Miki Agrawal, known as a serial disrupt-her and industry innovator, recently appeared on Jeffstaple’s The Business of HYPE podcast. Speaking candidly with the host, entrepreneur Miki Agrawal relayed the founding story of TUSHY, her bidet attachment company. Giving insight about her idea for the company, funding, and spreading the word about the power of the bidet to a hesitant US audience, Agrawal provided listeners with a first-row seat to the action!
Committed to bringing traditionally taboo subjects to the masses, Miki Agrawal is the founder of companies like WILD (gluten-free pizzeria chain), Thinx (period panties on a mission), and TUSHY (bidet attachments for all toilets). Through these entrepreneurial ventures, Agrawal employs bold marketing strategies, and encourages people to talk about taboo subjects openly. Brazen herself, Agrawal is also the best-selling author of “Disrupt-Her” and “Do Cool Sh*t”.
Miki Agrawal Speaks On The Origins of TUSHY
Jeffstaple: How did you get the idea for Tushy? Like, were you a bidet-household already?
Miki Agrawal: I’m half Japanese, half Indian. So, in Japan, every Japanese person has a bidet, and they think Americans are very strange. We’re so advanced we export Facebook and we export culture, we export every movie, we export music, and yet, when it comes to this, we’re cavemen. It’s interesting.
Jeffstaple: Even the nastiest gas station in Japan has a bidet.
Miki Agrawal: Yeah, exactly.
Jeffstaple: Here, if you live in a five star building, you have one. But no, there, it’s everything.
Miki Agrawal: Ubiquitous. It’s 100%. In Korea, there’s two floors dedicated to bidets. I mean, 10 years from now, we’re going to look back and say, “I can’t believe we were wiping our butts with dry paper 10 years ago, in 2018.” It’s actually crazy. So, yeah, so Tushy was born.
Andrew (my now husband), when we were first dating, he knew I was obsessed with the bidets. I mean, I was renting an apartment, so I didn’t want buy a bidet and get the plumbing and electrical, thousands of dollars later. Or the French bidets or those weird squat things next to your toilet, which no one would install. It just doesn’t make sense. there’s no space, no one gets them. Some think it’s a fountain. You have to shimmy over with your poopy butt. It’s so weird. And so, that doesn’t work.
So, Andrew, for our first Valentine’s Day, eight years ago, he got me this Chinese clip-on bidet. It was just like, this ugly contraption, but it really worked. I was like, “What is this thing?” I was so intrigued. So, I started researching bidet attachments. I was like, “Wow, there are just other either crappy, ugly things, or those really expensive Japanese toilets for thousands of dollars.” There was no designer, modern, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing bidet that you can attach to an existing toilet, and turn any toilet into a bidet in 10 minutes. I was like, “Oh my god, ding ding ding. This is it. This is the idea that’s going to make bidets ubiquitous in America. I’m going to create the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing branded product that’s only $69 that anyone can afford, and present it to the American in a really relevant way.”
You know, you think about like, how did cars in America disrupt the horse and buggy category? Cars existed for only the wealthy! So, when it was that way, horse and buggy was still the main form of transportation. Until the Model T came, the Model T really was affordable to the masses. So, that’s why the Model T disrupted the entire horse and buggy category in the transportation category back then, because it could because it was affordable enough to the masses. So, similarly, Toto tried to come to the United States several times, but their products are just too expensive, too high end, they’re not relevant from a cultural brand perspective. They’re still very bathroom-y, and Japanese. They’re very Japanese, very insular in their thinking that way.
Jeffstaple: So, when you thought of the idea, did you have to go and figure out the manufacturing of it, too?
Miki Agrawal: Yeah. So, we had to go and find the manufacturer that will create the mold for this new product, that will believe and again, this first time. Luckily, I had a big hit under my belt with my previous company, that it was easier to get a manufacturer excited to work with me on this project.
Jeffstaple: Did you already make enough money from WILD and Thinx that now you didn’t have to ask for financing anymore?
Miki Agrawal: No, because I hadn’t had an exit yet. You know, those are still working businesses. With Tushy, I still had to raise money and do that.
Jeffstaple: What did you raise for Tushy?
Miki Agrawal: For Tushy, I raised $400,000 from the angel round from two investors. That was really, it was incredible. I went to dinner with one and he was like, “All right, we’re in for $400.,000.” I was like, “Wow, that was unreal.”
Jeffstaple: You got good. You basically got good at pitching!
Miki Agrawal: Yeah, he got super excited about it. And then, since…
Jeffstaple: You already had the brand ready, like logo, name, everything was set?
Miki Agrawal: Yeah. We had a 1.0 product manufactured already. Then, we’ve since to-date have raised a total of 1.5 million for the company. You know, we’re doing some really great numbers. We had our best last couple of months. We’re doing, you know, $6-$700,000 a month.
When Live Gives You Lemons…
Jeffstaple: Any hurdles thus far with Tushy?
Miki Agrawal: Yeah. I think the hurdles are people. Again, it’s entering the zeitgeist of culture. We were just on SNL last weekend on Sunday, when Michael Che himself… So, what happened was, we were trying to advertise our campaign for Tushy on the subways and they got rejected by the MTA because they were considered “sexual ads”. We’re like, “Bidets are a toilet product. It’s not a sexual product, what are you talking about?” So, they got rejected. We went to press and New York Daily News published the article that our ads got flushed down the toilet by the MTA.
I forgot that for Saturday Night Live, they scour all the New York dailies for funny content every week. They found the story. Michael Che, who’s like the head writer of SNL, he loves bidets and he loves Tushy! He basically actually was the one that went on Weekend Update, and did almost a three-minute rant on why these ads should have been on the subway, why bidets are important, why bidets are like, the best thing since sliced bread. He really just went nuts over it.
Jeffstaple: It was better that they rejected your ad.
Miki Agrawal: Exactly. It was such proof that bidets are entering the zeitgeist of culture. That’s what really, really excited us. We believe that we’re going to have an exponential year next year.
Miki Agrawal Offers Advice for Entrepreneurs
Jeffstaple: Now that you’ve founded these three companies or more probably, there’s more entrepreneurial things that you’ve done than these three. What kind of advice do you give to people who are trying to break through something that has the sort of like, old school programming parameters built in?
Miki Agrawal: You just have to create an amazing product really, and not compromise on the product. If you don’t have a great product, you can’t really create a new market. People are going to be like, “Yeah, it’s a decent product, but…” To have a best-in-class product, you have to have really considered artful design across every touchpoint of your brand. If you’re talking about something taboo, like poop, or periods, or pee, anything like that, if the aesthetic isn’t really, really thoughtfully considered every touch point, across every touch point, then people are going to be like, “Eww, gross.”
So, you have to be like, “Oh, wow, the first thing they have to be like, ‘That’s gorgeous. Oh, they’re talking about poop. Interesting.'” If their first thought is that’s beautiful, then psychologically, it opens yourself up to having that conversation for the first time. Right? The same thing is having accessible, relatable language. We used to write really technically and academically and medically and clinically, because we were like, quad tech technology. We thought people care, but no one cares about that. They just want to know, “Does it work? Talk to me like I’m a human, not like, I’m some robot.”
We started writing like we’re texting our best friend. With the right, relatable language, you’re like, “Oh, that feels… the way you’re talking to me feels so familiar.” Then, it’s just like, “Oh, it looks beautiful. Oh, the product is amazing. All right, I’m going to try that.” So, the way I talk about it is, if we’re trying to push everyone over the edge of the cliff, as in trying the product, every time we do something that’s relevant culturally, it makes people come closer to the edge, and then closer to the edge and closer to the edge. You don’t have to have gigantic viral moments every single time. I mean, you can’t predict virality.
Jeffstaple: I look forward in five years, when we’re laughing at people who use toilet paper.
In addition to her business successes, Miki Agrawal is an avid public speaker, often highlighting her personal insights and successes via various speaking engagements, interviews, and lectures. Additionally, Miki Agrawal is the best-selling author of “Do Cool Sh*t” and “Disrupt-Her”. To listen to her books, visit the Miki Agrawal Audible author page.
