What Did You Miss from WEFTEC 2024?

If there were 100 engineers standing here, and we had a few minutes talking to them, 98 of these guys would be wanting to use this technology!

That's what John McConomy told me - and honestly, I would believe him.

When you're building a water tech like Vortech Water Solutions does, the most challenging part isn't to convince end users and engineers of your superiority to the market standard.

The real challenge is rather to align three planets:

1. Get them to know you exist
2. Appear on their radar at a time they need to build or revamp their wastewater treatment plant
3. ... and at a moment when they have the budget to do so

I know nobody who's in love with his aeration tank's fine bubble diffuser. Yet, I don't know many more people who would even think of upgrading their approach to that "boring" step in the process.

(and trust me, I work for a piping company, I know how people disregard even spectacular improvements on the "boring" parts of their plants ??)

Cutting through the noise for us, the "boring" people, requires, again, one of the three following:

1. An incredibly tenacious sales team (I'm pretty sure John belongs here) - but to scale this, you need boots on the ground. The more, the more.
2. Luck. I wouldn't disregard it, but that's not a strategy, right?
3. Buy-in from consultants, that would specify the technology.

The problem with these people is that they live at the very rear end of this chart ??

As per Paul O'Callaghan 's estimate in his WaTA model, to get consultants (and engineering teachers) on board, you'll need 30 full-scale units in action and three companies active in the field.

VorTech's traction is impressive... but not yet 30-plants impressive. (I have no doubt it will happen; all this is about how to make it happen faster)

And that's where I think they do a slight marketing mistake

To Get the Majority on board, you need to catch the Early Adopters

And these people don't resonate with the same arguments and messaging as the water guys living in the middle and late part of the bell curve.

For their headline at WEFTEC (but also WETEX, other tradeshows, and their website), Vortech went for "Wastewater" with the "Waste" struck through, as this incredible model shows you on his t-shirt ??

As someone who picked "(don't) Waste Water" as his podcast name, this resonates on an aspirational level.

BUT is it a "scroll stopper?"

If you were walking the WEFTEC floor and its 1'000 booths, and you saw that headline, what would you think?

Maybe this is the name of the company. More probably, they do some kind of wastewater reuse - maybe with some resource recovery?

But would you think, "Gosh, these guys must be providing me a 25% TOTEX reduction over 20 years!" - or "They allow you to run your yearly maintenance on the entire system in.. an hour!" ？

I doubt it. You wouldn't even think of a fine bubble diffusion technology, would you?

Don't get me wrong, the messaging is not bad.

It would work for Xylem, Veolia or Nijhuis - but (in my humble opinion), not for VorTech at the stage they are today.

What to do instead?

First, who am I to preach, right? This is just my opinion ??

But I would try one of the following (from utopic to realist):

• Have a mini-vortex on the booth, with a magnifying glass on the side that makes you see the small and even size of the fine bubbles
• Launch a "Will it mix" video series ahead of a tradeshow (in the style of Blendtec's "Will it blend" ) where Sean Mulligan, Ph.D would try to mix in all kinds of fluids and gases that are not meant to work with old school approaches
• Add a (large!) screen on the booth with a very flashy countdown where two operators maintain a conventional system and a VorTech system side by side. Bonus: make the VorTech operator have a fun and visual activity while he waits for the other to finish his side (like: solving 1783 Rubix Cubes). Bonus on the bonus: have some VR headsets and let people do it themselves, at the tradeshow!
• Scale down the booth and give up on organically attracting people to it. Use the differential money to target every single person within 500 meters of the Convention Center with a Vortex teaser video (or gif) and a nudge to come see more at their booth
• Find a "pattern-breaking" tagline. Run a street survey, or poll the existing users. Anything that will sound unconventional could work here. It's really about hooking people (like VVater did on... me!)
• Install a touch-screen calculator, where people can input the size of their wastewater treatment plant, and the year it was built. Put a big "Run the numbers" panel over it, and show them how much time their teams have wasted on cumbersome maintenance (as they don't use VorTech yet), and give them a money figure overall. The next screen, obviously, is a lead collection tool!

That's just my brain dump; I'm sure we could find more/better! (wanna share your inputs? I look forward to your comments!)

Bottom line: What did you miss from WEFTEC 2024? VorTech, maybe, and that would be a pity... but I have your back ??

?? This week on the Podcast

... indeed, having shared a jam session with Sean a while ago, I always wanted to understand what VorTech does (and besides it featuring a vortex, I didn't know much). So I made it a challenge at this WEFTEC to pick 3 water techs I did not spontaneously understand and get to a good enough comprehension to share with you: that's how, beyond VorTech, we'll get to explore Vvater (with Michael Watt ) and BioLargo, Inc. (with Alex Evans )

On the agenda as well:

?? Aqua Membranes, Inc. 's Series B (led by Burnt Island Ventures ) - with CEO Craig Beckman and Partner Steve Kloos

?? ML applied to Water Asset Management by MentorAPM Asset Management (with Jennifer Zach )

?? My meeting with Kando 's STREAMi (with Ori Reshef )

?? PFAS Destruction with Axine Water Technologies (with Mark Ralph )

It's available on your favorite podcatcher but also, of course, on YouTube ??

Hey, if you like it, please share the word: a Like and a Comment go a long way (including straight to my little heart ??)

?? Snacking Content

?? I just finished reading Barton Thompson 's "Liquid Asset " book (and would recommend it! Full coverage is coming on a podcatcher near you in a close future ??).

One stat I picked up and wanted to give some exposure at WEFTEC is the following:

The Water Research Foundation (WRF) provides industry-related research for US drinking water agencies, but has only about 800 members out of the more than 150'000 US public water systems. The WATER ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH FOUNDATION which provides similar research for the wastewater industry has fewer than 200 members.

Which says a lot about the difficult path to water innovation adoption. Maybe because these foundations also have trouble getting their message across and breaking through the noise?

The WRF had a booth at WEFTEC but didn't want to appear on the podcast. My invitation is still valid, and you have my number.

?? We had a great podcaster informal meet-up on the Innovation Pavillion, The Water Entrepreneur Podcast has been faster than me in starting to roll out the great content they created in New Orleans, check it out !

Paul Gagliardo, MPH, P.E. and Anna Gagliardo are actually cooking something BIG. I'm talking of game-changing BIG for this sector. Crossing my fingers for you!

That's it for this week - if any of this is of interest to you, make sure to subscribe! Next week I'll open the book club (or we might be on replay; I'm... exhausted! ??)