
An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry - wallflower
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679008/an-indian-inventor-disrupts-the-period-industry
======
solutionyogi
What an inspiring story.

I grew up in a lower middle class family and I have two sisters. I know that
my sisters and mom could not afford to use napkins because paying for the
school fees was more important. As the story mentions, my sisters will take
time off from school during those days.

His price of 12 rupees (25 cents) for 8 napkins is unbelievably cheap. That
means a napkin costs 1.5 rupees which is less than a cup of tea you can buy at
a road side stall in India. And I think 75%+ of his target market should be
able to afford it.

BTW, you should visit the company's website, they have more details there:

<http://newinventions.in/>

~~~
tibbon
What I love about this story is how it shows the strength that can come from
diversity of perspective. Quite honestly, as a middle-class male in America, I
had personally never considered this problem. I never considered the cost or
availability of them. There are some problems that can never be solved by the
top earners, because we often don't know there are problems! Of course, this
is why we also fail so spectacularly when architecting solutions for hunger,
education, sanitation, etc in other countries. We don't really understand the
problems, so how can we make solutions?

I'm also stunned at the inventor's wife, since she left him thinking this was
just a ruse to meet younger women, but perhaps there's something cultural
there that I'm unaware of. If I said I was going to go research these here in
the US, I'd be terribly shocked if my girlfriend left me over it.

~~~
inerte
I had the same thought, but maybe our research would "feel" like a research.
It would have forms, focus groups, funding, schedules... a very different
situation than his, I presume.

~~~
tibbon
Now that I'm thinking about it, its probably a bit around the lines of
"Talking to women about private and inappropriate things would lead toward
inappropriate actions. Men don't talk about this, so you must have some other
motivation". Still a bit unreasonable, but its hard to say.

------
tantalor
I applaud the inventor's drive to lower the cost of production, but sanitary
napkins aren't necessarily the best solution.

For instance, a menstrual cup is generally more cost efficient and certainly
more environmentally friendly. And it can be manufactured with simple
equipment (rubber injection mold).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup>

~~~
cowpewter
It probably is a better solution (I use one myself and my only gripe is that I
wished I'd known it was an option as a teenager and not already been 30 when I
discovered them), but if the menstrual taboo is as strong there as that
article implies, then it may be an even harder sell than a man designing a
napkin machine.

There's a lot more potential hand-contact with menstrual blood when using a
cup than pads, and while someone in the western world might scoff at the idea
that using a cup could "ruin" a women's virginity, that could be a real
concern for an unmarried girl in rural India.

~~~
solutionyogi
A great point about 'ruining virginity'. It is definitely a very sensitive
topic in India and would severely affect product adoption.

------
jackityquack
Good story, but a strange guy. Also, he could probably do more good for his
country by selling his product. He would actually disrupt the industry,
instead of creating yet another charity project. The way to fight poverty
isn't to give poor people poor solution. The way to think about it is that you
need to level the playing field, so even Indians would laugh at making their
own napkins. If you told a white American do make their own napkin, they'd
laugh if your face. But we seem to think it's reasonable for an Indian to do
it. That's absurd. If he creates a better industry, he can keep the profits in
India. He can then employ persons who will be rich enough to afford to not
make their own napkins. That money will trickle out in to the economy and
create a richer India. The only solution to poverty is economics. And you
can't become an economic super power on charity.

You can stop reading if you get the point, the rest is a rant: Another example
that everyone loves of agriculture. Have you ever heard of a success story
through teaching farmers to use non-industrial machinery? Hell NO! You can't
win that way. You need to find a way for farmers to compete in the real world,
not coddle them. Microfinance them or something. Maybe teach them to partner
with a company with the money to buy all the right supplies (tractor,
fertilizer, etc) that can actually turn his land in to profit. Then he isn't
charity, he's a businessman. Charity is not the solution for people like me
(by which I mean a healthy person that can work, since there's no difference
between me and another 23 year old in any country in the world).

~~~
masklinn
> Also, he could probably do more good for his country by selling his product.

If you consider that his product is the napkin-making machine rather than the
napkins themselves, he does.

> If he creates a better industry, he can keep the profits in India.

Profits are kept in india, instead of building his own giant he empowers
others.

All in all, your comment seems to make little sense and to have stopped at the
second paragraph in the article or something.

~~~
jackityquack
I think wealthy Indians are better than empowered Indians.

~~~
bad_user
There are many wealthy Indians in India already - what India needs is a
middle-class - i.e. people that have a roof over their head, with their basic
needs taken care of and that are empowered to create their own wealth.

~~~
absentbird
To the poster below me: he is selling $2500 machines. The people he sells the
machines to sell the $.25 napkins but the machine can make 1000 napkins a day.
One machine properly worked could turn a gross profit of $91,250/year. He has
sold 600 machines so far so that is $1.5 million that the inventor has
grossed.

Maybe they aren't super rich but I am sure the napkin makers and the inventor
are both doing better then they would otherwise and more importantly they are
keeping the money in India.

~~~
BrandonM
You need to divide $91,250 by 8 (=$11,406.25), because the napkins are
typically sold for $0.25 for 8 of them. Then, subtract out the costs of energy
and raw materials and divide the result by 4 (the number of people it takes to
work the machine), and each operator makes perhaps $2000. Based on some of the
comments in this thread, that's still not bad for rural India, but it's not
nearly the numbers you report.

------
algoshift
Wait a minute...

According to the article and his website the machine costs $2,500 each, can
produce 2 napkins per minute and requires 746W of power. Each machine employs
a crew of four people.

A full scale industrial machine is claimed to cost $500K and, from a quick bit
of google-ing can produce 350 napkins per minute and requires about 80KW of
power. Each machine seems to be operable by a small team of five or so, but
let's double that to ten people.

In order to match the production rate of a single industrial machine you would
need:

Machines: 175

Cost: $437,500

Power: 131KW

Workers: 700

According to this (<http://mahadiscom.com/emagazine/jan06/india1%5B1%5D.pdf>)
electricity cost in India runs around 1.5 rupees per KWh for residential and
3.5 rupees per KWh for industrial applications. Assuming ten hours per day
(for easy math) the power costs compare as follows (converted to USD):

175 low cost machines @131KWh in household settings: USD $37 per day.

Industrial machine @80KWh in industrial setting: USD $52.87 per day.

The industrial machine cost a little more to run (power) but it produces 175
times more product per machine. Put a different way, around USD $0.03 of power
is required per napkin with the household machine. The industrial machine
--even at more than double the electricity cost-- only requires USD $0.0003
per napkin in power.

In terms of labor costs --assuming $1 per hour-- the household machine would
cost about $0.033 per napkin while the industrial machine runs $0.0005 per
napkin.

According to the linked statistic the TAM (Total Addressable Market) is around
300 million women:

[http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-01-23/india...](http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-01-23/india/28363510_1_women-
resort-napkins-menstruating)

If his dream to "make India a 100% napkin-using country" is fully realized you
would need to produce a minimum of 1500 million napkins per month (assuming
five pads used per period). The solutions compare as follows:

Assuming that the machines are run 24 hours per day for 30 days.

\- Household solution

Machines: 17362

Cost: $43,405,000

Power: 12MW

Labor cost per 30 days: $25,001,280

\- Industrial Solution:

Machines: 100

Cost: $50,000,000

Power: 8MW

Labor cost per 30 days: $90,000

Unless my numbers are grossly wrong (please check, I threw them together
quickly) this is not as good a solution as it has been made out to be. In
fact, it looks like a really bad solution to a large scale problem. The costs
are staggering. Power consumption is at least 50% greater. I'll bet that
product quality and consistency also suffers a great deal. And, of course, we
haven't even covered maintenance costs and MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)
of 18,000 low-cost machines versus 100 industrial grade machines.

Good job. Lots of work. But I'd invest in a used industrial machine out of
China over making thousands of these low cost household devices.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Great analysis, missed a huge point though.

A fraction of an industrial machine makes zero napkins.

Your analysis is spot on, the problem can be solved more efficiently with a
large scale production. The capital expenditure cost however is similar (43M
vs 50M). You point out they huge disparity in labor costs $25M vs .09M but
labor is 'free' in India (which is to say there is so much of it available
that the price is a lot less than elsewhere).

The incremental solution here wins because a small increment in cash instantly
starts feeding the supply of napkins. The 'big machine' solution loses because
it takes a huge investment to get to the point where you can make the napkins
and nobody is willing to fund that.

There is another problem which are transportation costs. The infrastructure in
India is, by all reports, spotty in the rural areas. By creating the
manufacturing in the towns themselves you mitigate the transportation
problems. That would not be possible with a centralized industrial machine.
Further the folks who 'make' the napkins can also sell them so you have a
personal relationship with someone in the town.

The incremental nature, the fact that India is labor rich and infrastructure
poor, and the comparable capital costs make this an extraordinarily good
solution to the problem.

~~~
algoshift
> A fraction of an industrial machine makes zero napkins.

Well, that assumes that this is the only individual in India that could be
interested in the market segment. There are plenty of people in India for whom
USD $500K is not a lot of money, particularly if a solid case can be made for
the investment.

He could have invested four years trying to raise money to buy a number of
industrial grade machines rather than doing what he did.

Here's another interesting data point. According to this site
([http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-
power...](http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-
world-wide.htm)) the average nuclear power plant in India produces 200MW of
power. Deploying enough machines to provide napkins to the TAM would consume
around 6% of the power output of a single nuclear power plant. An operation
based around industrial machines would require about 4%. It's interesting when
you can measure things in terms of the percentage utilization of a nuclear
power plant.

I looked through the various responses to my post. Lots of good points. Of
course, the infrastructure in India is something I cannot have a good grasp of
from my vantage point in suburban Los Angeles. When faced with something like
this I always fall back to one of my favorite Mark Twain sayings: "A man
holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way". This
inventor held that cat by the tail. Hard to judge from the outside. I'll have
to leave it at that.

~~~
vacri
_There are plenty of people in India for whom USD $500K is not a lot of money,
particularly if a solid case can be made for the investment._

And that person would be welcome to undercut him and provide better value.
Before he came along, pads were too expensive. Now they're affordable. They
also stimulate the local economy, both in terms of increased jobs and
increased healthcare (very underrated). Regardless of the means, the end
result is better.

And even if he did the industrial machine thing, you've missed the comment on
transport issues - transportation is a big thing.

------
lizzard
I love that this guy figured out how to make and re-sell a cheaper
manufacturing machine!

I have some questions though.

One is about the suggestion in the article that not using disposable napkins
results in reproductive tract infections. That seems unlikely.

Another is that while good, cheap, reliable period-managing supplies are
useful and liberating for women, there are movements to use menstrual cups and
washable, reusable cloths as an alternative to disposable stuff. "Rags" sounds
negative but "reusable cloth pads" less so.

So while this is great, maybe there is still more opportunity for disruption
in this market!

~~~
marquis
>not using disposable napkins results in reproductive tract infections. That
seems unlikely.

Some sources that show that infection, death and loss of reproductive ability
is a clear concern:

[http://www.wateraid.org/documents/plugin_documents/addressin...](http://www.wateraid.org/documents/plugin_documents/addressing_the_special_needs_of_girls.pdf)

Addresses many forms of health problems caused by using rags, e.g. in flood
areas and where dangerous insects live.

[http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2011/10/aussie-
launc...](http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2011/10/aussie-launchpad-
project-aims-help-african-women)

"..unhygienic materials use to deal with periods lead to rashes, sores and
bruising, and the women are regularly exposed to reproductive and urinary
infections."

[http://www.corporateknights.ca/article/sanitary-pads-some-
de...](http://www.corporateknights.ca/article/sanitary-pads-some-development-
all)

"..women rarely washed their rags in clean water and hid them in dark places,
which encourages the growth of mould. This has led to vaginal infections and
cuts that are hidden and dealt with in silence."

Lastly a note about reusable cloth and cups: these require clean water, which
is the first problem here for these communities. Bring clean water to a
village and the schools and workplaces and a safe place for cloth/cups to be
boiled and dried and you have solved the problem. But clean, running,
untainted water is not easy to provide.

------
pardner
Thoroughly brilliant example of relentless execution of a vision with a higher
purpose.

------
shabda
Not sure if someone noticed but the women workers are wearing the cloth-mask
so as not to be identified in the photo. Interesting, weird and depressing
that its embarrassing to be working building sanitary napkins.

~~~
solutionyogi
Are you sure about that? I think it's because they can't afford a proper
medical mask, they are using a scarf or something similar [Especially keeping
the story in mind that this machine is supposed to make napkins for poor
women]. As you can see, one woman's back is facing the camera so she doesn't
really need to wear a mask unless for cleanliness purpose.

~~~
mekoka
I won't assume anything about the purpose of the mask, but if for cleanliness
purpose they should also probably wear gloves.

~~~
vacri
well-washed hands are almost as good if you don't have access to rubber
gloves.

------
jasonshen
I'm going to send this article to anyone who complains about how entrepreneurs
only make "trivial apps" instead of solving serious "real-world problems". I
love what this man has done, but to say that people unwilling to add to the
stress/difficulty/risk of starting a startup by tackling a market/problem like
this one is inappropriate. Yes, let's encourage entrepreneurship on all
levels, but don't pretend that it's just as hard as building and selling a
mobile app.

------
vamsee
I heard this guy tell his story to a live audience in Chennai a while ago.
He's an electrifying speaker. You should see his passion for his project. He
is an inspiration, reminded me of Dr. Varaprasad Reddy of Shantha Biotechnics,
who also has a great story to tell.

------
danhodgins
Brilliant example of the design thinking process in action.

This man has certainly practiced the 'design thinking' process outlined by Tim
Brown in "Change By Design" - a book about the process of innovation. The
Design Thinking process involves lots of ethnographic research, and developing
empathy for the user - the same tenets as user centered (UCD) or human
centered design (HCD).

In this case, the inventor developed empathy by going so far as wearing a fake
uterus that emitted goats blood!

I find this story and others like it to be very inspiring. However, knowing
that the world can be changed for the better or worse by people who believe
strongly enough about something is both reassuring and frightening at the same
time.

~~~
eternalban
Hard to say if it was brilliant, in fact.

Per my reading of the story, he basically pulled really bizarre moves until he
finally did the sensible thing and white box reverse engineered a working
model ...

------
evmar
I am sad to say when I read this I worried whether the manufacturers' samples
would come back to bite him in the form of some sort of patent lawsuit. I
guess it could be considered a benefit that he isn't making money, as it makes
him a smaller target.

~~~
meow
That's much less of a worry in developing world. No manufacturer wants to link
"selfish" word with its name in news head lines. And that is how its gonna
look if they sue.

------
radicalcakes
Inspirational! This is a great example of the only barrier for not achieving
something great...is yourself.

------
rachelbythebay
The world needs more people with empathy who are willing to put themselves in
the shoes of others. Brilliant story. Thank you for posting it.

~~~
wallflower
You're welcome. I'm glad that the HN readership has helped share this story
with people who might have missed this and who are interested in these true
individuals.

------
mynameishere
Why not just buy bulk medical gauze and fold it up? That's got to be cheap as
hell, and if it's good enough for bullet holes...

~~~
geekagirl
Because medical gauze, usually being sterile, is more expensive than napkins.

------
yalogin
I am really glad to see that he did not jump to "profit" at the end. Hope he
gets enough support.

~~~
solutionyogi
I am not so sure. I don't know why it could not have been a for-profit
operation. Profit is not a dirty word. I would like to think that a for-profit
company would have achieved his goal (of making cheap napkins available to
women) faster than NGO approach.

Let me give you an example. In India, many low income people can't afford
shampoo bottles. So retail companies came up with a concept of 'shampoo
sachet' [<http://goo.gl/GUopS>] (similar to ketch up sachet) and sold it for a
rupee (back in 90s when I was growing up). Without this product, I would have
never used a shampoo when I was a kid. It was a HUGE seller and you could find
it in remote parts of India. I think it is taught as an example in business
schools in India.

As per my other post, he is selling his napkin for 12 rupees for 8 napkins. If
he actually decided to manufacture them and retail them on a scale, I am sure
he can still keep the same low price and achieve better distribution. His
current approach of getting people to install machine and then making napkins
is much harder to scale. That's my personal opinion anyway.

~~~
yalogin
I am not so sure a corporation would keep the price low as a non-profit (or
subsidized by the government). A lot of people replying to me said
manufacturing in bulk would reduce the price there by achieving what a
government subsidy cannot. I don't believe that to be true at all. Simply put
if there is more money to be made a corporation will do so. A business would
never ever reduce the price to bare minimum possible. There is no need for a
business to go super cheap and cater to all the available market. That is not
how businesses operate. In other words he could sell the same thing for 3
times the price and still sell enough. That is not his objective. I do agree
that it probably would have been a sustainable model but cheaper definitely
not.

Then to your other points. The shampoo sachets did bring shampoo to the common
man not the poor. Businesses had to innovate because back then even the middle
class could not afford shampoo. Also I hear many people used
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapindus>) before the shampoo with perfectly
good results and so compelling them to move away from it required a really
good motivation and a really low price was it.

------
cezar_sl
I only saw "wife came back when he became famous (and presumably rich)"

------
stfp
the. period. industry.

------
urbanjunkie
This is both inspiring and depressing.

Female medical students not wishing to talk to a man about menstruation.

The fatalistic, egotistical and selfish attitude epitomised by women being
unconcerned about losing their uterus. And of course, if you don't care about
your own uterus, you're unlikely to care about litter, the environment, or
pretty much anything.

(ps, as someone who has spent a lot of time in India and whose parenta are
Indian, this fatalistic selfishness isn't a gender based issue. It is,
however, one of the corrosive elements of Indian culture that worries me).

~~~
hkarthik
But menstruation itself is a very big taboo in most parts of India. It's a
subject only discussed among women for many reasons.

In many traditional Indian families, the women are not allowed to many daily
household tasks while menstruating. This includes cooking, cleaning,
performing religious rituals, etc. In many cases they aren't allowed to enter
certain parts of the home at all.

To me, that belief system has to change, and it is a gender based issue.

I grew with Indian parents and now I have two daughters. The thought of them
growing up with these taboos and feelings about their own bodies is something
I'm strongly against.

~~~
rhizome
It's taboo in the Western world, too.

~~~
jules
Where in the western world?

~~~
marquis
Wherever the ads for sanitary items use blue ink.

~~~
Dove
Would you mind explaining what you're referring to? I've never encountered
such a taboo, nor can I recall ads prominently featuring blue.

~~~
marquis
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRf35wCmzWw&t=34s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRf35wCmzWw&t=34s)

Watch the full ad for a spoof of every tampon commercial ever. They are absurd
(basically the ad industry is in denial).

------
paulhauggis
I really admire this guy. It's sad that his wife left him over it though..

~~~
briandon
The good news is that he got his wife back after he began to succeed / get
traction.

~~~
untog
Is it good news? Maybe I'm being harsh but it sounds like his wife got sick of
it all when times were hard, but was happy to stick around to reap the
success. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

~~~
r00fus
You don't understand the taboo of menstruation in India. The culture is
steeped in superstition and traditionalism. My hat is off to Mr. Muruganantham
for driving through this and (in a Gandhi-esqe approach), not selling out.

~~~
untog
I'll admit that I am not 100% aware, but I didn't post my comment in
ignorance.

If there is one person that you ought to be able to talk to about a taboo
issue like that, it should be your wife. In fact, she was perfectly placed to
be the "more acceptable public face", and talking to women about his work. It
sounds like it would have made the process a lot easier for him.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
She left because she thought he was hitting on college girls. She came back
when it was proven he wasn't.

His mother was the one who left over the fake uterus.

------
pressurefree
I believe my invention will disrupt the wind power industry...
<https://sites.google.com/site/verticalwindfarm/>

send wampum.

