Sweetwater

Harvard Business School

9-695-026

Rev. November 2, 1995

SweetWater 1

"I think I do have a better mousetrap."—Sandy Platter Sandy Platter put down his drafting pen and watched as the sun set behind the snowcapped mountains that began in the back yard of his Boulder, Colorado, home. It was November 1990, and Platter was working hard to meet a challenge issued by several of his friends on a summer fishing trip in Alaska: Could he design a better portable water filter device than the ones they had struggled to use during the two week trip? As an engineer with 30 years of experience in the computer peripherals industry, Platter held more than 30 patents and had been responsible for designing products generating more than $2 billion in revenues for several companies. This challenge represented a new area.

Background

In August 1990, Platter and nine friends had gone on a fishing trip in Little Johnstone Bay at the western end of Prince William Sound. The salmon were running, and the group had set up camp near a glacier-fed stream. To get potable water, the group had brought along two portable water filtration devices. Platter had always boiled water on his previous outdoor trips, and he immediately liked the functionality of the devices. Pumping water through a filter was much quicker than waiting around for water to boil and required neither a fire nor a pot dedicated only to providing clean water for drinking. Used with a canteen or ordinary water bottle, the devices could be used while actually hiking or fishing. But as the trip wore on, the group became increasingly frustrated. The devices were difficult to hold; they took too long to filter enough water for 10 people; and they seemed to clog easily with the fine glacial grit of the stream, increasing the pressure required to pump. Finally, it was difficult for one person to coordinate the inflow and outflow mechanisms with the stream, the pump, and the water bottles used to store the clean water. After...