Evgenii Muzychuk on How a Chemist Turns an Invention Into a Profitable Business
On October 24, 2025, the NBA: Technology and Innovation award announced its winners at the Congress Center of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation in Moscow.
From the personal archive of Evgenii Muzychuk
The Tech Entrepreneur of the Year nominee category went to Evgenii Muzychuk, a chemist from the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. He designs and casts silicone molds that makers use to produce pieces in epoxy resin, plaster and chocolate.
More than 450 people from seven countries entered the competition, and an expert panel chose the winners by secret ballot. Muzychuk won for his patented method of making silicone molds and for the production business he built around it. It’s a two-person operation: Muzychuk and his wife, Anna. Together they have made more than 40,000 sales through online marketplaces.
We talked with Muzychuk about what the judges looked for and how he turned his invention into a business.
Evgenii, thanks for talking with us. What did the judges single out in your work?
Thanks for having me. The panel looked at two things: my patented method for making silicone molds and the production business I built on it.
In short, I found a specific manufacturing problem, figured out the technical reasons behind it, came up with my own way to solve it, patented the solution, and brought it into commercial production. In the final vote, the panel gave me high scores.
How did the selection process work?
It runs in several rounds. First, the organizers put together a list of candidates and pick the nominees from it. Then the expert panel votes by secret ballot and scores each nominee against set criteria. There’s no fee to enter, and the judges look at results from the past three years.
The panel includes people from business, science and the media. Among them are Vladimir Gamza of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, Valentin Makarov, president of the RUSSOFT association, and Yuri Khakhanov of the Skolkovo Foundation.
Let’s get to the invention itself. What problem were you trying to solve?
A silicone mold is cast over a master model, and it’s convenient to make the master on a 3D printer. The trouble is that the face of a printed master comes out rough.
That roughness carries over into the mold and then into the finished piece, so the maker has to rework every casting by hand: sand it, fix the defects, and apply a finish coat.
The second problem is that pieces can be hard to get out of the mold. I needed a mold with a smooth surface that releases the piece easily and gives it a finished look right away.
How did you do it?
I coat the face of the printed master with liquid epoxy resin and let it cure. The resin spreads into an even layer that gets thinner toward the edges, so it sets into a convex lens.
Then I put the master on a heated table and pour platinum-cure silicone over it. Once the silicone cures, the mold has a concave, glossy surface. Anything cast in it picks up the curve of the lens and comes out smooth and shiny. That’s where the name “lens effect” comes from.
Will any epoxy resin work?
No. It all comes down to viscosity, meaning how thick the resin is. Through trial and error, I found the range that works: 100 to 700 mPa·s. Resin that’s too thin gives you a thin lens with ragged edges. Resin that’s too thick goes on unevenly and rounds the edges off too bluntly.
The patent describes a test with four molds: one with no epoxy layer and three made with resins of different viscosities. Each mold was filled with the same material. A force gauge measured how hard you had to pull to get each piece out, and then the surface quality was compared.
So the mold takes over part of the finishing work?
Yes. The surface quality is built in at the mold-making stage. There’s far less hand sanding, defect repair, and finish coating, and the finished piece comes out of the mold more easily. Chocolate, for example, comes out of one of these molds already glossy.
Most of my customers are confectioners, furniture workshops, and artists who work with plaster, wax, soap, and epoxy resin.
They work in small batches, so the less time finishing takes, the sooner a batch is ready.
How does your chemistry background help?
Mostly, it helps me understand the materials. I graduated from Siberian Federal University with a degree in chemistry in 2010. I started my own business in 2020, during the pandemic.
I sold my car, used the money to open a shop in Krasnoyarsk, and started learning how silicone molds are made. I learned 3D modeling and dug into the properties of different silicone compounds.
Now our main material is platinum-cure silicone. It’s a two-part system: you mix the base and the curing agent at a 1:1 ratio and add pigment.
Your production team is just you and Anna. How do two people handle the whole process?
We design new products, build the 3D models, print the master models, cast the molds, check quality, run each batch, and sell the finished products. We have no partners or investors, and I’ve been registered as self-employed since 2022.
I do the modeling. We print on FDM and resin printers. For the silicone, we have a vacuum chamber and a compressor, and I converted some drying ovens to cure it.
Production really took off after we bought new equipment. Over the past year, we’ve mostly been fine-tuning production and streamlining our processes.
Besides your standard molds, you also make custom ones. How is that process different?
To me, the main differences are price and the amount of work. I design a custom mold from the customer’s sketch, photo, or drawing, and it goes through every stage from scratch: the 3D model, printing the master, and casting. Each stage takes time, and all of it has to be built into the price of the order. Forgetting to do that is the most common mistake in our field.
You filed your patent application in December 2023. What made you decide to protect your intellectual property?
Before launching production, I studied the silicone molds sold on online marketplaces and couldn’t find any with this kind of coating.
The solution was mine, and it was worth protecting. Looking back, I should have filed sooner. If I could, I’d patent both the casting method and every single product. Intellectual work deserves protection.
How do you decide whether to take on a new order or develop a new product?
The first thing I look at is the subject. I turn down orders that go against my values. Then I think about whether customers actually need the product and whether someone else already makes it. I like making things people need that aren’t on the market yet. If I don’t have enough to go on, Anna and I talk it over and look at similar projects.
Do you plan to scale up? What projects do you want to take on in the next few years?
Yes. I want to add new food molds to the lineup, and overall I’m aiming to double our production volume. We’re also planning to launch our own website and start selling internationally.
Why a mold workshop won a business award
Run by Melon Group Publishing House since 2018, the NBA National Competition's Technology and Innovation award celebrates high-tech companies and forward-thinking professionals across various industries, from AI and robotics to advanced manufacturing.
A two-person workshop making molds for chocolate and resin is a prime example of this technological diversity. Muzychuk’s victory in the entrepreneur category confirms that the judges highly value small manufacturing operations built on original, innovative inventions.
For creators who craft molds and pieces by hand, his achievement demonstrates that specialized manual work is rightfully recognized as a fully-fledged, protected technology.
