When you take great design, a truly sustainable idea and a man with a mission, you get bobble — the first water filtration system that works as you drink. Bobble retails for under $10 and can be refilled 300 times before changing the filter. Besides being easy on the eyes and designed by superstar Karim Rashid, bobble is made in the USA from recycled materials, BPA-free and is 100 percent recyclable. This innovative product’s carbon filtering system is widely used and proven to remove chemicals from water. Richard Smiedt, founder of Move Collective, LLC talks to Tonic about the world’s most recent answer to drinking water on the go.
Who is your hero and why?
My 4 month old son, Sydney (named after my father and our home town), in a hectic start up he brings everything back down to reality and priorities into perspective.
Bobble is in the infancy stage right now (just 3 months old) what sustainable principles do you plan to institute in your company? With such an awesome concept and design, bobble has the opportunity to make a huge difference that other start-ups can follow. What will you do?
Bobble has the opportunity to start the right way, to introduce responsible corporate and sustainable practices from the get go, to monitor everything we do and to establish these metrics alongside our financial reporting. We are committed to contributing to the community developing our cause over the longer term, and embracing this as part of our culture.
What company or leader do you admire for their CSR program or is there a mission-based company who’s sustainability practices you would like bobble to emulate?
I admire Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry of Method Home, taking on the cleaning goods giants with design and sustainable practices, they created a new category, green cleaning, and set the benchmark of how design can still be relevant at opening price point.
What’s the best advice you ever got?
Two come to mind…
Always go into a negotiation with the outcome you need to achieve clearly defined.
To close a deal or sale, ask a leading question and the first person who talks loses.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A lawyer.
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Photo courtesy Bobble.