Ravi Kurani

Solving Water at MySutro.com | Forbes 30 Under 30 | TEDx

Water is an underinvested market, yet it’s one of the most crucial resources we have. But I believe that through better storytelling and innovation, we can shine a light on the water industry’s challenges and opportunities. 

In 2014, I founded Sutro, a robotic water diagnostics platform designed to improve water chemistry and safety. I sold Sutro to Sani Marc in 2019 and am currently leading day-to-day operations.

Today, as President of Sutro (a subsidiary of Sani Marc), I oversee the development, marketing, and sales of smart water monitoring devices. Our technology is trusted by some of the biggest brands in the industry, and we are the only NSF-certified autonomous device for water safety. 

I’m proud to lead our team in revolutionizing how people interact with water, ensuring it's clean, safe, and accessible. 

🌊 Host of “Liquid Assets: The Business of Water,” a podcast about water through the lens of business, technology, and policy. 
➡️ https://www.liquidassets.cc/

🌊 Co-author of “Story-Driven Smart Products,” a practical guide to launching smart hardware products. 
➡️ https://a.co/d/1Bbd11r

🌊 Delivered a TEDx Talk on leveraging technology to improve water safety.
➡️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwuJnr-iWcY

Other Ventures:
⚙️ Leading the “Street to Home” project to address working capital gaps for the Future Communities Institute.

⚙️ Founded ImpactSpace, later sold to ImpactAlpha (the TechCrunch for impact investing).

⚙️ Advisor to various startups, including a software development agency (Incodeks) and a health navigation company (Juniper).

⚙️ Engineer in Residence at Future Communities VC, focused on tools to track climate solutions through the IRA (Inflation Redux Act).

Founding Member

Hampton is a dedicated group of digital-first founders, entrepreneurs, and CEOs of fast-growing startups who just get it – and make the crazy world of startup life a little easier to navigate.

I love Hampton dinners. Why? Because you meet some of the coolest people. It’s casual, it’s a dinner… we all need to eat dinner. 

I was sitting across Jeremy Johnson CEO of BoxHouse Co, who has sat in court for 86 federal indictements (an episode on this in the comments) to running a super successful prefab housing company. 

Many folks in the U.S. rent and don’t have the capacity to own a house, Jeremy is changing that. 

Making housing ownership accessible to all. 

To chatting with Tom Stefaniuk founder of SmallScreen, who understands YouTube and video to the tee. 

He’s built a successful influencer platform, and gave me some of the best advice for my water podcast, Liquid Assets: The Business of Water. 

Always good to see the rest of the crew, and thanks so much for hosting Elizabeth! 

I continue to say this. If you’re a founder. And you’re not getting out there. 

Do it. 

Meet folks in person, grab coffee, grab a beer.  Go for a walk, a run, whatever. 

Meeting over a table, in person, entirely changes the dynamic of connection. 

Humans are social creatures. 

Video conferencing is great for hacking out limited conversations but meeting IRL is a world in its own (it’s the one our ancestors used to live in).

President of Standard Water Corp | COO @ Poolify | Founder of Sutro (sold to Sani Marc) & ImpactSpace (sold to ImpactAlpha)

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We’ve been running a swimming pool route for more than a year. It’s had its “growing pains”, but we’ve learned a ton. 

2 things: 

(1) Pool owners are simple (we knew this from Sutro). They want to know that you’ve come, the work that you’ve done, and that the pool is clean (which for them, many times, means clear). Our motto: just do good work. 

(2) You need to build with the times. With agenticAI, how can we utilize clawdbot or other tools to increase our service level and take work off the hard working guys that are cleaning the pools. We’re coming at the business from a different lens. As product folks, just building a better experience. 

At the end of the day, we know it’s not rocket science. You’re cleaning a swimming pool, measuring and treating the chemistry, but how do you take an age old buisness - see it through a different light, and make the service better? 

We’re raising a small debt round with friends and family. If you’re interested shoot me a DM! 

Couldn’t be more excited to build Poolify  alongside Anthony, Rahul, and Partin.

Why was it so hard to get a lab test for your tap water? The business model was the barrier. 

I sat down with the CEO of SimpleLab, Inc., Johnny H. Pujol, to discuss why water data has been so inaccessible for so long.

Why?

Because labs were built to service government contracts & city scale developments. 

They didn't have the infra to sell to people at home.

Thats changing. We are witnessing the democratization of environmental testing, and supported by folks like Johnny! 

Dug this episode out of the archives, and it's a must listen, check it out. 

https://lnkd.in/e5vpc8ew

I sat down with Rich Sloan, a guy who went from Flint, Michigan to the Las Vegas desert to build a company that pulls drinking water out of thin air. New episode of Liquid Assets drops tomorrow. 

Rich is the CEO of WAVR Technologies, and what he's building is crazy. Inspired by the skin of an Australian tree frog, he's developed a membrane that  a wicks water vapor out of the atmosphere. 

No fans, no coils. 

Just biomimicry. Lina - you may want to check this out. :) 

Here's what stuck with me: Las Vegas grew its population by 50% and actually decreased total water consumption. 

But even that isn't enough. 

A semiconductor company recently wanted to set up shop in Vegas and was told no... they'd use too much water. 

Real jobs lost, because infra can't keep up. 

The next decade is going to be the Decade of Water. Full episode tomorrow, subscribe at liquidassets.cc

Most international water projects fail because they’re designed for donors, not the people using them. James Leitner and I sit down to talk about his work at MissionCleanWater. 

We talked about why we need to treat rural water like a professional utility and not volunteer side projects. 

Mission Clean Water shifts the focus from just building wells to managing them like professional utilities to ensure they actually stay running.

They provide clean water access in rural Uganda by rehabilitating broken infrastructure and training local communities on long-term maintenance and financial sustainability.

We also talk about: 
- Why "quantity over quality" is killing sustainability.
- Using mobile payments (the Venmo of Africa) for water fees.
- Moving from iron pipes to stainless steel to stop the rust.

Liquid Assets: The Business of Water episode isn't live yet, but hit the link below to subscribe so you catch it the second it drops.

Are you buying premium water, or just a cool bottle? I got to sit down with Clara Sieg from Loonen, and she pointed a glaring truth about the water aisle: 

for years, we’ve paid "premium" prices for great marketing and plastic packaging, not better water.

"You don't necessarily get a premium product for the price... I don't think anybody ever set out to fill the world with plastic... but now that we know better, we can do better."

In the latest recording of Liquid Assets: The Business of Water we sit down to talk about how water is not organic, how the beverage industry is just catching up, and what really is in your water. 

Subscribe at liquidassets.cc to get the episodes right in your email.

Alex M.

CMO | Fractional Head of Growth | Over $200M in Incremental Revenue 📈 | Aspiring Movie Critic | Angel Investor

Executive marketing leader helping companies achieve their next level of growth.  Successful at both Fortune 50 companies and startups.  Examples include: 

 📈 At BENlabs, I managed all marketing teams, created all marketing infrastructure, guided the company's rebranding and helped spear its transformation from an agency model to an AI tech-oriented firm. My teams achieved revenue growth of our direct to consumer business and the most ever leads from a marketing team. 

 📈 At Bloomberg Media I reduced paid media costs by 400% and helped grow it first subscription business from $1M to $100M.  I did this by managing all our media expenditures, hiring and managing our agencies and signing partnerships with the likes of JetBlue and Samsung. 

 📈 At TubeBuddy I increased revenue by 30% during my first 6 months by revising pricing and packaging and A/B testing our messaging and positioning. 

 📈 At Verizon, I managed go to market and used a mixture of direct response and top of funnel marketing to lead multicultural marketing for the northeast area.  My team was responsible for an incremental 300K subscribers. Along the way, I won an award for Latino Marketer of the Year. 

None of the above happens without thinking a lot about leadership, both of my direct reports and cross functional colleagues while caring a lot about the intersection of data and creativity.

Fractional CMO

I oversee all marketing for BENlabs.  A tech company infusing AI into the creator economy across content optimization,  product placement, and influencer marketing. 

I lead a 20-person team that oversees the whole marketing funnel, including, brand, growth, and paid media.

Some recent wins include:

1) Increased our organic views by 200% 2) Led the creation of our brand strategy and creative assets 3) Increased subscribers and revenue 30% YoY

We work autonomously, and independently with a NO BS approach.   We believe in being world-class because intrinsically it is the best way to connect individual interests with company ones.

Come and join us.  We are just getting started!

𝗜 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗜
𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁 $𝟱𝟬𝗞 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

That gap should change how every marketing team operates.

Creative used to be the bottleneck. You had the strategy, but production timelines forced you to pick your shots carefully.
That constraint is dissolving fast. 

Teams integrating AI creative are testing more concepts and iterating before committing real production dollars.

There's a real IP conversation happening here too. But AI isn't creating new capabilities, it's compressing cost and timelines so dramatically that it changes who gets access to high-quality creative.

If you're leading a marketing team and not experimenting with AI creative, you're leaving speed on the table. 

In marketing, speed compounds.

I'm deep in this space every day and happy to talk through what's working. 

Send me a message if you want to discuss how AI creative fits into your strategy. 

(Also if you know me, you know I love Mad Men)

Alex Montas Hernández

Growth-Focused CMO | $100M+ in Attributed Revenue | SaaS · AI · PLG

𝗜'𝗺 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀. 
The most underrated way to grow? It's not content. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵. 

And most marketers completely ignore it.

Two years in, here's the sequence I'd give anyone starting a service business.

𝟭. 𝗡𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿. Get specific about what you're selling. Talk about the problem, not the solution. People don't buy features. They buy relief from something costing them time, money, or sleep.

𝟮. 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵. Tell everyone you know. Friends, family, former coworkers, your LinkedIn network. It feels awkward. That's why most people skip it. These people already trust you. Let them help.

𝟯. 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵. Most of us don't have an audience waiting to buy from us. So you go find them. Email. LinkedIn DMs. Not glamorous. But this is where you learn what resonates before you spend a single dollar.

𝟰. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴. You could start here. Plenty of people build audiences first and figure out the offer later. But if you need revenue now, content won't pay your bills in month two. Let outreach conversations shape what you post. That way everything you publish is already validated.

𝟱. 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗹𝘀. Find people already selling to your audience. Figure out how to help each other win. Shared-customer partnerships are the most underrated growth channel nobody talks about.

𝟲. 𝗔𝗱𝘀. Dead last. Build the best landing page you can. Invest in your brand. Go all out. But only after one through five are working. Ads are fuel. Fuel without an engine just burns.

Content is what marketers reach for first. Outreach is what gets a service business moving. Stop choosing between them. Run both together.

12 years of scaling subscription businesses. These are the 3 channels I keep betting on and how I'm evolving them in 2026.

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