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.

John Roman

CEO @ BattlBox, Co-Host of ASOM

Experienced Executive and Board Member with a demonstrated history of working in both the consumer goods and technology industry. Strong sales and marketing professional, skilled in both D2C and B2B strategy.

John Roman is currently serving as Chief Executive Officer at BattlBox.

Read John's blog at:
https://onlinequeso.com/

Board Member

Glossier, Inc. just did what every overvalued DTC darling eventually has to do when the story runs out of runway.

Fifty four people laid off, roughly thirty percent of the corporate team. New product launches paused. Wholesale expansion pulled back. The company is choosing branding and profitability over chasing the next headline.
That is the part nobody wants to post on LinkedIn, because it forces a hard truth into the open.

Glossier was built in 2014 and mastered the modern playbook early. Community first, content native, product simple, distribution direct. The market rewarded it like it was software, not skincare. A $1.8B peak valuation. Two hundred sixty five million plus raised from top tier venture firms. The category crowned it the blueprint.

Then the DTC era aged.

When paid media stopped being cheap, when growth stopped being clean, and when consumer demand started punishing sameness, the premium multiple that came with the “tech company in beauty clothing” narrative quietly evaporated. The cap table wanted scale. The P and L demanded discipline. Eventually discipline wins.

Colin Walsh stepping in and cutting fast is the tell. That is an operator move, not a marketing move. Slow the machine down, protect the core, get the unit economics right, and rebuild from the skin first roots that made the brand matter in the first place. Smaller team. Narrower focus. Less noise. More control.

This wave is bigger than Glossier. Beauty is in a broad reset. Restructurings are showing up everywhere because the market stopped rewarding ambition without profit. Even the giants are trimming to recover margin and stabilize the business.

Brands that were priced on momentum are being forced to run on fundamentals. If your product strategy needs constant launches to mask churn, you are exposed. If your growth requires permanent spend, you are exposed. If your brand only exists inside a trend cycle, you are exposed.

The next decade belongs to the consumer brands that can do three things at once: build belief, run tight, and grow only when the economics say they can.

Just bringing you some hump day humor.
You are allowed to smile and laugh on this platform, I promise, it's OK.

Everyone wants community. Very few are willing to build it.

BattlBox BattlGames is five days of people showing up for each other, not just showing up for the games.

Season 2 just released. Season 3 has already been in motion for months because this is not a casual side project. It is a real production, and every year we push the standard higher. 

Bigger moments, tighter experience, more reasons to remember why you came. That also means one thing nobody can ignore.

Production is expensive.

The venue, the crew, the equipment, the planning, the logistics, the details that make it feel effortless when you watch it. Every year we invest more because we refuse to let BattlGames become just another event.

Sponsors help make that possible.

Not the kind that want a logo and a handshake. The kind that want to be present inside something people care about. Brands and companies that see the community, feel the energy, and understand the difference between attention and belonging.

Seventy percent of last year’s sponsors are already back for Season 3.
That is the signal. They did not just get visibility. They got connection. They met the people, lived the week, and left knowing BattlGames is something special.

Season 3 is September 15th to 19th in Watkinsville, Georgia (just outside Athens).

Sponsorships are open, and we have options for all budgets.

If you want to be present, reach out to Chuck or me, and we can set up a call.

People love consistency until it becomes inconvenient.

That is when you find out if you have operators or if you have leaders.

Cameron runs BattlBox's social commerce engine. He owns everything that touches it, including our Whatnot channel. Sixty-five shows a month. Every month. That is not “posting content.” That is live retail with real stakes and real pressure.

With that many shows, things happen.

Last week, one of our hosts got sick and gave us an hour's notice before showtime. No backup host was available for that morning slot. The easiest move was to cancel it or push it to another day.

We are on pace for our best month ever. Losing a show does not help that.
Cam did not look for the easiest option. He looked for the right one.
He stepped in and hosted the show himself.

Cam is not a host. He is the person behind the curtain, making sure the whole machine works, scales, and keeps its standards. 
The show needed a host, so he became one. 
No drama. No complaining. Just ownership.

That is leadership in commerce.
Be more like Cam.

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