Last Thing You Think About Until You Don't Have It/Brian Sheng - Aquaria, Mexico, Sacrifice ~ Spark of Ages Ep17 - Spark of Ages

Episode Transcript
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Rajiv Parikh (00:14):
Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast.
I'm your host, R rajiv Parikh.
I'm the CEO and founder ofPosition Squared, an awesome
growth marketing company basedin Silicon Valley.
So, yes, I'm a Silicon Valleyentrepreneur, but I'm also a
business news junkie and ahistory nerd.
I'm fascinated by how big,world-changing movements go from
the spark of an idea to aninnovation that reshapes our

(00:34):
lives.
If you like what you hear,please take a moment to rate it.
Your feedback is what drivesour show, so take 30 seconds and
say hello.
This is the Spark of Agespodcast.
In addition to myself, we haveour producer, Sa sundeep, who's
occasionally going to chime into make sure we don't get too in
the weeds with tech charts.

Sandeep Parikh (00:50):
Yes, the fact that I am easily confused is to
your benefit, listener.
So I'm very excited to ask thedumb questions that hopefully
lead to smart answers.

That's right.
We get to greater insight byworking together, so let's get
our conversation going withBrian Sheng.
For everyone listening.
Today's guest is Brian Sheng,CEO and co-founder of Aquaria.

(01:22):
Brian's accomplishments areimpressive, especially for
someone in their 20s Wait, what20s?
Oh, come on At 19,.
He founded Fresh VC while hewas still at Princeton,
graduated in three years whilerunning it.
All that fund's investmentsresulted in companies with a
total net worth of $3 billion,including two IPOs and five
other companies worth $250million.

(01:44):
Always passionate about climatechange, B brian actually wrote
his Princeton thesis onrenewable energy and water
infrastructure and during thepandemic, he and his brother
Eric founded Aquaria, developingatmospheric water generators
for commercial and residentialuse.
It's clearly an area Brianbelieves in, as he's invested
several million dollars of hisown, practically boot strapping

(02:04):
the company, and we're going tolearn a lot more about that.
And as water crises threatencities worldwide, innovative
solutions like Aquaria's arecrucial.
The UN's latest report paints agrim picture of billions of
people lacking safe drinkingwater, with the situation
worsening due to climate changeand growing demand.
This crisis not only threatensbasic needs and health, but also

(02:26):
fuels conflict over scarceresources.
Brian, welcome to the Spark of.

Brian Sheng (02:31):
Ages.
I'm super excited to be hereand also it's great to see that
it's a brother duo on thispodcast as well.

So I'm super excited to dive in Brother to
brother.
We're going to have a wholebunch of brothers into it.

B2B that's what that stands for.

It's also bot to bot.
If you're in the AI world,that's right, so really happy to
have you here.
I got to know about you from aperson named Sammy Hassan and
while I was at South bySouthwest and I was just
chatting with her, we were atone of those events talking
about climate solutions, and shesaid you, you got to talk to
this guy.
He has a really innovativesolution that can make the world

(03:07):
a greater place.
And then she actually has donean analysis on your company and
found it to be the leaderamongst 20 plus companies in it.
So let's start off with thebasics for the audience.
What are the big problems withwater that you and Aquaria are
trying to solve?

Yeah, absolutely.
Well, before I jump into that,in case Sam is listening to this
podcast, I want to give her abig shout out for connecting us.
But for Aquaria, I think ourmission is very straightforward
we are safeguarding access toclean water against droughts and
the effects of climate change.
More specifically, I think aswe talk about the effects of
climate change, as we thinkabout a sustainable transition,

(03:44):
most of that conversation isfocused around energy or carbon
footprint.
A lot fewer people think aboutour access to clean water, even
though it's one of the main waysthat we actually suffer from
the negative effects of climatechange.
So that's what we're trying todo at Aquaria is that we want to
use technology to offer afaster and more affordable way

(04:08):
to provide water in a time wherewe're just running out of clean
water everywhere of it, and oneof it is it's just going to be
much more difficult to deal withgetting access to clean water.

right, you think it's everywhere, but it's not
really everywhere.
Were there particular eventsthat caught your attention?
That helps highlight why thisis such a crisis, maybe even
beyond what happened at Flint,or even describing what happened
at Flint or what's happening inChennai right.

Yeah, actually I'm a first generation immigrant
from China and actually where mygrandparents grew up is a place
called Jinan in northern China,and it's also named as the city
of a thousand springs.
So, growing up in America, youknow, I used to go back to China
at times and one of the majorsources of attraction were these

(05:01):
springs, and I noticed thatover the years, those springs
started drying up and nowadaysif you go there it's unfortunate
but 20, 20, some odd year laterthat it's no longer for sure
that you can still visit thoseplaces.
And so, growing up, you know, Iremember my grandparents
telling me like this is thehistory and culture of you know
where they grew up and they usedto go play over there like
that's, that's no longeravailable.

(05:22):
Combine that with the fact that, you know, as I was doing my
own research, I I was thinkingabout okay, well, where are some
of the areas that I can makemost of the impact?
And where, you know, people arenot paying as much attention to,
and it occurred to me one, youknow, one day when I was I mean,
I've been living in SanFrancisco and around California
for a great part of the pastdecade and it's like, oh wow,

(05:42):
actually for a great part of thepast decade.
And it's like, oh wow, actuallywe have a couple million people
just in California alone thatdon't have access to clean water
.
This is not just a problemaround the world, in developing
countries or places that youknow are farther away from us.
It's a huge problem right hereback at home.
And so you know, kind of thesecouple of data points led me to
understand and start diggingdeeper that, wow, this is a

(06:03):
problem that is much morepervasive and also accelerating
at a much faster pace than weimagine right here in backyards.

So this is something that I can contribute
to, and this is something that Iwant to do something about.
Yeah, so what do you think arethe main causes?
Because of climate change, oris it because of urbanization?
Or is it that lakes andreservoirs are disappearing
faster?
Or is it just poor waterinfrastructure?
What do you?
What do you think this is?

well, I think all of those things you mentioned
are causes, but I think one ofthe worst things about water is
that it's it's not valued like.
We value every single commodityand there's a market for every
commodity and you knoweverything that has a price to
it, whether it's more or lessefficient, and then you have
which is completely worthless,which makes no sense.
It supports life, so it shouldbe like the life's most precious

(06:48):
resource, while, on the otherhand, water is like the cheapest
commodity and nobody caresabout the price of water.
And you know, because it'sheavily subsidized by government
utilities, as something thatmust be provided for, you know,
almost as like a right of life.
You know we don't think ofwater as its actual value to
what we need it for, and now,for the first time, it's

(07:11):
catching up to us.
Or we understand that some ofthe places where water is most
necessary, like here in america,would be like texas, it would
be places like arizona, but ifyou actually look at the water
prices, they're some of thecheapest nationally, which makes
, again, no sense whatsoever.

So it's not even economically driven right.
I used to take my son to theCentral Valley to play soccer.
Why, when you live in Palo Alto, would you take your kid to
Central Valley to play soccer?
Because they had 25 wonderfulgrass fields in the middle of
Central Valley.
Why did they have 25 grassfields and 100 degree heat,
which is super dry?
Because water was subsidizedthere, because that's where all

(07:47):
the farmland is.
So there's definitely amispricing in the market.
We would go far away becausethat's where water was cheap,
but it was actually being used,sometimes in inefficient ways,
because it wasn't being pricedwell.

So, brian, are you trying to take away my 40
minute shower?

Rinse and repeat is an important part of the
shampoo bottle, so I try to dothat as much as possible.
A lot of the water usagebehaviors, you know I think it
all combines together.
Uh, 40 minute shower.
Well, if people.
Well, someday, if you install awater recycling, you know system
on your house that 40 minuteshower is okay.
You know that 40 minute showermight only use two percent of
what you think you might use,because that water will then
recycle itself, then goes backinto your house and then you can
keep on using that.
Your 40-minute shower isreduced to now one minute

(08:30):
equivalent, two-minuteequivalent worth of shower usage
.
And that would be totally fine,right?
But tying that with theeconomic piece is that you know
it's not just about the mismatchof pricing.
It's because of the mismatch inpricing that you sort of have a
cascading chain of events whereyou know there's not as many
investments into improving theefficiency of water, there's not
as much investment into theopportunities in water, because

(08:53):
if it doesn't make profit or itdoesn't save you as much cost,
there's not as much efficientdynamics at play to make the
whole system better.
I'll give you a crazy fact hereRight now Mexico City is on the
verge of a huge water crisis andthat's been making the news a
lot.
But if you look at the data,mexico City loses up to 40% of
its water supply just fromleaking infrastructure.

(09:14):
It just leaks away and that'sthe same thing here in the US.
Same thing here in the US.
Most of our pipes are almost100 years old and just leaks.

So they're losing their water just because of poor
infrastructure.
I know in Chennai and inBangalore they've been told they
can't build apartments or flatsor condos, homes, because
there's just not enough watersupply to guarantee it.
So over there they use gasolineto bring water to you.
They have water trucks that goand bring these things to you.

(09:44):
Incredible and as the trucksdrive by they're leaking water
the whole time, so it's oh yeah.

I feel like it's also an issue with feedback in
terms of, like our water usage.
It's not in front of your faceall the time that you're, you
know, leaking water.
You have to take some sort ofextra steps to like to determine
whether or not you have leakypipes and stuff like that.
If we had sort of more systemsthat allowed you to see visibly
that, hey, you are using thismuch water all the time and that

(10:10):
you are currently leaking water, then wouldn't we be more
responsive into solving thatproblem.

I agree.
Again, I would say thatpartially, this has to do with
the perverse incentives here.
Actually, if you go to Bolinas,you drive into Bolinas, bolinas
, at the front of town there'sactually this meter that tells
you like, hey, this is where ourwater supply stands today, and
you know, green, yellow, orange,red, and, and that's because,
for bolinas, water has becomesuch a huge problem that it's

(10:38):
like, hey guys, we gotta look atthis or we're really, really,
really screwed.
But that's not the case forlots of other places.
This incentives just aren'tthere.
You know, like sandy, if Iwould ask you like would you
notice if your water bill wentup by like I don't know 200?
Right, yeah, that's probably.
Yes, you're right, right, butbut by the time you notice that
thing going up by 200, itprobably should have went up by

(11:01):
like two thousand dollars.
You know, the equivalent forthat much energy leakage for
your bill would have been anorder of magnitude higher.

So the economics don't work.
It's a broken infrastructure.
But then, with all that, thewater not being valued as much
you saw an opportunity right,and that's why you started
Aquaria.
Tell us about the company andwhat it's doing, why it's
special, why it's interesting.

What I am looking to build with Aquaria is
unlocking a completely newsource of water.
If we look at history sinceMesopotamia, all civilization
have always been built aroundphysical bodies of water and
then, as we advancedcivilization and had additional
abilities, then we built systemsand networks of transportation
that allowed us to move waterfrom standing bodies to now have

(11:46):
a network of distributed waterwhich, I think, again, we are
sitting on one of the biggestnetworks here, right here in
california, right.
But now that, as we have donethat, which allowed us to
massively expand geographicallyand, you know, build all across,
all over a number of places,the problem is that, with the
types of water problems and thefrequency of water problems

(12:07):
arising, this model no longerworks.
This model is based off of thisbig central infrastructure that
is CapEx, heavy, and then youkind of build this big system
outwards of transportation.
So with Aquaria, we want toskip all over that, because we
think that model is not flexibleenough, takes too long and

(12:27):
takes too much capital as well.
That's not to say that thatmodel doesn't have this use case
, it's just that we need moreoptions and by using atmosphere
water generator where air isomnipresent, we are providing a
totally new option that skipsover the time and capital needs
and just directly place themalmost anywhere anytime.

(12:48):
It's almost like adecentralized or distributed
model of water, and that's whereI see a huge opportunity.

Can you take me through what this thing looks
like that converts air intowater?
What does that look like?
How do I get?

one.
Well, if some of you like one,I'll send you one.
All you got to do is host apodcast oh my gosh, we solved it
.

Just get Brian on your podcast.
We're going to do that foreverything we want.

I'm going to have a.

Porsche podcast.
That's a great question for allour audience members.
You can go on our website rightnow.
We're live.
This is something we'redeploying today and helping
people across America get accessto water.
You can think of us like as thetesla battery packs of water.
Like we have small units, wehave big units.
Our smallest unit is like anindoor unit that you just plug

(13:33):
into the wall in your garage, onyour balcony, and that unit can
produce up to 24 gallons ofwater a day, so enough to supply
all your cooking drinking,whether it's your, your home or
you know office and whatnot.
And then we have a larger unitthat can link together, like the
mega packs or the power packs,and create way larger amounts of
water in the hundreds,thousands and tens of thousands

(13:55):
of gallons per unit.
They're just boxes, large boxes, small boxes connected to the
other.

Use them standalone and so you can get
one of these units today offtheir website.

Or by hosting a podcast.

Or by hosting a podcast.

There's zero options.

But I think what's interesting about it is that
there's some interestingtechnology that you've put into
this.
There's 20 other companiesdoing atmospheric water
generation, doing somethingwhere they're using a desiccant
right, which is, you know, likethose little packs you get
inside your you know when youget a new suitcase a briefcase,
those little silica packs, yep,or you're doing kind of like a

(14:31):
dehumidifier, like an airconditioner, but is that, is it
that?
Or is it something even moreinteresting or even special
about how it all comes together?

I think it's all of the above and even more.
You know there's many differenttechniques to get water out of
the air.
The analogy I like to make islike you're building a
high-performance car and there'sa variety of different ways
that you can do that.
At least the first step, justthe first step alone, requires
you to do all of the above, suchas reducing the weight of the

(15:00):
car, building a more powerfulengine, designing the shape of
the car so that it'saerodynamically sound.
And that encompasses what ourcore technology is composed of
is.
We've built special highthermoconductive materials,
We've built heat exchange andrecovery systems and we've
designed the airflow and thefluid dynamics of how we
actually capture and condensethe air in the machine as it

(15:24):
flows through the internalworkings of the machine, so that
all of it is for the purpose ofmaximizing active or passive
heat exchange, which results inmaximum water capture.
And so that's just in step oneof what we have built.
And in that first step it'salready involved material
science, it's already involvedcondensation, heat exchange.

(15:44):
It's already involvedmechanical design for
aerodynamic water capture.
So all of that encompasses stepone.
And as we think aboutfurthering along, it's like
again, keep on pushingadditional techniques that
allows us to build this forhigher performance car coolant.

One of the interesting parts about what
you're doing at Aquaria right isthat it's a system dynamics
solution, as you talked aboutright, where you're combining
multiple technologies together,multiple techniques, so there's
a lot more to it that enablesyou to get, I think a 25% is a
minimum level of humidity whichis actually well suited to most
locations around the world,except for maybe, the Phoenix

(16:23):
Desert in the summer locationsaround the world, except for
maybe the Phoenix desert in thesummer, but everywhere else in
the world is possible.
You have units that can produceeither small or at scale, and
the cool part about it is youcan move those units around,
which a lot of systems can't do.
They're usually just fixed inone place, whereas you guys can
move it around, which has atremendous potential.

Yeah, absolutely.
When we first started looking atdeveloping the Aquarius system,
I took a very practicalapproach in thinking through
well, what are the differentapproaches, what are the pros
and cons of each approach?
Like, for example, there aregreat research teams at many
universities around the worldthat are doing some type of
atmosphere or water captureresearch, like Berkeley with

(17:00):
Professor Yagi or Camp JulieUniversity in the Middle East,
and there are pros and cons toeach approach.
For example, with desiccantmaterials, while you can make,
let's say, x gallons of waterper cubic meter, there are some
scaling factors that doesn'tallow it to scale infinitely or
as high volume as possible.
So when we think about whatAquaria is trying to do, there

(17:23):
are two key metrics.
So when we think about whatAquaria is trying to do, there
are two key metrics, and ourguiding North Star KPIs are you
know, what is the highest waterproduction density we can
achieve and what is the highestenergy efficiency that we can
produce at, so that you knowultimately, as we continue to
build out of the company andscale our technology, one day
that we can power entire citieswith energy from the sun and

(17:45):
then water from the sky, andthat's how we think about
combining these differenttechniques so that we can
achieve those results.

Okay, this sounds awesome and right at my.
I mean I want to wear like abackpack at this point and hike
around.
I'm just curious about so rightnow, who is like your customer
profile, like who's buying this?
How much does it cost?
What's your sort of costanalysis for Aquarius solution?

It's.
It sounds really expensive.
I'm running like this reallyefficient air conditioner all
the time.
I'm going to be spending a lotof money.

Yeah, so right now our product starts at $3,000.

Wow, that's actually pretty reasonable.

I think $3,000 right now.
We can pay back our unitanywhere from I guess it depends
on how many people drink waterfrom it For one of my investors

(18:48):
who put it in their office, Iwould assume depending on what
you're consuming.
So then you can pay back thatcalculation just because our
water is produced at a couplepennies per gallon, depending on
where you're at line, dependingon where you're at.

(19:09):
And then for our larger units,our customers for our systems
are primarily builders,developers, homeowners, like
building owners, because thebuilding owners, rajiv, like you
mentioned that in Chennai Ithink you mentioned that
apartments and condos andbuildings and all can be built.
Actually those are our samecustomers in the US.
It's developers and buildersthat need to secure a water
supply and we're providing theoption.

It's interesting.
I mean, I think one of thepoints of it.
By the way, I'm being playfulabout the expensive costs, so I
did a little bit of math.
So here's a math lesson.
From what I read, the averageperson uses between 60 to 100
gallons a day.
Not with standing sunbeams, 40minute showers.

It takes a while to look this.
Good is all I'm saying.
It takes a lot of time.

They buy one of your 250 gallon units.
I think that uses 11 kilowatts.
From what I understand, lookingat your site and at the Palo
Alto energy rate, which ishigher than most of the nation,
that's 22 cents per kilowatthour.
That cost me $2.42.
That's my math.

Okay.
So it's kind of like you'redoing it's almost like a solar
panel calculation, you know when, like people are deciding
should I get solar or not, andit's like, oh, this will pay
itself off in 15 months, kind ofa thing.

Actually, I would say that it's not quite the same
yet, because I would say thatyou know it's going to be
dependent on where you are inthe country Because, for example
, if you currently already havea stable and clean tap water
connection, like if you live inNew York or San Francisco that

(20:44):
water is actually quite cheap.
It's actually quite cheap.
Where we really make economicsense is in areas of the country
which could be at just one hournorth of San Francisco where
there's actually significantwater problems.
It could be contamination, itcould be other types of problems
, and so you're spending moneyon things like digging a well or

(21:04):
other things.
That is apart from yourmunicipal water, and that's
where our calculations come in,that we could justify that I
think the San Francisco and NewYork City world do have pretty
good and clean and cheap water,and so in these places it's just
probably that the calculationwill be against bottled water or
mineral water, but that costmakes sense.

I think this is part of your go-to-market right
and your market targeting, whichI'd love to learn more about.
So if you're in, San Franciscoand you have, you know, hetch,
hetchy water, right Stuff thatcomes from the Sierras.
We've already piped it, createdit, created all these
reservoirs.
We've already paid all theupfront costs.
We're getting it at fairly lowcost.
So you probably aren't going topay for watering your lawn or

(21:50):
growing your crops using yourtechnology.
But you are in maybe someplaces in Central Valley where
the water is not clean.
You know, there's lead pipes orcontaminated water sources or
all these places where you can'tbuild, where this is really
interesting, or maybe there'sjust places like I think you
guys have one in Hawaii, whereit's too difficult to put up a
plant.

I think of it as like a you know, like a pyramid
of value proposition.
Right, like?
Everybody needs water, peopleneed water, you know, animals
need water, plants need water,everything needs water.
So then, but then the waterbeing supplied to different
people or targets, at differentareas, at their respective order
of value.
And so we're starting off withthe highest value areas and the

(22:30):
highest value problems,especially in a world where
renewable energy is gettingcheaper and cheaper, if not
super, super affordable.
Then we start off there, and aswe continue to decrease the
cost of this technology, thenwe're able to move down the
chain and offer it to more andmore people, starting with,
today, bottled water.

(22:51):
Anywhere that uses packagedwater, we are already cheaper
than, and then anywhere that'strying to build infrastructure,
we're also faster and cheaperthan those alternative
infrastructure.

Now, of course, you're talking to a marketer and
I really care aboutgo-to-market.
So when you're thinking about,you put your own money right and
you're also raising capital.
What do you think about as yourgo-to-market strategy?
Like, who are you focusing on?
First, you have home units, youhave bigger size residential
units, you have much larger onesfor commercial.

(23:22):
Where do you put your energyand how do you sell?

Yeah.
So right now, our primary focusis on actually working with
residential builders.
So right now, our primary focusis on actually working with
residential builders.
They have they're eitherbuilding new communities or they
have existing communities thatthey manage, where these are
folks that have both the budgetand the desire to change
something about their watersupply.
What I've learned is that I willnever I can't say never, but

(23:46):
it's just like an impossibletask to convince somebody who
doesn't think they have a waterproblem that they need water,
like you should know that youhave a water problem.
If you don't, then this is notsomebody that we want to be
selling to, so we're not everout.

(24:13):
Um, you know instagram andlinkedin where we're saying hey,
you experience water challengesof these types, and perhaps
these are some of the solutionsyou're looking at.
Here's what it might look likewith aquarius generators instead
, and that's also something thatwe want to expand upon and be
even more detailed in ourgo-to-market with these

(24:33):
residential communities.
And so you know, rajiv, I wouldlove to you know I was looking
at your website as well.
You know I would love to likemaybe explore that further how
we can get better with ourmessaging.

Great.
Apparently, the podcast has ademand generation capability.

Yes.

I think that's what you're doing, Brian, right?
You're basically by puttingcontent out there about you
folks.
People are finding you and thenthey reach out to you.
Do you actually create lists ofdifferent home builders that
are going to various communitiesand reach out to them via,
maybe, email or phone calls orthat kind of thing?
Is that how you get people in?

You know it's funny .
We're just starting to do thatnow.
Like up until maybe a month ago, where we have been in the
process of closing our latestround of financing, the entire
company has been engineers andproduct folks, us making sure we
can build a technology deck anddo what we say we'll do.
So since we launched thecompany in public and started

(25:28):
selling to customers, everythinghas been inbound.
We have not done any outbound,we've barely done marketing.
You know, in fact, our websitebarely ranks on Google.
You know, and, like you know,we just didn't do much at all.
We were just building products.
And so now we're like in thesecondary phase where, you know,
this summer is essentially thehottest summer since I started

(25:49):
this company, and so there'slike droughts everywhere and
it's like the right time for usnow to do that.
Like that's what we're tryingto do now is be public, be out
there and get in front of thebuilders as well.

That's really smart.
Great to hear that you'reactually pulling demand and
you're getting these proof ofconcept projects like the one in
Hawaii, a thousand person unitsI could definitely see.
If I'm putting up a warehousein the middle of nowhere and I
don't have the initialinfrastructure there, I'd
probably bring that with myconstruction crew.
I can see lots of reallyinteresting uses for your

(26:22):
product and technology.
Let's talk about background andwhere you came from and what
drives you.
You decided to take on climatechange and you decided to focus
on water security and resiliencyright.
And so if you're successful,you'll be able to make a big
impact on the world.
So was there a day when thisjust totally clicked to you that
said, oh, I'm gonna commit tothis.

There was, although I think the tie-in isn't
exactly to climate changespecifically.
You know like I started Aquariafour years ago but I was
running another company freshbefore that that was focused on
impact related or, you know,venture investment.
So I guess there are ties inthere, but it's not as if one

(27:02):
day I in my whole life I waspassionate about water.
I think what really is thedriving motivation for me is
more of, like my growing upexperience.
I think I mentioned earlier Igrew up in New York as a first
generation, you know, american,and my parents immigrated here
essentially to give my family abetter life, to build a better
future for us, and so you knowmy parents went through a lot to

(27:25):
be able to do that, and so Iwon't go into the details, but
it's a little crazy, prettycrazy story.

We feel your first-gen love over here.
We love the first-gen love.

My dad came to America with negative $11,000 in
his pocket.
He had to take loans from hisfamily, from other family
members, to be able to come tothe US and go to college.
So yeah, and I know in talkingwith you earlier, your family
had its own situation, but helpme with the connection of.

I mean, I hear that you know the parental
struggle right Coming across theworld to a whole new universe
to then raise your kids away,entirely away from the culture
that you know.
How does that connect to yourdesire for wanting to make sure
that nobody goes thirsty?
Help me connect the dots onthat.

Yeah, so to me, you know, I in a way if I look at,
my own, you know, growing upexperience from a third party
angle I almost think thatperhaps money would have been
the motivation, given that wecame from an immigrant family.
But the thing was I never feltthat I wasn't taken care of, and

(28:34):
the reason that happened wasbecause my father and my parents
gave up so much of their ownwell-being to ensure that I grew
up without having the burden ofanything really.
I felt that I was the luckiestkid growing up.
I felt like I was well takencare of.
I did not feel like I wasdifferent from many of the kids
I grew up with, which was arelatively wealthy part of Long
Island.
It was only later on in life, Irealized, like just truly, how
much that you know thatsacrifice happened in order to

(28:56):
make sure that we had a betterlife, and that really drove me
to understand that, like, okay,I'm not here to just get a job,
I'm not here to like just dosome.
You know, normal nine to tofive.
I want to do something thatchannels that same energy for
the people around me, whetherthat's my friends or the people
I love, or my parents, orwhoever it is that I can build a

(29:19):
better future that I can beproud of for everyone else, for
myself, and continue to do that.
And so that has, I think,reflected itself in whatever it
is that I have done, whetherit's investment, whether it's
building this company, and Ithink it's that purpose, that
motivation, that I saw inbuilding my first company and

(29:40):
now also in building Aquaria aswell.

I can definitely see that with, like I was
thinking before even this call,I was sitting there going why,
as a VC, would you start acompany that does hardware right
?
Because, as you know, righthardware's you got to make stuff
, you got distribution, you gotsupplies, you got to put it into
place, you got to send it outwhere software you could.
Just you know you have a high,super high gross margins.

(30:04):
It's all your code and maybeit's is it your background from
fresh, from looking at impact,that kind of drove you to do
something as complicated as thisor as complex as this and
interesting.

I'm a mission driven founder.
To me, the specific, I don'tthink.
I think it's difficult to buildany kind of business, you know,
whether it's software orhardware.
I would turn it up, turn itaround and say that if you're
building a climate company andyou don't have differentiated
hardware, you know whether it'ssoftware or hardware.
I would turn it around and saythat if you're building a
climate company and you don'thave differentiated hardware,
you know software is kind ofuseless.
I can dig into the business andI can, you know, kind of turn
the business logic differentways that we can debate about it

(30:39):
.
But starting this business hasalways been about the mission
part for me and what I can dothere and the intricacies of
building that business isdifficult, no matter how you
look at it.
And so starting this businessis really coming from somewhere,
more internally driven, and itjust also lined up that when I
thought about the opportunitieshere, whether from an impact
angle or just from the absoluteneed for innovating and water

(31:03):
all of those things aligned andI couldn't think of anything
else.
I would rather be spending mytime on.

That's amazing.
And you decided to bootstrapthis instead of going to your
early investors or maybe folksthat you knew in the industry.
Is it because were you tryingto prove it first before you
went out and took investment?
Is that kind of the thinkingbehind it?

I started this company at the beginning of the
pandemic.
Slightly before the beginningof the pandemic I was on this
global tour and then thepandemic happened, so the whole
world kind of went upside down.
It was kind of like, okay, well, let's wait for things to
settle and call my friends andsee all the VCs I know and see
which I did.
But the reception was likeeveryone was chaotic and it was

(31:44):
a mess.
It was a total mess.
It was total mess.
So somewhere along the way Iwas like, well, it's me, or wait
it out and depend on somebodyelse, and of course you know
that's basically the route Isettled on is you know?
Well, I think the mostefficient way for you to do this

(32:07):
is to build this in a timewhere a 100-year, once in a
100-year event has just happened.
Maybe the world will be lockeddown for five years, who the
hell knows?
Otherwise, let's do this.

Yeah, you wanted to push the chips in, it sounds
like, rather than waiting forthe world to unmask itself
before you can get VC funding.

you're like, like, let's go build the thing that I
want to build.
That's awesome.
Apparently, apparently, brian,you have a lot of impatience.
I mean, you finished college inthree years.
You started a business whileyou were in college.

Yeah, I noticed before when he was like you know
.
I noticed later in life whenand later in life, I was like
what was that when you were like17?
Is that later in life for you,brian?

He's in a rush to make great things happen.

I don't know what to say Now.
I'm stumped.

I'm glad you're stumped because I'm going to
attempt to stump you even more,because what's going to happen
next?
This next segment is called theSpark Tank and you are going to
go into my gaming arena.
Two CEOs enter and one gets thegolden parachute.
Today's challenge is going tobe all about off the grid living

(33:23):
.
I thought that was kind of acool sort of semi-tangential
thing to Aquaria.
Here We've got a thrillingmatchup today, folks in the
audience, between Brian Shang,the man who can turn air into
water he's a real-lifewaterbender for all my avatar
friends out there against myvery own brother, rajiv Parikh,

(33:48):
the CEO of a marketing companywho, let's be honest, the
closest he's come to roughing itis losing cell phone service at
the Ritz in Bali.
No yeah, it was a rough couplehours for him.

It hurts just thinking about it.

Yeah, all right.
Here's how this is going towork, brian.
We're going to do three roundsof two truths and a lie, where
I'm going to list off threeinteresting factoids about
off-the-grid living and you mustdetermine which one is a lie.
All right, so both of you aregoing to lock in your answers.
I'm going to try this new stylehere I'm going to count down
three, two, one and you're goingto raise your fingers one, two

(34:25):
or three to lock you in to youranswer as to to which one to
lock.

Oh, I got it, so we can't cheat.

Exactly None of this.
Listening to what the last guysaid, here's round one.
If you're going to go livingoff the grid, you're going to
need some means to make energyand food right.
So round one is all about that,okay.
Number one you can create abattery using soil and living
plants.
You can create a battery usingsoil and living plants,

(34:54):
specifically using what a plantsecretes during photosynthesis
for off-grid energy.
Number two some off-gridcommunities use giant hamster
wheels as a fun way for childrenand or pets to generate
electricity.
Number three some survivalistsare able to grow their own
mushrooms of all varieties usingold paperback books and coffee

(35:19):
grounds.
Okay, so that's one, two andthree.
Number one is the battery fromsoiled plants.
Number two is the giant hamsterwheel.
Number three is mushrooms in abook.
On the count of three, I wantto see your fingers.
One, two, three, oh boy, three,two, one, let's go All right.
So, brian, you said number one,the battery from soil and

(35:40):
living plants is malarkey.
Rajiv, you said the gianthamster wheel is no-go.
Well, guess what my brother infact gets the point here?
It turns out yes, I don't thinkgiant hamster wheels do the job
.
Yeah, I know, this battery fromleveling soil and plants was a
surprise to me.
It's called plant microbialfuel cell.

(36:02):
Okay, this is plant MFC.
It's a bioenergy technologythat was demonstrated at
Wageningen University in theNetherlands in 2014.

Of all places.

And it's pretty wild.
It generates electricity bycapturing electrons released by
soil microbes as they break downorganic matter.
Pretty incredible.
I was thinking that exactly.
Yeah, I'm sure you were.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that'show you power your Tesla.

Keep it so cheap.

Very cool um yeah, all right, pretty wild,
and yes, you can also growmushrooms.
And paperback books, preferablyold daniel steel novels have to
be they have to be cheesyromance novels fabio.

It has to have fabio on the cover there was
actually a really cool coffeecompany mushroom company that I
remember that did that they likegrew mushrooms in coffee.
They like they were like anorganic mushroom company or
something where they grew likehigh end mushrooms using the
waste coffee grinds from like asa from from just random coffee
company.
But I actually thought thehamster wheel thing was was was

(37:05):
real, you know, like people justdoing that's a pet project or
something like that.

Um I know, I know, I, I was tempted I was
tempted, I was tempted.
Let's see if you can make it upin round two.
Let's try to tie the game here,all right.
Number two this is all aboutpeople that have successfully
lived off the grid.
Number one a man from swedenhas lived off the grid.
Number one a man from Swedenhas lived off the grid for over

(37:30):
30 years in a home that he builtinside a giant rock, using
natural spring for water andsolar panels for electricity.
Number two a woman in NewZealand lives in a tree house
powered entirely by a bicyclegenerator, which she pedals for
two hours daily to meet all ofher energy needs.

Okay.

Number three a couple in Canada lives off-grid
in a floating home made ofrecycled materials, using a wood
stove for heating and growingvegetables in a rooftop garden.
All right, so is it one, theSwedish man in the rock, number
two, the New Zealander in thetreehouse, or number three?

the.

Canadians floating on a boat, here we go.
What's the last one he'sfloating on the boat.
Floating on a boat made ofrecycled materials, using a wood
stove for heating and growingvegetables in a rooftop garden.
Wow, this is a close one, ready, yeah, here we go.
Three, two, one, okay.
Great, I love that you bothhave different answers.
That's really helpful.
All right Turns out.
So, rajiv, you said number two,correct, correct.

(38:35):
Oh, you said number three, okay.
And Brian, you said number two,and guess what?
Brian is correct.
So you have tied the game up.
That's right.
The woman in the tree house isnot.
There's no Ewoks in New Zealandthat live off of pedal bikes.
It turns out, sadly.

That should have been easy.

You thought it was three.
No, there is actually a couplein Canada.
In fact, their floating home isanchored in a remote lake and
they commute to a nearest townby canoe.
Isn't that very lovely?

Very romantic.
That's crazy Wow.

It is romantic, it is romantic.

But that doesn't count, because they go back to
the island.
They go to the island, theycheat every day.
They don't live totally on thewater.

That's what I was counting on Well but they,
okay, we'll get into thedefinition of off the grid later
.

He's full off the grid.
He's going back and having abeer.

The home is off the grid.
Okay, anyway, all right round.
Number three it doesn't meanthey're like, they're not
hermits, they can still visittown.

That's what.
Off the grid is they?

get their own power and their own water and
their own sources of food andstuff.
Okay, all right, round.
Number three here.
Okay, all right, round, numberthree, here we go.
These are about the structuresthemselves.
There's some interestingstructures out there that people
live in.
All right, so, number one thereis an off-the-grid home that

(40:00):
can be folded up and moved likea suitcase.
These are foldable homes, ortiny portable houses.
They're a modern innovation.
So is that true?
Let's find out.
Number two some off-grid homesare built entirely from recycled
airplane fuselages, offeringboth durability and a unique
aesthetic, to say the least.
Number three an off-gridcommunity in New Mexico lives in

(40:23):
homes made entirely ofdiscarded glass, bottles and
concrete, creating colorful andinsulating walls.
All right, lock in your answersmentally and I'll count down.
Here we go.
Three, two, one, let's see it.
Guess what Rajiv guessed?
Number one the foldable home isfalse.

(40:44):
And Brian said number three theoff-grid community in New
Mexico is false.
I'm so sorry, but you're bothwrong.
Neither of you gets the goldenparachute.
You guys are stuck in the arena.

We failed together , oh man.

It turns out, the airplane fuselages were full
of it.
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, you canget a suitcase home, it turns
out.
So, yeah, I could see that.

I thought, glass would be non-insulating, so I
thought that would be false.

I figured doing the toilet and the sink would be
tough in that home.
But I guess not.

Yeah, it's just a box the home is just a box.
Yeah, as a consolation prize,I'll be sending both of you a
foldable home that you must livein now.

I just want to do that.

Yeah, you're getting kicked out of your
actual houses, backyard,backyard.
All right, so we end in akissing your sister or kissing
your brother, ty here.
Still well played, though.
Well played guys.
You know, sometimes it's it'sbest to be unequal footing there
you go.

It happens usually .
Usually we give the tie to theguest, but not today, so anyway
well, we'll give the tie to theguest.

Okay, all right, we give the time again.
Congratulations, you're thewinner.

You get both portable homes you're so kind,
you're so kind to come here,brian.
You founded this company withyour brother, eric right, and
it's always interesting to starta company with their family
member.

Yeah, really worked out.
It's very interesting to startanything.
A podcast, a company, I mean,yeah, really interesting.
Has it worked out?
It's very interesting to startanything a podcast, a company, a
podcast, it could be anything.
Good Lord, is it interesting?

But I mean you're really tied together, like I
only have to do this.
I only have to see somebodyonce every week or two, but you
actually have to see himpossibly every other day and
your financial fortunes are tiedtogether.

What is it like?
Any any interesting stories?
I think the most interestingstory that I can think of is
actually, um, when, uh, myco-founder and brother, eric,
and I went on this, um, you knowthose like, uh, silicon valley
type of like meditation retreatsfor founders, you go deep into
the mountains and you back kindof like talk about a lot of
different problems and you knowlike they do this a lot and you
know it's probably on an episodeof no mushrooms, but actually

(42:59):
it was solar powered in themountains of mendocino.
We were in the mountains and wehad this exercise that was
guided by a like a founder coach.
And we weren't the only onesthere, there were a bunch of
other early stage founding teamsand the topic of discussion was
okay, well, like um, one of thebiggest problems for early
stage startups is that they justsimply die because the
co-founders fight with eachother, there's disagreements,

(43:22):
and you know that's like a hugeproblem for earlier stage
companies.
And so we had this exercisewhere our coach essentially said
hey, all of you go and talkwith each other and kind of
discover, you know, and talkthrough like what happened if
you guys have arguments, or whathappened, you know, if things
don't work out, and kind of talkto that situation.

(43:42):
And for that exercise and onlythat exercise, because we've
been there for like three daysdoing all these intense exercise
, my brother and I we kind ofjust looked at each other.
We're like I don't thinkthere's anything for us to talk
about.
Like we've fought our entirelives, we've like done so many
things together and it's kind oflike yeah, that won't happen.
Like we're in this, we'recommitted, we're more committed

(44:03):
than anyone and there's no casethat this will happen at all.
And I think that was thecoolest experience for me and
like I was just like yep, we'regoing to chill for 10 minutes
because we know the answer tothat and that moment was really
like a core memory of myfounding this company.
It's like we got this andnobody else in this room got

(44:25):
this like we did, and I thinkthat will be something I
remember forever.
And, of course, that's builtoff of years and years of doing
other projects, killing eachother off, but, like you know,
that's something very, verygreat for me.

So you know every bit about each other and you've
worked through enough of it sothat this business marriage can
complement the close personalrelationships.
That's awesome.

So one thing I want to ask doing our digging,
we found out that you have ADHD,that you're diagnosed with ADHD
.
As someone who is undiagnosedADHD, I am wondering you know,
as a CEO you're pulled in somany different directions at a
time.
How have you managed throughthat?
Any specific tips you maybewould offer to our listeners or

(45:09):
me?

I mean, I think a lot of everyone has their own
particular version of it.
I found that finding a routinethat works for me and then
finding a person to actually solike I would say like I work
very closely with you know achief of staff to help me manage
and help me sit down and thinkthrough and complement the gaps

(45:34):
in my like lack of focus, butthen also finding the type of
activities that allows me, inthis particular case, like I've
really gotten into taking umlike walks and and ice baths
that helps me calm down mynervous system, but then baking
that into like a seriousroutines you know, plus external
help, um, those two things havereally helped me.

Nice.
So it's like an accountabilitybuddy, and then these sort of
these sort of nervous system,yeah, calming routines.
I love it.

Yeah, Also, Sandeep , I've also found that actually
the exact opposite is alsoreally helpful.
It's like incredibly, likeintensely structured, Like yes,
30 minutes, 15 minutes by 15, tohave a so structured that you
don't have room to think and youjust go one by one and execute,
and I found that actuallycounterintuitive.

(46:27):
Also, it helps me stay focused.
It's just be doing things thewhole time, one by one, one by
one.

Let it go with whatever flow works for you, as
opposed to the perfect structure.

Yeah.

One question we love to ask founders of
companies is who or whathistorical event really
motivated you, or was it anevent or person, or who inspires
?

you, I would say my single source of inspiration is
definitely my father.
He, he was an entrepreneur aswell.
He was raised during the timeof chinese cultural revolution,
where, you know, you got beat upand you got, you know, you got
negative types of attention forfor being entrepreneurial and

(47:11):
smart and speaking out, and andthen he, he took us all here to
america and, and you know, now Ithink about it just like how
crazy it is that I'm able to dothis today because of all of the
work that you know my fatherhas done to bring me here and
all of the adversity to bring mehere and to be the person I am
today.
So, yeah, so I would say youknow that that really wraps it

(47:31):
as a shout out to my dad, youknow, for everything he's done
for me and, and you know, that'sdefinitely my and it will
continue to be, you know, mysource of motivation.
That's really awesome.

Well, brian, I think with that, that's the best
way to end it.
I love what you're doing, Ilove what you're building, I
love how you're doing it and Ireally hope and really want to
see you go out there and changethe world for everyone and
enable us all to live betterlives, have safe, clean drinking
water, and it affects thehealth and the lives of so many

(48:02):
people, so I really appreciatewhat you're trying to do and
what you're trying to create.
So may everybody win, includingyour customers, you and your
investors.
I hope everybody wins and Ireally appreciate you coming on
today.

Thank you so much, and I really want to thank you,
regina Sunday, for hosting me,giving me this opportunity to be
on the podcast, and I hope thatyou know the audience found
this to be an interesting andfun episode.
Thank you again.

All right, thanks, brian.
Yep, next time I see you, we'regoing to get a drink let's do
it Of water.

I think the next line extension is a beer making
machine.
Yeah, brian's such aninteresting guy.
I mean, he's only in histwenties.

Yeah.

He's made money.

I don't like that On his own.

VC fund.
He's now using it to create acompany that can help millions,
maybe billions, of people whodon't have access to water or
would have a difficult timegetting access to clean water.

I just love.
My takeaway is sort of themission alignment right.
Don't let the perceivedobstacles necessarily stand in
the way of something that youbelieve in.
Right.
And also, hey, he works withhis brother you know that's
pretty cool with his brother,that's uh maybe a new winning
strategy, not a new.

Many a brother have worked together since the
beginning of time, one is parkerbrothers uh parker brothers
it's really amazing what he'sdone and I think what inspired
him is his father's journey toamerica and he just felt that if
my father is going to gothrough so much to get me here

(49:44):
to america and do so much tosacrifice to provide me a great
life, then I gotta pay back tothe world, not just, yeah, the
pay it forward mentality, yeah,not just make a whole bunch of
money but actually make greatchange.
And he's doing it.

It's like the opposite of entitlement, this
pay it forward attitude, thisattitude of, uh I, I am
privileged because of thesacrifice.
I think that's the beauty offirst generation specifically,
is that you really do get avisceral sense of the sacrifice
because, you see, you can reallyclearly see the market change
between where they came from andwhere they are, you know,

(50:19):
whenever we go back to india andstuff like that, and so you can
see, wow, they went many, manydegrees all right.

Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this pod, pleasetake a moment to rate it and
comment.
You can find us on apple,spotify, youtube and everywhere
podcasts can be found.

Hey, this show is produced by moi, Cindy Parikh
and Anand Shah, Productionassistance by Taryn Talley and
edited by Sean Maher and AidanMcGarvey.

I'm your host, Rajiv Parikh from Position
Squared, a kick-ass growthmarketing company based in
Silicon Valley.
Come visit us at position2.com.
This has been an eff'n FunnyProduction.
We'll catch you next time.
Remember, folks, be evercurious.

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Last Thing You Think About Until You Don't Have It/Brian Sheng - Aquaria, Mexico, Sacrifice ~ Spark of Ages Ep17

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Last Thing You Think About Until You Don't Have It/Brian Sheng - Aquaria, Mexico, Sacrifice ~ Spark of Ages Ep17