Tap Q2 2020 Update
June 2020 Highlights
Verified 36,000,000+ bottles saved up from 1,200,000 in May.
Launched public station Upload tool and backend admin panel.
Discovered business model: Marketplace for water
June Commentary
We believe that water is a human right and that it should have a price. This is a view point supported by the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation. The problem is that water is a mispriced commodity.
“Free water” comes with many problems -- from lack of conservation, to a regressive cost to the most vulnerable populations, to plastic pollution resulting from shipping it around the world in single use plastic bottles. This is a bad cycle.
The solution is an efficient marketplace, created with software, to facilitate payment between refillers (buyers) and dispensers (sellers).
Marketplaces are massively disruptive -- Airbnb owns no hotels, Uber/Lyft owns no cars, Ebay owns no inventory -- and scale very quickly when unlocked. Tap is a water company that owns no hardware that dispenses or packages water.
We believe that the start to changing the misperception of the price of water is to accept contributions wherever water is dispensed. There are existing networks of paid water vending machines from your corner grocery store to Africa and India that dispense water for a micro payment and are making a real impact on delivering clean water and minimizing plastic pollution. This is about a $2 billion per year industry.
This market can be much bigger if we include all of the stations where water is dispensed for free. Our next step is to assign value to “free” water and formalize the refill marketplace in a way that reinforces the decision to refill your bottle.
We’ll start with an opt-in donation model. Much like how Sidecar pioneered a donation model in the early days of rideshare, Tap will soon launch a model to gift money to a “free” Refill Station using our Tap QR code sticker. The fountain already dispenses water for free to the refiller, but in return for giving money to the station, the user will receive entries for prizes which are funded by the monies from our users. We also offer an alternative method of entry that does not require paid admission. The user can enter their email address information to get entry or review the station for additional entries. This is called a sweepstakes, like Coke Rewards for Tap water.
Furthermore, the cost of delivering clean Tap water is so low that the price is less than the cost of one's attention that marketers pay for on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. So, in order to provide more equitable access, we will also create an option to watch an advertisement to earn money to participate in the refill marketplace.
Tap’s marketplace will unite the currently fragmented Tap water system and disrupt the single-use plastic water bottle industry, by rewarding refillers for buying Tap water. Consumers won’t even have to spend money -- with just their attention their own bottle, they will be able to access clean, safe drinking water, with no plastic, and they will be rewarded for their participation.
Go to market: Develop in Q2, Launch in Q3 Q4, Expand in Q121
Install QR stickers at airport drinking fountains (Q3/Q4 2020)
Accept money transfer (Q4 2020)
Integrate ad platform (Q1/Q2 2021)
We predict that all hardware devices that dispense water will one day be connected to the internet to find where it is, what’s in the water, how much water is dispensed, and what is the true cost for dispensing that water. One day, Tap will lead the way in water conservation by providing the software to better manage sinks, toilets, showers, and hydrants.
Two years ago I had an epiphany -- that if I couldn’t find where to refill my water bottle on Google/Apple maps, then I would have no other option but to buy a single use plastic water bottle. We are just months away from realizing that dream.