An Idea is Born
In a dorm room in late 2020, Joe Knopp came up with the idea for a business to help solve the world water crisis by establishing wells in communities desperate for clean water. He, along with his partner Chip Gottschalk, created
Ripple – "
a brand dedicated to serving others by leveraging high quality product lines to solve real world problems."
Using his entire savings ($14,000), Knopp took a leap of faith in November 2020 and ordered his first shipment of 2,000 water bottles from a manufacturer. Four months later, the bottles arrived, and they began tirelessly selling, packing and delivering their Ripple product, sometimes even cross country.
Winning Stark Tank 2021
On April 7, 2021, Joe competed in the Stark Tank College Edition. Stark Tank is a program funded by a small group of generous local business leaders and sponsored by Stark Education Partnership and Strengthening Stark. The college edition of Stark Tank is open to students attending Aultman College, Kent State Stark, Malone, Mount Union, Stark State, the University of Akron, and Walsh. Joe and his partner Chip were one of six teams selected to compete in the 2021 finals and went on to win first place receiving the top prize of $10,000.
Enormous Success
Since Stark Tank, Joe and his business have had amazing success. The CDC estimates that roughly 790 million people worldwide lack access to safe water sources. Ripple is working to solve this issue by building a well for every 1,000 water bottles that they sell. In less than a year,
Ripple has built ten water wells in Uganda including
the FIRST EVER modern solar powered well for one remote village. To date, they have enabled more than 30,000 human beings on the other side of the world
to obtain clean water as well as supporting multiple schools, orphanages, and even an entire hospital – and, they are headed back to Uganda at the end of this month.