Founder Friday: Brian Keller, Charlie Carlisle & Jordi Hays, Co-Founders of Rorra 💧
Issue #52
Founder Friday is a content series from SuperAngel.Fund that highlights companies across our portfolio and the inspiring founders behind them.
SuperAngel.Fund is an early-stage fund led by Ben Zises that invests in Consumer, PropTech & Future of Work. So far, we have invested over $20m into 100+ companies. Apply to invest with us by clicking here.
In our 52nd edition we are featuring Brian Keller, Charlie Carlisle & Jordi Hays, co-founders of Rorra, a water filtration company dedicated to solving the tap water crisis in America 💧.
A few years ago, Brian, Charlie & Jordi all became fascinated with water quality for different reasons. For Brian and Jordi, they had become new dads and found their children, Ro and Rora, separately suffering from eczema. As it turns out, it was a direct result of the harmful substances in their water. Being the serial entrepreneurs that they are, they set out to build better solutions to address the problem of poor water quality.
After several years of research and development, product testing and dozens of painstaking design iterations, Rorra finally launched yesterday 🎉🚀!
Rorra is developing a suite of beautiful water filtration products that use best-in-class technology to protect families wherever they use or consume water.
Unfortunately, tap water contamination is one of the biggest issues facing Americans today. This is a direct result of deteriorating infrastructure, poor regulation and inadequate treatment at water plants. The water piped into our homes can be a filthy cocktail of heavy metals like lead, PFAS (AKA “forever chemicals”), microplastics, SSRIs, bacteria, chlorine, and hundreds of carcinogens known to cause lasting health problems. The water we shower in, bathe our children in, wash our dishes in, and use in our everyday lives is more harmful to long-term health than it ever has been.
For these reasons, Rorra’s mission is as important as any company that I have ever invested in. They are committed to reducing exposure to these harmful contaminants to give consumers peace of mind and to live healthier lives.
A new study led by researchers from Columbia and Rutgers universities showed that bottled water can contain 10 to 100 times more bits of plastic than previously estimated, averaging 240,000 micro and nanoplastic fragments per liter of bottled water. This material can migrate through our bodies and lead to incredibly harmful results, much of which is still unknown.
And while the company plans to launch plenty of product expansions over time, they are starting with a 2.5 Gallon Countertop System that utilizes a proprietary Enfinity™ Filter to significantly reduce harmful contaminants. It is made from Stainless Steel instead of cheaper and more harmful plastic materials designed for high performance, durability and ease-of-use. The Countertop System also delivers clean drinking water without the need for a plug-in power source and can be used anywhere in the world. And better yet, it is available at an affordable price with a filter subscription to guarantee customers continuously clean water.
Prior to Rorra, Brian and Charlie worked together for nearly a decade at another mission-driven consumer product company called Love Your Melon, which Brian co-founded in 2012 in an entrepreneurship class as a student at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Over 10+ years, Love Your Melon reached extraordinary success before getting acquired in 2021. More importantly, the brand had a similarly inspiring mission: to improve the lives of children and their families battling pediatric cancer. By the time they exited the business, Love Your Melon had donated nearly $10m and 250,000 products to the fight against pediatric cancer!
Rorra is a water filtration company dedicated to solving one of humanity’s greatest health problems: access to clean and safe water 💧
In deciding on their next adventure, all three partners sought an opportunity where they could create an equally large and everlasting lasting societal impact. Enter Rorra.
With the largest companies in the space created decades ago and using technology and designs that are also decades old, Rorra believes there is an opportunity for a new brand to modernize the industry. The company is focused on transparency, working with the best labs and certification bodies in the world, such as the NSF, to test their products and provide data to consumers that many other water filtration brands obfuscate or omit entirely.
To advance their mission, the company plans to sell its products omnichannel to optimize for mass distribution, wide scale accessibility and at a reasonable and more compelling price point for all.
Together, Brian, Charlie and Jordi collectively bring a vast set of skills across product, operations, and financial expertise rarely found all together. These hard skills are only matched by their soft skills: resiliency, grit and resourcefulness, that I believe are needed to become a true outlier success.
Click this link to order your Rorra system and get your drink on!
Describe your company in 5 words or less?
Brian: The water you can trust.
Charlie: Cleaner water for healthier lives.
Jordi: Beautiful water filters.
What was your primary motivation for starting your business?
Brian: I had a daughter, Aurora, about two years ago. She suffered from eczema with an unknown cause shortly following her birth. My son, about two years older, had it as well and I realized it wasn't a one off issue. The doctors told us to bathe her every day and gave us steroid cream to apply to the hot spots. The more I bathed her, the worse it got. I wanted to understand the source instead of applying a Band-Aid fix. I got a filtered showerhead and after bathing her in filtered water for about 2 days, her eczema completely subsided. This lead me to dig further into what was in our water and how it affects our overall health. We looked into the solutions in the market and realized there weren’t great options. We realized that water quality was one of the largest issues facing Americans today and we set out to create a solution - Rorra.
Charlie: I live in Denver, we've got a widely publicized lead problem in our area (The city literally takes out billboards about not using tap water for baby formula, etc). I've been in and out of about six different filtration solutions over the last decade. Implementing a lot of those learnings and my own experience as a user was extremely useful in developing our requirements set for our first product and those to come to make sure they work reliably, are highly effective at reducing harmful contaminants, and ultimately create a user experience that will lead to brand loyalty and preventing product use attrition.
Jordi: Wanting clean water for our families.
What new product/feature are you most excited about and why?
Brian: The Countertop System. It's a huge step forward in reducing our exposure to the harmful contaminants we are drinking every day and it truly delivers water that is not only better for us, but is done without cutting corners. We invested a significant amount of time, money, and engineering into building a product that can deliver better performance and a user experience that is simple to use and fits seamlessly into any kitchen.
Charlie: Honestly for the Countertop System our filter tech and weight-based accurate usage sensor are distinctly unique to our space. Separately having spent so much time in our system components factory overseas has given me a profound appreciation for how difficult it is to actually make beautiful products from stainless steel, which also sets us apart from a lot of our competitors who either make ugly objects or otherwise use plastic materials instead for their systems.
Jordi: Our countertop system. It's two years in the making and by far the most beautiful product I've been involved with making.
What piece of advice would you give an entrepreneur starting a business today?
Brian: Find the intersection between what you're passionate about, what you're good at, and where there is market fit. In that intersection is where you will find a business worth pursuing.
Charlie: Grit/grind, go together to go far (get at least one badass business partner), and the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. In order to succeed as an entrepreneur you need to have an uncommon amount of grit and persistence to weather storms, believe in yourself and team even when things are rough, and have the confidence, charisma and persistence. Get important stakeholders (investors, manufacturers, influencers, etc) bought into your vision to help you bring it to life.
Jordi: Play the long game. I believe that when we launch we'll look like an overnight success to the world, but we've been building Rorra for two years in silence.
What do you love to do in your free time?
Brian: Spend time with my amazing children and wife.
Charlie: Backcountry snowboarding, hiking, camping, working out, spending time with my dog and loved ones.
Jordi: Hang with my family, invest in other startups, and drive fast cars.
What is the most interesting place you’ve visited recently and why?
Brian: Last December, when we were working on Rorra, I traveled with my family to Florida. Neither of my kids had any skin issues since we began filtering our water but it only took a few days of them bathing in the water there until both of them had flare ups all over their bodies. It reinforced the need for what we're building.
Charlie: Mainland China is an extremely interesting place that I've now been able to visit quite a bit in the last year through Rorra. As much as the media makes you believe (and in some cases realities) are vastly different from the US, the people I meet are really similar to us. Everyone just wants a better life for themselves and loved ones.
Jordi: Hereticon - Founders Fund's annual conference in Miami. It was a pretty remarkable group of people and everyone had an opinion on water.
What is your favorite app or tool in your work life and in your personal life?
Brian: Supermetrics is a very powerful tool if you know how to use it. I use it for multiple purposes to track data across platforms to be able to make more informed projections and daily optimizations.
Charlie: Google Sheets. If you are highly competent with it's different features and plugins you can go very far.
Jordi: X - best way to learn and connect with peers.
What do you want to be when you grow up (besides a successful founder)? 😊
Brian: Build companies that solve the largest issues we face.
Charlie: Self-reliant, Renaissance Man who supports his family and protects the outdoors and environment at large.
Jordi: Since I was a kid I always wanted to be an "international business man" so hopefully we can sell a lot of Rorra units overseas quickly.
What do you believe is the most important skill or attribute of a successful founder?
Brian: Leadership & determination.
Charlie: Unwavering belief in yourself, team and vision.
Jordi: Vision + relevant execution.
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