The 250-billion-dollar bottled water industry is a monstrous waste of energy, emissions, plastic, money, and yes, water. Ideally, it would not exist at all. Luckily, my guest today, Reuben Vollmer, agrees and has built Spout, an atmospheric water generation machine that provides ultra-high-quality water at the counter top, and all you need to do is plug it in.

Reuben’s route here is one of my favorites. A California drought that put his family farm’s water rights at risk led to a rumination on a field covered in morning dew, which led to a single-minded determination to provide extremely high-quality water from air on demand. He is a card-carrying polymath with a background in everything from film to rapid prototyping to advertising to engineering. What he has built at Spout is genuinely amazing.

Please enjoy my conversation with Reuben Vollmer.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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A Chapman Film School alum, Spout Founder Reuben Vollmer’s career spans roles as a Creative Technologist at Deutsch LA and manufacturing manager in Torrance’s aerospace sector. Inspired by morning dew during a 2014 drought that threatened his family farm, he spent 11 years engineering air-to-water technology. His expertise in 3D printing and circuit design now informs Spout (formerly DewGood), a countertop device producing up to 2.5 gallons of pure water daily. Reuben blends imagination with engineering to provide a sustainable, independent water source free from plastic and pipes.

00:00 - Introduction

02:20 - Making Drinking Water From Air

03:21 - Turning California’s Drought Into Spout

07:29 - Why Failure Is Essential for Founders

09:13 - From Failed Prototype to Breakthrough Product

13:39 - Building a Hardware Startup With Limited Capital

20:20 - Creating Better, Cleaner Drinking Water

24:39 - Pricing and Marketing a $2,000 Water Machine

33:58 - Making Atmospheric Water Generation Mainstream

37:59 - Balancing Founder Ambition With Sustainable Growth

42:22 - Build What Customers Actually Want

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Reuben Vollmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reuben-vollmer-a9314341/

Spout: https://www.spoutwater.com/

Key Takeaways:

"I’m so used to failure. You know, if I’m not failing, then I’m not doing something right, honestly. And I fail probably nine times out of ten."

"Nobody cares that you have a box that makes water. They care if they don’t have to carry three packs of Aquafina to their car every week anymore."

"Focus on making a product that people want to buy, not on the product that you want to make."

"The grander the vision, I feel like the more energy there is to make it happen."

"That raw passion will get you a lot further than paying people. The paying people, most of them don’t care if you succeed or fail, they just want a check."

"We’re on a mission to make the best water on earth, which I’ve never heard a water company even strive to do… we’re not settled just being better than bottled water or tap water."

My guest today is Nick Dyner, CEO of Moleaer. I've known Nick since the early days of the company when he became a judge at Imagine H2O, and he is one of the founders I admire most in the industry - and for good reason. He has built a fascinating company around the humble and very small nanobubble. No spoilers yet, but they are a revolution in everything from wastewater treatment to biotechnology.

Nick is one of the best sales leader CEOs I know, and his insights on the commercialization process, the process of deciding focus, the communication of value, the gradual exit of the CEO from selling - all just excellent. But there's a lot more in here besides.

Please enjoy my conversation with Nick Dyner.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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Nick Dyner is the CEO of Moleaer, scaling nanobubble technology to improve water quality in agriculture, aquaculture, and wastewater. A sales-led CEO who values customer empathy and process, Nick joined the company in 2017. He previously built commercial teams for the water industry’s major players, serving as the first salesperson at NanoH2O (acquired by LG Chem) and holding leadership roles at GE Water. He understands the risk-reward tradeoff of adopting new technology in conservative industries. Nick studied engineering at Cornell University.

00:00 - Introduction

02:00 - How Nanobubbles Transform Water Treatment

07:23 - Choosing the Right Markets for New Technology

14:36 - Productizing Technology for Market Growth

20:53 - Building Customer Trust With Complete Solutions

24:23 - Reducing Risk When Selling New Water Technology

27:46 - Scaling From Founder-Led Sales to a Sales Team

33:56 - Building a High-Performing Distributor Network

36:27 - Creating a Market for Breakthrough Technology

41:26 - Creating Sustainable Customer Value at Scale

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Nick Dyner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-dyner-8394734/

Moleaer: https://www.moleaer.com/

SM Material

Key Takeaways:

"The risk-reward tradeoff to adopt new technology in water and wastewater is totally distorted against you if you’re bringing a technology to market."

"Empathy is everything."

"We’re really good at emotionally detaching ourselves from the technology... and really focus on process."

"If I just sold you a nanobubble generator, you’ve got to go buy a pump, you’ve got to buy an oxygen generator, you’ve got to buy electrical controls. I just created work for you."

"If the alternatives are better, we’re not going to go after it... you can’t trick the market for that long."

"Ultimately you’re reminding people of sort of that bigger picture, which is: is the technology creating value?"

My guest today is Corey Williams, who is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in water. He has built and sold no less than seven companies, with his latest, SmartCover, selling to Badger Meter for $185 million at the start of 2025.

Corey is one of the most thoughtful people I know on the art of sales, not only to utilities, but recognizing that great selling is primarily a function of listening and the accurate diagnosis of a customer's reality. His adherence to this principle of really getting to know people, taking their interests seriously - not his own - is at the core of why he's one of the most respected members of our industry.

We get into dealing with the RFP process, building sales teams, the opportunity in the under-instrumentation of the collection network, and why sometimes the best management trick is to ask people to keep up - I'm not sure I could.

Please enjoy my conversation with Corey Williams.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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Corey Williams leads corporate business development for Badger Meter, where he runs merger and acquisition strategy. He was previously President and CEO of SmartCover until its $185 million acquisition in 2025. A licensed Civil Engineer, Corey has built and sold seven companies, including Optimatics, and previously led technology departments for national engineering firms. He serves as Vice President of the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and is on its 2025-26 Board of Trustees. Corey believes in building sales teams on listening and education to solve the problems utilities actually face.

00:00 - Introduction

02:15 - How to Win Utility Buyers' Attention

06:56 - Master Customer Discovery Without Pitching

09:10 - Solving Workforce Challenges with Services

14:19 - Build Trust to Shorten Long Sales Cycles

17:06 - How to Sell Breakthrough Water Technology

20:18 - Why Water Utilities Are Great Customers

24:13 - How to Build High-Performing Water Teams

29:08 - Building Companies for a Successful Exit

35:07 - Exit Negotiation Tips Every Founder Needs

40:22 - How AI Will Transform Water Engineering

42:52 - The Biggest Opportunity in Water Infrastructure

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Corey Williams

Badger Meter

SM Material

Key Takeaways:

“This market is unbelievably polite and we don't like to tell people ‘no’, but what you're competing for is bandwidth and attention, not dollars.”

“If I'm solving a problem you didn't know you had, now I'm really competing for new attention, and I have to frame that.”

“If you have something that has some merit, you'd be amazed at how much the utilities are willing to actually help you.”

“If you take that feedback and make the adjustments, you really learn something if you listen.”

“Hire people smarter than you, at least in the respective areas that you need them. And more important than just hiring them, let them do it.”

I am a big fan of Cala Systems. They've set a completely new standard for the heat pump water heater and water heaters in general. What was initially an afterthought from large manufacturers - essentially a marketing ploy that really didn't make much of a difference to overall water heater performance - Cala is a step-change in its $14 billion annually non-discretionary market. When you need a water heater, you need it regardless of what's going on in the economy.

We talked to Co-founder and CEO Michael Rigney in Episode 24. It's great - check it out - but we wanted to do a TMF first and have a product lead on. Mike Ting is the Co-founder and CTO of Cala and has overseen the creation of a world-class product, up to and including setting up an entire factory twice. He's a super guy, and this is an insight-laden masterclass in building and scaling a product. Please enjoy my product-first conversation with Mike Ting.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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Mike Ting is the Co-founder and CTO of Cala, where he builds intelligent heat pump water heaters that act as grid-interactive thermal batteries. Before Cala, Mike spent ten years developing consumer hardware at Bose and SharkNinja. He worked in the headphone group at Bose and led product teams at SharkNinja, shipping high-volume electronics globally. Today he scales hardware from proof-of-concept to mass production at Cala’s Wilmington, MA factory. Mike earned a mechanical engineering degree from McGill University and is a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen.

00:00 - Introduction

02:01 - What Actually Makes a Good Product

07:10 - Building the World's First Intelligent Water Heater

16:24 - Scaling From Prototype to Manufacturing

26:30 - Blending Hardware, Software, and Customer Experience

33:59 - Why Installers Are the Real Customer

39:27 - The Future of Smart Water Heating

45:05 - Startup Lessons on Building Products That Last

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Mike Ting

Cala Systems

SM Material

Key Takeaways:

“The biggest thing for me has always been delivering real value to the customers.”

“The best products that you can use are the ones that you don't have to think about.”

“At Bose, we used to talk about building products that nobody could have ever thought about before, but once they use them, they could never think about living without them.”

“Never assume that you, as the product designers, the engineers, marketers, whatever, know better than what the consumers do.”

“If you build something that's way too futuristic, it's a product people already aren't thinking about, it's generally going to scare them away.”

“There just aren't contract manufacturers who know how to build water heaters.”

“You have to be really resilient and really scrappy. Accept the circumstances and say, ‘Okay, here are the problems I'm going to go solve today.’”

The world’s biggest supply chains - cocoa, coffee, palm, soy, timber, beef, rubber - all begin in the same place: a farm, often a smallholder, almost always invisible to the companies that depend on it. That first mile is where deforestation happens, where emissions accrue, and where water stress bites hardest. Until recently, nobody could give large companies the ability to understand what was and could be going on at the foundations of their supply chains. Jinal Surti is changing that.

After building his career at the forefront of crypto with Egnyte, Ripple, and Menai, Jinal co-founded Epoch in London in 2023 to generate location-linked intelligence - deforestation status, emissions, water stress, and of course, biodiversity risk - compliance for every farm, plantation, and processing facility feeding global commodity supply chains. It’s been such a thrill to work with him on a project of this magnitude, and as you will hear, he thinks as clearly about company creation, value defensibility, and the practical implications and opportunities of AI as anyone I have ever met.

Please enjoy my conversation with Jinal Surti.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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Jinal Surti is the co-founder and CEO of Epoch, an environmental monitoring, reporting, and insetting platform for the agriculture and forestry sectors. Global commodity producers use Epoch to manage nearly 3 million farms and plantations worldwide. Before starting the company, Jinal spent his career enabling global payments in emerging markets as an early employee at Ripple and a founding executive at Menai. Jinal holds an engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

00:00 - Introduction

02:27 - Why Supply Chain Visibility Is Critical

09:55 - How AI Replaces Traditional Supply Chain Audits

16:57 - Why Water Risk Is Reshaping Global Business

20:26 - How Geospatial AI Maps Supply Chain Risk

24:54 - Building a Defensible AI Business

31:54 - How AI Is Transforming Startup Growth

38:50 - Crypto's Real-World Future Beyond Hype

40:49 - First Principles for Building Great Companies

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Jinal Surti

Epoch

Key Takeaways:

"Cleaning up corporate supply chains is the biggest driver that we have not just for climate, but for human rights, for biodiversity, for water, for income inequality."

"Just because a product is certified by some certification body doesn’t really evidence any difference... certifications just can’t be enough. You have to show the data."

"Self-reported questionnaires are, by the way, also a huge pain point."

"What really wins is context. The more customers you serve, the more context you have, and the more context you can use to utilize those models and make your product better."

"You almost want people who can delegate the best and manage the best, because that’s what prompting really is, rather than somebody who’s really, really good at doing one thing."

Water systems don't exist in a vacuum. Systems are human endeavors run by operators, and the great majority of America's roughly 90,000 water systems with under 1,000 connections are really small ones run by crews of one, maybe two or three people.

Blake Anderson knows that world better than almost anyone. A certified operator who has spent 14 years running water systems, Blake is the founder of Mogollon Water Management, which operates and maintains community water systems across the White Mountains of Northern Arizona. He now also lends that operator's eye to Ziptility, the asset management platform built for small utilities that acquired his platform last year.

I loved this conversation. It is a trip into the weeds of what it takes to run a small system and, crucially, how it can be better. He knows what it is like to be responsible for a system and the lives that depend on it, from operating a backhoe to fix a leak in the middle of the night all the way to explaining budget trade-offs to an untrained community system board. This is a view of the heart of our industry we don't get often enough, and Blake is the perfect person to bring the operating practicality to Ziptility's platform that will be transformational to the vast majority of America's water systems.

Please enjoy my conversation with the excellent Blake Anderson.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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Blake Anderson is Ziptility’s VP of Strategic Operations and Founder of Mogollon Water Management (MWM). A Grade 4 operator with 14 years of experience, Blake professionalizes rural water systems. He built MWM into Northeastern Arizona’s largest O&M provider by rescuing micro-systems and securing capital. Since Ziptility acquired MWM in 2025, he has focused on scaling a nationwide model that pairs local crews with field-first utility software.

00:00 - Introduction

02:32 - What Water System Operators Actually Do

07:07 - How Modern Tech Is Transforming Small Utilities

10:06 - Building a Water Utility Management Business

18:23 - Designing Better Software for Water Operators

22:49 - How to Fix America's Small Water Systems

32:47 - Why Ziptility Acquired Mogollon Water Management

37:14 - Creating the Future Operating System for Utilities

39:13 - Solving the Water Industry's Workforce Crisis

41:28 - Policy Changes That Could Save Small Utilities

44:25 - Customer-First Advice for Water Entrepreneurs

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Blake Anderson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blake-a-0553702b6/

Mogollon Water Management: https://mogollonwater.com/

Ziptility: https://www.Ziptility.com/

Key Takeaways:

"A good operator can walk into a room and tell if a pump's been running too long just by the temperature and the smell of the bearings."

"Software needs to be driven by your thumbs in a trench with a shovel right next to you. If they won't use it in the field, it doesn't do anything."

"If you are crazy about your customer and you really love their problems, you're going to be successful. Seek the welfare of the communities you serve."

Everybody remembers their first. When I was with Imagine H2O, I had the great fortune to meet Greg Floyd, who needed a small check for an early prototype of their shower head, which was crucially different from the litany of shower heads that were coming out at the time. They were all neon and internal drives and control panels and all this crap that totally overlooked that when people are having a shower, they want one thing and one thing only: plentiful, usually hot water to help them get clean and feel relaxed. Do not introduce complexity or unreliability into this equation.

Greg and his team really got it. And as importantly, had identified a gigantic market where the value prop of their shower, and I am leaving the explanation of that to him, really hits. Showers are a giant pain in the ass for hotels, and Shower Stream essentially deletes the source of a whole lot of trouble. There are now 400+ live devices across five hotel chains, 150,000 showers taken with zero complaints, paybacks measured in weeks. It's an unusual story in an overlooked market - the kind I love. And as you will hear, Greg has built deliberately into a fascinating position.

Please enjoy my conversation with Greg Floyd.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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Greg Floyd is the Co-founder and CEO of Shower Stream, an Austin-based startup transforming water and energy efficiency for hotels. Using IoT-enabled smart shower technology, Greg helps properties reduce resource consumption by 20% while maintaining guest satisfaction. With a B.S. in Computer Science from UT Austin, Greg brings a strong technical background from his decade-long career as a software engineer at Silicon Labs and AMD. An expert in embedded systems, he has successfully led Shower Stream through elite accelerators like Imagine H2O to scale sustainable property technology.

00:00 - Introduction

02:59 - The Hidden Costs of Hotel Shower Misuse

09:55 - Building a Smart Shower Guests Never Notice

15:24 - Proving Water Savings with Real-Time Data

21:49 - Creating a Hardware-as-a-Service Business Model

30:05 - Winning Enterprise Customers as a Startup

34:11 - Reaching Product-Market Fit with a Lean Team

40:25 - Why Passion Drives Startup Success

Links:

Greg Floyd

Shower Stream

SM Material

Key Takeaways:

"The first layer of reliability here is designing the thing to be non-intrusive. It's not a nanny telling you to turn off the water when you're done using it."

"We give the hardware to the hotel owners for free. . . and then we're going to charge you $10 per month per room. . . we typically come in at $25, $26 of savings per room per month."

"We can divert over a gigaton of CO2 emissions. Again, because there's a heating component here and then all of the energy that goes on the back end of water."

"In hardware startups, it takes seven years to become an overnight success."

Building any organization is hard. Building a nonprofit, community place-based organization in an industry you are new to, and then doing it so well that the government gives you well into nine figures to lead a regional economic engine over the next 10 years, is really hard. But Alaina Harkness is genuinely that impressive. And it's super clear she's only just getting started.

After stints at the MacArthur Foundation, the Brookings Institution, and RW Ventures, she took over Chicago-based Current, where our very own Steve Kloos chairs the board, in 2019. And from the very first time I met her, it was clear they had a very talented leader indeed at the helm. This conversation shows you why I thought that and that I was 1,000% right. She's awesome. Please enjoy my conversation with the wonderful Alaina Harkness.

Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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Alaina Harkness discusses her transition into the water sector to lead Current, emphasizing the value of "interstitial" organizations that connect innovators to complex water problems. She explores the Midwest's shift from taking water abundance for granted to treating it as a vital economic asset amid growing industrial demands. Alaina also breaks down the strategy behind winning a $160M NSF grant for Great Lakes RENEW to build a circular blue economy, the importance of hiring "T-shaped" teams, and the unique realities of leading a nonprofit scale-up like a startup.

00:00 - Introduction

02:33 - Why Alaina Harkness Joined Current

06:02 - How Chicago Became a Water Innovation Hub

12:01 - Why Connectivity & Collaboration Drive Better Innovation

15:12 - Leading Current Through Rapid Growth & Industry Change

17:07 - Why Water Security Is Becoming an Economic Priority

19:52 - How Data Centers Are Reshaping Water Infrastructure

24:14 - The Strategy Behind Current’s $160M NSF Grant Win

29:55 - The Startup Lessons Behind Building a Water Innovation Ecosystem

35:56 - Inside the NSF Regional Innovation Engine Vision

42:41 - Long-Term Thinking, Investment & the Future of Water

48:01 - The Best Advice for Water Entrepreneurs

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Alaina Harkness: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alaina-harkness/

Current: https://currentwater.org/about-us/

Great Lakes RENEW: https://greatlakesrenew.org/

SM Material

Key Takeaways:

"Fall in love with the problem. Let it motivate you every day. Don't be seduced by one solution."

"There's a humility in knowing nothing. Valuing the expertise to ask the right question is crucial."

"Regional economic development is not a thing. It's fundamentally competitive, a zero-sum game."

"We have to confront the physical and material realities of our world. It's starting to get priced into banking."

"The number one skill in fundraising is to clearly and authentically speak to the vision."

"We have a paradox of abundance. It's easier and cheaper for us to use our drinking water for industrial purposes."