An Interview With Wanda Malhotra
Appliances, lights, heating, cooling, insulation (windows) and sprinkler systems have all become drastically more efficient over the past 20 years. Many of these improvements are affordable and subsidized by your local electric or water utility.
As we face an unprecedented environmental crisis, the need for sustainable solutions has never been more urgent. This series seeks to spotlight the innovative minds and passionate advocates who are leading the charge in environmental conservation and sustainable practices. We aim to explore the most effective strategies, breakthrough technologies, and transformative policies that are shaping a more sustainable future for our planet. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Eric Adler.
Eric Adler is the CEO and Co-founder of Flume Water, a tech company focused on eliminating residential water waste and protecting homes from water damage. The company achieves this mission through an innovative, patented technology that detects small water leaks before they become big problems. They system also encourages customers to change their water usage habits through data-driven insights.
Eric has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Poly SLO.
Thank you so much for joining us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
I am from the small town of Sisters, located in Central Oregon. In high school, I discovered a passion for the outdoors through a unique program that encouraged students to not just get outside and enjoy the great outdoors but become environmental stewards. At the same point in my life, I became passionate about business and quickly learned the art of selling through a small motorcycle business that I started and ran throughout high school and college.
I attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, majoring in mechanical engineering and spending my weekends biking, skiing and wakeboarding. It was at Cal Poly where I met my fellow cofounders, James Fazio and Jeff Hufford, and we decided to launch Flume out of our senior engineering project. Starting a company is a rollercoaster, with significantly more lows than highs, but I am proud to say that all three of us are still at the company and still good friends today.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
I’m not sure about a single most interesting story, but early on I remember having a conversation with James and Jeff and agreeing on three things 1) “if we build it, they will come”, 2) “this is a great idea”, so raising angel and VC funding will be an easy endeavor and 3) the company will be a smash success by year 5. This was the naïve thinking of three excited college kids who were eager to live the startup dream.
As you can imagine, reality was far different than expectations. 1) We built an entirely new product, in an entirely new category. Unlike Nest who took a “dumb” thermostat and made it “smart”, there was no analog for Flume that customers were readily aware of. We realized that there was significant marketing required to educate potential customers on the value of our product, which took a lot of money and time. 2) Raising capital was equally challenging. Coming from a small town in Oregon, I was not exposed to the startup or tech world growing up. In parallel, we underestimated how difficult it is to raise capital for a hardware company. Historically, only 3% of VC funding goes to hardware startups! Fortunately, we were successful at recruiting a supportive and passionate group of investors. 3) Companies take time to build. Hardware companies in particular take an average of 11 years to achieve a successful exit. We still have a lot of wood to chop.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Passion
You don’t have to wake up every day and be excited about what you’re building. However, if you are not energetic and passionate on most days, then you will quickly burn out. Running a company can really suck at times and there are plenty of low points. There are a lot of ways to make money in your career (especially in tech) and running a startup is one of the highest risk and most difficult option.
2. Confidence
As a leader, your team is a mirror of yourself. Running a startup is a constant battle. The path that you thought was correct is often wrong. You need to be able to admit to failure, quickly adapt and effectively communicate with your team. If you are not a confident leader, your team will not be inspired to follow.
3. Purpose
For me, I need to believe that the work that I am doing will have a positive impact on the world. Although “leak detection” is arguably one of the least sexy categories out there, we have already helped customers save over a billion gallons of water in over 100,000 homes across the US. We’re about to make a much larger dent than that!
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that might help people?
Yes! At Flume, our mission is to eliminate residential water waste and protect homes from water damage. We have excelled at the first goal through our partnerships with major water utilities across the US (including the largest utility in the country, Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power). Customers who install Flume achieve an average reduction in water usage of 15%.
In terms of “protecting homes from water damage”, leak detection not only eliminates water waste, but also drastically reduces the incidence and severity of water damage. Insurance companies spend $20 billion per year on repairs due to residential water damage. Early data shows that Flume reduces the incidence of water damage by 67% and severity of water damage by 50%. As you can imagine, this provides huge value to the insurance company while also eliminating the emotional disruption that homeowners face when their life gets uprooted due to a small leak that resulted in catastrophic damage.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. What pivotal moment led you to dedicate your career to sustainability, and how has that shaped your approach to environmental challenges?
I can clearly point to my experiences in high school as the driving force behind pursuing a career in sustainability. We were not only encouraged by teachers and mentors (shoutout to Rand Runco) to spend time outside of the classroom but were educated about our environment while being immersed in it. We went on multi-day backpacking trips through the wilderness, led rock climbing outings, went on arduous mountain bike rides and learned how to guide multi-day whitewater rafting trips, all at a public school.
Whatever my career was going to be, I knew that the end result had to be a positive environmental impact.
Could you describe a groundbreaking project or initiative you’ve been involved in that significantly contributed to sustainability?
California and much of the Southwest have experienced numerous major droughts over the past fifty years. In July of 2021, Gavin Newsom asked Californians to reduce their residential water use by 15%. The following June, the LADWP put in place the strictest conservation orders Los Angeles had ever seen, restricting outdoor watering to two days a week and prohibiting it between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Flume was uniquely positioned to assist in meeting these targets and was awarded a $15M contract in 2022 to distribute Flume sensors to tens of thousands of customers across Los Angeles. Every home that Flume was installed on reduced their water usage by 15% on average, and saved customers $150 / year on their water bill.
Founders with California Governor Gavin Newson
How do you navigate the balance between economic growth and environmental preservation in your sustainability strategies?
I would be lying if I said that this isn’t a significant challenge. Unfortunately, sustainability and economic growth are often contradictory. We have struggled with this in the past, but we always go back to our mission — eliminate residential water waste and protect homes from water damage. Even if a customer is not at all engaged with our app, Flume can reduce household water usage by about 14% through leak detection alone. For example, a stuck toilet flapper can leak 200 gallons in an hour. That’s 144,000 gallons per month!
We have determined that the most profitable and highest value path to growth is via the insurance market. Flume provides immense economic value to insurance companies. The policyholder achieves secondary benefits through water conservation, water bill reduction and peace of mind, knowing that their home is protected from damaging leaks.
What emerging technologies or innovations do you believe hold the most promise for advancing sustainability and why?
I would love to see more capital invested in, and innovation around, carbon sequestration, ocean cleanup, and reduction of microplastics. There are some highly interesting companies and projects focused on all of the above. It is going to be difficult to find an economic use case for any of these endeavors, which is why I believe governments and major corporations need to step in and fund these projects to ensure the sustainability and longevity of the planet.
While SpaceX is undeniably cool, prioritizing the preservation of our current planet over billionaire-led competition to colonize Mars would much more greatly benefit humanity.
Based on your research or experience, can you please share your “5 Top Strategies for a Cleaner Planet”?
1 . Reduce your carbon footprint
Every person needs to take responsibility on a daily basis for reducing their carbon footprint. The main producers of carbon are auto transport, beef production, flying, and, unfortunately, reproduction. The government and big corps need to make it easier for us all to achieve a smaller carbon footprint. In the meantime, there are small steps that we can take on a daily basis to reduce.
2 . Eliminate single use plastics
The plastic industry knows that plastic recycling is essentially propaganda generated by the industry. Most of the plastic ends up in landfills and our oceans. There are many alternatives to single use plastics. Yes, they are slightly more expensive, but plastics need to be regulated and sustainable products mandated by governments ASAP.
3 . Simplify our lives, consume less, spend less
We are programed by a capitalistic society to consume. Products are often designed to be used once and thrown out. Buy glass instead of plastic, avoid fast fashion, drive efficient vehicles, avoid highly processed foods, consume less.
4 . Increase energy and water efficiency in your home
Appliances, lights, heating, cooling, insulation (windows) and sprinkler systems have all become drastically more efficient over the past 20 years. Many of these improvements are affordable and subsidized by your local electric or water utility.
5 . Increase sustainable transportation
Americans are used to driving big vehicles everywhere, even places that are just a couple of miles away. In other nations walking, biking, or taking a small scooter to nearby destinations is commonplace. Americans often say “why not just drive?” I recently had a friend from Sweden visiting. We all met out at dinner, which was about 1 mile from everyone. All of the Americans drove there in individual cars. She walked and then laughed at all of us for driving!
In your view, what are the key steps individuals, communities, and governments need to take to achieve a more sustainable future?
It starts with the governments. They need to take initiative and create mandates that ensure sustainable business practices and production. Next come the corporations. Large corporations are notoriously driven by profit and will follow the most efficient path to profit, which is often unsustainable. Governments need to regulate this.
It is then up to the individuals to choose activities and products that are sustainable. Ie. Opt out of the single use plastic, bring your own coffee mug to Starbucks, eat chicken instead of beef, or better yet reduce your meat intake altogether. Drive an efficient vehicle instead of a gas guzzler. There are plenty of cheap, efficient cars out there! We all need to want a sustainable future and then take individual action to make that happen.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
Follow Flume on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/flume-inc.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
The Future Is Green: Eric Adler Of Flume Water On Their Top Strategies for a Cleaner Planet was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.