How This Water Filtration System Grew to become An 8-Determine Enterprise

When his younger daughter’s eczema worsened, Brian Keller tried all the things trendy parenting prescribes. Nothing labored. Determined, he changed the peculiar showerhead of their lavatory with a filtered one. Inside a few days, his daughter had completely clear pores and skin. The velocity of the change compelled him to go surfing looking for a dependable filtration system. However what he discovered shocked him. “Just about one plastic product after the following,” he says.

He referred to as his longtime companion, designer and engineer Charlie Carlisle. “I feel there’s a reasonably large alternative right here to construct a enterprise just like the Dyson of water filtration,” he mentioned. Little did they know they’d spend the following three years constructing a filtration system piece by piece, rejecting shortcuts.

The result’s Rorra — a science-backed water filtration firm providing a countertop unit and filtered showerhead. Each run faucet water by a multilayer carbon and media setup designed to scale back chlorine, disinfectant byproducts, PFAS, and 50+ different contaminants. In lower than a yr in the marketplace, the corporate has positioned over 10,000 drinking-water programs in houses throughout the nation and reached an eight-figure run charge.

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The issue with faucet water

Whereas finding out U.S. water infrastructure, the founders found some sobering stats. The common faucet water pipe is 45 years previous, and plenty of are greater than a century previous. Chlorine and different chemical substances, together with lead, are in virtually all American faucet water, together with compounds linked to elevated dangers of kidney and bladder most cancers.

However changing failing pipes throughout the nation would price greater than a trillion {dollars} and require digging beneath main cities. The answer was to supply a dependable manner for individuals to scrub their water at dwelling.

Constructed to final and be seen

The founders knew that if individuals had been going to scrub their water at dwelling, the system needed to be glossy. The flimsy plastic merchandise Keller first noticed on-line weren’t slicing it. “Every thing we construct is designed to final for years. We’re not constructing low cost, client merchandise with engineered obsolescence,” Keller says.

The Rorra Countertop appears to be like extra like a bit of contemporary kitchen gear than a filter—medical-grade chrome steel and durable sufficient to go for one thing you’d discover in a craft brewery.

Maybe unsurprisingly, the design appeals to male customers. “Over 50 % of our prospects are male,” Keller says. “We didn’t even actually undertaking that originally.” The product steered one thing protecting and powerful, a form of family sentinel.

For that reason, Keller and Carlisle designed the Rorra Countertop system to reside the place individuals might see it. Most filtration units conceal beneath sinks and get forgotten. They needed the alternative. “A product that persons are going to be proud to placed on their countertop,” Keller says.

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A flood of orders

The response got here quick and livid, which was good and dangerous. When the primary models shipped, the founders braced for modest demand. As an alternative, “customer support inquiries went in a single day from like a ten a day to lots of a day,” Carlisle mentioned.

They ran out of inventory for weeks. Delays stretched to 2 months. However amid the chaos, they selected transparency over panic. “My telephone quantity was on the bank card statements of each single buyer,” Keller says. When a subscriber referred to as late at evening to complain a couple of cost, he picked up. “I’m the CEO,” he would inform them, earlier than strolling them by the advantages of the system. The response constructed an odd type of loyalty.

Recognition has grown organically. Athletes, medical doctors, and creators purchased the product on their very own, then reached out. One of many firm’s largest boosts got here from partnering with Dr. Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist and host of the massively well-liked Huberman Lab podcast. “We’re undoubtedly seeing a direct uplift in gross sales and folks shopping for from his touchdown web page,” Keller says.

It’s votes of confidence like this that show their technique was one. “It took three years versus in all probability one yr that it might have taken us to launch,” says Carlisle. “However there’s quite a lot of advantages to us having one thing that’s really distinctive within the area.”

When his younger daughter’s eczema worsened, Brian Keller tried all the things trendy parenting prescribes. Nothing labored. Determined, he changed the peculiar showerhead of their lavatory with a filtered one. Inside a few days, his daughter had completely clear pores and skin. The velocity of the change compelled him to go surfing looking for a dependable filtration system. However what he discovered shocked him. “Just about one plastic product after the following,” he says.

He referred to as his longtime companion, designer and engineer Charlie Carlisle. “I feel there’s a reasonably large alternative right here to construct a enterprise just like the Dyson of water filtration,” he mentioned. Little did they know they’d spend the following three years constructing a filtration system piece by piece, rejecting shortcuts.