029: Starting a Company Backed by Some of Silicon Valley’s Leading Investors with Philip Winter Founder of Nebia

The two biggest lessons I took away from my experience and they worked with I think 25-30 companies, very closely like with their CEO’s for about a month at a time, in the course of a year. Whereas if you don’t innovate, you die.

#00:00:45-9# Neil :  Hello, its Neil Ball here, thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is about the entrepreneur’s journey. The vision, the mind-set, the commitment, the sacrifice, failures and successes. I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Philip Winter. But before I introduce you to him, I have a little bit of trivia for you. Georges St Pierre said, ‘the more knowledge you get, the more questions you ask, the smarter you get, the more you realise that everything can be possible.’ The entrepreneur way asks the questions so we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. Phillip, welcome to the show, are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us?

#00:01:37-2# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Absolutely, I am looking forward to it.

#00:01:38-2# Neil :  Thank you Phillip. Phillip Winter is the co-founder and CEO of Nebia, which builds a shower system based on a better experience, more beautiful design and 70% water savings. Nebia launched a kick-starter campaign in late 2015, that raised more than 3 million dollars and is backed by some of silicon valley’s leading investors. Including Y Combinator. Phillip, can you provide us with some more insight into your business and personal life, to allow us to get to know more about what you do and who you are?

#00:02:13-7# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Absolutely

#00:02:13-7# Neil :  Thank you.

#00:02:16-5# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : You know we, as you may know we have built a totally new shower system. The idea has been to make a better experience, and what we think is a more beautiful design and save a lot of water. And we have been working on this now in some form or another for five years. It started with Carlos Inhistanemilio, who is now in his late 80’s. And really I had been working on internets for the last two and half years, and moved to San Francisco about a year and a half ago to really catapult it. If you think about it, showers have been the same for the last three or four decades, and really the underlying concept which is an overhead .. with water coming out and gravity doing the work. That has been around since the 1890’s. Its over a 100 years, before that you would pull a chain which would release a lever which would release like a sheet of water. Or you use buckets or bathtubs, you know. Those were meaningful innovations, we have not seen anything meaningful in showers and how we use water in quite some time. And so when we started working on this, it was really Carlos and his dad, Carlos ran a large chain of gyms in Mexico city. Which is a city of 20 million people at 8,000 feet, and so you can imagine the cost of pumping up that water.

#00:03:31-0# Neil :  mmmm

#00:03:31-0# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : And his dad spent the better part of two years, trying to find a solution and they came up with an early proto-type and when I met them, they invited me over to their house to take a shower and saw the early proto-type made out of PVC and plastic. And really can rate the experience, was really intrigued by it. And at that point, we thought, we could either go one of two ways, we could go to the bases of pyramid and take it to a non-profit, and take it to parts of Africa and Latin America where water and sanitation are a particularly big deal. I had previously worked on a campus toilet for the base of the pyramid and that was from an intriguing idea. Or we could turn this around and make this about a better experience. And position it as a way to try and change people’s attitudes at the top of the pyramid. And if we do that, maybe we could launch a movement, and set trend. For how people think about water, and so we have thought about brands that we liked, sort of like Dyson, which you mentioned earlier.

#00:04:30-4# Neil :  Mmm hmmm

#0 #00:04:30-4# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : or Nest, and sort of set a trend that way and we decided to do that and that is when we moved to San Francisco. And at this point we have launched the company and the product and we have had about 700 people take showers. Either come to our office and get naked or we have gone to gyms and so we have got quite a bit of feedback. And on kick-starter, we sold about three million dollars worth as you mentioned. And we are now getting ready to manufacturing, and ship to all of our packers.

#00:05:02-5# Neil :  I think what you have done is absolutely fantastic, because it is such a fundamental technology that you have managed to re-invent and that water saving sounds absolutely amazing so, Phillip, can you tell us what you enjoy most about what you do?

#00:05:17-8# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Sure, I think what I enjoy most is the opportunity to build something that the world intrinsically needs. Which is a more sustainable way to use water, and my background was in non-profits and that was what I was doing when I was living in Mexico City. And so the opportunity to build something that has a very sort of clear social impact on the world. Its really fulfilling, also the opportunity to build a team, and the culture I think is an immense responsibility and that really sort of energises me to start the day.

#00:05:58Neil :  Mmm and what is it that drives you?

# #00:06:02-4# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : I guess I was just mentioning it, its many things, but at least with regards to work I have always been fascinated by the idea of teamwork and when you have people come together with a variety of different talents and you mesh them together just the right way, you can make something together, which is really phenomenal. And the energy that you sense when people are really clicking from different angles, is really special and so I guess that is the biggest responsibility that I have is you know putting together this team and building this company is you know I am not a mechanical engineer, so I don’t sort of bring that sort of technical expertise to the table. When you bring together really technical people, really creative people, who learn how to communicate with each other, have a sense of trust. You can build something really really exciting. So that really energises me, you know, and I guess finally its also nice to build something tangible.

#00:07:00-7# Neil :  Yeh.

#00:07:03-0# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Physical, so you can really see the fruit of your labour, you know leave the door and its not some sort of ephemeral app or something like that.

#00:07:11-4# Neil :  And when you are not doing all of this, how do you relax?

#00:07:16-2# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : I love to ski. Big skiier, and I love to play golf, and so the move to San Francisco was a good one. So I grew up on the east coast where both seasons are pretty short due to the weather, so I love to be in the outdoors. It is a pretty good place to be if you like the outdoors.

#00:07:35-6# Neil :  And do you have any entrepreneurial role models?

#00:07:38-7# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Oh boy, yeh many. I guess the ones that most come to mind, that most quickly come to mind are Yvon Chouinard, who is the founder of Patagonia, which makes outdoor peril and climbing gears you know, all sorts of skiing, fishing gear, its a totally self-made company. Probably 40 years old, a little more at this point. Which he built with the explicit purpose that he would have enough money so that he could continue to travel and spend time in the outdoors which is what he loves. And it has now become a 600 or 700 million dollar company, totally private and as a result of those two things, he has been able to really use him as a way to push forward his agenda, and so he is an environmentalist and so the influence that he has as a business owner, with sort of a cult-type following, you know because the fans of Patagonia peril and the stuff that they make are really pretty fanatic, that’s pretty cool, so to see what he has done is in that sense is really inspiring.

#00:08:47-6# Neil :  Mmm hmm

#00:08:47-6# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Steve Jobs, for who Steve Jobs is an entrepreneurial role model. And the products that he has built have influenced our lives so much, and the obsesivity with the fine details, is really important, and not to be overlooked. And there are many more, I do a lot of reading.

#00:09:06-8# Neil :  Ok can we just go back to the time before you were an entrepreneur? And can you tell us what difficulties you had to overcome when you started your business?

#0 #00:09:15-6# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Sure, so ok the first ones were learning a little bit about plumbing. Which was sort of important for doing beta tests and you know and pilots and gyms and things like that, I knew nothing about plumbing. I sort of tried to learn on the fly and I asked some pretty stupid questions and I would go into the central market and mexico city and you would imagine, an old sort of developing world, colonial corridors, five or six blocks or whatever, all of the plumbing .. were there and trying to figure out which pieces made it with which pieces. The male end and the female end, and so that was a tough learning curve. And thinking, you know is this really what I want to do? is learn how to plumb? and is this really why I sort of graduated from college? but there was a great lesson in there, and when I started doing pilots and gyms and basically the way it works, I installed prototypes in the mens and womens locker rooms. So I have to get there really early in the morning, before the women start showering. And then just camp out, outside the entrance to the locker rooms. And just try and convince people to try it and when people would come out, you know, early on its a prototype, some people really liked it, others really did not. And to take that to your face is really difficult, so that was pretty trying and there were some pilots that flat out just did not go well. And that is because there are technical things we had to improve with regards to heat and sensation, and that was really difficult to take to the face and I could of sort of turned away at that point. But fortunately sort of had enough people who believed in me, and kept me going. And I think that is the big lesson, sort of read about this a lot but as an entrepreneur you have to be not blindly optimistic, but almost, because it takes that level of belief, to create something that does not exist.

#00:11:06-4# Neil :  Mmm and did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?

# #00:11:14-5# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : I don’t think there were any doubts, so much as set backs or call it logistical obstacles. I had to finish my previous job and just sort of work together the budget, and the business plan for initial backing and things like that, sort of hold you back, but certainly no doubts, doubts were the least.

#00:11:35-4# Neil :  Ok and what mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?

#00:11:49-8# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : I think finding some technical help early on, right? The sooner you have more people pushing the ball forward, the faster its going to move. You know I always had this sort of image of building a snowman, you start with this snowball, its like the size of your hands, and you sort of roll it and roll it and roll it and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and that is sort of like a company and the moment you stop and take a rest, its not getting any bigger, its not really progressing. But once you start having more people working on it, you can take a rest and see that it is still growing, is such an immense like motivator. So the first time I started to have that, was like wow, we can now really kick this into a different gear.

#00:12:30-2# Neil :  Mmmm hmm, and what are some of the things you did before you started your business? that would be helpful tips to some of the listeners who have not yet taken the first step on the entrepreneur way?

#00:12:40-7# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : I spent a lot of time hanging out with entrepreneurs. That’s why I caught the bug, my previous job helped entrepreneurs scale their companies, in Mexico at an organisation called Endeavour. I read a lot about entrepreneurs, you know followed them on twitter and read blogs, and I also watched a series of classes at Stamford University. Done in conjunction with .. of ‘how to start a start-up’ I think the dot com is ‘howtostartastartup.com’ and its basically a who’s who of internet entrepreneurs or famous sort of Silicon valley type of entrepreneurs, and investors who talk you through very basic things in setting up a company, from different angles and it is a 10 or 14-part series, it was really cool because they did it last fall or a year and half ago. And at 4pm every day after the class, it happened, like live in person, they would post it, and live to the world. That was really really good, it taught me a lot on what to focus on and what not to focus on.

#00:13:40-5# Neil :  Ok, if we can just talk about your entrepreneurial journey a little bit now. Do you think that culture is important from the beginning in a business?

#00:13:49-8# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Yeh absolutely, I think culture is important from when you are one person to when you are two or three, and you are just co-founders and you know what? culture can be defined in so many different ways. I am still trying to learn how to define it, and make it real for our life, but I think some of the basic things are, ‘how you communicate, do you communicate the important things in person? or written? do you have that level of trust and transparency? and how you talk about the difficult things and I think that is really really really important.’ And then every culture, I heard this once from Olly Reoul-guinney who is partner at Y-combinator, he was the former CEO at twitter and worked at Pixar for a long time. And he said, ‘look, every company has to take on its own culture, and it is usually indicative of the founder and the founder of personality.’ because it has to be authentic, and you will draw people to you early on, who like being around you and who you like being around. And so naturally the culture will start to take shape around, the personality of those early people and that is natural and that is good.

#00:14:55-5# Neil :  Mmmm knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?

#00:15:08-2# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : I think the importance of focus and setting artificial time constraints. In other words, like setting a goal and saying ‘if I don’t hit this by this time, I am going to have a serious re-evaluation’ and making yourself hit that, because that is the only way you can, and it requires so much self-discipline.’ but that is the only way you can get real sort of traction developing.

#00:15:35-4# Neil :  And how much does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business?

#00:15:37-3# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : A lot. ha ha I make most of my decisions off of a gut feeling.

#00:15:45-0# Neil :  Ok, life is made of constant change, whether we like it or not, and many would say the only constant is change, so Phillip, how do you try to keep up with change?

#00:15:58-3# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Yeh so when I worked at Endeavour, Mexico city, basically the job was to identify companies that could grow from 1-10 million, to being 100 million dollar companies, the premise being that those were the companies that really move the needle in our economy. The two biggest lessons that I took away from that experience, and they worked with I think 25-30 companies, very closely like with their CEO’s you know for about a month at a time, in the course of a year, whereas if you don’t innovate, you die. And that became really really clear to me, and so that has to be this sort of obsession with looking for ways to improve and there are small changes, which are important and then there are step changes. And you have to be willing to cannibalise whatever you are doing, so I think change is fundamental and it is tough, particularly when something is working.

#00:16:43-3# Neil :  And what is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership or motivation? and can you tell us why you have chosen it?

#00:16:53-7# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Yeh its a book called, ‘let my people go surfing’ by Yvonne Chouinard who is the founder of Patagonia, which I mentioned earlier, we give it to everybody on their first day of work, and it is the book that most influenced me in terms of the culture I want to build for Nebia. The long term expected to build a 20 or 30 year company, you know not a company sell at flip in a few years, and the reason it is called, ‘let my people go surfing’ is because there is a policy in the company where if the offices that are by the ocean, if the surf is above a certain height, they encourage people to go and surf and use a product that they make every day. You know and then just get back to work and finish whatever they have got to do. But it is sort of this ‘first things first’ mentality which I just think is really inspiring.

#00:17:39-2# Neil :  Ok, everyone, when you have a busy life, listening to audio books is a great way to expand your knowledge in the time that you may be doing other things, such as driving or when you are at the gym. We have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing. To choose your free audio book go to www.freeaudiobookoffer.com as long as you have not already signed up then you will qualify. Phillip, can we just talk a little bit about some things in the future here? What one thing would you do with your business if you knew that you could not fail?

#00:18:15-4# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Yeh that is a tough question. ha ha ha what one thing would I do in my business if I knew I could not fail? I might try and build something really ambitious. Like that the world really needs like ‘creme de la roc’ if they can get it soon from planet, I think what Space X is doing is really pushing our generation into another level of exploration which has been missing for a while. That really excites me.

#00:18:47-6# Neil :  Ok and what skill if you were excellent at it, would help you the most to double your business?

#00:18:55-1# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Ooh a … question, to double my business, goodness. I think it has to be sales related then, and there is, so we are building a direct consumer business. e-commerce, and that is a fairly new field and there is no real playbook to it. But it takes a lot of iteration and experience and so on, and the more I know there I think that would make the biggest impact.

#00:19:22-3# Neil :  Ok, in five years from now if a well-known business publication was publishing an article on your business, after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?

#00:19:35-5# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : I would like it to just be all smiles. Like just pictures of customers just smiling, you know saying that the Nebia experience has been, has made their daily ritual way better in every way, right it could be because of the level of experience, because they are proud of the fact that they are doing something daily to contribute to making a more sustainable planet. And I would love for our suppliers to be really proud of working with us, and the relationships that we have with them and the way that we treat them, you know that’s very important to me.

#00:20:05-0# Neil :  Ok, we are now at the part of the show where you share three golden nuggets with us, so Phillip, what is your favourite quote and how have you applied it?

#00:20:14-8# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : My favourite quote is, was sent to me at least it originates with him, by a gentleman named Warren Miller, who is a famous ski film producer, who has been doing it for like 60 years. He basically made skiing popular and there is no limit to the amount of good a person can do if they don’t care who gets the credit. And I think that at times in my life I have been better at this than not, mostly not. But its this attitude of ‘hey, don’t look to get the reward for helping somebody out.’ You just get the satisfaction out of doing that, so I really try and keep that present.

#00:20:52-7# Neil :  Its a great philosophy. And do you have any favourite online resources you could share with us that would be useful?

#00:21:00-3# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Yeh I mentioned it earlier, but for aspiring entrepreneurs, people were curious about it, I don’t think there is anything better than how to start a start-up video series, its ten or fourteen videos, you know class lectures. And just really engaging on a variety of different topics, and I think that is a great place to start because it will expose you to way more resources, because of the people that talk and the things they talk about.

#00:21:25-4# Neil :  Yeh what is the domain of that?

#00:21:28-0# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : It is howtostartastartup.com

#00:21:29-5# Neil :  Oh it is actually that is it? right ok. Thanks for that, and what is your best advise to other entrepreneurs?

#00:21:43-2# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Be persistent, and love what you do.

#00:21:46-5# Neil :  Great advise. Everyone, if you did not manage to get a note of Philip’s favourite resource or his favourite book, you can find the links on Philip’s show notes page. Just go to theentrepreneurway.com and search for Philip or Philip Winter in the search box. Philip, is there anything else that you would like to add about your business?

#00:22:06-2# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Yeh before I do that, I would just looked up the domain, its start-upclass.samaltman.com. If you google how to start a start-up, its the first thing to come up. And about my business, if you are ever in San Francisco and would like to have a Nebia experience, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. You can reach us through our website, or my email is Philip with one L at Nebia.com and we love having people try it so you guys are all welcome.

#00:22:37-2# Neil :  Everyone is invited round for a shower.

#00:22:37-2# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : That is correct. Funny enough, that is no longer awkward for us to ask somebody that question.

#00:22:45-Neil :  That’s awesome, its been an absolute honour having you on here Philip, I love your product and I love what you are doing and I really hope I will see that soon in the UK. So thank you for coming on here and providing us with so much insightful advice and help.

#00:22:58-2# Neil :  Thank you Neil, I really appreciate it.

#00:22:59-4# Philip Winter Founder of Nebia : Great thank you.