Walking Within Wisdom #30 - Miki Agrawal - Disruptive Innovation and How to Change the Game Fearlessly
On my walk yesterday I started listening to the People First Economy Online Summitā¦ It is quite amazing! You can register for this summit for free here:Ā https://peoplefirsteconomyonlinesummit.com/Ā Ā
The very first interview of the Summit is Raj Sisodia interviewing Miki Agrawalā¦
Here is a bit about this amazing woman! Miki Agrawal (www.mikiagrawal.com) is a serial social entrepreneur Ā known for breaking taboos and disrupting the status quo.
She was named ā2017 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forumā, āSocial Entrepreneur of the Yearā by the World Technology Summit and Forbesā āTop 20 Millennials on a MissionāĀ
She is the founder of the acclaimed farm-to-table, alternative pizza concept called WILD (www.eatdrinkwild.com) with 3 locations in New York City, one in Guatemala and more on the way. She co-founded THINX (www.shethinx.com), a high-tech, period-proof underwear brand all while helping tens of millions of women period better. She also co-founded Icon, a high-tech pee-proof underwear brand that helps women manage light bladder leakage.
She and her team are also helping fight the global sanitation crisis by bringing clean latrines to underserved communities in India through their partnership with Samagra.
Harper Collins published her first book entitled DO COOL SH*T on entrepreneurship and lifestyle design and Hay House recently published her second book Disrupt-Her.
In this interview they discuss:
Mikiās path of disruptive innovation
- Mikiās path of disruptive innovation
- Creating products that are good for the triple bottom line: Good for people in the first world, good for people in the developing world, and good for the planet
- Embracing a childlike state of curiosity, playfulness, and awe
I LOVED everything about this interview!!! I love Miki disruption, humor and directness and honesty! This was clear from the way she opened the interview by discussing her FOUR āPā businesses...
The first is of course Pizza - The first gluten free farm to table pizza restaurant in New York City
The second is the āPeriod (menstrual) Spaceā where she has developed a period proof underwear brand leveraging a $15 billion industry..
The third is PEE - Urine - A $7 billion industry - a place where until now there has only been diapers, and depends to support bladder leakage. All terribly uncomfortable, unsanitary and horrible for the environmentā¦ Miki has created a high tech, beautiful, comfortable, leak proof underwear!
The fourth business is the POOP business -Ā It is amazing to Miki (and me now that I am aware!!!)Ā that bathrooms are still back in the 1800ās where we donāt discuss anything that happens there, and there has been NO innovation in āthat roomā for centuries!Ā We use dry paper (toilet paper) an average of 57 sheets of toilet paper per day. WE so need to disrupt such an UNSANITARY culture and practice, we desperately need to shift culture around the bathroom. That is exactly what Miki is doing, shifting culture by creating TUSHY (www.hellotushy.com), a company that is revolutionizing the American toilet category with a modern, affordable, designer bidet attachment that both upgrades human health & hygiene as well as the environment from wasteful toilet paper consumption!!!! JUST AWESOME!!!Ā
Miki talked about my MOST favorite subject of all time, āDisruptive Innovation for Social Change!ā Since reading the 2006 Harvard Business Review article of the same name (https://hbr.org/2006/12/disruptive-innovation-for-social-change) I have spent my time teaching, consulting and working to spread this very gospel that Miki is DOING each and every dayā¦Ā
She easily described Disruptive Innovation as an introduction that creates a new market which eventually takes over a current market. She talks about when the āModel Tā took over for horse and buggies and went on to explain that Tushy will be that kind of disruptive innovation. Bidets have never been affordable or accessible but now it is! When you think about that 15,000 trees are cut down per year JUST for toilet paper consumption and the installation of Tushy only uses 1 pint of water versus 57 sheets of paper per day AND Toilet paper requires 37 gallons of water per EVERY roll of toilet paper. This is a triple win, better for health, hygiene and the planet. Miki estimates there will be a Tushy in EVERY home in 10 years!!! YES!!!!
They discussed Mikiās new book, (which I have just downloaded on Audible) Disrupt-Her: A Manifesto for the Modern Woman, she talked about the culture of shame and blame that are so deeply engrained, like the culture of complaining and talking S&#T about peopleā¦ These things wouldnāt happen if people actually looked each other in the eyeā¦ This is so deeply rooted in our society todayā¦ This is the same as disposables, everyone is using them so what is one more person - ACKKKKKKK!!!! If we can just step back and look at all of our preconceived notions, question them and disrupt them one by one
Ā I cannot wait to listen to this book while walking!!!
