IAM1704 – Entrepreneur Enables Development of Patented Technologies

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”: Rayne has a really great story and hearing how she makes an impact through her organization with her technology and product. You can hear her passion and the way that she's changing the world. We also don't see the behind-the-scenes of disruption and the less-than-glamorous side of going against the norm and often against larger organizations.

I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today! 

Previous Episode: https://iamceo.co/2021/04/10/iam971-entrepreneur-enables-development-of-patented-technologies/

Transcription:

Rayne Guest Teaser 00:00

I would probably tell myself to enjoy the ride just a little bit more. Get a hobby that is away from the business so that you have another way to unwind at the end of the day and try to keep your mind off of it because I really let myself get consumed the last decade.

Intro 00:15

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:42

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we are repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners. And what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focused on technology. We're a technology company that does dot, dot, do. Technology is no longer an afterthought or something that you might do and is actually a core part of your business. If you are a real estate investor, you're using it. If you're a financial firm, if you're a cleaning company, author, speaker, you are using technology. If you are in any business, you are using technology, and if you're not, then you're probably going to be disrupted by an organization that is.

So this month we are going to look into purposing episodes that are around technology, whether that be firms or organizations that are actually using and investing in technology as a core part of their products and services, or potentially those individuals that are using and leveraging CEO Hacks and CEO nuggets that center around technology and sharing ways that we can leverage it as well. Remember that you are a technology company that does dot dot dot. Sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I am CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Rayne Guest of R-Water. Rayne, it's awesome to have you on the show?

Rayne Guest 02:11

Thanks so much, Gresham. Good to be here.

Gresham Harkless 02:14

Yes, it's definitely a beautiful time. Super excited to have you on. And before we jumped in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Rayne so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

And Rayne is the founder of R-Water. Rayne, was home birthed and raised in the mountains of Idaho. She attended five universities while studying various fields including business, marine biology, and nutrition. And over the last several years, Rayne has spent time in Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Africa, and many, many other places. She's driven to do good by doing good in the world and developing patented technologies for this cause.

Rayne, are you ready to speak to the I am CEO community?

Rayne Guest 02:50

Oh, I'm ready. Let's talk.

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Gresham Harkless 02:52

Awesome. Let's do it then. So to kick everything off, I want to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started with your CEO story. What let you get started with all the awesome you're working on?

Rayne Guest 03:00

So with the R-water story?

Gresham Harkless 03:01

Yeah. Everything, R-water story, and your story.

Rayne Guest 03:04

Well, the R-water story started back in the day of my Los Angeles years in around 2000 6, 7, 8. During that time, I was doing recycling programs around the city of LA. So, as you mentioned, I was born in a very home birth in a very small town up in the mountains of Idaho. So I was just raised in very pristine environments. So when I got out to LA in my twenties, I was like what the heck is going on here? Like people would just throw their stuff on the street and be like, oh, it's a street cleaner's job to come and get it. And it was just a mess. You'd see trash overflowing everywhere.

So, it hurt my soul a little bit. So yes, I started doing recycling programs. I just started a business going into hotels and larger buildings and teaching them how to source and separate their commodities like plastic, cardboard, paper, and all that stuff. Saved people a bunch of money doing that. So one of the groups that I worked for was called the Core Hotel. And they were doing a development in the Caribbean and they asked if I could develop a recycling program for the island. So anyway, I got involved in talking with all the people there on the island, the government officials, and all those people. And they let me know that a huge problem they'd had on the island is, all the islanders have got sick, okay. And they couldn't figure out what was causing it. And they finally traced it to the landfill. Basically what was happening is because the island had an influx of development with hotels and resorts in different places. All those chemical concentrate containers, that they used for like window cleaner and floor cleaner and disinfectant and all that stuff, when that got discarded into the landfill, the toxic concentrate seeped into the groundwater and made its way to the aquifer, which was the source of drinking water for all the people on the island. Okay?

So. Before that I hadn't given chemicals much mind, to be honest with you. I was one of these people like I washed dishes growing up at a restaurant. I was like, the more detergent the better. Didn't think about wearing gloves, oh, bleach. Oh, let me more bleach. Great, right? But anyway, quickly came to the realization that was not the case. Chemicals are pesticides and they're toxic. And they're toxic to humans, and they're toxic to the environment generally. So, Anyway, the core hotel group, I went on board with a company that had a technology where you could produce a disinfectant and all-purpose cleaner on site by separating saltwater. Okay, this was back in like 2008. The hotel group implemented the technology and their properties to help, eliminate the plastic waste problem, throwing all these chemicals out in the landfill. So that was how I got introduced to this sort of technology. Now, a large chemical company, Ecolab came and bought that technology and shelved it. Oh no. That was in 2009. So I was obviously a little bit pissed right at this. Yeah. I was like, what is that even legal?

Gresham Harkless 05:56

Right. Yeah.

Rayne Guest 05:57

So, cause by that time I'd seen too, like hotel workers, how much they suffered from the chemicals they were exposed to. And let's be real, the majority of janitorial people in hard, large-scale hotels are not upper-class white kids.

Gresham Harkless 06:10

Right.

Rayne Guest 06:11

So, people weren't paying any attention, nobody was giving them proper protective gear, right? They're minimum-wage workers. Nobody complains because they don't wanna lose their job with benefits. They need to feed their families, right? It was an issue. People were hurting from the chemicals.

So anyway, when I saw that company buy and shelved the technology, I went on a mission to find a new way to produce the solutions and found a new way to produce them and got a patent on it.

Gresham Harkless 06:37

Do good as you said, you know so well in terms of doing it. Because sometimes we feel like we have to do either or when, but I love when you have that opportunity to do both.

Rayne Guest 06:44

Oh yeah. No, and it's been a difficult road because you know, mind you, I applied for the first patent in 2010. So we were around way before COVID hit, right? But, trying to even raise money to get the business going in Los Angeles, you're dealing with venture capital firms that are like, oh, you got what? Well, okay, we'll put some money into you we want 51% when we can go sell it for four x to the chemical companies. We're out.

Gresham Harkless 07:06

Right.

Rayne Guest 07:07

And I was like, no, you're missing the point like, Hey, I'm a capitalist. I wanna make money. But I want a technology around that's gonna help people because I was definitely seeing the tragic effects of human health, on the environment. You can't poison the population for profit. People do it every day, don't get me wrong, but in my mind, that's just like the shit of the shit. Right.

Gresham Harkless 07:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I have the same mindset as well too, where, you know, I almost feel like to me, the best businesses and organizations are those that solve problems. The best entrepreneurs are people that solve problems, and I can't really jive with solving a problem in order to create a bigger problem when we're talking about the human condition and not having healthy people, it, to me, it doesn't make sense. So, I appreciate you for doing that.

Rayne Guest 07:52

Yeah. Well, thanks to you. A lot of potential investors would definitely disagree with you.

Gresham Harkless 07:57

I'm sure. Oh, I know they would. But hopefully, that wave is starting to change this way.

Rayne Guest 08:02

I'm like, you're not the right investor for me, because that's the wrong way to do it.

Gresham Harkless 08:06

Yeah.

Rayne Guest 08:06

So we're gonna go for optimal impact here. If we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it.

Gresham Harkless 08:10

Yeah.

Rayne Guest 08:11

Yeah. So anyway, that's how things started back in the day. Then I moved, and knew I couldn't really get anywhere in Los Angeles because it was so expensive to live. I was barely getting by. I could barely pay my rent because I was paying all my money to buy parts, to build prototypes. And my brother and the inventor were building prototypes out of their shops. Yeah, my girls would be like, you wore that dress last weekend? I was like, I bought electrodes.

Gresham Harkless 08:37

There you go.

Rayne Guest 08:38

And I dry-cleaned it.

Gresham Harkless 08:39

There you go.

Rayne Guest 08:41

Sorry if I mess up your Facebook photo.

Gresham Harkless 08:45

No, that's awesome because I think a lot of people don't realize sometimes the challenge of like truly disrupting, industry and sometimes disrupting the norm, so to speak. When you have people that have especially a lot of, money and probably influence as well too, that want to sometimes take those technologies and shelve them when you're trying to do something good and the sacrifices and the impact that you had to take in order to make sure that happens.

So I appreciate you for that.

Rayne Guest 09:08

Well, we're still not through it, right? We're still dealing, with it every day. We're going up against multi-billion dollar companies that do not want us around. Throughout the years you'd be surprised at how many people got fired in positions that wanted to put us in, or, how many facilities got free chemicals forever in order to kick us out. Just very stuff that is very unethical, but if you start to like going and doing lawsuits everywhere, you don't have money to go and do it.

Gresham Harkless 09:37

Right.

Rayne Guest 09:38

Right. And then you take up all your time trying to, fight them that way and you, sometimes just got to put one foot in front of the other and keep on pushing.

Gresham Harkless 09:45

Yeah, absolutely. And you don't sometimes have the resources to be able to do what you were created to do that mission, that you had. So, I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper cause I know you touched on it a little bit. I wanted to hear a little bit more about R-water, the patent, and everything that you have and how you serve the clients, and also what you feel maybe even set you apart in what I like to call your secret sauce and makes you unique.

Rayne Guest 10:03

Oh, we got some secret sauce.

Gresham Harkless 10:04

There you go.

Rayne Guest 10:07

Got that in my swag back. No. So basically the technology is a computer system that creates a healthcare-grade disinfectant and an all-purpose cleaner out of salt water. And we do so by separating the salt, which is sodium chloride, and recombining sodium with water on one side of a cell and the chlorine with water on the other side of the cell. So when you separate salt, you actually get two products. One of them is Hypochlorous acid and the other is sodium hydroxide. So the big differentiator here, is that we're actually enabling people to produce their chemicals on-site versus having them packaged and shipped to them. But efficacy is a huge deal, so, TK 60 is our disinfectant.

Hypochlorous acid is the active ingredient in that product. That product replaces all window cleaners, all disinfectants, and all sanitizers, right? It replaces tens of thousands of products that are currently out on the market. And what sets us apart as far as efficacy is concerned, is as most products take 10 minutes to work, meaning you would actually have to spray a product on a surface and let it sit there for 10 minutes before you wiped it up for it to actually kill the germs, it claims to kill. Now you've probably been out to eat, you've probably been to the gym. You've probably been, have you ever seen someone wait 10 minutes for a product to work?

Gresham Harkless 11:26

No.

Rayne Guest 11:26

No. People weren't even doing it throughout the pandemic. It was so frustrating. So our product, though, it kills a hundred percent of the pathogens that they require you to test in one minute, and it kills COVID in under 20 seconds. So super high efficacy. And it's safe. You can spray the stuff in your eyes, your face, you can gargle with it and it doesn't hurt you.

Whereas chemicals that people use now, I mean they, it causes all sorts of issues. Breathing issues, and skin rashes, right? And then the other product that comes out of our device is FC Plus for flooring, carpet care plus more. And that product replaces all of your, like de-greasers, all-purpose cleaners, grout cleaners, and granite cleaners. Right. So those two products, really replace the vast majority of chemicals that are out in the world today. And they work better.

Gresham Harkless 12:17

Work better and make the world a better place, it sounds like too.

Rayne Guest 12:19

And they're safe for humans, right? And they're safe, they're clean, releasing the environment. And during COVID and stuff, everybody was running out of disinfectant. Right. It was a big deal.

Gresham Harkless 12:27

That makes sense. Well, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Rayne Guest 12:37

I go to bars and talk to people that sit next to me. No, truthfully, though, I do read, books and blogs on occasion, and stuff that probably the best insights that I've gotten have just been from truly talking to people next to me on a flight or people at restaurants or whatnot, just open random conversations. If you're writing a book, you're taking time to really put specific thought processes down in a certain way to affect the most people. But if you have a conversation after a couple of cocktails with somebody at a bar, and they're a really successful business person, you can get so much of the real low down on how to handle situations and connections and everything. So yeah, my hack would be open, be out there, and really just be yourself.

Gresham Harkless 13:22

And I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something if you were to hop to a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

Rayne Guest 13:31

I would probably tell myself to enjoy the ride just a little bit more, and get a hobby that is away from the business so that you have another way to unwind at the end of the day, and try to keep your mind off of it because I really let myself get consumed the last decade. My thirties, I'm 41 now, but my thirties were really consumed by the business. Living it, dreaming it, breathing it every day. Wish we'd taken a dance class or just something.

Gresham Harkless 13:56

I wanted to ask you now, my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show. So rain. What does being a CEO mean to you?

Rayne Guest 14:05

Yeah, being a CEO just I guess means hopefully I can help lead my organization to make a better difference in the world and empower the people within my organization to improve their lives.

Gresham Harkless 14:18

Truly appreciate that perspective Rayne and I truly appreciate all the time you took today. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Rayne Guest 14:31

The whole thing that one person, some people feel they cannot make a difference, but one person absolutely can make a difference and we all should. So, I just would really like to see people get out of that mindset of things happening to me versus the mindset of I'm gonna go make things happen, right? Because we all have that ability. We all have obstacles that we have to get through, but we all have the ability to go into things. You can go to r-water.com, reach out, shoot us an email, or call our office. And we'd be happy to talk with you.

Gresham Harkless 15:04

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you so much again, Rayne. We will have the link and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

But I love that last nugget that you gave as well too. I think so many times we talked about the human aspect and how we forget about that. That happens in business, but probably it happens even more in life. So getting that opportunity to connect, have a relationship, talk, have some margaritas or something, whatever it might be, to kind of enlighten the mood. I think that's the preciousness of, life. And I appreciate you for reminding us of that and how we can do that in our lives.

Rayne Guest 15:35

Oh, I can do better too.

Gresham Harkless 15:37

We all can.

Rayne Guest 15:38

You're making me wanna coffee and be like, Hey, haven't talked in a while.

Gresham Harkless 15:43

Well, awesome.

Outro 15:44

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast, powered by CB Nation in Blue 16 media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase it's a community.

Get your driven CEO gear at ceogear.co. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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