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.

Step2StepUp Inc.

Founder / CEO 

CENTURY MACHINERY CO INC

Director of Finance And Administration

John Richard of California Inc.

Financial Controller

System Analyst

Vasu Pawar is the CEO/Founder of Step2StepUp Inc, a 501 (c) (3), Non-Profit organization
focused on supporting young entrepreneurs by way of financial support, training, mentoring
and guidance. Vasu is a proud entrepreneur herself, having engaged in various business
industries including shoes, ceramics, housewares, technology, and apparel. She also
owned two Indian Restaurants in Los Angeles. After having experienced the tug of war
between business success and failure, Vasu has committed herself to helping every young
entrepreneur in the nation rise and dominate.

In addition to Vasu’s passion for small business, she has devoted over 35 plus years in the
US, to the World of Finance as the ‘Systems Analyst’ and a ‘Finance Controller’ with
American Companies, like John Richard of California, Christina Grant, McKibben Screen
Printing, Thornwater International, Century Machinery Co. Inc., in the areas of
Import/Export, Manufacturing, Distribution and Engineering. Vasu has greatly increased
each company’s financial threshold throughout her tenure. Prior to that, she was a High
School English and Math Teacher in top schools in Mumbai, India, and in North Carolina,
USA, winning many ‘Best Teacher’ awards. She holds, a Master’s, in English Literature, two
Bachelor’s, Computer Science and Education and a Minor in Geography.

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ravi Kurani's LinkedIn Performance

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