Host: Hakim El Fadil
Guest: Moritz Waldstein | CEO | mitte
Category: 🤖 Technology
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[13:17] “Mitte […] means center and […] middle in German. […] We've chosen that name [...] because water is the center is the most elemental thing in […] making us up, making the world up, […] we were founded in Berlin Mitte, […] [which is] the center of Berlin […] and […] it stands out [compared to] […] so many providers out there.”
[15:17] “The product that we're building is from a pure product perspective similar to bottled water. […] The essential product that you find in bottled water, just […] the chemical composition of what you find in […] most bottled water […] is free of contaminants, mostly, and it's also rich in minerals. […] It just has a fundamental problem of not being ecologically viable, and also actually not economically sustainable, because it also costs a lot of money to distribute […]. And plastic costs will definitely continue to rise. So it's not a very sustainable model.”
[16:14] “What we said is, let's build a product that's from a composition and also from a brand ability […] view similar to what you find in bottled water. […] And basically do that decenterally. And […] a product that is […] not just safe, but healthy. Let's build a product that […] economically makes sense. You take out the cost of distribution, [of] shipping physical products around, [which makes it] ecologically viable. So something that has a much much lower CO2 footprint, and make sure that there's not too much plastic used. And also, that is smartly delightful […] that integrates in your life and is just beautiful to use, as those are the four principles of how we build a product.”
[18:57] “Our marketing Chief Marketing Officer […] always says […] that the iPhone moment has not happened in the water industry. […] Mitte Home is the iPhone moment we hope for at home water makers, because what it means is that it's a converged technology that brings purification, mineralization, still sparkling and smartness together […]. If you remember, before the iPhone touchscreen existed, […] apps existed, […] camera phones existed, but what didn't exist is to bring it together in a beautiful user experience that was unique. […] What can cause the iPhone moment […] is that we […] converge technology and bring it into an all all in one device.”
[21:06] “We have input water, tap water, that then goes through our consumable, so through a cartridge, […] first cleans the water, removes contaminants, and then adds minerals. And then what happens is, you can basically keep the water still, or you can also sparkle. […] We have a two step cleaning process, […] active carbon […] and we also have a hollow fiber membrane in the cartridge. […] And then after cleaning, we go into enhancing the water. […] There's […] different cartridges […] that have different mineral compositions based on […] needs. […] And then users can create still or sparkling […]. We think that is especially important in the German market. […] Germany has a the bottle water market [with a] over 75% share of sparkling water. It's also the largest global market for SodaStream.”
[28:18] “We're starting this journey with this home product. […] But we definitely want to extend our portfolio beyond that using the same logic. So it will also extend it to B2B, […] meaning offices, more public spaces, but it could also extend beyond that into what we call mitte inside. So the question of […] integrat[ion] in existing systems, like fridges, and others, and there's already conversations in that […] space.”
[30:44] “Every cartridge lasts 250 liters. And what's important is that the system is a smart system, so it will send you new cartridges when you need them, […] based on demand. So when you pass a certain threshold, […] you will get asked through an app […] [if] you want a new cartridge to be sent to you. […] And then at the same time, once you run out of your cartridge, you will be able to send it back to mitte. […] These are the first steps of circularity for us. And down the line, we aim to have a […] completely reusable cartridge to create even less of an environmental impact.”
[32:02] “An additional element is that we […] offset […] 100% of [the] carbon emissions of our company at the moment. And we will also automatically offset 100% of all unavoidable emissions generated by the cartridge and the production of the carrier.”
Rating: 💧💧💧
🎙️ Full Episode: Google | Spotify (Original Title: “Moritz Waldstein: "mitte” offers a purified and mineralized drinking water”)
🕰️ 50 min | 🗓️ 07/01/2021
✅ Time saved: 48 min
Additional Links:
Kickstarter for mitte
