Wastewater Startup Story: Turning Sewage Into Signals

Most founders don’t wake up one morning and decide, “I’ll build a wastewater surveillance company.” Claire Trant didn’t either. But during COVID-19 she spotted something the rest of us largely ignored: the earliest warning signs of an outbreak often show up in sewage before they show up in your body.

For UK solopreneurs and early-stage founders, this is the kind of origin story that’s worth studying—not because you’re about to pivot into plumbing, but because it shows how one sharp insight + a real customer risk + a practical distribution plan turns an “odd idea” into a company people will pay for.

This post sits in our UK Solopreneur Business Growth series, so we’ll treat Untap Health as a case study in how a British startup can emerge from an unconventional place, then grow through smart positioning, credible proof, and operational marketing (not hype).

Why wastewater is a serious early-warning product

Wastewater testing works as a product because it detects risk earlier than symptoms do. People shed viruses and bacteria in toilets before they feel ill, which means a site can get days of advance notice that something is circulating.

That time advantage matters in real, measurable ways:

• A care home can tighten visiting policies or increase testing before residents get sick.
• A school can warn staff, improve ventilation routines, and manage absences.
• An office can switch high-risk meetings to remote before half the team is off with norovirus.

There’s also a commercial truth here: customers don’t buy “innovation.” They buy avoided pain. In this case, the pain is operational disruption, reputational risk, and sick leave costs. In winter (and we’re in January 2026 as you read this), those pressures peak. Seasonal flu, norovirus spikes, and general respiratory illness aren’t “edge cases”—they’re predictable cycles.

Snippet you can steal: Wastewater monitoring is risk detection, not lab science. The buyer is paying for earlier decisions.

The unconventional origin story (and why it’s a marketing asset)

The story started with a gap: governments and big institutions were always reacting. Claire had worked in wastewater engineering and saw a hidden resource that could help communities stay ahead—sewage data.

During COVID-19, wastewater surveillance proved it could detect the virus in communities. The problem was delivery: it was slow, manual, and geared toward centralised programmes.

Claire’s “lightbulb moment” wasn’t “let’s test sewage.” That already existed. It was:

• What if we automate it?
• What if we make it local and usable by non-specialists?

From a startup marketing standpoint, this is gold. Unusual origin stories aren’t fluff when they do two things:

1. Explain why you’re uniquely credible (domain expertise, lived problem proximity).
2. Make a complex product instantly memorable (“turning sewage into an early-warning system”).

If you’re a solo founder trying to grow online, you need this. Attention is expensive; distinctiveness is cheaper.

What solopreneurs should copy from this story

Make your “weird” angle do practical work. Your origin story should answer:

• Why you?
• Why now?
• Why this approach vs the obvious alternatives?

You don’t need a dramatic pandemic moment. You need a clear, specific reason your perspective is different.

From idea to paid pilot: the case study that de-risked everything

Untap Health’s earliest proof wasn’t a national contract—it was a single office with immunocompromised leadership. That detail matters.

Early-stage marketing works best when you pick a customer segment where the risk is obvious and urgent. In that office:

• The consequence of an outbreak wasn’t “a few sick days.”
• It was potentially severe health outcomes.
• That urgency makes decision-making faster and budgets more rational.

With an early prototype, the team could detect days with higher on-site risk, helping leaders plan to work from home or shift meetings online. And crucially: the data matched reality.

This is what founders often miss: a pilot isn’t proof because it ran. It’s proof because it produces a decision the customer trusts.

Snippet-worthy line: A pilot is successful when the customer changes behaviour because of your data.

A practical “first 3 customers” checklist (UK startup edition)

If you’re building anything data-driven—health, fintech, ops, HR—use this structure:

1. Choose a segment with obvious downside risk (health & safety, compliance, revenue leakage).
2. Define one decision you’ll improve (close a room, add cleaning cycles, shift staffing, trigger comms).
3. Set a simple success metric (e.g., “detect presence 48–72 hours earlier than reported symptoms”).
4. Make the output easy to act on (a clear alert threshold beats a complex dashboard).
5. Get permission to tell the story (anonymised is fine; credibility is the asset).

That last point is how solopreneurs turn delivery into marketing: case studies become content, content becomes leads.

The “messy middle”: why deep tech needs a different growth playbook

Wastewater testing isn’t an app. That’s not a complaint—it’s a constraint that shapes your marketing and growth strategy.

When your product touches biology, messy environments, or regulated spaces, you inherit realities like:

• Unpredictable samples and conditions
• Hardware reliability and maintenance
• Slower iteration cycles
• Longer procurement and stakeholder chains

Claire’s team had weeks of no progress and months of learning what not to do. That’s normal in applied science. The mistake is trying to market deep tech like a SaaS productivity tool.

What “data-driven growth” looks like when you have physical operations

For a company like Untap Health, marketing isn’t just ads and social content. It’s operational trust-building:

• Clear positioning: early-warning outbreak detection for specific sites.
• Proof assets: site-level pilots, sector-specific outcomes.
• Repeatable onboarding: automated, on-site processes that don’t require a lab tech.
• Decision support: not raw data, but actionable alerts and recommendations.

If you’re a UK solopreneur selling a service or tool, the translation is straightforward:

• Don’t sell “features.” Sell the decision you improve.
• Don’t chase vanity metrics. Chase credible proof.
• Don’t over-automate the marketing. Systemise the delivery so referrals and case studies become inevitable.

Positioning Untap Health: one product, multiple markets (done carefully)

Untap Health is now active across the UK in healthcare, education, agriculture, and public venues, detecting pathogens like COVID-19, influenza, and norovirus.

Multi-sector sounds attractive, but it can also kill focus. The way to make it work is to keep the core job-to-be-done the same:

• Detect what’s circulating early
• So the site can act before symptoms appear

The buyer’s motivation shifts by sector:

• Healthcare: patient safety and outbreak containment
• Education: attendance stability and parent communication
• Public venues: reputational risk and operational continuity
• Agriculture: biosecurity and continuity

For your own startup marketing (especially as a one-person business), that’s a lesson in message discipline:

• Keep the core promise consistent.
• Tailor the proof and language by audience.
• Resist building “one landing page for everyone.”

Snippet-worthy line: One product can serve many markets, but only if the promise stays the same and the proof changes.

A simple content engine for solopreneurs selling to multiple sectors

If you’re growing online with limited time, build a small, repeatable system:

• 1 core explainer article (your “what we do” pillar)
• 4 sector pages (same structure, different risks + proof)
• 1 case study per sector
• 1 monthly insight post tied to seasonality (January is perfect for illness, absence, continuity)

That’s not busywork. It’s a lead machine that compounds.

“Stay obsessed with the problem” is not motivational—it’s tactical

Claire’s advice—stay obsessed with the problem, not the solution—sounds like founder wisdom because it is. But it’s also a marketing strategy.

When you stay close to the problem:

• Your messaging becomes specific (people recognise themselves in it).
• Your product roadmap stays anchored to outcomes.
• Your sales conversations get simpler (you’re diagnosing, not persuading).

Here’s a practical way to apply it in your next week of work:

The 5-question customer interview script (steal this)

1. “What’s the cost of this problem in a bad month?”
2. “What do you do today when you suspect an issue?”
3. “What’s the earliest signal you currently trust?”
4. “Who else gets involved when this goes wrong?”
5. “What would you need to see to act earlier?”

Those answers become:

• your homepage headline
• your lead magnet topic
• your sales qualification criteria
• your first three case studies

People also ask: wastewater monitoring and startup growth

Does wastewater testing really detect outbreaks early?

Yes—because shedding often happens before symptoms. The value is the lead time it provides for site-level decisions.

Who buys wastewater monitoring in the UK?

Organisations responsible for vulnerable people, high footfall, or continuity: care homes, schools, venues, and employers that can’t afford disruption.

What’s the marketing lesson for UK solopreneurs?

Pick a painful, specific problem; prove you change decisions; then turn delivery into content that attracts your next customers.

Where this leaves UK founders trying to grow in 2026

Untap Health is a reminder that British startups don’t need to chase trendy categories to be interesting. Often the strongest opportunities sit in overlooked infrastructure, unglamorous workflows, or “boring” industries where the pain is constant and budgets exist.

If you’re building a one-person business and trying to grow through online marketing, take this stance: clarity beats charisma. Say what you detect, what decisions you improve, and what outcomes you protect. Then show proof.

And if you’re sitting on an unconventional idea that feels hard to explain, that’s often a signal you’ve got something differentiated—as long as it solves a real problem someone is already paying to avoid. What overlooked “signal” in your industry is everyone else ignoring?