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An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

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Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#41

Post by slurgfest »

jackityquack wrote: post #36
solutionyogi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he solved the problem of creating a machine which costs around 1,200$ instead of 600,000$, the machine used by J&J and P&G. Now, his idea is that lot of NGOs in various villages have to make this investment of 1200$ (which is a LOT of money for people living in villages), install the machine, make the napkins and then sell them. What the OP and I suggest is that he should create/install machines in his own fact…

Or self fund since it sounds to be a profitable idea. His plan is bad because he creates yet another cause to give money to. With a business, he gets the same outcome and doesn't need help. It's a win-win-win!

If the point is to make money, then he should sell the napkins just below the price of the competitors, keeping a healthy margin for himself.

Of course, this defeats the stated purpose of encouraging usage by poor Indian women, but if the point is to make money...

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#42

Post by larrik »

solutionyogi wrote: post #14
shabda wrote: post #12

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.

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.

While you are probably right about the true purpose of the scarves, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the person not facing the camera is evidence of that.

If you don't want your face photographed, you'd better keep it covered the entire time a photographic journalist is on the property, not just when you know he's taking a picture.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#43

Post by SoftwareMaven »

untog wrote: post #25
r00fus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#44

Post by masklinn »

jackityquack wrote: post #15

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…

> 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.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#45

Post by [deleted] »

jackityquack wrote: post #20
urbanjunkie wrote: post #8

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 w…

People don't care about the environment when they've got more important issues like food, shelter and safety to worry about. Fuck the environment! Help the people.

[deleted]

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#46

Post by jackityquack »

jackityquack wrote: post #36
solutionyogi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he solved the problem of creating a machine which costs around 1,200$ instead of 600,000$, the machine used by J&J and P&G. Now, his idea is that lot of NGOs in various villages have to make this investment of 1200$ (which is a LOT of money for people living in villages), install the machine, make the napkins and then sell them. What the OP and I suggest is that he should create/install machines in his own fact…

Or self fund since it sounds to be a profitable idea. His plan is bad because he creates yet another cause to give money to. With a business, he gets the same outcome and doesn't need help. It's a win-win-win!

It's better to help the poor become rich than it is to give the poor a bobble and have them stay poor. It's essentially teach a man to fish, except with business. He can reinvest, grow the country, then they can all afford the doodle. It's a win for India, and the world! Maybe he sells to North America, and is able to make more money for his country than would ever have been saved by the poor using his cheaper napkin. (I mix doodles and napkins, but it's all the same). It's economics.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#47

Post by jackityquack »

masklinn wrote: post #44
jackityquack wrote: post #15

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…

> 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 secon…

I think wealthy Indians are better than empowered Indians.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#48

Post by slurgfest »

lizzard wrote: post #30

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…

Any kind of planning on helping the situation for menstrual products in India has to start with some kind of observation of existing practice.

In the actual environment of this product, there might be many existing practices/strategies for managing periods which could cause reproductive tract infections.

Just to give you an idea, in some parts of the developing world girls are taught to use diluted disinfectant to douche.. that is surely not the worst.

"Rags" is not a negative word for "reusable cloth pads," the story is actually talking about rags. They might be fine if they are kept sterile, but maybe the time to judge that is after you have done it in poor conditions in India and talked to women there about why they don't do it the same way.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#49

Post by mekoka »

jackityquack wrote: post #15

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…

It is not an easy path, though. "Lack of awareness is the major reason, next to the apathy of NGO’s," [...] rural women are clueless as to how to use them, think twice about spending even the small amount of money to buy a packet, and sadly have a devil-may-care attitude about their health

He must have assumed that everybody is as driven as he. I think he's learning the hard way that the problem with poverty isn't necessarily high prices or profit. The biggest shortage is proactive people. You can choose to distribute the wealth, but having observed the general propensity for defeatism in people, I've gradually become an advocate of rather giving means (money, time, resources) to the handful that break from the mold and get things done.

In addition to allowing him to get more done, I also believe that turning in a profit would help him acquire enough notoriety to break down some of those cultural barriers.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#50

Post by solutionyogi »

slurgfest wrote: post #41
jackityquack wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or self fund since it sounds to be a profitable idea. His plan is bad because he creates yet another cause to give money to. With a business, he gets the same outcome and doesn't need help. It's a win-win-win!

If the point is to make money, then he should sell the napkins just below the price of the competitors, keeping a healthy margin for himself. Of course, this defeats the stated purpose of encouraging usage by poor Indian women, but if the point is to make money...

Nope, the point is not to make money.

Let's start from the scratch. The goal is this:

Create affordable sanitary napkins for women in India.

To achieve this goal, he worked hard to master the first step i.e. to be able to manufacture the napkins at low cost. Great.

Now there are two approaches:

1. Sell machines to different NGOs so that they can create their own napkins. As I mentioned it requires hefty investment of 1,200$. Also, I think it's easy to underestimate how much effort is required to reach different parts of India and selling the concept of these machines.

2. Create machines on his own (using outside investment if needed) and create cheap napkins afforded by economies of scale. He can use the money from the sales and extend it create a better process, better machine and drive prices even lower. He can now rely on an existing vast distributor network to spread these products all over India [I refer you to my shampoo sachet example in this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3370219]. Heck, he can now even export it to other developing countries.

If the goal is to make napkins available to more women in India (and everywhere else), I think that 2nd approach is vastly superior than first. What do you think?

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