Joe Knopp  
Christmas Eve this past year, when a grandma sent me an email on Christmas Eve morning saying that her bottles never got delivered and then calls me on the phone that her grandkids didn't get their, like aren't going to have their bottles on time. And finishing up Christmas Eve with my family at like five o'clock because the family comes before everything. But then driving for four hours Northwest, to deliver bottles at 9-10 o'clock on Christmas Eve night to drive four hours back and get home at 2am to then watch your little brother wake up and open presents at 6am. That's love. Like that was love for our community that I wanted to do that. And I know other people have great stories like that. But to me, that's what brings it all together.

Jeff Ma  
Hello, and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We are here to talk about business that we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from, we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And as always, I want to have some honest and real conversations with real people about business. And I have a good one. Today I was connected to my next guest through a good friend, Dr. Trish Berg, who was recently on the show around March. And she was talking a lot about resiliency. And it's a great episode that you should definitely check out. But after that, we were sharing stories. And she regaled me of this tale of one of her former students who while still studying, decided to start his own business and platform that business into ways to help, you know, build wells and third world countries and all these other ambitious things. And I said, well, I need to meet this person, I need to have this person on my show. So she helped me make that happen. And that person in that story is Joe Knobb. And the company is called Ripple. And he's here with me today. Welcome to the show, Joe, how's it going?

Joe Knopp  
Thank you, Jeff. I am so happy to be here and be able to share our story and maybe some insights that'll help bring value to others.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I kind of gave only the very surface level thing. And I want to dive into that in a little bit. But, you know, I always want to start with a little bit about you. And you know, I really want to know what your passion lies in. If you don't mind.

Joe Knopp  
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I grew up in a little farm town called East Gan Ohio, where I joke and say there's more chickens cows than people. And I really think there is. But even just at the core of that, it was always helping people it was you knew your neighbor's growing up, you went down the road, and you helped move something on a tractor or whatever it was. And then that's just kind of grown out to the next, I call the another ripple ring of my life into the business. But at the core is I've just grown up in a small town and love helping people.

Jeff Ma  
That's awesome. And not a question I've ever asked on this podcast. But how old are you, Joe?

Joe Knopp  
So I'm 21 years old. And I just turned 21 I'd say like eight months ago. But I started the business more than two years ago. So when I was first taking meetings with people, they say, Oh, you want to grab a beer and like talk over something. I get a pop because I can't get a beer yet. But I am a little young

Jeff Ma  
guy, I appreciate you answer that question. Because I think the context is important. It's not trying to call you out. But I think it's incredible. It's an amazing part of, of what your your story is. And can you kind of share a little bit about Ripple for everybody this is they know what that's all about?

Unknown Speaker  
Absolutely. So growing up, I was doing lemonade stand shoveling driveways, I had this entrepreneurship buggin. And I got to college and I hadn't started a real business yet, or at least not my eyes. And so I laid in my bed thinking of what problems were out there in the world that I could solve. And my mom always told me growing up, drink your water before, before getting up from the dinner table because there's kids that don't have that luxury. And so I started thinking and talking to my roommate whose name is Chip. And I was like chip like do you think I could solve the water crisis? And he goes, No, Joe, you're crazy. Somebody else would have already done it by now like Bill Gates is working on this problem. And I'm like, Don't Don't tell me I can't do something. And so next thing you know, I'm research and figured out we can build a well for about $8,000 Don't wanna start a nonprofit initially and just ask people for money, I wanted there to be an equal exchange of value. So research found bottles similar to Yeti and Hydroflask that were wholesaling for about six or $7 selling for 40-45/ 50 and then decided to spend all my money I had an internship on those bottles labeled them under ripple and we've grown the company ever since.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, So let's talk a little bit, I'm just gonna like help you plug a little bit because I mean, I have Ripple, right, right here. Talk a little bit about what's on the other side of the ripple logo here on the on the bottle.

Joe Knopp  
Yeah, so on the backside of the bottle is the village name and coordinates that that specific bottle supports. So every 2000 ripple bottles we sell, we actually build a well over in a low income country. Right now we're primarily in Uganda. In the last 18 months, we've drilled 20, wells giving 50,000 people access to clean water, including the first ever modern solar powered well for remote village in the country.

Jeff Ma  
That is awesome. And I love that, you know, you had a vision, you had an idea. And you just, you know, you stepped into it. And I remember, at your age, I don't think I was I don't think I was in that headspace. So like, what, what what drives you like, what what kind of makes you want to push forward in these in these things that other people say are impossible or crazy?

Joe Knopp  
Yeah. I mean, I didn't have the best childhood growing up, I think one of the the biggest touch points that I would I would lean on is, in seventh grade, I had a really bad concussion, were actually developed apraxia, I lost all fine motor motions on the left side of my body, I couldn't walk couldn't talk for months on end. And I would have to sit in front of a mirror with my grandma moving my jaw up and down to try and form words again. And ever since then, like, I've always appreciated the little things. So whether it's just being able to talk with you right now, or like my left side of my body working, so I can walk after this. And then that's just grown into an appreciation for like just other human beings in general, and being able to help them just simply help them with whatever they need. And however I can help.

Jeff Ma  
I love them. And that's, that's really inspirational for sure. You know, there's, there's a lot going on in the world right now. And you have what I would kind of consider the, you know, the classic kind of old guard of business, there's businesses that have been running for generations, essentially, and, you know, large, large businesses. And there's even, you know, not so old businesses, but you know, they're still being like, run by CEOs, and, and bosses and leadership management of a different generation. And I think, you know, there's a lot of conversation around this. There's like millennials, and Gen Z, and all these things always mixed into all the business conversations. What's your general take on that? As someone from your perspective, how do you see your kind of, from your perspective, all those factors out in the in the in the world, but also your your own role?

Unknown Speaker  
So I think with Gen Z, and somewhat millennials, were very kind, compassionate. Just just tons of love. And I think that's met with some of the older generations being more numbers, data driven approaches, like, did you get the job done? Did you meet the sales quota. And I think that something that I've leaned into is having mentors within my own life that somebody in my in their 20s, somebody in their 30s 40s, and 50s. And I've kind of put together my own personal life board of mentors. But I do believe the intergenerational gap is a huge piece, because you can take the older generation of what you do have to hit this metric, but also the approach of the younger individuals who come at it with more kindness and compassion. I think for something like we're building is it's led with with love, but it's met with accountability and humility that I'm 21 years old, I don't know how to run a company perfectly. I think you've asked the CEO of Coca Cola. He also doesn't know how to run the company perfectly, I think because the way the times have changed. Even the Coca Cola CEO, I don't I don't actually mean the Coca Cola CEO, just a fortune 500 CEO. I'm not calling out the big guy. But talking understanding our generation and how it plays back and forth. I think that's going to be key to a business's growth over time. Even companies that that are younger towards towards younger audiences, I want to talk about Hydroflask real quick Hydroflask was started by 25-30 year olds with just an idea to make a really great bottle. And they did fantastic they build a community around it they they were huge on Instagram and disco, right when it all started, but then they sold off to the 67 year old conglomerate Helen Troy and they lost that personal touch and personal feel. And that's where there's there's got to be the It can't just be black and white.

Jeff Ma  
I think one thing that is like kind of iconically different when I look out in the world between, you know, businesses owned or operated by different generations is just around just general leadership approaches. And you mentioned it, kind of like what we find to be important, what we kind of focus on, you know, as you became, as you're starting your own journey, and you're doing your own thing here, you're kind of thrust into that role, right? Whether you like it or not, I mean, you have to represent this entire business, or you have to deal with a larger employee headcount and more kind of client conversations, investor out complications and things like that. And, you know, you started with just wanting to, to help get water to people, you didn't necessarily sign up for a leadership, you know, experience. So what's that like, for you? What's, you know, what's leadership mean to you right now? Yeah,

Joe Knopp  
to me, leadership means taking away fear for your people. At at this point, it to me leadership also means directing the ship and making those tough decisions that you don't want to make, to be honest, and just forthcoming. I, when I had to fire my first employee, I went home and I cried like a baby. Like, I hated it. I was like, this is somebody else, so close to and like, I just had to let them go, because they weren't meeting the expectations of the business. And it had been three, four or five instances where we had conversations, and it just the mission is so much bigger than myself so much bigger than anybody on the team that when you're put in a leadership role, the organization comes before, like personal decisions. And that's something I've learned the hard way, unfortunately.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah. So what does kind of love and humanity and compassion look like to you in terms of business, what is love as a business strategy for you?

Unknown Speaker  
It's, it's not being a water bottle company, it's being a community who just happens to support us through buying a water bottle. It's Christmas Eve this past year, when a grandma sent me an email on Christmas Eve morning saying that her bottles never got delivered, and then calls me on the phone that our grandkids didn't get there, like aren't going to have their balls and time. And finishing up Christmas Eve with my family at like five o'clock, because the family comes before everything. But then driving for four hours Northwest, to deliver bottles at 9-10 o'clock on Christmas Eve night to drive four hours back and get home at 2am to then watch your little brother wake up and open presents at 6am. Like that, to me as love as a business strategy is you do you do the tasks that are unscalable in my eyes, and something like that where Founder CEO drives for hours on Christmas Eve isn't scalable, because I could really only do that to one person. But that's love. Like that was love for our community that I wanted to do that. And I know other people have great stories like that. But to me, that's what brings it all together.

Jeff Ma  
I love that. Thanks for sharing that. I know you also you'd mentioned you know, there's a lot of love in the mission itself. But a lot of times I'm also curious about the love that's necessary, I guess within the few or many people that you work with, across like within that are on board for the mission, as you mentioned, you had to do you to fire to fire somebody. That's tough. And I think you know, love as a business strategy gets a bad rap. Because it's like, it's kind of pictured as this utopian world where nobody's fired and nobody's in trouble. And everybody's just, but that's also never the case. So what about what about love, you know, away from the mission and the product, but also about for people around?

Unknown Speaker  
Yeah, I mean, our team is a family. I didn't know at least four out of the six of them before starting Ripple. But I'm telling you what if they called and said they needed anything like I'm there. And the same goes for them. Like we've we've grown into this tight family unit and I believe that's what's led to a majority of our success is I really believe all six of us could step into the CEO role because we all know the business that well and like we all care about each other. Where if I'm like, guys, I gotta go take care of my mom for two weeks. Like every every person would have enough love for me to be able to step up in that role. But yeah, when we see each other outside of work, we call we check in with each other. I joke around that unless you're one of these six people on my team. You don't get to talk to me between 8am and 8pm everyday, for the most part, but like, because because they're the family line like they're the speed dial.

Jeff Ma  
I love it. I love it. Have you, complete tangent, but have you visited these? Like, how are these walls get built? Like? Have you been there you supervising that? Are you like, like, What's that process?

Unknown Speaker  
Yeah, so originally, we were supposed to partner with a different nonprofit. But this was the middle of COVID. When I when I decided to start this off, and they didn't have people on the ground in what would have been Malawi. And so I was like, well, shoot, I don't want to do that, like, I'm ready to go over there. Like I gotta see this well. And so over the course of three months, I networked with alumni, my university, his name's Michael Balumba. And he's a Ugandan citizen, who already had an organization on the ground that was teaching poverty stricken communities, like income producing skills. And so me and him work back and forth, with contractors and engineers, and you've gone to figure out what solution is going to be best for the actual community. And so that's how we came up with the first ever modern solar powered well, for community in the country. And then him and his team lead the conversations for that first well, I got to go over there see it, we ended up running water lines into two different elementary schools, because of the way we set up the well, it was humbling, it was freaking awesome. I was looking at their faces and knowing that their kids and kids, as kids for generations to come are gonna have clean water. Like, it blows my mind that I was just some 20 year old kid in the dorm room. But now we have this, this whole big long process of there's applications that we received from communities all over the country, they'll come in get screened, we'll have team members, we got a team of 10 on the ground and Uganda on this led by Michael, they'll work with these communities, then we'll decide who gets one, sell the bottles, bottles gets us the money, we start drilling. And then from there, there's like a maintenance process that's decided upon by the community where they'll implement tax infrastructures. So it's X amount of shillings, I believe 75 shillings or about a couple dollars, or like $1.02 per household each month. But something amazing that happens. Beyond water is the first community we support has used some of that money to run electricity in their community where there was no electricity before. And that truly is the ripple effect. I mean, girls are going to school, because they don't have to collect water. They're running electricity, because they were able to put a tax infrastructure in place. I mean, I get all jazzed up, I could go on and on about it.

Jeff Ma  
I love it. I can sense your excitement. I'm getting excited. That's an amazing thing to be able to do and provide. What's next? I mean, what's next for Ripple? And what's next for you? Like, what's that? What's What are you looking forward to?

Unknown Speaker  
That is that is a loaded question because there's so much um, so right now there's the bottles that are building wells. We've got like hats and hoodies for us to build a vocational school over there where it's actually going to teach them the skills. And then we also have stickers that are helping create menstrual reusable menstrual pads, because I'm absolutely huge on menstrual equity. I went over there and to see the the disparity between young men and young girls. It was pretty alarming. So what we're working on that outside of Ripple, or even within ripple, and we're also expanding into what we call our we build a well program, we will partner with universities to have cohorts of 10 students at each university work over the course of a school year to get their hands dirty, run their own business, and hopefully sell 2000 ripple bottles and build their own well. There's a whole bunch of activities along with that and educational programming, but that's something that's coming up. Outside of Ripple, I am a part of a team called Free Period project that's aimed at solving menstrual equity, where ads pay for the free distribution of tampons, and pads. And then just another little passion project is starting to import honey from Uganda called Her Honey. It's made at a little farm that supports women children and the disabled and so got that about to launch here in the next coming months. Man, we'll call that it for now.

Jeff Ma  
I love it and yeah, I mean I'm I'm fighting feelings of my own inadequacy right now because you know you've you've helped I've helped like my neighbor one time, maybe donated a lot of money here and there. You're doing such amazing things Joe like I love I love the passion, the drive you have to like do such incredible things in so many different ways.

Unknown Speaker  
Thank you. I just want to like, get it out there. This is not for me to stand on like a higher shelf and look down on people. This is more of how can how can I help raise other people like, I like to say rising tide lifts all ships. So maybe if somebody hears this, they want to go start their own version of Ripple, like at Tom's model with with the shoes, because that's honestly what inspired me. And like, that's what this all is all about is how can we lift up as many people as possible during our lifetimes?

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, for sure. I'm inspired. Definitely. I know, many others are along the way. So yeah, just amazing stuff. Amazing stuff. What I guess what is kind of your message, I guess out to, to those who are coming up younger than you or is similar space, have you or even the, you know, the older generation that's, that's, that's listening, like, what's kind of your, what's your message for them?

Unknown Speaker  
I think it goes along Nikes mantra, Just do it! Like, you're going to fail and just fail fast. Just do it. Get out there in the world, get your hands dirty, figure out what you like, what you don't like. That that would be my biggest piece of advice is when you start just, it's sometimes it's three steps forward, and two steps back. Sometimes it's even three steps forward and four steps back. But the fact that you're moving like it's, I don't know how to describe it. And I'm still so getting there. But Newton's laws of motion where every action has an opposite, opposite and equal reaction. But if you have no action, there is no opposite or like equal reaction. So you just have to move. You just have to start. Whether you're 50 40 60 70 10. What like, start with you? I mean, Alex's Lemonade is a huge example I like raising money for pediatric cancer research. I don't know how old she was when she started that but it doesn't matter if you're young or old. I mean, Colonel Sanders started KFC like, whatever it might be just just started.

Jeff Ma  
I love it. Joe, how and people who want to follow it follow your journey and support what's the website? How can they get involved? What What should where should they go?

Unknown Speaker  
Yeah, so it's, we are the ripple.com or I post a lot of my own content on LinkedIn. It's JoeKnopp. Under ripple.

Jeff Ma  
Nice, awesome. Joe, been a pleasure. It's been an absolute, just a just a joy, hearing, hearing your enthusiasm, your energy for all this. Much needed for me to hear. I hope everybody enjoyed that time with you, too. So thank you so much for taking the time and sharing with us today.

Joe Knopp  
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Jeff Ma  
Absolutely, and to our audience, always appreciate the time you take to listen. And if you have not yet. We'll put those we'll put those in the show notes. We'll put the the website and the links for Joe. And also, as always, please check out our book Love as a Business Strategy. still out there still bangin' and hopefully you're subscribing reading our podcast and telling a friend. So with that we will see everybody next week.