John Bertrand is our kind of founder, a wastewater engineer who has operated inside and outside the utility fence - he understands his market upside down. What he saw in his time in the utility world led him to wonder if the messy world of managing the constant stream of incoming data from utility customers - calls, text messages, 311 alerts, voice messages, web forms - could be automated, freeing up the dedicated professionals who traditionally handle this work to focus on more important tasks. And so, teaming up with his co-founder Ryan, they started Daupler, which now serves more than 85 customers - not only water and wastewater utilities, but full municipalities, police and fire dispatch, power companies, and restoration companies. There is a giant opportunity here to build the field operating system for the built environment. And John is consistently impressive, not only in pushing the company to the verge of 5 million in bookings, but the originality and logic of his thought. He really is a diamond. Please enjoy my conversation with John Bertrand.

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For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205

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John Bertrand, Daupler's Co-founder, takes a deep dive into the intersection of technology, utility management, and entrepreneurship as he shares his company’s transformative journey, offering valuable insights for emerging founders in the water industry along the way. His narrative illuminates Daupler's strategic evolution, focusing on aligning technological innovation with utility needs to revolutionize response management. Today’s episode also explores Daupler's role in enhancing operational efficiency and customer satisfaction, while discussing key aspects of technical and commercial expansion, providing a comprehensive view of the future landscape of utility management.

Episode Highlights:

0:00 Start

0:49 Introduction

2:01 John’s history with the water industry

2:39 Working for the utility vs as a consultant 

3:25 Consultants as ‘gatekeepers’ in the water sector

7:14 The problem Daupler solves

10:34 Daupler’s CTO and Co-founder, Ryan Rosenbaum

12:10 What Daupler does

14:36 Learning from an early misstep

16:47 Comparing Daupler with PagerDuty

18:56 Building Daupler customers’ operating systems

21:40 Moving into adjacent sectors

23:59 Creating a critical mass of customers throughout the US

25:58 What John has learned about marketing his product vs sales

27:33 Daupler’s moat

29:23 AI and its role in Daupler

32:04 The critical mass of data within water utilities

34:37 The current and future state of utility management

37:32 Going international

40:15 The one lesson John would pass on to emerging water founders

Links:

Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/

Daupler: https://daupler.com/

Quotes:

"For most municipalities, that has the most pain, being the water or wastewater department.”

"You need to monitor the data, watch your trend, and then take appropriate action.”

"The data will be the real value."

"For most utilities, they are thinking about things in a proactive and preventative way because those are places of comfort where they can have control."

“Don't sell vitamins, sell painkillers. Change their life.”