Riggs Eckelberry

0:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Hello everyone and Welcome to The Shades of Entrepreneurship, This is your host, Mr. Gabriel Flores. Today I welcome the Founder and CEO of OriginClear {error in transcription}

1:00 - Riggs Eckelberry

was paradise for me. loved it, had a great time, learned destructive marketing, and had a career that took me all the way through the software industry. And I was a happy camper, but my downfall was ambition, right? This is the entrepreneur's downfall. And I thought I could be a and people agreed with me, but then they said, well, but we're doing green. not doing no tech. And so we launched a company called at the time Origin Oil, because it was to convert algae into a biofuel. So algae was the original oil. And what was special about it was, you know, the funding. funding is the crux of all entrepreneurship. And what this particular group did was they immediately took you public in the penny stock space. And by the way, it's not something I recommend today. It doesn't work. doesn't work anymore. But back in 2007, it seemed to work OK. And we launched this company in the algae industry, and it was a blast. I had a lot of mainstream media. was super exciting. Unfortunately, the algae space was completely made irrelevant by the price of crude, which went from 120 down to like 50 and below. And it still really hasn't recovered. It's crazy, despite inflation and everything else. So we really realized that closing the company was not an option, so what do we do? We repurposed the technology to clarify water. Because our tech was to extract algae from the water it lives in. now we were extracting sewage from the water it lives in. And immediately I found out that the water industry, number one, people take it for granted. I've opened the faucet, water comes out, flushed the toilet, water goes away. What's the problem? There's no problem. Let me focus on something important. And secondly, the media really could have cared less. They're like, really water? they're trying to stifle a yawn. So whereas meeting with a fast company editor in Manhattan, and normally fast company, so tell me about this cool new thing. I say, water, they go, oh my God, no, please don't talk to me about water. And so what we found was, and the third thing is that the water industry itself is very change-phobic. They like the way things are right now. Now, unfortunately, that where it's at is not great. The water industry is not in a great place at all. All kinds of interesting things. For example, we underfunded by literally $100 billion a year by now in the US alone. It's a number that is almost incomprehensible. And even if you were going to build big central sewage systems, where we're going to build it, right? Things are built up. And additionally, since COVID, there's been a lot of migration, and there's little tiny rural water systems that are just completely overwhelmed by all the housing development and manufacturing and moving out and so forth. So it's an interesting place, but fortunately, I did find a way forward.

4:30 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes, we're going to briefly talk about the way forward. first, you know, Riggs, what you really kind of identified, you know, is the water crisis and not being kind of spoken about. of the things you also mentioned was it affecting those rural communities, you know, and so folks, I really want you guys to listen to this. I'm an Oregonian. I'm based here in Oregonian, where 98,000 square miles. However, groundwater population in Umatilla and Morrow counties is growing worse, leading to dangerous levels of nitration in water pumped. up from used safe water cells or water safe water wells. So it's like, to your point, right? And these are our rural community members. This is not a big, you know, I think sadly sometimes maybe why it's not spoken about is because it is kind of in a lower population density area where it's affecting a lot of communities. And it's not hitting that metro area. And so folks listening, because I know there's a lot of Oregonians listening, you know, I really want you to begin to think about this. I so I hope this lecture in particular, this conversation is very important because this is actually affecting us here in the state of Oregon. So Riggs, tell us what is your current venture business? What what are you currently doing?

5:41 - Riggs Eckelberry

So what what we were trying to figure out at the time was how to take this technology, which had been born in algae, and we were transferring it over to water, how to license it out, and that was going nowhere. And finally, I realized that technology takes a decade or more to be accepted in water. So, we turned to a commercial model and specifically I learned from some early research in 2016 that decentralization is a thing in water. Industry and agriculture is responsible for 90% of all water demand in the United States. In the world actually, it's 90% all around. The ratio between business and agriculture of course varies according to Somalia, some almost all agriculture here it's about half and half. So, the big users are not the people. The big users are the industry and agriculture. And I was in California until 2020 and we were talking, take shorter showers and so forth. Well, if you're only 10% of the demand, that's not going to move the needle. What's going to move the needle is what you do with industry and agriculture. And so, what I was predicting then would happen has since happened, which is a movement towards people. Businesses treating their own dirty water. Why? It's cheaper. They can recycle their water, saving even more money. thirdly, for a lot of your entrepreneurs is, you're not stuck with the politics of the local water utility. You're on your own. It's great. So a lot of businesses like it, and so it's become a thing. And so we pitched our wagon to decentralization. We bought a company that was operating in the space that does exactly that. We created another company that does these little drop into place pods for smaller sites. And finally, we devised a way to avoid the capital expense. So if you're going to do your water treatment, you don't have a spare million dollars. Don't worry about it. Just sign here and we'll give it to you as a service. And that's the latest thing. So we are firmly in the water as a service space for this new decentralized thing.

7:57 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And one of the things you kind of mentioned too, with like, inflation. How does inflation affect the water in things that are going on?

8:04 - Riggs Eckelberry

where is inflation going and what are the threats? Water and sewage rates have been inflating now faster than college tuition.

8:12 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Oh, wow, interesting.

8:14 - Riggs Eckelberry

And much faster than health expenses. And the reason is I told you that there's this big deficit annually. So utilities are trying to make it up, but they can't raise rates enough. And unfortunately, it's also creating a lot of defaults by ordinary people. And now you're poor, you can't pay your water bill. Now you're stuck with bottled water. It's even worse. It's a terrible situation, and yet it's a growing problem. So there's big inflation in water, which is why businesses would want to do their own system because you have the cost of system on. Whatever the costs are maintaining it, there's inflation, but it's not the crazy inflation. So that's a big, big deal.

9:02 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You know, that's good to know because I think I can finally go and tell my wife, hey, Riggs told me that water prices are going, I'm not crazy. I swear I'm not taking longer showers. It is the inflation of the water that is making it go up. Now, Riggs, I'm a, like to invest on the side. like, I like wealth management. I like to kind of build up my own generational wealth. Now with that, I'm beginning to think about, okay, utilities. can go purchase gold. can put purchase silver. Is water going to be the new gold? And why is it that investor like myself? Why can't I invest directly in a water project?

9:35 - Riggs Eckelberry

You know, you're feeding me questions that are perfect for me because there's been a problem with investing in water because it's been a monopoly, right? Water utilities, this big, there's a source of the water. And by the way, we're not talking about changing that. The water should still come from the utilities because every attempt to privatize fresh water has been, but is a disaster. I'm talking about treating the dirty water. And that has been a monopoly. And so you could either invest in American waterworks, the Olia, Suez, well, Suez got to purchase, but Evoqua, et cetera. Okay. But they just grow the way SMPs grow. Fine. You can invest in an ETF. Fine. if you want to make an asset investment, that's been lacking. When I told you that we're creating water as a service and people don't have to pay for their machine, well, then who does? And so we created an investment vehicle very similar to oil and well, called master limited partnerships and the oil and well space, the oil, the gas and oil space. And it pays dividends just like that. And there's equity rewards ownership of the parent company ownership of this new company called Water on And so And what's great is you can place a lean on the equipment to enforce your royalties. Because the ownership is not headed over to the end user. continue to own it, and they pay by the gallon. It's a profitable model because, like all services, mean, I remember when you could pay $120 for Microsoft Office, and that was it. Now you pay $14.99 a month. that's up to a lot more over time. And yet we like it because they're much more responsive. There's more, they throw more things in for free. I don't mind paying monthly with Microsoft 365 because of all the value they add. So it's more profitable, and the end user likes it more. water demand now is an investment vehicle. And by the way, we're not the only people doing water as a service, but we're the only people who are making it open to everyday investors.

11:58 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, that's very interesting. The whole water on demand concept and also the subscription model, I think you're seeing the subscription model really take hold in the entrepreneurship world because you add as Riggs mentioned. It provides two different things that's really cool. One, it creates value for the organization by having a value stream that's a subscription model that's on a monthly payment. And then two, it creates value back to the consumer because that consumer now fills that concierge service, right, this tailored service that's directly catered to them. And when feel like a subscription, I'm not talking about a Netflix subscription when everybody gets the same thing. I'm talking like a true subscription model, like for example, this morning I got an email from the golf now folks. like, hey, by the way, you got $10 off this month on Goongolfin. Sweet. That is a valuable subscription to me, right, that I'm paying on an annual basis. And now granted, they also have these tournaments that come up and all these things, but I'm willing to pay that fee because I find a value in it. Right. And so for the listeners at home, think about that when you kind of create a subscription model. If you do decide to go that route, it's imperative that it's also valuable to the end user, not just to you, the organization. Certainly, yes, you want to create a value for yourself, right? And you need to help the bottom line. But you want to make sure to feed the people that are feeding you, right? Now, let's take a step back. Because I want to kind of take a step. How the heck, like you mentioned, you went from, you know, doing the allergy to the water. But what were you doing before all that? how did you think allergy?

13:36 - Riggs Eckelberry

Well, algae was basically told to me, right? Because as I was in the intro, I was talking about my software career. And I was having a fine time. The last company I did in the software space went on the NASDAQ. And it was a success. It was a malware company. And which is a hot space to this day. And I was the number two, was the president COO of that. So what happened was I was a true entrepreneur until 1995. I did a billion things. did, I was in non-profit space. I was a ship captain for a while on the south Pacific. I was, you know, the direct marketer. And then I had this built a company in New York City, that computerized companies for the first time. Because back then it was all safeguard ledgers. And then it got to change radically in the 80s. And I was part of that, the transformation. then end of 80s, early 90s. did the, you know, living in LA, did the obligatory working in film thing.

14:53 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Oh, yeah.

14:54 - Riggs Eckelberry

Every in LA does that. So it went through that, loved it. But ultimately I was run back to town. tech and in the mid 90s, my tech career, I went corporate, 1995, went corporate, and I started launching brands in, you know, public companies and having a great time doing it. And so that was kind of my thing. I had several liquidity events, you know, where you get, where you get to, it's always interesting when you sell a company to see how much it gets destroyed as part of the sale. But nonetheless, we made out okay. And it was really this is about my ambition to become a CEO. And I was given, well, okay, to be CEO, do algae. Okay. And I happened to have a brother who had a patent that could be applied to the algae space. So we had a technology. I've always been, I believe the technology is the big transformation. You know, for example, look at climate change. Right. All the solutions that were being fed are solutions that themselves are fossil fuel hungry, right? Except for nuclear power. And I used to bring up nuclear power all the time. Well, it takes 20 years to build a nuclear plan, blah, blah, Now, literally, I saw Chinese company that created a nuclear powered smartphone.

16:27 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I wouldn't buy that. OK, wouldn't care about a nuclear reactor in my back pocket.

16:34 - Riggs Eckelberry

I'm just saying. But the point that it makes is that you can go small, right? You could have a housing development or an office building being powered for 500 years by one pellet of uranium, right? So that that's kind of what I'm saying is that if we implemented that, the whole I'm a change, picture would change. wouldn't have to worry about whether we have to eat insects or not. We would just have nuclear power replacing fossil fuel and the story. So I feel the same way about technology in high tech, that is highly transformative. you think about, I have a computer right here, right? computer is so much more powerful than the mainframes we used to deal with in the late 60s. So I'm a strong believer in the power of technology to transform everything fine. the same time, everything is being made. There's no such thing as high tech company anymore. All companies have a technology aspect today. There's just no getting around it. So what's my technology angle in water? And that's why we move very quickly to decentralization. Which now it breaks. And just like how AT&T turned into a huge industry, you have broken up and it became everything, including the internet. Well, no more Princess phones, but a huge, huge, huge industry. Same thing's happening in water. As it breaks up, it creates all these entrepreneurial opportunities. For example, water on demand is a pure fintech. We're there to raise money to put into these systems. But then in Seattle or Oregon, we're not going to go install and maintain these systems. We're going to delegate it. Well, that creates an entrepreneurial opportunity for all those water companies. Because they're like, now they get from water on demand comes along and says, I've got to check, go build it. It's so wonderful for them. So people love it, they're excited about it. And we've started to get into very interesting new. verticals. For example, mobile home parks, trailer parks are a huge vertical that every single one of them needs better sanitation. 90% of them have bad sanitation. It's just because how they were built. So now there's groups that are going in there and just going, serially going in there and going, and they want the pods, they want the waters of service, they don't want the capital requirements. This is ideally made for it. And so we're we're literally about to, we've been revving up. We doubled our business 21 to 22. Our water pod business grew seven times between 21 and 2023. So it's going fast. So we're very excited about that. And water on demand is now slated to go to the NASDAQ as part as being purchased by high one of those blank check companies. Yeah, yeah. So we've birthed the company, achieved a $32 million valuation for it as a private company. And we have it in a definitive merger agreement. And that's going through the SEC process right now, which makes it even better for the purpose of being an investment vehicle for people.

20:22 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, definitely. So I'm going take a step back for the folks listening is that there's two cool things that Riggs mentioned that I just want to define for you. One was diversification and one was vertical integration. So diversification, as Riggs mentioned, AT&T, how they diversified their offerings. went from cable internet to cell phones to internet or satellite TV. That's just diversification, spreading out your brand of different market segments. Now, Riggs also talked about vertical integration. So as Riggs was mentioning, currently, he's in the water industry focusing on businesses. But now they're vertically integrated into the. RV sector. So what that means is they're still doing talking about water. They're just doing now a different market segment in that water area. I really love the pull those things out for the listeners because it's just really good to kind of hear it in practical sense. Now, now, Riggs, I got to say, building a water brand like, whoa, this is all new, right? So what, like, what does it take to disrupt a slow moving industry like the water brand?

21:26 - Riggs Eckelberry

Well, you find the point like changes inevitable. In 2016, I came across a research paper by Lux Research that said decentralization is a thing. I started to proselytize it. And people like, what are you talking about? I was way too early, but you kind of have to be early, right? You have to put your marker on things. So you're the decentralization guy. So by the time we started, we built a company. from scratch in 2018, the one that does the pods, specifically for this, and they didn't become profitable until 2021, and now they're booming. So things kind of hockey stick starting in 2021, 2022, where a whole lot of businesses, trailer parks, housing developments, power plants, you name it, everybody wants to do their own water treatment. And then you have the problem of huge land booms. There's a big land boom going on north of Dallas, Texas, between Dallas and the Oklahoma border. It's going crazy. They're building housing developments like crazy way ahead of sewage. And so they need those pods. And that's what we've been doing. We've been dropping those pods in. And it's a financial solution for the developer and also a time solution. takes time to build five, 10, 15 miles of sewage line, So getting the fresh water is a challenge, it's not as big a challenge as this, you know, cleaning the dirty water. Because for example, one of our Our site is on the shores of Lake Denison, which is on the Oklahoma border. Who wants to pollute Lake Denison?

23:07 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Right. Yeah. Yeah, very much.

23:08 - Riggs Eckelberry

Who wants to pollute any late, right?

23:10 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I mean, I think that's the goal. Now, let's talk about the process that you're now going through. So OriginClear, you mentioned you had a very high valuation of over $35 million. And now you're going public. You're taking it on the stock exchange. Give the, give the audience a little bit. What does that one? What does it mean to go from a private company to a public company?

23:31 - Riggs Eckelberry

And then how do you do it? OK, OriginClear has been public for 16 years. OK, that's the parent company. We, we, because the people we were working with had this, this, they raised money in the public space. So it's been a penny stock forever. You can OCLN is the ticker. It's literally a penny. But what we did was we had, we, in November 2022, we were presented with an opportunity to merge with what's. It's called a blank check company, a special purpose acquisition company. And these things are just a pile of money looking for some to buy. That's all they are. But here's the thing. It was already on the NASDAQ. So we couldn't do origin clear. It was cleaning up the. I don't want get too technical, but cleaning up the cap table was a big deal. We had a lot of preferred shares, etc. So we then said, no, no, We're not going to have our company be bought. We're going to have our creation, water and demand, which we already created. That's who we're going to put up to be brought up. And so that is what we achieved the $32 million valuation for independent of the valuation of origin clear, which is something like, I don't know, 10, 15 million. Water and demand is not trade. but assuming that the SEC approves our merger and the NASDAQ approves our application, we will be trading on the NASDAQ. Water and demand. will. And we already have the ticker. It's WODI. So we've been reserved a ticker by NASDAQ. And that will, that's a true, that's a true pre IPO. And so right now people are investing not in water on demand because it's going into quiet period, but they're investing in origin clear, which happens to own a huge stake in water on And that's how it's happening. And they're getting these waters of service royalties as well.

25:27 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So, man, I'm going to go log on. I'm going to play real quick. Man, this is, see, I really love this story because I think what it really tells you for the listeners is there's a lot of things that go in the background. know, Riggs has been mentioned, he's been there for 30, 40 years, you know, really working through different industries, working in different industries, getting experiences from different markets. And it's all kind of relating into this one big idea and really kind of pushing things forward. And the beauty, I really like about it. At the end of the day, yeah, sure, we're, you know, business-centric, right? We're trying to create a revenue, but it's also helping communities, right? Providing clear water. And then as you as Riggs mentioned, you know, outsourcing a lot of these jobs. Okay. Now you have now you actually have some individuals creating more jobs in their local economy, right? And that's that's the goal. How do we actually get individuals back into the work? How do we get in the local economy? How do we get them to think entrepreneur? because at the end of the day, this country was built on the back of entrepreneurs, right? And so, so the really goal is just to try to make sure that we exploit that and those educational opportunities for our listeners. Now, Riggs, what would you say, you know, looking back on, on your experience, what would you say is something that you're glad you went through because it's helped you be successful today?

26:43 - Riggs Eckelberry

Well, I'm, I'm glad that I wasted my time doing things that were not the career path, right? Like working for a time and film. Like going to the sea in ships and literally I'm steaming around South Pacific islands with loads of coconut. mean, that, well, first of all, it teaches you how to handle tight situations, emergencies. Oh, the ship's going to sink. Well, today my ship's not sinking, but like all entrepreneurs, I have to look at, well, what is the viability of the company? I was listening to the all-in summit about a year ago. And you know, I must, you know, do an okay, right? And so they said, so, you do you feel secure, your cash position goes, no, it's just that my cash horizons further out. That's all. He still has a concern about running out of cash. yet he's got billions. So what it tells you is you will always have that and you have to learn to rise above it. But, you know, I I have people who get very like, oh, I don't know how we're going make it as well. And one of my jobs in the company is to go, okay, here's how we're going to handle it. We're going this, this, this. And they go, oh, okay, fine, right? Because intention is everything, right? Imagination creates reality is a very good saying. So here we are. We imagine something. We make it real. There's no situation that you can't work your way out of. None. It doesn't exist. That's just how it is. That's what I've learned. Because in the 80s, that business that I've built in the 80s, computerizing companies, I shut it down voluntarily because I didn't think the money was in it. And the guy I gave the business to, he made it, he became a millionaire. How? Because he found that the ongoing annuity from being an IT shop for companies is a multi-decade life cycle, right? And I was You don't make money when you first computerize a company. It's terrible. It's horrible. But then you have the gravy of the monthly fees, right? And I didn't factor that in. I could have made it just fine. And it was just I literally I became discouraged. So when you become discouraged, you got to find out where where the exit is. What's the better idea, right? always is there. The better idea is always there.

29:30 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And Rick, you are talking to my soul. I've been having a very strange last couple of months where, to be honest with you, folks, I've been kind of thinking about this podcast. know, do do we continue with it? Do we pivot to something else? Got a lot of time focused on the nonprofit, Latino founders that we started about a year ago, raised over, you know, quarter million dollars in a year. And we've been able to help over, you know, 15 or 20 different entrepreneurs last year, gave out about $30,000 with a grant funding. But the podcast, I love it. Right. business. And in like any other business, you're always constantly thinking, as Riggs mentioned, where, where, what do I do next? Do I pivot? How do I vertically integrate it? Or how do I diversify? Right? And so obviously, we have the diversification and quick shameless plug. We have the newsletter, right? Which you can subscribe to by visiting the shades of e.com. Right? So that's the diversification. We have again, another shameless plug. We have clothing. So you can go buy a sweater or shirt, which also again helps support the shades of entrepreneurship. But you know, to Riggs Point, I'm kind of at this at this kind of crossroads, like what's the next idea, right? And I had meeting last night with two individuals and talking about future iterations of what what life could be like. I've been in the healthcare industry for almost, you know, 25 years now. Got a lot of wealth management education under my belt. Do we do we begin to create a specific wealth management firm for providers in the Pacific Northwest?

31:00 - Riggs Eckelberry

grow If folks are interested in hearing more about Clear Origin, they want to contact you. Maybe they intermittent got their website. How can they get in contact with you? What are your social channels? Okay. First of all, OriginClear has a, we do a weekly CEO briefing on Thursday nights, 5PM Pacific, 8PM Eastern. Tonight's is going to be the 246th briefing that I do. It's essentially a podcast, but it's very specifically focused on the economic environment that we're operating in with the world of assets because now we're competing with other assets. Number two, how's the water industry? What's going on with that? For example, last week I reported on the state of our rivers, which is terrible. And then we discussed the company itself and you can learn a lot about what we do, projects we're doing and so forth. that's number one. Number two, top right of the OriginClear.com website is a green invest now button and listen to Ken Beringer, the creator of Water on Demand, tell you all about this new investable asset, which what's good about it is it's early. The problem we have with oil, with gold, with all assets is that they're being manipulated. I have gold. Why? It should be going up. Why it's not? I have no idea. But water is not being manipulated yet because it's just coming out into the market and it's a steady up trend of demand. Water demand does not go up and down. It just keeps going up. point I'm making is it's a great asset investment. Right now it's for accredited investors. Within, I would say a month, I'm hoping to have a crowdfunding offering for any investor with a very low minimum. Join the fund. You know, and potential upside. So obviously, like all equity investments, you know, nothing's guaranteed. But, you know, we are very, very, very excited about what we're doing in the water industry and we paid the dues for being early. Um, but it also means that we're there and we're in right position and we invite your listeners to go take a look.

33:25 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes, I would, I would gladly invite the listeners to also take a look. In fact, this information will also be on the newsletter to the shades of entrepreneurship and newsletter that comes out every Wednesday. so I would highly recommend now I am not folks. I'm not a financial advisor, uh, but I always love looking at investment in stocks and kind of, you know, doing some things. Um, and you know, I think one newsletter that might write coming up is kind of talk about the difference between like a 401k and IRA and making sure everybody knows the difference in maximizing those benefits as well. Because investing is so important when you're thinking about creating generational wealth, right? And that's, that's truly the emphasis. of this podcast is to really help the individuals that are listening one to succeed in their entrepreneurial endeavor and two to really help establish generational welfare yourself and your family, right? We truly want to keep building. Now, now, Riggs, is there any last words you'd like to say before we leave today?

34:19 - Riggs Eckelberry

Well, I've been thinking a lot about the concept called break to build. Now, this came from an Air Jordan commercial from a long time ago, 10, 15 years ago, but they used it once, break to build and I like that. And so you've got to be willing to break your model to build, right? There's a wonderful book called The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, where he talks about companies that were unable to break, they had like this drive industry. I'm selling plenty of 20-inch disk drives. What's my problem? Your problem, dude, is that you're this 14-inch disk drives coming along. It's going to destroy. for your business and company after company after company was destroyed by this constant cascade of nude stuff. And so you've got to be willing to break your model to build a new and I started a sub stack that it's called break to build. And I'm fascinated by that. And I think, but you got to break to build with a team. That's the second thing I really want to emphasize. I analyzed, I had a big epiphany last year where I realized that I'd been a hero on my life. But you go, wow, wow, no, no, no, it doesn't scale. Being a superman doesn't scale. You can't be Superman everywhere. Impossible. You can be League of Avengers, right? Be a team. And so that's where I realized

36:10 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

this meeting is being recorded. And I'm working on right now is how do I build with a team? How do I create my team?

36:17 - Riggs Eckelberry

Who's the right person for the team?

36:18 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

know, so some of things we're thinking about is like, who's the finance guy? Who's the marketing guy? Who's the business guy? Right? Who's there's different pieces and all of them are extremely valuable to build a team. Riggs, thank you so much for your time. This has been very informative. Truly, I think one, you know, being able to explain the difference between diversification and vertical integration, talking about the importance of water filtration and why it's needed, talking about possible, you know, investing opportunities that are going to be arising here in the future, which is super, super cool. And again, you know, encouraging folks to continue to grow, break it, you know, build it to break it, I think is a phenomenal concept. In fact, a great. Great story for that one is is all a blockbuster video right where they they couldn't innovate They didn't pivot in fact.

37:07 - Riggs Eckelberry

They even had an opportunity to purchase Netflix and I know I want a story man I mean that is just amazing right hey sting went to them Yeah, yeah, and they laughed him out of the room Netflix went to blockbusters said hey we have this phenomenal product in blockbusters like no We got it good because again like riggs mentioned it sometimes.

37:26 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

It's we're really good in this space There's nothing gonna just we haven't changed since you know 1972 when the VHS's came out right well guess what those change now look at the DVD on demand It's gone right it's now all streaming right and so it's it's it's it's kind of funny how quickly things innovate I remember when many disks came out as well went from like tape quarters the CDs these mini disks that only lasted like two years Because as soon as the mini disks all of a sudden streaming services came out so it's like everything as the end goal. so I really love that concept, you know, build it to break it because fake to build or break to build because you truly have to. I'm not saying you have to always be looking forward and looking like the world's fallen and everything's going to crash down. No, but constantly thinking of innovation, right? Thinking of ways, different ways to innovate. How do you continue to create value for your organization and also for the consumer at large? So with that, Riggs, thank you again so much for your time. was been a phenomenal conversation for those listening. Please enjoy the night. You can follow us on the shades of entrepreneurship at the shades of E on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube so you can subscribe on YouTube. And again, for those that are interested for $5 a month, you can join our Patreon page, page, which actually gives you access to the recording a week earlier. You also have access to our book and other valuable stuff. Riggs, thank you again so much for your time. I appreciate it and have a great night.