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CEO

riggs-ceo-briefings-2022

Building a New Water Infrastructure

Jan 14, 2023 4:52:04 PM

Analyst Peter Zeihan told us that the greatest opportunity for economic expansion in the history of our country lies just ahead, and will involve a great deal of rebuilding things like infrastructure… So, who will build the new WATER infrastructure and what will it be?That's where Water On Demand comes in and who better to tell the world about it than the delightful Estrella Nouri! See why in the briefing!

 


Transcript from recording

Opening

Estrella: Hi, I'm Estrella Nouri. And today, I want to tell you about how together we can change the world. A few years ago, I was introduced to a new initiative called Water On Demand™ and how it has the potential to save our most vital resource — water. Water across the globe is in trouble, and unfortunately, United States is no exception, with droughts, soaring water rates and decreased quality. Today, the US recycles less than 1% of its wastewater. On top of that, industry and agriculture account for 89% of fresh water usage in the US, which they then pollute and send back into the already broken and old systems controlled by local governments.

And now those government bodies are telling businesses, "We can't take your water anymore. Sorry, treat it yourself." The challenge for these businesses is that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat their own water. Expensive machines, installation, expertise and maintenance. They just can't do it. But with Water On Demand, we're giving investors the ability to invest in water systems that can be dropped in place to create instant infrastructure for businesses and communities.

Water gets treated and recycled, and as those consumers use water, they pay for it just like they already pay for their own water bills. Except the royalties go to our investors. Now, for the first time ever, you can invest in the biggest disruption the water industry has ever seen. It could be sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. And we are. Learn more about Water On Demand by visiting us online at waterondemand.net.

 

Introduction

Riggs: That's a rough of the promo that we've been working on. This is the Estrella Nouri who we will be actually featuring later, later in this show. I think you'll love it. She's amazing, but I thought I'd give you a flavor of where this is going. And Robert Baxter. "Good evening, gentlemen." And basically, what you just heard was presenting the offering for the accredited investors, because only the accredited investors will be able to get the royalties.

For the money raised through the regulation A offering, the unaccredited offering, that's straight stock, meaning that the company gets all the residuals and the shareholders share in the shareholder value. It's a slightly different thing. The point I'm making is, is that the accredited investors, that round of $20 Million, which is now down to 13, is the only round we're going to do with residuals. From there on out, we're going to do the regulation A, which is straight common stock and also institutional funding through what's called PIPEs, Private Investment in a Public Equity, Public Entity, I'm sorry, P.I.P.E.

 

230112 title


Well, with that, I just wanted to give you kind of an orientation there. And we're going to continue right now. All right. Water — The Blue Gold™, January 12th and roughly number 193. And Tom Liakos says, "Hello, everyone, and happy New Year." Same to you, sir.

 


safe harbor


All right. Of course, the usual disclaimers.

 

disclaimer



 

joel diamond


Value of Water

I thought I'd start out with this because, of course, water. Right. But Joel Diamond is my friend from long ago posted this. A bottle of water could be $0.99, $2, $4, $7, same water. Only thing that change this value is the place. Now he's making the point that next time you feel you're worth is nothing. Maybe you're in the wrong place.

But it also says something about the value of water, doesn't it, itself? I mean, it's actually making a point about the cost of water is really all about where you can get it and who's treating it and who gets control of it. And so that bottle of water is a very interesting commodity in the same way, perhaps that gold varies in value, whether it's a coin or bullion or in the ground as minerals, different value for the same kind of material. All right. So but I thought that was interesting.

 

eggs


What's the New Bitcoin?

Moving on. You know what the new Bitcoin is? What's new Bitcoin? Eggs. Eggs in the new Bitcoin. Average price of eggs.

 

500% inflation


Average in the US city. 500% inflation, ridiculous. If you'd held quarter million dollars a year ago. Sorry. $200,000 worth of eggs a year ago. It's five times more, 5X.

 

our inflation graph


And remember, back in January 2022, I wrote a report literally a year, a year ago saying this is where inflation was going. Hmm. I think we were kind of getting it right. Except that it's happening faster even than this chart shows. Fortunately, not everything is going five X, but that's really a bad indication when eggs go that high that fast. All right.

 

fractured markets


Now, this is a 2023 outlook on fractured markets from Financial Times. This is for next week. This is something I want to save. And the reason is it's pretty much in depth and it's going to discuss a lot of what's going on. And we can also discuss reasons to be cheerful. So the quote from this is that really attracted my attention was the problem is now we don't really know exactly where the leverage is.?

 

next week


Leverage

Well, one of the things we're doing here is we're creating, essentially we're starting with an un-leveraged asset, which is, imagine if, well, for example, gold wasn't always something you could easily trade. It was controlled. And then it became a free trading product and it went from that arbitrary $35 an ounce to, blew up $600 and more, $800 an ounce and on from there. And so what happened really was that the free market got involved.

Now, in that scenario, gold is still not leveraged. You can then leverage off of that. Well, the similar thing here is a water sitting inside this, you know, using the same analogy, $35 an ounce world that was controlled by government. Same thing with water. And water is exiting that. And now it's hitting the free market and it's now going to price appropriately. And that's where we believe this tremendous amount of gains to be had. Like I like to say, it's Apple 1984, Right.

From there, there's going to be leverage. But that's a whole other world that we can talk about. Next week, I'm going to talk a little bit more about this concept of the International Water On Demand network, which I think is, it's got me super excited. But first, of course, we have to build the first layers. All right.

 

new measure


Capital Assets

Natural capital accounting. What is this? This is very interesting for us in water. Now, you may not love this White House and I can't blame you. However, U.S. And Australia are cooperating on something called natural capital accounting. And that's where you look at the inherent value. For example, the Amazon, if you cut down the Amazon, you've lost what's called the lungs of the world, right? So it's important. And the same thing for Australia, which is being dug up as a mining thing. And so what's happening with Australia, What's happening with America?

 

natural acct 2


These are things called nature and natural resources are capital assets. And if you just use a standard Adam Smith measure of, "Hey, you know, I sell it, you want it, I sell it to you, and we move on." Then we clear cut all the forests, then we have a problem with later generations. I once had an argument with somebody about the clear cutting of redwood forests in Northwest U.S., and he was saying, "Well, it's just a crop." I'm like, But it's a crop that has a 2000 year harvest. You cut down that redwood, you're going to have to wait 2000 years to get back to where you were. So these are important things to think about.

 

natural acct 3


And sure enough, right here, this is really a press release, right? So cooperation on natural capital accounting, environmental, economic statistics, nature based solutions. And here we go, accounting for large and biodiverse spatial areas with sizable and diverse land and water interests. And we're going to set agendas on natural capital accounting nature based solutions, encourage other nations to incorporate nature into economic decision making.

 

natural acct 4


So, again, this is, I think it's very sane, what needs to happen. This is the working groups that are going to be built, the leadership, etc., etc.. It was signed on the 15th of December. For me, this is a no brainer. James Larsen, Deputy Secretary, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. And so it's good to see that water is being paid attention to. And I think there's a lot of attention on that. So we'll see where that goes. We'll follow it. Our rule is don't mess with government, governments too slow. But it's interesting to keep an eye on these things.

 

zeihan


Now. Peter Zeihan is a very interesting guy. He's a thinker. Last year he did 189 presentations on what's called de-globalization. And what is that? Well, he wrote it, wrote a book called The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. I've covered his, the last presentation he made last, last year to students of the Naval College. Now, that's really worth looking at. Very smart.

 

zeihan 2


And basically saying, "Okay, now we're moving into this phase where there's not going to be this idea of like, well, I'll just have a just in time network and I'm going to get stuff from China tomorrow kind of thing." And then we know that, we kind of, that kind of broke. Well, so let's see what this is. I got a couple of excerpts out of it that I had are very short, but this is a two hour interview and I strongly recommend listening to it. Just put it on 1.5 times speed and listen to it. But let's go ahead and see what he says. It's a very short excerpt. Here we go.

 

Start of presentation

Joe Rogan


Joe Rogan: What do you think the world looks like in ten years?

 

Peter Zeihan


Peter Z.: I think we'll have a system of regional trade where you've got certain regional powers who have, actually benefit from the environment. So one of the fun things about the United States is that we've got more navigable waterways than everyone else in the world put together about 13,000 miles and it's about 1/10 the cost to move things by water as it is to move it by truck. So with that sort of environment and ocean moats, the United States is an economic power, whoever is in charge.

I mean, we've had decades of bipartisan effort to try to screw this up, and we haven't pulled it off yet. We're not going to do it under Biden. He doesn't have the energy, which means that globalization, from our point of view, from an economic point of view was a problem, because we had one of the world's best geographies and we deliberately sublimated that in order to support our allies against the Soviets in the Cold War. We basically paid people with globalization to be on our side, and it worked. But we're getting away from that.

And now geography is going to have a much bigger role to play. And if you layer demographics on top of that, if you have a country with a decent geography and a decent demography, they can kind of write their own ticket in the world. We're going to and there are a few of those. The United States is at the top of the list. Argentina looks really good. France and Turkey look great. And then Japan is kind of a consolation prize because they've managed to cut a deal with both the American right and the American left and get themselves invited into kind of an American friends and family plan.

So you get these spheres of influence that don't necessarily cooperate or compete with one another, but are kind of in their own little worlds. And anything outside of those spheres of influence is probably a territory that is not very economically viable. And most of them don't have demographic structures that are sustainable at all.

Joe Rogan: This really is the end of the world.

Peter Z.: The end of the world, we understand. Yeah. We're going back to something that's a lot more similar to the world as it existed in the early 1900s.

Joe Rogan: But how does China come through this, though?

Peter Z.: They don't.

Joe Rogan: So what happens to them?

Peter Z.: They don't. Well, I mean, this is one of the wild things and the hard parts of my job is we have never faced a demographic collapse that wasn't caused by war. The closest would be the Black Plague. But the Chinese are going to lose a greater percentage of their population in the next 20 years than Europe did during the Black Plague.

Joe Rogan: And you think by famine?

Peter Z.: This assumes no famine. This is just aging.

Joe Rogan: Just aging?

Peter Z.: Yeah. If you have an energy breakdown or a food breakdown, it happens a lot faster.

Joe Rogan: And they have energy issues and they have food issues?

Peter Z.: They are the world's largest importer of energy, about 14 million barrels a day. Remember, we're a net exporter and they are the world's largest food importer of food and food inputs.

Joe Rogan: And are we the only major superpower that can generate its own natural resources in terms of natural gas, shale oil?

Peter Z: We're the only ones who can do it at scale. I would argue that Argentina can do a pretty good job of it by Argentine standards.

Joe Rogan: So we're fairly safe in that regard?

Peter Z.: Yeah, I mean, we'll always find things to stress about. I don't mean to suggest that the next five years are just going to be a picnic. We're going to have to double the size of the industrial plant as the Chinese system and the German system both fall offline. But that's an opportunity. You double the size of the industrial plant. Obviously, that's inflationary. But at the other side, you're building things at home using local resources and local workers.

You're using less energy and less water. It's cleaner, you're selling to locals and your supply chains are simpler and safer and shorter, and you're largely become immune to shocks beyond the horizon. This is a good challenge. It won't be easy, but to be perfectly blunt, we've done it before. We can do it again.

Joe Rogan: One of the things that came up during COVID was our understanding for really for the first time of the supply chain and what happens when it gets cut off, when medicine, so much medicine is produced in China, so many computer chips, so many, so many different things are made over there, that there has been a real conversation about the need to have all that stuff here and for the United States to be self sustaining.

Peter Z.: With the inflation, I mean, I don't want to come across as a partisan here, but the Inflation Reduction Act, while from a an inflation point of view was ridiculous. There's nothing about that that addresses inflation. It did put together a nationalist economic policy that we probably did need in terms of pushing the re industrialization on some specific sectors. It'll probably be the first of a series of things that are coming and a lot of this stuff is not particularly complicated.

So take the medication issue. It's 1950s technology for the most part. The medicines that we import from China and India are not the biologics or the cutting edge stuff or the cancer drugs. They're the day to day maintenance things that a lot of us use. And it is not particularly expensive or time consuming to build out the capacity here. It's basic chemistry. But there has not been an economic incentive to do it yet. So you get one act of Congress and splash a little cash on it. And it might cost us $0.08 for a pill instead of $0.04. But, you know, we can argue whether or not that is worth the price.

You get into more sophisticated manufacturing and it kind of does this weird split. So the United States is a world leader at the very high end, whether it's semiconductors or vehicles or machinery or software. But we're also a world leader on the low end if it's input intensive. So energy products and food products, fuel, processed foods. Our problem is in the middle places where it's not the natural bounty of North America that helps us out. And it's not the ingenuity and the skill of the American workforce that helps us out, the stuff in the middle.

To be perfectly blunt for that, we've got Mexico and they're great at it. The American Mexican trade relationship is already the largest in the world, and they're going to be our largest trading partner moving forward for at least the next 30 years. Probably a lot more. Are there hiccups? Oh, yeah, plenty of hiccups.

Joe Rogan: Well, I'm sure you're paying attention to the cartel wars that are going on.

Peter Z.: Yeah, it would be, it would be so much better if Americans did not like cocaine.

Joe Rogan: How do you sleep at night?

Peter Z.: Easily.

Joe Rogan: But do you really with all this information? I would, I would imagine that this would keep me up. I imagine it'll keep me up tonight.

Peter Z.: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: Just thinking about it.

Peter Z.: If you focus on the negative you're never going to sleep.

Joe Rogan: How do you manage to, are you medicated? How do you...?

Peter Z.: Oh, well, I get migraines, there's no doubt there. But I focus on the fact that we've got the greatest opportunity for economic expansion in the history of our country. And it's not just us, it's Canada and it's Mexico as well. This is going to be a great story. We're going to emerge from this in ten years and so much of a better place. And we're, hopefully within ten years, it'll probably be more like 15 or 20, be able then go back and reintegrate with the world and share what we've learned and remake the human condition. This is a once, not in a generation, this is a once in a century opportunity to overhaul what being human means. And I'm really excited about where this leads us. I just wish we could bring more countries with us along.

End of presentation

'

Riggs: Wow. I thought that was fascinating. And, you know, when you think about it, we spent the last 30 years exporting everything to China and actually raising living standards throughout the world tremendously. China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, everywhere. Now things are pulling back in, right? They're pulling back in. We're going to rebuild. We're going to have this huge boom of rebuilding all our capacity here. Already, German industry is moving its their car building to America. Why? Because energy costs too much now in Germany, right?

So the next 20 years, this is what, it was shocking to listen to Peter say such horrible things, quote unquote. But the good news is, is that the creating of world islands, which is going on right now, not telecommunications wise, those will, you'll be able to talk to Japan just as easily as you can now, but physical, physical shipment of goods and so forth, it's going to become much more about isolation, right?

And as a result, North America and he's right to include Mexico because Mexico still has reproduction. They have a great workforce, good education, the great morals, etc.. So they are a wonderful source of resources and they're actually cheaper than China and better in terms of labor value. So here's my point, we're looking at a huge boom in America, and it's going to be infrastructure, It's going to be physical things, factories, real estate, training of people, developing new technologies, water treatment everywhere, the setting up of distributed water plants.

We can't build centralized fast enough. Imagine it's got all, it all has to happen in the next five, ten years. What's not going to happen at the central system. It can happen at the margin if we tool up fast enough. So, so exciting, so exciting. Well worth and I'll be happy to discuss it some more as we, as we move into the next phase. But to me, it's amazing. All right.

 

Meet Estrella Nouri

This brings me to our good friend, Estrella. And the interview I had with her. 23rd December 2022, in Topanga Canyon, where my brother lives. And the topic was water. What is Water On Demand?

 

Estrella IG


And here she is. This is her Instagram. She has a good number of followers. Three times a year, she goes to Italy to model for Guess.

 

Estrella  pics


And here's some of her Instagram pages. You see Marciano right there, the top middle.

 

Estrella Guess


In fact, here is a guess Instagram that she's on.

 

Topanga map


And this was where we did the interview right here, if you know LA at all. This is the Santa Monica Mountains. At the right, you see the Getty with the 405 going up there, the 101 and between the 101 and the ocean is this road called Topanga Canyon Road. We actually did it on old Topanga Canyon Road at my brother's home. So without further ado.

 

Start of presentation

Estrella Nouri lead shot


Estrella: Hi. My name is Estrella Nouri. As you guys know, I am a top model, a singer and actress, and I am very passionate about the environment. So today we are talking about water. Why water? Well we're going to find out because I am here with the founder of Water On Demand. Riggs Eckelberry. How are you?

 

Riggs and Estrella Ft 3


Riggs: Estrella is such a pleasure being here on such a beautiful day.

Estrella: It is beautiful. Thank you. So I want to know all about your company, Water On Demand and how you got it started and why you got it started.

Riggs: Well, you're absolutely right that the why is all important, because, you know, we're accustomed to thinking of water as well. Open to tap water comes out, flush the toilet, water goes away, everything's fine. But in fact, it's not great. Throughout the world. We have terrible problems, 6000 kids a day dying of water diseases every single day. You know, millions have diarrhea from water. It's not a pleasant thing for these people where they're going through. And this is all because of very poor sanitation. The amazing thing is, is that we have that problem even in America.

You've heard of Flint, Michigan, for example, Jackson, Mississippi, Compton, California. Those are just the tip of the iceberg. There are major problems with water in America and even worse elsewhere. What we really are interested in doing is how can we do something highly effective? That also helps the planet and returns a profit to investors because it's all good to invest in charity, water and water.org. Wonderful thing. But we think we can do even better through this specific thing. And we're going to talk about and return a profit to investors.

Estrella: I love that. So what made you go, okay, I'm going to start Water On Demand?

Riggs: First of all, set some background here, which is that I came out of high tech, which is all about disruption. We saw how Uber disrupted the taxi industry. Airbnb disrupted hotels. Well, who's going to disrupt water and why? Water is this big, slow moving giant that is not really doing its job. And there's a lot we can discuss about that. But the short story is these disrupting right now.

Estrella: Well, what inspired you to want to disrupt and be part of the water change?

Riggs: You know, I could make another software program and it'd be great. But water is life, right? And what we've learned over time is that water industry is going through major change right now. It turns out that 90% of all water usage is by industry and agriculture. They are overloading, overwhelming the system so that individuals are only the 10% are getting the short end of the stick. And we're even being blamed for drought, right? Okay, we can take shorter showers, but maybe the 90%ers could do more. We focus on that.

Estrella: You focus on the 90%?

Riggs: Absolutely.

Estrella: Which is business and...

Riggs: Industrial and agricultural users.

Estrella: Got it.

Riggs: Now, what's happening with them is that it's turning to better and better thing for them to do their own clean up. They make the water dirty instead of sending it to the city and overwhelming the city. Let them just treat their own water. What's great about that is they can use it again and again, which means that their costs go down. So they're happy to do it themselves. Now, why haven't they done it already?

Number one, we needed more compact systems that would fit in a business, and we've done that. In 2018, my company, OriginClear, which has been a public company for some time, built this business that creates these Water Systems in a Box™, we call it, Modular Water Systems™ is the brand and it's doing fantastically. But there was still a problem because what we found out, especially during COVID when everything was going nuts, is that businesses needed help with money.

If you're asking a brewery to invest in wastewater systems, they're like, "I'm sorry, I'm funded to make beer. Where am I going to find $1,000,000 to clean the water? I thought that was the city's job." So we realized that the way to really accelerate this is to make it a no brainer. Oh, let's say Miss Nouri, you are a brewer. You have a wonderful brewery. I love your ale, by the way.

Estrella: Wonderful. Great. I'm doing my job. Right?

Riggs: Exactly. Now you've got this big problem where the city won't take your water. They're making you truck it to the next county, and it's very expensive. And you'd like to. Also, all that water you're using, use it again to wash down your vats and so forth. Yeah, that's all great. And we come along, we say, "Okay, sign here, and you don't have to pay for the machine we're going to put in. And just pay by the gallon, as you always did with the city. You just keep doing it with us." We call it Water On Demand and it is basically water as a service.

Estrella: How would someone like me get involved with Water On Demand?

Riggs: Okay, you have a choice. You could get involved with OriginClear as a high end investor. And that's very nice. But I think what's better is to get directly involved in Water On Demand as everyday investor. The minimum is only $1,000. It's early, water is a stable commodity. Water doesn't go through ups and downs. It's early in Water On Demand's life, so your opportunity is the greatest.

Estrella: When you say that, what do you mean?

Riggs: We launched Water On Demand in late 2021, so it was just the beginning of it. Now it's it's gotten more and more capital. We're starting to get our first pilot projects and we're also starting to do some acquisitions, buying other companies. So this is the time when it's all coming together to invest a small amount of money. Nothing that'll hurt you and have potentially an excellent return. And by doing it now versus later, you'll have helped us at a critical time when we have to build the systems, we have to accumulate the capital to pay for these systems and also acquire the companies to make our job more effective.

Estrella: Got it. So just so I have an understanding, these systems go into the businesses that take their water, and as they use it, it recycles it so it doesn't just go into the ocean and become a waste.

Riggs: Bingo.

Estrella: It actually starts recycling and they can keep using it. So not only does that help our planet, but if someone gets in early and invests in the system, it helps them as well.

Riggs: Well, think about Apple in 1984. When the Mac came along and it was a complete change from those little green screens with a little dotted line. That dot, dot, dot. No, it was graphical and the world fell in love with it. And people who invested in 1984 in Apple did very well. Same thing with cell phones. Landlines became cell phones. So any time you have a major shift, it's good to get in and you should get in to the extent that it's something you can do easily and also, you want to get in early because, what's the problem in the stock market today?

Estrella: It's crashing.

Riggs: Why? Because this is the, these these stocks have already gone up.

Estrella: What do you mean by that?

Riggs: For example, Tesla. Tesla's, you know, it was going up, up, up, up, up. And now it's going down, down, down, down, down. Right. And why? Because there's been so much investment already. But if you can get into something early.

Estrella: Like in the beginning.

Riggs: Exactly.

Estrella: I see.

Riggs: Early in the cycle, the time to invest in a market is when all the existing stuff is just crashing down. You go, okay, let's invest in the baby, right? Let's not go with the middle-aged guy. Let's invest in the baby.

Estrella: Got it.

Riggs: There's so much life ahead of it.

Estrella: Right.

Riggs: So much growth. Now, water has not been an asset that people can invest in. Sure, they can buy bonds, which are basically a kind of a loan, or they can invest in, buy stock in big water companies. But they don't grow very fast. They don't. Why? Because they've been around forever. This is a new, new thing which solves the whole financing problem for people needing a water treatment system and enables this great new technology to go in, and so potentially thousands, tens of thousands of businesses are going to jump on the bandwagon, use that and we're going to expand our network. And we will have dramatically change the water industry. And guess what? Others will follow. No question.

Estrella: Okay. Now, when others follow, does that impact people's investments?

Riggs: Well, it's always good. For example, Windows followed Mac. Did it hurt Mac? Not really. Apple remained super strong because they kept inventing. You see, we don't, we should never be afraid of competition because if we go first in the market and we innovate and somebody goes, "Oh, we'll copy that." Meanwhile, we're innovating the next thing. We're always ahead.

Estrella: Right.

Riggs: For example, one of our ideas is to create a very standardized world market for water based on each gallon being paid for in this water as a service, right? But it's happening in the US. It's happening in Latin America. It's happening in East Asia, South Africa, India, London, everywhere. So we will have, eventually, our plan is to have Water On Demand centers through partnerships that do the same thing we're doing here, but elsewhere. So we'll continue to expand and then we'll knit it all together into a market that is standardized for Water as an Asset™.

Estrella: And water hasn't been an asset before?

Riggs: Right. Because it's been governmental. Yeah, you can buy water rights. It's a very small market, but the actual business of treating water is not very open and it shows in the stats. Do you know that it's $1,000,000,000,000 industry, water treatment in the world? But it only treats 20% of the dirty water. The remaining 80% is thrown away. Dirty.

Estrella: Wow.

Riggs: England. They only have 14% of the rivers in England are clean. It's a scandal.

Estrella: Now, in Israel, 90% of the water is recycled. But in America, it's not the same. Why? Why is that?

Riggs: Well, you have to recognize that the older an infrastructure is, you kind of fall behind. Look at what happened with America going to cell phones and Africa going to cell phones. Well, Africa went straight from nothing to cell phones. They didn't do landlines at all. They didn't string wires everywhere. They just had towers. So we were actually delayed in our rollout of cell phones in America because we already had landlines for the longest time.

Similar thing with energy. Energy, we have a whole structure that's very old and it's getting in our way. Water is the same way. The water industry, which is governmental mostly, takes your dirty water, cleans it once, throws it in the ocean, which means no recycling. Whereas Israel invested later, they have a more modern water system, and so it's got the recycling built in. Also they live in a desert and they recognize that they probably should have more efficiency. And we need to start thinking the same way. How come, we're in a desert here and we're only doing 1% recycling?

Estrella: Right.

Riggs: It's crazy.

Estrella: And the rest of it is just going into the ocean?

Riggs: Right, Or into the groundwater, right? So it's either being injected into what's called the aquifer, which means the groundwater or rivers, the ocean. In many countries is thrown away dirty. In America, we do a better job, but still we have a lot of dirty water being dumped. Let me tell you, it's not a pretty picture. So we have to do a better job. And the other thing is we need justice for everyday people. I like to say it's a bit corny, but free the water. I like to say that.

Estrella: I love it.

Riggs: Well, because we're being told you got to take shorter showers. And, you know, I know it's, life is hell for you.

Estrella: You see this hair and can be, I need those showers.

Riggs: So unless you want to be rough and tough, you want those showers. And what we're not being told is that people only use 10% of the water industry and agriculture uses 90%. Why don't we go after the 90%, make them recycle.

Estrella: I absolutely agree. And Water On Demand is that solution.

Riggs: Exactly.

Estrella: So when people invest in Water On Demand, not only are they improving their portfolio, but they're also helping the planet, right?

Riggs: Isn't that the beauty of it, which is too many people don't have enough savings. It's a sad fact that that so many people are still today in their fifties and sixties and they are living paycheck to paycheck. And we all know that you start investing early in your life if possible. So, everyone should invest, try to invest in something that's early enough that it's got potential. It's got potential for multiples as opposed to just going up a little bit like it could go hockey stick, right?

Estrella: Right.

Riggs: Now, nobody's guaranteeing that stuff. Nobody guarantees stocks. But if you do your homework and you say, okay, good concept, big need really helps the planet. And it's early on in the investing cycle.

Estrella: What about people that are skeptical or they're just scared because the market is crashing? I know you said that it is an early phase, so that is the time to invest. But to the people that are not sure, what would you tell them?

Riggs: What we like people to do is start small. We've learned that people who invest in our company, OriginClear, or its new startup Water On Demand, either one, they tend to reinvest. Why? Because they have a good experience. They see that things could work out okay. That we're very responsive. I, every Thursday evening I do a briefing on Zoom. We're up to 190 so far, weekly briefings on Zoom. So we're very transparent. We tell it all. And so you hear a lot, you get a lot of updates. We tell you what's going on and you tend to reinvest. So my feeling is put what small, the minimum is $1000.

Estrella: Okay.

Riggs: The maximum is 10% of your annual income. So if you're making $100,000 a year, $10,000.

Estrella: Why should people invest in Water On Demand?

Riggs: Because right now is when we're building this capability. This is a new concept that has gotten tremendous support from higher end investors. Amazing. I can't believe how great these people are. They've been true loyalists to the nth degree. But now, as we expand, we don't want to get a bunch more high end investors. We want to get a lot of small investors. It's healthier.

For example, political campaigns that use a lot of small donations do better than the ones that use a few billionaires because it's more of a movement. We want to create a movement. So, number one, it it has that capability of creating a movement.

Number two now is when we're building these pilot systems and when we build the pilot systems, we get recognition from Wall Street to raise money from investment banks. We can do that too, but we need to have those working systems and now is when we're doing it. Also, we want to start making acquisitions, acquiring other companies to make our job easier. And we want to build the team that is going to manage all that. That's a lot to do. It's better to have 1000 people with a small amount than 100 people with a large amount. It's just healthier.

Estrella: So tell me about you.

Riggs: Well, thank you. But, you know, I have this unique mix of really eclectic background that I think it really helps me today to tackle this monster challenge, which is this water industry. You know, I was raised internationally, so I have no home, which is kind of cool in that way. I think of myself more as a world person. Then I went on to be in the nonprofit space, which means I got paid nothing for working like crazy. But that gave me this sense of like, I want to save the planet in some way, right? Then I got involved in high tech, which I loved. It was so fast moving and to this day, I have this disruptive feeling about how you can really change anything with technology. Right? And throughout it all, it's been about water. I've been a professional sailor. I'm an addict for skiing. And we are going to have to get on the slopes. You know it. You know it.

Estrella: I would love to. Love to.

Riggs: Yes, absolutely. So water is just my playground and it's high time that we actually do something about our playgrounds, make sure we have them in years to come. My son is turning 25. He has all his life with me and I want him to be able to keep doing it both for climate change but also for the clean water.

Estrella: So you have created an opportunity for people to be a part of the movement.

Riggs: Isn't it amazing?

Estrella: Yeah. How do you feel?

Riggs: Our investors are so cool and they are so supportive and we recently did an acquisition. We came up with the money in like less than three weeks.

Estrella: Wow. My gosh, I needed to hear all this and sit down with you. And I'm hoping that it does help my followers out there as well, because sometimes you just don't know what to do with your money. You know, you work hard, you want to make the right investments and you want to make it in a place where you feel safe and it makes sense. So thank you for allowing me to be a part of the movement, the change and the and the investment opportunity.

Riggs: And remember, water, that benefits us all.

Estrella: I mean, I'm sold. I've been sold. This is I mean, this has been so informative. It's I hope it not only changes the planet, but also changes people's lives.

Riggs: This really, for me, drives a mission that I've been doing for several years where we can really make change happen in a completely new asset, which is water. How cool is that?

Estrella: I love it, I think. Thank you for building that opportunity, allowing people to be a part of the movement as well as myself. It's been very, very informative and I just really appreciate this. So thank you.

Riggs: Well, my pleasure. Because you've made it common sense to people and we can't be too geeky and I love it that you've made it accessible. So thank you.

Estrella: Thank you. I appreciate it.

End of presentation

 

Ken & Riggs 12 Jan 23


Regulation A Offering for Every Day Investors

Riggs: So, Ken, what do you think, huh?

Ken: I had, I had viewed that the other night. Like you said, "One guy is, a finance guy and a tech guy walk into a bar and they try to describe something. They're going to describe it differently. She really does come at it from a very kind of a very mainstream common sense way of unpacking it. And I think that's going to be very valuable for the regulation A offering because it's going to, it's not going to be folks that would be considered, folks that are really deeply into the market and understand a lot of financial lingo. So I think it's very, very, very good.

What I really love about what we're doing and we'll talk more about this as we're permitted to discuss it, but as this thing potentially evolves, we're kind of going, Riggs we're here with the accredited guys and we're actually splitting. Now, we're also going to be we're going to be dealing with kind of everybody, which is that healthy political campaigns, love the dollar donations, right? It's very, very healthy.

But also to the institutional money, because as I say to folks that are involved in this, I go, we're going to change the world, but you're going to need institutional money to do that, right? At some point, it's going to have to be the folks that make things global, right?

Riggs: Those very same accredited investors don't want more accredited investors to continuously do these huge dilutions.

Ken: Exactly right. Exactly right.

Riggs: For this $20 Million piece, because that gets the really good projects going.

Ken: Yes.

Riggs: Great. Close it up. We're done. Because also we're giving you away annuities.

Ken: Right.

Riggs: But it's only the 20 million because after that, meanwhile, the Reg A spools up and the institutions come in and that's when we really get the kind of funding. Tesla does not get money from accredited investors anymore.

Ken: No, no. But they did in the beginning. They did in the beginning. Well, actually, it was Elon, right? He put like $8 million, $80 million.

Riggs: And he had other people that he, on that All-In Summit, one summit where he spoke, he talked about that one December when he was, his friends came in.

 

Major Fintech Disruption

Ken: He was calling people saying he couldn't make payroll. No, I remember that. What's really nice also about both of these two different levels. Now, neither one of them have that dilutive effect. The regulation A is very non-dilutive. It's going to give folks a chance to be that Apple 1984 investor. So you know day the day a deal happens, they're not going to be like, "Oh my God, I'm a..." It's not going to be like that. It'll be over time, which is good. And I think the same thing with the institutions. Institutions aren't sitting there, when I talk to folks like that, they're not worried about, "Well, what's your next quarter like?" They're not thinking like that.

They're looking ten years down a field and then they're looking at other major fintech disruptions in the market and saying, "Okay, if I did this in 2011, what's it worth today?" And that's where the lights go on and understanding that they're going to probably enter this thing in the market, not as some sort of VC deal. So they're not locked in, which I think is doubly attractive to them.

 

Natural Value

Riggs: And this is why I brought up this this natural resources capital, a natural capital idea, which institutions, it's very early still, and this was a, this was a PR press release. It's a lot of hot air. But it signals that there is going to be value put on things that I mean, why is it that 80% of the water isn't treated? Because nobody is paying for it, right?

Well, now that you start having natural accounting, then natural capital accounting, like, wait a minute, there's value into a clean ocean, there's value in a healthy Amazon, etc. That I think is going to help us long term. And that's where the institutions are gonna come in, they're going to think long term like that. But what we're doing with our credit investors and where there are not unaccredited investors is we want to deliver results long before that happens. And that's...

 

call ken

Ken: Of course, of course. What I also thought and I listen to the Peter Zeihan thing. I think, I might have, I know we forwarded him back and forth a number of times. I don't know if you had sent that to me previously, but I listened to it the other morning in its entirety. And this is happening at a time where over the next few years America is going to be building things like, it hasn't been.

Riggs: So exciting.

 

Investing in Infrastructure

Ken: Right? So, but also our acquisition binge will happen at a time just prior to American industrial businesses really experiencing a renaissance.

Riggs: Well, let's take an example. The coming regulation A offering, it states in the filing that the money will be used for these water systems, but also for acquisitions, right? Dan Early needs to acquire a fabricator of these high density polyurethane polypropylene enclosures. Well, he says he can do 20 to $30 million a year with acquiring that one fabricator, who's very expendable.

Ken: Right.

Riggs: So, that's what he's doing, which is four or five. It was one last. It was maybe two $2 million in 2021. It's four or $5 million, 2022. But he's going to meet a limit without the more resources. So we're going to be investing in production capability. This is going to be a huge boom in infrastructure building and manufacturing like you've never seen before. It's a very exciting time. And you know what Ken, I'm actually happy to have some good fricking news for a change, because.

 

Rebuilding America

Ken: I know well, the guys we listen to a lot of times like, yeah, it's over. You know, just go down in your, go down in your, go down in your bomb shelter and eat your eat your patriot food. And you know, it's like and you know what it was, he starts the conversations where it's really, really, really bad. He goes, "Don't worry about it, man. It's going to be really, really good."

You know, it's very interesting. Ed Dowd, who is a completely different guy, he's a data driven guy talking about markets and how this affects markets and so forth. He's saying the almost the same thing, that it's going to become a much more community. America becomes kind of the America of the previous century, the stuff that, you know, communities and people and, you know. Those of us who grew up in the sixties or fifties or seventies knew that our society was very different today.

Riggs: Yeah.

Ken: We couldn't really quite put our finger on it. And I was like, That's it. That's it. We weren't as community, you know, when I moved out here from New York, this is much more like the way I grew up. You don't lock your door. Everyone knows each other from church. Know all the kids play together. It's a little bit more like that. But a lot of your major cities just don't have that culture anymore. And to be able to go back to that.

Riggs: Going back to that, people are not only that, and I know we have to wrap up, but the other idea is we're doing a rotten job of fighting wars, whether, no matter whose side you're on. We we crapped.

Ken: It wasn't about winning. It was about making money.

Riggs: Yeah, it was about...

Ken: Next subject. Right.

Riggs: Syria, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine. We're terrible at it. And you know what? In this new world where we come back to being the North American empire, quote unquote, we won't have to.

Ken: Right.

Riggs: Look at that trillion dollars a year that we won't have to spend as a peace dividend.

Ken: And the human suffering of of our own beautiful kids, you know, and all of that energy that could be devoted to to domestic industrial expansion, domestic and industrial independence. My God, if we can if we can rebuild American, the economy the way we can, we can build bombs. Holy smokes. Right. So no. So. So getting back to our topic. This is coming along at a time where water needed a major disrupter. It wasn't physically possible until these systems that Dan [created], right? But then he went back to the paradigm of, "Here buy it," and guys were like, "Okay," but one in ten were buying it, The rest were going, "I don't have the money."

So FinTech actually wrapping up that entire equation now by supplying investor Wall Street funded systems is the completion of the cycle. So now there's a, there's both the physical and technological capability of disrupting the largest industry on earth and the only one necessary for human life to exist. Pretty important at a time when, like you said, if you listen to Zeihan, if you listen to Dowd, at a time when American industry will just begin to start coming into a renaissance, it is really going to be a great time to be alive.

 

NASDAQ Marketsite

Riggs: Wonderful. And I'm going to, before we wrap up, I'm going to mention this, this coming Tuesday, 10:30 a.m. Eastern, we will be taping at the Nasdaq marketsite, which is that place where people get get interview with the Nasdaq set basically. Every month we're going to do an interview and you and I going to be together for this one. Perhaps not every single one, we might spell each other, whatever, but each month is an interview. And that interview is then syndicated in all kinds of channels. This is a program called New to the Street, and this can be very exciting. So you'll see some footage next week from that because Charlie Davanzo is going to be shooting on his iPhone.

Ken: If you get in early enough, we'll go to Williamsburg and have Luger's. Peter Luger's.

Riggs: Like it.

Ken: All right.

Riggs: I love it. Let's do it.

Ken: All right.

Riggs: All right. Well, listen, guys and gals, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure. Wow, things are exciting. Keith Roeten says, "Awesome interview. Keep it simple." Sally, "Kiss."

Ken: I thank you for not calling us stupid, right?

Riggs: Paul Fetcher, "Hot Spokesmodel."

Ken: I never I didn't notice. Paul But I'll take a second look at the video. Thank you.

 

Retarded Lead

Riggs: And then Paul also mentioned, regarding Africa and China's leap to mobile phones, "Margaret Mead called it the retarded lead." They started late and they've jumped forward. Well, actually, this is what's happening with decentralized water in America. This is going to be a great leap forward and we're going to lead. And the centralized stuff is going to remain to serve the people.

Ken: Right.

Riggs: And not be burdened with industry.

Ken: It will gradually, as it as it degrades, there won't be this financial panic to replace it. Exactly. It'll be like it's okay. It's okay. Let it let it happen. Right. As as landlines become less and less. Nobody. Nobody builds homes now with landlines. They just don't. Right. You don't build a home with a landline.

Riggs: Soon, they're not going to build them with sewage either.

 

Commentary

Ken: Right, exactly. I mean, it's probably stage two. Stage three. But you know what? By then. By then, who will play, "Who will play us in the movie?" is the question. I have to play me because nobody can play me.

Riggs: That's too funny, they're going to put me in the movies.

Ken: That's right. We used to do movies. So you know a guy, you can figure it.

Riggs: I know a guy, Stephen, who did a great job editing that video. We're going to have to wrap it up. It's been wonderful. Robert Baxter, "Winners." Eugene Tully, "Excellent briefing." Queen Coletta, "I appreciate both of you Kings." Tom Liakos, "Thank you. Nicely done."

Ken: "Gronk can play Ken."

Riggs: Paul Fetscher says, "Gronk can play Ken."

Ken: Okay. All right.

Riggs: All right.

Ken: Or Ken can play Ken. I don't know. We'll think about it.

Riggs: You know what? You're going to stay so busy. It could be a long time before you're on a set.

Ken: Yeah, I know.

Riggs: Thank you, everyone. See you next week. You'll get some footage from the Nasdaq MarketSite.

Ken: It's going to e a lot of fun.

Riggs: Thanks, guys.

 

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