Episode 194: The Attendant - Unleashing Pool Automation's Potential with Bob, Jennifer, and Stan of Poolside Tech

Episode Summary: 

Today, we speak with Poolside Tech’s Founder and CEO Bob Doan, Chief Revenue Officer Jennifer Doan, and Chief Technology Officer Stan Reznik. 

Poolside Tech provides smart pool automation technology. Their flagship product, The Attendant, actively monitors and maintains all equipment on the pad. It makes operational decisions, improving water quality and sending real time notifications when equipment malfunctions. 

Running on the belief that smart pool tech needs to be easy for the homeowner to use first and foremost, The Attendant was developed to hide all “the complexity behind something that is easy to use.” 

They also explain how Poolside Tech as a whole provides user-friendly solutions to pool pros and distributors in addition to pool owners and how their product is different from all others on the market today. 

Topics Discussed: 

• 01:20 - An introduction to Poolside Tech 
• 09:20 - Transition from Food and Bev industry 
• 13:06 - Developing The Attendant 
• 20:46 - Our guests’ frustrations with their personal pools 
• 31:43 - Bob’s first interaction with a “real pool guy” 
• 34:05 - Ensuring the application has all the features 
• 41:59 - Amount of iterations to achieve the finished product 
• 46:33 - Hiding complexity behind something easy to use 
• 53:49 - All about The Attendant 
• 59:56 - Solutions Poolside Tech brings 
• 1:09:15 - Kids inspired some of The Attendant’s features 
• 1:11:47 - Differences between them and others on the market 
• 1:21:48 - Warranty and being open to feedback 

Sponsors: 

• Skimmer 
• Leslie’s 
• Primate Pool Tools 

Connect with Guest: 

• Website 
• Instagram 
• Facebook 
• LinkedIn 
• YouTube 

Connect with Pool Chasers: 

• Website 
• Instagram 
• Facebook 
• Facebook Group 
• Twitter 
• YouTube 
• Patreon 

Key Quotes from Episode: 

• Simplicity: You don’t need a tutorial when you use Uber. You just figure it out. ~Jennifer 
• One of the things that makes us different is trying to learn as much as possible from pool professionals. We’ve gotten so many great ideas just from talking to pool professionals every day and listening to their pain points. ~Stan 
• That’s the hard part: hiding the complexity behind something that is easy to use. ~Bob 
• One of our original design goals is to be able to treat every single piece of pool equipment out there as a true first-class citizen without forcing you to pick and choose bundles or families of things that only work together. ~Bob