Below the Surface with Paul Balsom

Most water marketing leads with the product. Andrew Dugan thinks that's exactly backwards. An engineer and former manufacturer's rep turned water-industry copywriter, Andrew joins Paul to make the case for niching down, building better case studies, and one move he's always pushing clients toward: humanize the technology. Lead with the customer's problem, talk about yourself in the middle, close o...

Episode description Alex Mason has spent seven years building teams across the water sector and recently launched his own firm, Hydrec, dedicated entirely to water globally. In this conversation, he and Paul get into what's actually happening in the hiring market right now: the wave of consolidation reshaping the major players, the redundancies that follow, the "gray wave" of retiring operators wi...

Episode Description Beth Boeh has been in water for 30 years — and like most of us, she didn't mean to be. What started as a temp job at a Philly-area instrumentation company in 1996 turned into a career, and eventually into Boeh Agency, a marketing firm that works exclusively with water companies. In this conversation, Beth and I get into why she made the call to specialize, what too many water c...

In this episode, Paul sits down with Björn Otto, an environmental engineer turned water industry marketer based in Germany. Björn founded Interius Solutions four years ago after spending over 15 years in sales and marketing roles at membrane companies, where he repeatedly hit the same wall: he couldn't find a marketing agency that actually understood water technology. That frustration became a bus...

The conversation explores the world of fractional CMOs and their work in specialized marketing services for companies in climate tech, renewable energy, and the water space. It delves into the challenges faced in marketing strategy, educating founders on marketing, misconceptions about marketing, the role of trust in marketing, budgeting and planning for marketing, incorporating marketing into bus...

Edgar Rudberg, CEO of Nucleic Sensing Systems, discusses his background, the technology behind NS2, and the challenges of fundraising and industry adoption in the water tech sector. He emphasizes the importance of data, AI, and the impact of climate change on water monitoring needs. Takeaways Water tech industry faces challenges in fundraising and industry adoption NS2's technology focuses on prov...

The conversation covers Jamail's journey in the water industry, the transition to Curo Ventures, the philosophy of Curo Ventures, the attractiveness of the water industry, industry collaboration and mission, acquiring companies in the water industry, adoption of innovative solutions, startup advice, and the M&A market in the water industry. Key takeaways include the focus on water industry inn...