
The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary (2014) - vezycash
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978
======
dalke
BTW, 268 comments from 2 years ago :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7339092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7339092)

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hammock
Back when "grit" was still a buzzword

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dalke
1 comment with "grit" doesn't indicate much.

It's still popular. 4 postings with that in the title in the last month:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=grit&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=grit&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)
.

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vezycash
My favorite parts of the article:

"I'd started the research for my wife and after 18 months she left me!"

"'The irony is, after five-and-a-half years I get a call on my mobile - the
voice huskily says: Remember me?' It was his wife, Shanthi."

This dude is a real hacker!

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77pt77
Why does that make him a real hacker?

Seems to me the wife left him when there was no prospect of recognition/profit
and came crawling back when that proved to be false.

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vezycash
>Why does that make him a real hacker?

If you replace the word Hacker with Tinker, the answer might become clear. He
reverse engineered the "real thing" and came up with a cheaper solution that
met his needs. Think Unix to Linux.

Also, his actions embodied the LEAN startup principles: Fail Fast, Fail Often.

* He asked for feedback immediately. "He fashioned a sanitary pad out of cotton and gave it to Shanthi, demanding immediate feedback."

* When he didn't get feedback fast enough, "I can't wait a month for each feedback, it'll take two decades!" He got 20 more volunteers. But it still didn't quite work out. On the day he came to collect their feedback sheets he caught three of the girls industriously filling them all in. These results obviously could not be relied on. It was then that he decided to test the products on himself.

* Test Driven Development - He created a "uterus" from a football bladder by punching a couple of holes in it, and filling it with goat's blood.

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77pt77
I agree completely with what you wrote.

I still don't see the relation with his wife abandoning him and then wanting
to get back together.

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vezycash
Oh... my bad. The two sentences above the "Real hacker" statement were my
favorite parts of the article. It has no relation to him being a hacker. Sorry
for the confusion.

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nordsieck
What's super weird to me is that this invention reduced sanitary pads from 4
rupees to 2.5 rupees and is a huge success.

Either the real innovation is the female run businesses, or the whole thing is
being subsidized by NGOs. Maybe both.

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vezycash
>or the whole thing is being subsidized by NGOs.

From another article in 2012: "Women pack around six to eight towels in a
packet and sell them for as little as 13 rupees (16p). On average, each woman
earns the equivalent of £30 to £65 a month;"

[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/22/sanitary...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/22/sanitary-
towels-india-cheap-manufacture)

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barbs
"If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you
die." \- Arunachalam Muruganantham

:)

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visarga
Sounds like deep existential shit.

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machbio
This is really old news - here is the video -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk)

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smileysteve
But aren't Sanitary Pads worse in most ways than Menstrual cups?

Lower cost overtime

Less trash waste

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goodJobWalrus
Would you use a menstrual cup, if you menstruated, Steve? If other women are
anything like me, that thing will remain a very niche product.

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erikpukinskis
Some women are similar to you and some are different. I know lots of women who
swear by their menstrual cups.

