Eric says goodbye in his last episode before taking the helm as Executive Director at Watershape University.
Thank you to all of you who have listened to this podcast over the years. You are greatly appreciated, and I hope you found value in what you learned here. It has been an honor.
-- Eric
169. Thank you.
===
Eric Knight: Hi everybody and welcome back to the Rule Your Pool podcast. I'm your host, Eric Knight, and this is my last Rule Your Pool podcast episode. This is episode 169, and if you haven't heard the news [00:05:00] already, I have accepted the Executive Director role at Watershape University and I'm very excited for the new opportunity.
It's a pivot within the same industry, but it's a chance to build education outside of just water chemistry. Chemistry is what it is, but there are a lot of other issues in this industry that I. Can really hurt a pool company and more importantly, hurt a customer, hurt a homeowner's pool.
We see problems and that's not fair to them. We don't want to see these problems in pool, construction, renovations, and all of these things. And while I know nothing about renovations, that's not my role. My role is to help build a world class education system. My goal is to make it the best swimming pool education you could possibly get anywhere. I'm really looking forward to this challenge.
And there's no hard feelings either way, as far as I know. I've certainly been in communication with my team. Everything's amicable both ways. I'm not in the business of burning bridges. I still love my team and I look forward to an ongoing symbiotic relationship with Orenda and HASA.
Orenda App version 6.0 update
---
Eric Knight: [00:06:00] One of the final projects that I was finishing was Orenda's app release of 6.0, which came out a couple of days ago. I'm recording this in my last week. My last day is April 4th, but it just came out this past weekend and I hope you enjoy it.
The three main things to look out for in Version 6.0 is now you can lock the desired side dials. So if you have a place that you really like your water chemistry to be, you can now have the option to lock them in place. You can't do it with temperature, but that's because that's an independent variable. You know, temperatures somewhat out of your control unless you have a heater on.
But other than that, you can say, Hey, I always want to have a 65 alkalinity and a 380 calcium, or whatever it is for you. And it will dose that way until you unlock the dials and change your preferences. We've been asked about that feature for a few years and we now have it. Sorry it took so long.
Eric Knight: We have also added in a drain and dilute calculator. So if you go to the main menu, go to other calculators [00:07:00] and you'll see a drain calculator. Actually, let me pull it up, make sure I'm saying that right. There's been a lot going into this update.
Yeah water drain calculator. And so what you'll do is you'll just put in your pool volume and then you'll say the current level of whatever the parameter is that you're trying to reduce. Maybe it's TDS, maybe it's calcium, maybe it's cyanuric acid. You are going to put that in and then you're going to put in your target or desired level. So let's say I have a hundred CYA, because I've been using too many tabs and I want to reduce that to get under 50 and I want to go to 40. Thankfully my fill water should have zero CYA, so that's pretty easy math. But what happens if you're trying to reduce calcium, for instance, and you have 120 out of the tap?
It's not so easy because you're refilling it with 120. So this will do the math for you. This math actually comes from Bob Lowry's old calculator, and HASA owns his intellectual property. Rest in peace Bob Lowry. You changed the industry for all of us. And now it's easier for you. So it's, it's built into this app.
The other thing actually, I guess there's four things. You [00:08:00] can now build a profile so this can cater information to you. You can put in how many pools you have and that kind of thing, and this is available in the settings. You can upload a photo of yourself if you want. It's up to you. You know, it's just something, someone asked for it. I said, oh, okay. I guess that's, that's doable. So anyways, now you can build out your own profile so that it says, Hey Eric, when I open the app now. And that's kind of nice.
The final thing, the main thing is the cost calculator. And I spent months trying to figure out how to build this. We were going to make it its own calculator and there were just so many variables of so many different ways you can buy so many versions of the same product. Like calcium chloride. Well, is it flake? Is it prill? Is it powder? What size? Five pounds? One pound? 50 pounds? Is it a bucket? Is it a bag? There's so many different iterations, and come to find out, there was a simpler way to do it all along. So what we've done in the dosing results and also in the other calculator called Chemiculator®, you'll [00:09:00] see orange pricing icons, which has like a little pencil to edit it.
You can toggle that on and off by pushing the dollar sign icon at the top left next to the back arrow on the LSI calculator results. And then they'll show up or they'll hide. So if you want to send a screenshot or export it and hide your prices, you can hide them really easily. But what you do is you just touch that and then you select how you buy that given product. Because it's going to be in line with whatever the product is that it's recommending. And you put in your price for that quantity of that product.
So for instance, I'm buying 12.5% liquid chlorine. I'm going to buy those in cases of four. So I would put four gallons and then I put in my price. And then based on the dose and based on the pool volume, it automatically spits out exactly what that costs for the dose that's given there. And it'll remember it.
So if you go across and go over to the Chemiculator, and you're trying to figure out well, how much will three gallons of chlorine do to my [00:10:00] pool? because remember the Chemiculator is just doing the math backwards. So instead of part per million to part per million, it's how much of a quantity of this chemical, what is that going to do to my pool?
Well, you'll notice the price is there too. It populated. It goes between the two. So that's a really nice feature that people have asked for a while. It's going to ask you to confirm, are you a pool pro or a homeowner? The main reason for that is because your pricing is going to be different. But yeah, it's pretty nice. So if I want to change my mind and say, yeah, you know, I actually have to, in a pinch, go over to Home Depot or Walmart, and now I need to buy one gallon at a time instead of four. Well, I just go in there, I, I just change it real quick and then the dose spits it out, says, Hey, you're spending this much now.
People to thank
---
Eric Knight: So anyway, I have a lot of people to thank before I sign off here. Too many people to name really, but I want to thank my team. My team has been fantastic. Everybody, very hardworking and I'm grateful to all of you. In no particular order, the first person I met at Orenda was Monica. Monica left us at the end of [00:11:00] 2019, but I love you, Monica. Your energy is contagious and so is your laughter. So thank you for everything you did for the company.
We then brought on Laura, who really stepped up our marketing game, website, everything on the backend of Orenda Academy. And I, I honestly, she did the job of like five or six different people. I don't know how she kept sane for as long as she has. But, uh, Laura has really carried the water for a lot of those tasks. So thank you Laura for all of that.
Uh, I know a lot of the work is a thankless job because customers don't really see all of it or all the work that goes into it, but it's a ton of work.
Joe really upped our sales organization because the running joke at Orenda, prior to the acquisition, I never really did my job as it was written in the contract. So I was hired to be the sales manager. I never actually did that job. Technically I was in breach of contract since week number one in 2016. Joe came in and actually did that job and did it well.
Miguel. Very [00:12:00] hardworking, intelligent dude. I'd met him on the pool deck from my old coach, actually. He was swimming professionally on Team Elite and my coach David Marsh was like, you hiring anyone? I was like, well, I mean not unless you have a native fluent Spanish speaker who can understand chemistry and work really well with computers. And he's like whistles. And he's like, Hey, Miguel, come here.
Next thing you know, I'm asking Miguel questions and Miguel so confused because he's like dripping wet in a speedo just in the middle of practice. And here I am interviewing him to see if he's a good fit for our company. Come to find out he was a fantastic fit. And Miguel, I love you buddy. Thank you for being here. You've really helped us out.
Kelly, rest in peace Kelly. We lost her a few years ago. Turned our operations into hyperdrive and really got us bottling out of two facilities and really took on the lion's share of the work to get that done. So thank you for everything you did, Kelly.
Tyler, the kid, he has been learning a lot, very rapidly. Commands presence in a room. He's become [00:13:00] a hell of a teacher and I'm really proud that Tyler has taken on those roles and he has an opportunity now to step up in a big way in my absence, and Miguel as well, and everybody else. But I think Tyler's got a bright future and love working with him. And he's also not a bad shot when it comes to archery. So if you ever want to go shooting bow and arrow, he's a real bell ringer. You know what I mean?
Anyway so then we got Ryan and Shaun. Ryan and Shaun came to us around the same time and they just exploded their sales territory.
Ryan in Texas, Oklahoma, and he actually was from Southern Cal, so he was, for a while there working in Southern California as well. He is a great manager of our reps and he's just incredible person and sales guy. So Ryan, you're awesome. Thank you.
Shaun was the bane of my existence for many years, having lived in Charlotte and not knowing who Shaun was, but could not get traction in Charlotte. And that's because they all loved Shaun who was working for another company. I'm really glad that he is no [00:14:00] longer a competitor because he was really good. And guess what? He's really good with us too. Shaun is an amazing guy and he doesn't go fishing, he goes catching. Just make sure he's the one that backs the boat down the ramp and not me. because we, I. But I'm not good at that. But Shaun, Shaun can tell you the story.
Then we bring in Kyra, and Kyra is incredible with videography, editing, marketing. She's got a, a great vision and she just does a ton for us.
After the acquisition we brought on Samantha, and Samantha is a wonderful administrator who has taken our IT in the backend of making sure that all of our systems are functioning.
They all work incredibly hard and they make my job much easier. So I want to thank every one of you so much. And I hope to continue working with you in a new way in the future.
And then there's the independent reps. I love the independent reps. There's too many to name. We had them all over the country and some of them have come and gone, but had solid relationships. Thank you for helping us grow these [00:15:00] territories. For picking me up at the airport at odd hours, and setting up these trainings and virtual trainings and everything. The relationships with distributors and just knowing where the big customers were and the support at the trade shows. I, it can't go far enough what the reps have done for us, so thank you.
And then I want to end on Harold and Jarred. Harold gave me a chance before I had a track record to deserve that chance. And he took a very big risk on me. So much so that at that time at Orenda, we didn't have the revenue to afford another salary. So he just took it out of his paycheck and encouraged me openly to try things, learn and fail at things and learn faster that way. So, thank you, Harold. Because you didn't have to do these things. I mean, it was a, it was an uphill battle trying to persuade your son-in-law, Jarred to scrap the old app and build the one that we have now. And we did that.
And it was an uphill battle to [00:16:00] hire me apparently. So Jarred didn't want to hire me either. He also didn't want to do the podcast. He didn't want to do the blogs either. You know, Jarred has proven to be quite the visionary I'm starting to realize. But I have to thank Jarred because he's become one of my best friends in life and he has been the yin to my yang, so to speak. And when we do the personality testing, he's like the exact polar opposite of me, which is probably why we balance each other so well. And it's been an honor to work with him and everybody else at the company.
And outside of the company, again, there's too many to name, but there's a couple that I have to name that have changed everything for me. One of them passed away last year, and his name was Loren Granstrom. Loren Granstrom was with Wet Edge and then Micro Glass.
Towards the end of his life, he had been struggling with a lot of health issues in the last three or four years. Loren from the very beginning of meeting him I heard what I had to say and [00:17:00] what I was learning on cement chemistry and all this stuff, and he put me in front of more customers and said, Hey, you need to listen to this guy.
Actually, he had a much deeper voice than me. He said, Hey, you need to listen to this guy. And they did. He lent his credibility because he knew while it wasn't popular, what I was saying at the time. His customers had to hear it. They had to know what was going on because it was affecting their livelihoods.
And we traveled the country together. I mean, there was a, a period of, oh gosh, two or three years where I was with Loren almost every week. He was closer with me than any of my coworkers. Just an incredible, incredible guy and I miss him every day. He's a fantastic human. And for the amount of travel he did, everywhere he went, he changed lives. And I just want to pay my respects to him once again, because I would not be here without Loren Granstrom. He really put us on the map for startup, and to be honest, I never thought startup would be as big [00:18:00] as it was. But it was largely thanks to Loren.
And Lupe is the one who came up with the startup. Lupe Mariscal down in Blue Moon Pools in San Diego. It was his idea to do the startup. And then the startup Barrel was actually Dave Penton and Dave Rockwell, so I didn't come up with that either. We just worked and listened to our customers as they continued to iterate and make things better.
I want to thank Richard Falk. Richard Falk for being a wonderful sounding board. But, but mainly a fact checker. Like Richard holds no punches if you've ever talked to him. If you're wrong, he'll tell you. He'll tell you straight up you're wrong. So it's been very good to have that, to review my chemistry and I do all this research and stuff, and then I throw it to him and inevitably a third of it's wrong. So I, I get the. I get that review. If I can pass the Richard Falk test, then I feel pretty good about it.
And it, it's been a, a wonderful help because I'm not a chemist. I would not have been able to get to where I am without that higher level of understanding. And then [00:19:00] it's my job to sort of distill that and make it more accessible to all of you. And that's been my goal. People like Richard and Stan Pickens and Dr. Chip Blatchley, they're the ones who are doing incredible research in science.
And John Wojtowicz, although I never got to meet him, gosh, did they pave the way. They paved the way and did so much of this work. And I'm grateful for all of them.
And there's two more groups that I want to thank. The Pentair training team has been like a second family to me. I've been doing roundabout 15 to 20 events with them every year for the past four or five years. And I see them more often than my coworkers. And I'm talking about Chris, actually there's several. Chris', Chris, Scott, Mike, Carlos, Tony, there're a few others, right? But that's the core group of guys that I've seen at all of these events, and they gave me an opportunity to teach so many more pros. And I will always be grateful for that. And I hope to continue that [00:20:00] relationship. They are passionate about education and I'm grateful for them. So thank you all of you guys. You're awesome.
And then finally, I want to thank you.
I want to thank all of you who have written in, emailed tons of feedback on this podcast. And originally Jarred didn't want to do this podcast because he said it would be a waste of time. And he would've been right if it wasn't for you. The responses we got from this podcast changed everything. I was not expecting it to take on a life of its own.
I was not expecting it to get anywhere near the following that we have. But it wasn't just the following. It's not like, Hey, you had this many views on YouTube. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about engaged followers who reached out to us and talk amongst themselves, and share episodes with friends, and tell their neighbors and tell other companies and the rest of their UPA or IPSSA chapter.
It's amazing how viral this thing has gone. And that's because of you. Thank you. Thank you for investing [00:21:00] your time and listening to these longer episodes and these stupid songs that I make to better yourself. I can't put it into words how much that means to me. I've poured a lot into making this show happen. A ton of editing, a ton of prep work, and show notes that Jarred never read.
And I'm going to miss it. But it's not mine. And I may go build another one, but right now I'm going to focus on building Watershape University.
And actually I forgot one more person to thank, perhaps the most important person to thank is my wife, Julia. For not only putting up with these changes that have gone on, but the selling of my house where that pool was, moving in with her.
Before I met Julia, I traveled over 40 weeks a year. Two days here, five days here, 10 days there. It was just, I had nothing to come home to. [00:22:00] Now I've got everything to come home to. And I'm very grateful for that. I love you, Julia.
That's it. I mean, I will miss you, but then again, I'm not really going anywhere. I'm still around. You can still find me. And I hope if you are looking to up your educational game, visit Watershape.org. Check out what we're going to be building there. Haven't started yet, but in the next few months, you'll see. I've got an idea of what can be done, and I want to help grow this industry in more meaningful ways beyond chemistry.
Hopefully they're going to take this and continue to build it and continue to add value to you because you deserve it. You're great people, and I hope you have a great summer and you Rule Your Pool. Cheers.