Research

I sat down with my mother, a two time entrepreneur, both in design companies, over the weekend to discuss Filtra and she gave me some really good advice.

At first she did not think that there would be a market for these portable filter water bottles because there aren't that many places with bad tasting water. I explained to her, however, that water everywhere is not clean. A lot of it has some problems including sediment from rusty pipes or chlorine from the filtration process. Even living in NYC with very good water, there are still opportunities to get fresher water on the go. She did, however, understand why people would want to substitute water bottles for Filtra. She spends a lot of money on water bottles daily and would like a substitute for that.

She also looked at our design and didn't think there was any difference between that and what else is out there. I did, however, explain to her that it comes to marketing and she completely agreed that that is what is important for an industry like this. She said that differentiation is key when it comes to water bottles and people need to feel cool holding it. She did say though that she was not sure whether our design is feasible to design cheaply if we want rubber handles and a screw top but she encouraged us to keep looking for companies that will make them.