
FreeWater is the world's first free beverage company - FreeWater
Our startup is FreeWater, the world’s first free beverage company. More importantly, 50% of our profits will be shared with our members and charity. That means we’re going to pay you to drink alkaline water while we ensure everyone on Earth has access to safe drinking water. Our market is worth more than a trillion dollars annually and we’re going to start building the first version of our software application soon. Our unique insight is that we will earn greater profits paying people to drink water than was ever possible while selling it. Furthermore, this process can be duplicated with any product or service that’s renewable, that collects data, or can be produced at near zero marginal cost. We have a fast-growing team that consists of entrepreneurs, software engineers, and a lobbyist. We’re looking for $8,000,000 to create our first micro-factory, 3 high volume kiosks, cashless vending machines, and our ecosystem. This will allow us to distribute 61,000,000 beverages the first year with a minimum revenue of $28,856,657. And finally, FreeWater is only the beginning. Our vision is a highly profitable universal income that will ensure everyone has access to everything that’s needed to live a fulfilled life! If you have any questions or would like to get involved please shoot me an email me at Josh@freeboxedwater.com  
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=zd748KfMnLY&amp;t=3s
======
ethiclub
This would be wonderful if this model was proven profitable - I would love to
see the water bottle industry hit hard by this (and plastics / packaging at
the moment just aren't changing quickly enough in the snack food industry).

The box design being a barcode in its own right seems to be a very elegant
solution too.

Re: 100% Hemp box - May I ask about some of the rest of the manufacturing?

\- Did you have difficulty with eco-friendly bleaching processes with the
containers? How about the hemp, was the supply-chain hard to set up in a
responsible way (e.g. pesticides, shipping, labour, deforestation, soil
degredation etc.)

\- What's the cap made out of?

\- What do you do in terms of inks? Presumably water based?

~~~
FreeWater
We are very excited because FreeWater is only the beginning. My vision is a
highly profitable universal income. This concept has the ability to disrupt
the entire retail industry because it's more than a business model, it's a new
type of economic platform too!

In the beginning, our cartons will be manufactured at Tetra Pak. These cartons
will be 70% renewable and are a big leap forward from plastic bottles.
However, over time, our packaging is going to evolve into the world's first
100% hemp carton. This process won't be difficult because I have family who
has been in the hemp industry the last 50 years. My godfather was the late
Jack Heror who was the first person to legalize pot in America. The cap will
also be made of hemp. You can read about the uses of hemp in my godfather's
book called the Emperor Wears No Clothes. The beauty of making this out of
hemp is that we will obtain CBD oil as a byproduct which will also be
distibuted for free, but paid for by ads.

This business model is 10X more profitable than any retail company on Earth.
Once we get going we are going to go public with a one-year public security
offering that will fund our cultivation and growth. My wife is Serbian and
it's 100% legal to cultivate hemp in her country. Farmland and labor is cheap
so it seems like the right place to farm.

To be perfectly honest, I havn't considered different types of inks yet. Any
suggestions?

~~~
ethiclub
Good luck.

I think the business model could indeed be proven ethical - The main issue
with advertising/marketing is not that it exists, but that it is not regulated
enough (by the state or any other party) and is (in Western markets)
biased/deceptive - So I feel that your organization will need a rigorous
ethics board (and a strict 'customer fit' step in your Customer>lead process)
that holds itself to a higher standard than state legislation allows for. For
example, you will need a blacklist of things to advertise (e.g. won't accept
hate groups buying ad space) and a level of demonstratable proof of what
claims are made on the adverts (attempt to refuse hyperbolic product
promises).

I can't quite figure out how the business model can be proven profitable
though - Are advertisers really going to be able to subsidize the full cost of
the entire business operations and supply chain? I imagine the product pricing
model will be a 'per unit' type - Perhaps a mix of cost-per-click/impression
and traditional advertising-space hiring. But imagining arbitrary rev and
costs here: Are you really going to be able to produce a unit for $1 (inc
fixed costs), and sell the advertising space & data on that unit for $1.50+?.
I hope it is indeed possible - The free market could massively benefit from a
lower tier (i.e. your offerings) and a higher tier (paid-for offerings without
advertising or data collection).

Re: Inks - I cannot provide exact advice for inks to print onto hemp, but in
general I believe there are three categories of eco-friendly inks that are
worth investigating: UV inks, soy/vegetable based inks, and water-based inks.
These seem to be the areas currently achieving the smallest ecological impact
/the fewest trade-offs/externalities. Ink is, unfortunately, a horribly messy
product to satisfy in terms of ethical considerations. There are so many
moving parts and components in the supply chain, so many compromises, and such
particular requirements to fulfill (the material to print onto etc.)

~~~
FreeWater
Thanks, you're absolutely right. We created an advertiser guidelines that
doesn't allow hate, deception, or fake news. If they screw up we will have
their creditcard on file! We are also going to tax the news, politics,
religion, tobacco, alcohol,and gambling platforms if they want to advertise
with us. We're not going to let there be any news, politics, or religion on
side one because nobody will want their least favorite politacal figure or
reigion staring them in the face as they're rehydrating.

Once we have purchased the Tetra Pak filling line, the cost per unit is less
than a penny per carton. More like an 1/8 of a penny. And we are going to
build a decentralized network of micro-factories which is going to cut our
carbon footprint and save us millions on shipping too.

We aren't going to charge per click either... Initially, it will be cheaper to
advertise with us than to create a color print flyer and to distribute it
yourself. However, nobody is going to toss this flyer away until they've drank
all the water. So our advertiser's message will literally be in our customer's
faces.

Furthermore, we're not giving away our water, we're going to pay you to drink
it. Our water will be free AND we are going to give 50% of our profits away.
25% to charity and the rest to our customers and investors. We're so confident
that we could give away 90% of the profit, but then it would be much harder to
grow and to find funding.

Once we've established this model with water, we're going to expand into just
about anything you could find at a supermarket or department store. So, our
vision is a media company, selling platform, and social media platform that
are all tied together by our medium which will be a universal income. We're
creating the world's first highly profitable universal income. If people don't
want to take it because they don't like commercials it's fine. But, we should
all have the option.

I understand that this idea is very weird. Technically, we would be utilizing
a totally new economic platform we are calling Consumer First Economics.
However, what is the alternative? Look where our current system has led us!
We've created a dying world where nearly a billion people don't have food or
water while the rest of us are tossing hundreds of billions of goods in the
trash...

When we are successful, our competitors are going to have to do the same or
better than free + 50% profit-sharing. And this is the type of competition
we're trying to establish. A "consumer first" mentality to see who can do more
for the customer, the local community, and the environment opposed to seeing
how much a company can dick everyone over.

I created this model out of desperation. In the past, I founded two non-
porfits and there is nothing worse than begging people for donations. So, this
model will force people to give to charity wether they want to or not.

I applied my startup to YC, but I'm not sure if they will choose us because I
mest up a few simple questions on the application because I've been so over-
worked. Regardless, I'm traveling to Silicon Valley in a few weeks and I'm not
leaving until I find the right investors. If you live in San Francisco we can
meet up for a coffee and discuss things in greater detail. If not, you can
always reach me here or directly at josh@freeboxedwater.com.

~~~
ethiclub
>We are also going to tax the news, politics, religion, tobacco, alcohol,and
gambling platforms

I strongly recommend barring these industries altogether and just not
'bothering with them'.

Let's say you are donating to a health charity, and it's coming from tobacco
advertising. There may be a net cost to society's health. See here for similar
example: [http://time.com/3967567/skydiving-for-
charity/](http://time.com/3967567/skydiving-for-charity/)

Is it profitable to allow tobacco et al into your customer base? Now you have:

\- More externalities to map, and more intricate, delicate issues to traverse

\- More negative impact to your brand

\- More cognitive dissonance in the impact to the world (Is this company
really doing 'good'?)

\- More complaints, adversaries, protesting against your alliance with those
industries

\- Less legitimacy as a for-good enterprise

\- More resource expenditure on your ethics/review board / policing your
product

\- Potential lost business from more ethical industries that refuse to partner
alongside tobacco / gambling etc.

\- Need for change over time (Public opinion on tobacco & gambling will only
get worse. Therefore these industries being customers means that there is more
trouble lined up in the future, and an inevitable transition to a different
client base once public opinion cripples those industries further and
further).

At the very least, the opportunity costs make this a poor choice of business
model.

>I understand that this idea is very weird. Technically, we would be utilizing
a totally new economic platform we are calling Consumer First Economics.
However, what is the alternative? Look where our current system has led us!

I think it makes absolute sense - There are benefits in (much of) the free
market swinging even further to a distinct Freemium model - I.e at least two
tiers: \- Free (subsidized by advertising or higher tiers) \- Paid

Both tiers need to map externalities, minimize negative impact, then offset
any remaining issues (e.g. charity dontions).

Both tiers will inevitably need to become more distinct - At the moment, many
paid tiers supplement rev with data sales & advertising (e.g.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18277411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18277411)).
Hopefully, consumer demand will mature and split these two tiers apart - I.e.
we will see less of a hybrid model, and more siloing of advertising & data
collection. Consumers would choose between a cheaper car (advertising, data
collection) or select the higher tier (a more pricey car, with guarantees by
the manufacturer as to anonymity, pure experience, high quality content, no
spamming). This does mean that big business is currently digging itself a hole
- Many orgs are cementing their reputation. This will be hard to undo in the
future if they want to position themselves as high quality/premium. It will be
interesting to watch.

>If you live in San Francisco we can meet up for a coffee and discuss things
in greater detail. If not, you can always reach me here or directly at
josh@freeboxedwater.com. Ta, emailed. I'm trying to tackle the 'premium' tier
while you are working on the 'free' tier.

~~~
FreeWater
I’m not the biggest fan of tobacco, however we are going to use the same
business model to pay people to smoke it! Why? Because I think everyone has
the right to make their own decisions and with tobacco we will give 75+% of
the profits to donate to creating universal healthcare. If not, people are
going to keep smoking anyways and Philip Morris is just gonna pocket the cash.

The same for weed and alcohol. We are going to pay people to smoke weed and
drink too!

The same goes for gambling. These things are always going to be a huge part of
society so why not put the majority of that profit to good use?

So we’re on the same page, we’re not trying to expand the Free Economy.
Consumer First Economics is the next step after. It means we’re always going
to aim to give a value beyond free. And our our competitors will have to do
the same. Hense all the profit sharing. We’re going this route to accelerate
global charitable donations. Once we launch successfully, our competitors are
going to have to offer free plus 50% or better. However, we are always going
to offer the highest quality products and services, with the highest level of
customer service, with the greatest value beyond free. I’ll keep giving more
and more profit to society until it becomes a profit less company. That’s
where I think the market is headed anyways.

Regardless, I’m always available if you want to bounce some ideas back and
forth. My passion is to troubleshoot and improve niches.

------
gus_massa
What about the privacy of the users? How much information is shared with the
advertisers?

Also, 61,000,000 is a lot. Like 100 packages sold per minute, or 80,000
annuals users (that drink two packs per day).

~~~
FreeWater
We're going to take extreme precautions to protect the privacy of our users.
The most profitable data we're going to collect doesn't exist today. Consider
this: Smart Data – Currently, our shopping experience reflects the combination
of the products we want and the products we can afford. When something we want
is too expensive, we replace that item for something that’s more in line with
our budget. This misinformed data is sold and used to create more unwanted
products that are more likely to go to waste. When every item in a marketplace
is free, consumers will only choose the products they truly want. This data is
currently unavailable and represents the most valuable segment of every
product’s value chain.

Also, it's going to be very easy to distribute 60 million beverage the first
year because we aren't selling them. We going to pay our customers to drink
them!

------
crooked-v
...so where does the money actually come from?

~~~
NonEUCitizen
Venture Capital? During the dotcom days, there were business models such as:

[https://www.wired.com/2000/04/our-ad-on-your-
car-400-a-month...](https://www.wired.com/2000/04/our-ad-on-your-
car-400-a-month/)

~~~
FreeWater
Yes, we are about to start the process of seeking out venture capital. The
article you linked is interesting because that's along the same lines of how I
came up with this idea. Initially, I wanted to launch FreeTaxi, the world's
first free taxi service to take down Uber. However, it has too many moving
parts for now so we changed gears and started working on FreeWater first.
Please take a look at FreeTaxi if you're interested.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQS2UyjbVI&t=75s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQS2UyjbVI&t=75s)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbxpGejFI_g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbxpGejFI_g)

