Turn Trash Water into Drinking Water ft. Kurt Avery | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

0:00And he says after a week, you don't name your kids till the three years old. Why is that? Well, if they make it to three, we know they're going to live. If they don't, you know, they lose a third of their kids before age three. Goes back with the filters, puts them throughout the village, goes back the next year. They named that birth because they haven't lost a baby since the filter showed up. I mean, can you imagine the heartbreak of losing a third of your kids to bad water? Welcome to another episode of Coffees. All right. So we'll dive right into it. So Kurt, tell me really quick, tell me the vision behind Sawyer from the beginning.

0:34What is it that really inspired you to start Sawyer? Actually, I decided I didn't like the corporate world. I did some pretty good stuff and I'm standing outside the president's office of one of the companies, the last one I worked for, watched him take credit for absolutely everything. Didn't give me a single bone for all I did. And I said, I see how this game works. It's time to go out on my own. So I did. and had some interesting products I got. So we've been in the outdoor industry, and every time we introduce a product, it absolutely changes the way people interface with the outdoors. I mean, whether it was from we started with a bee sting snake bite kit, we went to first aid, we went to sunscreens, repellents, and water filters.

1:18And every time we introduced something, it was a technological change from what people were using. So we spent a lot of time in the stores listening. What do you need? What do you need? What are your problems? And I use the analogy like Henry Ford said, don't ask them what they want. They'll say they want a faster horse. You got to go back past that and say, what problem are you having and how can we solve it in an innovative way? So that's how we built the company. I basically said, I got to go out on my own. So this isn't working in the corporate world. Did you work at a company that did something similar in the outdoor space?

1:53No, no, totally in the consumer. But you know the brands. They're big ones, but no, nothing to do with outdoors. Okay. Now, before Sawyer became a global leader in clean water, what was the original spark that led you to launch it? Was it just a journey into entrepreneurship? What was the problem you were seeking to solve? Well, we actually started with the Bee Sting Snakebite Kit, which is still in Walmart today, 41 years later. So it was a solution. People were using little suction things, and it wasn't working. so we came out with a product that really did take out venom really did solve the beast things but we moved on i mean it's still out there we're still selling it 41 years later but it was a total change to the way people dealt with envenomations and from there we went into first aid again we we met with the wilderness medicine people and the whole thing was we don't want a box of And so we invented kits that you could actually use.

3:00And they'll still be done today. I mean, we sat with the EMTs and the rescue people and just totally reinvented. You don't need a box full of Band-Aids. You really need something you could do with it. Triage manual, stuff like that. And we're not doing it anymore, but we really established it. And other brands have picked up the ball and totally changed the way people do outdoor first aid. From there, we got into the insect repellent business, and we've always been technically advanced. And now we're the ones that basically introduced Picaridin, which is the replacement for DEET. It's very effective.

3:37It's non-plasticizer, so you won't melt your watch and wreck your car. It's very safe to use. It came from the pepper plant. And then we also introduced, we invented and introduced permethrin, which would go on your clothes. If you put it on your clothes, your backpack, your tent, the mosquitoes stay away and all the ticks will die. If you take a car on it, it's dead. And so military uses it on every single uniform. And we're the ones that do that resupplying. And then we got into water filters because people were taking these clunky, heavy ceramic or paper matrix fibers. And they were$90 a piece.

4:14And they were very heavy. And we came across the technology of hollow fiber membranes. You know, halofibra membranes are used for kidney dialysis. So if you can clean blood, you can certainly clean water. So we introduced that to the market, and the stores were resistant at first. You know, we sell a$90 filter, and we're going to make$45 on it. I said, well, you're going to sell this one for$19.95, and you'll make$10 on it. I said, no, man, can't do it. I bet you're going to sell a million of them. You're going to sell so many more, and you don't have a choice because it is the new technology.

4:45So lo and behold, that 70 ,000 unit market is now many million a year because it is the right way to clean water. So then somewhere along the way, we said, now we have the two biggest things to solve, the two biggest ways that people die, bad water or mosquito bites. How do we not make this available to the world? so that's how we got on the mission to take all all this stuff to the world it's life-changing our filters filter better than anybody else's now these are point of use so i don't know if you're live video but these are what they look like they're small in a coke can and they never wear out ours are so strong you just keep cleaning them your filters never wear out never wears out we got some out there that are in their 16th year now serving serving families every day and we're down to the point where you can't get sick we take everything out so it doesn't matter if the cows are swimming and pooping in your water we'll make it safe to drink so now we go into villages and you know within weeks all the sickness is gone you know the diarrhea is gone typhoid, subscholera in hours.

5:59So whenever you hear there's a cholera outbreak and then you don't hear it, that just means our filters showed up. Every time there's an earthquake, hurricane, whatever, we're there. We're the first things in. Usually we're in there before the hurricane. So like Jamaica, there's tons of them in Jamaica. In the United States, when we held Helene, we sent 100 ,000 filters up there. We had people hiking them up to places where cars and helicopters couldn't get to. So we're always the first one. Anytime you hear it, we're in the Philippines right now with a cyclone that just hit. So we are it. And we're down now.

6:38We call it transformational. When you change a person's life, we got it down now where we can, for one-time investment of 30 cents, give somebody 10 years of clean water. Wow. Yeah. And if it's rural, it might be a buck and a half to two bucks to give somebody a family lifetime clean water. So they're not very expensive. We are so profitable with our domestic business that we can give away a lot of it. And and the unique part is. I use the analogy, if we make cupcakes, we'd have to sell the cupcakes, make the profit, pay the taxes and then have something to give away. but because we make the very thing that people want and i own 100 of the company i don't have to make a profit nobody tells me i have to make a profit i don't have any other shareholders to deal with i'm not corporate but we're a small company but so we can give these things away so that's why we we do it i mean how do you not when you save lives like that that's really the purpose of life is just to be of service to others and you're really embodying that with your with your mission-driven organization.

7:47That's why I wanted to meet you and talk to you. I'm personally inspired by what you're doing. I mean, water is life. It is. That was our first t-shirt, water is life. I met with some folks from Rora Water, and I had them on my show. They're just a home-based water filtration system, but they have some of the cleanest water, if not the cleanest water I've ever had from a home filter. Right. Well, we're not in the domestic market because we're not changing taste. You know, your water's kind of safe. We're out for the hikers. You know, you go to the Appalachian Trail, it's all about Sawyer. I mean, everybody's taking that with them.

8:28But overseas, put yourself in their place. The typical woman might spend three hours a day preparing water for them to drink. You know, they're boiling water. They're using wood. They're using fossil. We eliminate, we are the greenest thing out there because they're not having to prepare water. They're hydrated. The data is in medical journals and posted on our website. We save them 10 to 15, 20 % of their annual income by not having to buy or clean water. They're not sick. The kids can go to school. The parents can go to work. Their brains are functioning now. Women can start businesses because they have water clean enough to cook with, which you could never do with the stuff they did.

9:10So it's a huge impact and it really empowers the women because they're usually the ones in charge of getting the water for the family. So we've taken three hours down to 15 minutes. Now, you started, SORI started initially, was it by providing sunblock to our troops? No, well, we did. We started with the extractor, but we did all the sunblocks that went to Gulf War One. So that's like six million bottles of sunscreen. That was a crazy story because at the time we were only filling 2 ,000 bottles a week by hand. Contact comes through for 230 ,000 a week. So, of course, I said, yeah, we'll do that.

9:56I don't know where the box is, okay? So you got to excuse me. And we did it. We got everything together. We did it. And, you know, it came across an amazing formula because there's no timeouts in war. So soldiers didn't have to reapply with our formula. It would last for a couple of days if they weren't taking showers, which you aren't in the middle of war. So we brought that to domestic market. And we have a very good cult following because it's very technically advanced. But I don't bring it to the mass market. I'm not going to compete with the big names. You know, forget that. Repellents, we will because we're so technically advanced.

10:29But sunscreens, it's a crazy market. So we just have our own little following. But yeah, we did this. How did you evolve from sunscreen to life-changing water solutions? Well, we were selling the REIs of the world, the Bass Pros, the Cabela's, you know, all the outdoor camping places. So you would sit with them and say, what are your problems? You know, we were introducing the insect repellents because we were kind of advanced. And just listen to them. What are your problems? What do you need solved? And that's when the water came up. That was a real problem for them, carrying these clunky things.

11:11So we spent some time finding the right solutions. There's a lot of ways to do water. There's tablets and whatnot. But we came across the kidney dialysis technology. That's it. That's really the way to go. So we found our way to the advanced technology. Now, our holes are so small that nothing gets through it. And our fibers are so tough that you can back flush them at full force. Nobody has that. And in 20, 22 years now, nobody's copied our technology. So we're still sitting out there. Wow. And when you have that, I mean, it's a lifetime filter. You know, you're not going to get sick. And, you know, it goes on and on and on.

11:54now our latest one is we've adapted it so we can fit it on a faucet on a tap so now this this little filter can get you two to five hundred gallons per day every day for 10 years now if you round that off the cost for per gallon that comes pretty much to zero and countries pick a country mexico honduras you know whatever where they have a tap the water is still not safe it's what's called improved water yeah so they still but you know instead of boiling it or whatever you just run it through our filter and it's good so it and so we're we've got a new program going now where we're doing we're going to do honduras el salvador guatemala and really eight eight of the central south american countries we go into the schools this the teachers teach the kids how to use it they bring the parents in they teach them and and they take it home.

12:49So instantly, you know, we can now do the rural. We used to just be rural because we had a bucket system, whatever. But now with the tap filter, we can be right in the cities. Their water's not safe. You couldn't drink that, but you can with ours. So they would still have to boil it or clean it, even if it came out of their tap. But with us, you don't. And then we set up water stations. So we go to the local community centers or churches, and they put these things on their faucet, and they're cranking out hundreds of gallons a day per filter. So now anybody in the neighborhood can come in and get their gallon, five gallons worth of water for free.

13:26So with that point, that's why it's less than 30 cents. I mean, that includes all the distribution and all those costs, but it's nothing. Basically nothing to give everybody clean water. So we're going to do countries now. We do countries at a time. Sawyer by itself can do all of Honduras in two years. Nobody in Honduras can have bad water. Everybody's got clean water. But we obviously are out asking, you know, who wants to join us? I mean, for 30 cents a person, why wouldn't you? So we do have the Sawyer Foundation, which is a 501c3. So anybody wants to donate to that, they get their tax deduction.

14:02And 100 % of that goes over season projects. No overhead taken out of that. Sawyer covers the overhead. There's not much. So, yeah, we're just saying anybody wants in, here we go. We got the filter. We have 140 charities to work with. So the big ones, you know, World Vision, FEMA, Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, you name it. We got down to the little ones. We got them all. Now you started the company, was it 30 years ago? Well, I wish it was only 30. It was 1984. So that'd be 41 years. Well, we saw the vision because we had the repellent, the clothing repellent. So in fact, we're just launching that now.

14:45Now, JAMA ran an article two weeks ago that if you use our clothing treatment on the baby wrap that the moms carry the baby in, we reduce malaria by 67%, two thirds. Wow. So now for$1.30 a year, you can eliminate the kids getting malaria, save lives and all that kind of stuff. So we're doing that. That's the other half of it. So we had that. And we always wanted to do water. So we began the quest. maybe the year 2000, but it wasn't until 2005 that we got the technology that we have today. So it's been about 20 years that we were into this kidney dialysis technology. And that really set it off because it's very inexpensive.

15:32Well, it's inexpensive to us because we do millions, but other people, they do thousands, we do millions so we can cover the cost. And, you know, in my book, which is to help entrepreneurs get better so they can join us in philanthropy, at the end of the day, you spend dollars, not percent. So we don't worry about the margins. We don't know how many dollars at the end. We repel, it's a very lucrative business. So we have a lot of money to give away. You know, this next 60 days, we're going to give away, I think, 140 ,000 filters just overseas, you know, and Everyone is going to do anywhere from 10 to 100 people.

16:11You've had this business 41 years. At what point did you start to go, like how many years into it did it take to go all in on humanitarian work? Well, we didn't really have the resources to go all in. So the starting point for us was that earthquake in Haiti. So we had just gotten into the new system we have, and we sent, I don't know, 100 ,000 filters down there. Some of them were bought by Compassion International. Some weren't. What's an interesting story there is at the end of it, it really put us on the map. So the Minister of Health and the president, they came in. They had 20 companies that got in the water business down there.

16:55And he went around and heard every story and whatever, and then he heard our story. Then he asked the 20 people, personally, what do you use? Every one of them said they personally use Sawyer. No matter what they were selling for themselves, they use Sawyer. So that kind of put us on the map because that's when all the charities who came there realized that this is the one. So that would be 2010. So that's when we knew we had to get into it. But we really didn't have the financial wherewithal to go all in like this until four or five, six years ago. We do three to five million people a year, just us.

17:35And well, with our charities, we didn't have this kind of money until four or five years ago. So we've always been able to do it, but we couldn't donate. People would buy it and take it for the last 20 years. But we built enough resources that we could jump in and donate a lot of it. What's the role of faith and how did really your faith shape your decisions with Sawyer? I've been a Christian from knee-high to a grasshopper, so I was always, always in. But I did, to be honest with you, I don't believe that you have to take the faith of your parents just because you have the faith. They have that faith.

18:11So I did my searches. I checked out the other religions and none of them really made sense. None of them take credit for creation. Creation is a mind-boggling thing from micro to macro. So I've always had the deep faith, not just innocently, but after studying and everything. So, yeah, that was very much of it. You know, and we use the saying, there's no U-Hauls in heaven. So why not? You know, maybe the last check bounce. You know, give it away. You know, God has had his hand on this company so much. Think about it. Our filters are right up there with the invention of vaccines or antibiotics.

18:54I mean, you can go into any place and wipe out sickness in two weeks. What else can do that? The number one way people die is bad water. We had to give you a little story in Uganda. A missionary goes in and he says, after a week, you don't name your kids until they're three years old. Why is that? Well, if they make it to three, we know they're going to live. If they don't, they lose a third of their kids before age three. Goes back with the filters, puts them throughout the village, goes back the next year. They name that birth because they haven't lost a baby since the filter showed up. I mean, can you imagine the heartbreak of losing a third of your kids to bad water?

19:35So how do you not do that? So that inspires you, and we have the means. So what else are you going to do with it? This shirt's 10 years old. I got new shoes last year. I mean, that's pretty good. I mean, I don't need the money. I'm not going to take it with me. We live pretty humbly. I got a great wife. She's not demanding yachts and mansions with a modest home. So why not? What it's like to change a life overseas and then do three or five million of them? How can you not do that? So that's a God thing. He's entrusted us with really a huge solution to world health. It's unbelievable. and thank God, you know, he entrusted it with a faithful person, someone who wants to serve God, who's on a mission to improve millions of people's lives, who wants to glorify God with everything that he does.

20:29And that's why everything that you do prospers. Right. Well, he probably wouldn't do it with somebody who didn't that, but I don't take credit for it. Because first of all, there's a God element, but I also have an incredible company and staff. So you can't sit there and take credit for doing this. This is way over my head. How are you able to give away 90 % of your profits annually and still turn a profit? Well, actually, we give away a lot more than that, but you can't explain that to people. So that's why we just use that number. I own the company 100 % sub S. So at the end of the day, every dollar profit would come to me.

21:10Now, I have a belief that I would rather give the money away than have the federal government decide what to do with it. so I try not to pay taxes. So you can do it above the line before it even gets to profit. So if we give it like we're giving away the 140 ,000 filters, that's a pure loss to the cost of goods sold line. That's 140 ,000 filters at 15 bucks a piece. That'll never make it to the profit line. Okay. So it doesn't get to the profit line. And as does research, we do a lot of research to verify all this stuff. So you don't have to make, I don't have to make a profit. I don't answer to anybody but God.

21:47So I don't. But when it does come down, we make a little bit of a profit because we have to keep the bank happy. But then I can give it away because it's 100 % my income. So that's how we fund the Sawyer Foundation. We take what does get down to the bottom line, pay a minimal amount of taxes, and then we give it away after that. So we can fund the foundation with that stuff. So you don't have to. We live comfortably. I don't need the money. Now, what's the science behind your filtration system and why is it such a game-changing solution in solving the global water crisis? Okay, I don't know if you're in your life, but this is the technology right here.

22:24And what these are, are little hoses. They look like threads, but they're so small, there's a little hole in there. So you send the water in to this and the water will get into the hoses. But nothing that makes you sick can get in there. the holes are so small than nothing, which is unique to us. Nobody else can make that claim. We're the only ones that have enough holes so small and not bigger holes. We test every filter three times. So we test it and we shoot through spears that are bigger than 0.1 microns. And if they get through, that thing's out of here. We throw it away because that's the key.

23:04At 0.1 micron, there's nothing that's going to make you sick. smaller than 0.1 except viruses, but viruses aren't really in the water. And then it comes out here. So we test every filter. Then when we put it into the product, we test it two more times to make sure the O-rings are set and there's no air leaks. And, you know, that's half the cost of the filter is all the testing to make sure. But how do you go to a village and say, you know, 90 % of you're going to be okay. The other 10, you're still going to get sick. No, you got to go in there and say, nobody gets sick. so you know those hoses where you sprinkle your lawn and there's little holes in the hose where it squirts out it's the opposite of that we're going to put the water into the hose before it comes out the end and that's how it works but but the real key and it's all on the website you can you know you go there and see the diagrams and all that kind of stuff but that's the key the key is that the holes are so small that nothing can get through it.

24:02The second key is that our hoses, and there's pictures of it, are so much thicker than the other brands that you can, in fact, back flush it forever. There's no end to it. If you tried to back flush the other filters with our pressure, you'd blow them apart. So those two things is what make it what it is. Incredible. and no I did not think of this stuff I can't spell science without spell check so no I had had people figure it out for us can you share like a specific story that really moved you with with what you're doing I'm sure there's thousands and like but just something that really like touched your heart because you've changed millions of people but like what is something that really resonates with you right now you know a child that you helped the family that you helped a village that you helped well you got to go back to about 2008 when we were installing these in villages just getting started even before the earthquake and somebody brought the filter to a to a village and the grandma was there and she just looked at us and said if you were here two weeks ago my grandkid would still be alive oh okay so how do you i mean that one just put the fire in our belly.

25:24Yeah, I can imagine. We've got to do this as fast as we can. And from there, I'm sure, you know, you've been just, this mission has just exploded. It has. And like I said, all the charities have found this one to be the right filter. And we have so many stories. There's a lot of them on the website. I mean, just the way it changes lives. I mean, we went into Kibera, it was a suburb of Nairobi, and did 97 ,000 homes. There's 400 ,000 people in 76 toilets. They would have what they call flying toilets. That's when they'd poop in a paper bag and throw it up on the roof. But after three years, it's nobody's sick.

26:05They're consolidating the medical clinics because there's not enough customers left. And the violence went away six years ago. You couldn't have walked down that street without a SEAL Team 6. Now you can walk down the street because there's not what's called water scarcity and water security. Everybody's got water. So they're not fighting over it. There are eight major gangs, and they're all peaceful now because we've changed the entire village. No, it's a huge, huge thing to provide water. Now, you've already partnered with 140 nonprofits. You've partnered with 80 countries already. Right. Oh, we're in the tough ones too.

26:49Now, what makes collaboration like this, when you're partnering with these large nonprofits, these large organizations, nations, how does collaboration even work and actually get a lasting impact? Because you're dealing with these big entities. We are. I mean, we have filters. We were in Gaza long before you ever heard about that being a problem. And we are in North Korea. We're in Iran. We're in Yemen. We're in every place that you can think. They all need water. So they're not afraid to take our stuff in because it solves a problem they don't have to solve. With our filters, you need no infrastructure.

27:26You do not need to treat the water, pipe the water to the homes. It's whatever they drink now that we say. So now we're on a progress where we are. We've connected with the organization called OAS, Organization of American States. And that's the 37 countries in Central, South, America, and the Caribbean. So they know every ambassador both ways. So they know the ambassador from Honduras to the U.S. and U.S. to Honduras. The governments are now saying, please come. Please come. So when we say we're going into the schools, the government's bringing them into the schools. The army is helping us with distribution.

28:05They got it. They figured it out. I mean, if you can take all of Honduras, imagine that. In two years, nobody's sick again. That raises the country's GDP by 10 % to 15%. People are happy. So that's how the governments, we've established enough data that they don't even ask us anymore. They don't even ask for proof. They know this is the one. So, yes, governments jump in and say, yeah, Peru, same thing. They want us. They know we can solve a problem they can't solve. How do you personally stay grounded when you're balancing philanthropy, innovation, all these different technologies, competitors trying to crack your business, just trying to scale your company, the issues you face, running up a profit margin when you're giving it all away?

28:55How are you balancing all this? Well, first of all, I'm professionally trained to do it. It has to do with your character. I was raised on a farm, you know, 13 ears of corn is your dozen, you know, extra tomatoes, cucumbers, please just take them. So I didn't have a problem with giving stuff away. But I asked God for wisdom one time. Just said, please, if I can have anything in life, give me wisdom. And so people will say, I kind of got it. But I'm not the dumbest tool in the shed. but it's it was kind of ironic because i was set aside and and with the smart kids and i was the dumbest of the smart kids so i didn't really have this feeling that i was smart but i'm professionally trained i got my mba in strategic thinking so i've always been strategic thinker and so this is this is not hard this is easy stuff you're asking god for wisdom and that's that's really where you point to for direction, right?