Latest / The Curve / RTC121: From Nepalese villages to global markets with Ruby Raut.

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RTC121: From Nepalese villages to global markets with Ruby Raut. · The Curve

0:00
Welcome to Raising the Curve, a podcast designed to teach you everything you need to know
0:06
to be better with your money.
0:08
And the wise words of Amy Schumer were slipping carrots into the brownie recipe.
0:12
I don't really get the saying.
0:15
It's kind of like eating vegetables that actually taste good.
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You know, I'm like, still not ready to say it.
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Are you on the script?
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It's basically like saying, investing in finance can be boring, but it totally doesn't
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need to be.
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OK, OK, so we're making it fun by putting the carrot.
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OK, the vegetables are just good for you.
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It's the brownie recipe.
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OK, we got there, we got there.
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OK, OK, well, you've really got a finance brain.
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Yeah, one of us has to.
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This is a joke.
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OK, come and learn alongside me from Vickaris, ex-fun manager.
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Well, I'm going to ask all the questions that you wish you could.
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And I'm going to be eating all the brownie you wish you could.
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It's so not the joke, Vick.
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OK, just come and talk and learn and laugh with us
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because together, we really can raise the curve.
1:02
So we interviewed an incredible woman called Ruby Route.
1:04
Now, some of you may have heard of her business.
1:07
Her business that she founded is called WooKa.
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And it is all about producing sustainable, reusable period products.
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It's actually an acronym, which I didn't realize, for wake-up kick ass.
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So I love that.
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Anyway, Ruby grew up in Nepal, where there was a lot of shame
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around menstruation.
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The things that she went through when she was a teenager
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around having a period and the shame around that
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was just such an amazing story.
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And where she's come from and then growing this business,
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also her relationship with money are growing up
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in a very different culture to the likes of Sofenay.
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And so it was a really, really interesting chat.
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She was so inspiring.
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We really wanted to talk to her around the shame
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around menstruation when it comes to women,
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the impact that has on education, financial well-being,
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all of that.
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And so really incredible story.
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And I can't wait for you all to listen to it.
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This is Ruby Route.
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Ruby, we're so excited to have you here.
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I actually chased her down for an event.
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I heard her speak publicly and I was like,
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I have no doubt you chased her down.
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I have been in events with you where you chased people down.
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I'm like, no, no, let's go, let's go, let's go.
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I was like, fix, we're just like, no, no, no, no.
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You're talking to someone, they're talking to someone, let's leave, let's leave.
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So Ruby spoke in an event I went to and I was so inspired by your story
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and what you shared about business and money and growing up in a pool.
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And I just, I think that our audience will learn a lot
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from everything that you've experienced in your life.
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And I also think, you know, the conversations
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that we have about money are often quite skewed
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to Western society and what our upbringing has been.
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And at least we speak to people that have experienced
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something really different.
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It's really hard to understand or try and comprehend
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the different perspectives and lenses
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that we all look at money and success and finance and business.
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So really excited to hear and share your story.
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Thanks so much for coming in and you should have
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like an hour and a half to get here.
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I know, gosh, that's a stunning effort.
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Could we start from the beginning?
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I would love if you could paint a picture
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of what it was like growing up in a pool,
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particularly as a young woman.
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I haven't been, have you been to a pool?
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No, it's differently on my list.
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I would love to go.
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I would love to go as well.
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But I imagine obviously going there as a trevla
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would be very, very different to growing up there.
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It depends where you go.
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Actually, you can live a very local lifestyle
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and depend on the track that you do
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or the city that you visit.
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But it's one of the humbling place on Earth, Nepal.
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All the people are like that.
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And pretty much you ask anybody who has been to Nepal,
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they will say the same thing.
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Just the people are lovely.
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People are lovely.
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This is beautiful, very rugged.
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Like nothing is landscaped, you know?
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Yeah.
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It's beautiful.
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Beautiful.
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I'm picturing Himalayas.
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Yeah.
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The Himalayas?
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Yes, we do.
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I am so lovely.
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I am so lovely.
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I'm so lovely.
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Yeah, see if it's from geography.
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Geography is a really something I struggle with.
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So we've got Mount Everest there.
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Mount Everest.
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No.
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So fee.
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Sorry.
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I'm talented in other areas, you know?
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I promise.
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I promise.
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So what about the people and the quality of life
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and the education in terms of the places that you lived in?
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I mean, I honestly, I really would love you
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to paint quite a descriptive picture of what it's like.
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So childhood looks like I was born in mountain.
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No cars, no buses, nothing.
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Pretty much you had to walk to any city
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that you want to go to.
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Then moved, when I was five years old,
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to a little valley, called Fidim.
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And it was very valley, like you go to shopping,
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you go downhill, proper downhill,
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and then you go climb up shopping,
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carrying a shopping bag.
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And where would you go shopping?
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Like what kind of shops were there?
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It's just like shops in the street.
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Like basically some people will put the jute bag on,
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put the potatoes that they have grown in their backyard,
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bring it outside the cellar,
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and then like midday,
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pretty much you do shopping.
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So because it used to be quite windy valley,
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most of the day activities used to finish by one o'clock.
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And then the wind would catch it up
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and then most of the people would stay indoors.
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So quite windy valley from my recall.
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And then rainy, it was to be really muddy
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and rainy like red mud slopping down.
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Was it more of a batter system
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or did you have currency?
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Like what was the exchange?
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We did have a currency.
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But buttering was like very much of a culture as well.
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Like some like next door neighbor would
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and he still now happens.
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If my mom grows some vegetable,
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my next door neighbor will grow completely different vegetable
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and then they will just swap.
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Yeah, so very much like that.
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What are the houses like?
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Tiny, tiny tin houses I would say, not a massive one.
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So because my dad used to work in a telecom,
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he moved different places every three, four years.
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And we used to rent houses where we were rent.
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I remember the house in Fidham where in the valley
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had a tin roof, two rooms, one had a kitchen
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and my sister would sleep on the same room
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where the kitchen was.
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And we used to have those stoves,
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you know, which you'd pump and then build up a stove
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and you cook it in there.
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It's like very much like petrol at that time was the use.
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We didn't have firewoods or anything like that
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in that house.
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Was the electricity?
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No, we didn't have electricity.
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So we used to do candles and those lanterns
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with little petrol and those little wicking coming out.
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What about, would you get phrasing like,
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how would you say warm?
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Well, there are clothes.
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Yeah.
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No.
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And yeah, no heating.
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So when somebody used to cook, basically,
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everybody sits around the fire, just enjoy the fire.
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Well, the food has been cooked.
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You're keeping yourself warm.
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And also I think having the kitchen in the room
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that we slept, that always kept it warm.
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So very much village kind of lifestyle.
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And for us at that time, we were living
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a quite good lifestyle, you know,
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in terms of my mother's eyes.
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Mom was a house maker and that worked outside.
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And he used to earn around $3 a day.
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And my mom's dream was one dream.
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Like she wanted to send all the three girls
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to like English speaking school.
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That was her dream.
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Like she goes like, I never went to school.
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Father never went to school.
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In fact, my grandfather passed away
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when he was in his early 50s.
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And the job that my grandfather was doing
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was hand over to the first son, regardless of qualification
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or not, because there was so many mouth to feed.
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So the government said, like, okay, it'll go to my father.
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So it was illegal.
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Yeah.
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Oh my God.
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He was 16, so much responsibility to look
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after a mother, four, five brothers and sisters, right?
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Wow.
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He got married when he was 20 and then just went with my mom
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and then we traveled around.
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So pretty much you had to divide the money between family.
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And yet, I think my mom was really great at managing money.
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And then since then, since very young,
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she has always taught us like to be frugal with money
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and that has really helped on like doing the business now,
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you know, like how like childhood shapes is good.
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Do you remember your first memory of money
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or interacting with money or being spoken to about it?
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Oh, a lot.
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So 12 years of age, then we moved to planes.
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So Nepal is divided into planes, valleys and mountains.
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So we were moving from mountain all the way down
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to the plains.
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Plains is very hot.
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Like you are thinking about 40 degrees hot in summer,
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winter is 17, 18 degrees.
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So it's like very different climate to where we were at.
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Is there like a class system in terms of the mountains
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as like lower class, valley, middle planes?
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There's a class system.
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So you are of certain caste.
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You do certain kind of a job.
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Got you, okay.
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And there are like certain lower caste
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and lower caste often do like lower paid job.
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What would the lower paid jobs be?
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And like how, what when you say lower caste
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is there anything to the color of your skiners
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or purely the family?
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It's purely the family.
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Purely the family.
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And then I think lower caste jobs,
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you look at like tailoring cobbler,
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got cleaning toilets, those kind of thing.
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And then what would middle class be?
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More like a business shop, business, those kind of way.
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And then top.
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And then the top is like higher paid government jobs.
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Much security, right?
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And you're not allowed to see about side your caste system.
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So you're not allowed to marry outside of caste system.
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That was the thing.
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How does that change over generations then?
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If you can't marry, maybe it's the point.
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There are many caste within like the top of tier,
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middle tier and bottom tier kind of way.
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So the people usually marry within their caste.
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But make sure that there is no like three generation
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connection between any of the people there
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that you're getting married.
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Oh my God.
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Are you born?
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And it's also incest reasons, not incest reasons.
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But are you born knowing what caste?
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Is there a line of like, oh, no, you're this and you're this?
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Or is it just kind of a, can you tell when you make people
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at school, you're like, oh, you're your family.
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It's lower caste, yours is middle.
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Well, when the face, you can't see it.
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But with the sad name, you can.
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Oh, the sad name, yeah.
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So it's very much you are this and you are this.
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It's not, yeah, wow.
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And within the sad name as well, you can tell.
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So within the feature of the face, I am Chetri.
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My ancestor were like warriors in the war,
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those kind of thing.
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Then you have God Brahmin who are like higher than up, Chetri.
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And they often have like slightly pointy nose
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where we have got a slightly more flat nose.
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And then you have got Mongolians who are like Rai Limbu,
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we have got the Mongol feature kind of way.
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And they have got flat nose.
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So you really are marrying within,
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I mean, no wonder there's the three generation rule.
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Because if you're marrying people that look like you
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because you've bred within the same class,
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you know, like that makes such an interesting concept.
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You know, like, because you've loosely got it here
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in the UK, you know, in terms of,
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well, a little look at the royal family.
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Royalty, exactly, like all the way down.
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But you wouldn't bump in someone on the street.
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There's no, I guess, defining rule of,
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this is what determines your other's class.
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You know, just kind of, I guess,
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but it's smoke and maras-y.
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Whereas it seems like it's a lot more line in the sand
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in Nepal.
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But does that then make it hard for any?
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What say you're born into the lowest cast
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in your future looks like cleaning toilets
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or being a cobbler or being a tailor or whatever
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that you wanted to do something else?
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You just not allowed to?
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Now, there has been like a national regulation
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that within every public sector as well,
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there's always a quota for lower caste people
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to apply for the job and they get,
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that's theirs, right?
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So nobody takes it over.
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So we are trying to bring more equality.
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I think where we really are behind is on gender equality
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more than anything else.
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Like women still are deemed to be seen as people breeder.
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Kind of be like, like, you just get married,
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have kids and that's it, like your family is everything.
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Wow.
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In Camindu, like, again, varies on city to city.
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Nepal is big as well, right, with tons of people in it
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and it depends where you're looking for.
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In Camindu, it has changed.
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In cities, they have changed.
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Within my family, I know my cousins, they have changed
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and they're now working.
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They're in the 20, 25, 27.
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They're not married yet, they don't have a boyfriend
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and it's absolutely okay now.
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When I was growing up pretty much, every girl who turned 20,
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they got married.
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My sister turned 20, she got married.
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Then my next second sister turned 20, she got married.
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And is this an arranged marriage?
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An arranged marriage.
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So you don't meet people before you get married
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and you just, in the whim of somebody,
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said that this is a nice guy.
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Because I just don't think I would trust my parents
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to choose my partner.
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I don't trust my parents to buy me a t-shirt.
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No, I know.
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I know.
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What I get surprised is like, you raised your child
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for 20 years with you, closer to you,
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making sure that she looked after, fed,
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nice clothes bought, all this kind of thing.
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How do you give your daughter to somebody, random persons,
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random persons house, random persons life?
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And so I go and get married and never come back, right?
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In our culture, when you get married,
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you actually have to go and stay at your husband's house
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and they have their family living with them.
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So you are going into a joint family.
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For me, that is still like a bit of a shot.
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Like being a parent, we can see how much a parent
14:00
loved their child, right?
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Dearly, absolutely.
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They'll do anything for them.
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And then all of a sudden they get married and go off
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and they're just not.
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Yeah, they just decide that, okay,
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my daughter is going to this another person's house.
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And is there like diaries or financial exchange
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for marriages?
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How does it work in terms of if woman are seen
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more as breeding machines?
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What's the financial exchange and agreement
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as soon as someone does get married?
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With my first sister, we actually did not do anything
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like that.
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Second sister, they did ask a few things.
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So you can go as to extreme as they will ask you
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for, buy me a car or a motorbike,
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exchange for your daughter.
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In exchange for your daughter.
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So you're giving your daughter
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and you're giving all the wealth as well too,
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so that the daughter will be looked after it.
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And for in some cases,
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you have like beds, wardrobes,
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anything that your daughter might need
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is a full set of bedroom set and kitchen appliances
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and all this kind of thing.
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And is it the more expensive or extravagant
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the dowry, the more valued the woman is
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or how does that concept work
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in coming up with that financial dollar figure?
15:12
It's not the girl's family who asks for a dowry, right?
15:15
It's the boy's family who asks for a dowry.
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So I think they're valuing their son higher, God knows.
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But it's a horrible system.
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I think the girl shouldn't not go in marry
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and live with somebody else.
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Either they need to make their own life,
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find a different settlement or I don't know,
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give an option to live with girls' family
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as well as boys' family.
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Yeah, it has given them the choice and the freedom.
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Exactly.
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And it is, if you looked at some of your friends
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and people that still live in Nepal
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and are very much in that system,
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is there a combination of some people
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who are really happy with that
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and then some who want to work
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and want to do their own thing?
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Or because I imagine myself,
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if I was in a situation where all around me
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a particular society was modeled,
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I mean, I guess even just looking at my now,
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because I see people that have options to do those things,
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I know it's something that I can make a choice on.
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But I guess there's probably not a lot of representation
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around other ways you can live your life as a woman.
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So with your people you know,
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are they content or is there an element
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of not being happy with that?
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I'm just deep down if you ask any woman
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who's married to a stranger,
16:26
how to have kids at a choice
16:29
that they did not want it to have kids, perhaps,
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and felt like pressured by a society.
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They are quite unhappy, you know?
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Because once you get married, it's never your choice.
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Pretty much your life is dictated by somebody else.
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Some different society,
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where the husband has grown up.
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And this is a case like quite a lot of like Asian country
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if you're looking at it.
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And maybe in a different form,
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even if you look at like India or Sri Lanka,
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Bangladesh, that's kind of thing.
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This societal pressure of to make your husband's family happy,
17:00
to make your husband happy,
17:01
to have children for them and not for yourself,
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it's a thing.
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It's the whole selfless, like,
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you know, get everything up for your kids for your husband.
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So you have left Nepal, obviously, we're in the UK.
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And you've also created an incredible business called Wooker.
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Can you speak to what it was like being a young woman,
17:23
having a period in Nepal,
17:25
the kinds of conditions that you were in?
17:27
And then how did you go to leave?
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Like how did you,
17:30
how did you even leave Nepal
17:32
based on everything that we've just heard?
17:33
I kind of had to imagine.
17:35
Come to the UK,
17:36
which is very vastly different to where you grew up, so.
17:39
Okay, so experience wise.
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So I moved to Plains 12.
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12, I got my first period.
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Culturally, we have this thing called,
17:49
for period, we call it Natune,
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which literally translates to untouchable.
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So you're untouchable for four days of your period.
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And not from like a glorified, you're untouchable.
18:02
No, like you're dirty.
18:03
You're dirty.
18:04
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:06
Got you.
18:07
That means you're dirty,
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you can't go to kitchen,
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you can't pour yourself water,
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like just stay away.
18:13
Culturally, it came from when my great-grandmother,
18:17
when they had the period,
18:19
they didn't have period products.
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So there used to walk around wearing saris
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and then there used to be a trailer blood dripping.
18:26
So my great-grandfather started saying like,
18:28
just tuck your sorry in between your leg
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and then to go and sit down,
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we'll do the rest.
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And at that time, I think my grandparents,
18:35
they really loved it
18:36
because that was the four days of the month
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where they didn't have to cook clean or anything
18:40
or look after and just run around things,
18:42
you know, like just doing things for other people.
18:44
And then the culture has started since then.
18:48
My mom, AIDS came in.
18:49
I think my mom actually used a rope
18:52
and a long piece of sorry rags.
18:55
And then basically you hang the rope.
18:57
So you tie the rope in your waist
18:59
if you can picture that.
19:00
And then you have got a long piece of cloth
19:02
that goes from front to the back all the way
19:04
and then gets tucked into that rope in your body.
19:07
Then the generation came when I had my period,
19:10
we had underwear.
19:11
So my mom gave the same rag,
19:13
but made into small pieces and said like,
19:14
okay, these are your menstrual product,
19:16
you put it in your underwear, you wear it the underwear
19:19
and it should absorb your blood.
19:21
So she handed me that around eight, nine of them
19:24
and said like, these are your menstrual product,
19:26
but your first period you have to go to your aunt's house
19:28
because your father can't see you
19:30
because it's your first period
19:31
so we'll just have to put you aside.
19:33
And my aunt had two cousins, similar to me,
19:37
I was like, okay, this is great.
19:39
I'll just go stay with them, have fun,
19:40
you know, not good to school.
19:41
I love that.
19:42
And when I went there, I just realized that,
19:45
okay, pretty much there's a room.
19:46
There's a bed on the floor,
19:48
there's just a little blanket on the floor.
19:51
Cups, bowl, plates, it's very separated.
19:54
And what was weird was like pretty much every time
19:57
I wanted a food, they did not even give it to my hand.
20:00
They just throw it on the floor and passed it on the ground.
20:03
Like very much like a prisoner.
20:07
A days and I was like, I'm never going to do that
20:10
to my mom.
20:11
And she said like, don't worry,
20:12
like you just have to just now do it at home.
20:14
That was the first time.
20:15
Now this becomes extreme when you go to far western part
20:18
of Nepal where education is very low.
20:21
And girls and women are sent to cow shed or menstrual hot.
20:25
And these are menstrual hot.
20:27
They are like this tiny little hot.
20:28
Most of them used to be the goats shed.
20:31
So basically they turn the goat shed into,
20:34
they put the hay in and then the women used to just go in there
20:37
and sleep for the four days when they had the period.
20:40
What about winter?
20:41
And this is the thing, every winter you will hear in the news
20:45
that some women died while doing this in far western part
20:48
of Nepal because they're trying to keep themselves warm,
20:51
they suffocate in smoke and then they die.
20:53
Oh wow.
20:54
Oh my goodness.
20:55
Quite a lot of women also take their babies with them
20:58
when they do this.
21:00
Like we have had so many cases of like these kind of snake bites.
21:04
Rape cases.
21:05
Like most of the toilet, if you go to villages,
21:07
they are like miles away from your house.
21:09
So you're just like going at the dark,
21:12
not knowing who's prying on you, those kind of things.
21:15
Oh god.
21:16
It's just a horrible thing to go through.
21:19
Was there any kind of realization from your mother
21:24
or from generations that had been through this
21:26
that were like, we're going to do it differently?
21:29
Like we've been through this.
21:30
We know how scary, cold, dangerous, shameful it is.
21:35
And we're going to change that narrative.
21:37
Was there any...
21:39
It's so dictated by patriarchy.
21:41
True, yeah.
21:42
I think they never had that guts to say why.
21:46
Like even my mom still does not question.
21:49
If my grandparents said something to her,
21:51
she would blindly follow it without asking questions.
21:55
And I think there is this generation shift that we are seeing now.
21:59
And it was me who was the one who was asking questions.
22:02
Why we're doing this, right?
22:04
Now to...
22:05
You see, Zenzese are all about like, I'm sorry.
22:08
If you don't so be the evidence, or if you shouldn't
22:10
don't show me why we are doing, I'm not doing it kind of way.
22:13
And I think that challenging behavior was never there.
22:17
And so at what point did you think this has got to change?
22:20
I mean, because I'm imagining culturally you didn't think
22:24
this is a business idea, or I can make money from this.
22:27
You just thought, this is a problem.
22:28
And I don't like the way that it is.
22:29
And I want to try and make this experience better for myself.
22:32
Can you talk us through the product development,
22:34
how you came up with the idea,
22:36
and then how did you manage to leave Nepal to grow the business?
22:40
I think my worst time of my life has been like 13 to 17, 18 years old of my life.
22:47
Because in the junior year, up until 15 years old,
22:51
we had a communal toilet.
22:53
Basically, you squat on the toilet,
22:55
and there was a canal in front of you.
22:56
There used to be like five, six people squat at the same time.
22:59
And then the canal is connected, the boys toilet.
23:01
So when you're on your period, A, the blood would run,
23:04
B, when you take your underwear off,
23:06
the pad is literally fall off on the ground.
23:08
So you can't use that.
23:11
You just pick it up and just run home, right?
23:13
Then I think that this is where I started, right?
23:16
Since very young, like 15 years, I remember like,
23:19
I used to safety pin on both sides,
23:22
where the pad ended on my underwear and safe to pin it.
23:25
So that when I take the underwear down, it didn't fall off.
23:28
And this is sorry, right?
23:29
When you say...
23:30
Yeah, this is the sorry.
23:31
Not pad, it's not an actual pad.
23:32
Yes.
23:33
It's a sorry rag.
23:34
Sorry, small cut into small pieces.
23:36
Obviously, then soon I realized that putting safety pin is very dangerous.
23:40
I was going to say that I would set up one.
23:42
Yeah.
23:43
Oh my gosh.
23:44
So then I started doing multi-layer underwear.
23:46
So I used to put an underwear first, then put the pad
23:50
and then just so that it didn't move or shift.
23:52
Then I started wearing like slacks shorts, you know,
23:55
something that it didn't fall off from the side.
23:58
Because we used to never wear like fitted underwear.
24:00
So it is one size underwear.
24:02
The same size underwear I wore, my mom wore, you know?
24:05
So I think the idea was there since then I moved to UK
24:10
because I was turning 20 and I was like,
24:13
I don't want to be 20 and getting married.
24:16
But how did you even get the money or permission to do that?
24:19
Oh, that's a long story.
24:21
Basically, I met this guy, fell in love at that time, crushed, whatever.
24:26
And he decided to go to US, but then we didn't both get visa.
24:30
So I applied the UK on a student, he paid the money,
24:35
but he wanted to come and work here.
24:37
So we got the visa, came here together, then had a horrible relationship.
24:42
It was absolutely horrendous.
24:44
Left me with I think 92 pens in my bank account.
24:47
And then he went back.
24:48
What did you do?
24:50
I was here in that little green at that time.
24:54
Oh my gosh.
24:55
Terrified.
24:56
Terrified.
24:57
Oh my gosh.
24:58
In one of the most expensive cities in the world, with 92 pounds.
25:01
And had you been working in the dollars?
25:03
92 pens.
25:04
Oh my gosh.
25:05
Sorry.
25:06
Not in a pound.
25:07
Wow.
25:08
What were you doing for work at the time?
25:11
I was doing an opair, and I was doing only seven hours.
25:14
So that's why I'm opair as well, right?
25:16
So because I was a student, I couldn't work more than 20 hours.
25:19
So I told the people that I was doing opair with, like, look,
25:22
I don't have any place to live, this kind of thing.
25:24
So they said, like, okay, work for us for free.
25:27
You'll get to live and eat with us for free.
25:30
So I stayed with them, worked three days a week with them.
25:34
And then four days I started looking for the job and found a bartending job.
25:38
And that was like a horrible year of my life.
25:42
But back to 2020 coming here.
25:45
I did pretty much every job under the sun.
25:48
I did from cleaning the toilets at the Olympics.
25:52
To 2012, that was.
25:55
I did catering.
25:58
I used to be the sandwich girl in Warner's Bros and Disney Channel kind of thing, places.
26:04
I worked in the kitchen, did an opair, sold flowers to pubs.
26:08
So very much entrepreneurial.
26:11
When did you get to a place where you decided to, or you started the business?
26:15
Like, how did you even start productizing it and selling it?
26:20
Or even have the idea of like, actually, I'm going to solve this problem.
26:24
Yeah.
26:25
2014, I went back to uni.
26:28
So I came here to join the uni.
26:30
I did one year of uni, ran out of money completely.
26:32
So I thought I'll work as much as I can.
26:36
I joined another college.
26:38
The college got shut down, but I at least got a two years visa to work and live here.
26:42
And I think I met my husband around 2012, end of 2012 at that time, moved in with him.
26:48
Then he goes like, maybe you should want to go back to uni.
26:52
So it took me actually another year to justify myself that I'm worthy of going to uni.
26:58
So 2014 when I started doing open university online course while working part-time.
27:04
And I think when I came out of the university, my life completely changed.
27:10
I was studying everything.
27:12
David Attenborough was teaching.
27:14
The BBC planet him.
27:16
Actually, himself.
27:18
His modules.
27:19
I would probably be in a trance if he was an lecturer.
27:23
I'd fall asleep.
27:25
Not because I'm not into it, but his voice is so calm.
27:27
Pretty much all of his modules, everything that we watched on the TV was part of our module, came out.
27:33
And I was like, oh my, everything that we are doing is wrong.
27:36
Everything that we are doing has got plastic in them.
27:39
So when I first came, I was absolutely overwhelmed to see the pads and tampons in the shelf.
27:45
Pretty much tried everything.
27:47
But after uni, after graduating, I went to the same shopping aisle.
27:51
My God, everything has got plastic in them.
27:53
Pretty much one packet of pads have got like five plastic bags worth of plastic.
27:57
So quite a lot.
27:59
And in every box of tampons, here's like 20-something plastic records.
28:03
Oh, yeah, yeah.
28:05
And then they have an applicator.
28:07
Solid plastic.
28:09
They will never be again recycled into anything because they are clinical waste once you put it in your body.
28:13
So they will have to be segregated as like a landfill waste kind of thing.
28:18
I think my journey of business started together with my husband, I would say.
28:23
I did this course called Lean Startup Machine.
28:26
I don't know if they still do or not, but it's like a weekend course.
28:29
You go in with an idea, you pitch among like 80-90 people.
28:33
If the people like your idea, they will come and join you as a team.
28:36
Then throughout the weekend, you build a website, go test the product.
28:41
And some people even sell the product by end of Monday morning and have some revenue kind of thing.
28:46
So it's like very fast.
28:48
I can accelerate a program or something.
28:50
It's a weekend kind of like full on.
28:52
You don't sleep, you don't eat pretty much.
28:54
It's like a 24 hour film festival or something.
28:56
Yeah, yeah.
28:58
Yeah, totally, I know.
29:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:02
So I had learned some of those skills at that time.
29:06
But it was when I went to school and I started teaching kids about sustainability,
29:10
period product, only two girls knew about reusable products.
29:14
So I was like, okay, this is very surprising that nobody talks about sustainable products.
29:20
On the way back home, I got a second and sewing machine,
29:24
remembered how I layered my mom's sorry in between the underwear.
29:28
I literally did the same thing, put up my husband teach it in it.
29:31
And I stitched this underwear this time, the two underwear together with the absorbent,
29:35
made five, six pair of them, swore it myself.
29:38
So you made a period underwear?
29:40
Then I made a period underwear.
29:42
Wow.
29:44
But yeah, I made an absorbent underwear at that time.
29:48
Then I fell in love with my own idea.
29:50
Then Dave was like, no, this can't be right.
29:53
You can't fall in love with your own idea.
29:55
What people think and all this kind of thing.
29:57
You need to get some validation from people that they need this product.
30:00
Or otherwise, it'll be just flopped.
30:02
You're like, I know about half the population that would validate this product.
30:06
Exactly.
30:07
Also, it's just like the fact that you decided to do something different
30:11
to what the status quo is using for periods,
30:14
when you'd grown up being taught that periods are dirty.
30:18
Because there is a lot of connotations around period underwear still,
30:21
or moon cups, that are the more sustainable options,
30:24
because people don't want to be labeled as dirty.
30:29
I think we're starting to shift that perspective,
30:33
but it's amazing so early, even though that had been your upbringing
30:38
and how you viewed your own cycle and period
30:41
that you went down the period underwear path, like it's quite incredible.
30:44
That you could not be put off by the shame that you'd experienced.
30:48
Or I'm not going to talk about it in a Western society.
30:51
Or I'm just going to use 10 months, because that's what's available to me.
30:54
I know there's a better way of doing this.
30:56
It never phased me about the taboos.
30:59
I thought the taboos were just there because somebody made it.
31:04
It is what it is. Somebody made it and we just blindly follow it.
31:09
For me, my main goal was to reduce the amount of plastic that people use.
31:16
How can I make it comfortable?
31:19
People have really taken confidence granted.
31:22
Once you use period underwear, you will realize the amount of change
31:27
that you find in yourself from using something that is wedged in between your legs
31:32
or something that you have to put inside.
31:34
This is completely a total different experience.
31:37
You sleep with comfort and knowing the fact that you don't have to worry about the leaks at night.
31:42
Those are the specific moments that people often take it for granted
31:46
and you have to use it to actually feel it and experience it.
31:51
Have you used period underwear?
31:52
I love them.
31:53
You gave me yours.
31:55
You were given some and you didn't wear them.
31:57
I don't think I would wear these and you gave them to me.
32:00
I love them.
32:01
I think you should give them a go.
32:03
By the way, can I just clarify?
32:04
She didn't give me used period underwear.
32:06
That would bring you.
32:07
Just to clarify.
32:08
No, I'm a big fan.
32:10
I don't know.
32:12
It's just changing the perspective.
32:14
I would love to understand how you came to make business decisions
32:19
or because how much revenue has the business now turned over?
32:23
Total.
32:24
We're looking at 18 million.
32:26
18 million.
32:27
18 million.
32:28
18 million.
32:29
18 million.
32:30
Total since we began.
32:32
Yeah, but that's a lot of products.
32:34
That's incredible.
32:35
Amazing.
32:36
Sorry.
32:37
And so what?
32:38
Thank you.
32:39
That is just like insane.
32:40
And so what's the economic impact of people not using reusable period products?
32:47
You're basically paying double the price that you would pay with period pants.
32:51
So you'd save half of the money that you would spend on period products in two years by switching to Wilka?
32:57
What do you mean?
32:58
They're not used to being on 10 pounds.
33:00
10 pounds a year.
33:01
Yeah.
33:02
So if you're spending at the moment, 60 pounds a year, so in two years you would spend 120 pounds.
33:07
If you buy five pair of Wilka that cost you around 60 quid.
33:11
And excuse my naivety.
33:12
But do you?
33:14
I'm so scared of all this question.
33:16
She's looking at me.
33:17
Do you use it again?
33:18
But do you?
33:19
So you put the underwear on.
33:21
You use it for the day.
33:22
Then you put it in the wash.
33:23
Then you put it in the wash.
33:24
You've changed to another period of period.
33:26
And you use a period underwear for the whole time you get periods.
33:28
Yes.
33:29
You don't take out a piece in it.
33:30
Like you don't have the same undies and you take out the.
33:32
No, no, no.
33:33
You just wear one underwear.
33:34
Take it off the underwear.
33:35
Take off the underwear.
33:36
Just normal.
33:37
It's normal underwear.
33:38
Yeah.
33:39
Oh my lord.
33:40
No, no, no, no.
33:41
It's crazy that you don't.
33:42
Why?
33:43
Because, well, they'll be so many people less than they don't know.
33:45
Yeah.
33:46
Yeah.
33:47
I've just, I honestly thought that the way you said when you were like,
33:49
oh, I stapled the fabric.
33:52
And so I kind of assumed that you.
33:53
I mean, it's growing.
33:54
That's insane.
33:55
No, I know.
33:56
But I thought it was like, um, I don't know.
33:59
Oh, valid question.
34:00
Yeah.
34:01
You put it in and you take it anyway.
34:03
So I will just, uh, now I understand.
34:05
And I'm excited to give them a try.
34:08
You can literally rinse them off under cold water, chuck them with a dark color clothes.
34:12
Got you.
34:13
And put it in a washing machine.
34:14
You don't even have to hand wash them.
34:15
So I see.
34:16
I see.
34:17
I would love to know the economic burden of having your period menstruating.
34:23
You know, just like the kind of the financial impact of that on women,
34:28
what workplaces can do to be more accommodating.
34:32
And like, I can imagine back when you're in Nepal going away for four days,
34:36
the impact that would have had on your education.
34:38
And you're, you know, like I'm just, that's a massive question.
34:42
Sorry.
34:43
Yeah.
34:44
But yeah, I just love to know from the work that you've done, you know,
34:46
what, what are the financial impacts of the economic burden?
34:49
So if you're looking at just somebody menstruating,
34:52
if the person menstruates straight on.
34:54
Yes.
34:55
They would menstruate for 10 years of their life.
34:59
Wow.
35:00
God, I'm going to menstruate for 10 years in my life.
35:03
Yeah.
35:04
Straight on bleeding kind of way.
35:05
But where we are seeing the most gap is like pretty much every kids,
35:11
student, a woman, girl, person who has period,
35:14
will get 40 minutes of period education for 40 years of their life.
35:20
So a period that stays with them for 40 years of their life.
35:23
Yes.
35:24
And I think that's where the main gap that we are seeing is like,
35:28
we are not educating people enough about periods
35:32
and the impact of periods on a person's life,
35:35
whether that could be missing the school, missing education.
35:39
If the girls are falling behind of the boys because of the period,
35:43
in sports, definitely.
35:45
I think one in two girls actually miss out on sports.
35:47
How about I never even thought of sports?
35:49
Yes.
35:50
Which is terrible.
35:51
Swim, right?
35:52
Like quite a lot of girls don't go on swim when they're in the period.
35:54
So there's this accumulation of falling behind.
35:58
Falling behind.
35:59
Yeah.
36:00
And then you go to workplaces and then you fall behind on the workplaces
36:03
because conditions like endometriosis PCOs
36:06
takes almost nine years to get diagnosed.
36:09
Yeah.
36:10
And then also if you've got period cramps or you stay at home
36:14
that's sick days, that's, yeah, there's kind of,
36:17
yeah, so many ways that we are held back
36:21
because we mean straight.
36:22
Yeah.
36:23
And I think workplace still very much,
36:26
most of the manager are men that don't understand you.
36:29
Period product in offices is like such a tiny little thing
36:34
but makes very empathetic employee.
36:36
Employer.
36:37
Yeah.
36:38
Yeah.
36:39
It's a small thing that can make a big difference.
36:41
Yeah.
36:42
Just put a product because you never know in the office
36:45
who might just come on, might not have a period.
36:47
Yeah.
36:48
And feel absolutely embarrassed to even ask or like go out
36:51
or those kind of thing.
36:52
But does that little difference mix?
36:54
Oh, I also think the pain that you feel from menstruating,
36:58
like if you can't concentrate, if you need to take a sick day,
37:01
like all of that, it means just have no idea,
37:05
like the chronic pain that women, yeah,
37:09
with endometriosis or POES have.
37:11
PCOS.
37:12
PCOS.
37:13
It's a PCOS.
37:14
PCOS.
37:15
PCOS.
37:16
You know, these are PCOS.
37:17
Like it's just, it's debilitating.
37:18
It's possible.
37:19
It's possible.
37:20
Yeah.
37:21
Oh my goodness.
37:22
Is there anything that makes her sound more like a finance girl?
37:24
Oh my gosh.
37:25
Yes.
37:26
But it's your lack of productivity because honestly,
37:30
like I haven't got my period yesterday
37:32
and today has not been my most productive day.
37:35
And I was sitting there and I was like,
37:37
I actually feel for people in chronic pain.
37:39
Not meets your pain, but chronic pain.
37:43
Yeah.
37:44
How your life just must be.
37:46
So.
37:47
It's debilitating, debilitating.
37:49
Yeah.
37:50
People, quite a lot of people,
37:51
even don't come out of the house, you know, like,
37:53
or heavy bleeding.
37:54
Yeah.
37:55
Quite a lot of people who just don't leave the house
37:57
because of the heavy bleeding.
37:58
And often they are just like misdiagnosed.
38:01
Not just period.
38:03
I think where we are missing the conversation is about hormones.
38:06
Why is nobody talking about hormones, right?
38:09
The fluctuating of the hormones is the basic fundamental thing
38:12
that actually drives us how we perform
38:15
and all this kind of thing, right?
38:17
I think this should definitely be more education.
38:19
I mean, I can go around the world, hormones quite a bit,
38:21
but I feel like that is very under a taught subject
38:26
in any woman's life.
38:27
I think it's a awareness as well.
38:29
Like, I think only in my 30s have I realized how much hormones
38:34
play a part in like how I feel, my energy.
38:38
My energy, yeah.
38:39
Creativity.
38:40
Creativity.
38:41
Cry because I watched a sad ad on TV
38:43
and just boiling my eyes out.
38:44
I mean, I think so in my period.
38:45
I'm like, oh, okay.
38:46
Mix this.
38:47
Yeah.
38:48
Anyway, sorry.
38:49
In terms of the financial side of things,
38:51
you've been incredibly successful.
38:53
There's a need for your products.
38:54
They're being bought all over the world.
38:56
Like, you're financially successful as well as solving
38:59
an enormous problem, which is so incredible.
39:02
And I'm just wondering what you've learnt
39:05
throughout that time in business.
39:08
What have been some of the biggest learnings for you
39:11
financially that you would never have had exposure to
39:14
or have realised if you had never stepped into a business?
39:18
Ownership role.
39:20
I've learnt everything.
39:22
First rule.
39:23
When you are small and when you are starting kind of way,
39:26
cash flow is the king.
39:29
You have to make sure you know where you're spending money.
39:33
If you are and also thinking about where the money's coming back
39:37
and always work your way around,
39:39
okay, if I invest this much,
39:41
this is what's going to.
39:42
And you need to have that predictable income coming back.
39:45
I didn't do that.
39:47
Sorry, sir.
39:48
What do you mean?
39:49
We got to a point where I was like,
39:50
we're out of money.
39:51
We can't play ourselves.
39:52
I'm so sorry.
39:53
I had to really fight my tongue to be like,
39:54
you wouldn't have done any better, sir.
39:55
I was trying to have this like carefree attitude of like,
39:58
money's going to flow in, money's going to flow in,
40:00
but it's not flowing in.
40:02
Sorry.
40:03
Sorry.
40:04
And there is a stage to that as well, right?
40:06
And I think as you grow a bit bigger,
40:08
what we have started realizing is like,
40:11
if you don't spend, you don't get back kind of way.
40:13
Yes.
40:14
Marketing and all this kind of thing.
40:15
And that's the critical kind of point.
40:17
Like you need to understand, okay, like,
40:18
now is the spending time.
40:20
Because we can't be conservative.
40:22
And there's only spend this much.
40:23
Because that's how much return you're going to get.
40:25
Got to spend money to make money.
40:26
Woo!
40:27
Yeah.
40:28
Sounds like ordering tequila.
40:30
Another round.
40:32
But with all of the learnings that you've had,
40:35
like from a business perspective,
40:37
in terms of your personal finances,
40:39
and within your dynamic with your husband,
40:41
how does that work?
40:42
And is he, let's say, from the ball?
40:44
Or, yeah, right.
40:45
Okay.
40:46
So culturally, how do you deal with money now?
40:49
What feels good for you and for her?
40:51
And how?
40:52
So it's obviously very,
40:54
like you know how to manage money.
40:55
You have your own business.
40:57
Yeah.
40:58
First two years, we actually,
41:00
I didn't take any salary.
41:01
And I think this is like the story of pretty much
41:03
any founders that you hear.
41:05
And at that time, he was paying for everything, you know.
41:08
The best thing that happened to us as a partners were,
41:12
we actually bought our house outright.
41:14
And we made that decision,
41:16
rather than investing on business,
41:18
we want to buy our house.
41:20
Because then that gave me and both of us this financial burden freedom
41:25
is actually now we can put all of our energy into business.
41:28
And we can take a tiny salary,
41:30
or not even one person works somewhere else.
41:33
And then I can run on his salary.
41:35
Maybe we should buy a house together,
41:37
and then just not pay ourselves.
41:39
I don't know.
41:40
I'm like, if we had to buy a house outright.
41:43
Oh no, there's no way.
41:44
How do you even get that much money?
41:46
So my husband, at least to work at TrainLine.com.
41:48
Oh, TrainLine.
41:49
Yeah.
41:50
That's where you booked the tickets.
41:51
Yes.
41:52
Yes.
41:53
So was there ever a decision where you were like,
41:54
right, okay, we can either save up the amount to purchase this house
41:59
or I could start my business and use that money and it grow.
42:04
You know, that would have been quite a decision to make.
42:07
And you would have had to,
42:08
it's all an allocation of funds in terms of what's the best use of our funds right now.
42:12
So I raised £7,000 in 2017 as a Kickstarter campaign.
42:18
So put the video up.
42:19
And I said like three months in,
42:20
I will send you some pants who would like to try.
42:23
And got that, and that gave me some money to make around 1,000 per font
42:28
nowhere at that time.
42:29
Then I think in 2018, we were in national news everywhere.
42:34
Well, you could spend a period on the worries here.
42:36
Would you like to give it a try kind of,
42:38
and that really increased the pre-order.
42:41
I remember in May 2018, BBC 3 did a fantastic article with like new Mr.
42:48
product in the market with WooCubing number one and five star for the product.
42:53
As well.
42:54
We did 27K sale on that day without having underwear in the warehouse.
42:59
Oh, my God.
43:00
Oh, my God.
43:01
I was like, oh, my God.
43:02
Like I was like freaking out.
43:04
It took us up to September, October that year on 2018 to actually be in stock.
43:10
The order is to come before the stock would arrive.
43:12
And it was allowed.
43:13
Like angry customers that are like, I want my underwear.
43:16
People waited for six months to get one pair of underwear.
43:19
I'm not like kidding.
43:21
Wow.
43:22
But there was like such a hype about like, there wasn't that many other options in terms of options.
43:26
There was no option.
43:27
Yeah, there was no other competitors.
43:28
So it was like, well, I've got an option that to wait.
43:30
Yeah.
43:31
And then everybody wanted to give it a try.
43:32
Yeah.
43:33
And I see how it is.
43:34
And these were like the brave cohort of people that we call them because to switch to WooCub,
43:40
you have to be brave.
43:42
You can't be.
43:43
That's all I know.
43:44
It's the habit, right?
43:45
It's the habit.
43:46
I know.
43:47
Yeah.
43:49
And I think that really helped.
43:51
So we had a bit of a cash in the bank.
43:53
Two years, I just did only PR marketing.
43:58
I didn't do any paid marketing at that time.
44:00
So when my husband joined in three years ago, he joined Walker.
44:04
He joined Walker.
44:05
So we worked together now.
44:06
So he, the company went IPO.
44:09
Then we bought the house.
44:10
Wait, IPO.
44:11
No, no, not us.
44:13
Yeah, I was like, I'm raising money.
44:16
If you're IPO, then you're raising.
44:17
I was like so confused.
44:18
He is confident.
44:19
His company went IPO.
44:21
So then he stayed for a year and then joined WooCub too.
44:25
Then he goes like, okay, he got so much money in your bank account.
44:29
He got to do something to move it.
44:31
And now, honestly, I had zero clue about hiring people or do anything.
44:35
I just loved what I'm doing and just loved the PR and marketing side of the thing and brand.
44:40
And just continued with that.
44:42
He came, then we started building a team.
44:45
Now we're a 17 people team in the office.
44:48
And basically, he just helped me how to mobilize money into marketing,
44:52
but also into people, how to grow, that's kind of way.
44:55
And I think you do need to have a co-founder.
44:58
Running solo business, solo founder, I don't know how.
45:01
Yeah.
45:02
Thank God for you.
45:03
I know, thank God.
45:04
Like, honestly.
45:05
Yeah.
45:06
It's so true.
45:07
It's like, if I was on this by myself, I probably would have given up a long time.
45:10
Oh, sorry.
45:11
I am just like so impressed at thinking about where you started in life
45:16
and where you are now is just like so inspiring.
45:20
And I'd love to know what your thoughts are for.
45:24
And maybe there's no solution to it right now.
45:26
But there's so many women who don't have the same opportunities to education,
45:31
to start a business, to live the life that they want.
45:35
And that's definitely a lot more in the Eastern world.
45:38
I mean, I'm sure it's globally, but can we do anything on the side of the world,
45:43
what needs to change or what can be done to help women who right now
45:48
don't have access to live the life or have a choice of how they live.
45:53
I'm assuming education is like the pinnacle,
45:56
but I just feel really privileged and helpless.
46:00
And helpless.
46:01
And it's so unfair the amount of opportunity and choice that I've had.
46:06
I just would love to hear if you have any thoughts on what could be done to change that.
46:11
So change comes within, right?
46:14
If you are not intentionally thinking of change,
46:18
you can't change somebody else by saying them to change.
46:21
And this goes to, you don't have to go far away.
46:24
Just go in your own home and ask people to ask to change habit.
46:28
Until it doesn't come within, they want change.
46:32
So you need to find people who have that intention to change and tap into them
46:37
rather than thinking about like, oh, I would like to go and inspire everyone
46:42
because not everybody's going to get inspired.
46:45
That's true.
46:46
This is the reality.
46:48
They've got to want to change.
46:50
They've got to want to change.
46:51
They've got to want to know that they want to have a better life.
46:55
Quite a lot of people are happy with what they have got.
46:58
And that's why not everybody are entrepreneur
47:01
because being an entrepreneur is the hardest job ever.
47:04
You are relentless.
47:05
Your mind is relentless, right?
47:07
You never rest.
47:08
And I'm sure you both know, like, how do you know?
47:11
Are you looking in my mind?
47:13
And this is true, right?
47:15
We are almost like on the spectrum.
47:18
If you're looking at it, like...
47:20
Sorry, I'm not laughing.
47:22
We literally are.
47:25
And I think every entrepreneur that I've met,
47:28
they all are like this relentless kind of thing.
47:31
It's not the money.
47:33
It's not the fame.
47:34
It's something else that drives them, right?
47:37
It's doing an impactful thing in life, something that...
47:41
And I think that's where you are looking.
47:43
It's like, oh, we've got this knowledge and connection
47:47
and all this kind of thing.
47:48
How can we help other people?
47:50
I think creating a platform is great.
47:52
You know, like, being accessible, I think that is one of the things.
47:55
Does that make sense?
47:56
Yes, yeah, yeah.
47:57
Because this is something I've learned over the time.
48:00
It's like, I convinced my older sister,
48:03
who is in Nepal at the moment,
48:05
and I said, like, look, take Mukherner, Paul, and run it.
48:08
She's just like, I just want...
48:09
I've got my kids.
48:10
This is my life.
48:11
I just wanted to raise them and be a good mother.
48:13
And that's my job.
48:14
Even though she has the option too, she doesn't want to do it.
48:17
And if people are happy with what they have,
48:21
that's all that you can even want for someone.
48:24
You know, it's like, just because what we've seen modeled around us
48:27
or that we've seen as determined as successful
48:30
with its financial and successful world otherwise.
48:32
For other people, I don't know.
48:33
Exactly.
48:34
Yeah.
48:35
So it's...
48:36
It was more just when you said,
48:38
if you asked most women who have been married to a stranger
48:41
and basically had to have kids,
48:42
even if they don't want to, they're probably unhappy.
48:44
It was more of those women than us.
48:45
And I think that for them, they are like quite a lot of platforms.
48:49
And this is the social media as one of the blissful thing is
48:54
women from all around of the world can see other women
48:58
doing incredible thing, get inspired and do things.
49:02
And we have seen that change.
49:04
Like you compared this last five years to the five years before,
49:07
you will see much more women in business,
49:10
much more women being entrepreneur, much more women,
49:13
divorcing their men because actually it doesn't work.
49:17
Because they say something else and they're like,
49:19
oh, hello.
49:20
Like John Wu, two, three.
49:22
Yeah.
49:23
He just slid into the deans.
49:24
He's up in the mountains and I'm just going to go out there
49:27
and go from the plain.
49:28
I'm going to check him out in the valley, up to the mountains
49:30
and meet John Wu, two, three.
49:31
I genuinely like...
49:32
I think I like it.
49:33
I know within Cameroon Duvalli,
49:35
like within my family, within my cousins
49:37
and relative distant relatives,
49:38
there's a lot more divorce now than ever before.
49:41
It's because people have seen like actually
49:44
being a suppressive housewife is not the way
49:47
that I want to live my life, you know?
49:49
I can be individual, I can not marry again
49:51
and still be a very happy woman kind of way to say it.
49:54
And they can see where else there's one offer.
49:56
So to summarise this conversation,
49:58
don't let your partners have Instagram
50:00
and see other options,
50:02
so that I'll stay with you for a bit.
50:05
No.
50:06
So that was really like a heartfelt break
50:09
and like you know, you pulled out the best part
50:11
of this conversation well done.
50:13
Well, I think we did more of a story telling them.
50:16
No, I know so money and stuff, but...
50:19
It's just like so I've said at the beginning
50:21
the conversation is so great to have someone on
50:24
that has such a different upbringing
50:27
and a different view on money and a different journey to us
50:31
and yeah, I think it's really important
50:34
that we open the conversations to different cultures
50:36
and how they view money in the trajectory of their lives
50:40
and I think it's really important and
50:42
I am going to go buy some period under where?
51:08
Thank you.
51:09
Yes, exactly.
51:10
You get free underwear and also will give you some online courses or something.
51:16
Thank you so much for listening to Raising the Curve.
51:19
These conversations are designed to teach you everything that you need to know to be
51:22
better with your money, from saving, to investing, to talking to your friends about your salaries.
51:28
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51:30
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51:32
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51:33
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51:34
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51:35
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51:39
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51:40
Lots of love, see you soon.
51:41
Bye.