782 Adam Bedford: Co-Founder & CEO of Sans

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, that 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. Let's go. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

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2:16Kara Goldin:Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show. Today, I'm joined by Adam Bedford, who is the co-founder and CEO of an incredible company called Sons, which is the fast-growing home wellness brand reimagining clean air and clean water with beautifully designed, high-performance products. As I was sharing with Adam. I had purchased one before we connected to do this interview, and I love it. And I'm a huge fan not only of purification, this was an air purifier, but also obviously of clean water and all the things that come around that. So I was very excited to hear all about that.

3:07Kara Goldin:But Adam's story begins in a place you might not expect, his mother's kitchen in Spain, where tap water wasn't as drinkable. I cannot wait to hear a lot more about that story and the reverse osmosis system decades before clean water tech was even mainstream. But fast forward to 2020 and the COVID time, That's when Adam and his co-founder, John, decided it was time. So Sons is a category leader on track to hit huge, huge multiples. I'll let Adam talk to us about that. But the design forward air purification and water systems and a full suite of wellness first home products that are launching soon are absolutely incredible.

3:58Kara Goldin:So, so, so proud that you have done what you're, what you're doing and also just making life that much better for consumers too. So Adam, welcome to the Kara Golden Show. Super excited to have you here. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. New year, new goals, and maybe a few new hires. If building a great team is on your 2026 list, LinkedIn Jobs just made it easier. Their new AI assistant helps you find qualified candidates faster so you can hire with confidence and start the year strong. Even better, LinkedIn hires are 30 % more likely to stay at least a year compared to the leading competitor.

4:46Kara Goldin:That's long-term impact starting now. And finding that right hire doesn't have to be overwhelming. With LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant, you can skip the guesswork and jargon. It filters candidates based on your role's specific criteria and highlights top matches, so you're not wasting time digging through endless resumes. When you're running a business, you need a hiring process that's fast and focused. LinkedIn's AI Assistant delivers 25 strong candidate suggestions each day, giving you the chance to invite the right people to apply and keep the process moving. It's a smarter, faster way to hire.

5:26Kara Goldin:And it's why I rely on LinkedIn jobs. Hire right the first time post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden, then promote it to use LinkedIn jobs, new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash Kara Golden to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Absolutely. So first of all, how would you describe the SANS brand? We're helping people live healthier lives at home and we're ultimately trying to build a brand that people can trust and turn to for products that do improve their wellness at home. It started with air in 2020 when everyone was all of a sudden caring so much about indoor air quality.

6:15But for us, it was always kind of the start of a multi-chapter journey where we wanted to really support the pillars of health across a number of categories.

6:24Kara Goldin:So you were, I read that you grew up in Spain and that's kind of what sparked this whole idea. Can you share the story? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm English originally, but I did grow up in Spain. And as you mentioned, the water quality is less than ideal in a lot of parts of the country. And my mother, without me really realizing it at the time, was, you know, I'd say light years ahead, several generations ahead of the sort of prevailing winds from a health standpoint. And she instilled this unfathomably complex reverse osmosis system that served every tap, every shower in the home. And you've got these giant vats of purified water because reverse osmosis typically takes a while to filter and it's breaking all the time.

7:16And I think at one point we found that we actually had an unlicensed service technician who'd been working with us for a year to keep it up to date. And it was just this very complex system to maintain. And ultimately it was great for the family. It was good that we're able to get clean water, but it was my first exposure to reverse osmosis as a technology. And I didn't appreciate, I think at the time, just like how good of a filtration mechanism and technology it is. But when we were building sands and after we had launched the air purifier and kind of looking at what to tackle next and water was a top priority for both myself and my co-founder, John, it was this sort of light bulb moment of, you know, we don't need to go and do a bunch of research to figure out what technology to use.

8:09We know that reverse osmosis is the best because I'd had this exposure to it growing up. So it became a case of how do we transform it from this thing that, you know, is a whole home system that takes up a ton of space and is breaking down all the time to a reliable system that an American consumer can put on their countertop, don't even require any installation at all. And And then, you know, sort of come to trust and rely on a day-to-day basis. So I felt that we had a bit of a head start in that sense. And the goal was just, you know, how do you package it into something that gets a consumer in the U.S.

8:44excited and ultimately gets them to trade a square foot or two of counter space and, you know, be willing to put it in their home.

8:54Kara Goldin:Definitely. So for those who aren't familiar with reverse osmosis, I grew up in the water industry, so I know a little bit about it, but I'd love to hear you describe it to our listeners. Yeah, absolutely. It's effectively a really fine membrane. So the way filtration works in general is you've got water or air that's got contaminants and particulate matter in, and you're trying to remove them. and the most efficient way of doing it is to pass it through a membrane that has holes smaller than the smallest of particles and reverse osmosis has particles that are fractions of fractions of a micron in diameter so really microscopic holes and all that it lets pass through is water and what you get on the other side on the point of ingress is all of the contaminants like forever chemical chemicals, microplastics, fluoride, heavy metals.

9:53And the reason I call those out in particular is because those are the things that your typical carbon filters that a lot of common water purifiers, water filters use, don't eliminate just because the holes aren't small enough. They're not fine enough. They're too porous. So it's really the gold standard in that sense without sounding like I'm trying to plug the technology too much. But I always sort of draw the parallel with, you know, think of a desalination plant or a water treatment facility. Those are, you know, large scale municipal facilities that we rely on as a society for clean drinking water.

10:31They're using reverse osmosis for the most part. So it's that kind of industry leading technology, but in a package that is usable by your, you know, your everyday household.

10:44Kara Goldin:So often people are putting the Brita's probably there or the Pure onto the faucet. Doesn't that do exactly what you're doing with the reverse osmosis? So without speaking too negatively of any of our competitors, which I certainly don't want to do, there's really just a limit to what the technology can do. So that type of filter, let's call it a pitcher filter or even a fridge filter, uses a carbon block. So it uses carbon in some form, typically activated carbon, and water passes through it. And this is where the size of the hole and the level of porousness comes into play. So carbon is quite porous.

11:29It's effective at removing contaminants that are larger in size. So it is good at removing odors and some of the drivers of poor taste in water, such as chlorine. But what it lets pass through, unfortunately, is all of those smaller, harder to remove contaminants like your microplastics, nanoplastics, fluoride, PFAS, forever chemicals, etc. etc. So you end up with a situation that is to an extent a little misleading to the user, unfortunately, because you remove the contaminants that made the water taste and smell bad. So it seems like it's clean, but you can't taste or smell forever chemicals.

12:12So it does lead to this sort of false sense of confidence in a sense. And the goal for us at SANS with reverse osmosis is to obviously deliver water that tastes great, but also to remove those hidden contaminants. And I think we're, you know, I'm realizing more and more as we're in the space, we're on a mission to educate folks. You know, we're realizing that there is that need to help people kind of bridge the gap between the decision they made and the box they checked, thinking that the fridge filter was going to be sufficient and the new sort of standard that we're setting as a society now that we are fortunately caring about forever chemicals, microplastics, etc.

12:57So there is a bit of a delta there and we are trying to figure out how to bridge that in a way that's sort of digestible as well.

13:05Kara Goldin:Definitely. I know if I was involved in a conversation a few weeks ago and somebody said, well, I live in a new building, so I'm sure everything is fine. And, you know, somebody else said, well, I live in an old building, and they've replaced all the pipes. So I'm sure everything's fine. So it's, you know, everyone has all these opinions. And I think at the end of the day, they, you know, look, you want to believe, right? You want to believe that somebody else's is watching out. And, and I think it's, it's, confusing to the consumer. It is, and it's so multifaceted as well. You talk to anybody in New York, and they'll rightly observe that municipal water quality is pretty good because it comes from upstate.

13:56And generally speaking, they've got a reliable water treatment program. And then you think about the last mile that the water passes through and the lead pipes of that pre-war building, the system in New York City itself, and it sort of undoes all the good to an extent that the effective water treatment facility provided. So I think the most reliable solution is sort of point of use, which is why we're on the countertop and you drink right from our system. But to your point, there's so much information out there. There are so many different facets that affect water quality, air quality. We're trying to kind of synthesize as much of that as possible into a brand that ultimately people can get behind from a trust standpoint.

14:51We want to be the brand that you turn to because you trust us and ultimately you trust the products that we make and it comes down to obviously product quality you know that we hold that first and foremost and we're really fortunate to to be using best in cast tech across both of our product categories but then also it's the the education piece you know we just want people to understand kind of the state of play and and help people make a choice that they feel good about

15:15Kara Goldin:so you launched the company with the water side of the business the sun's uh the sun's company on the water side of the business, and then you went into the air purification. How did you make that decision? So we launched with air originally. Oh, you did? Okay. Okay. In early COVID. So the initial impetus for SANS was truly that we felt there was this sort of opening in the market that just appeared you know as covid became such a prevalent force in everybody's lives you know you start caring so much about indoor air quality you're spending so much more time at home i and my co-founder we both started to examine you know the the choices you're making at home and it started with air just given the nature of the the times and we we struggled to find a product that we were excited to put in our homes that came at a price point that was also palatable.

16:18And it seemed like the industry was about to undergo a shift from being sort of a set of appliances that people had to use because they had specific needs or conditions, whatever it might be, to more of a lifestyle choice where you would say, actually, I'm now going to be conscious about purifying my air in the same way that I am about the food that I eat or the skincare products that I use. And the bet was really on that being the start of a wave that wasn't going to end. We were not trying to build a sort of flash in the pan, fly by night business that was taking advantage of the moment. Instead, we really saw it as the pulling forward of the awareness curve, in a sense.

17:07This was going to happen and then that moment, that black swan event, made it happen sooner. And we wanted to build something in the space that could really be meaningful. So we launched with Air at the end of 2020. The vision from day one was always to expand beyond that and truly be a brand that consumers could turn to and trust across multiple categories. So once we launched Air, it became sort of a dual enterprise of making sure that we could make the business viable, but also keeping one eye on how do we expand into the next category. And it became so clear that that should be water.

17:45Kara Goldin:And you bootstrapped, correct, from day one? We did. I will say that it was purely out of a sense that I think both my co-founder and I have of just getting started. And it felt like we could spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to pitch the business and position it and ultimately, you know, find ways to attract capital or we could just put one foot in front of the other and just sort of get going. And, you know, I recognize that it's easier said than done in a lot of cases. And, you know, I'm also the first to say that we both put in capital. It wasn't like we started, you know, with zero dollars.

18:30We were both fortunate to have some capital that we could inject to get things going. I had a previous startup that I was fortunate to take to an exit and my co-founder has 20 years in the consumer space over a number of different businesses and categories so we had a little bit of momentum that we could inject ourselves and the story we told ourselves was that we'll just get started and then we'll get the business to a point where you know it'll be easier to raise money you know you sort of knock down a couple of hurdles and then you go out to the market and maybe you find some capital to accelerate but then you just sort of keep knocking down the hurdles and then you realize you actually have a self-sustaining business.

19:04And maybe we could have grown faster. You know, you take the sort of the opportunity path and you could have grown a little bit faster with external capital. Or, you know, we sort of embrace the fact that we have a little bit of flexibility and we're sort of doing this our own way. And I look back now and I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to do it without external capital.

19:24Kara Goldin:Yeah, that's incredible. So you came from the software and ed tech side of the business. and moved into hardware and consumer wellness. So building a brand, education, all of that. What has been the biggest shock in moving into that space? Yeah, I had a moment relatively early on where I realized I was about as far from home as I could possibly be. I'd gone from B2B into consumer, from software into hardware, and even coming from the subset of software in ed tech, it's a very niche space that has its own rules. And now we're in consumer hardware.

20:14I will say that I think the advantage is that we had to get good at getting good at things from day one. and we did learn, it sounds like a cliche to say, we sort of got good at learning how to do new things and we didn't really have a choice. When you're talking to a bunch of branding agencies and they're giving you multi-hundred thousand dollar quotes to build you a brand book and multi-hundred thousand dollars is more than you injected into the business to do everything, you're like, well, we'll just figure it out ourselves. So we did get good at learning new skills, I would say.

20:59challenges, inventory is sort of what felt like an insurmountable challenge coming from the world where you can build the product in the morning and ship it to customers in the afternoon in the software world. And we were not good at inventory and demand planning on day one, so much so that there are multiple sort of stock outs. And at one point, my co-founder John and I thought it was a good idea to air freight a 20-foot container of air purifiers over because we were worried that if we went out of stock, that our consumers would just give up on us and that would be game over. So we spent on air freight a number that I won't disclose.

21:41It was a hideously large amount of money to air freight this container of product over. and then we you know we realized that we we needed to either get better at pre-selling or get better at forecasting and we we got better at both um but inventory i think is sort of just always going to be the uh the thorn in my side as we grow the business still

22:05Kara Goldin:so as you were developing sans uh you're meeting with agencies you're designing a product that is very design forward. But what were the non-negotiables that as you were building, maybe that you could have launched sooner, it would have been less expensive? All of those things that we think about that if, I mean, sometimes you just launch just to get it out the door, knowing that in the second iteration, you're going to change things. But what were sort of the core ideas that were kind of there that you were not going to bend on? Yeah, great question. Functionality, first and foremost. You know, we're a brand that makes products that, like I said, we want people to trust the products and we want people to trust the brand.

23:08and it's so important that they know that we don't compromise on product. And while we talk a lot about making products that look great in people's homes, and that's such an important aspect of all of the things we do from a product standpoint as well, it doesn't matter how good it looks if it isn't functional. So we were uncompromising on function. And in the air purifier, we have more activated carbon than you typically find, which is better at odor and chemical absorption. We use one of the highest grades of HEPA material which is kind of the air equivalent of reverse osmosis. That's what traps all of the microscopic particles.

23:51And we give people a view into their air quality. You can see your air quality in real time on the screen. You can see that it works. And we truly knew that we couldn't waver on any of those factors. And then when it came to water, it was the same. fortunately kind of reverse osmosis as the the toolkit means that you you kind of get best in class purification uh you know sort of out the gate and then how do you package it up um and i you know coming from the world of software where you're encouraged to ship things that break and and fix it and you know build mvps that just about get the job done and then fix it after you've got customer feedback and move quickly.

24:33I had to really learn that that's just not the right way in hardware. It sounds obvious to say it out loud, but you're sort of undoing this mentality of let's get the product out the door, let's learn from users, let's iterate. There's no such thing on the hardware side. It's like you've got to go slow to go fast. You've really got to take your time to get the product right. And, you know, we, especially in the categories that we're in, we learn that we have one shot with our customers, right? We win when we're able to get more hardware into people's homes, but we've got one chance to make the perfect impression.

25:08And we know that if we don't get it right, then, you know, if they didn't love our air purifier, they're not coming back for a water purifier.

25:15Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. How did you and your co-founder connect? We had a mutual friend. So one of my friends from Spain actually also moved out to LA and he had become friends with one of John's friends from school in Philadelphia. And we were sort of friends of friends in that sense. During early COVID days, we found ourselves spending a lot of time together and realized that we had this sort of bizarre set of complementary yet distinct skills. And John's background is in home goods, but all offline. So think retail, Costco roadshow, that sort of thing. Obviously, my background is all digital, but not commerce.

25:57And we found that because of that set of skills that really didn't overlap, I think we were able to go as a founding pair without expanding the team for longer than we would otherwise have been able to. So we were two co-founders with no full-time team members for four years, just relying on freelancers and agencies. And I don't think that would have been possible if we didn't have this set of skills that, if it's a Venn diagram, there's very little overlap. We were able to kind of divide and conquer in a really effective way.