Creating Safe Environments By Purifying Bacteria With Ray Edwards Of Pūrtec

Speaker A: You're listening to Hooked on Startups, where every week you'll hear from some of the most talented, inspiring and successful entrepreneurs, uh, who share their real life stories, how they overcame challenges and failures and how they mastered success. Get ready for some of the best business tips, tricks and tactics, and some frank, unscripted discussions. Here's your host, Matthew Sullivan.

Speaker B: Hello, Ray. Yes, I thought I'd press the button, just dive into it, you know, you know how it is.

Speaker C: Right into the deep end, right, Exactly.

Speaker B: So, Ray, I just wanted to welcome you wholeheartedly to the Hooked on Startups podcast because you have a very interesting story, um, all to do with, you know, solving a massive problem with air. Basically, something as simple as. I can't help thinking about. What was that movie with it's the guy? It's a Dr. Seuss book. What's it called? The. It's about this guy who makes millions and millions and millions of dollars by selling air.

Speaker C: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: So I. What's it. It's called the, uh, Thneed. Something like that. Anyway, you know, because I got like all these young kids, so I'm an expert on children's television, which qualifies me to do absolutely nothing in real life.

Speaker C: Well, it's a novel business model. It's one that I probably could have figured out and didn't try. Well, that's right.

Speaker B: The obvious one is always standing in the face. But. So tell me a bit more about what you're working on at, uh, Puretech.

Speaker C: Yeah, we're on a holy mission to make the world safe, and particularly indoors. So we embarked on this mission back in 2017 as we recognize that in the very early days, sports teams are having a hard time keeping players safe in things like bumps in their knees, infections. So obviously four years later, it's turned into a global phenomenon, uh, given the environment right now. So indoor microbial issues will continue to be a challenge. And we believe that apparently technology is

Speaker B: the answer to it, which is great, as in making the world a safer place. I came across this, I think it must have been, you know, 30 years ago, in the 90s, early 90s, because I got involved with a, uh, company called Alpine Air Products of America. Which is really interesting because it was to me then, because they had created this sort of air purifying system using ionization and ozone. And we were, you know, then there were these early studies about so called sick building syndrome and how people who are stuck in offices all day are breathing this air that's sort of recycled and recirculated and is that the sort of thing that, you know, stumbled across that too and realized, hang on, there's a whole universe here of people in all walks of life in all locations that are, ah, day by day, damaging their health, breathing all these contaminants and, you know, this is something that needs to be solved.

Speaker C: Absolutely. In fact, still, stagnant air is probably one of the top three contributors to indoor health being an issue. Right. Where there's risks. If we don't have proper ventilation, it's difficult to get things that are naturally occurring byproducts of human occupancy out of the space that we're in. Right. And so that's a very polite way

Speaker B: of saying people with sort of, you know, generally stinky people. Yeah.

Speaker C: Well, odor is one of the more nascent, easier issues to solve for, you know, but when you get into things like COVID 19 or even, you know, mold, toxic mold, black mold, things that we can't see in the air do have a direct impact on human health. Right. It's a huge. Air is a very important part of it.

Speaker B: And I would have thought even more so. I mean, what you're working on must have really come into the spotlight over the last couple of years with the, uh, impact of the pandemic and where, you know, the transmissibility of disease through, you know, people sitting in close proximity to each other. So how has that really impacted your business?

Speaker C: Well, it's been, obviously it's raised the banner for us globally. Right. And I say globally in that we're still an early stage tech company. We're not by any means a multinational yet, but certainly right here in the US We've been working with sports teams, office buildings and commercial spaces since the beginning of our R and D process just to figure out how to optimize our technology inside indoor spaces very easily, to retrofit it in a way that is non disruptive to the buildings that we work in. So when the pandemic landed, we went from being a solution thought of as you kill marijuana smell and cigarette smell in hotel rooms and odors to a legitimate germicidal solution that uses data. Right. To protect people in these spaces. So the pandemic certainly did make the conversation a lot more important for our customers.

Speaker B: And tell me a little bit about how you got involved with Puretex. I know that it's your baby. What's the genesis? Where did the idea come from and how did you. Where was the first sort of big leap where you thought, I'm going to Grab this problem by the collars and get on with it.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Well, I'm a freak by nature. We call the hyper germaphobes of the world freaks. And I'm one of those guys. I'm the guy who, when I check into a hotel room, I've got to clean it before I use it, even though it's already been cleaned and sanitized. Right. And so I'd always had an appreciation for finding novel ways to, you know, pathogenic disease and germs off of people using natural methods. Things are sustainable. My first job, um, at 14, was working at a VA hospital medical research lab doing assistant research assistant work for a pathogenic disease doctor. And I was the kid who. I love to watch the bacteria grow in the petri dish. You know, the whole thing you do as a kid in the science projects and the fairs, never knowing that at some point in the future I'd spend my life's effort and work, you know, working in areas of, uh, dealing with bacterial issues and microbes inside of facilities. Now, obviously that's not the sexiest thing in the world to talk about.

Speaker B: Well, I think, I think it is if you're a bacteria. I mean, let's not forgotten organisms. You know, there needs to be a support group for the amoeba.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Something where they can sort of like, feel a lot better about this war that we had.

Speaker B: Should just share their problems on electricity badly, you know. There we go.

Speaker C: I lost you there.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's okay. Don't worry. That was, that was. I was just. I just cut then to go to our sponsors, M. But then I figured out we don't actually have any sponsors, so I thought we'd cut back. No, no, that in real life, that was zoom. I, um, think probably the bacteria explaining that that was one joke too far. So anyway, back with you, Ray.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah. It's a complicated world. Obviously, the microbial world is very important and we think of bacteria as a bad thing usually. But, you know, if you study the microbiome, both in the body and outside of it, you come to find that the delicate balance of healthy, good bacteria and the ones that are not as helpful for us, health wise, is a, is a lifelong study. Right. It's very nuanced.

Speaker B: But taking you back to when you were 14, again, uh, the fascination in this, you know, this VA hospital of, you know, being behind the scenes and seeing all the research and, you know, where did that. I mean, obviously that made a big impression on you, but where did that take you to next? Uh, at ah, what point did you realize that this is a field that you just wanted to become immersed in?

Speaker C: Yeah, that actually didn't happen until later in my life, during my career in business and early stage technology. I would say that about 12 years ago I fell in love again with the study of oxygen. You know, I actually hacked upon a body of work from these medical practitioners that are using ozone treatments intravenously to treat sort of stage 4 cancer and diabetes and pathogenic issues in the body effectively in many cases. And there's this documented world of sort of doctors and practitioners that have used oxygen essentially to cure human ailments. And so that just took me down a rabbit hole of research where I realized that if we could harness the power of oxygen, which is readily available in the atmosphere, we could do a lot of amazing things that help promote human health. And that was sort of what led me back to that 14 year old who was in the lab playing with petri dishes back in high school.

Speaker B: And again, because. And again this concept of oxygen or ozone or triatomic oxygen or, um, because it's actually, it's an incredibly aggressive molecule, isn't it? So if you've got three atoms of oxygen, then it's one of the most, I wouldn't say corrosive, but it's one of the most active molecules because it effectively tries to attach itself to pretty much anything that's out there, including you know, all the nasty stuff. So, so, but how does, does this all lead us onto how Puretek works? Because, you know, Purtech itself is a really interesting technology because it's not just a, uh, you know, it's not a filter, but, you know, it's something that's far more interesting that. So, so how did you develop the, the Purtech technology?

Speaker C: Absolutely. Well, there's certainly enough air filtration devices on the market. We want to be another one of the, uh, filtration solutions in the market that help clean the air. But as we look at the power and efficacy of what ozone or activated oxygen does in the atmosphere, it's really, and you described it well, it's three molecules of oxygen that form together naturally in the atmosphere. When they're separated, the air that we typically breathe has O2 in it. And so when you take electrolysis and you essentially zap those two molecules of happy oxygen molecules, they separate and naturally form again as O3 in the atmosphere. They look for each other. And what makes it powerful as an oxidizing element is that it's highly reactive. It has a Very short half life. It likes to attach itself to other molecules that have negative, uh, ion charges. And so that's where we found that if we could harness the power of oxygen and replicate that process that mother nature uses to separate molecules of oxygen in the atmosphere using electricity charges and control the disbursement and the dosage level of that in the atmosphere, that would be remarkably powerful in treating for molecules and for microbial contamination indoors. PureTech was born out of the idea that we take sensors and data, look for environmental conditions, look for contaminants in the atmosphere, and use that data as a layer, using machine Learning to apply O3 and UV light inside of indoor environments and mirror that in some cases with even ultrasound. So that we could take ultrasound at 60kHz aggregate particulate that might be suspended inside of water droplets, and then use that to treat spaces where there might be microbes hanging out with the O3 and UV light as a trifecta. And that really became the foundation of PureTech. In the beginning, we were just a device company. Um, we're manufacturing devices you put in rooms that do all those things. But as we grow the company now we're, our next mission is to make ourselves a network solution where the network captures data that has predictive analytics that determine how we treat those spaces using those modalities. So that was the evolution of technology.

Speaker B: And so that means really the working backwards. The ultimate goal is to create a network of these devices in a large building, for example, that analyze the air. Ah, and learn, learn from what contaminants are in the air. And you talk about three different solutions. So you've got ultraviolet, there's ionization, I think you mentioned, and then, or sorry, ultra, um, that, you know, using ultrasonics, and then there's O2. So how did you design this? I mean, what was the process where you had this idea that that was a solution? Talk us through because there's loads of people out there that have an idea, but completely at a loss in terms of trying to figure out how to take that idea and, and put it into, into something that's real. How do you, where do you get these things made? How do you design them? How do you, you know, do you go online and type in, you know, wanted pure tech inventor apply here? I mean, how, how do you find these people?

Speaker C: Absolutely. So I had the benefit of having launched a startup immediately prior to Pure Tech where we were manufacturing bags that had ozone generators and UV light strips inside them to sterilize sports equipment. And so this Wasn't my first time working with ionization and with UV light. But as, uh, PureTech was born, I sort of had this idea that if I could bring in IoT capabilities and go out into the atmosphere, into the world of engineering and design a product that would use, that would start with sensor analysis, start with data, uh, do more analysis, and send data cloud into the cloud to warehouse that data about occupancy levels. That would be the beginning of a new network solution where we could have this entire platform essentially connect to H Vac, connect to other industrial cleaning systems, as well as capturing data for sterilization companies, and then bring in a hardware layer that could automate that process inside of one platform. And so to do that, I started working with mechanical engineers. I started working with electrical engineers out of Orange county and also brought in a number of industrial design teams to help me to take the idea out of my head and apply that into something that'd be a working product. So my engineering team, they're really awesome. I outsourced a team out of Reno called Breadware. And these guys were really instrumental in helping me go from idea to prototype. As I worked on the designs and capabilities, I probably spent. There was a year and a half of R and D, and I spent nine months of that just on clinical validation, working with my friends at UCI and their epidemiology team to determine the right doses levels and how to make the modalities effective as an anti microbial germicidal solution. So there was a lot of lab work in the process, a lot of medical background research that went into developing how much O3 did we need to optimize inside of space dimensions to get to the right inflection point where we'd be lethal for microbes, but relatively harmless for human health in that same indoor space. And so that was. It was a process of a year and a half. I raised a little bit of capital to get from idea to prototype, and ultimately won a contract with the La Rams to supply our technology inside of their facility. They saw the tech, got really excited and bought all the prototypes from us. And so I had different challenges then. I was out of units, but long on ideas and having to figure out how do I take this and finish this product, make it elegant and get it to market. So that's been the last two years a labor of love.

Speaker B: And I suppose it really helps having that key customer, certainly someone with such a high profile. And did that come from your previous connections or was that a result of just pounding the streets as it were.

Speaker C: It is. And so I had a team. Part of our startup team was we had a young gentleman who was really great at outbound sales calls. And so he was calling a number of sports teams just to see if we could get some interest in what we were doing years ago at the very beginning of his process. And it just so happened that he called on Rutgers and their equipment team left, uh, Rutgers, their athletic. The, the associate athletic director left the Rutgers team and moved back to LA to work for the Rams and become their head equipment guy. And so he and I had built a relationship over a year and a half, just a friendly relationship, having seen the new technology. And I pitched him on the idea and when I showed him the concepts and designs, he's like, we should talk about this now. This is before the pandemic landed, about six months. And so when the pandemic landed, it went from idea to real very fast. And so we had to hurry up and get all the supply chain issues worked out, get the engineering done to get enough units into the Rams facility so they could actually use it for the first season during a pandemic. So yeah, it was a lot of relationship marketing.

Speaker B: And how do you get prototypes built? You know, is there a, uh, I mean, what's the process of. Because they can be hugely expensive because they're obviously very low volume products. So you talked about your outsourced team in Reno. For people that have these ideas, you know, what are the processes of actually getting your product to the prototype level?

Speaker C: Yeah, so it starts with design engineering. I mean certainly there's the idea of what I wanted Puretech to be and what I wanted the network to do. And then there's the actual capabilities of what's available on the market to get from idea just to proof of concept. And in the beginning I didn't have any capital, I didn't have any resources to actually iterate around the hardware side of it. And for any startups that are listening to this or startups that are in the hardware space, it's very common that it's the most difficult part of getting to market is getting through the tooling and the engineering and the hardware inflection point where you can actually deliver a product to market at scale with reasonable economics. And so what you end up doing is you're looking for all kind of like hobbyist parts in the very beginning that you could kind of hack together to come up with something that's just a basic functioning prototype. So the very first version of our technology didn't have Very robust software, didn't have a lot of smarts. We had enough firmware for it to be automated using scheduler features, but not enough where we could actually capture sensors and send them anywhere. But that was what helped, was being able to get that prototype done, um, get the Rams on board with the first season with us, helped us to go out and raise capital so that we could turn the, develop the product into being a robust uh, IoT network solution. And so that was nice. We raised $2.1 million in our pre seed round in order to go from um, the proof of concept to now what is our working beta product market.

Speaker B: And that's a fantastic achievement to be able to fund m it yourself. But I gu, it's probably because of the effectiveness of the product. So it must have really worked when you put it into the LA Rams because otherwise this wouldn't be a story that you'd be able to talk about because they would have tested it and if it didn't work that would be something consigned to the scrap heap as it were. So clearly the product works. Is that the sort of feedback you would have got, presumably pretty immediate feedback from those guys?

Speaker C: Absolutely. In fact, what helped a lot was, you know, part of our technology is the experiential aspects of PureTech.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: It's when you walk into a room that's been enabled with our technology or network, you can tell by the way the room smells if it has been functioning or not. And so the first reaction we got was that, uh, you know, when the units run inside the offices and the weight room where these linebackers are working out, they can tell every morning when they walked in that by the fresh smell that we had oxidized a lot of the things in the room. That's just pure from an experiential standpoint, from a scientific standpoint, we spent a healthy amount of time in the pre deployment doing what's called a quantitative microbial risk assessment. And this is a process that we use to determine whether or not we're placing units in the right place, we're reading, getting right environmental data, but also making sure that the efficacy of the units are actually provable. Meaning we would do surface swab tests in the very beginning of our launch, uh, using handheld ATP monitoring devices. And that would tell us if whether or not the treatments were running were reducing the microbial count on surfaces. A very, very, it's a 15 second test. It's a very quick way to know if we got any efficacy inside of like the weight room. Or the spa area. And so, yeah, it was really great in that the team was able to see the data we presented to them. That's the result of that study. And that was. That gave both us and the team enough credibility and confidence to move forward to a fuller deployment inside, uh, the space. And so now we've productized that in the beginning, it was a very manual process. Our newest product will take models that pull in viral accretion inside our facility and automate that process inside of our dashboard for the customer, just using their floor plans when they sign up with us. Right. And that's been a very important thing.

Speaker B: But take us back to that moment when you got the phone call from the LA ram saying, yeah, okay, we'll give it a go. What was going through your head at that point?

Speaker C: Well, so that was interesting that we were talking, uh, catching up about just life stuff on a call with the equipment team there. And I shared with them what I was working on and pulled designs up on a zoom call just like the one we're having now. And I didn't expect to get the reaction that I did because you assume that an NFL team has probably the most advanced protocols in the world. So I just assumed that this little thing I was working on out of an office in Irvine wouldn't be remotely interesting, where they have electrostatic sprayers and all kinds of equipment companies and solutions. But when I pull back the curtain of the technology. So they, they told me to come up, I go to the facility, and in fact, you may be able to see this. I'll pull this out. This is what our first unit looked like. The actual literal prototype. Obviously it's not as sexy as our new devices, but it looks pretty good.

Speaker B: Looks like it would scare the microbes to death more than anything. Looks like a, you know, like, like some sort of. Some. Looks like something out of Terminator 2 that's designed in the year, uh, 2050 or something that's gone back in time and has landed on someone's desk.

Speaker C: This is my flux capacitor for all.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker C: Yeah. So we actually showed. I wasn't prepared to show this to anyone in the NFL because it just wasn't. The design wasn't great.

Speaker B: Elegant.

Speaker C: But we did the pitch meeting, and I had it scheduled to run and kick on its own during the meeting. And when it went live, the team could smell the, uh, effect of the O3. They invited us back to do the QMR a study. And then ultimately I got really excited as we did, and we moved forward so it was exciting. It was a very.

Speaker B: But there are also problems that come with that. Say, you know, the immediate problem is, well, we've got to, how do we fund this to build the things that the customer needs. So what did you find, um, the most strategy that you employed to suddenly magic money out of nowhere or magic product out of thin air?

Speaker C: Well, it was a very complicated, very, uh, nuanced strategy. I started cold calling investors.

Speaker B: There you are. Yeah, exactly the best way.

Speaker C: It was hustle. I probably reached out to. Not probably. I actually reached out to over 350 investors. I had a, uh, team of advisors then that was really instrumental in introducing me to some of the bigger names, retail VCs. But I tend to be incredibly critical of Menlo park in that they see a ton of deal flow. It's very difficult for them to get access to what is the new forward thinking, the latest startup that's going to actually become something given the just amount of sheer volume they get. So I actually was a little contrarian, thought that if I went through a layer of VC and institutional investors that were what I call tier two nimble VCs, I'd have a better outcome. Huh. So after having met some of the bigger players, I actually focused uh, the outreach to some of the VCs at head 50 million to 250 million of a, and maybe, you know, 25 to 100 million of dry power that we're looking for. Just really innovative, cool things. And was very fortunate to have met Blue Collective out, uh, of New York City. When you're a hardware startup, it adds another layer of complexity in that the minute you say that you're in the hardware business, you lose about 80% of most of the big VCs that we think about. Just because it's not an easy game to play.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: I was very fortunate and thankful that Blue Collective did not have a sort of negative reaction to us having a very important hardware layer. But they also respected the future of the IoT and software capabilities we're envisioning. And so of, um, the 2.1, they invested two of that and that was enough for us to get from the proof of concept to beta product to market.

Speaker B: And then in terms of how you're going to distribute this, because you can build it and sell directly, or as you would alluding to earlier, working with H Vac companies, is this technology that you see yourself ultimately licensing or do you think you're going to stay in the manufacturing business?

Speaker C: So as we grow, we focus more on being a network solution that is really the rails upon which other hardware and equipment and devices would live on top of. And so while we do have a very elegant device, it is designed to be very effective, but also remarkably apparent and visible. We do want to keep our style aesthetic on brand, and so we'll always have some degree of control over how the designs of our products look and feel. Almost like what you'd envision Dyson to be for the vacuum cleaner space or Apple for personal computing.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: But that being said, we do see a world where we don't have to necessarily be the OEM for all of our devices. The same way that, you know, most of our smartphones are manufactured from licensed components from all kinds of suppliers around the world. So I tend to think I obsess over user experience. I obsess over the customer relationship and the customer experience. And I think an inherent part of that is as we get people back into buildings again safely, they're going to want to see something that is not behind the walls, that's actually doing the job of keeping them safe. And so because of that, we'll, uh, continue to stay in front of our designs and make sure that, uh, we do control the look and feel and experience of peer tech in these spaces.

Speaker B: I guess that is important because to actually physically see something on a desk or, you know, in a room that, you know that when that thing's buzzing and the lights are flashing, it's making the air better for you. So there is that physical element that, uh, is still quite attractive to the customer.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Well, if you talk to facilities managers, and I obviously spend a lot of time with those, with facilities directors and managers that are, you know, inside of big spaces. Right. They'll tell you that worker, worker attrition is the conversation now when it comes to getting out of what's called the great weight, uh, you would have seen the announcement maybe two weeks ago that Google's delayed their office reopening and return to work beyond the January 10th date. Right. That's a very extreme, large example of what facilities folks have to deal with. And so we think if you're a team of engineers looking to get back into collaborative space again, you're going to want to know that there's something more than a hand sanitizer or maybe a Plexiglas partition keeping you safe. And so a layer of technology that could actually do that, the job is going to be our answer to making workers feel that way, going back into the space again.

Speaker B: And in terms of what's on the immediate horizon. So this is not just a US solution. This is something that can provide solutions across the rest of the world. Presumably because the air is pretty much the same in most places, I would have thought. So you've got a global marketplace on your hands.

Speaker C: Well, interesting thing about humanity is that as much as we're different around the world, we are very much the same. And most of the things that we do that are important happen in built spaces. They happen indoors. Right? From eating to time with family to working to working out. If you're in a place like New York City, being indoors right now or being outdoors right now is a little challenging. It's freezing, right. And so yes, we developed a solution we thought would be unique enough in that we would solve a problem in a way that was novel without you having to spray sprayers across your facility 24, 7 but ubiquitous in that we knew that if we could protect NFL players in locker rooms, we could probably handle odors and food smells and cigarette smells in hotel rooms pretty easily. And that's part of why we started in sports facilities. That's probably one of the more challenging environments to get purification technology into effectively. Right. And so we don't sell to consumers yet there is a pivot to consumer. A few years out, we started in commercial spaces because we believe if we can protect you when you're flying, traveling, working, doing all the things you do in public spaces, we could work back environment very easily without having to over invest in our marketing and advertising.

Speaker B: And again, so if that is the case, so what is your approach to marketing? This because if you're marketing on a B2B basis, that has a whole different set of challenges compared to marketing direct to the consumer. So what have you found has been your most effective B2B strategy?

Speaker C: Yes, relationship, relationships and more relationships. All of our deal flow, all of our current. We have a few large locals that are coming on the network next top of next year have come through having relationships with someone that has either a, they're in a position of being a business leader or, or they're responsible for the workplace experience and worker safety. And what happens is Peertek becomes very infectious to use a ploy on that term now, in that when people see that we have the ability to deploy within days an entire network of devices across 100,000 200,000 square feet and have them on the network activated and capturing data on their facility risks. See all that in a single access point on the phone. It gets really, it's uh, not very difficult to, I'd say Sell the product into commercial environments. I think where we spend most of our time is building credibility because we're in a world where there's a lot of hygiene theater and so there's a lot of solutions that are promising that they can keep people safe with all types of different devices. Right. So we do spend a lot more time in that relationship building with pilot opportunities and also working with our facilities customers and operators, helping them understand the science of what's actually happening when we come. Right. And doing these ATP microbial assessments as well in cases where we really have, ah, large deployment. And so that's been our strategy. Uh, what we're going into next is to scale the company is channel partnerships. So now we're getting introduced to relationships to really big industrial cleaning companies, sterilization companies, uh, large service providers, even security companies that do smart locks. Right. Because they've got the footprint of buildings and customers. And so we're a nice natural layer of technology on top of their current service offerings. And that's a really nice thing because they've got the customer relationship and it keeps us in the technology bucket where we can be innovators more than we're market engineering. Right. As a startup, it's very important.

Speaker B: Wow. Well, it is fantastic just to hear such a success story. And again, all of this really, you know, when did the Rams. Is that the pivot point or the. Is that the moment when suddenly you thought, I think we're onto something here? Was that a year or a couple of years ago? I know, it's quite recently.

Speaker C: Yeah. So we started working with them in late, in mid 20th, top of 2020, right around when the pandemic landed. We were already in conversation in 2019, but the prototypes were ready right around summer of 2020. So that's when we did our initial May of 2020. We did our deployment with them. And yeah, I think we knew at that point that we had a solution that if we could get it right with their facility, it'd be repeated across, at least across the NFL. Uh, not realizing that every sports team, every league in the world would be dealing with a pandemic level issue, you know, within the span of a year. So our challenge has not been creating demand. All it's been meaning that demand, supply and quality control.

Speaker B: Yes, I guess, you know, there's no, you know, the size of your market is unfeasibly large, I would imagine. You know, just it's. If you look at the amount of built space or office, um, space. Well, that's. That is fantastic. Is uh, so you've got all these great challenges, you know, it's um, you know, be careful what you wish for now, now you've got to try and deliver. So that's the uh, next challenge.

Speaker C: That's it. And we did, you know, in all frankness we had, that was our biggest challenge. Even with the rams I over promised and under delivered the actual beta version of our tech would be ready again. We had supplied them with our prototypes and realized uh, that part of the gift and the curse of the pandemic was supply chain was completely fraud. And so we had suppliers that were promising us parts and components at prices, uh, that were pre pandemic prices, at delivery dates, that were pre pandemic, pre pandemic delivery timing. And that all went left on us. And so we ended up missing almost an entire season then. Yeah, with the upgrade because of some of these challenges. Thankfully your great relationship with my key points of contact there and they're great guys and super supportive and then we also did a lot of work to discount and make this as premium as possible for them given those challenges because just having the relationship and use case was so critical for our storytelling. Right, of course. But yeah, I think one of the challenges that we all are dealing with in any type of equipment or hardware based solution devices, those electric vehicle companies are buying all the parts that are smart off the market way ahead of when we get there. So we actually work with Arrow now helping us figure out how to get ahead of large volume supply chain so we can continue to meet the market.

Speaker B: Yeah, so you've got to learn a whole new world. That's right. Uh, so you know that must be intellectually quite stimulating actually just to sort of having to learn all of the dynamics of supply chain and manufacturing and all of the nuances within that. So I guess uh, you don't get to sleep much.

Speaker C: A few ulcers that I didn't have before the pandemic. I've been very fortunate to have an amazing team of experienced manufacturing supply chain experts here at Peer Deck and so they really have helped us navigate some of these challenges.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. I think it would be a good idea actually to switch gears as they say in America, which is where we both are. To the hooked on startups Quick Fire questionnaire. Uh, Ray, how do you feel about that? That wasn't one of the questions by the way.

Speaker C: Perfect. I'm up for the challenge.

Speaker B: So the questions are as follows. Number one, question one. What is your favourite word?

Speaker C: Ubiquitous.

Speaker B: Oh, very smart question. Number Two. What is your least favourite word?

Speaker C: Sleep.

Speaker B: Yes, that foreign concept. Question 3. What are you most excited about right now?

Speaker C: Oh, man. In one word, reopening. I'm a traveler. I love to be on the road. The idea that we can travel again.

Speaker B: Uh, I'm with you there. No, I know what you mean. This sort of forced incarceration. Glad it's coming to an end. Um, question number four. What turns you off right now?

Speaker C: In one word, I'd say politics.

Speaker B: You're not alone. That does crop up quite frequently actually.

Speaker C: It's become ubiquitous. To use another word.

Speaker B: I see what you did there, Ray. Very good. Although I don't want you looking too smart, so I'm going to chop that bit out in the edits. No. Question number five. What sound or noise do you love?

Speaker C: Do I love? Oh, the sound of my son's laughter.

Speaker B: And what sound or noise do you hate?

Speaker C: The sound of my son's crying. I should say. Whining.

Speaker B: Whining. I think I know what you mean. Yeah, that sort of. Yeah. Yes, it does penetrate. Question seven.

Speaker C: Huh?

Speaker B: And you may plead the fifth. What is your favorite curse word?

Speaker C: Oh, are there any more. Technically, are there any curse words left?

Speaker B: I mean, I think it's. It's usage, isn't it? I think people have developed. I mean, if we take fuck as an example, you know, we've had some m. We've had fuckity fuckity fuck. We've had. For fuck's sake. We've had, you know, just variations of that word, which is, I think, one of the primordial molecules of life. So as I said, so it's really. Is there a favorite curse word that you deploy? For example, when your supplier says, you know that price that we quoted you, it's changed slightly. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I can.

Speaker C: I would use that one. Yeah, I'd use that. The word that came to my mind immediately was waiting to me. That is a curse word. My team is like, we have a, like, uh, okay, supply chain, partner owes us parts or LED lights and we haven't gotten back to them. I was waiting for an email from someone that supply chain to get back to me. That's the word. That's the biggest word.

Speaker B: Stuff that's out of your control. That's the, you know, that's the curse word. Question number eight then. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Speaker C: Profession as in a vocation? Like something I'm paid to do or anything?

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, yes. In other words, what job other than your own would you like to do.

Speaker C: This goes back to my earlier thing, politician.

Speaker B: And what profession would you not like to attempt?

Speaker C: Teaching.

Speaker B: I think we've had that a few times. I think probably because of the challenges. Ray, my final question is, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly gates?

Speaker C: Go back in.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Run again. You've got a series D to raise.

Speaker C: Yeah, game over. Restart.

Speaker B: Yes, that would be good. Ray, final question. How do people find out more about you? What's the best way to contact you and find out more about what you're doing, what you've done with PureTech and what you're going to do in the future?

Speaker C: Sure. In fact we're building more media assets every day. But I would say the best place to start would be my LinkedIn which is where most of the updated content is. So I'm ah, searchable under Ray Edwards. There's quite a few of us but um, I'm assuming that you'll post after uh, this the link we do.

Speaker B: We have that technology.

Speaker C: I'm very accessible on LinkedIn where I'm most active. My website is PureTech.com and folks can also reach me directly through that site by joining our community mailing list as well.

Speaker B: That's wonderful Ray. It's been such a pleasure having you on. Thank you for sharing your story about how you invented and created this fantastic device that's probably going to be as ubiquitous as one can imagine. Now there you are. See, I see what I do there. There you go. Yeah, two can play that game. Thank you once again and um, look forward to uh, staying in touch and following your progress.

Speaker C: What an honor. Thank you for having us on the show and really great hanging out with you today.

Speaker B: No bullshit. Likewise. I'll leave you there. Thank you once again.

Speaker C: Cheers. Matthew, it.