The day AQON PURE ditched wholesalers—and growth finally started
A bootstrapped, salt-free bet that rewired a whole market.
Hey founders,
Eighteen months. That’s how long AQON PURE tried to win over wholesalers. Coffee, catalogs, “call me next quarter.” Then one day they stopped asking for permission.
“We wasted 18 months chasing wholesalers—until D2C changed everything.”
This is a story about distribution courage. Also: salt-free water softening, limescale, and why a family water-treatment business now looks suspiciously like a modern climate startup.
In today’s edition, I’ll walk you through what flipped, why it worked, and how to copy the playbook without lighting a year on fire.
What this is really about
A category that’s been sold the same way for decades—manufacturer → wholesaler → plumber → homeowner—met a product that deletes recurring salt revenue and chloride discharge. Incentives broke. Gatekeepers stalled. So the team did something unglamorous and effective:
Built demand directly with homeowners (clear explainer, book-an-install CTA).
Matched each lead to a certified local installer (new jobs, no cold quoting).
Let plumbers set labor pricing and keep the ongoing relationship.
Result: a repeatable engine that grew from ~100 to 400+ certified installers, while complaint rates stayed low and trust went up. Hardware, but make it internet.
[Image placeholder: Old funnel vs. D2C + Installer Network]
Insight #1 — If your product kills someone’s annuity, don’t expect their help
Salt-based softeners make money twice: up-front hardware, then refills forever. AQON PURE’s salt-free approach kills the second stream and the chloride discharge issue along with it. That’s great for the planet—not great for wholesalers who live on consumables.
If your innovation removes a middleman profit center, don’t negotiate harder. Change the channel.
Founder prompt: Which stakeholder loses money when you win? Build your go-to-market around everyone else.
Insight #2 — Scope with a selfie, not a site visit
Before the installer knocks, the homeowner uploads a quick phone photo of their pipes. That image does three things:
qualifies the job,
removes a back-and-forth week,
gives the installer confidence they’ll get paid for a clean install.
Tiny habit, huge compounding effect. Shorter cycle times are growth.
Try this: Ask yourself, What single photo (or data point) lets us quote faster and more accurately than the incumbent? Then redesign your form to capture it.
Insight #3 — Bootstrapping is a quality system, not a handicap
Because AQON PURE remained bootstrapped, they grew at the speed of quality: stock, QA, installer capacity, and support. When any metric wobbled, marketing spend paused. The reward: durable NPS and fewer “angry Tuesday” emails.
We all love speed. But in hardware, the slowest link (inventory or installs) sets your true velocity. Ignore that, and your brand pays interest.
Rule of thumb: If lead time or complaints spike, turn demand down before it turns you down.
Insight #4 — Educate the market with a bigger why
The hook wasn’t just “less limescale.” It was: less energy waste, longer appliance life, and no chloride discharge into rivers. That narrative wins press, awards, and podiums (hello, Schwarzenegger’s climate stage) because it’s bigger than a shiny device—it’s infrastructure sanity for homeowners and cities.
Play it forward: Teach the regulator + journalist + homeowner the same story, in different words. That’s how trust—and backlinks—show up.
[Image placeholder: “The real cost of limescale” one-pager]
Insight #5 — Expand one network at a time
Spain and Poland weren’t just translations; they were new networks. The sequence stayed boring and effective: localize the web journey → recruit/train installers → test jobs → only then scale ads. No blitz. Lots of patience.
Question to steal: “What is the minimum installer density we need per region before we touch paid?”
What you’ll take away (and use next week)
Rewrite the funnel when incentives are misaligned.
Make quoting visual (photos beat forms).
Throttle demand to quality (protect NPS at all costs).
Tell the bigger story (energy + environment, not just features).
Enter new markets as networks, not translations.
If you’re building climate hardware, water tech, or anything that touches homes, this model is unreasonably adaptable.
[Image placeholder: Simple checklist — “Are we ready to open the ad taps?”]
Quick links before you go
The full case study + timestamps live here → https://www.startuprad.io/post/salt-free-water-softener-aqon-pure-founder-playbook
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Follow Joe on LinkedIn: Jörn Menninger
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One question for you (hit reply)
If your growth depended on flipping the channel—today—what’s the first move you’d make? I read every response.