I want to hug this guy. Like, really. Buy me a airplane ticket.<p>Arunachalam Muruganantham is a hero. I use that word in its full magnitude. Since I am now an expert on the matter, having read the <i>entire</i> article, I'll speculate on what motivates this man:<p>- Grit. Crazy amounts of grit. The article is full of good quotes, but my favorite is what he said after being abandoned by his mother:<p><i>"It was a problem for me," he says. "I had to cook my own food."</i><p>- Humility combined with hunger:<p><i>"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."</i><p><i>"Every time he comes to know something new, he wants to know everything about it," [his wife] says.</i><p>- Love of humanity, on some level at least:<p><i>"Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood I know no human being died because of poverty - everything happens because of ignorance."</i><p>As an aside, I LOVE the picture of his wife and daughter toward the end. This one photograph lends better context to the story than all the others combined. I know a single picture means nothing, but the look in his daughter's eyes makes me think she'll inherit something of her dad's baddassness.<p>And as another aside, bloody god-damn fucking hell, are the following bits really true?<p><i>There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply - essentially they are considered untouchable.</i><p><i>There are also myths and fears surrounding the use of sanitary pads - that women who use them will go blind, for example, or will never get married.</i>
I'm a female founder in the US with a startup that has to do with menstruation, and I cannot even begin to tell you how uncomfortable people (male and female) get when I talk with them about it. For a man in India (where this topic is exponentially more taboo) to undertake a business like this and persist despite the backlash is so incredibly inspiring. The benefit of his business goes so far beyond simply reducing napkin prices...he's helping to break down taboos that exist in India (and across the globe), and giving women opportunities (not to mention more knowledge and confidence about their bodies) that they never would have had otherwise.<p>Absolutely amazing.
This is an amazingly inspiring story, I love the entrepreneurial spirit and dedication of Mr Muruganantham.<p>However, there is a bigger story hiding behind this personal triumph. It's clear that people living in impoverished areas are not in a position to buy sanitary products at market rates (being sold at a margin of 4000% or more). But for example many do have access to cheap raw materials. It makes a ton of sense to simply make that stuff locally for a fraction of the cost, and with that comes a much greater independence for those poor regions. Let's hope that in time this becomes a trend that expands to many industries.
As an Indian, I can see what pain this guy went through. Fighting the society to build a start up like this, with this kind of taboo attached to the product? All the best trying to build a start up at the first place. You are almost treated like you are doing it because you absolutely are incapable of doing anything else.<p>And having the gumption to fight years of laughter, isolation, mockery and ridicule to only chase what you believe in is a very different thing than just building a company. You are fighting forces that you would do anything to see you fail. And this is beyond the merit of your product.<p>I salute this guy for not just what he has achieved. Though the margins he achieved will be eventually matched by bigger companies.<p>In many ways this is like the first man climbing the Everest or first space agency going to the moon. Others have been there after the first attempt. But the people who do it first, face significant obstacles. And they inspire all of us.
> He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," he says.<p>What a profound and inspiring worldview.
What a classic Hero's Journey story- man encounters difficulty experienced by his loved one, tries to solve her problem efficiently, loses her in the process, becomes an outcast, persists, finds meaning in his work, receives help, is humble, helps people at an epic scale, reunites with his wife, happy ending, better world, triumph over ignorance and hardship.
While pursuing his entrepreneurial dream, he walked around asking women for their used sanitary pads (while most men struggle to ask for a date), almost gets tied to a tree when a witch doctor incites the local villagers against him, has his wife leave him (only to come back after his success), and even his mother abandoned him; still he goes on.<p>And then, even after having practically everyone around him ostracize and abandon him, he doesn't go for the money, but remains humble and does the best he can to make the world a better place.
Contrast this grass roots effort with OLPC, a grandiose plan to distribute One Laptop per Child to the third world. The best quip I ever read about that was: "OLPC is a rich man's idea of what poor men need. It's like donating an expresso machine to a homeless shelter."<p>Instead, as the article makes clear, many poor villages don't even have ready access to clean water. This one humble guy has done more good for more people in India than 1000 grandiose schemes such as OLPC. And he wants to expand to 106 countries. I wish him well.
I like this article a lot.<p>Similar problem was in communist Czechoslovakia. There was only one factory making hygiene products for entire country, but it burned down on second year of 5 year plan. Central planning committee could not be arsed to change the plan...
You have to hear him talk ...<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_started_a_sanitary_napkin_revolution" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...</a><p>He is so full of energy and his straight talk will win your heart ... What a person ... cheers ..
Here's a link to his very inspiring TED Talk: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_started_a_sanitary_napkin_revolution" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...</a>
Those who aren't from the Subcontinent may not fully appreciate this man's achievement.<p>I'm very impressed by his dedication, perseverance and inspiring outlook on life.
There's a lot to this article. See how the distributed form of production really works, and these sanitary pad machines really aren't that different from open source software. See how they change the world and again, the distributed ownership and small business approach does it.<p>And additionally, why it is never a good idea to underestimate someone because of a lack of formal education.
If you are as inspired by this story as I was, you can mail him here: muruganantham_in@yahoo.com<p>(His email address is public on his company's site [1])<p>[1] <a href="http://newinventions.in/contactus.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://newinventions.in/contactus.aspx</a>
I'm so glad this made it to HN. From an Indian societal perspective, what he achieved is just marvellous and outstanding! It takes tremendous courage and determination to do something like this in India! Salute to this man!
"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."<p>Love this quote!
I have read a lot on the subject of how civil rights and the rule of law allowed the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, and this story reminds of that earlier epoch. As late as the 1670s, England was still burning witches (male and female) at the stake, to punish them for their witchcraft. But then Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 brings in a new regime, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 ensures everyone a trial if they are accused, everyone has civil rights, and suddenly, among the legal and intellectual elites, it becomes widely understood that witchcraft does not actually exist, everything can be explained by science, and people doing weird stuff need to have their civil rights protected. And by the early 1700s men like Jethro Tull and Charles Townsend kick off the Agricultural Revolution, doing weird stuff like feeding turnips to cows and collecting all the manure -- spooky weird stuff that might have gotten them accused of witchcraft just 30 years earlier.<p>And this story reminds of that earlier epoch. When you bring in real innovation (innovation that touches upon people's profoundest taboo's and fears) you either have civil rights, or you end up dead. And it does say something hopeful about India that this man knew his basic civil rights were going to protect him from accusations of witchcraft. Though, of course, this part suggests that India could still improve its protections quite a bit:<p>"Worse was to come. The villagers became convinced he was possessed by evil spirits, and were about to chain him upside down to a tree to be "healed" by the local soothsayer. He only narrowly avoided this treatment by agreeing to leave the village. It was a terrible price to pay. "My wife gone, my mum gone, ostracised by my village" he says. "I was left all alone in life.""
"He fashioned a sanitary pad out of cotton and gave it to Shanthi, demanding immediate feedback. She said he'd have to wait for some time - only then did he realise that periods were monthly. 'I can't wait a month for each feedback, it'll take two decades!'"<p>Sounds like he got a pretty solid biology lesson along the way.
I am from north India and agree that menstruation is still taboo in our culture (mostly in villages).
-During menstruation cycle women (mostly married) sleep in separate room, they are not supposed to touch anything and after 4 days all the clothes/bedding they wear/use (even mattress) will be washed.
-Most of these rules are tied to religion.
-I think when these "rules" were started there were no sanitary pads, so may be this was done for hygiene sake, but today it doesn't make any sense. And I think in those days if someone wanted people to follow anything just say its required by your religion and people will blindly follow.
-This guy is doing really great work, happy that BBC picked it up.
The next time someone complains about how hard startups are, show them this. Until you've walked around with a soccer ball full of goat's blood in your pants, after your wife and mother have abandoned you, you have nothing to complain about.
I really enjoyed this story and remember first hearing about him a few years ago. Truly inspiring man.<p>It makes me wonder, how many other people are out there who have the same passion for something, but haven't had any success? Only a select few will have success, most will fail. I think we should celebrate the people who took risks and failed too. But sadly you won't find articles written about them as it isn't a happy ending like this one.
While this man seems amazing and has done a great thing for a lot of women, it's a shame that the main problem still remains. Menstruation is still taboo, both in the west and in India.
It would be nice if instead of importing the western method of dealing with it (using sanitary pads to dispose of our menstrual blood secretly and in the process creating mountains of rubbish - where do all the blood-stained "sanitary" napkins go?) the women could just wash their cloth pads and dry them in the sun. It seems quite terrible environmentally.<p>I'm a woman and grew up using disposable menstrual products. I only started using reusable ones when I was thirty because I have endometriosis that causes heavy bleeding (so I have to use postpartum type pads) and it weighed on my mind to be throwing them out all the time. Now I feel terrible about all those years. I don't need to wash them in hot water because it's sunny where I live. But I hide the bucket that I soak them in and I hang them out when my husband is not at home so he doesn't have to see them. Thankfully, I don't have to be so secretive about our baby's nappies.
He truly belongs to the breed that Apple's 'Think Different' commercial describes:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SswMzUWOiJg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SswMzUWOiJg</a><p>Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
- Apple Inc.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different</a>
> "You always have a girl in white jeans, jumping over a wall," he says. "They never talk about hygiene."<p>Look's like the marketing folks at P&G were selling this stuff to the mostly affluent. Therefore, I am guessing they never bothered to sell the hygiene angle.
I see a lot of comments discussing the cost. I do not think cost (or profits) were the driver. Surely higher cost make it difficult for poor to acquire the pads but the taboo is a much bigger hurdle to cross, which this gentleman has amazingly addressed.
Or you just get menstruation cups? Might be a bit more expensive initially but cheaper longterm and a lot more environmentally friendly. <a href="http://www.ruby-cup.com/en/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ruby-cup.com/en/</a>
He has given a ted talk in bangalore<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_started_a_sanitary_napkin_revolution" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...</a>
It is even better hearing the story from him straight <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk</a>
The optimal technical solution to this problem, for the vast majority of the population, is menstrual cups. They are completely reusable and generally perform better.<p>To me the long term challenge is the social problem of convincing people that menstrual cups are not gross and are not going to hurt them.<p>I totally respect this guy for finding an intermediate solution that helps his community though. I don't live in India so I have no idea what the specific cultural challenges are.
"If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you die."<p>Crap, I don't think I've read anything that has hit me harder.
> He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," he says.<p>While I don't believe that big business is necessarily parasitic, I <i>love</i> this metaphor.
The main problem is inhumane inequality. All of these "developing nations" are poor because they are oppressed and excluded by the financial powers. "Developing nation" is a racist term that attempts to cover economic neglect and oppression.
There is another initiative that is approaching the problem from a different lens. Its called Menstrupedia (www.menstrupedia.com).<p>They are making an educational book in comic book format to dispel the massive amounts of myths around the topic.
This is something that makes me both proud and sad about my home country India. We are still struggling with some of the basic problems that the developed world probably solved 100 years back. It makes me even more sad that just 60 years back India was hardly behind any other developed country.<p>Arunchalam's example is also a classic case of how Indian government has destroyed India's entrepreneurial zeal. When Arun introduced his cheap sanitary pad making machine, Indian government woke up and see an opportunity to gain votes of poor and goodwill of large companies.<p>Indian government came up with a scheme where poor women will get a "fixed" quota per month of sanitary pads paid for by tax payers.<p>---
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) is set to embark upon an ambitious programme, reports The Hindu on 21st February 2010, to reach about 200 million women with 100 sanitary pads per person per annum with a budget of some INR 20 billion in next 3 to 6 months.<p>-- [Source: One of the email threads I was exchanging on this matter with a friend in government]<p>This is another Indian government scam where big companies like Johnson and Johnson etc. will provide these pads at taxpayers cost to the poor women while politicians will take their cut. Going by past experience even the pads wont reach the women.<p>Those who might be aware of India's economic history, it is full of such scams. Indian government often ran government sponsored health campaigns claiming things like<p>- "Wash your hands with soap after and before having food and going to toilet else it will will cause diseases."<p>- "Use iodized salt in food else your children will be born retarded".<p>- "Use toothbrush and toothpaste"<p>The reality is, even in rural areas the level of hygiene is way better. People used handmade soaps and herbal alternatives for soap. (Even I used them in my childhood). During my childhood oral hygiene involved brushing teeth with 5 different types of leaves, gargling with hot water mixed with a mixture of 15 different kind of powders which were comprised of different kind of tree skins, herbs and roots. My father still knows the formula and I used it successfully when I developed a gum related infection.<p>And you know what? Indians used plenty of sea salt in their food. We ate salted fish, Salted Pickles and what not.<p>Today it so happens that all these small scale industries are already dead. Not because they failed to innovate or compete on price. (In reality some companies like Vico succeeded with these traditional products) They failed because government actively tried to kill them in the name of public welfare.<p>Today I am buying a Colegate toothpaste which claims to contain "sea salt". The TV ad of this toothpaste shows a grandpa showing his grandson that his teeth are stronger at 80 purely because he used sea salt to brush his teeth in past. There are other companies out there which are selling toothpastes claiming to contain the exact same herbs that we used in past (Miswaak, Babool etc.)<p>When I visit Target and Wallmart I often see shelves full of crudely packaged soaps titled "Handmade Soap" selling at 3x the price of normal soap.<p>I feel sad for Arunachalam and many other people I know who are mad just like him because rest of us Indian citizens have failed to make a political choice which would have heralded these men as heroes.<p>Unsolicited Advice to Americans: I see American government taking same direction as that of Indian government in past and present. Pushing private interests of few in the name of poor. Buying votes by redistribution of wealth while wrecking incentives to be innovative. I might be wrong. But there is no cost to being cautious.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7qzufEI9U" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7qzufEI9U</a>
I think this is his best speech, straight from heart.
Thanks for the link. We think it is difficult to see from the point of view of our users. This guy proved quite the contrary. One of the best stories I've ever read here.
That's a LOT of determination. I'm amazed by his courage. There must be more to the story that was left out. Salute to the gentleman. A godsend.
Favorite business advice "quote"? / paraphrase.<p>Be like a butterfly, taking some nectar but not damaging the flower. Not not like the mosquito, a parasite.
So the trick is: lie to existing manufacturers to get the schematics, build simplified/more manual machines, use really cheap labors, and probably lower the profit margin? Reminds me of knockoff products but then it's probably a phase that developing countries go through.