Water Legacy – Conservation through water ReUse
Presented by Michael Vail

A Boulder based company, WaterLegacy has a mission to:

Help every citizen personally conserve water without any reduction in quality of life

Their core product helps homes convert to the usage of greywater instead of freshwater for flushing toilets. To start the discussion, Michael surveyed the meetup group to how many believe we have a looming global water shortage crisis and the response was high.

Starting out with problem definition, Michael laid out some foundational data. Today water resources are being strained through population growth and drought. In the U.S., 36 states by 2012 will face water shortages and that many water resources are at the point of non-replenishment.

So, to start to build a grey water system, classification of domestic water use is in order. The types of water are white (fresh, potable), grey (originally used domestic water from laundry, bathing, dishwashing, etc.) and black water (human waste).

The next step is the reclamation technology to provide grey water to a home’s toilets. In order to address this WaterLegacy product is the only USA designed and built full-home Greywater reuse system. The solution provides filtering/disinfecting and storage of grey water, and claims between 25-60% savings of freshwater.  This solution competes with both German and Canadian systems of similar functionality. To provide continuous operation, the system has a fail-safe, automatic design. The systems are certified and must comply with requirements of potentially 6 different regulatory bodies in the US. construction

The business value relies mainly on consumer preference since the ROI is zero for the system which adds 4,500 to a house. This may change since water today is highly subsidized :

The full cost of supplying water in urban areas in developed countries is about US$1–2 per cubic meter depending on local costs and local water consumption levels. The cost of sanitation (sewerage and wastewater treatment) is another US$1–2 per cubic meter. These costs are somewhat lower in developing countries. Throughout the world, only part of these costs is usually billed to consumers, the remainder being financed through direct or indirect subsidies from local, regional or national governments (see section on tariffs).

An example utility Denver Water, charges for  block 1 water (0-11,000 gallons used) is $1.91 per thousand gallons for inside city/county used water.

WaterLegacy has 20 units running in production and are installed in all three Colorado platinum LEED certified homes. Their product is certified by IAPMO, the international plumbing and mechanical association. Along with growing engagements in the U.S., the WaterLegacy product is competitive through value engineering with only a yearly maintenance compared to other systems requiring monthly maintenance. The opportunity for grey water reclamation systems is presented as 40K homes in 2010 based on 40-50% green home constructions of 90K homes built in Southwest.

Bioharmony – Accelerated growth of biological systems
Presented by Steve Slade

The presentation begins with an introduction of the journey from research to biological growth experimentation to development of systems of improving bio-fuel production. The starting point is with Ortho-Logic, an FDA-approved company, which produced a product that accelerates bone mending through weak-electric fields. This technology is called electric field  ion cyclotron resonance (ICR) which works by applying a specific frequency to enhance calcium production.

The next part of the presentation went on to describe how ICR in 90’s produced research that engineered plant cells efflux through the application of specific frequencies.  This technology controlled the cell membrane’s ability to pass specific ions and molecules more efficiently by acting as a catalyst. Steve indicated this research has been applied to cell cultures, amino acids, and proteins. Research areas examined plant metrics where the efflux effects had positive influences on plant height, width, root width, cell diameter, and leaf length. A major success for ICR was demonstrated in orchid growth, Steve indicated greenhouses usually have to wait a long time for orchids to bloom (this can be 5-7 years). In orchids, the ICR technology stimulated plant growth by creating bigger (he just showed larger plants) and healthier plants. This also was demonstrated for radishes which have seen 20% growth improvement (stalks, leaf size and germination).

Bioharmony then turned their efforts toward another market – improving bio-fuels production. A very attractive area on size alone, the current market for bio-fuels is $100B and growing 10%/year (with government mandates incentivizing growth). Based on initial calculations for corn based ethanol, an ICR process can save 8 cents a gallon. The ICR system provides a number of benefits: reduction of capital investment (reduction of equipment due to improved efficiency), reduction in usage of chemicals and no retrofitting of processes (by utilizing magnetic fields on existing equipment). With the existing patents owned by the company, Bioharmony has no real competitors in this market. The current objective is to work with the 183 biofuel plants in the U.S. that produces 11B gallons/year, the majority being corn-based ethanol. The 2022 goals set by the FDA in the Renewable Fuels Standards Program is to reach 36B gal/year of bio-fuel production for the U.S.

The future for bio-fuels as far as the FDA incentives are concerned is cellulosic ethanol. This fuel currently is expensive (cellulosic ethanol is presently at $2.65/gal), whereas corn-based ethanol is only $1.65/gal. Again the ICR system (tested on proteins and amino acids) provides savings at around 25cents/gal by reducing enzymes and capital costs through accelerating enzymatic hydrolysis. Based on the same process, algae production can be improved and provide more oil. Interestingly, this process can also improve yeast production for brewing and increases the speed of flavor extraction.

MobileIQ – Routing Planning for Small Business
Presented by Chris Sciora

MobileIQ is a local boulder company that helps small businesses, employing vehicle fleets, decrease the miles driven. Another area of service beyond tackling mileage reduction, is to assist businesses that spend extensive hours (3-4 hrs per day) planning routes, performing this task. Chris provided a great example to visualize the dynamic nature of businesses that need to dispatch vehicles to address on the fly. He demonstrated a scenario at 2pm with 4 service vehicles, 42 service calls, 3 missed appointments, 2 emergencies and a 30 mile service zone.

The opportunity presented is large, presently at 900K small, local businesses with 20 million trucks for service and delivery, driving 500 billion miles with a cost $1 trillion. The target of reducing the miles driven by 10% is significant – 50B miles. The environmental impact for the U.S. would be significant, and also provides a large operating cost savings. According to market research, there is a overwhelming conclusion from business owners – around 79% agree that reducing the miles driven would impact their bottom line.

As a response, MobileIQ has developed an application called Headlight, a SaaS web application that allows fleet owners to plan their routes. This product provides time savings in route planning, from 3-4 hrs/day to 10-15m /day. Transparency is a great side benefit, allowing fleet managers visibility, management control and tools to improve performance. As part of their professional services line of business, MobileIQ consults with companies and works to optimize their existing customer routes. With an 11-step plan, a program of “route balancing” is executed that provides a set of standard routes optimized for business objectives.

Results of the product efficacy compared to customer expectations are significant. In most cases, surveyed customers had their expectations exceeded by at least two-fold. For instance, many customers did not believe they can reduce their fleet; however, actual results indicate that an average of 20% of vehicles can be taken off the road. Other results included a reduction of 27% in driving hours and a reduction of fleet miles by 41%.

The current marketing strategy presented was based on direct response marketing, essentially using adworks to draw potential customers searching for the keywords “routing software”. Chris based his rational on a number of industry precepts. One principle is based on Seth Godin marketing work, in essence  your business cannot invisible target potential clients who don’t understand they have the problem that your product solves. So, it’s always better to service an existing market then trying to create one. Another insight was to automate the process of identifying interested prospects and converting them into paying customers. Based on Michael Gerbin’s e-myth philosophy, IQ navigator utilizes Google to automate the process of identifying customers looking for route efficiency for fleets. Chris indicated they were doing well with this strategy, achieving a conversion rate of 18% of clients signing up for their service. Today they are paying $2.40 a click which has improved business with a break-even in 30 days.