look,
I, I’ve been building my whole life. We go from what’s required, usually take three months to one day. So that’s a huge saving. And the same thing in the, in the cost. It’s from having experienced carpenters with a big crew.
And you really need to be experienced because the, the, it’s critical to do the initial structure correctly. If you don’t do that right, then you have walls that don’t, that don’t look right, and electric, this doesn’t look right. I mean, that first step. Where you need the most experienced and most expensive people.
And here it’s down. The push of a button works 24 hours a day. Doesn’t take lunch,
cost saving. The time saving is achieved in that first moment. And of course, designed same, the same way. We have a lot more flexibility rather than wait for months to have a set of plans that that can be reviewed and, and then. Fixed in the field so often, again, by building buildings for the last 35 years.
Hmm.
So many contractors are, you know, just, workers can’t even read the plans They take, look at the, and then they go build it and then look at the. Sad. So, so there is just a lot of additional advantages that, that are achieved through this process.
Mm-hmm. And so just to give me an idea of what happens after it’s been printed, how does it then get to the site?
Because it’s printed as a whole thing, isn’t it? Yeah. So it’s literally taken from your warehouse and it’s transported. How does that work?
Well, actually there, there are several steps involved. So after it gets printed we, we really have like a production line here. So first step is we insulate, you know, we fill those voids.
Secondly, we put all the wiring in. We create we call channels on the inside. So there’s places for. Electric, mechanical water, plumbing. And then after that’s done, then you put you know, panels that act like a drywall, basically, you know, walls on the interior, and then cabinets arrive, and then plumbing fixtures arrive, and shower gets finished.
So there’s really. About eight steps from the print to finished product. And then depending on what customers buy. So a lot of the resource blending resorts buy from us, what we call park models. These are units that come on wheels in the us a lot of times in the rural areas on campgrounds.
They have been allowing RVs. So the park model is, is a unit that’s built in accordance with RV standard. And what it really means, it’s the, the chassis, the trailer meets that standard on the house itself. It’s like we discussed. So if that’s the case, I know are very light and pickup truck can call it nearby or across the country.
But if few people wanna install the same unit attached to foundation, then it goes on a on a kind of a flatbed of a truck. And and usually we can fit from two to four different strike, depending on the size. And then the truck hauls ’em around and when they arrive again, if they arrive on wheels, a lot of times it just truck puts it in place.
So there is nothing required. If they, if they arrive on a flatbed truck, then people either use a crane or, again, if it’s easy to access, you can just pick it up with a. Was a little transporter and put it in place. So multiple ways of, of getting it there. But again, they’re light so that we, I know you remember some pictures of units like in Big Sir, say, how did you get it?
Well, we didn’t get it from the front, you know, from the, where there was a cliff, but from the back along the dirt road, we were able to bring it to the side. So again, just a lot of the advantages, you know. When we were designing this we were just thinking of smaller, affordable home First client who came and bought our unit you know, two guys pulled up on Harley.
And they had a vision and I just said, what are you tell me whatcha getting this for? And this is for glamping resort. So I quietly pulled my phone under the table to look up what glamping means. That, that is what’s unique about our pride. Look, I, this is my fourth startup. In previous ones, I always had an idea.
I build it and then I want to sell it. With Azure, what has happened was we created our first prototype and posted on Facebook, and people had their own ideas. I. We could never imagine this kind of use or you know, again, the think of affordable housing, but Couple Con was just signed this week. I mean, last week was to rebuild some luxury homes or lost the fire, so you can use it for that.
We signed a couple contracts in the last two months to do housing for the homeless. Again, there are much smaller units. There are much more rudimentary, mean a lot less glass, but counties and say we have tremendous homeless crisis all over the world, in particular in California. And so two communities not far from us here, are gonna, I mean, the beauty is they, they picked our product.
These communities are pretty high end, so the residents didn’t want to see the ugly kind of tents to be used tents or, or this metal buildings. So they, they can have something and, and they really see this something affordable housing does. And and so it was totally acceptable to them to have housing for the unhoused.
And again, they’re, they’re seeing this because of this, so much less expensive and traditional method. Now they have more money for rehab and vocational training. So they’re just thinking about this for three years. So one community says, boy, buying it instead of building foundation, we created this bolt.
We can just bolt it into the parking lot. It is gonna be a parking lot of a hospital and then three years later it can, it can be recycled. I mean, that’s another beauty our product is, has a tr true you know, ability to, to just, you know, to recycle it once, once it’s used and creates something else.
And another, another community is taking our units on wheels. It’s gonna be very easy to install both of those projects. They just picked us. They’ll be installed. Not to pipe before the end of the year. So the speed really matters when somebody has something that’s, and, and it’s true for the rebuilding from natural disasters.
So we talked about all this homes lost to fires and some homeowners are putting up their land for sale because they’ve been kind of psyched out by contractors of how much it would cost rebuild.
And
so they’re saying, well.
To have their rebuild. And so this, both of those contracts were brought to us by general contractor who took the challenge. And so tell me how much you’re getting from insurance. Lemme figure out a way to build it today. Less expensive and faster. And people will lose tremendous amount of equity in their home when they just sign.
So rebuilding. And that’s again, based on experience. I’ve lived through wildfire myself in Malibu here some six years ago. So people who rebuilt their values actually increased because they now built modern home current standards. Still, the view is still the same, still beautiful, but people who lost the land, who lost generational wealth because they were psyched out by, by contractors who said, oh.
Other benefits to what we kind of makes, makes me feel good.
Absolutely. And I think it should do is, I mean just very, the recycling aspect there that you can build something and you can recycle it and build something else. I mean, that’s just incredible. Yeah, no, that’s the
definition of circular economy and that circular economy is.
Using a product that can be used for its useful life and then using it for something else, and we’re able to achieve this with this product.
There’s very, very few products that actually can do that in construction that I’m aware of. In fact, I think I’m, I’m only aware of yours as a full structure, a livable structure.
And you were you. Your efforts were recognized recently when you, well, by the o Oprah Winfrey Show no less when you helped to resettle 6,000 refugees from Eastern Europe to the US and give them housing through your product. I mean, how did that come about?
Yeah, that’s actually happened quite a bit, quite a long time ago.
Yeah I was an apartment developer, so I’ve always been in housing, so I had the units and my family didn’t care. I, I came here as a refugee. We actually, I’m from, originally from Ukraine, but on the way here, spent some time in Italy waiting for our papers to come through. And didn’t care for how the resettlement effort was done here.
We were, we were almost guided towards financial assistance from the state and federal. And my dad didn’t wanna have anything to lose it. So we kind of spun off from that effort and just went about our own way. You know, it forced my brother and I to get a real estate license. We have to make a living.
And my dad started business. So, so, you know, when, when I, after college.
Started. We said, look, all of this, the directing of people towards public assistance is not the way it’s a disservice. Be much better to raise privately money. I had apartments and friends who owned furniture stores and and people with money wrote checks. So we basically raised the amount of money and we decided to.
A paid staff handle it. We actually matched every family that was coming with a family here in the states. That we’re willing to provide the, we basically, I raised money to provide financial assistance for 90 days. That was our plan. 90 days. All you need to do is worry about learning English, learning how to drive a car you know, have some vocation training.
If you were a doctor, you might start as a neuro. If you’re an engineer, you might start as a draft.
But more, the most important part of that was having a family who care you, handling your family, who could take kids to a doctor of help ’em find school, help ’em take to initial interview. The goal was in 90 days they wouldn’t help get a job. They don’t need any assistance, and if they have some connections with community, so did this in Atlanta and then went around the southeast of the country and help other communities try to organize the same programs.
And again, you know, it was not a grand vision. It was like, that’s what I would, you know, that’s what I would’ve appreciated when we came here.
Yeah.
And take it to scale this way. We settled 6,000 refugees. One the most successful, you know, literally over 90, 99% of the people did become financially independent.
After 90 days. Only people who are elderly or had, you know, couldn’t, couldn’t do that. But vast majority of people were. Loved it. And I traveled, but I brought, during that process, I brought rest of our family from former Soviet Union, from Ukraine and from Russia. And I was just there last December, walking through the mall and people recognized, recognized me.
And, and, and grateful. And I said, really? You know, you’re welcome. But it wasn’t something, it wasn’t something that I did because I was looking for things. I just felt that that’s the right way to do it. This is a method
to
this difficult problem. And you know, and it just made sense from living it myself.
So, so that, that was that story.
It, it felt right to you and it’s, as you said, it was the way you wanted to be treated when you came into the country, and I think that’s really commendable and fantastic. And actually we need more people like you that can help integrate you know, different people of different nationalities for different needs.
So, yeah. You know,
I mean, crisis we have, it’s like if comes.
You know, anytime we as a society try to people to do certain things, so. Again it’s not that this is like a unique thing. You look at any situation, be it homelessness, be it, you know, loses thousands of homes to fires it, it doesn’t require a massive think tank effort. It just requires people who live it and care and, just do it. So it really is it wasn’t me thinking, how do I get an award? It was like, this is what I would do. Yeah,
absolutely. But I, I agree with you. However, you do need to have the feedback from people who’ve lived it so they can say what needed to happen instead. That would be better. But you still need the visionaries.
To be able to turn that into action and to make that into something that will work. ’cause not everyone can turn that feedback into action. So I think you are obviously a visionary, as we can tell by the fact that you’ve got the business that you’ve got. But I’ve gotta ask you the question. I mean, obviously you’re based in the US and you’ve got facilities over there.
Do you have anything in Europe?
Not yet. But my business partner and I are both Europeans. So my business partner Ross McGuire is from, from uk, from London. And of course I’m Ukrainian. So we have a lot of, friends, family and connections to Europe and, and the 3D printing industry came from Europe.
So we envision coming to, to Europe. This year and next year we are focusing on expansion in the us but in 2027, we envision setting up.
You know, even during the eco reserve meeting in in Greece, I’ve talked to a number of people who’d like to bring it to their home countries. I follow that by to Dubai. And Dubai is committed to have 25% of their structures, 3D printed by 2030. So people around the world are thinking about it and then we get.
Bunch of inquiries from Australia, New Zealand, Canada. I mean, any country that accepted a lot of immigrants over the last decade or two is short on housing. It’s true of Europe and all the other places. Mm. So we envision while in us, all of our factories are gonna be owned, operate by ourselves. As we move in international expansion, we need local partners setting up a JV where local partner can.
Bring capital to set up a facility like we need. But while we can set up a manufacturing process, we have the formula, the material formula is our trade secret. You know how Coca-Cola never patented their formula?
Yeah, it’s
same, right? The formula is what it is and we’re on the fourth in three years. That is I, you know.
Going from construction to 3D printing, I never thought that would be material science, but that’s kind of where we’re so we can manufacture and we can develop the material, but we need local partners, just like in example, who can sell and distribute and install. So from companies who are in construction or companies who are in distribution.
Those are the kind of partner that we have. And of course, capital you know, the capital that makes the most sense is to have governments provide that because if the government wants to have more portable housing, so our second factor is opening later this year in Colorado, not far away from where the Lamping show USA is being held.
The state that providing 80% of the funding there because they wanna have more affordable housing. And they lot our pro and, and what happens is when you have a law partner with a government, then they help you. With adjusting their building codes to meet what you need. They also know who is looking to develop affordable housing, so they’re really helping you with supply and sales.
So, so having that kind of source makes a lot of sense.
Hmm. Absolutely. Well look, there’s an opportunity right there for someone in construction who’s been listening in, so I think that’s a fantastic way to end If somebody wants to get in touch with you, if they want to find out more, how do they do that?
I. Sure. The best way is probably LinkedIn and pretty active on LinkedIn, and I’m the only I know of or by email. And we’re also on Azure Homes, is on Instagram, Facebook, so multiple ways, you know, just either by my name or by the name of the company, you can find us.
And I will include all the links and the email and everything else in the show notes.
So if anybody wants to reach out, it’s really easy just to click through from there. So thank you so much, Gene for today. Really great to see you again. I absolutely wish you the best for this. I think it’s inspired, unique, and I love those things, especially when they bring a bit of good to the world.
So thank you so much for all that you do.
Sarah. Sarah, thank you. For, for the time and for pushing this forward. So take care. Have a great rest of the week.
You too. See you soon.
Bye-bye.
