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Hydrogen Infusion Science: Turning Complex Chemistry Into Scalable Beverage Innovation with Rick Smith · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Growth Class.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Phil Mastiello, and today's show we strip away the fluff and look at the actual gears that drive a company forward.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today is a true builder in every sense of the word.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Rick Smith is the mind behind Hyvida and the inventor of their proprietary hydrogen-infused technology.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's hydrogen-infused water.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: With a background in mechanical engineering, an MBA and over 20 years of scaling startups and everything from medtech to photonics.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Rick doesn't just understand the science, he understands the strategy of the exit.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you would think that he's just selling the product highvita, but he's not.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's more to it.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to get into it with Rick and uh hear the whole story about how he's scaling.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's totally innovative.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, Rick, thanks for coming on.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Phil.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't you explain the business a bit?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Explain what you're doing and why it's just not about hydrogen-infused water.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, you know, I have a um semiconductor background, and I and you know, what we did is with those semiconductors, we made medical uh sensors.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a lot of med tech background and experience, one of my co-founders with two of them.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're PhD level folks that have done medical imaging and that sort of thing.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we learned about hydrogen, gas, and the that it's not only, you know, for fuel cells, and you think of it like that, but it's shown to be very therapeutic.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, thousands of published studies.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's the lightest molecule, and the data shows that it it can regulate the mitochondria of the cell.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially, you can help bring a cell to balance.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I started to research the papers and I was really intrigued.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the FDA had garnered approval for um, you know, consuming it just in a drink, um, you know, not just let's say at a hospital setting.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a drug, it's natural.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so people were looking at adding it to a drink, almost like you would add CO2 or carbonation to deliver hydrogen.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I just looked at it and said it's a wellness enhancement.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think most people looked at, they almost treated it as it was a water-infused hydrogen, meaning they wanted to administer hydrogen and just the water was the delivery.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I looked at it and said, I want to deliver great tasting beverages that are enhanced with hydrogen, almost like if it had vitamin C or any other kind of wellness ingredient.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I started to research the papers.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: The science was very compelling.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I went to Japan and they were doing it in Japan.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I looked at some of the manufacturing processes and they were so slow, so costly.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I just said, look, I want to do something that Coca-Cola or Pepsi would jump into, but there's just no way they'll embrace anything like this unless it's scalable.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the data had shown that it's, you know, the most effective wellness ingredient or antioxidant on the planet, but it's also the hardest ingredient to add to a beverage at scale and safely, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of think of a manufacturing plant that produces beverages.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you had a tank of methane gas, they would say, no way, that's too flammable.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you think of hydrogen from a flammability, it's very similar to something like a methane.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but again, it's shown to be therapeutic and beneficial.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, I saw a golden opportunity um to whoever can come up with the most efficacious way, elegant way, cost-effective way to deliver hydrogen into drinks, could own this concept.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that was kind of the journey I went on.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I went down the path of let's not just look at minimum viable product.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's fine to get to market, but if you don't have phase two, phase three, phase four, if you don't have that roadmap charted, where I think a lot of people do, they say, well, I'll I'll cross that bridge and get there.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you can't cross the bridge and you're seven figures investment in and you're struggling to scale or or drop costs or whatever you need to do to get to the next milestone, because you shackled yourself to a uh, you know, a technology that's limited, now it's a pretty expensive journey to try to figure out how to pivot.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's something that I said, I've got to have a roadmap.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to have it all figured out, but I need to have the roadmap charted so that I know I can continue to evolve the tech as I go.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: So so when you say that hydrogen, well, hydrogen exists in water to begin with, or even, and most beverages have water as a component.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, so what are we really talking about here?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Good question.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the one of the mis, one of the kind of initial questions people have, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So water's H2O.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: What we're looking for is H2 without the oxygen.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that becomes a gas, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the you know, simple for people who don't think of that, the molecule, it's not just the atoms, it's the molecule that matters, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um a diamond is 100% carbon, but so is the graphite in your pencil, right?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: But they're structurally totally different entities, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're all 100% carbon.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's how they're bound together similarly.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think of water, what you want to do is liberate the H2 from the O.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially, rather than introducing gas like you would carbonation into a drink, why not leverage the fact that the hydrogen's there?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to change its form factor uh in situ within the drink so that you're you're consuming just the H2 component.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're consuming a gas that has an entirely different physiological behavior.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so um, you know, that was the key and the underpinning component to the technology that I developed.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why introduce hydrogen gas?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's already there.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just figure out how to break that bond with the water.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a form of magnesium that you can source.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, again, I'm a semiconductor material science guy.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that part was probably the easiest for me to figure out where and who and how to source it, how to spec it.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so, and then when do you introduce it?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And all those things kind of matter in the timing of it.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so essentially the the methodology is you fill the elegance, is you could fill the beverage like you would anywhere else.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: No change to the manufacturer, except we have a little machine that sees the can, and when the can goes by, we dispense our our magnesium ingredient directly into the can, and then the lid is sealed, and then over the course of about five to ten minutes, a reaction takes place within the can.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So at that point, we're not introducing a tank of gas.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's no, you know, release of hydrogen or anything.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's all captive in the individual 12 ounce or 16 ounce containers.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's done during the process.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's done during the process of creating, let's just say Coca-Cola.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just say you wanted to infuse Coca-Cola.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: You got all this Coke going down the line in a can and they're pouring the Coke in, and then your system gets introduced at some point right before they cap it off.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then as the Coke goes down the line, now once it sits for a period of time, it becomes hydrogen infused.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so again, when you think about think about this beverage, and you could go, you anybody can go to the grocery store, and if you look at you look at, you know, a Pepsi can, a Coke can, a Dr.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper can, a Bud Light can, a Miller light can, they're identical.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you go and look at a 16, 8, 12 ounce can, the lid is identical.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a reason, right?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have an existing infrastructure, you have billions of capital invested in this infrastructure.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you can purchase a 45 cent can of Coca-Cola, the only way you can get to that cost is you're at such a massive scale and you're at such common parts through the entire value chain.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this ecosystem is so mature that any perturbation or disruption to any of that, you you go backwards so fast and your cost scale so fast, you limit your capacity, your partners, all of that.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I looked at it and said, I'm going to bend everything with my technology and my ways and just to the extent zero perturbation.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I partnered with a co-packer and said, How do I introduce it?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, right here.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: This one spot in the line is the only place you could do it, otherwise get lost.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the elegance, right?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I could take a machine that fits in the back of a SUV, I could set it up on a co-packing line at Coca-Cola and infuse hydrogen into Coca-Cola, you know, at hundreds and hundreds of cans a minute without missing a beat.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and we don't touch the can.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have an optical eye that sees it and it comes by, it fires it in, and the lid is sealed.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So again, when you look at the partners through this value chain, the co-packer, it's all about asset utilization.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about changing the cans, changing the ingredients, and making somebody else's product.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: But rerouting cans, changing processes, it you you're you'll never scale in that environment.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're intent through you look at exit strategies, you got to begin with the end in mind.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, the exit's gonna come by a strategic acquisition by a major player, Koch, Anheuser Busch, Pepsi, Dr.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Pever, Nestle.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're gonna want to plug you into their existing infrastructure, which means you have to fit in the standard packaging, co-packing lines, all of that.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So to the extent you can make it uh seamlessly plug and playable into their existing supply chain and manufacturing infrastructure, now you've got something that can scale and can command those kinds of values that that you know they would want to uh you know, acquire it for.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And how's the reception been?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Slower than I ever hoped it would be, but it's picking up.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I'm I'm eight years in.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd be at this point in four or five, but I'm excited to see there's so there's more and more players entering this space.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing, you know, there's been a lot of more like I call it pharmacy products, uh, supplement type products that are a little expensive, um, tablets that you can drop and administer copious amounts of hydrogen.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of really high-level biohackers and medical influencers now talking about it, embracing it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is generating consumer awareness.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where we're at ultimately is how do we make it fun to drink?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do necessarily a pharmacy product.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to just add it to an energy drink, add it, you know, but can we add it to a sports hydration drink, a powder drink mix?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do we not change the end consumer's routine?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: How do we just make that routine?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do we enhance it and make it better with hydrogen?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, whatever you enjoy drinking, let's just fortify it with hydrogen.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're getting gut health soda projects, we've got sparkling water projects, we're, you know, we've got a nice pipeline of, and our revenue model is a raw ingredient and a royalty.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not a brand.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we have the tech, we license the tech, we have a raw ingredient.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, those of us who remember the super successful ad campaign of Intel Inside, kind of how they worked with their, you know, their little logo on the side of every computer, that's to a certain degree the model we're going after.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Hyvita Inside or what have you, High Vita Hydrogen.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so we'll just collect a little royalty and then keep it very economical and scalable, but not be in the business of trying to compete for shelf space.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's um it's a very expensive endeavor to launch a brand and you have to execute right.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so for us, it would be a lot easier to be in hundreds of different brands, knowing some of them aren't gonna make it, but you know, some will.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that could be very lucrative for everybody.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, how does the consumer know that it's in there?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Does it taste different?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: There can be, there's some subtle nuances, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So of course it's gonna be on the label, and the branding is a key point of difference.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in a carbonated drink like Coca-Cola, the the hydrogen bubble, for those folks who are avid consumers of let's say uh colbrew coffee that's got nitrogen in it, or you know, Guinness beer, the stout, sometimes you can get on tap on nitrogen.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the nitrogen bubble is silky smooth.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we're familiar with carbonation, which can have that carbonic burn.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hydrogen is very similar to nitrogen in terms of that silky smoothness.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we can deliver that similar kind of smooth, but nitrogen's inert, hydrogen's highly uh healthy.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, and then in combination with CO2, it mellows out some of that carbonic burn and it softens it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's to a certain degree, people say it's more crushable, certain flavor profiles come out.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've done uh a vodka cocktail project of all things, and you think of health and wellness, but just because it really enhanced the mouthfeel, that astringency and that smoothness.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're doing cold brew coffees where you know you pour and you get these nitro-esque cascading bubbles.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then in powder drink mixes, the same thing, like your sports hydration drinks.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing we'd have a dozen clients right now that are launching um this year, some are already in the market.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you add your water, you take it to the gym, you stir it, and you can just see a flood of bubbles.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so it it delivers kind of a higher smoothness on the palate.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and obviously it's it's super healthy.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how would you get the so you're getting hydrogen in the powder?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we have an ingredient.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: The chemistry is very similar.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we formulate, you know, what we're doing to the extent we can to make it simple for people to embrace hydrogen, you have to, you almost have to be an incubator and bring in the manufacturing, help formulate.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we have partners that can formulate really sophisticated products.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when you get into health and wellness, you know, you have protein in there, you could have gut health fiber, you could have nootropics, other things in there that people would want to have, um, depending on their habits and desires.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we can add hydrogen to that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a fine powder form of ingredient.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the chemistry is the same.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you add it to water, you stir it, and you get this instant reaction.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, it's ready to drink within 15 seconds.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: What about these um hydrogen pitchers or hydrogen flasks?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those are doing really well in the market.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're not, we don't do those.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm pleased to see how well they're doing because they, I believe those are kind of the the 1.0 version of where we're going.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, those are$150 to$200 a piece.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're rechargeable.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: They take 15 or so minutes.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: You throw your water in.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's using a process called electrolysis, where you run an electrical current in the water, and that that electrical current, that arcing, actually breaks apart the water molecule and liberates the H2.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing it by introducing a form of magnesium.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's more quick, um, higher levels of hydrogen.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And those water bottles, you know, they only can work with water.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were to add, let's say, throw Gatorade in there, the ingredients in the Gatorade could corrode those electrodes.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, you know, we can add it to any drink.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then the advantage is, again, it's not changing a routine.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to have hydrogen, you're going to the gym, you can have those individual stick packs of powder, a 30-pack, throw it in your gym bag, you're good for the month.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you can pour it in your water bottle and go to the, you know, water cooler and add water to it and consume it just like you would consume any other drink.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I don't want to change routines.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to make it better.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are some of the benefits of it, of hydrogen water or hydrogen in your beverage?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, hydrogen gas, it's and so this is what turned me on as an engineer.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of think of first principles.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's the lightest molecule.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gas, right?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a nonpolar gas and it's the lightest molecule.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it can't be beat from a standpoint of its ability to navigate your body, go through the uh membranes, either cellular membrane, stomach lining, the blood-brain barrier to get to your neural pathways.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the the data has shown that it acts to a certain degree as a shock absorber or um a modulator of cellular behavior.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it freely transmits through the diffusion gradient of the cellular membrane and signals the mitochondria of the cell.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the mitochondria is essentially the brain of each cell, and it can help regulate it.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so as an example, and there's been, these are all double blind, uh double-blind, you know, placebo control studies, but you know, they've had studies where people have compared 100 milligrams of caffeine from coffee versus just hydrogen water.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is for people who have sleep deprivation, and they found that just the hydrogen water worked better from a focus than the caffeine.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the physiological mechanism of how caffeine works as a stimulant is totally different than hydrogen.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: At the same token, they've taken people who have had allergens or some level of anxiety.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what do you have there?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: You now have cells that are hyperactive.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: You've got cells that are that are producing too much, they might be producing oxidative stress, possibly inflammation, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it can help kind of quell that down.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So think of it as a shock absorber or a balancer.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: What that does is it helps you stay at what's called homeostasis.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of us who may be at a nice point in our life where we're exercising, we're eating well, we're getting decent sleep, we don't have a lot of stressors, and we feel like, wow, I haven't had a cold in a long time.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your body's running at a nice optimum state.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting good circating rhythms and sleep.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you're not exposed to too much toxins.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're at this optimum healthy state.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You feel good and that sort of thing.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we always find like, you know, how'd you get that?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody gets a cold.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't eat well.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: I went out, I had a business trip, you know, somebody was sick next to me.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So basically there are four different things that hit you simultaneously.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Each one incrementally lowered you down your immune system until you succumb to a cold.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, these sorts of things and products like this, almost as a preventative, they help buffer you to as add another layer of resistance so that you stay at that optimum state and it can help recover.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, if you're feeling really nice and healthy, a lot of times that's the situation where people say, Well, I don't know if I felt anything.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you shouldn't.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's keeping you at that optimum state.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's really when you're not there that people recognize, wow, I I feel better.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it's it's quite fascinating.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm mindful not to get too into making um disease claims and things like that.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, in in inflammation claims and things, but the the people that have come to me and half the brands that have launched products with this were people that had some kind of illness and they consumed hydrogen water, they were blown away with how it how it helped them.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I'm not sure I understand how like these tabs work.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean there's a whole world of it, but it it just doesn't I don't see how the tab is separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in the water or you know.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you look, it looks almost like an Alka seltzer, but that's more carbonation.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: What you're getting is it's true hydrogen.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's there.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they from an efficacy perspective, it's delivering on putting considerable amounts of therapeutic level of hydrogen in the drink.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it takes two minutes, tastes a little rusty.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I say it's more like a pharmacy product where you're you're really just trying to get your dose of hydrogen.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is, you know, what do you love to drink?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And rather than buying a tab, let's just add hydrogen to what you love to drink.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is it a great tasting electrolyte drink?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a we've got a canned tea project that we're doing.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've got some tonic, nootropic tonic products, sparkling waters, flavored waters, um, an energy drink.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, again, let's put it in the products that that people love to drink every day, and let's just see if we can make it healthier.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that certainly makes makes more sense than uh you know trying to uh sell the actual product, which you're right, it's expensive, it's difficult to do.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then the bottles and the machines you know, it's like the machine breaks, people spend a lot of money on it, how to get it fixed, all that stuff.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: I remember about fifteen years ago, I guess, there was a product that uh came out called juicer juicero.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm familiar with that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They raised a ton of capital.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Ton of capital, and he was selling the machines for 700 bucks, eight hundred bucks.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it it basically took these pouches and extracted the juice from the pouch.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then all it took was somebody on social media to go, oh, you don't need the machine, just need the pouch.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they used like a hair clipper and and got the The juice out of it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the first problem.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the second problem was they were saying that their circular economy, you can send the juice pouches back, they'll clean them and reuse them.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when they went, what they found was that uh they were just throwing them away because they would take them back, but they were just throwing them away.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the second credibility issue that killed them.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh the real the real big one was that the uh turns out that they analyzed some of the pouches and it wasn't natural, it wasn't organic, it wasn't and the whole thing just fell apart.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: But you're right, they raised he raised a ton of money.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: But he had juice bars in New York City, and that's sort of where he he started.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know what whatever happened with him, but you know.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was at an event and he had raised a few hundred million, and it was impressive what he did, but that's where my head even I I was it was only about 300 people, and that was I was like, well, why can't I just buy the frozen concentrate and just mix it, you know?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and so uh those are all lessons learned, and that's the trouble when people want to have a level of control over a platform and keep the audience captive.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It can happen, it can be highly lucrative, but it's you know, he had to vertically integrate, he had to have his own staff making these things and supply chain of all the fruit, and it's cold chain.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge level of effort where for me, everything I do is room temperature, it's very elegant, you know, and it's all about streamlining and utilizing all of the existing channel partners that are out there and not being greedy, you know.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if I can get a couple of penny royalty per can, I mean, there's billions and billions of cans out there.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: You start running two pennies times billions, and you've got a you got a business that's valued at$300,000 million dollars and it's generating a lot of cash.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, there's no question.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he did it right.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not an advocate of it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that kills me about that machine and several others, you know, I I got a I just got a coffee machine, a new coffee brewer, and it's like Wi-Fi enabled.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, well, like, what do I need it to be Wi-Fi enabled for?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have to put the coffee in it, I have to put the water in it, and so I have to push the button.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So what does the Wi-Fi do?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started to notice like my microwave is Wi-Fi enabled.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, well, I have to open it, I have to put whatever I want in it, I have to close it.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what am I gonna do?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Walk away and then use my phone to tell it what to do?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then my refrigerator is Wi-Fi enabled.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, why do I need all the Wi-Fi enabling in there?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: What what do I need the system for?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: It it's yeah.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I question how many people are gonna really pay attention to that.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, I have a my architect.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: The reason I bring it up, I was just looking while we were talking about there's this one that's a Wi-Fi enabled hydro pitcher machine, you know, and it's significant, it's a significant investment.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, okay, well, you have to put the water in and you have to push the button.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, what's the Wi-Fi enabled for?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's gonna do what it's gonna do.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just, you know, I'm paying for extra technology, I guess, that I don't need.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I yeah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder the younger crowd, do they really get into it?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the only thing I can I can think of is, you know, when you start doing that, you you probably it doesn't take much with code.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of you know, firmware software stuff, but I mean, you know, you you you get a field programmable gate array, FPGA, put some firmware in there, your Wi-Fi enabled, and you can do institute diagnostics so you can see what's going on and get consumer habits.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if that's really what's going on.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're you know, like a coffee machine, what does he brew in?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: What settings, you know, they're trying to, you know, you just wonder, it's like, ah, you know, yeah, they're just trying to extract data on me and how often I'm using the machine.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Are these all ex-Facebook employees now working for your coffee machine company?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: How many times do I open my refrigerator?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: How many times do I, you know, open this drawer on my refrigerator?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all that stuff.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: It just it amazes me.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: My stove, my oven.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't activate any of it because I just don't see the need to do it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we're we're we're about out of time, and I appreciate you taking the time to to to come on.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's uh it's pretty interesting.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've never I'll have to look into it a little bit more.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly you know try and take care of myself, but I am a I am a coffee drinker.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I drink a lot of it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that's my my I drink two things, water and coffee.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I ever drink.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm I'm very similar to you.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh I'm at least four cups a day in the morning, and then I do a water, I will have wine but and and beer, but the but during the day, right?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So um Yeah, I mean, you haven't seen it, and a lot of people haven't.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you go and look at if for those who are listening and that are super into health and wellness, I'm sure they know about it now.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you more recently, I was at a little trade show and you know, a bunch of people came up to me and they knew about hydrogen where four years ago nobody, nobody knew anything about it.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: But where you're gonna start to see this is you're going to just like the evolution of all kinds of technologies where the early days of the computers, it wasn't until you had a nice graphic user interface in Windows where it became more accessible and intuitive to people.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you see cell phone technology was very basic and then it got more elegant and easy to use.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we're kind of at that precipice now where this phase one kind of medical grade pharmacy products is going to start now transitioning to affordable, tasty beverages.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to start seeing stuff in a 7-Eleven or a Costco, just, you know, it's the kind of something that you would have at a at a barbecue.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's my whole, you know, not because I'm sick.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to crush one on and at a barbecue, or maybe mix it with something, but make it fun.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, we've got adult cocktails and coffees and, you know, sodas and a lot of really cool stuff going coming down the line.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited to see where this is going to go.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I wish you a lot of luck and I appreciate you coming on.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and thanks again.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and for everybody listening, if you found uh, you know, found this to be interesting, you know, contact uh Rick.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to hivida.com, right?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Hyvita, yeah.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: H-Y-V-I-D-A.com.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hivita.com and uh check out what he's got and then uh you know get in touch if you got some questions and keep an eye out for it as a brand on your soda bottles.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right, take care.
• 28:43
  unknown: Bye.