SHOWNOTES
My guest for the 35th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast is Ruby Raut co-founder and CEO of WUKA. Founded in 2017, WUKA is a female-led start up, making the UK’s first ever reusable and leak-proof period wear. The business idea came to her while studying environmental science and learning that 200,000 tonnes of tampons and pads end up in landfills in the UK.
WUKA stands for Wake Up Kick Ass because the belief is that nothing should hold women back during their period. The mission is to make sustainable lifestyles accessible to everyone, because sustainability should not be a luxury, and periods are not a luxury.
Ruby is also determined to break down the continuing stigma around periods.
In this episode she speaks about growing up in Nepal, moving to the UK to find her purpose. Her journey to becoming an entrepreneur.
We also spoke about
👉🏾 Challenges she faced starting a business as a women in a new country
👉🏾 Period poverty in the UK
👉🏾 Government support for sustainable and eco-friendly products
👉🏾'Axe the Period Pants Tax' a campaign calling on the UK Government to remove the unfair 20% VAT charge on period pants
Listen to how this gutsy young women is on a mission to create a more sustainable world and empower women 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾
https://periodpants.org/
Memorable passages from the podcast
👉🏾 Thank you very much Sudha for having me, I mean, it's been quite a while since we spoke and it's been I think a long dream coming to the podcast. So yeah, I'm very, very excited to be here.
👉🏾 So I grew up in Nepal, very Eastern part of Nepal, it's almost like my home is very border to India. So now, and then I say to my friends, you know, like I used to walk to India. And also because we have the open border system. You don't need a passport or anything, So I walk and I'm like in India? So I was born up in the mountains. But later on my family moved to more like a Terai area, closer to India and I came to UK when I was 20. So majority of my life, I lived in Nepal. Family of five Mom, Dad and three sisters. So we didn't have any brothers in the house. So often my sister thought that I was the brother figure in the house. It's nice actually, I miss my sisters and it was really nice to grow up in a household where there was no discrimination between boys and girls.
👉🏾 It didn't. So, I came here. Like everybody comes to Western country or developed country, more finding an opportunity right? So that's what I did. Also, I think when you, are stuck in like the developing country like Nepal you are stuck with quite a lot of things that you actually don't agree with.
And I almost flew away from there so that I can explore more about myself and who I am. I knew that being in a very slightly more conservative society I thought that I will never progress. So it was my escape coming to UK either for pursuing education, earning more money, looking for more opportunity, cultural diversity, those kind of things.
👉🏾 It was total culture shock for me because I was the girl who I think handful saw any white person or any person of other colours, you know, other than my or people who are of different cultural background, like religion wise as well. I'd never seen anybody from Muslim community. Like Nepal is predominantly Hindu, you know?
And Sikhs and Jews, like literally nobody. So it was quite a culture shock from that, and also like language and talking and being polite, something that I never do straight up, you know, like whatever you say, right down to the point, No please, No thank you. So it was a bit of a shock.
👉🏾 Entrepreneurial journey. I think that was something that I always had a spark in me since I was very young. So I clearly remember, I think I was 11, 12 years old. And one of the person who was supposed to come and build the house, or carry the sand, or filter the sand so that they can use it for plaster didn't come.
👉🏾 And I made this contract with my mother that if I work the whole Saturday or Sunday, my day off, 'will she pay me exactly what she would pay the other person.' And I was always like, conscious about that, kind of you know hard work always pays off. So I had always been like this and coming into London as well. I was quite hustling around like, you have a job, but I used to also like go to flower market, buy some flowers and sell it to the pubs.
👉🏾 For what I'm doing right now, I think it all came through my passion towards women's health, more than anything else and I think my mother is definitely a good inspiration for me in terms of like what is the thing that you're looking in the future and what do you want to help other people with? And, so education yes, definitely because I did environmental science degree. So I think after degree, that was the path I started choosing. Like, is there something that I can do to make people's life easier so that a) they live sustainably, they live healthier lifestyle b) Also like, it's women's right, I think saying there should be a lot of choices around any product that people use.
👉🏾 So WUKA stands for wake up, kick-ass. As you can see like, always looking for those kinds of inspiration, what makes people click to actually make a difference? And that's what the brand is all about. What can you do to actually make a difference, whether that's just normalising the topic around periods or like campaigning around taxes, that again affects majority of the people.
👉🏾 You know, whether opening a platform where people have more informed choices about the product that they use, the health condition that they have got so that everybody's informed, they are not alone. And frankly, to be heard, I guess we go through so many conditions throughout our lifetime and most of the time it's often silenced by society, culture, this and that. So what we wanted to do is like, create a platform where you can openly talk about, because most of the time when you need to discuss your problem, then you realise that you are not alone. And there's so many people on the same boat with you.
👉🏾 So Wake Up Kick Ass(WUKA) is all about that, about like not being ashamed and being proud of the things that you have gone through and share that. And also in regards to period, I think periods often have like a very bad vibe. So there are huge taboos around period, like in Asian culture, you're not allowed to go to kitchen. You're not allowed to go to temples, those kind of thing. And we wanted to give a little bit more positive spin, regardless all of this happens, we get on with our life, do things that we do, and we do it amazingly.
👉🏾 As you said, being a migrant, coming to a new country, basically I just threw myself into this large ocean, not knowing whether I'm going to swim or sink kind of moment. I did get a huge support from my husband obviously. He's been and telling me like, when somebody says no, just don't take no for an answer. Go and counter ask, like why, why are you saying no, those kind of things. So he has been like a good mentor for me since the very beginning of the journey.
👉🏾 Before I did WUKA, I did this small startup called Food Waste Ninjas. So I used to go around schools teaching students about food waste and why they're bad for the environment. Why they're bad for health. And while I was doing that I went to one of these meeting, with this idea of like oh, I would like to do this in the community. And then the first thing they go like, "oh, you'll never be able to get into schools it's such a hard thing to do". I felt like quite outraged, you know, like they didn't even listen to me. I said, like, you don't have to do any job I will do it. What I need is back up support, to say Hey, you know, we'll support you on this kind of thing.
👉🏾And my husband goes like, no you just go and do it, prove them, do a pilot project. You don't have to go to 10 school at the same time, start small. So no doubt I did the same thing and Sainsbury's actually did a good campaign around food waste and I approached them and I said like, Hey look, this is my idea. I would like to run it. And with my 500 words letter, they actually gave me about 35,000 pounds to run this project. And that really gave me this boost, you know, like all it needs is like you have to do in a smaller scale to see whether things work or not. So whether that could be like a research study, whether that could be like actually going and doing physical activities and that was definitely a boost for me to start an entrepreneurship kind of thing and start my own venture. And most entrepreneur will feel it like, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm doing it to see how it turns out.
👉🏾 And for WUKA actually I turned to social media and forums and I said like, I'm a research student and I'm trying to learn more about like, if people are happy with the current menstrual product they have, and within 24 hours I got like 800 responses. Out of them, like 70% of the people were saying like, no I really don't like pads or tampons it irritates me I get skin problem thrush. Or they're like too smelly, sweaty. So that was like, definitely like my market research kind of thing. Like, okay, a problem exists over here, but obviously when you are starting a business, the biggest problem is your finance right? How much money do I need? Where do I start? So I turned into Kickstarter. Kickstarter is like a platform where you can pitch your ideas and promise a product, which you can deliver in like three to six months kind of time.
👉🏾 And if people really love the idea, they will invest on you. And I just went with like closed eyes. Okay I'm doing this. I think many times it's like being brave. Reshma Saujani I think she did a Ted talk about like how girls are always taught when you are growing up to be careful, you know, cautious all the time. Whereas like boys are taught to be brave, go climb the tree, jump from like I don't know, 6 feet high. They are always taught to be brave and I think that is something that is lacking and that's what I did. Like my part was like, okay, I'm doing it no matter what kind of thing and just went to ahead. The other thing I think that really helped me is like I'm an outsider here, you know, like in the UK. So I really don't care about like what people's going to say to me. Whereas if I was back home, I'd be more cautious about like what my neighbours would say. What my parents would say, what my friends would say. So I think that was definitely a leverage point for me so that I could just come here, do things that I really cared about and just went ahead with it. So Kickstarter definitely helped me. I got I think 112 customers as my first customer who still write to me and it's the most amazing feeling.
👉🏾 Well, when I first heard about period poverty, it actually came as a shock to me like, are you kidding? We are in one of the richest country in the world. And you were saying that people can't afford to even buy a couple of pounds of period product? Like when I think the article from Plan International came in 2018, 2017, something around that time when I was just starting the whole journey really opened my eyes. And then I started really digging into it. It's like, what are the main causes of it?
👉🏾 And then I started watching like some TV programs that show how people live in certain part of the UK. Like if you're looking at Grimsby and it really makes you think, there are pockets of poverty. And it's sometimes family priority, you know, would you rather put food on the table or menstrual product to your family? So that, I think it exists definitely, yes it exists otherwise why would girls be crying in school saying that they don't have any menstrual product to use you know. We did a survey on January this year when the second wave of the Corona virus hit. And that was again another shocking thing for me is like there was another 38% of the people who were really worried that they might fall under that poverty line.
👉🏾 So as soon as you are under the poverty line, basically you are bound to be in a period poverty situation. Well, you are compromising what allows you to put food on the table or the essentials versus having a menstrual product. So it's quite shocking, but there are so many organising agency here in place that you might not have in developing country. So that is the difference. So in Nepal, India, when there is period poverty, people actually don't know where to go and find things, but whereas there's the system in place. There are like charities, like 'Bloody Good Period', 'Freedom for Girls here in the UK. You have got food banks and stuff where people can go in access to menstrual product. But I think in a real-world, all menstrual products should be free. Free from the government, you know, it's one of those essential product. Like if you can go to any public toilet and get a toilet roll, why can't you get menstrual product? And then it's a necessity and not just in the UK, it should be everywhere all around the world. Like we don't have a choice not to have a period that's the thing. And the government should understand that.
👉🏾 You know, the whole period market is 52 billion pounds, it's huge right. You have got half of the world's population. If a person is like introduced very early in the beginning, they are your long-life customer. So far I think the challenges have been like the awareness when we first came in the UK, we were the first period pants brand. There was no term such as period pants so we started the term. Now I think it's one of the most searched term in terms of whenever people are looking for menstrual underwear or period underwear. So awareness, people don't know the product exists.
👉🏾 But we have got so much competition now. Like people can see that there is definitely a market and business can see that there's definitely market into it. So the challenge is definitely awareness also, growing up in my family, whenever my mother or my sister had period, I actually knew that they had that they are on the period. Because obviously they used to separate from the kitchen and not go those kind of things. But in here you don't know when somebody is on the period and the culture in the West have been, always taught to hide things. You know, like if you use pads toilet roll and put it in like still 40% of the people flush their tampons and pads down the toilet. There's very little education in terms of like how to dispose. But culturally, they're always taught about like, hide it, hide it, hide it kind of thing in here. Whereas in Asian culture, you can see it it's quite visible. And I think that was one of the challenges for us. It's like, nobody wants to talk about it because it's always been taught to hide about it.
👉🏾There was an article, like there are more than 500 euphemisms just for periods, you know, like nobody says periods they say at the time of the month, on the rag you know, all of those kinds of terms, but not so brave enough. But the past three years now periods have gone public and there's much more press coverage on periods, period products, you know, like big celebrity and like TV stars and famous people are talking about period and their experiences whether it comes to endometriosis or PCOS, fibroids and all this kinds of things. So I think the shame still is there. We just need to take that out from the society and then hopefully, then it'll be much more open conversation. In terms of the competition, I think still P & G are more thinking about like how to make profit, obviously with disposable product you're using throw it to consume it kind of thing. So they're are still sticking to that so not so much of a big challenge, but definitely they will be thinking about it, like how to make a sustainable menstrual product.
👉🏾 We made little dent into the market by going into the supermarket. So currently we are in 214, Sainsbury's, 168 Superdrug, you know like, Planet Organic, Whole Foods. So we are literally sitting next to tampons, pads, period pants, you know, so they can see that shift. So obviously yes so that's our first step into it.
👉🏾 This is slightly bizarre right? So clearly we have got too many men in the UK government basically who don't understand anything about periods or period products? So I realised this because when we launched, obviously we were the first one, first period pants brand ever. So I went to the HMRC and said like, look, I'm trying to put the correct tax category to my product, this is how it works, it's a reasonable menstrual product. And then they automatically say like, oh, they went to the website and looked at it and it looks like an underwear, obviously, because it looks like an underwear. You can't see much difference and then they slapped in 20% at that time. I didn't have much evidence to prove that, okay they are period pants or do like a scientific lab test and all this kind of thing. So a year later I went back in to say like, look, I think this is not fair, how can a disposable be 5% tax and much more cheaper for people to buy. Which also creates a huge amount of waste versus you have got reusable that creates less waste, more comfortable for people and you're taxing that more. So they said no, so I started a petition we reached 18,000 signature and got a lot of press buzz and everything, everybody together with us, you know, to say like, how is this possible kind of thing.
👉🏾 So the government response was a) it's the tax money, so they don't want to lose. And I was like, are you joking? Like you have got a massive tampons, pads here, which creates a huge amount of waste that creates billions of pounds every year. And you are doing a 5% tax to them, whereas tiny, like half a percent of the, the entire market and you're charging them 20%. Also the government goal for 2030 is to move towards more sustainable world right? So taxing something reusable and sustainable product. Doesn't make sense, so the fight is still on. We are still campaigning for it. We restarted the whole petition again with a couple of local MPS and stuff.
👉🏾 So obviously they are talking more through the government and we are lobbying more from the customer side But...
