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Key Takeaways
A well being scare in Keller’s household revealed how restricted present water-filter choices have been.
Keller and Carlisle spent three years engineering a system from scratch, prioritizing high quality over velocity.
Rorra affords premium water filtration options that includes a countertop filter designed to encourage each day use and belief, in addition to a filtered showerhead.
When his younger daughter’s eczema worsened, Brian Keller tried every thing trendy parenting prescribes. Nothing labored. Determined, he changed the odd showerhead of their toilet with a filtered one. Inside a few days, his daughter had completely clear pores and skin. The velocity of the change pressured him to go surfing looking for a dependable filtration system. However what he discovered stunned him. “Just about one plastic product after the following,” he says.
He known as his longtime accomplice, designer and engineer Charlie Carlisle. “I feel there’s a fairly large alternative right here to construct a enterprise just like the Dyson of water filtration,” he mentioned. Little did they know they’d spend the following three years constructing a filtration system piece by piece, rejecting shortcuts.
The result’s Rorra — a science-backed water filtration firm providing a countertop unit and filtered showerhead. Each run faucet water via a multilayer carbon and media setup designed to cut back chlorine, disinfectant byproducts, PFAS, and 50+ different contaminants. In lower than a 12 months available on the market, the corporate has positioned over 10,000 drinking-water techniques in houses throughout the nation and reached an eight-figure run price.
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The issue with faucet water
Whereas finding out U.S. water infrastructure, the founders found some sobering stats. The typical faucet water pipe is 45 years outdated, and lots of are greater than a century outdated. Chlorine and different chemical substances, together with lead, are in virtually all American faucet water, together with compounds linked to elevated dangers of kidney and bladder most cancers.
However changing failing pipes throughout the nation would price greater than a trillion {dollars} and require digging beneath main cities. The answer was to supply a dependable method for individuals to scrub their water at dwelling.
Constructed to final and be seen
The founders knew that if individuals have been going to scrub their water at dwelling, the system needed to be smooth. The flimsy plastic merchandise Keller first noticed on-line weren’t slicing it. “Every little thing we construct is designed to final for years. We’re not constructing low cost, shopper merchandise with engineered obsolescence,” Keller says.
The Rorra Countertop seems extra like a bit of contemporary kitchen gear than a filter—medical-grade chrome steel and durable sufficient to cross for one thing you’d discover in a craft brewery.
Maybe unsurprisingly, the design appeals to male customers. “Over 50 % of our prospects are male,” Keller says. “We didn’t even actually challenge that originally.” The product advised one thing protecting and powerful, a type of family sentinel.
For that reason, Keller and Carlisle designed the Rorra Countertop system to stay the place individuals might see it. Most filtration gadgets cover below sinks and get forgotten. They needed the alternative. “A product that individuals are going to be proud to placed on their countertop,” Keller says.
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A flood of orders
The response got here quick and livid, which was good and unhealthy. When the primary models shipped, the founders braced for modest demand. As a substitute, “customer support inquiries went in a single day from like a ten a day to a whole lot a day,” Carlisle mentioned.
They ran out of inventory for weeks. Delays stretched to 2 months. However amid the chaos, they selected transparency over panic. “My cellphone quantity was on the bank card statements of each single buyer,” Keller says. When a subscriber known as late at night time to complain a few cost, he picked up. “I’m the CEO,” he would inform them, earlier than strolling them via the advantages of the system. The response constructed an odd type of loyalty.
Reputation has grown organically. Athletes, docs, and creators purchased the product on their very own, then reached out. One of many firm’s largest boosts got here from partnering with Dr. Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist and host of the vastly well-liked Huberman Lab podcast. “We’re undoubtedly seeing a direct uplift in gross sales and folks shopping for from his touchdown web page,” Keller says.
It’s votes of confidence like this that show their technique was a very good one. “It took three years versus most likely one 12 months that it might have taken us to launch,” says Carlisle. “However there’s loads of advantages to us having one thing that’s really distinctive within the house.”
Key Takeaways
A well being scare in Keller’s household revealed how restricted present water-filter choices have been.
Keller and Carlisle spent three years engineering a system from scratch, prioritizing high quality over velocity.
Rorra affords premium water filtration options that includes a countertop filter designed to encourage each day use and belief, in addition to a filtered showerhead.
When his younger daughter’s eczema worsened, Brian Keller tried every thing trendy parenting prescribes. Nothing labored. Determined, he changed the odd showerhead of their toilet with a filtered one. Inside a few days, his daughter had completely clear pores and skin. The velocity of the change pressured him to go surfing looking for a dependable filtration system. However what he discovered stunned him. “Just about one plastic product after the following,” he says.
He known as his longtime accomplice, designer and engineer Charlie Carlisle. “I feel there’s a fairly large alternative right here to construct a enterprise just like the Dyson of water filtration,” he mentioned. Little did they know they’d spend the following three years constructing a filtration system piece by piece, rejecting shortcuts.
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