This $5K Porta Potty Promises to Elevate the On-the-Go Bathroom Experience

The future promised flying cars, balanced meals in the form of a pill, and crime-free cities that ran 100 percent on renewable energy. While we wait for those, one company has reimagined portable toilets, which, we have to admit, were long overdue for an update.

From Jupe—a company that emerged during the pandemic with a concept for flat-pack hospital rooms before pivoting to sell prefab glamping tents—is The Portal, a porta potty that’s meant to supplant the dark, cramped, scary Honey Bucket you’re used to using at festivals and fairgrounds. The company’s CEO and chief designer, Jeff Wilson, explains.

"If you’ve ever been forced to use a porta potty before, you know it ranks down there with the lowest of human experiences," he says. "With The Portal, you step into what appears to be a high-tech time machine that teleports you away to some sort of minimalist art museum."

Wilson and co are clearly having some fun here reinventing the on-the-go bathroom experience. In email sign-offs arranging for this coverage, the founder took the opportunity to dish out a few puns, among them: "to the moons;" and "don’t sh*t all over the new site, because it isn’t complete;" or, "at your disposal." This is how you disrupt an industry.

Finding ways to shake up sectors—and perhaps living out of a dumpster for a year—is how Wilson, whose Instagram handle is @profdumpster, put his name on the map. In 2015 he founded Kasita, a Texas tiny home company that promised to make a dent in the national housing crisis. The company garnered media attention and, according to Texas Architect, raised as much as $11.5 million in investment capital but ultimately never went into production.

According to Jupe’s press release, things are going a bit better than the tiny home project. The Portal has already sold out of its first round, it says, but interested parties can join a wait list for $99. Following the sanitation sector’s practice of renting porta potties, the units will also be available for hire should you desire to transport guests, if only temporarily, to a toilet from another dimension.

Related Reading:

Can These Tiny, Modular Smart Homes Relieve the Demand for Affordable Housing?

Prefab Startup Jupe Unveils a $17.5K Flat-Pack Shelter Inspired by "2001: A Space Oddysey"