How to Find New Functional Materials?

Finding new functional materials, especially whole new classes of materials, is beyond horribly difficult. Some upper estimates of the number of all possible molecules are near ten to the 180. But even if they are wronged by many orders of magnitude, i still cargantuan. The number of inorganic and organic substances that we've catalogued is what? Ten to the eight, 80. That's just a tiny scratch on the surface of what is possible.