Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Carlos Baselli.
Juan Carlos, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have been an Entrepreneur all my adult life. I enjoy conceptualizing, developing and marketing products and ideas. After my second year of college I decided to start my own sport accessory line of sport products and launched Baselli Pro Gear whereby I developed a unique bike cover called Cycle Glove, for transporting high end racing bikes, transition clips for bike peddles and cool down visors, wristbands and neck bands to keep you cool during active sports. I had a I successful run and then sold the company. Since then I have been involved in many projects from film locations, 3D Screens, Events and Concerts to putting ATMs in hotels internationally. The ATM Business is what brought me to where I am today.
Back in 2009 I was running my film location business, Pacific Locations, and my now business partner Spencer Blua who also happens to be my cousin was working for Latin Universal Music Group and was traveling to Mexico quite a bit. At that time, I was approached by a friend who was heavy in the ATM business and asked me if I had any good contacts in Mexico, as they just passed a law that allowed the privatization of ATMS. I called Spencer who I had brought on board on several of my other projects and it all started falling into place. During the startup time of the ATM business, I was approached again. This time by someone who knew I was working with hotels in Mexico and South America with ATMS. This person wanted to introduce Chlorine Dioxide to the hotels for the cooling towers to impede the growth of mold, mildew and bacteria in the hotel air-conditioning system.
That is where I first learned about Chlorine Dioxide also known as CLO2. I was very intrigued by all the positive attributes CLO2 had to offer like the facts that it’s one of the strongest biocides known and destroys single cell organisms without letting them mutate to build a resistance plus it’s non-carcinogenic. It doesn’t put out VOC’s or Volatile Organic Compounds into our atmosphere and that it breaks down to saline when met with UV rays, leaving no carbon footprint. A biocide that pathogens can’t build resistance against, is Nontoxic, non-carcinogenic and no carbon footprint? My wheels started turning with lots of questions and I started doing some research. I learned that CLO2 was used to clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to get rid of mold in buildings and the government used it against Anthrax in the pentagon.
Come to find out CLO2 is also used in large industrial applications like farm irrigation to clear out biofilm build up. Niagara water treatment facility was the first to go from Chlorine to Chlorine Dioxide because unlike chlorine, it is nontoxic, non-carcinogenic and better for the environment as well as the people who work around it. It’s also used in meat packing plants, slaughter houses and fish canneries to destroy bacteria and manage odor. Turns out that CLO2 is also a great tool to manage odors. That was the Aha! moment for market penetration. It was at this time, I told Spencer, who was now one of my partners in the ATM business, about CLO2 and how there might be something there. He immediately recognized the potential and was just as excited about all the possibilities of getting into that space. However, at that time we both recognized and agreed that we had our hands full with ATMS, so CLO2 would take a back seat for the time being but if we moved on it we would move on it together.
Fast forward a year and a half. We had been successful in closing deals and getting contracts with big retail and hotel chains through Mexico and we were getting ready to make our first installation when all hell broke out with the Mexican cartel wars. It seemed that every day there was a new headline of brutal killings and kidnappings. At this point we started losing our investors one by one, and who could blame them? The whole deal came crashing down within a few months.
Long story short once we got over the loss of a year and a half’s worth of work, we started brainstorming on CLO2. I searched to see if there was anything on the market for commercial or retail consumer products and found nothing. The only way to generate CLO2 was by investing in big and expensive CLO2 generators by companies like DuPont. These machines would generate gallons at a time at point of use. I learned that the main reason CLO2 had not made it successfully to the general market place for commercial and personal applications is that it didn’t have any kind of shelf life as it breaks down with UV rays. Furthermore, because CLO2 is always a gas even when it is in a liquid medium, it’s still gas trapped in water molecules which can expand and contract due to temperatures and makes it unstable and cost prohibitive for shipping and transport. Bingo! I knew I could come up with a small dose single use delivery system that would be small and simple to activate. At this point using my product development experience and know-how, I started working on a delivery system that could deliver small quantities of gas and or Liquid CLO2 for disinfecting and removing odors from small spaces like rooms and automobiles. The formula to generate CLO2 was common knowledge in certain industries and easily found if you know where to look. To generate CLO2 you basically need sodium chlorite and any kind of acid. When those two ingredients meet they have a chemical reaction that generates chlorine Dioxide, as Sir Humphry Davy discovered by accident in 1814. The challenge was packaging the chemicals so that they don’t prematurely activate and calibrating the delivery system so that it releases a steady stream of gas at the right parts per million in a consistent manner. I wanted to develop a completely green product from packaging to delivery and post-delivery so all components had to be completely biodegradable. My background gave me the experience I needed at research, development and working with different cutting-edge materials. The challenge laid in how to put the two active ingredients in a single pouch without the prematurely activating and then packaging them so that they have a shelf life. After almost a year of picking the brain of many chemical engineers and textile manufacturers and prototype after prototype, I was able to come up with the final dry medium product with a 2-year shelf life, and now the cornerstone of our company.
The “CLO2-DMG Technology™” or Chlorine Dioxide Disposable Micro Generator Technology. Without giving away some of our trade secrets a big part of the success came when I started working with water soluble materials so that the chemical pouch would dissolve when water was added. I then demonstrated the working prototype to Spencer at which point he informed me that he had the perfect test subject. He had been out celebrating a friend’s birthday with a group of friends a month earlier. One of them got sick in his own car and he had tried everything but could not get the lingering smell out. We got our hands on the car and tested it out. We were amazed at how well it worked.
We went on to do more field test and case studies on pet odors and cigarette smoke in apartments with 100% success rate. We were off to the races once again.
We established relationships with suppliers and found the right contract manufacturer which wasn’t easy, as working with the required chemicals demands high tech facilities with climate control environment’s and a lot of handling experience. Once suppliers and manufacturing were in place we set up shop, applied for our first patent, which we now have two and are working on our third, and launched a website. That was the birth of SMM Manufacturing Inc. DBA Biocide Systems.
Has it been a smooth road?
I have come to learn as an entrepreneur that when you have something that has extreme potential and success starts coming your way, you should prepare yourself to pay the price of admission.
Case in point with this venture. Because of our loss with the ATM business both my partner and I had taken a hard hit financially. We started this company with a lot of brow sweat and on a shoe string budget. When we started we knew that the big picture was going to be disinfectant and sanitation that help impedes the spread of disease and for pandemic control. Applications for municipalities, hospitals and public common areas like airports, gyms, schools and hospitals would be our long-term goal but we knew we had to start slow with our limited financial resources. We quickly identified through our online sales that cigarette odor and pet odor was the lowest hanging fruit.
So, we focused on Property management and Automotive industries as our point of entry. We started doing trade shows and quickly started realizing that automotive was going to be the path of less resistance. We then started enjoying rapid growth our first and second year. As soon as we started gaining momentum and knew we had something, we got hit with an EPA fine. Even though we were only selling our products as odor eliminators our website had links to information about all the benefits of CLO2.
Unfortunately, those sites talked about the industrial applications and mad kill claims. Turns out that if a customer who buys from our website with the intention to use our product to disinfect we are liable even if on our site we did not make any clams and we were not registered to do so. This seemed odd and a lot like selective enforcement as there were many other products on the market that make kill claim on their sites without having EPA registration. It seemed suspicious but we did not have the wherewithal to get into a legal battle with the EPA. After hiring an attorney and going back and forth we ended up settling for a reduced fine.
Shortly after that, literally a few months, we got served with papers from a publicly traded and well-known company in the marine product space. They were suing us for patent infringement. Turns out that they had recently spent millions on a patent from Canada to generate small amounts of aqueous CLO2. We felt that the lawsuit was frivolous as the product’s apparatus were so obviously different. Their design was for generating liquid and our application was designed with a dual purpose for the generation of gas or liquid. They obviously did not like that we beat them to the Automotive channel and wanted us gone before we made more inroads. They adapted their technology by adding a component which falls outside their patent, to make it possible to generate a gas, and immediately started marketing a competing product in the Automotive space. We had the first to market advantage by about a year but they had the contacts through cross over distributors. Not to mention they had much deeper pockets. We cannot prove it yet but we have suspicion that the may be the ones who reported us to the EPA.
This was a hard blow to say the least. Three years of hard work, Spencer’s and my livelihood, not to mention the sacrifices that not only us but our families had made were being threatened. Spencer and I had to make some hard decisions. We can fold and walk away or we make a stand and fight on principal. It was truly a David and Goliath situation.
Well Spencer and I come from the same family tree and believe in the adage, “Success only comes to those who are willing to pay its price”. We were on the same page and the gloves came off. We hired law firm and a great attorney EDWARD A. PENNINGTON PARTNER AT SMITH, GAMBRELL & RUSSELL, LLP, who was willing to work with us on a payment plan and Ed was just the type of attorney you want fighting hard for the little guy. It was a tough battle with a lot of threats and dirty pool. They not only sued our company but they were suing us personally trying to intimidate us knowing it would not stick but would cost us to defend. At one point, we had to go to Florida for a mediation but we were so tight on money due to legal fees that only one of us could go.
Spencer won the coin toss and opted to go. At the mediation, the opposing side tried to encourage Spencer to settle and meet their demands and to turn over all our customers, pay them for all our sales to date and walk away or we would end up losing our homes and putting our families on the streets. It was a contentious meeting with opposing side trying to intimidate my partner but when they realized it was not working they made an offer to let them manufacture for us and that maybe we could work something out. Spencer laughed at them and that was the end of the mediation. From that point, the legal fees put a lot of stress on us, our families and the business but in the end, we were victorious by a landslide. The court ruled against them and in our favor on all five claims that they claimed we were infringing on. It was a short celebration as they appealed to the superior court in efforts to continue bleeding our finances. However, in the end we brought Goliath to his knees and slayed him. We had overcome a two-year legal battle but now we were faced with a bill in excess of a half a million to contend with.
With that said, I am proud and happy to report that we have made good on our legal fees and last year was a banner year for us with record sales. This year we are on track to surpass last year’s sales and have set up distribution in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Mongolia, Bulgaria, and currently working on a large deal with China.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am the C.E.O. and Co-founder and my partner Spencer Blua is the C.F.O and Co-Founder of Biocide Systems.
Our mission at Biocide Systems is to make the many positive effects that Chlorine Dioxide has to offer, readily available, affordable, environmentally friendly and above all safe, allowing commercial institutions, and the general public alike to have access to all the benefits that Chlorine Dioxide delivers.
Biocide Systems is dedicated to developing Active Chlorine Dioxide based products for commercial and consumer use.
This is made possible through the recent introduction of our new revolutionary patent pending Chlorine Dioxide Disposable Micro Generator technology™, also known as ClO2DMG Technology ™.
This cutting-edge technology that harnesses the super power of Chlorine Dioxide was specifically developed to physically and economically facilitate the generation of ClO2 Liquid Solution or Gas, depending on the application needed, at any point of use. This easy to use, High-Tec, Disposable Chlorine Dioxide Delivery Systems is engineered from biodegradable materials. It does not leave any carbon footprint or release any VOC’s into the atmosphere and is consider eco-friendly.
ClO2DMG Technology ™ delivers Chlorine Dioxide in a fast, effective and inexpensive manner.
Through this technology, Biocide Systems is broadening the applications and delivering the benefits of ClO2 to an expanding market place.
All industries and customers alike around the world will now have access to what once was limited to a few very expensive generation methods of ClO2 for large industrial applications.
Because of this new revolutionary technology, Chlorine Dioxide is now readily available and inexpensive. Making the tried and true benefits that Chlorine Dioxide has to offer affordable for everyone!
We take a lot of pride in the fact that our product is a very eco-friendly product made 100% in the USA and can contribute in many ways with a positive impact to our global community.
Currently we are best known for our Auto Shocker™ and RV Shocker™ CLO2 Odor Eliminators in the Automotive Channels and our Room Shocker and Liquid Shocker CLO2 Odor Eliminators in the Property Management and Real Estate Channels.
We now are planning on raising money to get our EPA registrations and come out with our slow release line. These products can be placed in public space like airports, elevators, and office buildings to inhibit the spread of local and or airborne pathogens.
We will also be able to ship on moment’s notice to disaster relief organizations to help diminish or even prevent pandemic crises.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I do like working from LA. It’s a great network of opportunities. Resources are abundant. You just have to do your homework and you can find almost anything you need and it’s all within a 7-mile radius in most cases.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least about our city?
I think what I love most is our diversity in culture. From the culinary aspects to the arts.
I also find that I love our ever-evolving skyline. I am in awe of the new high-rise buildings that have gone up over the last few years. They are beautiful works of art and amazing technology a true testament to the limitless ability we are capable of.
What I dislike the most is the gridlock. I live in the Valley so my commute is rough. A minimum of one hour each way on a good day.
Pricing:
- Our CLO2 Odor Eliminators price range from $16.95 to 24.95, depending on the product. We do offer exclusive bundle specials on our website at www.biocidesystems.com or you can also buy individual units through Home Depot, Walmart and Amazon. We also have a convenient store locator on our website if you want to find a brick and mortar location near you.
- Room Shocker 24.95
- Auto Shocker 24.95
Contact Info:
- Address: 388 Omar Ave., Los Angeles, California 90013
- Website: www.biocidesystems.com
- Phone: 877 7924624
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: Biocide Systems
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biocidesystems/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BiocideSystems
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/user/BiocideSystems
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