Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Eric Roy. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Eric, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

The idea behind Hydroviv is fundamentally unscalable because we build water filters, specifically tuned for each customer’s water, one at a time… while all other companies were (and continue to) mass produce one-size-fits all products. Even though this was initially a terrible idea from a business standpoint, the thought was that if we could first figure out if the idea was resonating with people, at a later time we could figure out how to build the automation and other things that necessary to achieve scale.

Eric, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My educational background is chemistry & informatics (what they now call data science). The first startup I was involved with was spun out of my PhD advisor’s lab where we were developing materials that could selectively grab dangerous chemicals. You might imagine that a lot of those types of principles apply to water filtration, so the R&D side of building custom water filters wasn’t a huge stretch for me.

What I think was different was that when the Flint lead crisis took place, I was concerned that the filters on the market weren’t going to perform as anticipated (ie lower performance/capacity), so I thought “Hey, why not build a filter that is purpose-built to handle the high lead levels found in Flint’s water? That’s where the idea of custom-built water filters came from.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Hydroviv was actually completely bootstrapped, and I kept a “day job” until the day I had a signed letter of intent to sell the business. By not having any investor funding, it focused me to be really focused on having conversations with customers to understand how and why they buy, and avoiding “shiny object syndrome.” This discipline has served the company well over the long term as well, because VC investment in D2C brands has dropped dramatically since 2021, which has caused a lot of companies to fail/contract, and Hydroviv is still growing

We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.

I ended up selling Hydroviv to Culligan International, the global leader in water filtration back in 2021, though I remain onboard running Hydroviv under their ownership because Culligan’s mission is aligned with my personal values & operating mentality.

My best advice is to figure out why you want to sell the company, and be honest with yourself. If it’s a desire to maximize the amount you pull off the table, I’d advise getting your house in order at least a year before you are hoping to sell, because most companies sell as a multiple of EBITDA. If you’re looking to sell because you’ve lost interest in running the company, you need to focus all of your efforts on making the business be able to operate without you, because no outside party is going to be able to do the things a founder did.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hydroviv.com
• Instagram: @ericroyphd
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-roy-13136010/

Image Credits
Cassidy DuHon