Spout co-founders, Tyler Breton and Reuben Vollmer, explain how to get clean drinking water effortlessly with their innovation. Watch!
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00:00Spout is a company quite literally pulling water out of thin air.
00:04Their groundbreaking technology transforms humidity into clean, drinkable water,
00:08offering a sustainable solution to the ongoing global water crisis.
00:12Co-founders Tyler Bratton and Ruben Vollmer join us now to share more about how the company works,
00:17the journey behind building it, as well as their vision for the future of accessible, off-the-grid hydration.
00:22Tyler Ruben, thank you both for being here. It's really great to have you.
00:25Tyler, let me start with you. Talk to me about the genesis of Spout and what someone hearing of the company for the first time should know about it.
00:33So a lot of people don't think it's possible to pull the moisture out of the air and make drinking water.
00:39But what you'll find is that, you know, as you do the research,
00:42this is literally the purest source of drinking water that you can get inside your home.
00:47So I would say that most people have this conception that the water that they drink is very pure.
00:52And that's something that is just not true.
00:55I mean, unfortunately, most people are drinking, you know, trace amounts of arsenic or fluoride or chlorine.
01:01So that's why we really wanted to create a company that gives people the ability to have the best quality of drinking water right inside their home.
01:10Yeah. And the story really started actually with, it was actually about 10 years ago.
01:15My parents had their water rights threatened by the state of California.
01:17They had a small farm outside of L.A.
01:19And they got a letter in the mail saying, don't count on having access to your well water because we're in a drought.
01:24And at that time, I was a rapid prototyper for Fortune 500 company.
01:27So I was already 3D printing, 3D modeling, doing circuit board design and programming.
01:31And I was just walking my dog one morning.
01:34I noticed dew on a grassy field and I thought, why don't I build a prototype to capture the dew overnight?
01:39And as soon as I realized that we could essentially turn electricity into drinking water and make water wherever it's needed instead of relying on pipes and bottles,
01:48I've been obsessed with making it into a product that could be in every home.
01:51And Tyler and I really, you know, I've been struggling through this for about five years on my own.
01:56And then I met Tyler and he took everything I've been working on and found a way to make it.
02:00Or he just kind of asked the question of like, what if Apple or Tesla was going to make this device?
02:04What would it look like?
02:05What would it feel like?
02:06And he's really helped drive that whole side of it, of making sure that our customers love the product.
02:11Ruben, I have no doubt the science behind all of this is far more complicated than my simple brain can grasp.
02:17But try and explain this in a way that I and our viewers can understand how does the process of getting this water actually come about?
02:25Yeah.
02:26So basically, there's a very robust air filter.
02:29It's like the first stage.
02:30We have a carbon felt that removes volatile organic compounds from the air.
02:34And then we have a MERV 13 air filter.
02:36So the machine actually already acts as an incredible air purifier.
02:40But after it passes that air filter, there's actually a clay wheel that absorbs the water vapor from the air.
02:45And that wheel rotates at one RPM.
02:48And a quarter of that wheel is blocked off with a separate airflow with heating coils to drive the moisture out of the wheel.
02:54So it's kind of like if you ever see, you know, after it rains, the ground is all moist.
02:58And then it dries up and it gets all cracked.
03:00You know, so that that cycle is basically what's happening inside of our machine with this clay wheel.
03:04Where we're doing it every minute, driving all the moisture out of this clay wheel.
03:07And that hot moisture travels around and gets condensed by the incoming air to cool down the condensers on the outside.
03:14That water drips down, gets sterilized with ultraviolet light, and then gets pumped through this NASA-derived water filter.
03:21That's an incredible water filter.
03:23Feet of Engineering basically just, you know, purifies the water to another degree.
03:28And then we remineralize the water.
03:30And then the water goes into a pitcher, which is about a half-gallon pitcher.
03:35And the pitcher is actually a smart pitcher.
03:36So it has a wireless charger built in that actually has a UV light in the pitcher lid to continuously sterilize the water.
03:44So we're on a mission to create the greatest water on Earth.
03:47Oh, there you go.
03:47Tyler's going to show you.
03:48This is the machine.
03:49Yeah?
03:49Oh, yeah.
03:50Walk us through it, Tyler.
03:51Yeah.
03:51So literally everything Ruben just described is completely accurate.
03:54But all you need to do is just plug this in, right?
03:56So there's no plumbing or insulation needed.
03:59And literally you're just, you know, it sits on your countertop.
04:03And this is the pitcher that he was talking about.
04:05So there's a UV light in this lid.
04:07The green light is actually charging the pitcher lid.
04:10And literally all you need to do is just pull this out and just pour the water.
04:14And that's basically it.
04:15And it just automatically keeps refilling itself.
04:18So you pour some water out, the machine turns back on and fills it up again.
04:21So before the water gets condensed, it goes through this air filter.
04:24And then it goes into this water filter.
04:25So there's like two stages basically of like purification.
04:29And then we add minerals back into the water before you drink it.
04:33And it makes about two to two and a half gallons of water a day.
04:38Wow, that's incredible.
04:40Tyler, thank you for the demonstration, by the way.
04:42I was not expecting that.
04:43That's absolutely awesome.
04:44Tyler, tell me about the problems that you feel Spout is uniquely situated to address in terms of things like plastic waste, water insecurity,
04:51or like you mentioned earlier, the potential for poor tap water quality overall.
04:58It's really all of the above, right?
05:00Like our theory is that if someone has faced with like drinking, you know, water that has chlorine or fluoride,
05:07even if it's below the EPA standard, and then they have the option to not to have water without any of those things,
05:12like they're going to choose that option, right?
05:15So, you know, I think the biggest challenge that we face is that most people don't even think it's real, right?
05:21They hear about an atmospheric water harvester or water generator, which is the category.
05:25And they just feel like, you know, how is that possible?
05:29And that's the thing that I think is the biggest challenge that we're about to overcome.
05:32So, you know, we have the first 1,000 units or 1,100 units that are shipping to customers in the next two weeks.
05:39So that will really be the thing that I think starts to change the conversation around what higher qualities of water are possible within your home.
05:47Ruben, tell me more about the things like water contaminants, microplastics, PFAs.
05:56These are the sorts of things that I think consumers are increasingly becoming more and more aware of,
06:01but I suspect still don't really know the true hidden dangers of.
06:05Yeah, I mean, it's quite terrifying when you look at the statistics.
06:09Like 70% of tap water in the biggest cities in America have PFAS chemicals in it,
06:14and they're known to cause birth defects, hormone disruption, obesity, cancer, all these horrible things,
06:21and they're absolutely everywhere.
06:22They're in our clothes, they're obviously in our tap water, in the air.
06:26I mean, it's terrible.
06:28And then we have microplastics, which people have a really difficult time avoiding
06:32because, again, that's another thing that's almost everywhere, ubiquitous.
06:35And one in five Americans is living off of bottled water today, which is insane,
06:40and a lot of them want something that doesn't have the microplastics in it.
06:44So we've done everything possible to make our machine make the purest water on Earth
06:48without microplastics and without PFAS chemicals thanks to about 10 years of development and testing.
06:55And, yeah, so people care a lot, a lot, a lot about that.
06:59I mean, we all do, right?
06:59You do so much to take care of your health day to day.
07:01You eat healthy, you exercise, and you just want to keep doing everything you can for your health.
07:08And this is the next step, I think, for a lot of people.
07:11Tyler, how does the spout business model work?
07:14It's earned comparisons to companies like Peloton and many others,
07:18but what does it actually look like in terms of me, a potential consumer,
07:22and what that means for your business in terms of the relationship directly with the consumer, I should say?
07:29So we're a hardware subscription business.
07:31The machine sells for $9.99, and then it's $200 a year for the air and water filters that are replaced every three months.
07:39And that also is substantially cheaper than buying water delivery, which I think our payback period is within three months.
07:46And if you're buying pallets of water or bottles of water like Ruben was talking about,
07:50I think our payback period is within about nine months.
07:52So within about a year, this machine pays for itself.
07:58Ruben, what would you want the average person or average potential consumer to know about spout
08:04that's maybe part of the journey or part of the story that you feel like maybe is misunderstood
08:09or does not get talked enough about?
08:12Well, I think some part of it that gets misunderstood is the fact that we do use electricity for our machine.
08:17Like it does run on electricity, and there's a cost associated with that.
08:21And basically, that's the only cost for the water over time that you're paying for.
08:26But I think the coolest thing is that 26% of our customers are living off of solar power.
08:31So they're able to use sunlight to make their own water without any extra expense, which I think is just so cool.
08:38We actually had a customer report to us a couple weeks ago.
08:41They're in Arizona in a trailer in an RV, and they have solar panels on the roof,
08:47and they use those solar panels in the Arizona desert to make their own drinking water for this husband and wife at 7% humidity.
08:54It's really cool to hear those stories.
08:57Yeah.
08:57Finally, Taylor, talk to me about what comes next, you think, for the company in terms of growth, innovation,
09:02your ability to continue to scale and try and get these into as many homes as possible.
09:08Yeah.
09:08So, I mean, it's taken us a long time to get here, right?
09:11It's taken us like four years, and now we're on the precipice of shipping.
09:14So the fortunate part is that was the hardest time, I think, like getting everything set up for manufacturing.
09:21And now we're just looking to just fulfill demand, right?
09:25So we already have more pre-orders and more orders on the back of everything we're currently delivering.
09:31And it's also, you know, we're sort of starting with like our Model S, right?
09:35It's the most expensive version of the machine.
09:38We look forward to a world where we can make it more affordable, even more affordable than it is right now,
09:43and also just different iterations of the product.
09:45Like it's incredibly hard to make it this small.
09:48So, you know, we're looking at just different, you know, a five-gallon-a-day version
09:51or, you know, something that has like our stainless steel pitcher in it just to kind of further move people to this higher quality of drinking water.
10:01That's really our goal.
10:02So it's just there's a lot of different products that we could create.
10:05Right now we're just trying to get as many people, you know,
10:09aware that their current drinking water that they have is just not as good as it could be.
10:14An atmospheric water harvester sounds absolutely awesome.
10:18I'm very grateful to both of you for taking the time as co-founders of Spout, Tyler Bratton and Ruben Vollmer.
10:23Tyler, Ruben, thank you guys.
10:24Congratulations on all the success.
10:26Thanks, AD.
10:27Have a good one.
10:28Bye.