Sawyer Filters in Your Jeep: Kurt Avery Interview
Kurt Avery of Sawyer Products joins Jeep Talk Show to talk water filters, insect protection, and how a company that lost money for 23 of its first 25 years now delivers clean water in more than 80 countries. Sawyer’s 0.1-micron hollow-fiber filters take out bacteria and protozoa, last for years with backwashing, and have helped tens of millions of people while the company gives away most of its profits. Tony and Kurt cover malaria work, clothing treatment that lasts through wash cycles, disaster kits, Mexico tap water, and why a cheap filter belongs in every Jeep. Sawyer.com and Amazon carry the same gear they discussed.
Timestamps
Key Highlights
- Sawyer filters use hollow-fiber membranes that physically block bacteria and protozoa and can last 10+ years with cleaning
- The company works with 140+ nonprofits in 80 countries and gives away over 90% of profits
- Permethrin clothing treatment bonds to fabric for about 6 weeks or 6 washes and helps cut tick and mosquito bites
- Filters work on surface water, travel, boil-notice situations, and off-road kits; they are not for turning seawater into drinking water
- Kurt’s marketing background, early partner Gayle Sayers, and the long unprofitable years before the filters took off
Like the video if you want more guest interviews like this, drop a comment with the water filter or bug spray you actually keep in the Jeep, subscribe for new Jeep Talk Show episodes, and visit JeepTalkShow.com for merch and links.
Support the Show & Shop Jeep Gear Thank you for watching and listening! If you enjoyed the conversation with Kurt Avery of Sawyer Products, consider checking out some of the great products and upgrades we discussed.
Sawyer MINI Water Filtration System
View on Amazon
Sawyer Premium Permethrin Clothing Insect Repellent
View on Amazon
Sawyer Squeeze / PointOne water filters and more
Sawyer Squeeze / PointOne water filters and more
View on Amazon
Buying through the Jeep Talk Show Amazon storefront helps keep the show going at no extra cost to you: https://jeeptalkshow.com/amazon
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00:07 – 00:00:07:18]
A’ighty ho boys and girls, it’s time for another Jeep Talk Show interview. We’re gonna be talking with Kurt. Kurt Avery is founder of Saw Your
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(Music)
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company has grown into a global effort delivering clean water through advanced filtration technology in more than 80 countries. Saw Your has helped tens of millions of people while giving away over 90% of its profits to support nonprofits focused on disease prevention and vulnerable communities. Quick question for you, Kurt. First off, thank you for being here, but quick question for you. How’s malaria doing? Is there, are you doing any, are they doing any efforts for malaria in some of these countries?
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) That’s wonderful.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) That’s wonderful. Now, I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not. I’m barely remembering it myself, but there was somebody came out with engineered mosquitoes, genetically engineered mosquitoes, where they would basically die and they were clearing out large areas by making it where they just couldn’t breed fast enough to fill the area.
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Right.
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Yeah. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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Yeah.
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So I think we need little nano machines that can fly around and then we pay, the people pay online to play the game where you go in and you go after mosquitoes.
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(Laughing)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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So how long does that last? I mean, does it wash, you do a wash cycle. Is it something you have to retreat? (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) My goodness.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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That’s wonderful.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) So being, yeah, so being in 80 countries, how do you communicate with all these people? Do you have to have a large staff or, I mean, nowadays with AI, I think it’s easier, but I mean, you’ve been doing this since 1984.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) God, especially for long distance calls. I bet you that saved you a bunch of money.
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(Laughing)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) All right.
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So I saw something here. I can’t remember if you wrote it or if I looked it up, but I like this. And it kind of goes along with what you’re saying here about all this free stuff that you’re doing. It says, “Avery has repeatedly noted that the company lost money for 23 of its first 25 years before becoming profitable.” I can understand that. We’ve been doing this show for 16 years and we’re still not profitable.
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(Laughing) I guess we gotta get to year 23.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) That didn’t overwhelm you guys. I mean, it’s great to get contracts, but can’t the contract be too big?
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(Snaps)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) (Laughing)
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Oh, okay. I will ask the basic question. How? How were you able to do that? I mean, if you’re not profitable, you could do a lot of things with money. You could hire a lot of people. You can buy a machine or a row of machines to do things. But if you’re not profitable,
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of course, I may be thinking zero money and profit being something different, but how were you able to gear up? (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Wow.
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It’s kind of scary, right? Because you go, oh, we’re gonna go on the whole.
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(Laughing)
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Oh my goodness. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Well, it was meant to be.
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So this is really, really cool. Now, I guess the profit, when you started making profit, is when you started doing the water filters, right? (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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Nice, that’s wonderful. You have to be proud of this, really, really proud. People, you’re making people, even if it’s not something that you’re saving lives, which I think you are, just making people enjoy their lives is huge. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Oh, yeah.
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Right. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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Yes.
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Per filter, 10 years.
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Wow. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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Okay, that makes sense.
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So let me put this in terms that people will understand easily. You’re not supposed to drink the water when you go to Mexico. It’s not necessarily that it’s bad, you’re not used to their water. Can you take one of your filters to Mexico and drink the water?
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(Laughing)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Yeah.
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Right. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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All right, so I was looking at your background and you have a marketing background before you had a near-death experience and decided to be a really, really nice guy.
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(Laughing)
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So I’m not saying marketing’s bad, but I mean, I think most people go into business so that they can make money. And then you tell people or you tell God, “God, I promise as soon as I hit it big, “I’ll donate to the church and go to church every Sunday.”
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(Laughing) And you know, but you’re trying to make that profit to start with, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the direction you went here. It sounds like to me you had a good job in what you were doing. And for some reason, you did… (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Yep. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) So let me just tie this together. So your partner that came up with the $800,000, that was Gayle.
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Oh, you know some nice, you know some really good people.
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(Laughing)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) So how did you meet Gayle? Was there a tackling incident that he was impressed? (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) (Laughing) That’s what I’m saying. This guy, I need to be partners with this guy. He can tackle me.
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(Laughing)
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna ask you about getting me hooked up with an interview if there was any Jeep information that he had and I saw that he had passed away. 2020 I believe is what I read.
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Yeah, well.
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Yeah, I mean it’s AI, it could be wrong. It could be lying to me.
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Oh, it just goes by so fast, doesn’t it?
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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Right.
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Well, it’s so cheap and it lasts for so long. There’s really no reason for, I mean, even though you got perfectly clean water, why not?
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Well, I’m talking about here. I’m talking about here in the United States. I mean, we can get a hurricane, like you guys can get a hurricane and that can cause a boil notice. So you have to boil the water before you can use it. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) That was gonna be my next question, it was about salt water, because I didn’t think that you could turn salt water into a drinkable water, but I figured I’d check anyway. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right.
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Right.
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And they didn’t use it, yeah, that’s all right. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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That’s interesting, I never heard about that. I just heard about the government screwing the pooch because they didn’t use the water.
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Yeah. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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So have you had any issues with people? It sounds like you have a very good product, it’s really inexpensive, and I can see that people might get upset about that, because they would rather make a profit off of something that was more expensive, or they could sell for more.
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Oh no, did she have a bunch of shoes?
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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Right. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right.
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I like the commercials that they show the water from the Rocky Mountains or something, and then they show a bear taking a bath in the water, that’s your drink, you know? So you really don’t know, especially if it’s clear, you really don’t know what’s in it. So yeah, have you had some situations where they tried to keep you out of a country? Yeah.
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Gotcha.
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I think you’ve designed it.
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Good, good, good.
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So yeah, yeah, it makes sense. And this is a good disaster product too. I don’t know if everybody has a bug out bag, but I think that something like this sounds like a great thing. How long do they last? Just sitting in a bag, how long do they last? (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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So how do you know that the water that you’re running through there is safe? You mentioned the arsenic. Is there a device that you can buy? Is there, yeah.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right.
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Right. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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What about Flint, Michigan, where they’ve, it has a good taste to it, but it tastes like lead.
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(Laughing)
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Okay. Thank you. Right. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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Right. So basically the filtration device is so small that the bacteria and the viruses can’t get through.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right.
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Wow. I figure you were testing every 10,000 or testing a batch. (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Right. So with it being, yeah, yeah, with it being that small, the holes being that small, does it make it hard to get the water out of it, like when you’re going to drink it? Are we sucking on this thing to try to get water to come out? (Audience Member Speaking Faintly) Good. And I forgot to actually mention the website. It’s sawyer.com, S-A-W-Y-E-R.com. Is that what it’s called on Amazon? Is it Sawyer filters or water filter or?
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And you treat your clothing. How does that keep them off your arms? I guess you have to wear long sleeves.
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(Audience Member Speaking Faintly)
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I kind of get some of this stuff. I don’t go outside that often, but boy, I got to get some of this stuff just in case. We always get like deep woods off or something. And I seem to remember with the commercial, this is a while back, but the commercial would be, I think now with DEET, are we talking about the same thing?
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Good.
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Okay, so this is the critical question. Can you sell it in California because they don’t want anything in California.
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Does it have the cancer warning on it?
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That’s so stupid. (Laughs)
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You got to spare 30, 40 years, yeah, sure.
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Right, yeah.
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Good, that means a lot because I think we’re all tired of seeing the cancer thing. I’m waiting for a newborn to say, caution, life may cause cancer. Well, yeah, it’s a possibility.
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California.
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(Laughs)
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Hey, that’s just good podcasting.
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Right, yeah, I understand. All right, so we’ve talked about the water filters. We’ve talked about the, which I think is really critical, keeping the insects from biting people. And I mean, not that the water filter isn’t important as well. Oh, I would assume you said that the brown water would stay brown. I don’t know that there would be a need for it, but like if you were making tea and maybe you didn’t run the filter through it, could you drink the tea with the sugar and anything you put in there? It would still be tea?
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I guess it depends on how well it’s dissolved.
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Oh.
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It really sounds nice. And I think what I like the best is that it’s really inexpensive because you could have made it more expensive. I mean, we’re talking marketing here, something you’re really good at. You could have marketed it in such a way that it’s less like, you know.
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Yes.
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That’s very nice.
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Did you have problems in marketing? Because I mean, it’s not like, I mean, I kind of, I think the worst thing is to be a politician, but sales and marketing, I think, is a close second and third.
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Sure.
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And you don’t have to embellish, let’s say. (Muffled Speaking) Right. (Muffled Speaking) Right.
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I bet your marketing has changed a lot. I mean, we mentioned the internet and AI, but I bet your marketing has changed a lot since 1984.
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Really? Really?
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Oh, that makes sense. The basics haven’t changed. (Muffled Speaking) Did you just say the name of the book?
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And I would assume that’s on Amazon as well.
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I was just gonna ask if you autograph it. Yeah, that’s cool.
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(Muffled Speaking) Well, that’s the reason for Lyme disease, isn’t it? The ticks?
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Oh, good Lord, might as well just kill me now.
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(Laughing)
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Some vegan in the lab came up with that one. You know that that’s another one of those Woo Ham labs thing. They leaked it out.
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I heard about that and went, oh no, there’s a vegan in charge of this. This is crap.
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Yeah, because it’s like, they keep telling you, no, why do you eat meat? Why do you eat meat? Because it tastes good, damn it.
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Let’s see, there was something else I was gonna ask you about. Okay, so we’ve talked about the marketing. We’ve talked about, oh yeah, I remember. So what is the next miracle item that you’re coming out with?
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Yeah, I can see that.
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(Blank Audio)
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So are you like a registered 501c where somebody could get the tax benefits? (Blank Audio)
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Man, if anybody should need something clean to eat and drink, it’s North Korea. So that’s great. (Blank Audio) Right, so, damn it, there was something else. I’m paying too close attention cuz this is very interesting.
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Yeah, so I don’t know the technical difficulties about it, but have you guys looked at creating a device that can determine if the water is safe to use a filter on?
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Cuz I would think that would be a huge thing. (Blank Audio) Okay, good.
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(Blank Audio)
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Right.
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(Blank Audio)
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Yeah, it’s wonderful. And I just wanna say thank you, cuz if nothing else, it’s a USA company that’s helping the world. And it’s not like you’re dumping $9 billion in Somalia or something, where you’re helping people. You’re helping them make their lives last longer and be more enjoyable and healthier, and I think that’s wonderful.
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(Blank Audio)
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Well, it’s great to have the help too, I would imagine, especially in the foreign countries.
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(Blank Audio) Right.
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All right, Kurt, you know how the kids love the social media. They like seeing the pictures and stuff. Are you guys on the social media? I don’t know how many pictures or videos you can have of people drinking water and going.
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(Blank Audio)
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Of course.
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(Blank Audio)
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Sure. (Blank Audio) Edit, edit, edit. (Blank Audio)
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It’s not a problem. (Blank Audio) I have type two for a few years now, for 15 years, I guess. So when my sugars get too high, I have to go to the bathroom. I was going to the bathroom once every hour. And here recently, I found the fasting, like not eating until like three o’clock or so in the day. Really changes how long I can sit here in front of the computer and work on things. So yeah, I go into the bathroom a lot. (Blank Audio)
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Yeah, no problem. Okay, so I’m gonna do the edit, edit, edit thing here real quick. And then I’ll continue on. We’re wrapping up right now, so it won’t be more than a couple of minutes. (Blank Audio) Been there.
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(Blank Audio) All right, so that’s your own the social media stuff. Does that include YouTube? Do you have anything on YouTube? Do you have regular things?
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(Blank Audio)
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Yeah. (Blank Audio) Wow.
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(Blank Audio) I bet you guys, I bet you or people inside your company have a lot of really interesting, I mean, even anything that’s popular. I don’t think you have stalkers, but you probably have something akin to that because they wanna be a piece of your success. And I can well imagine that it gets a bit cumbersome at times. You wanna be nice, but also too you wanna say, stop.
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(Laugh)
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Very nice.
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(Blank Audio)
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Well, that sucks because when review time comes along, they say, hey, I’m saving the world here. So let’s point you up a few percent here. (Blank Audio) Oh, that’s nice.
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(Blank Audio) Nice. (Blank Audio) You have to be very proud of that. I mean, just a good warm feeling of knowing that you’re saving lives and making people’s lives better.
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All right, Kirk, well, I really appreciate you being here with us today. Very interesting product. I’m glad that you came on because, I mean, we didn’t mention the word Jeep, but this is something that very easily should be in a Jeep because you never know what may happen. I mean, if you’re off road and doing things, you may get stuck. You shouldn’t be wheeling alone, but you may get stuck or maybe you just don’t wanna leave your Jeep there because things can happen to Jeeps that are left by themselves. And now you have a way to continue drinking water because of these things. So I think you said freezing with water would be a problem, but having it in a hot Jeep, like right next to your medical kit, that wouldn’t be a problem.
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(Blank Audio) Right. (Blank Audio) That’s great.
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(Blank Audio) Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So this sounds like a, (Blank Audio) Yeah, this is a perfect thing to throw in the Jeep or have where you can get to it. And I would assume that one is enough for several people. And there’s no reason at this prices to not to have more than one, but.
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(Blank Audio)
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Very nice, amazing, amazing product. I’m gonna check it out on Amazon right if we get
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(Music)
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thing.
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Help say thank you to Kurt.
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Yeah, help say thank you to Kurt for doing all this work and doing it for so long. Kurt, thank you so much for being with us today and continue, good luck. (Blank Audio)
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You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.
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