763 Steve Booher: Founder & CEO Always Full

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show.

0:45Kara Goldin:Super excited to have our next guest here. Steve Boer is a founder, the founder, and CEO of Always Full, the company behind the innovative smart hydration system for pets that's making waves with pet parents everywhere. And Steve is no stranger to startups. He's a serial entrepreneur who's had five, count it, five successful exits. Crazy. Most recently selling his ag tech company Smart Apply to John Deere in 2024. Now he's turned his focus to solving a simple but universal challenge for pet owners, keeping water bowls clean, full, and fresh effortlessly. I love it. So as a pet owner myself with two Labradors who love to drink a lot of water and eat a lot of food too, it's definitely a problem solver that I've been able to add to my house.

1:49Kara Goldin:So Steve and his team have developed a set it and forget it system using laser sensors, triple filtration, and a mobile app that tracks your pet's hydration. I cannot wait to get more into this. I love all that I can see so far, but also just hearing about his experience being a serial entrepreneur. I begged Steve, you've got to come on and talk a lot more about your journey. It'd be a lot of fun. Okay, so let's start with, I guess, the brand always full. First, what makes your smart pet water bowl different from everything else on the market? So I think, you know, there's really two main features that set the bowl apart.

2:37The first is connected to a water source, and that can be either a pump that you put on a five-gallon jug or two-gallon jug of water if you don't want to plow it to your household. And the other unit we have is called a wall unit that has like a Breda filter that connects up like a refrigerator line, same line size, quarter-inch outside diameter. and then the bowl, the laser will sense the water level has gone down approximately five millimeters and then the bowl will refill automatically using that laser to look at the water depth. And the water depth is in a separate chamber than where the pet drinks.

3:19So it's not interrupted, it's shielded. So always full and that's where the name came from. and I was actually talking to an individual at a restaurant at a bar about the bull. And he goes, I'd buy one in a minute. I've got three litter robots from my three cats. He goes, well, I'd want it to be clean all the time too. And I went back and I thought, you know, that's a pretty good feature. Having it full is one thing, but if it's always dirty, what's it matter? And I sit down at night and I sketch on AutoCAD. I don't sketch on paper. I sketch on AutoCAD and kind of laid out, here's what I think, how to keep it full and clean.

4:06And so that's the main features is that it will keep full. And then every hour it flushes like a toilet without a drain. It vortexes and pulls all the debris through the filtration, circulating that water. So it's not no drain required, which is important. and I use it every day with two labs and I can go two to three months without touching the bowl. And I go longer than most because I like to see what it does when it gets dirty, which is not good for the pets. But they have two bowls. If they feel one's too dirty, they go to the other if they want. But that's the main feature. And I use it every day and I wouldn't change anything about it.

4:51It really works well and you don't have to worry about your pets ever having water.

4:55Kara Goldin:So is this a product in addition to being able to use it inside? Can you use it outside? Is there any difference in where you're going to use it? It's not set up for freezing environments and you can't let rainwater overfill. So if it's under a protected shelter where you live in California, you put it under a porch, no problem, won't freeze. But, you know, we consider doing a stainless version and add heaters. But that's a whole new level of complexity that, you know, we don't want to do at this point. Let's focus on the main product and the main user base, which is, you know, pets for in-homes.

5:40Kara Goldin:I love how you've launched your company with just this one SKU. And you're a serial entrepreneur. So I'm sure there's some thought behind that. But when you think about always full, I mean, so many times entrepreneurs think I've got to have a bunch of products in order to launch. But I love that you just had the one to launch with. I would imagine maybe there's others in the future. But when you thought about it, did you think that I'm just going to go do this and see what happens? Or like, what was the thinking? So, so really the, the story behind me engaging to get it completed. Um, my wife would take care of the, of the water jugs.

6:30We had the two big jugs that you turn upside down, they leak water everywhere. And she was in charge of it. When she left, you know, it's, it's my responsibility and it's a bad day. As she comes home, the water's not in the bowl. Um, so that, that was a lot of it. But then she had broke her arm and I had to start filling those jugs. And that's when I said, you know, we're going to have to get this completed. And the first step I did was doing an engineering evaluation and enough study to determine what we think electronics would cost to develop and use in production. And that's kind of how we got going.

7:09And I didn't know anything about the pet industry. industry. I didn't know anything about springing fruit trees and nut trees with Smart Apply. But, you know, an old advisor, he was 91 when he retired. He would always tell me, you know, business, 80 % of business is business. The 20 % is understanding the customer and the product itself. And having used lasers in the past company and all electronics and really, really brutal environment. I think that was a big thing too. I didn't even think, well, we might need more products. Now, I've been asked to do it for chickens, for pigs, for horses. And my response is the same.

7:52How many households in America have chickens, pigs, or horses? How many have pets? Well, I know where I'm going to focus. Now, we are making some options, like an ear guard. If the pet has long ears, they won't get wet. I did develop a 7-inch bowl, which actually took more engineering to flush than the 9-inch bowl. But we recognized pretty quick on that it was too large, the 9-inch, for small pets. So we did develop the smaller version. It's still basically one skew other than filters and stuff.

8:28Kara Goldin:So you had sold an ag tech company, Smart Apply, developed and then scaled it and sold it to John Deere in 2024. You just talked about lasers. Can you talk a little bit about Smart Apply and kind of what that was and why do you think it was so unique and successful? Yeah, I'd be happy to. And one note on that, too, that was our third technology. and our first contract was with Kubota Tractor Corporation. It was a very high-tech system that would handle ground maintenance and horticulture environments for steering automatically. Learned we weren't going to make any money, developed a golf course spray system, and it did okay.

9:17We made money. We sold several hundred units. But then the spray system for fruit trees and nut trees would take a laser, and it's a LIDAR, but it would scan those trees in real time, and it would get a point cloud count of the density. So if one tree had 100 ,000 points of density and the next tree was a smaller tree, had 50 ,000 points, and we would divide it into 10 different zones, but we would spray that tree based on the density of the foliage in the zone that the lidar picked up. And on average, it would reduce chemicals by 50 % for the grower. And every time it sprayed, it would inventory a tree by height, width, and density per tree.

10:05So you could literally zoom in on the Google Map overlay we used, touch a tree, it'd tell you who sprayed it, the weather conditions, what time it was sprayed, how many cubic ounces per liters per cubic meter. and if you wanted to see what trees had not grown over the last year or what trees are five foot tall or six foot tall, it'd show you. And it was really easy for the operator because we did boundaries. So when you pulled in that boundary, it would know the spray rate for that particular spray cycle based on the tree and what the manager would input to spray the rate to be. So very high tech.

10:45We got up to 450 deer locations around the world with John Deere. And we integrated that digital data into their row crop system called Operation Center. And we were the first company ever to take that digital tree data and put it into a John Deere digital system. And I remember my software engineers were like, why are we doing this? I said, trust me, the CEO said it's all about the data. And we did it. And that's what got us to so many Deere locations around the world. And then I announced that I was going to do that with Case New Holland next. And that's what made John Deere real interested in coming in and acquiring us before that happened.

11:31Kara Goldin:So interesting. So hardware is notoriously hard. You've been able to do companies around it over and over again. And when you think about Always Full, what were the most challenging parts of bringing this product to life? I think maybe some people think, oh, because it's smaller. You touched on this a little bit with the smaller bowl size. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be easier. One thing, one company I own, we did engineering services. We had 160 people doing design engineering work. and so it was always a project. No matter what customer it was, it would be a project. Okay, we got a project from Ford.

12:17Well, we got to get our team that's going to form and complete the project. So when I had the idea of the water bolt, it was just a project to me. We need software, we need electrical guys, and we need mechanical. And luckily, being in the industry a long time, I know the people to go to for the electrical. I know who to go to for the design. And it was actually my professor from college that did all the design work on this bull because I'd been in contact with him for 40 years now. And people find that kind of amazing. But I knew he was a good designer because he had worked, like all professors, most.

12:58They worked somewhere during the summer, you know, off hours. So he had a lot of experience. And what really helped me, too, was I reviewed every single part to every detail using viewers of solid models so I could review and evaluate. And I think that really helped, too. But my chief engineer, he's been with me. This is the fourth company he's been with me. And he still is under contract with John Deere. He's able to help me on the side because it's non-competing. My operations gal, she's part-time. She'll be coming over full-time by the end of the year. So it's like I'm getting my old team back, my old controllers back now, and that helps.

13:42You hear about get the right people on the bus. Well, I mean, we worked with these people for 30 years or 20 years. If I have an email come in and my name's not on the top, I don't even read them. I just don't care because I know that the people can take care of it who respond. And I think that was a lot of the reason why we're able to quickly and develop. I think it's a rock solid design.

14:07Kara Goldin:Yeah, you guys have done a great job. So what is the hardest part that you've had to deal with in explaining to people about hydration? Do you think people under consumers, I should say, do they understand that? I mean, before you were selling to, you know, the B2B sale versus now you're doing B2C. You're doing some, you're dealing with, I'm sure, buyers or will be dealing with buyers for always full. But in addition, you're dealing with the individual consumer. How do you educate people around the importance of hydration and what the bowl is going to look like if they don't change the water? I mean, all that.

14:56And I will say, you know, ag tech sounds sexy. You know, wow, you're an ag tech. Well, farmers don't like to change. And even though we had dealers, we were the ones at the company level that had to present to the farmer. And the dealer would be standing there, but he didn't know the system like we did. So, you know, and they're tough cookies to crack. I will say that. A lot tougher than I thought. But, you know, my wife is a pet lover. I've been remarried, and we kid about the questionnaire. It should have been on the questionnaire, is a pet family or is it a pet? Well, it was always a pet to me.

15:36I didn't worry about it. And if it ran out of water, it'd go to the lake or find a puddle. So she's really helped me understand the importance of their family, and that's going to be what sells it. But in our studies on, you know, it could hurt if they're not drinking water, it could be kidney problems, you know. And my problem has always been, even with my kids growing up, their job is feeding water to the dog. Well, is that a 50 % success rate of that happening every day? Probably on a good day. So, you know, just knowing that you don't have to worry about the pet not having water is a big deal.

16:21And it can go without food, but it can't go without water very long. So, you know, we try to communicate that. I think the atmosphere of the pet lovers know that, you know. So I think the hurdle of educating them on the importance of hydration is pretty minimal because they know that it's important for their pet to have a good water source.

16:45Kara Goldin:So the Always Full product has an app attached to it. Can you explain how that works for the consumer and why it's important? Sure. So the app, I think we had 12 notifications that you could set. But you can set the max water per day. And I don't know why you'd want it to not have water. Other than a max per day will also tell the system, okay, is there something wrong? I'm going to stop. And you can hit reset and it overrides. You can set a minimum water per day. So for some reason it's not drinking, it can notify. The bowl has an accelerometer. So if it tilts at all, it'll notify. if it self-corrects, it'll notify.

17:33So just a lot of things that, you know, I don't think people really think about until they're like, huh, I didn't think about, you know, if the bull tipped, you know, is it going to quit working or not? And I'd really think there's probably more tech in this bull than there was in the laser-guided spray system. It's a high-tech unit. and the app monitors that and saves that in the database. We're able to go on the portal where that data is saved and you don't have to use the app to use the bull. And that was one of my focus groups said, I hate apps. I don't want people to know what my bull's doing.

18:14I don't want anybody to know anything. But you don't have to. It's got error codes and colors that the LED will show. But the app makes it easy just to check to make sure the pets are drinking and if they're not, you can get notified. And like every app, you get 100 people, 200, 300 using it. You get suggestions and changes and you find errors you didn't find. And we're working through those. But for the most part, most people are pretty patient. And part of that's because the bull works so well. It's not like the app runs the bull. The bull runs itself and notifies the app.

18:53Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. And you guys have done a great job in building this out. So what have you learned about consumer behavior and habits, I guess? Because you're really one-to-one with consumers with this. So what have you learned? I want to say this politically correct or whatever you call it, but some people are clueless. And I will say about the ag tech, farmers are smart and they know their crops. They know their crops better than me. And a quick story, the first system we sold was an orange grower. He looked at me and goes, what the hell do you know about growing oranges in Florida? You're from Indiana.

19:41I looked at him and I said, I know absolutely nothing about oranges, but I know how our system works. But it's tough sometimes to deal with people that have issues setting it up. Even my own daughter called and said, that doesn't work. Didn't read the instructions. And she was at a friend's house setting one up, but I guess I probably set it up for her in her past, but she didn't read the instructions. And I made the instructions so you just look at the pictures and know what to do. But that's a challenge, you know, when you get – and all our tech support initially, it's answered by AI. We monitor the AI.

20:21We make it smarter each time. And I actually took a class at MIT on AI because I wanted AI to drive the support because we can't be everywhere in the world. and it really makes it easier to get the support we need when a person has issues.

20:40Kara Goldin:That's so interesting. So you're running all of the consumer, the customer service through AI now? Yeah, anything we get on any platform comes to one platform. The answer is generated by AI. We control the document that gives the answers. And, you know, it's kind of funny because I have a test site and I can say, you know, what's the bull dimensions? Well, if you don't have it formatted right in that document, it won't give you all the information. So, you know, it's just little things like that. And we want to make sure that when it does answer, it's not some, you know, make sure the power's plugged in and a light screen.

21:19You know, usually it's a little more technical than that. So, it really helps lower the, you know, the direct interaction with people.

21:27Kara Goldin:I love that you mentioned AI. I think that it's something that, you know, many are talking about. Many don't know what to do with it. Many are like, it's dangerous, not going to have anything to do with my company. But you seem like you're figuring out how to embrace it. Where has AI outside of customer service really helped you to grow the company? So I wouldn't say help grow yet, But we are looking at some new enhancements coming up. And I am not electrical at all. I've been always in mechanical engineering. But you can get detailed questions and then drill down even farther. And all of a sudden, you're like, okay, I know how we can do this.

22:15It's not as difficult as I thought because AI outlined it all. And so that's been a big plus. we haven't really implemented AI in the sales process yet and that's something that I'm getting ready to start working on you know we have data on how many visitors to the site every month and all that and click rates but I think we can get AI to make sure that our message is clear that we can say okay now we've improved the number of people that went to the shopping cart by 5 % because we use AI to help drive them there versus just hoping they go there

22:51Kara Goldin:so yeah definitely definitely when you think about innovation and uh maybe bringing in additional products is that uh something that you believe as a leader you have to do can you build a company uh sustainably with just one product or do you think you do you think the market will force you, I guess, to launch other products? I think the market will push us to do more products. And, you know, one thing we have designed, we just haven't released tooling, but it's a food bowl that matches the water bowl. So, you know, I'm particular. If they're both laying there together, I want them both to look about the same.

23:40And so we've developed that. We've got a mat that you can put down. So, you know, the pet drinks. We've got to stand to elevate it. So a lot of accessories, I would say. We had talked about AI-type feeder system. I just don't want to deviate from the core focus. We have talked with companies that have other products that we might at some point license and integrate. but right now there's one focus. Let's do the very best job we can on the water bowl, make sure people are happy and it works well. We are kicking off Europe and the UK and that's a whole new set of issues but it's just going to be Amazon initially so it's pretty straightforward in my mind.

24:35It's back to the AI. There's no way we could sell a bowl in Italy unless AI could say, I'll translate it in any language you want. So that's definitely a good example of using AI. But I'm not sure about, I mentioned chickens and pigs and horses.

24:58It's hard enough to learn some dogs are really sloppy and make a big mess. And how do you protect the system from failing in that case? Well, I don't know anything about how horses drink and what they do, you know, and, you know, it's kind of back to I'm going to focus on the pet owner and just water initially, then maybe down the road we'll expand that. And there might be acquisitions. You know, I'm not afraid of doing acquisitions. If that helps you to accelerate the growth, if we can get a brand that's well known.

25:29Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. That could be really interesting. I would imagine that making the app public too on TikTok and watching, being able to watch the different pets and how they consume anyway. So you never know, right? That could be, there could be something there as well. But you've bootstrapped and built multiple times. What would you say to founders out there when you're looking at companies and ideas? Obviously, you have to have a problem that needs to be solved when you're creating products as you have. But when you look at the financials, all these components of a company, what's kind of the big advice that you give to people?

26:21You know, the biggest is cash is king. And I used to think in my early career that meant, oh, you love money. No, you don't love money. If you run out of cash or a source of cash like financing, you go out of business. And I'd say probably every company I've had, it's when you're younger and you don't have many resources, meaning money, you kind of cash flow as you go and you go slower. You bring more friends in. but as you have more resources it's easier to scale it faster definitely easier I spent money on the tooling and getting the initial orders and all the prototypes and it took a lot of cash but going slow it would just extend that time frame and I'm big on we got an opportunity we got a window here we got to go hard and fast as we can because two years from now You know, there's going to be a competitor a year from now.