anusridharan

6 ms·

1.
by anusridharan 9y ago
haha kind of, with a slight automation twist. We use IoT devices so we automatically detect when your water is low and order it for you :) We've realized that for people who have to order water often, it's kind of a pain to do it
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Most definitely- we will also be diligent, and we'd love feedback and thoughts as we progress!
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Yes- we actually started out going down the road of conservation via smart metering devices. We quickly realized that we would be facing an uphill battle if we kept trying to start there. Also, as a point of clarification, no city in India
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by anusridharan 9y ago
That's a really good question with a not so straightforward answer. I'll start with some stats. Public water utilities lose 50% of it's water due to leakages. During monsoons, India gets enough rain to fulfill it's dr
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Thank you so much- we really appreciate it!
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by anusridharan 9y ago
That's a good question. Actually, we've spent time figuring out how to drop the cost of the device to sub $30, at scale. For frequent users, we would give the device away for free. For people that are on a public water connectio
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Yes- the original company NextDrop has been around since 2011, but we shut that down about a year ago and started this new version of NextDrop recently. At a high level, you're correct. For the past 6 years we were essentially selling
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by anusridharan 9y ago
That's a great question. Right now we manually take water samples and get it tested in a lab. Over time, as IoT devices get cheaper, we believe the water quality testing will be done at the source, online, and in real time. This mak
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Yup, that's something we have to monitor carefully. That's why the backbone to our business is actually IoT devices that transmit data to monitor different aspects of water. We're starting with data around water withdrawals
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Thank you! And yes, we've definitely thought about this market segment as well. We are actually of the opinion that water can delivery will eventually die out. If you do the math, it's actually more cost effective to buy a water
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by anusridharan 9y ago
That's a really great point, and bottled water is actually the fastest growing segment of private water in India (growing 30% year over year). My co founder and I have been living in India for the past 6 years and we both own personal
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Thank you! My co-founder and I quit our jobs and moved to India 6 years ago, and we've been working in the urban Indian water space since then. We really felt that something needed to be done and we've been on a journey to figure
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by anusridharan 9y ago
I have a background in environmental engineering actually- I did my bachelors and masters in Civil Engineering from UC Berkeley. In undergrad I focused on environmental engineering, and for my masters I focused on sensor technology and how
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Oh man, we're hoping to get there as soon as possible!
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by anusridharan 9y ago
This is true- and I'll rephrase what you're saying. What are the environmental impacts of groundwater withdrawals? If someone is withdrawing, who else isn't getting water? These are exceedingly tricky issues, and the sad pa
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by anusridharan 9y ago
That's a really good point. We've had to think long and hard about this one too. There's one interesting stat that is less known. Aboout 80% of India runs on groundwater, and in cities, we have estimated that about 50% of
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by anusridharan 9y ago
Hey- that's a great point, and I'm glad you brought it up. Our previous company actually sold water data to governments so we've been working quite closely with city municipal corporations. The problem is that urbanization
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Launch HN: NextDrop Technologies (YC S17) – Water Marketplace for Urban India
114 points by anusridharan 9y ago|54 comments