Integrating Finance and Technology for Water
We’ve been evangelizing the vital necessity of decentralizing water treatment for years and we were met with more than a few obstacles to actually doing it… The biggest being finance. But finance is meaningless without delivered results! So, the significance of our announcement last week that Modular Water and its assets had been transferred to Water On Demand can’t be overstated… Why? Find out in the replay!
Transcript from recording
Introduction
Ken: And good evening. It is our Thursday night briefing. It’s April the 27th, our 208th briefing. Water — The Blue Gold. Good evening. I’m Ken Berenger.
Riggs is off tonight, so we’re going to start off with kind of the usual. And by that I mean here’s our safe harbor statement. Okay.
Take a look at that and we’re going to flip on over to our. Disclaimer statement. I’d read it, but it’s a little small for me.
And while folks are coming on, I want to see just letting people file into the room. Hello, Estrella. I’ll be bringing you on after.
And what I’m going to do is we’ve got a lot of material to cover tonight. Actually, two videos, two separate interviews, one focusing entirely on Riggs on a podcast. And the second, a little bit about my trip to New York. So with that, what I’ll do is we’ll get started with the Wow Factor podcast. Samuel was an excellent interviewer in my view, and I think he did a great job with Riggs. So without further ado, I’m going to I’m going to get that started.
Start of presentation
Samuel: Welcome to the Wow Factor podcast. And today we are going to be discussing a very interesting topic which is mainly leading the Water On Demand revolution. And we have a nationally renowned entrepreneur dedicated to revolutionizing the water industry, which has reached a critical breaking point. Our guest, he is the CEO of a public company called OriginClear, and he is none other than Riggs. Welcome to the podcast,
Riggs: Samuel. It’s a great pleasure being here. Thank you. It’s an honor.
Samuel: So how has been your week so far?
Riggs: It’s been very busy because we’re working on a number of initiatives to expand our program. Water On Demand™ And in fact, today we combined with Water On Demand, another division called Modular Water Systems™, which is the enabling technology. So now we have the technology and we have the finance to make them work together. That was a big transaction. We just completed that. All right, that’s great.
Samuel: So as we take a dive in, the whole general public would like to know who Riggs is. So how would you best describe Riggs?
Riggs: I would describe myself as very much an outside the box executive. I really tend to do things in a unconventional way. But of course, if it’s too unconventional, then you can accomplish anything. So the key here is to to be creative, to be outside the box, but then to connect with what the world expects from finance, leadership, etcetera. So it’s kind of a high tension activity between being very creative and being compliant.
Samuel: How would you find the balance? Because it’s quite the challenge of being the unique gifting of both sides.
Riggs: Part of it was that my background was very unusual. You know, before the podcast we talked about my background in shipping in the 70 seconds. I ended up in high tech in the 80 seconds and then went into the.com in the 90 seconds. And so I think unusual background led to my thinking of things in a different way and in a not so compliant way. So whereas people would think about, well, I’m going to do things inside a corporate box and, you know, sort of go up the steps gradually, I’m looking for achieving something big quickly, you know, compressing time, as Steve Jobs used to say, and, you know, getting things done much, much faster than normally they would expect.
Samuel: So what was the driving force within all that transition of careers?
Riggs: You know, my work in the nonprofit space taught me to try to make change happen in the world, not just, you know, save for retirement, but actually to make beneficial change happen. And I think that’s that’s informed all of my activities also being raised in many cities of the Caribbean and Europe led to my being more rootless, you might say. So not so much tied to a particular culture, but more interested in sort of a world view, right? And when you look at when you have a worldview, you start thinking about the things that really need handling that are not being addressed, right? And that’s where I got so excited about water.
Samuel: I would like us to tell us more about OriginClear And why did you found that entity?
Riggs: Ironically, I founded OriginClear, It was called Origin Oil at the time. We were launched as a company to do algae for biofuels, which was very sexy in 2007, and the price of oil was over $100 a barrel. There was lots of money to pay for alternative fuels and we had a great time. It was a lot of fun. Origin Oil, meaning algae, was the original oil. It wasn’t dinosaurs, it was algae, you know, and it’s a perfect feedstock.
The only problem is that fracking came along and dramatically dropped the price of crude. We realized that there was no market in the short term for algae as a biofuel. So we pivoted the company into water, renamed it OriginClear, because we clear up the water. And that’s when I had a big learning experience. This was about ten years ago because in algae we were very sexy. We were all in all the big mainstream media people were like so excited. Water, people take for granted and I was stunned. I was like, wait a minute.
As you said, Samuel, it’s essential to life. And yet people take it for granted. They’re very complacent about it. It’s almost like breathing the air. You and I are breathing in the air and we’re not. Oh, where’s my next breath going to come from? No, we expect the air to be there and we expect the water to be there.
But the problem is 80% of all the sewage in the world is released untreated, which is a crime, really. 80%. Now, it’s not the developed countries, but many, many countries. I saw a chart, for example, of all the most polluted rivers in the world, and so many of them are in China, the Indian subcontinent, also the Niger River, things like that. The the Nile is a tremendously polluted rivers and there’s no care for them.
Yes, the ocean is big, but we’re throwing all the bad stuff in the ocean and eventually it gets really toxic. The one, one result of all this complacency is that politicians don’t allocate enough money to water infrastructure, which was built decades ago and then left alone. And so here we are with aging infrastructure, not enough money being spent on it. And so what do we do about it?
Fortunately, there’s a concept that started to emerge around 2016, which is called decentralized water, which means if you’re a business, treat the water at the point where you use it. Don’t just send it dirty to the city, clean it. That makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, it’s very crystal clear. But, you know, in the mentality of the post-war era, everything was like, don’t worry, we’ll do huge public works. We’ll take care of it for you. Just send us everything.
Well, that didn’t work out. And today we’re having to equip businesses to do their own water treatment, clean their own water. And they like it because there’s benefits. Number one, they control costs. And number two, they can recycle, which normally they can’t if they just send the water to the city. So there’s really good reasons to do this. Decentralization.
What we found starting in 2016 was that growing adoption, and today there’s tremendous demand, and what we learned is two major things you have to do. Number one, you have to have the technology to downsize the water equipment from the big utilities. And number two, you have to have finance to help these companies so that they don’t have to come up with all the capital expense. And that’s Water On Demand.
Samuel: As you have decentralized from the government in terms of the distribution of water, was there any challenges that you were met with the government in terms of pushbacks? For I mean, the regard of decentralizing of water?
Riggs: Well, in them US at least, the government is delighted to see it happen because they are underfunded. The standards for toxin levels in water are becoming tougher and tougher without the budgets to treat it. So they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They don’t have enough resources.
And so when you say, “Listen, we’ll just give you treated water.” They’re like, “Great, fantastic. Thank you very much.” Right now there’s one barrier, which is that we have to make sure that regulations support self treatment by businesses. Sometimes that requires some local work. But in general, we find the municipalities to be very cooperative and actually excited.
Samuel: Talk about the challenges that you faced and how did you solve those?
Riggs: Well, so okay, so let’s return to right around 2013 when we pivoted into water and at first we had a pure technology focus. We were, we had this technology to clean the water, which came out of the technology of harvesting the algae. We converted that to convert it to cleaning up the water, pure technology that we would license. What we found in the water industry is that it’s not very technology friendly. It takes 12 to 15 years for a new technology to be accepted in the water industry. And that’s just, that’s too long, right?
And so what we tried very hard to get the technology into use, a lot of pushback. And so we said, “You know what? Different plan.” And so starting in 2015, we started developing our own capability to build systems. In 2018, we launched a division called Modular Water Systems, which creates these modular, Water Systems in a Box™ that you just drop in at the business.
And that is easy for the water industry to accept because it’s not, all it is, is a new way of delivering the technology, it’s not a new way of treating water. Rather, it’s a new way of packaging with an assembly line approach and you can truck them on site, plug them in and you’re done.
That has been very, very widely accepted. We tripled our revenue between 2021 and 2022 because it’s starting to really get acceptance. So Modular Water got, was one solution. And then in 2020, we were confronted with the whole problem of, well, what about these businesses that aren’t capitalized to do their own water treatment?
And that’s where we came up with a finance solution to say, “Listen, Samuel, you have, let’s say, a brewery. You need to treat the water because your local municipality won’t treat the water. No worries. We’ll take care of it. Sign here on the dotted line and you’ll receive a system. The system remains our property. You pay on the meter the same way you’re accustomed to with the city.” And, it’s water as a service.
So that’s a very modern way of looking at business. You know, everything is becoming service something as a service. In this case, water is a service that has been very, very exciting for people. And so now we’re having these things work in synergy.
Samuel: It sounds easy to set up a Water On Demand business.
Riggs: It’s easy for the customer. For us, it’s complicated. Why? We have to have a partner on the ground. We’re, let’s say in Texas where most of our people are, and if you have a client in Seattle, Washington, how are we going to support them? So we have to have a local water company, a network of water companies that do the operation and maintenance, as we call it.
And we have to have control over the technology and the installation, and we have to make sure that everything is done properly, because if the water isn’t cleaned to a certain standard, we don’t get paid. So it’s very demanding on our side to make it work. For the customer, all he’s got to do is sign and people show up, take care of things and problem goes away. So we simplify it for him. More complicated for us, for each.
Samuel: For each kickstart, you always have to have at least a local partner on board.
Riggs: That’s actually a competitive advantage. You and I know about barriers to adoption by your competition. And if you signed up a whole lot of companies to be your support stations in different cities, you’ve got a competitive advantage.
Samuel: What would you say the current state of Water On Demand is in the US and what can the government do to increase the level of adoption for the Water On Demand business?
Riggs: I see them as being really passive. In other words, they are so crazy trying to deal with their problems. I mean, you just heard perhaps about Fort Lauderdale, had a thousand year flood a couple of days ago. They’re dealing with constant disasters and so they’re very passive.
The focus for us is to work with the specifying engineers early on where they go, “Okay, we want to solve a problem for our customer.” “Oh, did you know that you can do this special pay per gallon model.” And introduce it at that point early on. If you introduce it too late, then they already committed to a different way of financing it. So you have to do it very early. And that’s why, again, the synergy between Modular Water, which talks to all these customers and Water On Demand, which has the money, is essential.
Samuel: When you are starting the Water On Demand demand business, were there are some myths that you had?
Riggs: The first myth is, “Why can’t the government take care of it?” Right. And the fact is it can. Here in America we had, years ago, we had a monopoly, telephone monopoly, AT&T. That was fine, except that it lacked a whole bunch of potential. When AT&T was broken up and turned into MCI and the Baby Bells, as we call them, and many other — and even the Internet, it created a vastly larger market because it allowed more players to come in.
And so what we have here is people going, well, what’s the problem? Everything’s great and it’s not. Our job is to really get people to understand that there is an issue and more and more businesses know this. They know they need to solve the problem. But the general public is not yet fully aware. And that’s our biggest mission.
Samuel: What about around the world? What is it like?
Riggs: What we’ve done is we decided to really formalize Water On Demand in the US. In other words, fully break it in, make it work. [Then] create partnerships with finance organizations in Dubai, Singapore, Tokyo, South America, and they in turn would do the capitalization for their own water networks. So we want to create a sort of a network of networks that then spreads it, because one company can’t cover the world. It’s $1 trillion industry. So what do we do? We simply share the knowledge we learn here in the US to enable other players to play the same game, and that’s going to be our next step.
Samuel: Mainly. What I see is, what makes a successful enterprise and Water On Demand is, an extensive amount of capitalization and your network of partners.
Riggs: Correct. Now, what’s great about the capitalization is many investors today are wondering where to put their money. Can’t figure out, you know, should I put in the stock market? No, that’s not good. Bond market? No. Oil goes up and down. Real estate goes up and down. What do I do? Well, there’s a new asset class that we created that they can invest in and get residuals. And people are quite interested in that. They like that a lot. They’re like, okay, that’s super cool.
And they are, they have pent up, they have money sitting there that is not working that they want to put to work. And so that’s why the capitalization works so well. We’re doing it a lot like oil well partnerships, which in America, regular investors can invest in an oil well partnership. And so we’re just doing the same thing but for water. And so as a result, people get to get rents from the water systems, essentially.
You can go after institutional money, but there’s much, much more money in the middle class of investors all over America, vast amounts of money. And if you can get them excited about investing, you’ve got a very powerful financing source. So we’ve been very blessed so far with the the acceptance of that model.
Samuel: What else would make a Water On Demand business successful?
Riggs: You have to have the plug and play technology because it’s much easier to raise money than to build systems. You can raise money in two days. It takes two years to build a system, so you have to scale it up.
So one of the things we’ve been working on is assembly line production of water equipment, which by the way, is not done very much in the water industry. It’s still very, they do it. They they build water systems like they build houses, whereas it should be built in a factory, you know. Bup, bup, bup, bup bup. And so that’s where Modular Water is really the breakthrough activity that we’re so excited about. And combining that with the finance will get some momentum. So absolutely the, the assembly line technology is key.
Samuel: If you were to reflect back at the year 19 year old self, what would you be? What would give what would be your best advice to your 19 year old self?
Riggs: Oh, boy. What I didn’t know then. Um, well, I would say be a bit less self centered. Be a bit — You know, what I’ve learned over the years is to treasure what other people can teach me. I was arrogant. I was an arrogant 19 year old. I knew everything. And as a result, you know, I would make phenomenal wins, but also phenomenal failures. And that’s hard. So, um, be be more interested in what others can bring you. I think that’s the number one lesson you can learn in life.
Samuel: Be cognizant of people who are around you and what they can offer.
And be interested —be interested. Like the more interested I am in you, the more you’re going to tell me good things, right? It’s actually self-serving. If I’m interesting, I’m performing to you. I will learn nothing. Why? Because I’m broadcasting. So you need to turn it around and be receptive. We’re not always taught that. And I certainly I was more of a an actor thought that I knew all the answers.
And of course, now I’m learning that the more I know, the less I know. And that’s kind of how it should be, because every conversation I have, such as with you, it gets me to a place where I know more. Even you making me explain certain things. It actually gets me to realize certain things. So it’s very, very productive. And the less importance you put on yourself and more you put on the other person, the better you do, in my opinion.
Samuel: Quite sound wisdom. I’m sure your 19 year old self would be very excited to hear that.
Riggs: He would like, “Really Riggs? Like, yes, believe me. Believe me, dude, this is an old man talking to you.
Samuel: All right, Awesome. So as we wind this up, I would like to hear what would be your final remarks.
Riggs: I fell in love with high tech starting in the 80s and then the dotcom in the 90s. What is happening is that high tech is inserting itself in all industries. So even though water seems to be like a really low tech activity, the more aggressive you can be about integrating high tech into this space and other spaces, the more successful you will be.
So high tech is the key, in my opinion, to all industries getting momentum and building up and modernizing, which they must do. We have to, we have to constantly build, because there’s always more people, there’s always more businesses, more toxins and we have to constantly grow. And as a result, we have to think that way. So that’s — that’s kind of fun, really, because it says that it’s an unlimited game, isn’t it?
Samuel: Thank you so much for being a guest on the WowFactor podcast. It has really been an honor taking a deep dive into Water On Demand and learning more about you.
Riggs: Samuel, it’s been a great pleasure and best of luck to you. Maybe let’s check in in six months or a year, Okay?
Samuel: Amazing. Thank you so much.
End of presentation
Ken: The more I know, the less I know. Reminded me of the Don Henley song Heart Of The Matter, “The more I know, the less I understand.” So, yeah, our 19 year old selves, we could — we could teach a lot. So that was a great interview. Samuel did a great job. Riggs did a great job as normal.
This is a little fun here. This was, I had a camera crew kind of follow me through Times Square leading into the TV studio and so forth. So this is, we cover a lot of great material. I want you to focus on the message. We’re finally penetrating and repeating some of the same messages that Riggs repeated over and over, because I think the world is finally starting to catch on. But they need to hear it a bunch of times. So I’m going to — I’m going to play this from right from the beginning.
Start of presentation
So we’re in the heart of Times Square, as you can probably tell.
Can I take a picture? Say cheese. Okay. Now say OriginClear.
What’s up, brother?
We’re going to head into the studio. We’ve got an interview with New To The Street coming up, which we do monthly, and it’s going to be airing on Fox News, on Newsmax and on Bloomberg. We’re going to be breaking a little bit of news — some really exciting stuff and I’m looking forward to it.
Start of segment
Jane King: OriginClear is doing some very innovative things with water and it involves decentralization of water. And with me is Ken Berenger, the executive vice president of OriginClear and also co-creator of Water on Demand. So let’s start with I saw that you had a nearly triple revenue increase year over year.
Ken: Thank. Thanks for having me. Good to be back. Great to see you again.
Jane King: Great to have you back. So I mean, that’s something to be commended, especially as the economy has slowed down a little bit.
Ken: We released a couple of different numbers. Our revenue was nearly tripled at 250%, which in the water business, I mean, they’re popping champagne if you’re up 10% year over year. Right?
Jane King: Right. It’s very steady.
Ken: It’s very slow moving business.
Jane King: Right, yeah. It’s utility.
Ken: Right. Exactly. So that’s kind of a stunning number. Our gross profit for the company was up 262%. Again, another near triple, So —
Jane King: These are year over year numbers.
Ken: Year over year, 21 through 22. We just released the final year end numbers. So what we’re really proud of is the team. They have consistently delivered results for us. And what I think is probably the most exciting part is we just announced the transfer of our Modular Water Systems to our holistic water as a service division, Water On Demand, and what this allows for us to do is combine both the technology and the finance to deliver unlimited scalability in the water business.
This is $1 trillion problem. Okay? So trillion dollar problems are not going to be solved by any one single company or probably any 100 companies. The ability to integrate finance, total service, kind of a holistic view with actual technology that is kind of drop and go and can be removed. We think that’s the key to being able to scale this globally eventually.
Jane King: Right. Okay. So let’s back up for a second and talk a little bit about what OriginClear does. So and I mentioned decentralization. So you’re essentially providing small businesses, other entities, their own water system where they can recycle the water. You provide financing for them if they need that as well. So explain the business.
Ken: Well, it’s more — it’s more than finance. So yeah, that is the core of it. And that’s, that makes it very easy to kind of digest. But 90% of the water in the world goes untreated. Most of our polluted water is not coming from Nestle, it’s not coming from Pepsi, it’s not coming from Anheuser-Busch, who are massive companies who can install $10 million systems and basically staff them on a 24 hour basis, okay?
Most of the pollution is coming from the edges — from kind of the outskirts in smaller businesses, businesses that are extremely capital limited, people that don’t have access to — And I mentioned to you in a previous interview that if you’re Anheuser-Busch or you’re Pepsi, you have the money, you have the staff, you’ve basically got your own private utility.
99% of small businesses don’t have the capital. They don’t have the expertise and they don’t have the bandwidth to be in the water business. Okay. They need to make beer. They need to be a farm. They need to manufacture chips, whatever it is. So the total outsourcing of water treatment allows us to say to an end user — chip maker — don’t worry about the million dollar system. We’re going to put it right on your site, okay?
Now we’re going to provide expert 24 hour a day monitoring. We’re going to service it. It’s all in your pay by the gallon. It’s $1 million system that you now do not have to pay $1 million for. We’ll take care of it. The business model is exciting and we think that the street’s going to be very excited about it because Water On Demand owns the asset — that 20 or 25 year contract, we own that.
And instead of having a one and done type of, “Great, I sold $1 million piece of equipment. Now I’m out of business again,” type thing, it’s now a 20 — it’s a multi decade relationship to the end user and the revenue generated off a system is many, many, many, many times that of a one time sale. So it’s a great model. It’s almost like owning real estate in a way. You’re going to get rent rolls, you’re going to get turnover on property forever.
Jane King: Yeah, very attractive. And you’re investing $500,000 a month?
Ken: We had great revenue growth — great profit growth. We’re still investing about a half $1 million a month in the company. But those investments, as you can see, are paying off. So we’re really, really happy about that.
Jane King: And then also, you’ve just incubated your first water company. Explain that.
Ken: Right. So what OriginClear did was it fashioned itself as a clean water incubation hub or a Clean Water Innovation Hub™. What we wanted to do, we had a bunch of really valuable properties — Modular Water Systems, Progressive Water Systems, Water On Demand. What we wanted to do is nurture them — get them strong enough, and then have them also maybe go to a national market or whatever.
So our first successful incubation is Modular Water Systems. This is a company that we started from scratch five years ago. I mean, literally Dan Early walked in the door and we built a company around him and his patents and his ideas. So from literally zero, we were able to transfer Modular Water Systems to the — to our other division, which is the whole water as a service model, right?
We transferred the — and this is — the synergy between this technology and the ability to scale it can’t be understated. But, we were able to transfer that property, if you will, to Water On Demand for many, many times what our investment was. And that is essentially the — I would call that the benchmark for successful incubation. Buy it cheap, sell it or transfer it for a lot more.
Jane King: Well, that’s an interesting aspect of your business. As you grow, you might be able to also incubate other water — innovative water companies.
Ken: Our hope is to be able to kind of raise the kids, get them off to college, get them — you know — pay for Harvard Law, pay for Harvard Law and then the kids can, you know, pay us back.
Water is a technology based business — it’s not pipes and valves. This is a highly technologically advanced business and there is no incubation or incubator for water technology or aquatech as they refer to it now. We set out to be the world’s first incubator for water technology.
And happily, and I’m very proud of the team for this, we’ve successfully incubated our first with the only meaningful benchmark that makes any sense, right? We started out with virtually zero and was able to transfer it for, like I said, many, many fold our investments.
Jane King: Yeah. Interesting. And such a problem with water and cleanliness of it and lack of it and you’re really trying to address that.
Ken: It’s an upstream problem right now. We treat it downstream, right? Everything flows downstream to a centralized water plant here in New York City. You know, I grew up in New York City. Water was the best water. Not so much anymore. Right. Because everything’s coming up from upstream down to downstream. They’re doing their best. But you’ve got 80 million different contaminants in your water. How can one centralized system possibly address that?
If you treat the water at the place, it’s being contaminated and you address those specific contaminants with a private decentralized water utility, the quality of that water coming to the centralized system is better. And if you charge the polluter right, you and I are paying for water. Okay, We’re paying the same as the guy who produces millions of gallons a month. Okay. That’s crazy, right? And he’s the one polluting it — we’re not. Okay.
So if you charge the end user, you’re actually saving that business a fortune. Okay, so he’s happy. But the quality of what comes down to the end user is much, much better. And potentially we can start to deliver water in decades to come, cheaper or even free.
Jane King: Yeah. Interesting. Well, thank you so much, Ken.
Ken: Thank you.
Jane King: For the update and look forward to the next one.
Jane King: Thank you.
Ken: Thank you.
End of segment
Ken: We’re going to be heading up to Neuehouse. I’m going to be going into the studio and I’m going to be sharing some of the items that we can now talk about with respect to Water On Demand.
Start of segment
Vince Caruso: You just recently announced Modular Water Systems merged with Water On Demand. Is that correct?
Ken: That is correct.
Vince Caruso: So what does that mean to the parent — to the whole company? So I’m a little confused. I love — I love it all. I love the story. But why did that happen?
Ken: We’re old enough to remember when GM sold cars — for 15 years — never making money on a car.
Vince Caruso: Right.
Ken: What kept them going? GM Finance — it was the money, stupid. So the ability to finance a commodity, in this case cars, was what kept them — not only kept them alive — but really thriving. A car, a $40,000 car, if you look at what you pay out over time is what? $60,000, $80,000 — $60,000, $70,000, $80,000? And now with these eight year financing is even more.
The financial end of it — it allows you the ability to really sell a car to anyone. How many people would buy cars for cash? Not many, especially with the average car today being $45,000 or $100,000 cars. So we had the same issue. Modular Water Systems was crushing it — tripling its revenue each year. We just announced a triple in revenue and a triple in gross profits, okay? And that’s literally just selling to the people that have the cash. We found —
Vince Caruso: The end users,
Ken: The end users —
Vince Caruso: Businesses.
Ken: The businesses that had the million dollars or the half a million.
Vince Caruso: And you’re growing either way just with that.
Ken: Yes. But you’re only addressing 10% or so of the market. How many people would buy a car for cash? Car salesmen would all go bankrupt. Okay. So the idea is — and this was the aha moment — it’s the money, stupid, moment. Okay.
During COVID, we came up with the idea that we didn’t think anybody was going to have money. Okay? We didn’t know the government was going to hand out $6 trillion. That was very nice of them, right? But, we thought businesses were going to really struggle. The truth is a small business is not going to deploy $1 million of capital if it doesn’t have to. He doesn’t want to be in the water business. Okay. So the — you asked me, what the — what does the synergy do?
Vince Caruso: What does that do?
Ken: Water On Demand is the GM Finance, while Modular Water Systems is the GM, right. Now, you can’t have — you can’t have a GM Finance without a car.
Vince Caruso: Right.
Ken: Right? You can’t just be a bank that finances nothing. So what we’re doing is there’s $1 trillion existing deficit in American water infrastructure that’s today. The opportunity to literally finance that is astronomical — it’s phenomenal. So what this merger — this marriage is, it’s really — it’s the final blending of technology and the total finance package, including all about water as a service. So what it enables us to do is to reach the other 90%, perhaps, of the market that says,”Look, I need this system, but there’s no way I can deploy $1 million.”
Here you go. Mr. Jones. Here’s your million dollar system. We’re going to monitor it. We’re going to fix it if it ever breaks. You’re only going to pay by the gallon. Oh, by the way, this has nothing to do with you. I solve your problem with zero capital expense. If you’ve got really crummy credit, we’ll put some additional security deposits like you would any troubled lender — troubled borrower. Okay, so the problem gets solved. If they don’t pay, we take it away.
Here’s the part that has no effect on you and you don’t care. We own the asset. We own the contract. And we now have a multi decade relationship with you where a few hundred thousand dollar piece of equipment can generate millions and millions of dollars of revenue over the long run. So if you look at it as a pure fintech play — yeah, that’s cool — okay, Tech is going to love this because it monetizes an asset, right?
But this is also about infrastructure. This is also about utility income. So even water analysts will look at this and say, “Wait a minute, you guys can drop a piece of million dollar equipment on a location that investors have essentially funded and that’s going to throw off, you know, many, many, many times that in revenue over 20 years. Well, that’s kind of an idea I can get behind.” We think — we think both the tech analysts and the utility analysts will love it.
Vince Caruso: Wow.
Ken: The other part is, it’s about the parent. So OriginClear set out to become a Clean Water Innovation Hub™, right. To be a clean water incubation hub. Okay. Within a year of making that determination, we have successfully incubated — Now look, we started Modular Water from zero, from scratch. We had Dan Early — that’s what we had. We had this genius — we had — we had to build everything around him and we made major investments in him.
Vince Caruso: Right.
Ken: But we were able to transfer that technology and that whole package — the patents and everything. That company — we were able to take it from zero and transfer it to Water On Demand for many, many, many times our investment, that is the definition of a successful incubation. So the marriage is good, the marriage is yin and yang. They become extremely — very synergistic — because it allows for the almost unlimited scalability of this decentralized private utility marketplace. It provides the money.
Vince Caruso: Let me ask one thing. This is — so this enables me as an investor to buy the stock, and if a business wants to use the system, they’ll be able to get financed. And me as an investor owning the stock — I make, no matter what — every time they use water, I make on fees for the machine — for the machinery to stay out there. And even if the business gets sold and the unit stays with the new owner, we still get paid.
Ken: Or if we take it back and give it to another owner. Okay, so the answer is yes. So in the very — the earliest offering that we had for the company, a private offering — because again, you’re not buying stock right now — company is not public yet, okay? So you’re a private investor. Okay. So the answer is yes. But with recent events and with the events that we’re going to be talking about in the coming weeks,
Vince Caruso: Okay.
Ken: Okay, that’s not going to — that’s not going to be available anymore. Okay. We’re going to — we’re going to change how we structure the financing of this company as we’re graduating to kind of a bigger arena.
Vince Caruso: Okay. Wow.
Ken: Yeah,
Vince Caruso: Exciting,
Ken: Exciting,
Vince Caruso: Exciting stuff. So, Ken, if I get this straight, you figured out a way to monetize what people need for life — water. You figured out a way to make a profit forever on water?
Ken: The answer is yes. People have been profiting off of water, public utilities have been charging for water, forever, okay? Think about this — the pollution comes from upstream. So, some farm is polluting water — that’s how they, that’s how they conduct their business. And they’re paying the same per gallon as the guys who are trying to drink it here. It has to go through the system to be filtered and it can’t really be treated to full effect. There’s millions of contaminants.
So the answer is yes. We figured out how to monetize the commodity that’s necessary for all life on earth. Water On Demand now becomes the full package that can help every business, everywhere, regardless of what their financial condition. Right. Or the quality — how bad the water is. We can help every single business theoretically in the world that wants it and create a revenue stream for life.
Vince Caruso: So you’re turning water into money.
Ken: We’re turning water into money, but we’re also leaving it better than we found it.
Vince Caruso: That’s what’s beautiful, yeah.
Ken: Why is water such a mess? Because there was no money in treating it. It was a it was a pain point, it was a burden. If we unburden what’s behind water treatment and we make it really viable for investors to participate, you turn a negative into a massive positive.
Vince Caruso: So basically, I come into the deal and people come into the deal and we start sharing the story. You’re going to have these water machines everywhere, so we’re going to be self fulfilling the prophecy of cleaning water across the world and making money.
Ken: No, listen, you got it exactly right. I mean, look, we’re going to do our job to tell the story, but it’s also going to be a viral — it has to be a viral thing. What we’ve tried to do here by combining the two companies, by creating this synergistic thing that can be infinitely scaled, we’ve truly figured out a way to turn water into the next global asset class.
Ask yourself two questions. If you could be one of the earliest investors in that — in that asset. I’m talking about not buying it at 10,000. I’m talking about buying it at ten, right? Would you? Okay. If you could be — if you could go back centuries and be the first to monetize real estate, would you?
Vince Caruso: Yes.
Ken: Okay. Everyone feels that way.
Vince Caruso: This is even better, though, because real estate, there’s only so much of it. But with water, people have to keep using it. So as long as people are alive, you’re going to be making money.
Ken: Water recycles, water recycles. So the same water will have to constantly be treated over and over and over again. And all life on earth depends on it being done right. If you, if you remove the pain point and you create an actual long term revenue bearing asset.
Okay. What investor — right — there’s trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines right now of professional money. They’re going, what do I do? Right. Interest rates are high, energy costs are high. We don’t know what’s going to — timing the market. Once the professional money starts to eye this thing and sees it for its full potential, I believe they can take it to the next level. This is our opportunity to be in front of them for a change.
Vince Caruso: I love it. So exciting. Serious. Wow.
Ken: That’s it. Thank you, Vince.
Vince Caruso: Thank you.
Ken: Thank you.
End of presentation
Ken: All right. Well, thank Vince Caruso. So now that brings me to our freewheeling discussion. I’ll turn on my camera. Estrella, are you with us?
Estrella: I’m on.
Ken: How are you?
Estrella: I’m great. How are you?
Ken: I’m good. I’m great. I’m looking at — I’m looking at the comments and it was all about how I screwed up in the beginning and there was no sound. So, I thought there was a million comments to respond to. But I think we’re okay.
Estrella: I love the interview that you did with Jane. Yes, that was so informative. Her questions were so on point.
Ken: She’s a, she’s a phenomenal interviewer.
Estrella: She really is.
Ken: Every now and then, like I’ll start to wander and she’ll be like, “No. So we’re going to —,” you know she’s, she’s like pulls me back, because you know — I’ve told this story a couple of times and you sometimes, you know, your mind drifts and —
Estrella: of course.
Ken: She’s phenomenal in that respect. I’m just looking at — So we’re popping champagne — Can I have a link to this interview on YouTube?
Estrella: That’s the next question.
Ken: Yes, we will get that. Yes, we will get that. Several geniuses on your team. Obviously speaking about Riggs. “Well explained and well done how you presented yourself.” Thank you.
Estrella: Agreed.
Ken: Kevin, just Kevin just punched in Jane. So I think you were. You were looking for the name and he found it.
Estrella: Thank you, Kevin.
Ken: Okay, So and I will take again, I took, I took kind of guidance and instruction from Jane King. I’ll take some from Paul Fetscher. Estrella Nouri is our brand ambassador for Water On Demand. I assumed they already knew the legend — that they already knew the legend. I didn’t think I had to intro — the woman who needs no introduction.
Estrella: Well, thank you.
Ken: But no, New York was fun. Um, and it’s — you know, so Riggs and I, we don’t compare notes. And you’ll hear a lot of these same themes kind of coming out simultaneously because it really is — there are core tenets now to how this can penetrate the consciousness of the public.
I think viscerally they understand something has to be done. But when you see comments how monetizing water is bad, you can tell they just they haven’t quite understood what we’re doing. Water is already being monetized.
Estrella: Yep. I was just going to say that exactly. So why? Yeah, absolutely. Water is already being monetized. Yeah. I think those people just need to continue to watch videos because they’re just misinformed or they don’t have all the data yet.
Ken: Right. And I think, and I think that folks naturally see something that is so, um, you know, essential for all life on the planet kind of thing and think, you know, you can’t make money on it. Well, you’re paying for it now. And the fact is you’re paying the same price as the guy who’s producing a million gallons a month of unreusable water.
So this is the upstream solving of that. But now it’s, I think — I like it when a story comes together. We’ve, Riggs and I have kind of spent time — the premise of what we’re doing has never changed — our ability to describe it in shorter and shorter and shorter phrases is the efficiencies. And we’re starting to get there, I think.
Estrella: Absolutely, I agree. And it helps me because the more I see these interviews, it makes it easier for me and gets me in my groove for when people like my followers ask me questions, um, boom. I’m just like, wait a minute, I heard this — this makes sense. I mean — and every time I get questions that I’m like, “Wait, do I know how to answer that.” And every time I come to the briefings, I’m like, Yes, I do — I do now. Right? So it’s amazing.
Ken: And it’s okay. And it’s okay to always say, hey, that’s a good question. Let me get back to you.
Estrella: Oh, absolutely. Oh, I do.
Ken: I tell people all the time, you know, I don’t know is a perfectly acceptable answer sometimes. I don’t know but I’ll find out, I should say. I don’t know but I’ll find out.
Estrella: Absolutely.
Ken: Because, look, I still do it, you know?
Estrella: Right, of course.
Ken: When they really get into the weeds, sometimes I go, that’s an engineering question —
Estrella: Right.
Ken: Not an engineer, right? So, you know, I’m the money — ask me money questions all day long, right?
Estrella: Yes.
Ken: But no, it’s fun. We’re really getting the momentum. We have some questions, so I’ll I’ll answer them in real time. Tom Liakos where can I go invest? Tom, if you’re a if you’re a crowdfunding investor. Um, you know, kind of just an everyday investor you can go to oc.gold — Well, you want to tell them?
Estrella: Oc.gold/blue.
Ken: Slash blue, right. Now, about that — tomorrow’s the last day. Tomorrow we’ll be pausing it. Hopefully it’s after tomorrow. If not Tom, your computer is working right now, I suggest you use it! Um, we’re going to be pausing the offering. Can’t get into why too much yet. There will be some news coming out to that effect, which will be self-explanatory. And then, you know, once those reports come out, we’ll be able to discuss it a little bit more.
And yes, Darren, it’s monetizing the cleaning of water, not monetizing water itself. James Wright, “What info do I need to get them or any builders I know? Hopefully, prior to them beginning building are there links that I can send?” So. James that’s a question you’d have to go to water@originclear.com. That’s more of an operational thing. We have a team over there.
And let’s see what else, Arnold Anderson. Hey Arnold, how are you doing? How’s things on Long Island? “Are you saying that we are forcing the farmer to pay for his water usage? What is the incentive since he did not pay all along? Besides, he was not paying for polluting downstream.” No, Arnold, what I’m saying is, is that the farmer isn’t paying for his incoming water or maybe he is — we don’t know. But what he has to discharge or get rid of downstream, he is paying for. Whether he’s paying for it through EPA fines or other types of regulatory items.
And very often these these concentrated animal farms have these giant lagoons that literally need to be pumped out. You can imagine how nasty that is. Right? Millions of gallons of cow poop and water. And then they have to be trucked away and the cost of that per month can run in the millions.
So instead of that, a farmer saying, “Hey, you know, I’m going to just keep spending a million bucks a month on trucks,” we can put a million — I’m just giving you a random number — $1 million system on their, on their farm and say, “Look, just pay by the gallon.” And the water, the de-watered, um, poop, you now have a profit center. You’ve got organic fertilizer, which they can actually sell or use.
And then you have that water that can then be reused for — not for drinking, obviously, but for a million other purposes on a farm — watering crops, washing down, you know, giving to the animals and washing down equipment.
So getting two turns alone on that water. Is a value and not paying for the exorbitant cost of trucking is another major, major capital expense — and not having to do a CapEx but having that be an operational expense savings is, you know, is night and day. So I hope I answered your question.
Okay. Estrella, thanks for the email, Estrella. Absolutely. Okay. Great. So I think that takes us to almost the witching hour. We’re going to turn into pumpkins in seven minutes, but we have one last push for our crowd funding. So would our brand ambassador — who handles our crowd funding crowd — would she like to impart any words?
Estrella: I love that you said that — I mean, if you’re in front of a computer right now, this is the time. It is our last day. Um, my little chicken nugget over here agrees as he’s playing with his chew toy, he’s like, “Hey, guys, go for it.” This is an incredible opportunity. It is — I would just jump on it — this is the time to be a part of this movement. And for everyone’s that’s been joining us every, every week, you know that this is just a way to continue to make money and do it in a way where you also help the environment. So it’s an incredible, incredible journey.
Ken: Very well put. And to respond to James’s comment, you’re correct, today is the — tomorrow is the last work day. It is pausing on the 30th so you do have the weekend. I just looked at my watch, realizing he’s right. Tomorrow’s the 28th, not the 30th. So you do have the weekend, but we will be pausing it for a period. However, this is all part of the company’s evolution. So, you know, you do things sometimes for really good reasons, and I think those reasons will be very self evident as time goes by. So with that, I think we’re going to wrap it up. Estrella, thank you. Always wonderful to see you again.
Estrella: Likewise, I love coming on here.
Ken: And we’ll probably see you next — Well, yeah, we’ll be on there next week.
Estrella: Yeah absolutely.
Ken: And those of you who joined tonight, thank you so much. Um, now, I guess I should — for those of you who are accredited investors, the opportunity will continue after Monday or after this weekend. And you just — what you’re going to do is you’re going to go to Oc.gold/ken. All right? That will put you on with my staff who will find a spot on my calendar. And if you’re an accredited investor what I would probably have you do between now and, you know, in the short run is, we can we can discuss a lot of this stuff very openly.
And some of it would have to be under a confidentiality but get on my calendar and I can kind of lay out the entire strategy for you, which I think you’re going to find absolutely fascinating. And with that to answer one more question. Let’s see — “One more time, where?” You guys are moving too fast for me. “One more time, where do you look up to invest crowdfunding? Oc.gold/blue.
Estrella: Yes, I would just like to add this is like, imagine being on a briefing when Elon Musk was talking about Tesla. The thing that is amazing about the crowdfunding, it allows everyone to be a part of this. You don’t just have to be an accredited investor. This is why — This is why it’s like you have until the 30th jump on it.
Ken: Agreed. And whoever’s in the background squeezing that thing agrees.
Estrella: Yes, Rocket does. He’s very excited.
Ken: Well Estrella, lovely seeing you again. Thank you. Folks, thank you for joining again. We’ll see you next week. Have a great evening.
Estrella: Thank you.