\n\t\t Entrepreneur \t<\/p>\n
When his young daughter\u2019s eczema worsened, Brian Keller tried everything modern parenting prescribes. Nothing worked. Desperate, he replaced the ordinary showerhead in their bathroom with a filtered one. Within a couple of days, his daughter had perfectly clear skin. The speed of the change forced him to go online searching for a reliable filtration system. But what he found surprised him. \u201cPretty much one plastic product after the next,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He called his longtime partner, designer and engineer Charlie Carlisle. \u201cI think there\u2019s a pretty big opportunity here to build a business like the Dyson of water filtration,\u201d he said. Little did they know they\u2019d spend the next three years building a filtration system piece by piece, rejecting shortcuts.<\/p>\n
The result is Rorra \u2014 a science-backed water filtration company offering a countertop unit and filtered showerhead. Both run tap water through a multilayer carbon and media setup designed to reduce chlorine, disinfectant byproducts, PFAS, and 50+ other contaminants. In less than a year on the market, the company has placed over 10,000 drinking-water systems in homes across the country and reached an eight-figure run rate.<\/p>\n
Related: How Can a Working Mother Be Successful These Days? 6 Strategies for Success as an Entrepreneur and Parent<\/b><\/p>\nThe problem with tap water<\/b><\/h2>\n
While studying U.S. water infrastructure, the founders discovered some sobering stats. The average tap water pipe is 45 years old, and many are more than a century old. Chlorine and other chemicals, including lead, are in almost all American tap water, including compounds linked to increased risks of kidney and bladder cancer.<\/p>\n
But replacing failing pipes across the country would cost more than a trillion dollars and require digging beneath major cities. The solution was to offer a reliable way for people to clean their water at home.<\/p>\n
The founders knew that if people were going to clean their water at home, the system had to be sleek. The flimsy plastic products Keller first saw online weren\u2019t cutting it. \u201cEverything we build is designed to last for years. We\u2019re not building cheap, consumer products with engineered obsolescence,\u201d Keller says.<\/p>\n
The Rorra Countertop looks more like a piece of modern kitchen equipment than a filter\u2014medical-grade stainless steel and sturdy enough to pass for something you\u2019d find in a craft brewery.<\/p>\n
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the design appeals to male consumers. \u201cOver 50 percent of our customers are male,\u201d Keller says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t even really project that initially.\u201d The product suggested something protective and strong, a kind of household sentinel.<\/p>\n
For this reason, Keller and Carlisle designed the Rorra Countertop system to live where people could see it. Most filtration devices hide under sinks and get forgotten. They wanted the opposite. \u201cA product that people are going to be proud to put on their countertop,\u201d Keller says.<\/p>\n
Related: Jason Momoa is Still Playing Aquaman\u2026 Just Not On Screen \u2014 How the Movie Star is Making Waves Against Plastic Waste With Boomerang Water<\/b><\/p>\nA flood of orders<\/b><\/h2>\n
The response came fast and furious, which was good and bad. When the first units shipped, the founders braced for modest demand. Instead, \u201ccustomer service inquiries went overnight from like a ten a day to hundreds a day,\u201d Carlisle said.<\/p>\n
They ran out of stock for weeks. Delays stretched to two months. But amid the chaos, they chose transparency over panic. \u201cMy phone number was on the credit card statements of every single customer,\u201d Keller says. When a subscriber called late at night to complain about a charge, he picked up. \u201cI\u2019m the CEO,\u201d he would tell them, before walking them through the benefits of the system. The response built a strange form of loyalty.<\/p>\n
Popularity has grown organically. Athletes, doctors, and creators bought the product on their own, then reached out. One of the company\u2019s biggest boosts came from partnering with Dr. Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist and host of the hugely popular Huberman Lab podcast. \u201cWe\u2019re definitely seeing a direct uplift in sales and people buying from his landing page,\u201d Keller says.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s votes of confidence like this that prove their strategy was a good one. \u201cIt took three years versus probably one year that it could have taken us to launch,\u201d says Carlisle. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot of benefits to us having something that\u2019s truly unique in the space.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
When his young daughter\u2019s eczema worsened, Brian Keller tried everything modern parenting prescribes. Nothing worked. Desperate, he replaced the ordinary showerhead in their bathroom with a filtered one. Within a couple of days, his daughter had perfectly clear skin. The speed of the change forced him to go online searching for a reliable filtration system. But what he found surprised him. \u201cPretty much one plastic product after the next,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He called his longtime partner, designer and engineer Charlie Carlisle. \u201cI think there\u2019s a pretty big opportunity here to build a business like the Dyson of water filtration,\u201d he said. Little did they know they\u2019d spend the next three years building a filtration system piece by piece, rejecting shortcuts.<\/p>\n