Reimagining Home Water Filtration for a Healthier Future with Rorra Co-Founders Brian Kelly and Charlie Carlisle

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Brian Keller and Charlie Carlile, the co founders of rora. Thank you so much for coming on the show, guys.

Thanks so much for having us.

Of course, this is a little unique. If you're watching this episode right now, we have two guests here in the studio, which I personally love. Like the conversational approach that we're about to dive into today. It's gonna be a good time. And if you are watching the episode now, we have your product right here in front of us, the RORA water filter system.

And.

And before we dive into it, and I get some water myself. What is Rora for people that may not know or if they're just happen to be listening right now?

Yeah.

So we're a brand that it's an ecosystem of water filtration products, premium materials, premium filtration to deliver you the best drinking water possible.

Love it. So again, if you are watching, I have the RORA system right here in front of me. That very grateful for your team. We got it here, I think, two weeks ago, and I've personally been loving it. And to kick off the show, I wanted to not only fill up the water, but really dive into the simple question of what led to Rora and why did you guys go out to build this company and this product to start?

Yeah. So I had a daughter about two and a half years ago, and she was going through eczema and we were trying to figure out what the problem was. And when talking to the doctors, they're, you know, gave us a bunch of steroid creams and make sure you bathe her every single day. And it seemed like the more we bathe her, the worse it got. And it was always really inflamed when she was in the bath. And so we started trying a lot of different things and we finally ended up getting a filtered shower head. And within a couple days of bathing within that water, she had perfectly clear skin. And so it really led us to kind of down a rabbit hole in thinking about, you know, if this is the water that's affecting her skin, how does the water affect her that we're mixing into her bottles for formula and things like that. And so, you know, we started looking at the market and realized that a lot of players in this industry, they're selling specifically through retail distributors and dealers. And they weren't really building a really solid one on one connection with their customers. And so, you know, I ended up having some. Somebody come out to look at the house, look at A whole, whole home filtration system, and it was going to be about $12,000. And I was like, I don't know if this is the solution. I don't know if that's accessible to everyone. Like, there's got to be a better way. And so, yeah, we started looking into what we could potentially build for this. And with our backgrounds, we've worked together for better part of the last decade. We really have very complementary skill sets and saw this as a big opportunity to build something that could really solve our problem. Coming from consumers, I think that's one of the best ways to start a business is come into it as the consumer. What do we want, what would fit our needs, but also really something that could change a lot of other people's lives as well. We started the development process about two and a half years ago, and it's led us to this product today, which is beautiful.

Absolutely. And coming off of that last venture, you know, post acquisition, talk to me about the. I like to talk about the, like, the white space of an entrepreneur's journey where, you know, you could go out and build anything and you kind of have this whole next frontier, like, hey, where do I want to go spend time? And obviously hearing the story of, like, your daughter and that being a focal point. When did you guys not only begin working on this, but what were some of the, like, the early challenges that you guys were running into or, like, you're kind of thinking through when it comes to getting to where the product is today? I'm sure there's been so many iterations to get to this beautiful product here that, again, if you're watching the video, you can see that's right in front of us. But talk to me about the early days of, like, when you guys are initially texting back and forth, hey, should we actually go do this? Like, what would be the process? Do you have any experience in this? Like, what were some of those early discussions?

So I think we both came to this industry as consumers, Right. And when we were kind of primed to find the next venture, we were, like, looking at a wide variety of things. Right. Water just happened to be the one we ended up landing on. And the primary reasons are that we felt like existing products in the market, like, weren't. Weren't fully meeting our needs, weren't fully meeting our requirements set. And maybe we're confusing, like, there's kind of a industry trend where people aren't exactly, all the time, super forthcoming about, like, performance data, what this thing, what these devices actually remove from your water and providing and working with labs that are accredited to produce these results and do this testing. So we were experiencing as consumers, like living in Denver for the better part of the last 15 years on and off, like we have a very widely publicized lead problem. And so I've been in and out of at that point before we started building Aurora, probably six or seven different filters that for one reason or another I just eventually like was attrition from like left and changed to something else. So a lot of that design thinking, our own experience is trying to find something to meet our demands led to a lot of the design considerations for product. 1 and 1st and foremost, we want to build something that anyone could use. So whether you're a homeowner, renter, whatever your living situation is, you can use the countertop system. And looking at other competitors that build similarly, you know, similar capacity stainless steel systems, they're problematic for a few different reasons. Most of the designs are extremely tall, don't fit under cabinets, can't fit a glass under them. The spigots are on the base, don't have any sort of performance indicator systems on them to actually track your filter life. That's something we felt really strongly about. We want to make sure that people know when to change the filter, know how much water is left in the system and then ultimately just how do we create a user interaction that people are really excited about and that fits seamlessly into your life without a ton of other consideration?

That makes so much sense. And I think too as a consumer, I've never had a at home water system that's on the counter. Of course, you know, here in California, as a renter, you would hope the refrigerator comes out with decently drinkable water. But it's. I know you guys have on the website where you can type in your area code and kind of see the, the water quality. What led to wanting to have that a part of like the front end of like having a consumer, you know, being able to see their water quality.

Yeah. I think a big aspect for us was trying to build all the educational tools for the consumer.

Yeah.

And that, you know, if somebody comes to our website and buys our product, that's great. But we really want to make sure that anyone who comes to our website walks away knowing a lot more and understanding the need and importance to filter their water. And so early on when we were developing this, we also wanted to make sure that we were able to drive a lot of interest before we were actually going to launch the product because it was Taking about two years to launch this. And so the amount of money we raised and everything, we wanted to make sure we could come into the market and make a big splash and have a lot of momentum behind us. And so we did a lot of work to look at all the different options for that, did a partnership with the EWG in order to get their data through their API to be able to present onto our website. And it was really a balance of how do you take scientific information and present it in a way that the general consumer can understand. And so that was a tough thing to go back and forth and figure out how do we build this dashboard in a very user accessible way so that the general consumer can digest it and we're not overwhelming them with information and we're not pushing them in a direction that they won't fully be able to understand. And so there's a lot of work that went into that and we went around and found some of the best different designers and UX and UI people to come in and help us really figure out and formulate how to do it correctly. But that was a big aspect early on, is to make sure that we could really nail that down and, and provide people with the best information and also be a trusted source of information. Because trust is a really big thing that we wanted to build in for the whole step of the process. Everything from presenting all of our data on our website transparently. So you can go to our website, you can see not only the results of our, our tests, but you can actually see the entire report because that's something we didn't find on a lot of the different websites. Early on we were trying to make a decision and it was very tough to understand is this going to work for me? Does this product actually work? Where are the test results? Right. And so, you know, for us it was, we want to be as transparent as possible with people from the entire journey and make it simple. And so there's a lot of considerations that went into building the product and everything that we did even before, you know, the product was launched, to be able to deliver that for the customer.

Absolutely. I love the idea of just, you know, the education aspect around a product like this in my opinion is so important. Right. Like the, you know, understand if someone came to you and said, hey, you're not drinking great water, you would say, okay, how do I drink better water? And like the ability to really understand that and have these tools and resources and like the user education of it is huge. And I want to talk about that Because I know there's, I would hope, you know, everyone watching or listening to this wants to be healthier, they want to drink clean water. And you know, I know there's a couple of these apps out there. I think it's like Oasis or something like that. I don't even exactly know, but so many water brands that you would see in the world of social media. You have people doing water reviews and you see all this different information which can kind of be like, I don't want to say misleading at times, but there's just so much out there for you guys. When you're going through testing, what has been, what do you look for for people that want to say, okay, like based on the system, like what test does it run through? Like, kind of talk to me about the specifics maybe around the filter, what it filters out, and kind of the benefits of making sure your water is super clean and, you know, actually running through something like Aurora. Absolutely.

I think from another design consideration, like we built this entire system from the ground up, so every, every piece of it is bespoke, including the filter itself. And the process to find that again was a big journey. I think I got on the phone with 40 plus manufacturers from around the world, like high technologists from Korea, Japan, China, United States, pretty much anyone that was really participating in filtration. And we ended up partnering with a filter manufacturer who's extremely skilled and bringing a new technology to market in this application that really hasn't been delivered before, that's got a lot of not only high performance, but fast flow, no compromise on materials, and that's something really proud of. But to answer your question directly about testing, I think number one, first and foremost is working with labs that are testing to NSF standards. Whether you're working with the NSF directly or other labs that are NSF accredited, such as iapmo, those are the people that are actually certified to run these tests in controlled environments and use the appropriate amount of lead in the water, pfas in the water to actually put the thing through the wringer?

Right.

That's, that's the intention. It's not just that. And again, we don't need to get into specifics about other brands, marketing claims and things, but when someone says up to 99.8%, oftentimes they're referring to like effluent zero, which is basically you pour one gallon into a system and you take a sample, then what really matters is how does the thing perform over the state of life. And we're saying that things good for 200 gallons. It's got to work for 200 gallons, not just the first pour. And that was a huge. When Brian and I were approaching this as consumers, something we really were, you know, we didn't see a lot of brands that were doing that transparency and showing the full results pack. And so we felt strongly about that. And to do so, it's, it's expensive, it's time consuming, and you're working with organizations who are, you know, they care a lot about these, these tests, these results and their standards in general. But ultimately, making that investment in time and money and effort into going through like the rigor of that process, I think sets us apart in the market against a lot of our competitors.

Absolutely. I know you mentioned that you guys been working on this prior to launching like two, three years, and you mentioned raising a round. I'd love to dive into that. Right. By no means. We have to get into the specifics. But what were you looking for when going out to raise capital? And what were some of the origins of like getting the business to a point where you can actually develop, you know, product like this because it takes a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of resources, and of course, the commitment to do so. So, you know, I think I asked that because there's lots of founders out there where, you know, we live in this era, where to launch a business online. Like, there's so many tools. But yeah, I remember when I interviewed the founder of whoop, he just had this simple saying of hardware is hard, whether that's a WHOOP bracelet or a war machine, and that's capital intensive. And in a world where there's so many less capital intensive businesses, would love to learn about your approach to raising capital, what you learned from that, and even advice to founders that may want to be doing that similarly for their businesses.

Yeah, you know, when we started raise capital, we didn't have a lot of experience in it. Previous business was all bootstrapped. And so going out and raising money beforehand can sometimes be daunting. And you're talking to people that have a lot of pointed questions that you don't have the answers to yet because you're still in the very early stages of the process. But you know, for us, I think we got a few good early investors that really helped to guide us through the process. And so, you know, I'd say advice for founders, like find some of those investors early on that can also help guide you. And when we went out to raise money, we were trying to find the right people. And we wanted to take in money from people that could also be a great value added to the business. And so, you know, we weren't just interested in getting money from anybody. We were looking for people that had either industry experience, whether that be on the E. Comm or omnichannel side, whether it be in water filtration specifically or other different areas. And so I think we actually did a really good job of bringing people around the table and also getting some of those on as advisors that could help introduce us to the next person that might be interested. And so it was, you know, there was very little like cold email outreach. It was a lot that the one investor leads us to the next three, which leads us to the next five, really building relationships with those different individuals that can really be champions of the business. And, you know, a lot of those we still are talking to on a monthly basis just about next steps and being able to guide us in different ways. So I think with our expertise, you know, we have a lot of expertise in different sides of the business, but we tried to really bring a lot of people around us that could help cover some of our blind spots.

100%. We'd like to say, especially for water specifically, like, Brian and I haven't been studying water filtration for the last 30 years of our lives. Right. This is, this is relatively new, but we made it a point in this business to build a really diverse and accessible network of advisors that allow us to stand on their shoulders and take their industry experience and connections and really apply them to, to, to get from zero to one faster. Right. Like, how do we find the best people in the world to work with? Well, we have to get the right people around the table and, and definitely part of raising capital outside of the fact that, yeah, hardware is hard, right? There's tooling, there's a lot of design costs, there's revisions, there's. Obviously we had a huge budget just for testing, making sure that it gets the contaminants out that we say it does. But it's the journey of really, of packing the table with the right people from both business and the water industry was enormously helpful.

Yeah, yeah, and I love the point as well. Just in terms of, like, from my experience, like my last startup, we had 37 angel investors and very just, you know, it compounded in terms of like the first checks in the door, the word of mouth, the like, the introductions from other investors. By no means that was a software business. But I always like to say, for Me, like I've had this show for seven years, as I said, and my last company, from all the investors, I think 90% of them were past guests on the podcast.

So.

So just like the compounded relationship aspect, especially in the early days, it's like getting people that believe in you first and of course believe in the product and the vision, but true backers that can bring their expertise. I think out of all the interviews I've done and when we talk about raising capital, the, you know, not all capital is the same. Right. And there it comes with like most, sometimes hopefully like true like strategic investor capital versus just a check. And it's just the early phases are so important to have the right people on board when thinking about this product. For people that are maybe if they've never had a water filtration filtration system, what are things to look out for? I'm sure, as you said, and I kind of hinted at it on social media, like there's so many, you know, like different points of view, misleading information as people that spend so much time in this space. If you were to give a piece of advice for people out there when trying to understand like what's good for them, what's your advice?

I would say number one, can you find a lab test report? Do they even have results posted on their website? Do they have anything to back up the claims that they're making?

Did they do the test with the right partner?

Right.

So is it an accredited lab? Those are in the United States. For products that are here, it's either the nsf, IATMO or wqa. If it's not one of those three labs, it's not necessarily an accredited lab or it might not be an accredited lab.

Yeah.

You know, for us, in our opinion, are they using stainless steel? Are they using, you know, because a lot of the products in this industry use a lot of plastic.

Yeah.

And you know, when using plastic like that, a lot of that can be, can get shed back into the water and without all the information and studies that recently coming out about microplastics and nanoplastics. Yeah, that's a huge aspect. And so it's really one of the considerations made with this product is we wanted to use as little plastic as possible and use stainless steel and not just use, you know, 304 stainless steel, but 316L stainless steel, which is a medical grade stainless steel, which is a lot higher quality. And so, you know, that was a big one for us. What are the materials being used and then how easy is it to use? I think, you know, you can get a lot of different types of systems, but can you take it out of the box? Can you use it? Does it need to be plugged in? You know, these are considerations from a consumer standpoint, like do I have a space in my kitchen where I do want it, where I can plug it in. And for us, you know, we just tried to eliminate as many of those limitations. And then also is it, is it able to track my filter performance? Like when do I need to change the filter? How many gallons does it filter Y and how long is that recommended for? So for us, for example, this is a, you know, our filter is good for 200 gallons and we say that's good for about 90 days. Where you're going to find other people say, you know, 80 gallons is good for 90 days or longer. But with our system, you know, we wanted it to be good not only for drinking water but also for cooking. Because I think a lot of people think about the drinking water that they filter, but they don't necessarily think about cooking. And you can go out and you can get the best organic pasta and rice and potatoes and things like that. But boiling your water doesn't necessarily get out all the harmful contaminants, right? You're not going to get out your microplastics, your forever chemicals, your heavy, heavy metals. And so if you're cooking food in that, you know, in tap water, you're infusing that food that's very water soluble with those contaminants. And so, you know, with this, we wanted to build something that, you know, could also be used for both and any other, you know, needs in the home.

Absolutely. Yeah. Even to something you, you mentioned there. We're downstairs, you know, we're making coffee. The recommendation, I mean, from your point of view, right, Like I should be filling my coffee machine with this like that. I didn't even, I didn't think to do that. But it's like, I feel like that's, that's the thing of like how water comes into your life through drinking, through cooking, through showering, like through all these different aspects. And it's, I follow one of the co founders on of airbnb, Joe, he posts all about just microplastics. And I've learned so much just through the content he's sharing and you know, and again, whether you know the specifics or not of all of it, but when you say these like heavy metals and forever chemicals, I'd love to get like kind of dive deeper into Those topics around, like, why are they harmful? People may see them, they may hear them, but why should they care? And what should they look out for around, like, how could they educate their family and friends about it if it's just something that, you know, there's. I think there's just so much information to try to understand and words that people may be like, okay, like, what does that even mean? Why should I care? Right. So I'd love to kind of dive into that a little bit. If there's any context you can shed.

We thought about like we'll call it contaminant hierarchy, Right?

Yeah.

If we think about, you know, every water system is different. Every municipality is going to have a slightly different water contaminant profile. But start kind of thinking about it in terms of hierarchy. Like what's the most common thing? Well, the most common thing that's in almost all municipal tap water is disinfectants. Right. You have to use chlorine or other products to make sure that the water coming out of the filtrate treatment plant is biologically safe. Like you're not going to get immediately sick from consuming it because it's got microbiological content in general. Like drinking a glass of chlorinated water in the short term isn't going to kill you. What the problem is is that drinking that for decades is just going to put increased wear and tear on your body's filtration system, such as kidney, liver, bladder, everything that's involved with handling influential water content. So we wanted to make sure in this product that we totally addressed chlorine and associated byproducts so that we could really protect people in like everywhere. Because that's just a common thing in any municipal tap system. From there kind of going up the ledge, there's a funny meme out there that's like, our grandparents had asbestos, our parents had lead, and we have PFAS and microplastics.

Right.

So it's. We, we thought about that as the next step. It's like, okay, there is still like 9.2 million miles of lead pipes in the United States. I personally thought of that living in Denver. It's a super publicized problem.

Yeah.

So we wanted to make sure we knocked that out in lead. Just generally speaking is a super well studied, especially in children, developmental problematic contaminant. Like it can just impact development for, in childhood in a number of different ways.

Yeah.

Both on the mental, physical, bone development, pretty much everything. So making sure that we get that out was super important to us. And then we kind of go up the ladder, right? PFAS and microplastics, the hot button topics, the thing that's constantly being talked about on social media and in the news and why those particular contaminants are so harmful is because they're highly bioaccumulative. So the body has a really hard time clearing itself of microplastics and PFAS chemicals once they're in your body. Like they can be there for years or never even get out. So making sure that we attacked and approached those two things was super important to us. With all the emergent data that we were seeing even two, three years ago, when this business was gestating, we were like trying to get our hands around it. But really building a product that addresses those things and keeps them from coming into your body, at least in one source, is super important. It's almost impossible to eliminate your exposure completely to things like microplastics and pfas. They're everywhere and they're on almost everything you touch. But our theory in general for this business, for product one and every other product to come, is that we just want to lower the load. If we can reduce the load that your body's having to deal with on a day to day basis, ultimately we will create healthier people.

One of the issues with those two as well is, you know, there's not a pill you can take to detoxify your body from PFAS and microplastics. And, and with PFAS, you know, the average half life is seven to 22 years. And so, you know, if you think about how, how quickly that can accumulate over the body and our increased exposure, there's a lot of different effects that has right there. Endocrine disruptors. So that's going to affect our, our hormones and also a lot of different aspects of the body, right? There's, they've been linked to multiple different cancers, especially in the liver, the kidney, the bladder. And with microplastics, there was a study that just came out that they took samples from the brain of people that had passed away. And from 2016 to 2024, the amount of micro nanoplastic content in the brain increased by 50%. And they also saw a correlation between those who had dementia and Alzheimer's, and Those patients had 10 times the amount of micro nanoplastic content in the brain. And so that's pretty scary. And realizing that you walk down the supermarket, almost everything is coming in plastic. And, you know, all we think about are, you know, with my children, you know, it's a big consideration as now they are coming into an environment in which we have so much more plastic and forever chemicals. Right. And if you think what are forever chemicals? Right? So if we kind of back up nonstick waterproof, right. So when 3M and these different companies were coming out with, you know, the Teflon and things like that, Gore Tex, you know, it's extremely effective. Right. But it's also, you know, can be very detrimental to our health. And it's not about like the one thing you do that's going to change your overall health. It's about the things you do every single day and you consistently do. And you know, what we can do on a daily basis to eliminate the intake of that and then what we can do to detoxify our body. So that's, you know, was a huge consideration in this. When we started to build the filter, it was, okay, you know, how is this going to perform against PFAs and then also microplastics. And so, you know, our filter has a pore size that's 1 micron, which is extremely small in comparison to other filters in the space. And then we use two layers of material. So.

Yeah, each layer is one micron.

Yeah. So it allows us to achieve a sub micron filtration, which is extremely effective against micro and nanoplastics. But and if you think about it from like general terms, right, if you have a tennis racket and those holes are one micron, then something that, that could get through. But when you layer two layers on top of each other now you can stop things that are even much smaller. Yeah. And so, you know, we're able to do that while using a large, very large surface area with the pleated design that we have. So it actually allows us to still have a very quick flow rate of water through the filter while achieving, you know, a filtration rate that can, that can get things out that are extremely small. Yeah.

And two, like that's the dirty little secret about this industry. A lot of technology you'll see is like carbon block or ro, right? Those two things, both of them have plastic constituents within the materials themselves, like RO membranes, can shed plastics components within RO systems, can the RO bladders that pump water that's been filtered can carbon block filters like the ones in your fridge or in other products. The dirty little secret is that they're bound together using melted plastic. So that's how you get carbon granules to stick together and stay in cylindrical form most of the time is by plastic. And so with our Filter throughout that big search that we talked about a few minutes ago. The thing that got us so excited about who we ultimately went with as our, is our partner here is that they were making this media bound with wood based cellulose. So the actual media itself is carbon. A few other sorbets bound in, in paper effectively. So we were able to take that plastic out of the equation in the media itself, which like very few other products actually do.

We could talk for hours about the specifics of, you know, the technical terms of it and something I'm, I'm curious about when thinking about the machine and even leading up to launch, what has been. Because you know, you guys, just for the context, when exactly did you guys launch this? I think it was late last year, correct?

Yeah, it was November 20th.

Okay, November 20th, 2024. Coming off of the launch, what has been some of the most exciting feedback questions and how are you guys feeling post launch? I mean, I think as, as any entrepreneur getting something out there is the first step of the battle and then it's dealing with the feedback, dealing with the customers and like having those good growing pains. What has it been like post launch and kind of walk us through and walk me through, just how are you both feeling post launch coming into 2025?

Yeah, I mean we're both extremely excited. We've seen really great response from people and you know, you build something, you test it and it's been in our homes for six to nine months leading up to launch and, and these different tests, you know, you're waiting three to four months to get results back from them. And so there was a long time in which, you know, we're just using it with our families, we're getting feedback, we're shooting content, but you don't really know how widespread people are going to feel about it. You know, when you put this product in thousands of people's hands and to see how they're going to use it in their kitchen and things like that. And so, you know, it's exciting to just hear especially different people's perspectives that have used different types of filtration systems before, how much they love this. You know, you find out very quickly that there's certain things that you need to communicate better to the customer.

Yeah.

And so, you know, we've definitely made some different changes to the packaging and manual and things like that just to make it easier for the customer.

Yep.

And one example that's kind of funny, but also realized that we needed to fix it was the system box that we put this into. Because we put a lot of, a lot of thought into the unboxing experience as well.

Because it's great by the way. Just like, just it's like this. The sexiness of the unboxing I personally loved.

Yeah, we took a lot of like design inspiration and stuff from like Apple and Dyson and different products like that. When thinking about the packaging because you unwrap those, you know, those types of products and you want to like keep the box because it's so cool. And there's, you know, we did tear strips around the bottom of the box and realized that some people when they got it, they didn't know how to open the box and ended up like destroying it in the process, just not realizing how to open it. And so there's different small things like that that we've updated and made changes to and made the a video tutorial more accessible to find and easier to find the QR codes and things. But you know, there's just been such a outreach from so many different people and I think, you know, we, the more we learned about everything in water, we started caring about it so much more. But realizing how many people out are out there that really, truly know a ton about this, that have such a strong passion for it has been really exciting to see.

Absolutely, absolutely. Like just generally speaking too, we invested a ton of time obviously on development. Right. But being on site with our manufacturing partners in general and making sure that if we're going to turn this from a few samples into thousands and thousands of systems, we have to get it right and implement a lot of processes. And fortunately, you know, hardware is hard, Right. Sometimes you don't get it right on the first production run. But we're like, generally speaking, extremely proud and are seeing the data of like very few people having any issues. We'll incrementally make product updates, future production runs and all of that. But to have a brand new hardware product actually launch and be working properly in people's homes at scale is something that we're super stoked about and gives us a lot of confidence to keep scaling.

So to pivot the conversation a little bit, something I'm a huge fan of, which is domains. My company, listener.com, i hunted down this domain for 10 months and when I first came across Aurora, I was like, wow, voror.com that's an awesome domain. Was that hard to get access to or maybe tell me the story there, if there is one, of course.

Took a long time.

Yeah, took a long time.

It took a Long time to find it.

Okay.

Yeah, we went through a lot of different names initially because we wanted something that was going to be personable and we also wanted something that could kind of live on its own. Right. Like if you have a, a Dyson for example, you're not telling someone, oh, go get the vacuum, Uniball, whatever. Yeah, you go through like oh, just go get a Dyson. And that name is trusted, you know, amongst can solve many different problems. And so we wanted something like that that was going to have a bit of personality. And we were going through the, you know, through GoDaddy, through USTPO, trying to figure out what doesn't, what hasn't already been claimed. And in water a ton of things have been claimed. Yeah, it was really tough to find. And you know, my daughter's name is Aurora and she was a big inspiration of, you know, how the name came to be. And it was like, okay, like what if we, you know, what if we called it Rora? What do we think about that? And also looked and found that it didn't have any sort of trademarks or anything on it and that the domain was actually available. And so it was.

So you were able to just buy rora.com it was publicly available.

It was technically an auction.

Yeah, it was an auction but it.

Was very reasonably priced.

Okay.

Like relative to a five letter domain you're sometimes in the five digits, right?

Yeah, yeah.

But we, we're not even close to that. And so it was like we were combing GoDaddy, combing the like patent and trademarks database trying to figure this out. And it's, it's like kismet, right. It's like some, some things in life happen that are, that are so triangulated. It's like, oh yeah, we've got name association, association with, you know, children of founders. Like yeah, we've got the availability of this domain. It's not registered under any trademarks. Like we just hit the jackpot. Let's pull the trigger. And we're so happy we did because I think not only do people really resonate with the story, but it's pretty easy to remember and it's unique and that's kind of what we want to represent in every product we make.

Absolutely. No, I personally, I love the name, I love the branding and I think when I first came across it I was like, oh this is, this is great. It's like the sexiness of the brand, the sexiness of the product. Like it's kudos to you guys for finding that and really, you know, creating the brand within that. So it's really cool to see.

Yeah. And now we've got to make it work too, right? I also got to explain that to my dog, so.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's so good. When you guys think about the future of Rora. I know, I know we were talking a little bit before the podcast just about like future ideas and plans, like what. What is the most exciting part of this journey of water and solving this problem that you both think about independently, but also as a, as a company?

I think there's so much room for opportunity in this space. And the more and more that, you know, even for this product, we were just pulling things apart and thinking about if we were to rebuild them ourselves, you know, what would we do differently? What are the pain points if we push and spend enough time and research and energy into developing this, that we can build something that's truly unique and that works. And you know, a lot of the different products in this industry, I think, are. They look like a lot of the other products. And so I think there's a big opportunity for people to reimagine how things can look and feel and fit into the home and also the solutions that they provide. And so, you know, as we look at other products, being able to cover every different aspect of the home and then, you know, potentially building something in the future that connects all of those and so that you can see the efficacy and the output in the home of all the different products, I think is a really big opportunity. And, and just, you know, understanding that this, this product and the way that we kind of built it, we think of it like software. Right. So as we continue to develop better and better filters that it will just come in people's next filter subscription. You don't have to go and buy a brand new product in order to get a better outcome. And so, you know, as we continue to do more research and develop better technologies in the future, those will just come automatically for people in their, in their subscription. But there's, you know, I think the more and more we learn about this industry is just makes us so much more excited because we have so many more ideas of different types of products and things that we want to build.

Yeah.

And I think that's been like our overarching vision for a long time, honestly, since we were starting to put pen to paper and pitching to investors and all of that is that we really want to build an American water based kind of Dyson style story. Right. Really respect the work that James Dyson and his entire team have produced over the last few decades and continue to. I'm a Dyson customer. I love my vacuum.

Yeah.

We are excited to create not only product one, but an ecosystem of products that hopefully inspire the same amount of customer engagement, excitement and generally speaking, efficacy and usability. And to Brian's point too, treating product like software, always able to, in a future state, ship a better filter where that's backwards compatible. The other side of that is building things that last. Like we went through the trouble of making this thing out of high grade stainless steel because we want it to last for years and we want it to be a part of people's lives that they don't have to worry about, like breaking down or feeling cheap or any of that in doing so is hard. Right? Hardware is hard, as we said. But to us, it's worth it because if we can, if we can really create a trusted bond with a customer to keep a product in their home for several years or decades, like we've, we've done the right thing. It just takes the, the, the rigor to do so. And a lot of our, again, as we evaluated space, as we study the space, as we continue to now be in the space of water filtration, a lot of people, I don't think are playing the long game like we're thinking.

Thinking. Yeah. So both of you are both bringing up Dyson. I think it's come up a lot in our conversation. I want to ask both of you, what about Dyson do you find to be inspiring and about the brand and the company that you'd want to, you know, model after in a specific way?

I think one of the things is that they don't cut corners when developing and designing their products. They take a really innovative approach to solving problems. You know, if you think about like their even fans or air purifiers and things that they came out with.

Yeah.

When they stepped into a new product category, they looked nothing like any of the other products on the market.

Yeah. You know, I remember when they first came out, like years ago. I'm just like, whoa. Yeah.

It was like, how does that even work? You know, there's no spinning blade. Like, you know, how does that even work? But when he was initially creating the initial vacuum, it was like a $2,200 vacuum. And people told him, there's no way you're ever going to be able to sell that to consumers. But instead of saying, okay, I can't sell this, how do I take it? And downsize it into something that's going to be affordable for consumers. He just said, no, this is just going to be the best, and we'll continue to innovate over time. And they were very successful in doing so with that. And so, you know, I think for, for us, you know, we had different investors and things like that say, oh, well, will anybody buy a product like this at this price point? We said, yeah, you know, we think. We. We think that they will. And you know, also like Dyson vacuum or. They look beautiful. Right. And they're. They're different. And so with a product like this, you know, a lot of different people's water filters are things they want to be tucked away or put back in the pantry or somewhere else where we wanted to build a product that looked so different and beautiful and sleek and elegant that people would be proud to put it out on their countertop because then it also becomes a conversation piece. And now we're not just. We didn't just educate the one consumer, but we allowed that consumer and gave them the tools to now educate the people that enter their home. And so it also creates that word of mouth that, you know, really can catch fire and, you know, really allow us to expand to then. It's not us trying to sell the product. It's now our own customers being able to tell other people about it.

Yeah.

And like, just the constant innovation, that's. That's the thing that I key in on besides all the things that I love about the products that I own from them.

Yeah.

But just really having that intensity and running the lap again and again on product lines. Like before, Dyson vacuums looked the same for decades. Like, it. No one was really innovating or creating interesting things. If you think about our industry as a adjacency to that, you kind of can see some similarities. Right. Not to say there aren't other beautiful water filters, but it's the, it's the exception of the rule. As opposed to the majority.

Yeah. I mean, from my personal perspective, like, I've never been cultivated to like, oh, I see a water filtration system or an ad for one, and I'm like, I want to learn more. Like, that's maybe, you know, I might scroll by, but something about what you guys have made, like, obviously caught my attention where I want to sit down with you guys. I want to learn more about it. And I think that speaks to it just, like, from my personal perspective of, like, the uniqueness of first impression of like, oh, what is that? And especially when obviously people are walking into someone's home. Something that, um, that since I've got this, I recently got a sauna. And this is actually, I'll show you afterwards, but it's like this whole wellness center that we have on outside here where we have this, like, electrolyte refrigerator. We got the Aurora, then there's the. The sauna. And it's like, for me, it makes the whole space feel so much better in terms of, like, pre sauna water, post sauna water, and really just bringing it to a specific environment. You know, we had it downstairs with it when we had a big party over. And it's just. It's something that you want to show people. And that's something that I want to say kudos to you guys about because it's, you know, hits that mark of exactly what you guys are saying here. So I just wanted to share that with you.

I appreciate it. It also pairs really well with asana I use.

I mean, I have a barrel in my backyard and love that. Like, obviously, you gotta be drinking clean water from sweat you're losing. Right.

That's.

We don't need to retox with bad things in tap water. We gotta drink clean water separately, too. Like, if you're. If you're spraying chlorinated water on your rocks for producing steam, like, that will volatilize.

Yeah.

Chlorine and a lot of other chemicals in the water potentially. So use filtered water for your saunas. It's important. You don't want to be breathing that stuff in.

See those? The same thing. It's like the coffee machine. Like, where is water coming into your life where you don't even maybe think about it? Like, think, this is an infrared one, so I'm not using the. The water over the rocks, but good to know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, also, like, saunas are one of the best ways to actually detoxify your body from microplastics.

And.

And so, you know, if you're detoxifying your body, last thing you want to do is be drinking water that's putting more microplastics back into your body. So you don't want to be drinking out of, you know, a plastic water bottle or the tap water. And so, yeah, pairs really well with a sauna as well.

I love that. And you guys, when you think about your own wellness routines, what does that look like in your life and how has that changed over the years?

I think for me, it definitely changed once we had children, you know.

Yeah.

I grew up drinking out of the hose and I Was like, well, I'm fine.

Right?

Like, I can't. You know, I initially couldn't even believe that the water coming out of the tap was contaminated. You know, you just assume certain things. And once I started having children and you start realizing that, you know, there's so much more that affects them, being so small really started to change everything for me. So I started thinking about, okay, how's our air quality? How's our, you know, am I changing my air filters quick enough? Do I have enough salt in the water softener? Like, all of those different things that you just start thinking about and, you know, the biggest being what kind of water are they drinking? You know, what's in that? How does that affect them? And so that really started a lot of my wellness journey. And, you know, also thinking about, okay, you know, as a father, you're getting a lot less sleep. You got to prioritize your time because you have less to focus on work and different things. And so it's really a kind of an exercise I think, that everybody probably goes through at that point. But that's, you know, really what started for me and obviously was a big influence on this product as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I would say separately, too. It's like, I've been playing sports my whole life, living in Colorado. I drink a ton of water. Like you're living at 5,000 plus feet, depending on where you are. And I've been interested in what's in our water, I think, for a long time. I did a research project in Ecuador and I was in college abroad on, like, river water quality. And that probably was if I actually think all the way back, like, the thing that set me off specifically about water. But presently now I'm such a believer in contrast therapy. I have a setup at home for that. And it's the best part of my day. Like, I get to have people over, be in the sauna with my girlfriend and just have, like, meaningful conversation and be engaging in something that's. That's healthier than going and grabbing a drink or something.

Right.

Just changing the nature of social interaction has been. Has been immensely powerful. And then beyond that, I'm an avid backcountry snowboarder skier, so we drink a ton of water doing that.

Yeah.

And yeah, I would say it's just like, it's such a central part of my life. Like drinking a gallon plus of water a day.

Yeah, that.

How could you not be interested in what's in it? That'd be like consuming a pound of meat or a pound of vegetables and not knowing where they came from. So I'm very, very involved in that consumption cycle. And use a lot of water.

Yeah, absolutely. No. Great to know. And I got to say, backcountry snowboarding, I got to get on that wave.

Hit me up.

I have a couple more questions here. One is both of you guys, you're in Denver and you're in Minneapolis, correct?

Yeah.

Talk to me about co founder dynamics and how they've shifted maybe since the beginning, in the early days of creating this product and sort of how you guys think about that in terms of the future of the business being in different locations. I know, you know, we live in this remote world now, and some people are like, all for the. In person. Some can do the remote. How do you guys think about that?

I mean, I think we've had really the opportunity to work together for a long time, even before this, which helped. It's really about having the experience of overcoming problems together. And in our previous business, you know, we had to go through a lot of very difficult things together and figure out how to get our way through those. And so I think it's like anything, the more reps you have, the. The better you become at it. And it's really trusting each other to be able to have full autonomy within our area of expertise. And so, you know, we have very clear delineation over who's making the final call based on what we're doing and having full trust in each other in that. And I think also both having a very good understanding of the financials of the brand story of kind of like the areas in which we come together. And as long as we can stay very aligned on that, then everything else just funnels into does this meet the needs of where our overall goals are? And if it's digital, it's more on my plate. If it's physical, it's more on his. And so those dynamics have still been able to work, being remote, I think, in the future, as this business continues to grow and develop, you know, there's definitely a world in which we, you know, open an office and really build everything together in one place. But, you know, for the last two and a half years, and to get to this point, it wasn't a necessity that needed to happen.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. It's like Brian and I have been working together and building together for a long time, and when you have that implicit trust in someone to just cover their bases and like, I'm not going to get all up in your business about this. Like, we tried one time to diagram it out. We have, like, we have our own circles and domains of, like, things that we are uniquely responsible for. And, like, that is our ownership. Where there's a circle in the middle, that's like Brandon storytelling. As Brian was saying, these are things that we share, these things that we both need to, like, sand the wood on so that we're. We're aligned on messaging. And then where those circles overlap is kind of like, okay, you're leading the tango here, but I'd like your input.

Right.

Like, as we go through product design, it's not like I'm designing in a box. I'll go through a rev with some engineers and designers, and then Brian and I'll talk about it. And Brian sometimes has great ideas, and I take that back. Similarly, Brian will be conceiving some sort of campaign or programming. I'll jump in and give my 2 cents, and then he'll take it and take it to the finish line. But, like, I'm. We're so fortunate, man. I mean, that's like.

Absolutely.

That's the thing I would say. It's like, it's so rare to find a business partner and co founder that, like, really does cover where you have, you know, gaps. And, like, that's part of the reason that remotes work so well so far is because we have that trust and ability.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

And we're, you know, we're also great friends outside of that, but I think we became also great friends through working together initially. You know, Charlie was the best man at my wedding. You know, we've been talking about doing another, you know, business, kicking around different ideas for the last 10 years. And so being able to come together on something again, you know, it's. It's a lot of fun. And I think there's. It's so much easier to get up and work on something every day when, you know, it's like, people always say you gotta love what you do.

And it's like, yeah, but, like, there's.

A lot of tough parts about that. Like, I think you. You have to find purpose in what you do. And if you find purpose in what you do, then you're gonna be willing to wake up and go through the hard days.

Yeah.

To get to those outcomes. And, like, the. The journey on the way isn't easy, but, you know, the journey overall is fun and it's challenging. And so, you know, is it comfortable all the time? No. But if you're Uncomfortable, you're making progress. And it's really fun to understand that, like, every day you go through something, it's like, okay, this is just another challenge. We've overcome harder things. Let's just figure it out.

Yeah.

And so we just get on the phone, we lay out, what are the three different options we have here? What's the most probable one to move forward? What information do we need to move forward? Okay, then let's just figure that out and keep going. And so it's been extremely fun to have somebody to work together with that you work together with so well.

Yeah, I love that. And hearing the mutual overlap there is so great. And really too, just owning your space, I think, is so important. And I think my last venture, my co founder and I, we always talked about it after the acquisition of just. There were moments where I think we were overlapping too much, and then it creates friction. And then kind of having that central focus on where you really make the end decision is so, you know, and having that boundary is so powerful. So I love that. And hearing that perspective is great. Last question before we wrap up. And I kind of hinted on it a little bit earlier, but from each of you, like, what excites you the most moving into 2025 and the years to come for the product? And just as a company overall.

I think what excites me the most is really being able to build this into a company and bring in more extremely smart people getting their perspectives, you know, being able to give them different big responsibilities and seeing this grow is really exciting. I think continuing to build and develop new products and getting other people involved, that can really help to amplify this story to millions and millions of people. And then thinking about expanding this worldwide as well. It's really exciting because I think there's a lot of change and betterment that we can. We can give to a lot of people in the products that we can develop. And, you know, knowing that what we're working on every single day and the products that we're building are changing people's lives is, you know, extremely rewarding.

Absolutely.

And I would say too, like, our number one goal as a business and every interaction that we have with a potential customer, current customer, is ultimately education. Right. If we can create better consumers that are more informed, that are asking more questions, whether they buy our product or not, those people will help move industries forward and will help drive innovation because they're asking, I think that it's our responsibility as a business to keep people not only engaged, but inquisitive curious, and critical for making a purchase decision for a water filter or any other product that they're interested in. So ultimately, long, game wise, that's really something that we feel strongly about. Separately, though, I think Brian mentioned this earlier, but there's just so much cool stuff we can do with water. And like, we, as we were talking earlier, making coffee, like, you know, we can keep going further and further up the pipe. There is really like, what's. What's the limit desalinating the ocean, Right?

Like.

Like between, between this product and that, there is a ton of white space and a ton of opportunity to build things that matter and to build things that work really well. So, yeah, I think. I think there is a really bright future ahead and we're excited to tackle it.

I love that.

Well, I mean, congratulations, by the way, on, like, getting to this point. It's something that, again, the uniqueness of the brand, the product, and how it shows up in the market not only caught my attention, but I know the listeners and viewers today, I'm sure they'll be thinking the same. So before we wrap up here, for people that made it this far, they're still watching and listening. Where's the best place for everyone to follow you guys? And of course, learn more about Rora and get a product if it's something that they're looking to add to their countertop.

Yeah, you can go to rora.com, you can get your free water report. You can check out the countertop system and then follow us, aurorawater on Instagram or your other favorite social media platforms.

Love it. Well, again, appreciate you guys so much for coming out today. This is an absolute pleasure and congratulations again.

Thanks so much, Casey.

Thanks, man.

Of course.