Founder Charles Robinson says Water2 is on mission-led growth with his direct-to-consumer business.
“I’m always astonished by the ways in which water affects people’s lives,” says Charles Robinson, the 24-year-old founder of Water2.
To prove a point, Robinson, who launched his water filtration company to market in 2023, is recalling an email sent several hours earlier on the day that we speak.
It came from the mother of a neurodiverse family of four, ranging from nine to 19 and highly sensitive to taste and smell. “Before, they wouldn’t drink tap water and she was spending on bottled water. Now they had the simple fix of Water2 and I could never have expected that,” says Robinson.
“Some dogs also wouldn’t drink tap water due to levels of chlorine. I would never have expected pet owners would benefit from the product in the same way.”
Robinson, who grew up in West Sussex, moved to London in 2020 to study philosophy at University College London (UCL), but didn’t gel with the course and dropped out two weeks later.
At the time he was reading articles on microplastics, tap water and how UK water could be better quality. “I was intellectually interested but didn’t know how to go about it,” he admits.
Having shunned university, the entrepreneur started selling hand sanitiser at the start of COVID. Gelcard, a premium credit card-thin hand sanitiser, sold units to Google, top corporate firms and hotels such as The Wolseley.
Water2 is seen as one of the fastest-growing UK consumer brands, built with zero VC funding and in 180,000 homes.
The teenager made £100,000 within the first six months and expanded the business to Tokyo and Kuwait. He admits: “I was learning everything but not making that much money at a crazy level. I wanted to build a long-term, multi-decade business and brand.”
He decided to take profit from the hand sanitiser and returned to UCL to work on developing a product. Several episodes of good fortune then took hold. Firstly, on a trip to Milan where the sanitiser was manufactured, he happened to peruse an industry-first water filter catalogue and took back some prototypes from the nearby facility.
“I was a philosophy dropout and distinctly unqualified on the technical side,” he adds.
He searched for experts on water at UCL and wrote a lengthy email to professor Luiza Campos. “I learned quickly that academics can be very receptive to young people who want to change the world,” says Robinson.
“Finding her was amazing and having the access when students went away for the holiday. It was deeply fortunate but good luck paired with that email and trying to convince her to do it with me.”
Over two summers he undertook independent research with Campos on testing London water, running it through the product filter and he soon pivoted to a water-first business after developing a filtration system capable of removing harmful contaminants.
Water2 went to market with a first generation product in early 2023. “I still had some university debt and most of my friends were getting jobs in the City,” says Robinson. “I was on around £1,000 per month from the small revenue I had. It was at a time where everything had to work and nothing did.”
Charles Robinson dropped out of university after discovering links between tap water, contaminants like microplastics and PFAS ‘forever chemicals’. ·Clynt Garnham Environmental
Robinson says he went direct to retailers, housing developers and then door-to-door but felt he couldn’t get the messaging right on his product.
He then hit upon the type of communication style that worked: social media videos where he filmed himself talking about UK water news, why he had dropped out of university and the story behind his water filter product.
“People really resonated with the raw authenticity of it all and we flew with it,” adds Robinson.
In early 2024, British adventurer Bear Grylls became a customer — around Water2’s 8,000th, says Robinson — who expressed interest in the start-up’s purpose. A deal was struck where Grylls would become co-owner and investor in the business.
The pair speak “as friends” on WhatsApp most days. “The relationship has been amazing and the type of awareness it has given us,” says Robinson. “He is a customer, owns part of the business and can talk candidly about the product.”
Bear Grylls purchased a Water2 filter and became a co-owner and investor alongside Charles Robinson, left.
By the end of this year, Robinson believes that the fast-growing UK consumer brand will be in around 1% of all UK homes. “That’s around roughly one in every 100 families who use our water every single day which is incredible really,” he says.
“I never had this unwavering belief that this idea will work, it’s rather that every single day I doubt the idea,” says Robinson. “I wake up and think about what might not be successful. It means that I am trying to find the holes and weaknesses until I get things working.”
Water2 currently employs five staff in the UK, with 15 people outsourced in Asia for manufacturing, customer service and video editing.
Robinson’s product is designed to be self-installable and has a price point of £129 with only one filter change per year. The company says it has sold into 180,000 homes while revenue has grown from six to an eight-figure business in two years.
“Water filters had been a sterile and antiquated industry. When I dropped all defences and spoke humanly about the problems in water and what we could do to save it, it took bravery to tell it.”
Those honest social media videos have proved a marketing winner in propelling the business.
“Perhaps I should have started to tell my story sooner,” he adds, “but it was the birth of Water2 about being a super prominent, digital first and simple to understand brand in the water filter industry.”
Purpose
“We’re reducing people’s exposure to chemicals and microplastics in the water which might not see the benefit now, but in years to come that will have a real effect upon people in this country. I think we are having material effect upon outcomes in the UK and that’s what I care about.
Brand
It is a confusing industry for a normal consumer to distinguish between distillation, reverse osmosis and infiltration and there was a distinct lack of brand awareness other than Britta, but where you could name several bottled water brands.
Key to success
The biggest secret has been saying ‘no’ to many things. VCs and big retailers have wanted to come on board and Amazon (AMZN) also approached us early. The power of ‘no’ mean you have complete focus, clarity and real mission within the business. When you do one thing at 100% it’s worth so much more than doing two things at 50%.”
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