$2m in sales to date: New Water opened its doors about 15 months
ago, and has so far sold about 1000 of the units. Company turnover is
already about $2 million, and there are 15 staff at the head office in
Ringwood in Melbourne’s east, and a salesman in Sydney.
Growing: “The business is growing, but the challenge is we are
still relatively unknown,” said CEO Andrew Pearce, who was formerly
managing director of TeleTech Asia Pacific, a leader in the call centre
outsourcing sector. “That’s the perennial challenge of small business,
I guess.”
Grey water treatment system next: The company is now in the
process of launching a household grey water treatment system, the Aqua
Reviva, a more sophisticated and expensive product than the Rain
Reviva. This will reuse water from washing machines, showers and hand
basins. Grey water makes up 35 per cent of household water.
Range of sizes: New Water has five shareholders, including the
inventor of the two products, Mal Gordon, a commercial plumber. The
Rain Reviva comes in different sizes. The largest holds 5700 litres of
water and is six metres long and 1.9 metres high. The smallest holds
2000 litres and is four metres long and 1.1 metres high. Widths vary
from 1.1 metres to 1.9 metres.
Out of sight: Mr Pearce said one of the advantages of the Rain
Reviva was that it was out of sight. “There are no tanks in place that
hide windows,” he said. Also, the bladder fills very quickly because it
is connected to the house’s rainwater spouts at several points. Being
small, it can fit into confined spaces. New Water also installs a range
of conventional water tanks.
The Age, 25/11/2005, p. 2
Source: Erisk – www.erisk.net