Water Startup
Drilling deep to find an underserved market repositions a startup.
An environmental startup wanted to introduce a high-end, whole-house water filtration system. Among its benefits beyond pure, safe water, this system creates soft water using advanced filtration instead of salts.
Because the whole-house category is intensely competitive in every metro area, I convinced the company to wait until I found the right marketing strategy to launch. Finally, I found it: No one spoke to the 40-million households on well water. Further research showed that these people worried about the quality of their water—often for good reason. A pollution source miles away can impact a drinking well without the homeowner’s knowledge. The engineers tweaked the product design for wells. Soon rural markets will see the only high-end, whole-house water filtration system specially designed for houses using cisterns and well water.