Dehydration is a Massive Problem: How Two Founders Are Turning Water Into a Health Empire | Ep 219 with Yash and Smile Founders of Dr. Water

0:00Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. I always like to have two guests on and we have two guests today. We have Yash, AKA Water Genie. And then we have smile. These are both the founders of Dr. Water, which I love the name and I can't wait to find out about how this name came to be. But Smile is an Ironman athlete, something I always wanted to do that I will never do in my life. And then Yash is an innovator in wellness and sustainability space. So let's just kick it off with what was the spark for entrepreneurship and then why this industry? Yep, definitely, definitely. First of all, thanks so much, Dan, for having us.

0:41Really excited to be here on the podcast and just you know a quick story about us right so essentially like I've been building brands across wellness and sustainability over the last five years I've built air purification solutions for commercial spaces then I sort of you know went into helping farmers grow sustainable agriculture so I spent three and a half years there raising money from the likes of USAID and, you know, sort of helping farmers shift to sustainable agriculture. So there was always that wellness component that, you know, whatever I do in my life, I want to spend that time and my effort helping people live a healthier and better life.

1:25And sometime last year, we saw how the drinking water is sort of a big problem in the United States, right? And also, US is one of the most dehydrated countries, like more than 75 % folks are dehydrated that that is where we sort of saw that you know we want to help people hydrate well which would you know have impacts across all sorts of aspects of their lives and that's how Dr. Order came into being. So Smile how about you I mean you're an Ironman athlete so why did you want to be an entrepreneur? Sure yeah so I think it starts way back even you know even when I was a kid and I was you know inspired to do something of my own and I have been you know laying the bricks down over the years for me to be leading that path so for i have you know wanted to work i have only worked at startups as uh at a very early stage companies for example in video ai which is the number one ai company revenue wise from india and uh and also i have been the founding member at a startup where we help 300 plus d2c brands increase you know uh help adopt video commerce solutions for them because videos were booming as we hit the pandemic and over the years.

2:42From a more personal side, you know, when I decided that, you know, I wanted, I registered for Ironman and I went through that whole process of training myself for six months. That is when I realized that, you know, okay, I was doing dehydration wrong for all these years. and if people knew what I knew from this journey and not everyone has to be an Ironman but if they can take some learnings and improve their hydration, their lives will be very different from a health perspective. Yeah, and I mean, I didn't know that so many people are dehydrated but I could see it though. I'm like a big proponent of drinking water but I have to make a mental effort to do so.

3:24I rarely see a lot of people drinking water So this is obviously a big, big problem. It's a huge mission. How is the experience then of launching a company all the way around the world? I imagine many people would think that, hey, I would love to enter the U.S. market. It's a big market for commerce or e-commerce. But I imagine it's not an easy feat. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, so from day one, like both of us, you know, me and Smile as founders were clear that we want to build a global brand because it also stems from our experience, right? Like I've done sales in the US, in Europe in the past.

4:07Smile has also worked with many, many B2C brands across Canada, US, etc. and uh it also you know sort of comes from the other angle that uh water is something which is so human right it's it's such a basic thing and if you look at the hydration and dehydration sort of stats like it's a problem that any and everyone in the world faces right and uh if you look at the from a problem and opportunity perspective like the intensity of the problem is much higher in the u.s like for example like uh most of the people either drink tap water or they buy plastic water bottles in bulk both of them are not good solutions if you're drinking any of these you need to stop and think whether you're hydrating in the right way because either you're getting tons of microplastics or you're taking tons of chemicals viruses you know fluorides chlorine like many many things that are there in your water so that is something that you know we sort of saw and you know we are building a global brand right like we sell in the US Canada we also sell in UK Europe as well.

5:12So helping families, you know, when we see these sort of impact stories, for example, like there's one mom in, you know, Austin, like she had pain in her legs, right? And you won't believe like just after three to four weeks of bringing hydrogen water, she could clearly see benefits in her inflammation pain, right? Those are the sort of stories that sort of move us, motivate us to, you know, keep moving forward, keep helping people hydrate well, because even if you look at the stats, Daniel, like you can consume all of the any, all the supplements in the world. It's not going to work if you're not drinking water properly.

5:50If you're not hydrating well, all of the supplement literally goes to waste. And which is why we see water as such an essential and overlooked thing, right? That if you don't hydrate well, like the entire body is not going to function well. And that's where things like hydrogen water comes in. So hydrogen water has more than 1300-1400 researches all across the world that backs it. It's been in the Japan since 1940s and what molecule hydrogen does is it goes inside every cell of your body and it kills the oxidative stress which is the number one cause of aging. Number one cause of you know inflammation, muscle recovery.

6:27So it has impacts across all of those facets and you know when both Smile and I started the company we were very clear like the kind of solutions that we want to build should be modern, effective, and healing, right? It needs to have a tangible impact that each one of us can see. So that was sort of the genesis and that's the motivation why we wanted to build a global path. I think people nowadays are more in tuned with wanting to be healthy. Like you said, microplastics have been talked about for a while, but they haven't at this intensity that I've ever seen that it's really being a thing that people want to try and eliminate or at least diminish down.

7:10And I think we really want to live longer. We want to be healthier. We don't want to have to say, oh, I'm getting older and that means I have to have pain here. I have to be a certain way. So this, it seems like a big market. So you have this incredible mission. You obviously have it very dialed in. You know exactly who the consumer is, how do you look at the go-to-market strategy or what has worked for you so far? So I think, you know, also adding to the point, previous question, like I, before Dr. Water, I did, you know, start selling in the US for one year and the channels that we cracked were, you know, Meta and TikTok.

7:57And I think going from a perspective that if you're in an industry where you already have a lot of you know inbound searches that are happening in your category the most effective channels that are going to be working for you are going to be amazon and google that being said these are channels more you know where people are looking for solutions but if you are trying to build a brand nowadays it's essential to be on be growing on meta and tiktok and preferably organically so these are some the to start with i think meta i think google and amazon are going to be the channels if you are in a category where you have a lot of searches in your category but if you are in a in a space where you need to educate people more and you need to you know tell people that what are the actual benefits or you will be getting from this i think it's going to be meta and tiktok that you are going to be adopting while there are also like you know strategies that are like way uh way fundamental that we don't use any of these platforms so one of the things that worked really well in getting uh you know billionaires to try our product was just simple emails so uh so one of the i email one of the you know billionaires from India and also Silicon Valley.

9:20And in just one night, we got an order from Nitin Kamath, who bought our product. He browsed our website and was completely interested in the category. And we also have had good conversations with him down the line. That's amazing. I was just watching this story about a brand that Joe Rogan mentioned them once and it just changed their business. So you never know, right? You never know who's going to want to try it. I like the fact that you're just you're going out there and you're trying things. How do you see social selling, not just live selling, just selling on social? I know YouTube just launched YouTube shopping.

9:58Sounds like you've already had success and tried with TikTok shop and TikTok live shop. How do you see this playing in compared to maybe the Amazons or Walmarts or their, you know, the Amazon and Walmart online? I think in this industry, and I have been in the industry for like three to five years previously at NVIDIA, where we were making video creation very easy in less than five seconds. And now, as we saw that TikTok did 50 billion last year from TikTok shop, that is probably the year one or year two of their operations. And they are catching up to Amazon really, really fast. i think the next set of big companies in e-commerce are going to be social selling first they are going to leverage the ecosystem of creators or be creators themselves be founder led brands which are going to do incredibly well as compared to the companies in the past so for example like e and adidas have been there in the market since decades but on was the recent player which with their founder-led brand, they were able to build a community around their product and they saw a gap in the market and they were able to leverage the founder-led brand and the social selling strategy through these platforms to be able to scale very quickly in a market that is very competitive and has been matured over the years.

11:22But they were still able to do it because of the differentiated strategy that this age offers. Yeah. And I mean, just to just to add to that, Daniel, right? Like one of the core benefits of social selling is, for example, like if I tell you, Daniel, right, like if you go to Amazon and you, you know, let's say go and buy a water bottle, like you'll see text written there, right? Like, you know, this bottle has been third party tested. This has done that. This has done that. versus if there's a person on the other side telling you showing you things which you really care about for example like this is our product right like it's a hydrogen water bottle where you can see the bubbles coming in right so it makes hydrogen water and it's a reusable bottle it lasts for around two years so you won't believe as a company we have saved more than a hundred thousand single-use plastic bottles and those are the sort of impact metrics that you know we really stand by because from day one we were clear that uh you know uh what our audience right like folks in new york folks in california they care about plastics they care about the impact of what they use right and i mean if you show that in a video that is much more compelling for to make someone like right compared to like you know just five bullet points on amazon yeah i for sure it's more compelling when i'm watching something because we're also so used to watching like short clips now i don't even read much i'll probably read two sentences but i would really listen and i would i consume more information when it's in a video versus when it's when it's written i'm so did you all create the design like when when you looked at the creation of the product i am always very interested about this because i used to be an inventor of things that never made it.

13:14And so I really love talking to other people who have created and designed something. So when you looked at the design of it, just the phase of creation, how was that process? Yeah, definitely. So it's actually a very nice question, Daniel. I love it because if you look at the hydrogen water space currently, like most of the companies are either selling very small bottles which is around 10-15 ounces right which is just too small right like you drink it once and it's finished or people are selling pre-filled plastic bottles or cans right I mean when we looked at you know how do we sort of help people hydrate well one thing we're clear about is whatever we give them has to be a lifestyle statement for example this is a tumblr that we sell right it's uh it's something you know which is very easy to use easy to carry it fits in the cup holder it's something that you know it's it's also inspired by stanley i mean you can clearly see because that's something that's very well you know sort of adopted by people in terms of design so we were very clear that whatever product we make it should not just be you know beautiful or scientific it also needs to be something that people enjoy carrying you know enjoy drinking you know they want to show it off to other people so i mean when we look at the product design like as i said before right like modern healing effective these are the three things that we stand for right and the design is modern the product is modern it is healing and at the same time it's effective so i mean these are the same product principles that we go by uh yeah so like we are constantly you know working to innovate on the solutions problems that we are you know finding in the market.

15:03So for example, you know, getting clean water is also a big problem nowadays. So this is one of our new products. It has a UV light on the top and also like hydrogen on the bottom. And we are the first ones in the market to launch something like this, which also filters your water and also makes it healing with hydrogen, right? So we are moving in a direction that will provide you, you know, water that is not just healing, but also, you know, it takes care of the contamination problem that is there in the U.S. and we'll keep making progress on this road. So how do you, I mean, sometimes it's great to be among the first.

15:49Sometimes it's a challenge to be among the first because of the educational side or the amount of education that might be needed with your product so how do you look at this in terms of being it sounds like there are others who are doing it but not doing it the same way so there might be some education needed how are you looking at at ensuring that you're educating uh the consumer so they understand what the product is and they understand the need yeah definitely definitely so um see we do a couple of things on the education side right like one is when we sort of entered this market like uh i mean sometime last year like we saw that there is you know there is a precedence of people who are already endorsing it for example today hydrogen water is endorsed by folks like dana white mike tyson it came on joe rubin podcast folks like gary brekker are endorsing it at the same time we are have actually partnered with doctors who play or treat nfl athletes and muscle recovery we're partnering with mma fighters right and these are folks who really love the product right they are seeing benefits in their own lives and you know as a country right like we Americans sort of see that you know sports is something that is much revealed right like Super Bowl athletes like MMA fighters and also that's the reason why you know we look to partner with these kind of influencers and athletes who can sort of lead the way when you know you're educating it and at the same time I I mean, see, there are other players in the market as well, and we respect what they're doing, right?

17:26Like bringing awareness across the space. And there, you know, there's a dedicated Molecular Hydrogen Institute that has been formed in the U.S. in the last decade. So I am, by the way, a level one H2 expert certified from there. So, I mean, we do a bunch of stuff with them. So, I mean, with the ecosystem sort of scaling, right? Like we believe this is the right time for the industry to sort of become mainstream. For example, if you look at the life cycle of any supplement, like protein, creatinine, these sort of supplements were used to treat patients earlier, but now they've become mainstream.

18:01That's the lifestyle for any supplement and we believe for molecular hydrogen, this is the right time for it to sort of become mainstream because of the effects of hydrogen oil. So, I mean, that's how we look at the education side of things. Yeah, sounds like you're in the perfect place at the right time. By the way, when I used to have a men's skincare brand, we also sponsored UFC fighters. The only issue we had is we bet on all the people that lost. So nobody really became if you can if you can bet early, it can really become something huge, right? Like, especially if you have you don't have a massive budget.

18:41But you it's hard to know who is the right one to choose. But I'm very interested in this. And I really I could tell one thing that is impressive when I talk to a lot of like hundreds of founders from, you know, billion dollar companies to startups. You know exactly what the product is. You know how you created the product, who the product you're marketing it to. you you really have dialed in the company which i think a lot of people if you ask them these questions they wouldn't really know who are they serving what does the product solve the mission they don't really know these things they're kind of they know maybe one but not all i can tell though and i'm very impressed by the fact that you all really have it dialed in i can see why you are the water genie gosh and and i could see smile here uh is you know is like the marketing genius as well so you make a great pairing of two people when it comes to co-founders so what what's a piece of advice around having a successful partnership i think like uh having co-founders who complement each other is very important.

19:58So there's this line by Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of Anderson Horowitz, that in a founding team, in co-founders, there is one who is the entrepreneur and one who is the innovator. And there is overlap between that the innovator also knows to do the entrepreneur stuff and the innovator also knows how the entrepreneur also knows how to do the innovator stuff so if you have that combo and you have the personalities defined amongst yourself that and that I am responsible for this and we rely on each other that you know we are going to come through on the the goals that we set or the expectation that we set and even overachieve that and some of the times the other partner didn't even you know acknowledge that this is going to be so big uh that is where the surprise moment happens that you know well we we thought that you know that x is going to happen but actually 10x happened um so one of the examples is that you know uh i was thinking that we'll be able to close our fundraise in about three months um that is how usually you know fundraisers take on a general timeline but we were able to close it within just one month even less than that that is the amount of you know trust and you know individual expertise that we bring to the table on entrepreneur and also an innovator side that we are able to you know move faster than other other companies that are out there yeah and just just to just to add to it uh i mean before i start daniel thank you so much for your kind words really appreciate it i hope we become the water genie and the marketing genius that you talked about um but uh coming to your question like i think that's one of the single most important thing you need to do as a founder to get your co-founder right because it's going to be a bumpy ride like i'm sure when you built your beauty brand like you've seen a lot of it right so um i think like fundamentally the trust part that smile mentioned is definitely ripe and i feel like it's very hard to get that trust if you just get to know someone you know in a very short time frame so for example i know smile for the last nine years right like i have seen him prepare for iron man like i've seen him you know go for like 500 kilometer cycling, right?

22:27I have, you know, he has seen me, you know, raise money from USA and go to COP28, things like that. So we have also built a company together before. We used to run a dating app, you know, back in like seven, eight years back. And now we've come together to start again. And you won't believe like one of our first hires in the company used to work with us together in that dating app. So I think that's the kind of, you know, I mean, that's the kind of network you continue building when you do the right things. And I think it's important to have that sort of a network along with you if you know that you're going to start at some point of time.

23:02Because, I mean, after a while, while skills do matter, it's more about you betting on the growth of your co-founder, right? Because you're going to grow together a lot in this, you know, period of the beautiful journey of building a company. So I think those are the things I would add from my end. Well, I can't wait. Maybe it's a few hundred million dollar exit. it maybe it's a unicorn company who knows right hundreds of thousands of units sold but i can't wait to see how this all plays out dr water i can tell that you have a problem that you're very passionate about solving which i think is so important and then thank you for thank you for sharing you know this the secret sauce on how a partnership can be successful and i really like the fact that you've known each other for so long and you've already done things with each other so you already know how each other works because i think that you know that can always be a pain point of a partnership but if people want to buy the product or they want to get in touch with you how can they do so i mean our dms are always open like you won't believe i mean i'm saying it publicly but i have my personal number mentioned on the customer support so if if anyone wants to reach out to us you can just call me directly but otherwise also i mean we're very open as founders and you know people can always reach out to us through x linkedin or i mean through the customer support as well so yeah so so our so you can find us at our website drwater.store that is drwater.store and we are also on instagram and tiktok that is drwater.club drwater.club that's how you can easily reach out to us.

24:49Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today on Founder's Story.