CEO

Insider Webinar Briefing of 16 July 2020

Helping You Thrive in the World's ONLY Vital, Scarce and Recession-Proof Market

On Florida National News, CEO OriginClear discussed our business model and how our new international partner could accelerate direct water investment: it’s the future. COO Tom Marchesello helped update the audience about a major hotel deal now closing, and he has an idea for a water challenge based on Zac Efron’s Netflix program…

Transcript from recording:

Introduction

Riggs Eckelberry:

Welcome to Water is the New Gold for 16 July 2020, as the amazing year 2020 rolls on giving us constant new, exciting surprises. And with me is our chief operating officer, Tom Marchesello, who just put his baby to bed.

Tom: She is cute this time, she snuggles very nicely.

Riggs: It's sweet. But she needs to get the memo that we... This is a major news network.

Tom: I tried to tell her. I said, "I got a broadcast at eight o'clock," and she just was like, "baba, baba."

Riggs: Oh, that's very cute. Well, we have a lot of people tonight so I'll get started right away and I'm going to do my usual opener. And then I got a little clip to play for you guys. And we'll talk about all the news that's going on.

So this is Water is the New Gold, “Helping you thrive in the world's ONLY vital scarce and recession-proof market.” Water does not have recessions, people don't stop using water the way they clearly have been stopping using petroleum. Bloomberg today reported that billions less miles will now be driven because of work from home and the internet. And the accelerant, of course, was the Rona, as some people call it, but it was going to happen anyway. So water, we're not going to stop drinking water. In fact, it's going to grow as the population grows. So that's a good thing.

Important Notices

All right, I'll give you the usual disclaimers that again, we are not gods. We try our very best but these are anticipated type statements. Also, if I discuss the current corporate bond offering it's only for credit investors and the securities exchange commission has not passed on the validity of this offering. So with that, I'm going to stop the share for just a moment because I want to turn on the very useful screen optimization for clips.

This is a half hour interview that I did on Florida News Network earlier this week. And we've cut it down considerably so that you guys aren't bored and we can get on with some other good news. So here we go.

Florida News Network clip

transcript from recording: 

FNN Host: Today we're actually going to interview OriginClear CEO, Riggs Eckelberry. Riggs Eckelberry is the CEO and co-founder of the company. Now OriginClear is a company that focuses on wastewater management or wastewater treatment. They use machines and their niche is actually point of use water treatment. They're actually able to bring their equipment to the point of use and go ahead and treat the water right there on site.

Only 1/5 Gets Treated

Riggs: Only one fifth of the dirty water in the world is being treated at all. And the remaining four fifths is just like, well, whatever. And even so, it’s a trillion dollar industry. So, a trillion dollar industry that's only treating one fifth of the water means that there's potential to grow.

"We specialize in modular pre-packaged prefab water systems that go to local businesses not the hyper municipal."

FNN Host: And how many of those companies are there out there given that kind of scope of service?

The Smallest, Beautiful Water Treatment

Riggs: Well, it was cool because a wastewater report just came out last week and it listed the top six, and we were among them. It's kind of cool. So we are starting to get noticed because it's a niche that is really more and more important. But it's a funny thing about tech generations is that each generation got smaller and was disdained by the previous company because it would destroy their sales figures, as they were cheaper. And literally, the next generation came from the engineers that were basically ignored in the old company and that created the next. And that's kind of what... we're the birth of the new smallest, beautiful water treatment which is going to be, I believe, the future of water treatment in the world and a way that we can actually steward the water better.

Water Stewards

FNN Host: I like that you use the word steward there, that's actually a great way to look at it. Given you guys' work in the different industries. Is that your company's mission? Is it more so from a service standpoint? Or is it more so from a commerce standpoint?

Riggs: That's a very good question. In fact, so many of my other stockholders, OriginClear stockholders say, "Riggs, I'm invested, I want to make money, but please, what you're doing is a mission. We're with you." They're incredibly patient, they're the most supportive investors I could ask for. So yes, there's a sense of mission in what we do.

Directly Fund Equipment

And I submit to you that the world is no longer going to tolerate a high death toll from any flu. Back in the early part of this year when we saw Wuhan shut down and were like, “Uh-oh, Houston, we have a problem." And we then realized that we had to speed up the pace of water treatment in the world.

That's when we evolved this idea of wait a minute, what about if we transformed funding of water treatment? And we had a realization like, wait a minute as an investor you and I can invest in oil and gas, real estate, solar, water has never done that because it was too big, but now it's small. So, guess what? How about we get ordinary investors, people who want to put in $50,000, $100,000 or group together into a syndicate to do a $1 million deal, to directly fund water equipment and bypass Wall Street? All of a sudden we found people love the idea.

Investor Water

And so we created something called Investor Water™, which is a marketplace where people will ultimately be able to invest in water equipment. Big disclaimer, we're not offering that today. There's all kinds of regulation around that. What we're doing is we're building that capability. We call it an Airbnb for water, it's the same kind of concept. And so people can invest in OriginClear. My expectation is that in 2021 people will be able to, for the first time ever, invest in water equipment as ordinary individuals.

OriginClear all by itself will never fix the water industry. Not even the biggest guys can, it's a trillion dollar industry, and even that it's tiny compared to what it could be. So how do we transform it? Marketplaces. You make it possible for people to meet... Oh, a 200 home development project in Alpharetta, Georgia, that's off the grid and they can't connect to sewage, they need their own closed-circuit sewage treatment system. Great. Here's an investor. Get it done. Thank you very much. Quarter million dollars. Great return for the investor. The HOA, the Home Owner's Association, makes out fine. Everybody's happy. We think that can scale up incredibly well.

FNN Host: Wow. That was a mouthful. You broached the idea of that micro concept of investing in water. I did want to ask you, how do you balance that with the common conventional statement or maxim that water is scarce? How do you present it as an investment vehicle for a resource that's considered scarce?

Riggs: Well, water is scarce you could say, except remember that only a tiny minority of the dirty water is being treated and the rest is being thrown away. We're being incredibly wasteful when it comes to water. Look at recycling rates, for example, Israel recycles almost 90% of its water. The second in the world is Spain with 20%. The US is at 1%. Why is it 1%? Because we have these hyper huge water treatment plants, and when it goes downstream to that plant, it's not coming back. They don't have two way pipes coming back to the homes. But if we're treating it at the home or the business or the industry, the agriculture, then we can reuse it there, and that way, we get more usage out of it, we get recycling rates go way up, number one. So more water available because local treatment, more water available because more water is cleaned up and not made dirty.

People talk to me about the desalinization, but I would say that is a last step. Why? Because it's super expensive for energy and for money. There's other things we can do.

FNN Host: And that's actually one of the questions I wanted to ask you, because when I first began to hear about the scarcity of water, I was like, the Pacific ocean is huge. Just as a lay person, not fully in touch with the science per se, but I was like, we have access to our oceans, don't get me wrong. That doesn't exempt us from being responsible, that keyword that you used earlier about being stewards of the water that we're using. But thank you for breaking down desalinization and why that's not necessarily the best first option. Definitely appreciate you explaining that.

So given the point of use then, for your company, is it a matter of increasing the number of facilities that are using your technology to be able to do that? Is that basically the ultimate goal?

Riggs: As a water company, you represent at an end user, like let's say that HOA in Alpharetta, Georgia. And you're the water company, you go, "Oh, let's list this up on Investor Water, because we think that there can be an investor." When it gets listed, we look at the offering and go, "Okay, did this company, this water company proposed the right technology?" Another company might not have the mobile technology down, and so we go, "No problem. You can license ours." It gives us the opportunity to kind of be a company store.

Partnerships & Licensees

FNN Host: Got you. And that's actually a perfect segue into one of the other questions I had for you. You guys welcome licensees and partnerships. And kind of talk about the difference between the two, because I think there's a slight difference.

Riggs: The licensing that we do, it has been classically our original filterless technology, the zapping the organic molecules. Then partnerships. Well, for example, we're entering a partnership right now with the people who run a very interesting company, that's number three in the Florida top 250. And they're excited. They were literally, when they came along, they said, "Oh my gosh, the next thing we were going to do was water. We did real estate, now we're on the inc 500, we are in the Florida 250, and now we wanted do water." Marriage made in heaven.

So that's a partnership where we're actually going to gain a huge amount of footprint internationally.

Most Meaningful Part

FNN Host: Awesome. And then very lastly, just kind of talk about perhaps the most meaningful part of the work that you do.

Riggs: It happened for example, a few months ago with a very high-level hotel group. And they'd seen that we had modular systems and they say, "I want one of those modular things." And it turned out that they were looking at pure water, not just in those bottles in the bureau, but everywhere, in the shower, in the kitchen, the entire water supply in the hotel would be pure. They also wanted to treat the gray water, that is the shower water and so forth, to water the shrubbery. And they wanted to also treat the water going out to the municipality, they want to do it all. And I'm happy to say that that is finally happening. They really are finally at the contract stage with us.

When people put up their hand and say, "I want what you've got," and then we deliver it, that to me is a great moment.

FNN Host: Awesome. Thank you for sharing that, because that also answered one of my other questions, which is, when you do your water treatment, does it only stop at irrigation quality? Because even here locally, doing tours of different water treatment plants, usually it stops at irrigation. I don't usually hear about when the water is able to be treated to the point where it is fit for human consumption again, or even fit to use as shower water.

Reducing Carbon Footprint

Riggs: When the water goes dirty down to the city, it releases gases and it creates a carbon problem. And so if you treat it right where you are, we've proven, we've done a case study where sure enough, it reduces the carbon footprint, which is unexpected for water treatment, isn't it?

FNN Host: Absolutely. So thank you so much for breaking all of that down for us and kind of giving us a peek into that industry, because like you said, most folks, they have an idea, but not the details of it. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Riggs: Well, thank you for giving me this time and for the wonderful questions you asked.

End of FNN Interview

"We Want That - That Thing You Have"

So yeah, there's a bunch of stuff to unpack from this conversation. As you saw, this is a win that Tom had this week, that months ago, really. It was a great story because Tom, as you recall, we were contacted by this high premium hotel chain and they said, "We want that, that thing you have."

And so we realized that the Modular Water Systems™ concept was very, very powerful. Then came the months of dealing with them, and you're now finally clicking into contract. Oh my God.

Tom: Yeah. It takes a little while for certain things because remember, a lot of times these contracts are connected to the construction process. So when you are building a building from scratch, and got to scratch the dirt up and then put the concrete down, and then eventually you come in and put some steel in. And then we're waiting still, like another year. And then they're starting to put the building systems together. And that's when the water system has kind of come into the mix. So, it takes a while when you're doing a multi-hundred unit hotel space.

Marquee Client & Carbon Benefit

Riggs: The good news is that it will become a marquee client of ours in a little while, obviously, it can't be talked about specifically. But what's cool about it was the case study we did at the time, which disclosed that we can actually affect climate change and I didn't realize this until Dan Early did this study and pointed it out to us, that there is greenhouse gas that’s being released because it's being sent down and there's releases of all these gases. And that's the old school method. This takes care of it right on the spot and is actually carbon benefit, which is cool.

Greenhouse Gases

Tom: Yeah. And there's a lot more pieces to it than just that. The carbon aspect, it was a surprise. Like you said, we really weren't going into it looking for that part of it at first. Dan was so smart, he brought that up and let us know, we're really reducing the footprint. Because when you think about it, it's like if you're treating your water onsite at a building like a hotel or something, you're essentially managing the full ecosystem of environmental issues at the site, as opposed to pushing it all downstream. Because that's what people do. They push it downstream, and downstream in this case tends to be the municipality at the city. And the city is us. It's you, it's me, it's the other person that paid taxes.

And so one person who generally has water onsite, instead dumps it over to the city, it makes everybody else sort of responsible for it. And then pushes it downstream, literally miles and miles, so where now the water that was at location A, ends up at location, B, C and D. And they've got to go deal with it. It might even not be the same city. It's kind of not fair, when you think about it. It's idiotic.

Riggs: Yeah, you see those big circular ponds? Well, that's always that carbon, greenhouse gases are escaping. So if we can do it right, that’s part of the win. It brought to mind that, a couple of days ago I saw Elon Musk's speech at the commencement of Caltech a few years ago. Amazing, I strongly recommend to watch that, it's one of an amazing story. And he tells a story about when he wanted to start SpaceX and people said, no, you're crazy. And one friend of his came and played consecutive shots of rockets blowing up, to try and tell him not to do it.

Marketplace Partnership

And he says, yeah, it was kind of like that too. The first two did blow up. But what really comes to mind, Tom, is that, this marketplace concept is one of those, “Who’d a thunk,” and people are like, well, really. And the strange thing is, is now it's starting to gain currency this idea’s like happening. And I teased this group that came to us. So we've been talking to for the last week or so about their interest in helping us. I unfortunately cannot get into specific names in this show. I discussed them on the Florida National News, but what they have is a concept of direct investment into real estate, by people like you and me, which is very similar to what we're doing for water.

And they had been looking for somebody to do it with in water. And like so many other people who talked to water companies, they were disappointed, which is great. It makes us look good. Right? So, they talked to some other water company and it was very generous offer. The other water company gave them, and yet it just didn't click. It wasn't right. And we know that the water industry is old fashioned, rightly or wrongly. It is what it is. Well, they loved how fast we moved, how responsive we were, how we understand doing the exact same thing they do. And so they're rolling out worldwide, a water version of what they already did to put them on the Inc 500 for real estate.

Tom: I agree, that's exciting, right? Because you're innovating in an area that hasn't seen a lot of innovation and they need it. They need it a lot.

Innovation

Riggs: No question about it. The other part is, before we get onto your interesting little angle. Today, we had a meeting about the trailer park project, which is moving very quickly and what's happening is, like all projects it's growing scope creep, right? So, we had the Pondster™, that was last week, the “Pondsta” and we know their Pondsta, I think I can say it on the show, will be $50,000, but it will be very affordable. So they don't have to worry about that. But roughly doubling it is a bunch of other things like a pump station and so forth in the property. And so we're now deep in the weeds with that to give them just one single package, because it's very important that our end users, that they not go, who do I call? One stop shop. We're now putting together the full package. And then tomorrow we're talking with the investor to bring her up to date. And so this thing is coming to a close. It always seems like it takes forever, but I think we're making very good progress there.

Tom: Going well, actually, The truth of matter is, we have a very nice family that owns that and they have a fairly straightforward issue. To be honest with you, that many owners of these trailer parks have, and our equipment is not simple by any measure, but at least it's explainable. And so we're trying to explain our technical jargon to them sometimes when they're like, can you just make it work? Or like, I'll just make it work. No problem. Don't worry about it. It's all good.

Just Deliver The Product

Riggs: Well, that's being in the decentralized world of onsite, water treatment it's really about talking to business people, who just say, save me all this stuff, the water cooler stuff about the blah, blah, blah, and just deliver a product. And it's very different from being a municipalities where they make the career out of that. And it's two different worlds. So you watched a show this week, tell us about that.

Tom: Oh yeah, no problem. you want to give me a screen share?

Riggs: Absolutely, you can screen share.

"So my wife starts telling me, she's like, Oh my God, all my friends are watching this new show by Zac Efron...it's about water, you've got to watch it with me tonight"

Down To Earth With Zac Efron

Tom: All right. So, My wife and I, we like to binge watch some Netflix like everybody else, because hey, we're stuck in the house, during Corona, whatnot. And so my wife starts telling me, she's like, Oh my God, all my friends are watching this new show by Zac Efron, because he's so cute. And I'm like, Oh my God, that's what I needed to hear. Because I'm totally not interested now. Because it's like, Zac Efron's cute. And then I'm like, what's the show? And she goes, no, it's about water. You got to watch it with me tonight. And I'm like, so she gives me this link, and it's called Down To Earth with Zac Efron. And I'm like, okay, this sounds cool. Let me see what it is, we are all talking about. And so that is not what it is, here it is.

So I actually watched the show and I love it. It's fantastic. It's like, Oh my God, this is a great show. And I really want everybody to watch it. It's super fun. And so Zac Efron, the celebrity, he goes and does this kind of fun travel show.

How Paris Gets Its Water

And he goes to France with this other doctor gentleman, and they visit Paris and they actually go through the entire process of how does Paris get its water, it's drinking water. Basically goes to the actual water processing plant and they show how they're supplying water for the entire city for free, clean and not using chemicals. Because they're using things like ozone and they're oxygenating the water and they're also doing filtration onsite and they're doing ultraviolet for disinfection and they show the whole thing on video and it's really fun to watch. And it's actually really interesting.

Filling Stations

 And so the other cool thing about it, they also showed this map, which made me see this thing, bunch of little green dots, and these are all the filling stations. You can walk around anywhere in Paris and there's a little app and you can find a filling station at any of these spots and bring your water bottle and just put it under there and get perfectly wonderful, clean, crisp water. You can even get sparkling water.

Riggs: Oh no, that's so cool.

Tom: You can get seltzer water right there too, they carbonate it. It's pretty sick. It's like, that is so cool. Right. And I'm super stoked about the show. I thought it was super fun. Right. And I think it's worth showing because I was actually thinking about this. You and I talk about these topics all the time, and we're always trying to explain, why is it important to treat your water? What's important about disinfecting water? So there're no bacteria. What's important about polishing water? What's important about making sure that it's filtered? So you take out the big particles and leave some of the minerals that are important in there. And the show actually helped explain that a little bit in a sensible way, which I thought was super cool.

Riggs: And not only that, it really tells me I need to go back to Paris, because I had not seen that a long time.

Tom: Go back there, Paris is cool. I love Paris, go see the Louvre, whatever's.

Riggs: Right.

Water Sommelier

Tom: But the other thing that was super cool in the show is, they actually, in the beginning, they're up in LA, in your old neck of the woods and they're doing a water tasting, with a water Sommelier. So I thought, I am going to start my own water tasting. So I have some Norwegian water. I've got some Icelandic water here. I've got some Italian water. And of course I got some good old Florida water.

Spring Waters & Aquifer Waters

Now all of these waters are basically spring waters and/or aquifer waters because that's what you want. You want ones that actually come out of the ground that still have some mineral in them. And in our world, we call that TDS, which is total dissolved solids. So the total dissolved solids, when we're doing our work, tells you, I want to clean the water, but I want to still leave some of the good stuff in there, which is the good stuff. And that could be things like magnesium or iron or calcium, like normal stuff that's in there.

So when, when you... If I want to drink the water of Thor from Norway... That's some good water. That's some glacier water right there, bottled up for me. You're basically trying to taste test these different concepts of water to see. Can you tell the difference? And the truth is mostly you'll tell the difference if the TDS levels are different, because that will determine which minerals are there. And each country has their own because of their rock formations of their groundwater system and so forth. And I think it's a fun thing.

A Water Challenge

So I was thinking of what we should do is try to have a little bit of like award competition maybe. Let's see where the best word is coming from nowadays. Now, obviously I showed you bottles, which, I'm not a big fan of bottled water because that's stupid, and polluting and all that. But in this instance, I didn't have a lot of choice to demonstrate what I was trying to say, but the concept would be like... I think there's a chance to say, "How good is your water?" Because it's a real question. I think it's an easy thing to ask.

Riggs: No, and I agree. And, our PR agency is very excited about it. We think that there's maybe a water challenge that can come out of this. We're obviously focused on the water marketplace, but at the same time, we have a duty to maybe spotlight the good water in the world and see who's got the good stuff. So... there it goes.

Tom: This Icelandic waters is quite thick, actually.

Riggs: Interesting. It has got a lot of legs. As we say in the wineries.

Tom: This water has got some legs. It's quite good. Actually. Not so sure about that one.

Riggs: Rather forward, with an embarrassing humility.

Tom: I'm going to go with this Italian one this time. How about that? I can taste something in there. It's got some different tastes.

Riggs: Nice.

Tom: It's Not much. It's very minute. And then my taste buds, aren't that great. I mean, but whatever, I'm sure, somebody is out there that's going to do much, much better job. Oh, we got our Florida water. Do you think the Florida water can defeat these international leaders? Ooh. That's a hardy water. It's got some taste. I'm going to go with the Norway water I'm going with it and it's staying there. I think Thor wins.

Feedback From The Audience

Riggs: Well. So the reason I brought it up is because, I'm kind of looking for a little bit of a feedback from the audience as to whether you guys think it's a good idea to do a water challenge. And I think we have a winner. So, and going to Paris, I think is very important part of the challenge.

Tom: One must go to Paris. So, you go to the Lourdes that was they showed it on the show. You'll see. Because it's supposedly healing water assigned many miracles.

Riggs: Wonderful. Well that, we've made it short and sweet this time. And I can tell you that in the coming week we expect to fully announce this partnership that is really a mindblower. Kurush says it's great for publicity on the water challenge. And he goes like that, [making “OK” sign with hand] which I agree. So thank you.

Doing Good By Doing Well

And so what, we will have in concept... And you will see the announcement this week will be that these people who have done amazingly on the INC 500, doing direct investment in real estate and have an international network. Now, want to do the same thing for water. And I'm humbled. I'm amazed. They, are very powerful in terms of their intention and they do it also for good. In other words, it's actually doing good by doing well. So you're actually helping people get into homes. And again, this will help people get better water and also make money from it in the process. So I can't wait to be able to announce it to you guys. I'm so excited. It's like I'm on the edge of my seat, I really, really wanted to get into specifics of it. But my PR people said, "Don't spoil it." So I'm like, "Don't spoil it."

Tom: Can you instead tease them with something that makes them understand the relevance of why this is a big deal? Put it in perspective.

Riggs: Thank you. So I think we've done enough horsing around. Thank you everyone. It's been a great show and Dee says, "Wow." Thank you. I'll tell you. This is going to be a big step forward. So, stay tuned. You'll see the announcement and then next Thursday, we hope to have these people on the show, and I think you will find it very, very enlightening. Thank you all, good night. Thank you, Tom. And I'll see you next week. Enjoy your weekend.

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