The Fundamental Molecule

The 250-billion-dollar bottled water industry is a monstrous waste of energy, emissions, plastic, money, and yes, water. Ideally, it would not exist at all. Luckily, my guest today, Reuben Vollmer, agrees and has built Spout, an atmospheric water generation machine that provides ultra-high-quality water at the counter top, and all you need to do is plug it in. Reuben’s route here is one of my favorites. A California drought that put his family farm’s water rights at risk led to a rumination on a field covered in morning dew, which led to a single-minded determination to provide extremely high-quality water from air on demand. He is a card-carrying polymath with a background in everything from film to rapid prototyping to advertising to engineering. What he has built at Spout is genuinely amazing. Please enjoy my conversation with Reuben Vollmer. Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-moleculeFor the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205-----------A Chapman Film School alum, Spout Founder Reuben Vollmer’s career spans roles as a Creative Technologist at Deutsch LA and manufacturing manager in Torrance’s aerospace sector. Inspired by morning dew during a 2014 drought that threatened his family farm, he spent 11 years engineering air-to-water technology. His expertise in 3D printing and circuit design now informs Spout (formerly DewGood), a countertop device producing up to 2.5 gallons of pure water daily. Reuben blends imagination with engineering to provide a sustainable, independent water source free from plastic and pipes. 00:00 - Introduction02:20 - Making Drinking Water From Air03:21 - Turning California’s Drought Into Spout07:29 - Why Failure Is Essential for Founders09:13 - From Failed Prototype to Breakthrough Product13:39 - Building a Hardware Startup With Limited Capital20:20 - Creating Better, Cleaner Drinking Water24:39 - Pricing and Marketing a $2,000 Water Machine33:58 - Making Atmospheric Water Generation Mainstream37:59 - Balancing Founder Ambition With Sustainable Growth42:22 - Build What Customers Actually WantLinks:Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/Reuben Vollmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reuben-vollmer-a9314341/Spout: https://www.spoutwater.com/Key Takeaways:"I’m so used to failure. You know, if I’m not failing, then I’m not doing something right, honestly. And I fail probably nine times out of ten.""Nobody cares that you have a box that makes water. They care if they don’t have to carry three packs of Aquafina to their car every week anymore.""Focus on making a product that people want to buy, not on the product that you want to make.""The grander the vision, I feel like the more energy there is to make it happen.""That raw passion will get you a lot further than paying people. The paying people, most of them don’t care if you succeed or fail, they just want a check.""We’re on a mission to make the best water on earth, which I’ve never heard a water company even strive to do… we’re not settled just being better than bottled water or tap water."

My guest today is Nick Dyner, CEO of Moleaer. I've known Nick since the early days of the company when he became a judge at Imagine H2O, and he is one of the founders I admire most in the industry - and for good reason. He has built a fascinating company around the humble and very small nanobubble. No spoilers yet, but they are a revolution in everything from wastewater treatment to biotechnology. Nick is one of the best sales leader CEOs I know, and his insights on the commercialization process, the process of deciding focus, the communication of value, the gradual exit of the CEO from selling - all just excellent. But there's a lot more in here besides. Please enjoy my conversation with Nick Dyner. Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-moleculeFor the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205-----------Nick Dyner is the CEO of Moleaer, scaling nanobubble technology to improve water quality in agriculture, aquaculture, and wastewater. A sales-led CEO who values customer empathy and process, Nick joined the company in 2017. He previously built commercial teams for the water industry’s major players, serving as the first salesperson at NanoH2O (acquired by LG Chem) and holding leadership roles at GE Water. He understands the risk-reward tradeoff of adopting new technology in conservative industries. Nick studied engineering at Cornell University.00:00 - Introduction02:00 - How Nanobubbles Transform Water Treatment07:23 - Choosing the Right Markets for New Technology14:36 - Productizing Technology for Market Growth20:53 - Building Customer Trust With Complete Solutions24:23 - Reducing Risk When Selling New Water Technology27:46 - Scaling From Founder-Led Sales to a Sales Team33:56 - Building a High-Performing Distributor Network36:27 - Creating a Market for Breakthrough Technology41:26 - Creating Sustainable Customer Value at ScaleLinks:Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/Nick Dyner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-dyner-8394734/Moleaer: https://www.moleaer.com/SM MaterialKey Takeaways:"The risk-reward tradeoff to adopt new technology in water and wastewater is totally distorted against you if you’re bringing a technology to market.""Empathy is everything.""We’re really good at emotionally detaching ourselves from the technology... and really focus on process.""If I just sold you a nanobubble generator, you’ve got to go buy a pump, you’ve got to buy an oxygen generator, you’ve got to buy electrical controls. I just created work for you.""If the alternatives are better, we’re not going to go after it... you can’t trick the market for that long.""Ultimately you’re reminding people of sort of that bigger picture, which is: is the technology creating value?"

My guest today is Corey Williams, who is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in water. He has built and sold no less than seven companies, with his latest, SmartCover, selling to Badger Meter for $185 million at the start of 2025. Corey is one of the most thoughtful people I know on the art of sales, not only to utilities, but recognizing that great selling is primarily a function of listening and the accurate diagnosis of a customer's reality. His adherence to this principle of really getting to know people, taking their interests seriously - not his own - is at the core of why he's one of the most respected members of our industry. We get into dealing with the RFP process, building sales teams, the opportunity in the under-instrumentation of the collection network, and why sometimes the best management trick is to ask people to keep up - I'm not sure I could. Please enjoy my conversation with Corey Williams. Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-moleculeFor the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205-----------Corey Williams leads corporate business development for Badger Meter, where he runs merger and acquisition strategy. He was previously President and CEO of SmartCover until its $185 million acquisition in 2025. A licensed Civil Engineer, Corey has built and sold seven companies, including Optimatics, and previously led technology departments for national engineering firms. He serves as Vice President of the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and is on its 2025-26 Board of Trustees. Corey believes in building sales teams on listening and education to solve the problems utilities actually face. 00:00 - Introduction02:15 - How to Win Utility Buyers' Attention06:56 - Master Customer Discovery Without Pitching09:10 - Solving Workforce Challenges with Services14:19 - Build Trust to Shorten Long Sales Cycles17:06 - How to Sell Breakthrough Water Technology20:18 - Why Water Utilities Are Great Customers24:13 - How to Build High-Performing Water Teams29:08 - Building Companies for a Successful Exit35:07 - Exit Negotiation Tips Every Founder Needs40:22 - How AI Will Transform Water Engineering42:52 - The Biggest Opportunity in Water InfrastructureLinks:Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/Corey Williams Badger Meter SM MaterialKey Takeaways:“This market is unbelievably polite and we don't like to tell people ‘no’, but what you're competing for is bandwidth and attention, not dollars.”“If I'm solving a problem you didn't know you had, now I'm really competing for new attention, and I have to frame that.”“If you have something that has some merit, you'd be amazed at how much the utilities are willing to actually help you.”“If you take that feedback and make the adjustments, you really learn something if you listen.”“Hire people smarter than you, at least in the respective areas that you need them. And more important than just hiring them, let them do it.”

I am a big fan of Cala Systems. They've set a completely new standard for the heat pump water heater and water heaters in general. What was initially an afterthought from large manufacturers - essentially a marketing ploy that really didn't make much of a difference to overall water heater performance - Cala is a step-change in its $14 billion annually non-discretionary market. When you need a water heater, you need it regardless of what's going on in the economy.We talked to Co-founder and CEO Michael Rigney in Episode 24. It's great - check it out - but we wanted to do a TMF first and have a product lead on. Mike Ting is the Co-founder and CTO of Cala and has overseen the creation of a world-class product, up to and including setting up an entire factory twice. He's a super guy, and this is an insight-laden masterclass in building and scaling a product. Please enjoy my product-first conversation with Mike Ting.Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-moleculeFor the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205-----------Mike Ting is the Co-founder and CTO of Cala, where he builds intelligent heat pump water heaters that act as grid-interactive thermal batteries. Before Cala, Mike spent ten years developing consumer hardware at Bose and SharkNinja. He worked in the headphone group at Bose and led product teams at SharkNinja, shipping high-volume electronics globally. Today he scales hardware from proof-of-concept to mass production at Cala’s Wilmington, MA factory. Mike earned a mechanical engineering degree from McGill University and is a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen. 00:00 - Introduction02:01 - What Actually Makes a Good Product07:10 - Building the World's First Intelligent Water Heater16:24 - Scaling From Prototype to Manufacturing26:30 - Blending Hardware, Software, and Customer Experience33:59 - Why Installers Are the Real Customer39:27 - The Future of Smart Water Heating45:05 - Startup Lessons on Building Products That LastLinks:Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/Mike Ting Cala Systems SM MaterialKey Takeaways:“The biggest thing for me has always been delivering real value to the customers.”“The best products that you can use are the ones that you don't have to think about.”“At Bose, we used to talk about building products that nobody could have ever thought about before, but once they use them, they could never think about living without them.”“Never assume that you, as the product designers, the engineers, marketers, whatever, know better than what the consumers do.”“If you build something that's way too futuristic, it's a product people already aren't thinking about, it's generally going to scare them away.”“There just aren't contract manufacturers who know how to build water heaters.”“You have to be really resilient and really scrappy. Accept the circumstances and say, ‘Okay, here are the problems I'm going to go solve today.’”

The world’s biggest supply chains - cocoa, coffee, palm, soy, timber, beef, rubber - all begin in the same place: a farm, often a smallholder, almost always invisible to the companies that depend on it. That first mile is where deforestation happens, where emissions accrue, and where water stress bites hardest. Until recently, nobody could give large companies the ability to understand what was and could be going on at the foundations of their supply chains. Jinal Surti is changing that. After building his career at the forefront of crypto with Egnyte, Ripple, and Menai, Jinal co-founded Epoch in London in 2023 to generate location-linked intelligence - deforestation status, emissions, water stress, and of course, biodiversity risk - compliance for every farm, plantation, and processing facility feeding global commodity supply chains. It’s been such a thrill to work with him on a project of this magnitude, and as you will hear, he thinks as clearly about company creation, value defensibility, and the practical implications and opportunities of AI as anyone I have ever met. Please enjoy my conversation with Jinal Surti.Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-moleculeFor the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205-----------Jinal Surti is the co-founder and CEO of Epoch, an environmental monitoring, reporting, and insetting platform for the agriculture and forestry sectors. Global commodity producers use Epoch to manage nearly 3 million farms and plantations worldwide. Before starting the company, Jinal spent his career enabling global payments in emerging markets as an early employee at Ripple and a founding executive at Menai. Jinal holds an engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Harvard Business School. 00:00 - Introduction02:27 - Why Supply Chain Visibility Is Critical09:55 - How AI Replaces Traditional Supply Chain Audits16:57 - Why Water Risk Is Reshaping Global Business20:26 - How Geospatial AI Maps Supply Chain Risk24:54 - Building a Defensible AI Business31:54 - How AI Is Transforming Startup Growth38:50 - Crypto's Real-World Future Beyond Hype40:49 - First Principles for Building Great CompaniesLinks:Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/Jinal Surti Epoch Key Takeaways:"Cleaning up corporate supply chains is the biggest driver that we have not just for climate, but for human rights, for biodiversity, for water, for income inequality.""Just because a product is certified by some certification body doesn’t really evidence any difference... certifications just can’t be enough. You have to show the data.""Self-reported questionnaires are, by the way, also a huge pain point.""What really wins is context. The more customers you serve, the more context you have, and the more context you can use to utilize those models and make your product better.""You almost want people who can delegate the best and manage the best, because that’s what prompting really is, rather than somebody who’s really, really good at doing one thing."