Hey, voices from the bench community Jennifer Ferguson from I'm Here with a quick shout out to all programming, M7 users and those thinking about joining the club. On July 1st, we launched the AI block module that's powered by intelligent automation that optimizes tool paths and saves you serious time. I'm talking up to 45% faster milling. You want to know what the best part is? You can try it for free for 90 days. No pressure, no commitment. Do you want in? All you have to do is shoot us a message on Instagram at. Or you can email me at Jennifer Ferguson and we'll get you set up. Welcome to voices from the bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an email at info at voices from the bench and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 381 of voices from the bench. My name is Elvis. My name is Barbara. So, Barb. Yep. Do you still have all your fingers? Last week you were a sparkler. Happy? I was bro. I. We had a 5th of July instead of a 4th of July, because the 4th of July got rained out. And so I sparkled my you know what off and had fun and acted like a cheerleader and did a, b, C, d. Yes. Thank you for remembering that. I do like sparkle. The whole state of Florida, they basically rained it out and just pushed. Oh, it was just harbor. It was just physically where I was. It was like a literal downpour. And so they moved it to the to the next day and it was just fantastic. How about you? We ended up calling it an early night. Stayed home with the dogs. Comforted them during the. Oh, I bet you they were freaking out. Oh, yeah. They don't. Not as much as you would think, but they don't care for it. So yeah, we just we just stayed with them and, uh, you know, made it a regular night. Nothing special, but. Yeah. All right, so we're gonna get right into this episode because we're super excited. I know that I don't know if a lot of people know, but when we come back from IEDs, and we have as many conversations as we got. There's really no rhyme or reason to the order of putting them together, other than just trying to fill an hour's episode, right? And we also go off of the time we recorded them a little to like the first lady we recorded. She was the first one we did and just kind of played out. We don't play favorites, right? We don't try to showcase anybody above anyone else, but these two gentlemen ended up on the same episode. Crazy. And it's so exciting. Yeah. They're together. They really were a highlight of our show. Yeah, not that the other ones weren't amazing. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, but, I mean, it was just really kind of cool to sit down with Tilman, for sure. And Bjoern, you wanted to chat with him and he had a super cool booth. So, yeah, it's just a great twosome. Yeah. And we tried to connect with Bjorn Joiner from Bight Finder for years. I mean, when we were back in Spain last year, we tried to connect. It didn't happen. And then we tried it again in Chicago at Lab Day, and it still didn't happen. But we finally got him away from, as you mentioned, this crazy busy booth. Mhm. It's cool he set this thing up. It was just like a bar belly up to the bar. He served drinks and talked about bite finder. I mean it was really a great concept but. He finally was able to come tell us his story of growing up around labs, to eventually opening his own lab and then realizing all the problems that came from mis mounted cases and how he could fix them. And that's where Byte Finder comes into play. No, it it's really a great concept and he'll get into all the details, but the key is that it's free to try. So I don't know why you wouldn't check it out. That's really cool. Yep. The second conversation on this episode is a super sweet treat as we talk to the CEO and one of the founders of the one and only XO, CAD Tilman Steinbrecher. So Tilman tells us the history of XO cad, how it started, where the name came from and why they went with purple. All about the early versions, the early growth to what they are working on now and how it all comes from feedback from the users. So join us as we chat with Bjorn Zauner and Tilman Steinbrecher from the xkcd booth at IDW's 2025. Voices from the bench. The interview. Yes, we finally have the hardest man to get on the podcast ever. And it's just. It's not that you're reluctant. You're just busy. Very busy. Yeah, it's good a bad thing, right? Yeah, but I'm so sorry. It does. No need to apologize. No, I love it. I know, I love your shirt. It says bad bites suck. Bad bites do suck. Let the founder CEO of Bite Finder. Yeah. What's your name? How do you pronounce it? Bjorn, Bjorn. Oh, I like it. What's your last name? Salina. Say it again. Zona. Zona. I leaned in. I know it's a you know it's a oh, and a what with the two dots. Yeah. So where are you from? So. Okay, funny thing, because Bjorn is a Swedish name, right? Yeah. So. But I'm not Swedish. Uh, I'm made in Sweden, but born in Germany. Really? Yeah. My parents knew, so they said it has to be a Swedish name. That's cool. And how the hell did you get into dental? Yeah. Give us your story. Yeah. You don't just start Bite finder and become like, the the the newest thing in dental. All of a sudden, everybody's talking about, by the way. Yeah. For sure. That's so sweet to hear. Yeah. I'm not lying. No. Everyone's like byte finder. Byte finder? Yeah. Honestly. And we talked to Larry this morning, so that was a good call. So, yeah, a lot of people are saying, what is it? Yeah. So let's let's start back. So okay. How do you get into it. Yeah. Let me give you a story okay. So I was born in a dental family. My grandma worked at that lab. So after war, she was doing, like, basic work. Stone models, my work preparation. Uh, but that motivated my dad to become a dentist eventually. Um, so I grew up as a toddler running around the clinic. He had a little in-house, uh, lab. So he employed a technician. Yeah. So he had, like, 4 or 5 technicians at the time. Uh, many years ago. Uh, so I, I smelled dental air in my whole life. Yeah. So it was in your DNA? Yeah. You know it. I think you have to be crazy to do that for sure. Yes, yes, that's a yes. So then. Yeah. So then I, I definitely said never dental. Oh, not a dentist or no dental. No dental. It was too much teeth my whole childhood. But, um, eventually I said what am I good at and what is very complicated. So what I want to study. So I said I want to study psychology. So because I'm good at with numbers and technology. So what is really the most complicated thing there is humans. Yeah. Yeah okay. So let's study humans first. So you went into psychology. Yeah. So that helps with the lab because we're all kind of nuts. I wasn't going to say a little bit. Yeah, but essentially it helps you understand where things come from. Yeah. Like it? It teaches you to ask more questions. So if I go to a lab and see a problem as of why you're doing this, what happened? Like same psychology. Like you have an issue. Like, did you experience something bad? Yeah. How does that make you feel? Exactly. How does it make you feel to grind on cinchona? Yeah. Like, it makes me feel like when I kill somebody. Not great. Yeah. Yeah, but getting back to the story, growing up in there, not wanting to do this, checking something else out, I said, I listen to so much. And I traveled with my dad through different exhibitions, and I somehow liked it. And then I could connect a few dots. So let's let's do it. So started with a milling center. And there you only have machines you have to maintain dentist. He's got a lab. And with your dad you opened a milling center? No. By myself. But at that time he sold his clinic by that time. Uh, he got more into consulting and, uh, industry. So right off the bat, you're milling center. Yeah. So because it was easy, you put a machine, you get files, you put it on a machine. And did you mark it? Sorry. Did you mark it, like to customers? Like, how did you get your. Just because, you know, people, you know. And just getting maintaining one machine is easy. That's that's how you open this whole milling center with one machine. Yeah. Are you a center with one machine? No, no, it was one machine. At some point it was 3 or 4 machines. And then I got out of it because I wanted to go more into the vertical. So with a milling center, you don't phase all these issues because you get a file. You have to make sure it's milled and you send it out if the design is good, if the crown is too high to low, it's not my problem. Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's all in the design. So I got more into the vertical. So I said let's do lab work. Let's do more. So you started accepting work from dentists. So no, I sold the milling center and then I went into building a lab. Orthodontic lab, orthodontics. Why did you choose ortho? Yeah, because I had issues myself. And it was like the time was fascinated. You like. Like this is like €8,000 for having a treatment. I was like like, I want a piece. We know how printer works. Like, we have the software for moving teeth. Let's just do it. And and then the concept is, is working. I mean, it's not easy per se, but it it works, right? So we started doing that and getting more into complicated orthodontics, like everything around brackets and retainers and everything. It's a world I don't understand. Oh yeah. Same, same. We don't talk to a lot of ortho so. Yeah, it's it's it's tricky part right. Yeah. It's very manual in many cases. But then I mean you see what the line is doing with zakat now. Art. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's also that was my next step. Right. Getting restorative because it makes sense to have both out of one hand. Because at some point it makes sense to move a tooth before you place an implant. Or you have less invasive treatments. All of that. If you're going to start, it might as well finish it. So you started doing lab work? Yes. And then, you know, me being more a what were you, a business focused? I was thinking the same thing. Like, dang, you've done a lot in a very short period. Yeah. So young looking. Yeah. Yeah. I'm 29 now. Yeah. Impressive. Okay. So you started doing lab work, and then. Yeah. The bite final was created by me always asking, like, why do we do this? Can we? How can we be more efficient in the lab? You know, at some point you always have to ask, like, why do we have to hire more people? We don't find them, you know, at least not dental technicians, per se. You have to train them because there's not enough seats around there. So I always ask, like, can we do it differently? And the idea for Pathfinder was born like five years ago when I said, look, my grandma worked in the lab doing stone models. I mean, we're now here. Like we're still doing that same. Yeah, still doing stone. Um, so I thought, can we just scan the two impressions? And skip the stormwater part. But you can, because if you scan two impressions, you have two jaws like this and no bite and no relation. Bingo. But have we gotten to the point where we can scan an impression? Because a lot of people complain about the undercuts and the this and that and how it's not great. It's not great, to be honest. Yeah. It's not it's not a full process. Yeah, but there's ways you can use an IO scanner for that because you can get better in the, in the undercuts. Um, but it worked to a certain degree that we're lucky. And it helped our process. It helped with turnaround time faster, no stall models, blah, blah, blah. But then we had an increase in I o scans in the lab, and I was happy at first. But then I also saw an increase in remakes and an increase in headache and increase in everything. Yep. It fixed two problems created for more. Yeah. Like, what the fuck? Yeah. But if you look closer, then you. You understand the underlying problem. Yeah. And it's a byte. Yep. Bingo. Bingo. So then what'd you do? I can explain it. Yeah. We. To me. So how my final works is we trained the eye to see what our hands feel. Mm. So computer vision is all about seeing. So imagine the technology being able to analyze the anatomy. Morphology to have where facades like what an experienced technician or an experienced dentist would do. Looks at the models, puts them together and finds that sweet spot. Yeah. Mhm I feel it. You got it. Falls into place grinding a little bit on it to get into more anticipation and all of that. So I think can we replicate that virtually. Because it's a weird process to get IO scans. Print them out. Put them together by hand and re scan it. Yeah. What the fuck? That's so true. Yeah. Yeah. So even though the IO scan gets a bite. Because that's part of the process. Upper. Lower bite. Right, left. It's not right. So first thing like around 10% of cases in the lab. So we work now with around 7000 labs in clinics worldwide. Yeah. Around 10% of all the cases are, like, completely out of occlusion. Um, it's either forget forgot to scan the bite no time, or it's a mix up of the software itself. So how it works is you scan one jar, you scan the other jar, and then you scan the bite. You mentioned one and two. Yeah. Most dentists save the time and just scan one what you're supposed to do. That's true though. You're also supposed to put your seatbelt on, you know, and don't eat sugar at night. Yeah, that's how humans work, right? Coming back to psychology. So if you don't do both bites, you're always off. Yes. Even if you do both bites, it's. Too many variables to create a consistent and reliable process. Because it's not only the scanner that has to match the single drawer scans to the byte scan, it's also the person who is using the scanner, like the assistant or the dentist. It's the patient as well. I told you guys I love you. I love your muse. I love your meme so much. But there's one way if you tell a patient to bite is what they do. They have no idea. And how could they write? So if you don't care, or you don't know or you don't have time, you just put the thing in. You scan it. Whatever they do at that moment and you send it out to the lab, they will fix it. Yeah, this bite finder know that the bite is not right. Yeah. So if you put the. So how it works is you put an upper and lower jaw, you put it in a system, you click the button and after a few seconds you get a result. You don't put the bite in that you got no, no. So it works out the where the bite is for you. It will do what you would do by hand. Wow. So that's what you said. You you figured out how the technicians do it and then you created it for the software to do it. Well, I mean, how many times back in the day you. Oh, with the blue bar every day. And then after you take it off, you're like, that's wrong. Yep. And then you're like, let me do it. And then you're like, oh, here it is. Yes. Because you found it. This is what it does. Exactly. And it's consistency. It's the same with articulating two stone models. It's art, right? I mean, there's people who can do it, right? But most people do it wrong. And if you give the same two star models to five people, you get ten different articulations. That would be an interesting study. Yeah, there are a few. Yeah for sure. But yeah, that's that's how it works. So step one is put in two models upload on the system create click the button and then you get them into occlusion. That's number one. And then I said what's the second annoying thing in my lab. It's average value articulators. What does that mean. So the average value articulator sort of almost all of them. But uh, the average value means we guesstimate the crown. Like, if I use an average value articulator to design the crown, you get an average crown. But your values are different than Bob's, right. Yeah. Mine are way higher. Wow. Yikes. Oh, no. But I almost went lower. But I decided to play the high. That's all right. I'm used to you, but we don't want average crowns. And by standing on an average crown, the dentist puts it in the patient's mouth, seats it, and then they grind on it. How is it? Yeah, yeah. Not good. That doesn't feel right. So just adjustments. 25 minutes later. 55 minutes. Dentist. Then we use an average articulator. Yeah. Because what is that? Right. So is that those, like, plastic ones? I don't know, it's like even if you use a virtual articulator, let's assume you do the workflow. Yeah. Let's do a design a crown. After designing a crown, you fit it. You check the contacts with the antagonist. Yep. And then we use the articulated virtual one to perform some movements to remove, like, what is in a way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But the human jaw doesn't work like an average value. Articulator. It doesn't. Not even close. Exactly. So it doesn't move left or right. It moves. Exactly. So we did the same thing with finding the occlusion. We taught the technology to simulate the patient's lower jaw movement. So what you would do by hand. Same as well the hand articulator. So experience technicians and dentists. They would put the models together. They look at the wear and tear and they move it to figure out how this patient behaves. And then you replicate that into your final work. So that's why you do trials. For example. You send it to the patient where it for 12 months PMMa or wax or whatever. Dial it in. Yeah. Dial it in. And then you see what happened. And then you replicate that in your final work. Yeah. Wow. Huh? Genius. But we do all of that with one click. So we we generate all these movements of the patient. And you can use that then as an XML file in Excel for example you can load that jaw motion file. And apply it on the crown or bridge or splint design to virtually grind what you would otherwise have to do by hand. So either in the lab, they would put it into your file. And so it takes the occlusion and the and the, the function. Yes. And wipes everything out so that when you mill or print it's good to go. And you don't have to go around with it for a half an hour. Exactly. Wow. So the files go through you and then go into exo CAD or they go to exo CAD you and back index CAD. Okay. Interesting topic. Okay, I want to say something about integrations. So with exit CAD it's nice. It's an open platform. And still it took a while to get it dialed in. Right. So but in Xcode you can start your file. You have the bite finder button if you want on the right side. Oh, you can add a button and then you click on the button, a button. It opens the two jaws that are in the project folder. You can do your bite finder thing, and if you save it, it saves it back in the right folder. Then you do your design. So it's quite convenient. Yeah. Um, with other softwares, it's not like that. Yeah. We're working on more than 50 integrations now because for me the most important thing is availability. 50 different softwares. I thought that's intense. Yeah that's intense man. We have so many different formats, so many different ways of working and well like Met It and blue Sky by many. We already did. Right. So you can scan upper or lower. You can press the button on a button. That's nice software out there. Wow. There's a lot. Yeah, well, you're all the talk, all the rage. Seriously? So, genius. What is the the structure look like? People pay per case or. Yes. So you can just go on a website and you can create an account. You can play around with it for like two weeks. Right. See if you like it. Yeah. It's cool because I want to provide value right after that. People know the value it can provide. They can talk to us. We can make a joint session together, look at cases, uh, teach them. And then you choose how many cases you need to do in your lab. And then based on that, you pay per use. So it's like a mobile phone contract, either do prepaid or monthly or yearly. And based on that you get a price. It's all available online. Awesome. So yeah. So our labs doing like every case through Byte Finder or are they like they probably pick and choose I bet. Brilliant question. Yeah. So you would think that every lab is the same, but every lab is incredibly different. So we have big labs who do every case, and we have big labs to do like five cases a month, like only the worst they could find, like completely off, like a meter apart. Once they realize this is not right, they'll use you rather than just everything. And then we also have small labs who do every case, and small labs to do only one case a month. So it really depends on you all over the place. Yes. It's not control because it's either you're. The problem with us is in the lab. We are very proud that we can do things by hand. Yeah, we're craftsmen and it's fine, but in the end, we produce something that goes into somebody's mouth. So we should all available technology to make it as good as possible. Yeah. Agree 100%. And I can always rely on my my one very good technician or QC manager. I mean you both work in labs very accurately and you have one good di tremor and they're not there. And now nothing fits. Yeah that shouldn't be the case. You should have one consistent workflow that fits right. And we we see labs who leverage the technology. They do splints for example night guards. Um before that they would spend half an hour after milling the night guard, putting it into an articulator, grinding it, because you always have issues at the last moment. You have to do that. Yep, yep. Then you send it out and the dentist still is grinding for another half an hour. Yeah. Why? Why exactly? So the cases you get. Where people think the bite's already okay. How much change is there to it? So that's that's nice because you can see it. So we provide a preview of the result and also like a little report. And you see contact points before and after. Yeah. Like the balance. Like do you have more contacts left and right. Because it happens. If you do a bite scan on one side only, it's usually like this for sure. Uh, or if a patient has pain on the right side, they don't bite. They don't bite on that side. That's interesting. Wow. So it's so tricky to get it right. That's why we need software to a system or a number or lying down. How many times we're taking bites on numb patients. I'm like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. They don't. They don't even know where they're at. Yeah. So that's why we say bat bite sucks and no human is average, right? It's one of our slogans because that's that's the thing. And we shouldn't use average values for that. Right. And that's why we also developed one more thing with ZMapp. You heard about it. What is it now? Snap is a 3D printable articulator. Are they right there? Yeah, they're right there. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, we saw that. Yeah. So the thing is, they created the nicest way of doing that. I mean, there's a few things around where you can download it and put it on your model, but most of them are just like flip flops. Yeah. They're not. They're not super nice. Yeah, they have a nice joint system that's patented and it's really good. But there's two different ways. You have the average values. You can choose like 35 degrees. Put it out of the library and attach it to your model. Or you have an X snap 360. What does that mean? It means we can either load our AI generated from motion or recorded motion from Mojo, zebras, SDI metrics, uh, all of these, um, devices, and use that to create a patient specific articulator that is printable for every case. Wow. So the actual hinge is printed specifically for the movements of that job. Exactly. That's cool because we are. That's pretty sweet. Because it's weird, right? So even if you buy that system like a recording device. Yeah. You send it to the lab. Most labs don't know how to use it. But that aside, um, even if you use it for your design, afterwards, you print the two models. The worst thing that I see is using 3D printed models, using gypsum to attach them to an average value articulator then and then trying to adjust it on wrong like, yeah, yeah, that hurts. For me. That hurts. Yeah. That's crazy. Alexander. Alexander. He has made it back home. So that's fascinating. I had no idea there were specific articulator hinges for a patient. That's amazing. And it gives you that consistent workflow. So what we did with multiple customers is we created an inflow. So imagine you send you do an IO scan, send it through your lab on the way. It will be automatically optimized by byte finder. We fix the static occlusion. We generate a jaw motion based on the the two scans. We automatically create a printable model with the two hinges attached with where the kernel path is individualized by the jaw motion. So it's one click. Put it on a printer. Here you go. Yep, that's all takes 30s. Yeah, yeah. You're just like, yeah, that's why it's going loco. And everybody's talking about it. Yeah. Wow. It's amazing. Growing like crazy. Just labs trying it. Yeah, it's really crazy. So we started two years ago before that. We use it only internally. And since then we had more than 7000 people worldwide from every country, big and small. Wow. It's it's. You still have a lab? I still have the lab. Uh, it's. You just don't have any time. I just don't have any time. Uh, unfortunately. But I'm. I'm still loving lab work. And even if I'm, you know, if it's very busy at some point and some machine is not working and you have to get down to the bench and do it, it it it brings you back. And it helps me realize there's so many more problems to solve. Yeah. And that's why we we love talking to so many users, uh, because they give us so much more pain points and we are happy to solve it. And now we're launching version 4.0, which is essentially allowing us to add more data like CBT phase scans, everything to create a more comprehensive virtual patient and have all that. Testing done in the cloud and not on a real human right. Especially if you do full edge cases. It's horrible. Like how many, how many appointments you need to get it right. Wow. So these labs that have been using it, they've seen a significant load of remakes. I mean, sure. Oh, yeah. So there's all kinds of stuff. So it remakes is interesting because our main goal is to reduce remakes and bottlenecks in the digital workflow of labs and clinics. Yeah. So the average remake rate is I would say the external one is around 10%. More tricky is the internal remake rate. Oh, yeah. We don't talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Now, if it doesn't, you know, that's higher. So it should be. Ours is like 0%. We never. We never rebuilt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, but that's the problem. Like we. It's only possible because we we still have a good margin and everything we do. Yeah. To be honest. So we we are able to do things twice. Especially like in Germany where you get paid by the general insurance. Like. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So they, they pay for the, for the crown for example. So there's a lot of room for error let's say in Denver still. Yeah. Our industry is still getting a dollar, a higher dollar for the because insurance pays you directly. No insurance pays uh, for the for the patient. Uh, the dentist orders it from the lab, and there's a fixed price. Um, but it's just much higher than, like, for example, in the UK by the NHS, like. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or in the United States with the DSO. It's very tight. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Maybe 50 bucks for. Yeah. And it's tight if you get 200. Yeah. If you mill it twice. Yeah. Exactly. Better than having an issue with the doctor right. Yeah. That's true. That's the thing. But um, coming back to the question, uh, we see labs that could reduce the remake rates by more than 50%. 50%. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Do you want to say how much the service is? You don't have to, but. Oh, yeah. So it it depends on, on the volume. But it's something between 2 and $5. Really. Yeah. That's about right. That's the sweet spot. That's reasonable. So imagine you get a a scan where the bite is completely off. What do you do. Pass for a new bite. You're going to redo it at $35? Yes. The dentist happy if you call down two to recall the patient. No no no no. They probably sent a scan to another lab. And what do they do? They would print the models and articulate them $20 and call it a bad bite scan. We have people who do that. I bet. Yeah, a lot of labs would charge it. Fixed bite charge, 20 bucks? Yes. For euros. We also have clinics who say I love this. Dear lab, please use this. I pay for it. Oh. That's sweet. That's. That's genius. It's one of our biggest issues involved. Yeah. If I'm honest, like, the biggest value add is in the clinic because they don't have to do that. Many chairs at adjustments so they can treat more patients. They can send more work. Yep. Love it. Do you have clinics? Like, we don't even need to scan a byte anymore. Yeah we're done. Upper lower out f byte scans. That's sweet. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So two years ago, you started this career at IDs. Two years ago. We've been here, but we've a small booth, but very basic. Huge booth. Thank you. You have grown substantially in two years. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It's a crazy journey. I'm so happy. I have an amazing team who give it all. Right. We we're still, you know, we don't have the the F.U. Money, right? Yeah. So we have to do everything. Videos, banner designs, wall art. You don't have a marketing department? Awesome. We are the marketing department. Yeah. Well. It's working. Yeah. Bad bite sucks. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Thanks. It's. People are remembering it. Thank you. Like I said, we've heard we've had a few people mentioned it on the podcast. Yep. Kind of sucks. Good luck. Do you still have. I know they're awesome. Majorca? Yeah. Honestly we have. We now have given away more than 5000 socks. Awesome. That's great. You know, I have. I have a fable for socks. It's a it's it's my my thing thing. I always collect them when I'm around, and it's like nothing better than taking on a fresh pair of socks that's never been worn before. Socks? I bought a pack just to come on. Love it. That's awesome. And my team said, like, when I. When I introduced the idea on our weekly call, I was like, we should do socks. And we're like. Why? Why should we do songs? Nobody will see them. Yeah. I said trust me. You should do it. That's awesome. It worked. Yeah. I've seen it on Instagram. Other people reposting their socks. It's something that no one. I mean, everyone does t shirts, everyone does hats. Blah blah blah. Socks. Socks are great. Genius. Socks. So congratulations. Thank you. Success! Appreciate it. Congratulations. Thank you guys. I think I mentioned it to you that part of our onboarding process is listening to to your podcast. That's cool. We're gonna hire the crazy. Yeah. Because especially when you. When you get people on board like developers. Yeah. I don't know, Daniel. They don't know that there's a lot of content there. That is unique. It's unique. Is that a word? Yeah. Sorry. I'm German. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, it's it's it helps you understand how people think. Because you you give room to express yourself. You you bring the humor into the memes that have essential truth. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And and we try to to solve that. I mean, I hope it doesn't kill the meme thing because you don't have every problem bad problems to make fun of. I think there's plenty enough. I can't make it all positive. Well, no. Thank you so much for that. I think it's it's well appreciated from our team to have a. Yeah, we have a good, good laugh. Uh, every now and then and we even plan to maybe put it into our software. Yeah, I told you. Yeah I'm super excited for that. So as we I mean, it's very high computation that we do to get all this, these things that these things done. So it takes a few seconds. And in the meantime we thought, why don't we educate people or show them something to laugh at, have a good time? I mean, in the end, it's lab technicians, mostly designers, who look at it and better do something fun or something. So we also create a little game. Oh yeah, like Google when it's down a little. Yeah. Exactly. The the T-Rex. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So we might include that as well. We have it over at the booth. We call it Arty Shooter. So it's like a little shooting game. We have to to shoot articulators. Oh nice. I'll check that out. But yeah it's it's nerds. Yeah. Everybody's like. You had time to develop a game like. What's wrong with you? I don't know how you do, though, that's for sure. Yeah, we have it. The team gives it all so a lot of all nighters before the show. But I'm so happy to to meet you guys here. You deserve to do this. Oh, yeah. Good luck to you, man. Awesome. Exactly. All right. Free two weeks. Yeah. Just try it out. Why wouldn't you? If there's any problem, just reach out to us. Happy to jump on a call. Fix issues. Personally. Me personally. I'm. I'm. If somebody asks, like I'm customer support. Awesome. Like, I'm just there to I. The whole team just loves helping and fixing problems, right? No matter how big or small, we just. We don't have anything. We need to fix it. Yeah. True that. Well. Thank you. Thank you. Super. Good job. You finally made your way. Thank you so much. I only had a drag, but I do appreciate it. Have a great show too, man. Thanks. Good job. I love you guys. So this is super exciting. Yeah. Barb and I, of course, at IDW's 2025 at the Expo Kat booth. I think we have Mr. Zo Kat here, the CEO. Hi, Elvis. Hello. Good morning. Tilman. What's your last name? Steinbrecher. Shine breaker. It actually means stone breaker. Stone breaker. Did your family were Masons or something back in the day? Making building? Probably a couple of centuries ago. Centuries ago. Wow. So, Tilman, we finally get to meet you on this trip, and it's very exciting. But I want to hear the story of X, okay? Were you the creator of it? Well, one of the creators. One of the creators, uh, Mike, uh, the other co-founder and I, we started, uh, working as young researchers at, uh, Research Institute in Darmstadt, my home city. Yeah. Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research. And you were, like, really young, weren't you? Like, I was in my early, my late 20s, so. Wow. So what? It just came to you one day that you needed to create this? You and your partner? Uh, well, I was working at that research institute even when I was still a student. Got it. But in other projects. And, uh, when I finished my studies, I wanted to have a full time job there. And, uh, there was an availability in the, in the dental group. So that's how I actually ended up, uh, in dental. And very quickly I became fascinated, uh, fascinated by the technology in CAD cam because it's. It's really high technology, but you're selling it to people who aren't engineers, but who are clinicians or artisans who are focused on aesthetics, etc.. So the big challenge in our industry is to make that super advanced technology accessible in an easy way, so that the users can focus on, on their, their special knowhow, no matter whether it's aesthetic, whether it's occlusion, whether it's clinical aspects, they shouldn't be distracted by the complexity of the technology. And I think that was from the beginning on, one of the reasons for our success, that we made the technology very accessible. You were working and using the other design softwares, and that's when you said to yourself, we can do something a little different, a little better. How did that come? How did the whole XO cad. Well, you said you went into dental. Yeah. So did you have to get, like, dental school? No, no. So I didn't actually use the other products that were available on the market at the time. But at the Fraunhofer there was already a dental CAD platform, but it was really more of a research platform. There were even customers. But to be fair, we realized quickly that the customers weren't really getting what they wanted. They were getting R&D services when in reality they wanted a product they could sell. Yeah. So we took this these whole developments more in a product development direction and successfully. So even when we were still at Fraunhofer, we put a successful product on the market. But obviously it's not the business model of a research organization to sell products. So the next obvious step was to create a spinoff company with a with the support of Fraunhofer and who were also a shareholder in the in the first years. So we started with three people. So three people from the research said, hey, we have something, let's create a company. Absolutely. So the entire came up with the name X. Okay. Uh, Mike and I so what does it mean? What is it? I mean, we wanted CAD in the name because we were and we still are today focused on CAD, so it had to have CAD. It should sound good and be easy to pronounce in X different different languages. And I suggested x0 cad just x0 and then cad and then and suggest that to Mike. And he misunderstood it as x0 cad and and we both like that much better. So then it became zakat. Do you remember some of the other names you were thinking about but didn't go with? Actually, you know, not really. Okay. That was the one. We looked at different options. But then you always have to look. Is the domain available? Can you register the. Oh yeah we know. So yeah. Yeah. So what was the first version like the first version. Um, obviously it was a little more basic 15 years ago. Yeah. So early adapters here. What was the first version? It looked a bit old school, but the functionality was already pretty comprehensive. So really, uh, we could do Crown Bridges. We had already from almost from the beginning on, we had a virtual articulator and the implant module 15 years ago, year, 15 years ago. And the implant module was there. We were already working on the bar module. So, um, how do you educate yourself to create all of that when you're brand new in dental always you had to have research. Yeah. Always talking to customers. Yeah, yeah. And talking to customers, seeing how they work. Uh, asking lots of questions. Uh, getting feedback? Yeah. Feedback on what you deliver. Get when you have a development, get it in the hands of the customer as soon as possible. Collect feedback. Implement that feedback so that feedback loop is extremely important. And then for example uh, I like to uh to give this as an example, the Articulator I started in working on virtual articulation when I was entirely new in the dental industry, and I didn't even know what an articulate it was. Right? Or so a customer brought me an Articulator and I looked at it with the eyes of an engineer and I thought, um, well, this is a mechanical device. It has a hinges that can be adjusted. I can simulate that. I at the time, I didn't have to understand why it does what it does. Uh, I just simulate the physical device, since the physical device obviously worked and you made that virtually. Exactly. You didn't understand why it worked? Um, yeah. Ultimately, I mean, the ultimately the, uh, the articulate, the physical articulate is a simulation of the patient. So the virtual articulator in a way you could say is a simulation of a simulation. And then, uh, that's a great point. And then actually, we. The next step we thought would make sense would be, why not get rid of the simulation and use the actual patient jaw movement for the design? So we started working with companies like Kevo, who had the acoustic device already back then, and zebras and others to basically get jaw motion data, real patient jaw motion data into the into the software. And that's one of these examples where we were maybe a bit too early on the market. We offered that and nobody wanted it. People were looking at it and there was, what the heck do we do with what is that? And now we have a lot of traction with that model. That was originally the first version was developed well over a decade ago. I don't know a lot about making programs, but you always hear about code and writing lots of code. Was that you writing this code of how this program worked? And I did write a lot of code in the in the early years. Yeah. Um, and, uh, obviously not nearly as much as as Mike or our CTO. Uh, he really he's he's the code writing was on another level, but still I did I did write, uh, in the early years, substantial part of that original code still in the program today, do you think? Yeah, a lot of it is. Wow, that's kind of neat. You know, it'd be fun to have at a show like this as the very first original XO CAD, so people can play with it. That was 15 years ago. Oh my gosh, wouldn't that be crazy? That's actually a cool idea, isn't it? Yeah. We should. Yeah. Like like you have these arcade stations. That could be a retro arcade. Retro? Yeah. Where the very first people would be like, I can't believe we used to do it this way. Yeah. So. And Elvis and I talked to so many designers and by far. They all love exo cad, and they love the fact that it's so easy to use and everything that they need is there. How do you keep evolving with the new software and the new ideas? Taking a picture of the patient talking and then being able to put that, I mean, just like it's just brilliant to me. Well, I mean, we listen to the customers and, uh, see what, uh, what challenges they are facing. So, for example, if we look at smile design, um, that's what I do, by the way, I'm a ceramics. So that's my, uh, it's my job, you know, all about how hard it is to visualise things, uh, ahead of the treatment. So when we started the design project, we took a different approach than most others. When we started, that smile design was still being done in keynote in 2D and we said, hey, we have to bring 3D into this. And we did. So we combined the the 2D photos and made a 2D 3D approach. Yeah, and ultimately that proved to be successful. The challenge is if you combine 3D rendering with a 2D photo, you don't get the photorealism you aim for. Um, and now we've solved this problem with AI based image generation. So you can do a 3D setup as a technician exactly the way you want it. You have all the 3D tools you need to design, even ahead of the treatment, something that you expect to work as a final restoration. And, uh, then you use this 3D data to generate photorealistic, uh, 2D image using AI. And that's, I mean, the results, I find them spectacular. But what's even more emotionally engaging is if you apply that to a video. So that's a new functionality. You you can cool, you can you can upload a video into the execute software. Uh, and it gets processed in the cloud, a video of the patient before the treatment, of course. And, uh, that 3D smile design that you create gets applied to the video and you get a, uh, uh. It's remarkably realistic. Nuts. I mean, we were watching it all here next to us all, all week, and it's just amazing. I can't imagine what that does for a patient. Yeah, it's all about emotional engagement. Yes. Yes. And they're looking at themselves, talking with their brand new smile. And they're like totally in. I could see where the clinician loves that as well because they're automatically showing the patient the result. Yeah. I mean, we have the patients saying heck yeah I'm in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as a as a lab, you have to engage the, uh, the clinician and you have to engage the patient. Uh, that's. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah. Talk about the early growth of exocrine, because, I mean, when you started, it was here. Right. Really? Now it's like. Oh, Germany. Germany. Okay. Gotcha. Now it's global. Yep. Did that was that hard? Did it? Did it take a while? I mean, was that hard? Sorry. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, it was hard. But right now, it just seems like. Oh, it's there and it's everywhere. To the people that see it now. I mean, we spent over over 15 years getting there. And I remember my first idea as was 2007, and I was still at Fraunhofer, and we had a prototype of our platform, the dental CAD platform. Uh, obviously we didn't have a booth, so I was actually walking around with a laptop. And whenever, whenever I saw a booth of a company that had something to do with CAD cam, like they had a milling machine or had they had a scanner. I went there and said, hey, uh. Can I interest you in a demo of our software? And that's how we got some of the first customers. Were people interested? Or they're like, oh yeah, here comes another guy. Well, there weren't that many other guys back then. I don't think so. There was huge demand. And of course, what was particularly popular with our offering was that it's open. And that has always been our philosophy. That's always worked. So especially in an industry that's so locked down, I mean, and you always felt freely about that, that was never a question for you. You just wanted to be open. Well, I mean, I've always been a firm believer in open platforms. Open systems. Yeah. If you look at different industries, uh, as the industries evolve, um, you have standardization on one side, but then you also have more openness. Look, look at cell phones. Um, maybe 20 years ago, every cell phone manufacturer had, uh, their, their own operating system. And, and if you look at cell phones today, I mean, most of the market is Android. It's an open platform. It's the most of course, the the the closed systems continue to exist. There's nothing wrong with that. That's also something we offer. If, uh, one of our partners has a business model that requires a closed system. Will be happy to provide that. Interesting. Um, but, uh, I think the the big chunk of the market, especially as the market uh, matures, is, is open systems. Who chose purple? Uh, actually, that's, uh, the that's that marketing or was that you guys know that there was no marketing at the time like we were we were three people when we started the company. So Mike and me, the two founders were both well, I'm an engineer. Mike. Mike is a mathematician. And then, uh, whether computer scientist or first employee who's also still with the company, when did you bring in somebody that knows about teeth? Uh, much later. So, uh, but ultimately, ultimately, purple was the favorite color of my girlfriend back then. Now, why? That's cheap. Oh, nice. Really? That's great. So she's like, you're welcome. Because we see purple everywhere. That's that's yeah. That's your imprint also. I mean color is artistic. Yeah. And I love the fact that it's purple. That was a great question. So did you ever think. This little program you're coding back 15 years ago was going to be what it is today. Well, I saw that we had potential, and I saw that we were delivering something that the industry and the and the partners needed, but I didn't expect it to get to that scale. Yeah. So that's really, uh, something that has continued to amaze me over, over the years. But, I mean, it was a lot of hard work, like we had to. Yeah, we're not doubting that. Um, so you just keep staying above the curve, though, especially with this, this newest version. So you just use the feedback and think about what's the next thing that I need to do to get better. Yeah. I mean you have to keep innovating. That is that is really in the tech industry. You, you you always have to stay on track and keep and keep innovating. How involved are you with the actual software still today? Are you a lot? A lot? Really? Uh, I no longer write code. Yeah, but I am heavily involved with the development, specifically the UI, UX design. And that's actually the the part of my job that the what design the are you user interface, user interface. User experience. User interface. User experience. Yeah, yeah. Uh, that's the part of my job that I particularly like. Yeah, I like many aspects, but that's really my passion, the the product, the software and putting yourself in the mind of the user, listening to the users and then, uh, understanding what the, The real problem is that needs solving. I just like that. That's cool. Yeah. Is there any country you're not in? Well, I mean, there are sanctioned countries, so that won't allow. Yeah. Um, so. But most other ones. Yeah. That we're in. What's your what's your biggest country that you're in? Still? Germany. Really? Wow. And I think it comes to, uh, down to the number of labs. Okay. So in Germany, the German lab market is dominated by small and medium sized labs. So there's more dental labs in Germany than in the US. And, uh, yeah, it's surprising. But we have states bigger than Germany. And it's true. And the same is true for Italy, by the way. So since, uh, we typically sell by by license, if it's a one man lab, one person, they need one, uh, they need one license. Even if they do, just even if they just use it for half an hour a day. And that's the same license that in a large US lab would be used by a full time CAD designer who uses it eight hours a day. So yeah, that's why in terms of numbers of licenses in the market, Germany is still number one. But US is is catching up rapidly. Yeah. Are they. It's growing a lot in the US. Well talk to me about the German labs. So they're smaller. They're more one man to man labs. Well, uh, there's more maybe. Maybe a bit more than that. But the general size, uh, the average size of the labs is much smaller than in the US, and it's less. Less industrialized in the sense that, um, you have more boutique labs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So but they just surprises me that there's so many more licenses in Germany than the US. So I just think that's. Was that always your plan to sell, like, licenses through distributors or. Yeah. Why was that? Um, well, because the distributors are closer to the end users. Yeah, than we are. You need a whole other department. And I think the key is integration. We've proven to the industry that being open and offering a very smooth integration with third party hardware. Yeah. Are not contradictions. Yeah. So. And our partners, our distributors are doing a fantastic job. Oh, yeah. Integrating our product with their equipment or their solutions to create a really a comprehensive, well integrated system. And, uh, that's something where we really rely on, on distributors. And I think that is that is a very good approach for. Yeah, for, for, uh, the market. Yeah. Because you allow the distributors to be part of the training. I was going to ask about training. Yes, you have to do, but I know yourselves you do trainings too. We do trainings. Yeah. Um, so trainings are available. Some. Some people just say, hey, uh, I want to learn from Zucker directly. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. So, uh, we on our web shop, you can book a training, for example, uh, a Q&A. You can. I mean, you have trainings on particular topics. Yep. But what I particularly recommend is the Q&A session. A lot of the users who book a training, they don't start at zero. Uh, they they've used the software a bit. They've, they've they've watched a couple of YouTube videos. And with that, uh, approach, they can book a Q&A session with one of our trainers and then basically pick the brain of the trainer, uh, specifically about the workflows or, uh, topics that, uh, that are the most relevant. So basically, anything they want to know. It's not a standardized training. They can just ask any question. Yeah. I mean, they might not get an answer to every question. Oh, sure. Yeah. We try our best to answer. Are these the trainers we see here? I think we're surrounded by that. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's, there's just all kinds of people picking their brains and going through the software. And I've been watching them just walk through it and show them how to use it and the different features and the newer features, and it's awesome. Can you design a tooth? Yeah. You can design a tooth. Yeah. Uh, but I don't think I ever designed anything that went into a patient's mouth. Right. Would you like to share? Uh. Or is that not? I'm not sure if I'm right to do that, you know. Yeah. Um, well, uh, I don't know if I need a crown. Maybe I would try to design it myself. There you go. And then have it reviewed by, uh, by the. Yeah. Yeah, I that's how I decide I do it, then let someone else look. Let somebody look at it and say yes or no. Uh, what I would if I need to crown myself, I would probably have, uh, the design suggestion generated by our I. Oh, there you go. And then and then just and then they'd look at it and decide if it if it even needs tweaking and. Yeah. So where is the exact headquarters exactly? It's in Darmstadt. That's a city that's, uh, very close to Frankfurt, part of the Rhine main metropolitan area. So we're 20 minutes from the Frankfurt Airport. Uh, which is convenient. I mean, that's one of the major airports in Europe. So you can get direct flights to. And all your coders and engineers are there. Most of them. Uh, we have, uh, for example, the partial CAD software is developed in the US. Um, but, uh, the rest, For historic reasons, so that we bought many years ago the the dental part of the what was the sensible platform. Maybe some some of those who are have been in the industry for a long time. Remember the haptic device. Yeah. So so we acquired the dental software part and that voxel based technology is very suitable for designing partials and interesting. Wow. I keep forgetting how many things that you can do, but based in the US, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. Have you acquired other companies to help build exo CAD or is that unique or. Well, we did, we did. We acquired the assets back then the, the platform and that that was the only time we did we did that. And that's the only way you could get partials working on it, huh. Yeah, I, I just like the technology for partials. Partials are when it comes to the, the technology you need, uh, to, to make it really good. They are they have the requirements are different uh, than for uh, for example, let's say a bar where you have more geometric shapes. Yeah. And I mean, not fixed. You know what I'm saying? It's not it's. It's different. Laid on rather than. I don't know. I'm talking. Yeah. I mean, our mission is that basically we want to provide the tools, uh, to allow you to design, ideally, everything in software that you could make in wax. Yeah. Yeah. And and that, uh, voxel based technology that we employ in the partial CAD software is, is really good for that. Is there anything you can't do with XL CAD that you wanted to do? We are now showing for the first time that, uh, uh, other features for design of hybrid dentures, where you basically start from the, uh, anatomic design, full contour, for example, for an all on X case. And then afterwards you split that, um, into, uh, split that in the, into a part that will be produced in metal and a part that will be produced in zirconia or, uh, resin. So one goes this way and one goes that way. Like you split that software, meaning you can split the files. I guess I don't know. Uh, yeah. Split splitting. Uh, splitting an anatomic design. So, um, that's a general idea. Uh, splitting it often. You have, uh, these very geometric shapes simply because they're easier to design from a CAD perspective, but it's not necessarily the optimal solution. You don't need a geometric shape to solve the problem. Uh, in the contrary, if you start if you're starting from an organic shape and you have all the minimum thickness requirements for the different materials, you you may end up with a shape that looks organic but still solves the problem. Yeah. So in the in the past, people were doing the full contour bridge design and extra cut software and then using third party tools to split it up. And uh, that was a very convoluted workflow. Lots of clicks. Yeah. And and we make it really easy and convenient. Now that's the way it should be. Yeah. You shouldn't have to go out and come back in. That's something we show for the first time here. It's not available on the market yet. But now is that over here? Because I was thinking I was watching it over there that there was a bar underneath there. And then the demo was seeing there. Yeah. That's pretty exceptional. Yep. I have the prime seat to see that software and I keep catching my eye. So yeah. That's awesome. Very cool. Well, thank you so much. Well, thank you especially for inviting us to Germany. Thank you for coming. A dream come true. It really is. We've been talking about this for seven years. Seven years? How wonderful this is going to be. And it's blown our minds in many, many ways. So thank you for that. I know a lot of your success is the people you've surrounded yourself with. Yeah. No doubt you have some amazing people here. Super great. Yeah. Yeah. And so, Tilman, thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Best of luck to you, too. You too. Have a great day. Oh, a huge thanks to Bjorn and Tilman for taking the time out. And, you know, you guys were busy to come on our podcast and tell us about two game changing companies in dental. Bad bites do suck, but that is a quote. That's not my quote. And Bjorn is doing a great job of fixing a known problem that has existed long before digital tooth wear does not lie. Head over to bite to learn more, and also to try it free for two weeks. I'll guarantee you it'll be a game changer. Yeah, like, why wouldn't you do it? I know. Yeah, sure, it could easily drop your remakes with a click of a button and a big, huge thanks to the team at XO CAD to make sure that Tillman found some time to sit down and tell us a great story. We heard more stories that were unbelievable from who was the other guy we talked to that sat down and talked to us about their very first ideas, where they were just exhausted and they were sitting there. Oh, that's that's Larry and wink wink coming soon. Yeah. Coming soon. So but thanks to Tillman, he found some time to sit down and tell us the story of the best design software in the industry. Well, it might have started with a bunch of non dental computer coders, which is super crazy. They certainly surrounded themselves with the best of the best in the industry, and they've made it pretty much the best. So go plein air. It's amazing to see how far he and his team has taken in literally 15 short years. Can you imagine what another 15 is going to do? I know you can, Elvis, because you'll still be around. Not just are you not going to be around in 15 years? Yes, I will be. Don't scare me like that. Okay. All right, everybody, that's all we got for you. And of course, we'll talk to you next week. Have a great one. Bye. The views and opinions expressed on the voices from the Bench podcast are those of the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the host or voices from the bench, LLC.