YOU SHOULD MEET JOSH CLIFFORDS
FREEWATER INC.
“The future is free.” — JOSH CLIFFORDS
WHY YOU SHOULD MEET JOSH
Josh Cliffords is building an extraordinary movement with his creativity in finding extensively marked-up products and services and designing a new shift and perspective in marketing to consumers. He reduces the entire cost of consumables from $1 to $5 to completely free, all paid for by ads.
Josh Cliffords is building much more than a free water logistic network; he’s building a social movement to end and alleviate the world’s thirst. Through his various volunteer work this last decade, he’s found true love, passion, and his inner mission by helping people around the world, far beyond what any of our eyes will truly comprehend and perceive.
In this edition of WHY YOU SHOULD MEET, I’d like to introduce you to Josh Cliffords, a marketing and media expert, a socially impactful entrepreneur, and a leader in the new world of products.
WHERE WE MET JOSH
Thomas, Gonzalo, and I were fortunate to meet with Josh Cliffords right before and after his Series G seed round for the company. Gonzalo graciously brought us to the Capital Factory top floor in Austin, Texas. Once we settled in and organized our workspace for the day, we overheard someone publicly announce Josh’s full name and involvement with FreeWater. All of us immediately identified him and were vastly curious to say hi and share our interests. He was able to chat just a little bit before the beginning of his call, and we were able to catch a glimpse of his reality.
HOW WE MET JOSH
Once Josh finished his funding application with these potential investors, all of whom, by the way, were asking questions of traditional capitalistic mindsets rather than being interested in building a long-term world-changing solution, I went over passionately to ask if it was all right to conduct a quick interview and to discuss his strategies to go to market, find new potential ad clients, and handle the curation of water generators in South Africa and other very underdeveloped countries.
Once he approved, promptly telling us he only had a few minutes, we managed to engage in around 45 minutes of deeply insightful discussions and summaries about the goals and improvements of his business.
WHAT JOSH DOES
Josh is the founder and visionary behind FreeWater, but fundamentally, as a consequence of his life mission to volunteer to change the lives of impoverished children and adults in third-world countries. Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that due to his pursuits and mission to help people around the world, he found his wife on the journey, where she’s contributing and sharing her efforts as the full-stack developer inside FreeWater and, in parallel, to her day-to-day work.
Josh wears several hats and leads several people to success with his company, so ultimately it’s best to say he is a leader and influencer in a new economy of products.
WHART JOSH IS WORKING ON
Josh is working inside FreeWater. Although leading and founding the company, he sees it as a necessity to reach his final goal: to solve global poverty. He believes that through the centralized means of advertising and big data, the world is due for balancing the equity from first-world countries into developing and underdeveloped countries. He doesn’t directly attribute the work he’s doing to being a socialist-focused endowment but rather, due to his environment, circle of influence, and personal net worth, he is building FreeWater to sustainably reach his goal.
FreeWater is a company with a business model focused on positive and nostalgic bearing advertisements. By focusing on expressing due to the companies that advertise on their water bottles (all of which are completely recyclable), they genuinely better and reinforce positive consumer interest in the given brand. Whereas, sufficing existing big data companies like Facebook or Google that use the profit from advertising revenue to self-sustain a monopoly, FreeWater is building a free water bottle service that utilizes 10% of its profit directly to helping establish and build water wells for people around the world who need it.
MORE ABOUT JOSH
Josh’s experience and past revolved around his volunteer work from Europe to South America, where he helped refugees. His initial work before the 2000s was improving his day trading skills, where although he didn’t explicitly mention it, likely proved successful as he was pursuing it for well over 5 years, likely trading upcoming tech stocks. After 2008, he moved into organizing a company focused on childhood obesity under “Kids Can’t Weight,” which helped people in his local community in California tackle obesity and addictions.
From all that he learned in the education of nutrition, especially for children, he advanced into teaching and mentoring people on how to become more physically fit, where he then was a lead trainer at a gym before then moving into the US Army.
WHAT IS NEXT FOR JOSH
Josh’s ambitions for FreeWater extend far beyond the water distribution mission. His vision is to create the world’s first free supermarket, both physically and virtually, offering an array of products ranging from groceries and clothing to medicine and devices at no cost for you. He is leading the innovation towards negatively-cost items for businesses.
Josh’s entrepreneurial pursuits are strongly philanthropically driven. He aims to leverage his platforms and their advertising models to fund critical initiatives such as building water wells and infrastructure to provide access to clean water globally.
Additionally, FreeWater is committed to sustainability goals, including producing 100% hemp cartons, achieving carbon neutrality by 2025, and implementing an extremely green manufacturing and distribution model. As the company scales its direct-to-consumer operations, it plans to implement profit-sharing with members, essentially paying people to consume its free products. Partnerships with nonprofits, community groups, and schools are also in his long-term focus to help reduce obesity and enable a lower cost of living for people in low-income neighborhoods in the US.
CREDITS
INTERVIEWER
WATSON LEWIS RODRIGUEZ
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TELEGRAM @WATSONLR
EDITOR
THOMAS OCOVOS
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