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Originally Posted by msjboy
Used such filters before during my camping days...what is the competitive advantage over existing ones say found at mec.ca.? Eghttp://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/MemberPicks/Travel/PRD~5001-239/msr-miniworks-ex-water-filter.jsp...does it work for places with like chlorea, ganges river grade water...
What is target retail.? Target market...reminds me of that fold away oven for cooking in 3rd world countries a few years ago.. I think a knurled grip will make product more intuitive and maybe add in a bellow container in the kit to prevent cross contamination of first initial pouring in the water. I think you will need at least 500k to 1m in initial funding opposed to 20k for the crowdfunding. Alo see if this local company is interested who is doing desalination saltworkstech.com on piggybacking their marketing efforts.
Good luck with the venture.
Msjboy
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Great to see you're thinking on the right lines! To answer your questions in order of appearance...
This filter is design primarily for developing countries and disaster relief. All of the filters that exist for this market are difficult to use and poorly designed, which has lead to them never actually taking off. ALL of the other filters designed for this market are designed as "poor people products" (as a guy in Haiti once put it to me). Who the heck wants to own a crappy, difficult to use product that reinforces your image of being poor? So we've taken to route of addressing where all the others agave failed. And this time, I think we got it right.
In terms of how it compares to a filter at MEC? Again, it's easier to use and the backwash system really makes a huge difference. On a recent camping trip to the Colorado canyon I took our filter along with 3 other comparable filters from MEC. In one day the the silt from the river had plugged up two of the MEC filters despite all efforts to clean them. The third only last three days. Ours lasted the whole week on the river and then went with us straight to Haiti after that. While we were in Haiti there was a Cholera epidemic and 3 people died in the village we were staying in the week while we were there. We had to rely on our own filter (my partner gave me the look of "I really hope this works" that first time) and we came out unscathed. So, yes, it kicks ass at Cholera.
Yes, the final product will have surface textures and marking that make it more intuitive. The prototypes in the video weren't the injection molded pieces but rather 3D printed, which can't achieve the same surface finishes. The product, when sold in our target market, will come as a kit that has a clip to hold hose in a bucket, etc.mWe have been debating those bellow bags as well (that was the who original idea) but we found that in developing countries 1) people will still mostly use buckets and plastic bottles and 2) it will be really hard to get replacement bellow bags to some of the locations we are going. So we designed the product to not rely on the bags but we will offer them as an add on in places where it makes the most sense.
And finally, yes, we are not relying on crowd-funding for our capital. We've actually raised almost 200K and have much of the rest already lined up. We are doing the crowd-funding mostly, to create excitement to shake the proverbial tree and see what other opportunities come out of it. And, should fortune be favorable and the crowd-funding goes crazy, then I don't have to raise any more money!
And yes, I know the saltworks guys. I was actually at an event with them on Tuesday night and they were advisors to a previous company I had that was developing a low-cost desalination tech for India.
Great questions!