Age: 24
BA product design ’15
Co-founder, Tern Water
A “smart faucet” idea dreamed up by recent grad Connor White (right) and current student Mo Zerban (left) is about to launch commercially. Drexel made the startup possible, they attest, and was there every step of the way.
The story behind Connor White and Mohamed Zerban’s startup Tern Water has Drexel written all over it.
White, a 2015 product design graduate, met co-owner Mohamed “Mo” Zerban, a senior in mechanical engineering, at a 2013 TEDx event on campus. A year later, a Drexel professor recognized their shared interests and reintroduced them. Both dreamed of starting a company dedicated to sustainability. Through the support of Drexel resources, mentors and advisers, the pair launched Tern Water in 2015 and set their sights on one product: the Tern Faucet. The eco-conscious “smart” faucet provides high-quality purification at the tap, live water analytics on water consumption, and real-time data on filter quality through a smartphone app.
“The idea is to transform a home from being a consumer to producer — producing home vegetation, solar power, etc. We see the Tern systems helping people become more capable of providing their own basic needs,” says White. “But, the first step is knowledge about the impact your house is having.”
White said when he and Zerban were deciding on a direction for their company, a noticeable gap in the sustainability industry made their final decision an easy one.
“We had a lot of ideas about wind, solar and heating energy within the home, but we realized there hadn’t been a lot of innovation within the water system,” White says.
The timing was right, as well.
“This was a year before the Flint Water Crisis, and also during the big California drought,” he explains. “We were realizing there was a big opportunity for sustainable water within the home, and we wanted to be the people to start addressing this problem.”
Tern Water’s philosophy recently earned the co-founders an invitation to join an international incubator — it was thousands of miles away in Sweden, where a nice chunk of seed money awaited White and Zerban. The only problem was, they had three days to get there and no money. Visa issues prevented Zerban from traveling, so White turned to his mentors in Drexel’s Close School of Entrepreneurship for help, and they eventually sponsored his trip to Sweden.
More support for the startup came from Drexel’s Baiada Institute for Entrepreneurship, an on-campus business incubator where the company is housed.
“For a while, we were doing this out of our bedrooms,” White recalls. “If we didn’t have these resources, things would be a lot more difficult to continue the company.”
The team is now edging toward a commercial launch this spring. For around $250 and an annual membership fee, consumers will be able to attach the Tern Faucet to their kitchen sink and gain live information about their water consumption and when filters need replacement. In January, the team got a vote of confidence from the venture arm of developer Cross Properties, which gave them six-figure seed funding and placed a bulk order for the faucets.
“Tern Faucet is the new standard for faucet filters,” White says. “After we launch, I think our competitors will catch up a little bit, but by that time we’ll be moving on to the next product.” —Katie Clark