Smartvatten Update 2024

[Music] [Music] welcome everybody anybody who's joining us uh from far or near um lovely to to be here with Paco Martina from Smart futon um Paco is a growth marketing manager uh supporting kind of the evolving story of smart vutton and smart vutton has been a partner of the smart building Collective for a while now but we've been tracking their progress since the beginning of the certification and it's it's just incredible to watch how this company is evolving how quickly it's evolving how much progress they're making and I'm hoping today that we get to hear from PCO a little bit about how uh they're doing this that uh I think it's really important for all of our smart building Partners anybody who's on this smart building Journey with us to understand kind of how do we extract some of this value um from Smart building um and and how do we kind of speak to the market so without further Ado I'm gonna bring Paco onto the onto the stage Paco how are you good good morning uh Nicholas thank you for the introduction um yeah I'm doing good it's morning for you it's afternoon so uh that's correct that's correct where are you today I'm uh in my home island of kurasa I say home Island because this is where I'm born I'm actually now based in Brea in the Netherlands um and as you mentioned yes I am the growth marketing manager for the benix region so um that's what uh keeps me stationed as a base point in the Netherlands but now in the island of years so uh as we have a remote first policy uh at smart futon so I have the the privilege of uh working uh yeah across the pond as they say right we're definitely going to dive into that topic because I I wanna I want to learn about what that does for culture what that does for um for a way of working a way of living you know I think um there's so much pressure right now especially in the built environment in the real estate industry for how do we get people back what you see is a lot of companies are then mandating back to back to office and pushing people in in certain ways and I I have my opinions about that and I really so do I I I I don't necessarily think that that's the right way to do it but you know that's that's okay I think there's many many different ways to roam and definitely every every company has their own uh um how do you say challenges so probably some some of these challenges require people to be more you know at the office um and yeah in our situation at smart futon we have a remote first policy so we can definitely uh dive into that later with you yeah so let's start with with who is smart futon where are you guys at in your journey and and how should uh how should people know about what you guys are doing well smart futon uh the word says it it's smart water so it's a Swedish word um we provide Smart Water Solutions Smart Water technology um and how we do that is we try to um actually tackle the whole water cycle in urban areas so that's also why we are partners of course uh Nicholas at the Smart building Collective um because we monitor water in buildings um which then in turn gives them the opportunity or our clients the opportunity to have have a very good insight into their water usage but also be alerted when there's significant leaks uh going on in their buildings and this um this technology uh gets recognized by brim and grasp as something as a sustainable technology tackle the whole uh water cycle and the other spectrum of that at the beginning and the end we have uh the Water distribution side and the Wastewater side which we have technology for um again cloud-based so no um hardware needed on that side uh to collect and interpret data from their uh vast net networks uh that they have yes yeah let's focus on the the real estate side the smart building piece that you guys do how does that actually work I mean what are you guys capturing and how are you guys capturing it yeah so what we use is we use an optical reader on Main meters so we have various um let me take a step back so how smart futon started um a little bit so in Finland um we do smart uh smart meter sorry main meter monitoring and submeter monitoring however um where we are based right now Nicholas you in Amsterdam and me and Brea in the Netherlands we only do main metering and the reason for that is that we have such uh infrastructure it's a different infrastructure than um than Finland so in Finland it's more the main and the submetering and in the Netherlands we do main meter monitoring we use a optical reading device that captures on minute level data from those meters and then transforms it uh into uh act actual readable data and uh graphs on personalized dashboards uh within our own uh software dedicated to each and every client so we can read and see anomalies uh detect leaks uh but also advice on how to uh uh use water more sufficiently and sustainably yeah yeah okay and that's an important one so giving giving that data very much to the owner the developer the the property manager corre actionable insights where they can actually do something with it correct exactly like that yes how does that different from the the normal meter or well what the norm so the normal meter it depends on what type of a meter what is normal nowadays right so we're starting yeah where are we actually with maybe I can I can elaborate on that that's why I asked because we have digital main meters and we have analog main meters so the digital obviously uh is already connected to a certain Network however these digital meters um don't go as far as we do on a minute level um monitoring so what main meters mostly do or what meters mostly do is they just uh show the data on the meter itself and what we can do is we can transform that and send it to our uh uh cloud-based software directly so on a minute level almost directly let's put it like that yeah so you can show show consumption and usage in kind of almost Trend analysis real time correct getting a a clear picture as to how water is actually being used because a smart meter even though it is a digital meter doesn't necessarily mean you have access to that data either no exactly and mostly um so how it works in the Netherlands is that this data stays with the um uh water companies so the main meters mostly are also owned by the the water companies and so they own also the data that is um gathered of the consumption of water uh obvious um what I can tell as a user of water in the Netherlands is that I get monthly reports on how my usage has been um and obviously then what that costs yeah uh but you can imagine that's a businesses to Consumer uh role uh but smart futon has a business to business role um where we use or where we where we help real estate owners or big Real Estate Management Companies get insights into their complete portfolio so uh we're definitely not a b2c um uh um company we focus on B2B to give real estate owners big real estate and Property Owners uh uh uh yeah to to help them also be more responsible users of of water because they have they their their corporate responsibility right so the the csrd which is now being monitored way more heavily and being pushed way more heavily also on the EU taxonomy legislation so the asks on these big building owners is is becoming very very sturdy let's put it like that and we have the the capacity and the ability with our technology and our Hardware to help these uh big portfolio owners and Property Owners to to analyze their water and reduce their consumption but also more importantly um the detect leaks when they happen real time yeah this then saves them a lot of money saves them a lot of time and um because it's very hard sometimes to detect where it's coming from if we're talking about big buildings big portfolios um actually we just uh had a a a customer come in like hey we so glad we had smart Fon it was a school uh I believe a uh yeah it was a school uh big school building and they detected the there was a warning the league got detected and they called us hey we we got a leak okay let's analyze where it's coming from found it boom tackled shut down the water fixed it and when it got fixed they were like hey but there's still water leaking so there were two leaks so it was really really beneficial for them to have our uh technology in place and stop the water from leaking they were so happy they were like hey let's do our whole portfolio well and I just did I just did an interview with T from from woodsense woodsense is a sensor that goes in the flat roof right and it detects leaks and it's it's so incredible kind of the the damage that can be done when water doesn't go I'm happy you say that I'm very happy you say that because uh um we're also working maybe I can talk a little bit later in depth on what I'm where I'm going at right now because uh the whole point of this talk is also to explain hey what is Smart fting doing is smart Fon doing where have we been where are we now where are we going and what we are seeing right now with insurance uh companies as well is the most claims in buildings are from from water damage oh really that that's the statistics that I got I have to be completely honest I'm Not The Tech Guy I'm the marketer and I've been working with the smart take it yeah yeah yeah yeah I'll just take it hey this is what's happening and uh and and you know shared with with the world but I I I believe it I mean because it's spreads right it's it's water if if if something breaks here and you see a leak it doesn't mean that's where the leak is right the water water spread so has already been spread vastly most of the time yeah so what it does is it it disturbs you from keeping your day-to-day business from doing your day day-to-day business it um requires people to come in and uh assess the situation well the woodsense one it was such a bad leak that it it closed a hospital for months and then we're talking about real real life life altering life threatening yeah man yeah but so so Leak Detection you know you can you can catch your leaky toilets you can catch your leaky faucets you can catch leaks in general from seeing how the the water is is moving in quiet periods in a in a building incredible what other kind of value cases are you seeing right because I think water at at this moment although a scarce uh commodity in some parts of the world in the Netherlands it's not you know it's uh it's not but I we'll dive into this a little bit later yeah so what other value cases are you guys showing from from the technology um well mostly I have to say that it's the leak detection that's definely our primary uh uh thing that helps most of our clients um but the other thing is the certifications so um we obviously have in Europe we have our EU taxonomy um goals and legislations and our rules right now um which require certain buildings as type of buildings also to to meet certain standards right and we help on that side we help with the certifications we uh what we also hear is like oh we're so happy that you save us so much time with this part of of the sustainability uh uh progress for our building M it's saving them time is another one certifications but also valuation so in the Netherlands um and mostly across Europe uh when you have these types of sustainable practices U built into your smart buildings right yeah you uh get a better valuation for your for your portfolio so this means higher rent and when selling your portfolio a better valuation uh for your price because the technology is set up it's in there and uh the next buyer then has an actual sustainable smart building yeah yeah really nice really nice so what so I mean smart fton is is an incredible success story in my eyes you know it's it's when do you know when it was founded do you know what I believe it was 2013 talking about 11 years yeah 11 years yeah and where are you guys at now I I can share maybe later for the listeners as well we have a very nice timeline which explains exactly how our history uh has uh taken place I can share it uh in the chat um for the people to to keep reading um but where we are now is to focus more on water data so water technology um actually get getting the data in interpreting it and giving it back to our uh clients so they can make informed decisions that was first on the real estate side and then we also grown to the Water Utility side because we wanted to um monitor the Complete Water Cycle how we started this uh conversation yeah and where we're headed is to try to combine those insights because obviously water keeps running in our urban area and a cycle right so we have the water distribution clean drinking water gets dispersed we use it we use the toilet it becomes gray water it becomes uh dirty water and it has to go back to the plants to uh to the the Wastewater plants to get you know recycled reused for maybe agriculture or or the the logistics and um companies Etc to for cooling their machine and these types of stuff that's also where it goes to and what we want to do is we want to optimize that whole system so from the water distribution we have uh our technology actually mon uh monitors where the the water goes and detects non-revenue water so what is non-revenue water that is actually water that gets it starts at the water Distribution Center it goes to point a where there is a pumping station that disperses it to um the whole urban area for example a municipality and between that point of the water Distribution Company and point a which is a pumping station or I I don't know if it's exactly because there's water distribution and Wastewater um terminologies but let's say point a um and between that point you can see where there if the complete 100 lers for example is way more gets to that point and if it's 80 liters that means we have 20 liters of non-revenue water that means it got lost leakage yeah a leakage and we have the technology to to detect that where it is and um then we can um alert the water distribution um company say hey uh we have a non-revenue water there and instead of them having because this is how it goes now is they they have uh regular checks that let literally manually people have to go there now we can do that digitally and you know um directly and in real time um alert them say hey this is where it's happening and this is how we want to to help uh Europe and actually globally uh yeah the people are are actually we want want to help Society to become more water efficient uh that side and then within obviously then it gets dispersed to the real estate side also same technique monitoring on uh real time on minute level uh showing them where the leakages are monitoring U maybe older buildings and uh telling them hey there's uh uh an insufficient way of water usage on this side of your building and then they can give us back oh that you know this is feedback also that we reive okay we're using these and these types of um um toilets or showers on this side of the building which are less efficient or this side of the building and logistic side is where we have the SL which is the how do you say that in Dutch uh in English again SL is is a butcher butcher Butcher this is the butcher shop they use way more water ah okay that makes sense so you really get everything the water usage instead of it being now a monthly thing where you see ah yeah we've been using a lot of water we produced more meat no it's real time you can see it every day uh right on our dashboards and that's what we want we want to make that thing which was abstract and with only numbers create a beautiful Visual and dashboards across complete water cycle and what we say in smart building now is that actually technology is no longer the the constraint right like there's incredible Solutions across the the the board of things that you can do smarter you know and this being an incredible example so the technology is no longer really the the bottleneck it's actually humans that are the bottleneck right it's the it's the stakeholders it's the silo effect it's it's different motivation structures you know so that's definitely true what you're saying yeah yeah so how are you guys seeing that and and who are you guys speaking to that that is moving the the the pendulum I would say yeah yeah you said it very well and we are also aware of this point so we have a very dedicated customer service and customer success team to help our clients to be become more aware to also feel what we feel because eventually we're okay okay we're do we're running a business right that's important to stay afloat we need Revenue to stay afloat to pay our colleagues to keep growing as a business however we're in the business of sustainability so it's also a social responsibility that we have and we feel that you know so we we're not doing business for business we're doing business for you for Humanity that's it sounds cheesy it sounds cliche but that's the the truth and is is that in the culture of smart yes it is yeah yes it is it's it's amazing to to hear our new colleagues coming in and expressing how how uh happy they are to be a part of this team because they directly feel it and I can um definitely uh I Champion that as well because I I've been working for Smart futon for six months now but I got so like a warm hug yeah because look where I'm where I'm sitting I'm here and yourself you know I get the freedom to do that I don't know if it speaks to to you as an individual or to their culture but that that from what I've seen your impact be in six months time is incredible like you thank you and that's purpose that's purpose work right I mean when you corre purpose L driven towards something you you dive full in and you just want to do it you want to push it you want to move it forward yeah you make a good point you make a good point I obviously every individual has their own motivation their own Drive their own uh way of doing things of course and for me maybe yeah I it's in within my character as well but I definitely have to say that um it depends on on the platform that you're given right because and the platform that I'm giving and the freedom that I have to push uh the narrative I get a lot of freedom in how I can push that you know but coming back to the company um the culture uh uh is built on hey we're doing this because we want also to be this literally this one of our tactics is we want to be thought leaders in this and we have to keep thinking about our in this in water technology and water awareness so these are two like the business part and the awareness part are two uh uh spearheads which we use to drive and business so they're as important as the other the one is as important as the other and I really do feel that because um um if you push the business only for the business we you know you don't get the right clients and we really do believe in that we we coming back to the customer service part customer success part we need people to believe in our technology we need people to to feel the the social responsibility to use our our our Platforms in a way that they become aware but they also um become become more efficient in their water usage and that's what that's what really uh makes us happy and uh when uh testimonials come in or when reviews come in it's like hey man oh wo we started this and it's mostly um uh a barrier because water in the Netherlands is not very costly yeah so they really think like ah man why do we have to do this this is the first uh type of attitude that we get mostly but then you know when we bring across that enthusiasm that you know our C I have but a lot of my colleagues also have um then but it's two pillars H like so water water is really really interesting because yeah you know you're you're Your solution is still adding Financial value to to an asset and I think um you know as as as much as we would like the world to be fly on sustainable talk you know money still moves the the needle and fincial viability of something is very much uh is is a deciding factor in a lot of ways yeah we have to play that that game of of keeping the business going by adding real value to the market whilst correct doing it doing it in a sustainable way so correct doing doing good by by doing good in a way right and yeah but what I think is the most interesting about water is it's already happening in a lot of parts of the world that it is not an abundant commodity that anybody can just have as much as they want at a at a cheap price it's becoming more and more scarce and even in the Netherlands we will see that at a certain point because we'll be asked to you know provide others with water right so it's it's it's happening already in the world and I think to have that infrastructure in place puts you in a position where you can actually react to that in a meaningful way corre whereas if you have no control no data no ability to see where things are then you're you're you're definitely a number of steps back back this is correct and I I love this how this interview is going because you you and and we always have these good conversations Nick um also yeah the last time at AquaTech is we actually go deep and to the core of the problem and uh what we actually need to to tackle because um as a marketer obviously I sell the story but this is exactly the the The crucial pain point that you're touching on and uh coming to that water scarcity Point um in the Netherlands we actually have seven of the 10 water companies telling us and mentioning in RTL news that they don't have enough reserves so if we're talking about water scarcity in other parts of the world no let's talk about Europe Germany also mentioned the same thing and uh the Netherlands now this is literally news of two days ago and I'm writing an article about it right now to to share as well so stay stay tuned on our um on our channels on LinkedIn as well because as thought leaders we need to be addressing these problems we need to be sharing our opinions on these types of CR yeah because um that's what it is it's a it's a crisis and the UN also called out uh a a global Water Crisis just recently so and this was Global and uh you know so it's yeah I mean uh we at AquaTech we talked about our experience in the US and how you know the the water flowing to California is getting less and less and less so it's getting squeezed all along that value chain and that's that's in one part of the world that's happening kind of everywhere everywhere and the price will go up it's exactly exactly and then it starts hurting people but let's you know that's the wrong mentality it is it is you know it's like why does it always have to hurt in your pockets before we become aware so that's what we try to do you know that's why I'm I'm I'm saying like the these two spearheads yes financially we have to keep going and how beautiful is it that um a sustainable um solution like many others but we as well a provide actually increases the valuation of a property that's awesome and I I'm I'm very happy to be to be working in Europe and that you know the EU taxonomy legislations do give companies like ours the the bests like the the reason for existence you know to have such a a platform to play on and to become more uh sustainable as a society you know and the European European Union I think that's a very beautiful uh uh uh Market to be moving in I I did a really interesting keynote um in baharin last year that was about what we're getting wrong about ESG I just we talk that to like invoke the discussion you know but what I what I said was you know if we're doing this kind of stuff for the sake of reporting you know like like annual taxes you know nobody wants to do it but we have to do it we're we're always going to be behind the ball right we're going to be reactive we're gonna be like oh how do I get my report done for the year you know and then scr around to try and get the figures and the data and then put it in the report and you're you know you're you're done for the year yeah what I was saying is you know we need to do what is right we need to do the right things and then that reporting stuff is actually easy automatic as easy yeah because you're ahead you know you're not being fined because you didn't do it right or or because you're behind the ball no you're ahead so you're you're a thought leader you're moving the needle and then that's only bringing more value to your asset and more value to your organization because you have this thought leadership position where you can say no we do that we've been doing it for 10 years and we have experience bus you know that's awesome yeah yeah I like that I really like that and that's why and the reporting thing is a pain in the ass if you see it like that right exactly uh but if you make it part of your business if you make it part of your valuation and and and you know make it as a part of your company culture as well that awareness because if if not everybody is on board you need you need everybody on board yeah you know mostly it starts from management it starts from you know and it trickles down and um to come back to our company culture I really feel that I really feel like from management it trickles down on a cultural side on an awareness side on a sustainability side but also financially because we see how it financially benefits us as well and uh it gives me the freedom to be uh uh expressing my marketing uh materials in a true Manner and um obviously marketing is a tool that you can use uh let's be very blunt here to manipulate the the the narrative and to get more business from it however I don't feel the necessity to do that because I don't need to yeah you know because it's yeah and I want to pick your brain on that right because I think you you say it correctly that in in quite a blunt way what marketing can be and and what it you know could be or should be and I think that we believe the same thing right you know it's about thought leadership it's about real real content that actually drives to the point of what we're trying to do here right it's not about form and features it's about you know why I mean how do you guys see that and what is your what is your growth strategy in trying to bring that well that's a good that's a good question um so a growth strategy let me start from Back to the the front so how do you grow a company so um there's multiple ways that you can tackle uh growth of a company right so smart futon chose to to to make Acquisitions you know and we have a private Equity company also backing us nvest uh strategically buying um certain companies or merging or strategic Partnerships uh so this is one way to go about it and if I can take it a little bit more Niche and where where are you at this moment are you this moment so the acquisition rounds have been done you know now we're actually solidifying all of these different um companies and cultures that have come with them creating the one smart fton you you know that it's that is a journey in itself um and we're we're solidifying that we're again I love to use the analogy analogy of the the cycle because submetering is one thing Water Utilities in its own you have water distribution side and you have Wastewater which are two completely different things I didn't know this I thought oh that's all of the same thing water it is not not because there's different Technologies different pain points different uh type of people different type of Target audiences uh if I can keep it on the marketing level that you need to uh approach and um what I've seen um to to get back to the marketing side of things and the growth side of things is that um if you're growth hacking or if you're growth marketing you should always be looking at the data data is King right and um uh what I've been seeing is that the the trend is moving so quickly so the target audiences and due to the fact that EU taxonomy and the legislations and uh everything like yearly gets pushed a little bit more we get new types of Target audiences as well like um uh ESG Consultants that didn't exist a couple of years ago or sustainability Consultants you know these types of people that have to get hired because there's no time on the facility management side there's no time on the um um property manage manager side so the people that we have been targeting are not the people in the decision-making positions anymore so um you have to keep updating you have to keep testing you have to keep um trying new things and always be on top of news um so that's on the digital side side of things because right now we're focusing way more on the digital side of things um so LinkedIn using uh LinkedIn as as as a campaigning platform um but also email we've just recently uh set up our a HubSpot U marketing tool um I have been project managing the last couple of months uh the launch of our new website or it's not a new website we still have the same domain however um how you know uh am yeah tell me it's always amazing how every company you know it's like it's so quick how quickly you need to refresh your website to like be the the latest story you know because exact is always evolving and it should be evolving you know it should companies should be it's about telling your story getting out there telling your story it's about innovating your product selling and implementing it you know those that's how a business survives you know that's it and then then there's nuances to every step right and there's that you can go deep into it and uh my expertise lies in Google uh analytics side and the SEO side of things so the website and when I came in I saw the website I was like o um we can definitely tackle this so I got the go-ahead project manage it and uh yeah it went pretty successfully I'm happy to say uh it actually got launched uh one week and a day ago on Monday um and of of course you know like you said website is as as a an organism it always keeps evolving so um but I'm happy to say that that um um yeah we're actually ranking now you know and coming back to to to marketing uh jargon is that the SEO and the keyword research that we I've been doing and uh it was a bit hard because we're in different regions and every region has their own uh type of culture own type of way of looking up um Solutions and I'm a responsible for the Benelux region so Dutch uh English and French um so you you have to I have had to really dive in do the marketing research do the keyword research and creatively set it up semantically set it up on the pages create a new menu structure so people can navigate easily throughout our website and the traffic has uh approved itself just uh before our call I was looking up something that called Data fusion and uh uh what was that data display which is part of the Swan model which is also again something new but very Niche new to me but a very Niche um um um subject on the Water Utility side they have have segmented five steps which the number four and five are data fusion and data display if you have those in place then you're a very efficient water company okay so we're providing number four and five so we're the last steps we're on the Innovation side of things things right so that's also how I can uh describe smart fun we're innovators we're we're looking toward the future we're constantly improving the last steps and also thinking about the next steps and that's why I like uh being part of this company and uh we actually ranked on number two on Google on that side I was like ah yes that's good you know so that's how we for all of our audience you must be curious to see what the website looks like so get on get on over visit visit exactly yeah so that's that's our tactic and um also and you guys are currently servicing all over the world where where are you guys where is smart Buton purchasable so um yes we are all over the world uh active in 135 countries however um not in every country we have off offices so we now have offices in um mostly in the nordics so Finland uh where smart futon was born with another Finnish company which I'm not gonna try name sorry Finnish name which I'm not GNA try to to to pronounce but um yeah so Finland a couple of comp companies Sweden Norway uh now in Denmark were also uh very present Germany the uh as a base for Benelux so Belgium Luxembourg as well and now we've recently also a couple of months ago started the Venture in uh the UK as well with uh one uh colleague that's uh yeah spearheading that market really nice really nice yeah so where where can they find you what is the URL that they should be looking at yeah so if you want to visit um and and learn more about water tech technology and what we've been discussing please visit www.smart von.com and if you're in the netherlandsnl to uh uh start on the Dutch homepage yeah and of course you can also go through the smart building Collective we're happy to introduce you to them yeah um they also have uh achieved their solution certification last year against the SBC framework you can see one of the areas that they impact very much on on building performance building environment uh building usage uh you can really pick up quite a lot of of points in those different areas from using the the smartfon uh solution yeah but it's a it's an incredible journey to be watching and uh we just very much appreciate being partners with you guys and being a little piece of the story and helping you guys in in any way we can because it is it is is just such an important topic that we're we're tackling you know that it's uh I I come from the desert originally and I used to have my dad bang on the door when I was taking too long of a shower shower remember yeah why I moved to the Netherlands because I can take as long as showers as I want I'm just kidding but don't do that now we were talking about being efficient no it was a very nice conversation I started taking cold showers so they they they a lot way L yeah that is good for you that's on a health benefit but that's a whole other topic that's a whole another topic yeah yeah yeah Paco we're definitely going to bring you back on uh soon to talk again because uh it's always good to have you uh you your views on these things um I think that the the growth hacking piece is a really interesting subject for other you know prop Tech uh companies other solution providers so um that yeah we can definitely dive way more into that because I just scratched the surface on what is possible um so yeah let's and and same goes for you always nice to to to talk and go actually touch the core of the the problems and and look at the solutions together and keep Building forward it was uh always always nice to to talk indeed yeah have a good day thank you so much okay thank you Nick by bye [Music] everybody