277. The Taboo Trifecta

The serial entrepreneur Miki Agrawal loves to talk about the bodily functions that make most people flinch. That's why she's building a business around the three P's: periods, pee, and poop.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. The best investments are the ones you make in yourself, and no one knows that better than Southern New Hampshire University. With more than 200 online degree programs, no set class times, and low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University is built to fit your life today and set you up for success tomorrow. Education is an investment. Why not make it a smart one? Apply for free at SNHU.edu/freakonomics. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing

• 0:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did, since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely not YOLO type. PNC Bank: Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank: National Association, Member FDIC. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right stay for work faster.

• 1:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  With business preferences, save your travel must-haves, like gym access or breakfast, just once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work-travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at hotels.com. Visit hotels.com for details.

• 1:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work is a new way to work in ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work can pull info from across your apps and connect to your tools to help you create finished work. You can even automate work in ChatGPT with the Scheduled Tasks feature, and the whole time, you stay in control. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  I'm in the business of taboo. My job is to not be afraid to talk about things.

• 2:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Things like...

• 2:43Speaker 01

  It absorbs at least two full tampons' worth of blood, so you don't have to change halfway through the day.

• 2:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Things like...

• 2:49Speaker 01

  If a bird poops in your face, would you take a piece of paper and wipe it with paper, or would you wash it?

• 2:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  And things like...

• 2:54Speaker 01

  You know, the way I consider myself as a feminist is the fact that I'm solving a problem for women. And if that's not feminist, I don't know what is.

• 3:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Our guest today on Freakonomics Radio?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  My name is Miki Agrawal, and I'm the CEO and co-founder of Things.

• 3:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  And what's her advice to would-be fellow entrepreneurs?

• 3:12Speaker 01

  I always ask them three questions to answer. You know, question number one is, what sucks in my world? And question number two, does it suck for a lot of people? Like, if it sucks for just you, then maybe you're just a diva and, like, whatever. You know, go for yourself. But like, but if it sucks for a lot of people, then it's an opportunity. And question number three, which I think is the most important to ask yourself, is, can I be passionate about this issue, cause, or community for a really, really long time? Because it does take 10 years to be an overnight success.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  From WNYC Studios, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 4:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Miki Agrawal, 38 years old, is an entrepreneur and a striver, and perhaps most of all, a disruptor. That is just how her family does things.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  My mother's from Japan, and my dad's from India. And I grew up in Montreal, Canada. And my parents met and fell in love in 1974. And it was kind of an all-odds against some love story. Like, my dad had an arranged marriage for him set in India. So his big sort of dilemma was, do I marry for love or do I marry for duty? Because they had a dowry to give to their family, which would have helped out the family. My mom, she was Japanese, from a very wealthy Japanese family. And to her parents' utter shock and dismay, she was choosing to marry this Indian man who's, you know, middle-class, from India. And her big dilemma was, do I marry for love or do I marry for honor? And they both chose each other. And within seven months, they were married.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  And then they had three children in one year.

• 5:05Stephen J. Dubner?

  One daughter, and then 11 months later, twin girls. Miki is one of the twins. Their father was an engineer. Their mother had studied international relations.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  My parents were real problem solvers. And they weren't entrepreneurs, but they really were. And so I remember growing up, when I was like in elementary school, my mom was looking for a gifted children's summer camp for us. And there were sports camps, and there was regular summer camps, but there wasn't any gifted children's summer camps. And so they basically decided that we're going to start our own. Like, okay, this is lacking in the community. We're just going to do it ourselves. And so my mom, with her thick Japanese accent, without any connections, any money, any relationships at all, managed to build the first gifted children's summer camp. And it ran for 15 years, with like 500 kids per year. And it was super successful. And then, when we were in high school, like in 14 years old, my parents recognized that electronic-

• 5:58Speaker 01

  was going to be the future of the world. And at the time, there was no cell phones and computers were just beginning. My family had the first Commodore 64 computer in our family neighborhood. And my dad was an aeronautical engineer and believed that electronics was the future. But what they did was they decided that they wanted their kids to learn about electronics and they couldn't find anywhere for their kids to learn about it. And so they decided to start their own company called Tomorrow's Professionals, which was this electronics kits company that my dad wrote the manual, the experimenters manual. And my mom built the little kits which had like breadboards and resistors and transistors and diodes and LED lights and switches and speakers and alligator clips and all these different things that you can make burglar alarms and you can make little switches that

• 6:43Speaker 01

  like, you know, turn the light on and you learn about electronics. And they ended up selling this company all over Canada and built a really cool educational business out of it. And so throughout my life, they just were seeing issues in the community, finding holes. And rather than just complaining about it, they just did something about it. So I observed my parents like that and therefore I was like, oh, I don't have to have any resources, any money, any connections. If I see a problem, I'm going to go solve it.

• 7:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Agarwal and her twin sister were eager to come to the States for college. They attended Cornell and played soccer.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  I mean, I played my whole life, so we practiced constantly and played at, you know, the highest level in Canada. But going to American college where sports, especially Division One, was taken extremely seriously, you know, you have strength training and then you have fitness and then you have to go to your practice, then you have a 72-hour rule, so you can't drink for 72 hours. Not that we drank much anyway, but it was a very strict process. And I think that gave us a lot of discipline as well. And then after my senior year in college, we started thinking about jobs and we didn't really know what we want to be when we grew up because we were like soccer players our whole lives, that's what we were defined ourselves as.

• 7:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  And when you keep saying we, it sounds like you and your twin sister, Rada, is that her name? Yes?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we talk in we's constantly. I don't even know how to say I.

• 8:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Are you or were you virtually inseparable? I mean, it's a little bit weird for twins to decide to go to the same school and do the same things.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were. I mean, we both recruited to play soccer at Cornell as a one-two punch. And we both studied the same things. And we just, yeah, we were pretty attached at the hip. We always had a buddy that no one ever messed with us, you know? We always had a level of, I guess, self-assuredness because we always had somebody laughing at our jokes and there to be there for us no matter what. So I guess I talk in wheeze because it's always me and my sister, yeah, I suppose.

• 8:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  So you went to college together, you played college soccer together, you moved to New York together. Then what?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Then I got a job in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, Duschbank. And I did the investment banking analyst's training program. And within two months, so I officially started my job September 1, 2001. And my subway stop every single morning was Two World Trade Center. So I would get off Two World Trade Center, go upstairs, get tea with my girlfriend, who worked on the 100th floor of Two World Trade. And then I would walk across the street to my office, which is directly across Two World Trade Center. And 9/11 happened, and 700 people in my girlfriend's office died on that day. And two people in my office died. Crazy, crazy stories. I worked at 130 Liberty directly across Two World Trade Center.

• 9:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Where was Agarwal that day?

• 9:33Speaker 01

  I just slept through my alarm clock. And I was supposed to be there at 8:30 in the morning. And I just slept through my alarm clock and missed the whole thing. And I've never in my lifetime slept through my alarm clock, except for that one single day. It's pretty remarkable, to be honest.

• 9:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  The communal tragedy jolted Agarwal into a personal revelation.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  I recognize that truly, the mystery of life is you never know when it's going to end. And so the goal is to really make every moment count. And I was so lucky that I was 22 years old and not 32 or 42 when I had that realization, that aha moment, that I'm not going to pursue investment banking for money or status or to get, you know, I just absolutely know I'm going to do something that lights me up. And so I wrote down three things I wanted to do with my life. And the first was to play soccer professionally. The second was to make movies. And the third was to start a business.

• 10:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  The New York Magic, a women's soccer team, was holding tryouts in Brooklyn.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  I just decided to try out. And I snuck out of my investment banking job for two and a half months straight.

• 10:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  The tryouts whittled down the many aspirants to a select few.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  And then, so I basically made the team and made the starting lineup. And was also to quit my investment banking job, but I decided just in case, who knew what would happen. And I just decided to stay in my banking job and play my first game of the season. And within eight minutes of my professional career, after I assisted a goal, a girl came in, slide tackled me, and I heard that telltale snap and tore my ACL. So, you know, I had to basically stay at the investment bank to get the very best health insurance and the very best physical therapy to rehabilitate myself. And I came back out the following year, made the starting lineup again. And then in a semifinal game in the next season, I tore my other ACL.

• 11:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  By now, Agarwal had left banking, and now her soccer career was also over. Time for item number two on her list of career goals: making movies. During college, she'd had summer jobs in LA in the film business, so she reconnected with her contacts, and she got some entry level work. After a while, she was helping to produce commercials and music videos. And then, one day, at the craft services table, an epiphany.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  When you're eating out on set all the time, you're eating crappy processed food, you're getting, you know, pigs in a blanket and like processed candy and like just crap. And, you know, I kept coming home with horrible stomach aches. And finally, I was like, enough is enough. And I researched it. And in my research, discovered the huge processed food industry, all the crap that was in food. And I was just like, this is absurd. And so I started looking at the foods that I had had to give up. And my favorite comfort food was pizza. The pizza industry is a $32 billion industry, and yet, nobody was making it better for you. It was just adding more processed cheese, more processed toppings, bleached flour, sugar-filled sauces. It was just bad. And so, my first ding ding ding idea

• 12:18Speaker 01

  was, I'm going to create the New York's first gluten-free farm-to-table organic pizza place. And I had no experience.

• 12:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Lack of experience had not stopped Agarwal's parents from their various startups. She figured she'd figured out. The smart thing, she thought, was to seek out people who knew the restaurant business.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  I started by trying to do one-on-one meetings and trying to pick people's brains, and nobody wanted to meet with me. And I was like, this is so stupid. And it would take forever if I wanted to pick like 20 people's brains. I'd have to have 20 meetings and, you know, 20 cups of coffee. And I just, I don't even drink coffee.

• 12:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  So she came up with a different plan and she leaned on friends.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  And so what I did was I borrowed my friend's beautiful New York City loft apartment.

• 12:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  Another friend was a chef.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  I remember meeting, playing soccer in Central Park. I found out he was a chef. And I asked him to come and cook a meal for this event. In exchange, he built up to spend five minutes telling his story about his chefing experience, et cetera.

• 13:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  The event was a nice free meal in a beautiful apartment to which she invited 20 people who she thought could help her start her healthy pizza restaurant. Business people, food people, creative people.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  So 20 out of 20 people showed up. And I'm like, oh, my God, you need to meet this person. You guys will fall in love. Like, oh, my God, like, you guys can talk about design and writing and work together. And then I basically made sure that everyone got something out of the experience.

• 13:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Beforehand, by email, Agarwal had asked everyone to think about the big questions she had about starting a restaurant.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  And they get to now come and ideate about someone else's business without having any worry about doing it or dealing with it. They get to come and just give their opinion and that's it. And so I walked out with so much knowledge.

• 13:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  In 2006, she opened the restaurant called Slice on the Upper East Side. But she didn't follow all the advice she'd been given. Rather than doing a soft launch and working out the kinks quietly, she got a bunch of advance press and was overwhelmed by demand. And generally, she had every sort of problem a new restaurant could possibly have. Eventually, she brought in a pro to run the place. In any case, now that she had experience starting a business, she was open to starting another one. All she needed was a killer idea.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  And in 2005, my twin sister and I were at our family barbecue and we were defending our three-legged race championship title, as one does.

• 14:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  If you haven't deduced by now, Mickey Agarwal is a little competitive. She likes to win.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  And in the middle of our three-legged race, my twin sister started her period. And like, we were tied to each other, you know? And so, we basically had to like sprint through the finish line, still in first place, and ran up the stairs, still tied to each other, still tied to each other, ran to the bathroom. And so, in the bathroom, as my sister took out her bathing suit bottoms, and was washing the blood out of the bathing suit bottoms, was when the idea hit. It was like, oh, oh my gosh, wouldn't it be amazing if we could create a pair of underwear that never leak, that never stain, that can just support women during really important times, like the three-legged race? And then we went outside and talked to our older sister, Yuri, the one who's 11 months older. And she's the head of an exsurgeon at Johns Hopkins. And, you know, I remember trying to borrow a pair of underwear from her one time, and literally looking at her underwear drawer, and every single one of her underwear soiled. And I was like, what is up with that?

• 15:27Speaker 01

  And she's like, well, in the middle of an operation, you can't just like, when you're operating somebody's face, you can't just be like, yo, face, stay open while I go and change my tampon. Like, you can't do that. You have to finish the operation, and you leak in your blues, and you get, you know, you leak everywhere. And so, she's never had an option that supported her when she was in the middle of a 12, 14-hour operation. And then we thought about all the different scenarios. When you're on a plane, when you're stuck in traffic, when you're giving a presentation, when you're on a recital, when you're doing anything. And so, it was just like, oh my God, that's a huge, massive opportunity here, where there hasn't been like innovation in 50 years in this category or more.

• 16:05Stephen J. Dubner?

  Was no one else offering period panties at the time? Were you the first?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  I mean, there had been some mom and pops who tried, but they were like plastic diapers that nobody wanted to wear, you know? And so, for all intents and purposes, there was none that existed. So, basically, what we wanted to do was create a pair of underwear that, you know, not only did it look and feel like a regular pair of underwear, and by the way, the underwear category is a $14 billion category. So, combined underwear plus feminine hygiene is like 30-plus billion-dollar category that had very little innovation. Underwear was only being made more see-through, more sexy, more flimsy, more lacy, more and supportive for women. And not only do you have your period, but you have like, you know, discharge mid-cycle. You have like ovulation, I mean, these are things that happen to women. So, we want to create a product that made a woman feel

• 16:54Speaker 01

  like they were just putting on a beautiful, regular pair of underwear that felt sexy, that looked great, that felt comfortable. And actually worked. So the innermost layer wicks away moisture, keeping the user feeling dry. You don't want to bleed into something and feel wet. You want to feel dry. When you like, you know, have an overflow or leak into them, you don't feel wet at all. It's odorless because there's an antimicrobial technology that you don't smell anything. It's absorbent. It absorbs at least two full tampons worth of blood. So you don't have to change halfway through the day. It's like you last a whole day and you get to go home and just hand wash it, either hang dry or throw in the washing machine and comes out brand new. And so basically, we had this idea. We spent three and a half years developing and patenting the technology to make sure it's exactly what we wanted ourselves. And that's what took us almost four years to develop the product. And so now it was time

• 17:39Speaker 01

  to go out and raise money. And that was one of the greatest challenges of my life because, again, most investors I met were men.

• 17:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  So now you go out to meet with VCs and what's that pitch like and how well, obviously it worked eventually. Did it take a while or no?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, it took over a year. And initially, it's like you meet with so many people and it's like, let me take this to my wife. And I'm like, oh, my God, I hate you. You know, and it's just like that you're, it's out of context. What are you going to say to your wife? Is it like, they don't have no idea. Like, it's just, it just was a terrible. And then they would come back like, no, thanks. You know, and it's just like, ugh. And we would try everything. And we'd be like, you don't understand how women feel on your period. It's scary. They didn't care about that. So eventually, I figured out the way to talk about it to men, which was really about the industry. There's a huge opportunity to disrupt and create this multi-billion dollar space that no one's touched in 50 years. And then eventually, we actually raised no money in the beginning. We tried everything. We didn't raise any money. So we had to actually launch a Kickstarter

• 18:38Speaker 01

  campaign. And we raised 65,000 on Kickstarter. Then we did an Indiegogo campaign, raised 20,000 on Indiegogo. And then we did, we entered a couple of challenges. We won a contest, won 25,000 cash purse. And then we launched a crappy 1.0 pre-launch website and raised another 20,000 there. So altogether, we cobbled like $130,000 and used that money to produce our first 3,000 units in China. And then, and then we were able to take that, the 3,000 pairs of underwear, and then send it out to our customers, our first like pre-selling, pre-order customers. And then we sent out a survey thereafter and then got a bunch of feedback and used that survey to go out and raise an angel round. We raised about $425,000 for our angel round. And then we subsequently closed a series A round with

• 19:23Speaker 01

  a strategic investment partner who now manufactures all of our products.

• 19:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  So you're up through series A now, or have you gone beyond A?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  We've been profitable. We haven't had to raise any more money.

• 19:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  And so give me a little bit, as much as you're willing to divulge, what things is worth at the moment and/or what your annual revenues are?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  I wish I can tell you that, but I really can't. I can tell you that we grew 23X from 2015 to 2016 in revenue. Yeah, and that's all I can say right now because we're-

• 19:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  And you're profitable.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  And we're profitable, yeah.

• 19:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  How many employees?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  We are gonna be pushing 40 in a few weeks. Yeah, 37 plus a few.

• 20:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Coming up on Freakonomics Radio, the ad campaign for Agrawal's period panties was a bit much for some people.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  The fact that New York City subway system did not want to put our ads in the subway shows that we are wrapped in this patriarchal system right here in the most progressive city in the world, New York City.

• 20:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  And, once she got into the business of taboo, Mickey Agrawal was eager to go further.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  When you think about the way we go to the bathroom and poop, that literally hasn't changed since 1890.

• 20:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the tee you somehow always reach for first? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully-designed furniture.

• 21:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/freak. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/freak.

• 21:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So, switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing

• 22:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did, since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely not YOLO type. PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.

• 23:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  In 2014, Miki Agrawal, along with her twin sister Radha and a friend, Antonia St. Dunbar, launched a company called Thinks, with an X. It makes period panties to be worn instead of the standard menstrual items like pads or tampons. But to Agrawal, her period panties are different.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  It's not just buying a menstrual item.

• 23:29Stephen J. Dubner?

  To her, it represents more than that.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  It represents freedom. It represents liberation. It represents, let's talk about this. Let's face this thing that people are considered, you know, that people consider taboo.

• 23:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  A lot of inventors and entrepreneurs are driven by some origin story from their youth. Not so, Miki Agrawal.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Honestly, I have zero recollection of getting my period for the first time. I was a very busy kid.

• 23:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  In the fall of 2015, Agarwal's company submitted an ad campaign to run in the New York City subway. The imagery, in one ad, a peeled half of a pink grapefruit. In another, an egg just cracked open dripping off a countertop. The slogan, underwear for women with periods. The company that approves subway advertising was not so taken with the Thinks ads. Among other things, they said the imagery was inappropriate.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I mean, the fact that New York City subway system did not want to put our ads in the subway because of the word period shows that we are wrapped in this patriarchal system right here in the most progressive city in the world, New York City.

• 24:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Agarwal took to the internet to stir up some feminist fury. Eventually, the company did approve the ads.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  I think periods have been used in a very political way for so long to keep women down. If you look at the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, they all talk about if you touch a woman on her period, you will be defiled. You are, she's considered impure and unclean. I mean, these are all tactics to keep women as second-class citizens. And it's absurd because we are the things that are the vessels in which men and women are created. I mean, I have a little mini, you know, male part growing inside of me right now. And I'm a little boy, and that boy would not exist without that period blood. And the fact that it's considered shameful and unclean and impure, and you'll be defiled if you touch a woman on her period, that's clearly a tactic because it really should be a time of celebration

• 25:22Speaker 01

  and gratitude and appreciation for women and really lifting them up and making them feel good during that sacrifice every single month.

• 25:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  It just strikes me that some of the pieces that I've read about you by kind of capital F feminists, they seem to feel that you're not in the camp, in the feminism camp, the way that they want you to be. I don't understand what they think you're doing wrong. Is there something like incompatible with commercial success and feminism, for instance? Or is it entrepreneurialism? Is it a weird form of misogyny that they're exercising? I'm just curious to know what that is.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's to me a fake feminism. You know, it's like people who wear the feminist sweater loud and proud and they're actually not real feminists. They just pretend to be or they want to be part of a club. Like you want to be, you know, wear the cross around your neck and be part of church. You know what I mean? And the minute that someone doesn't espouse the same God that you espouse in the exact same way that you pray to that God, then they will be like basically judging you. And so I have zero tolerance for that and I will come back with with full integrity with what I believe to be real and true. You know, I think about feminism through innovation and I, and I think about it by offering products and inventing things that support women and make them feel less shame about themselves.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  But I don't necessarily wear the badge loudly and proudly. And I do, I'm a feminist, but I don't have to wear that feminist AF sweater to be a feminist. You know what I mean?

• 26:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  There is a substantial literature in economics showing that menstruation imposes a large cost on girls and women around the world. In some places, female students miss school or drop out entirely once they begin menstruating. Female employees who miss work because of their periods are obviously at a disadvantage. Low-income women and girls especially stand to gain a lot by addressing this problem. Thinks's panties, however, aren't cheap, at least if you're thinking only about upfront costs, for about $24 a pair.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  And you can spend up to, you know, yeah, almost 200 for a seven-day cycle set.

• 27:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  But, Agrawal argues, that's an investment that quickly pays off.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Your tampons are costing you about, you know, $12, including your, plus your panty liners, plus the dry cleaning for your underwear, plus the ruined clothes, you know, all that adds up.

• 27:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  So by her mathematical reckoning, with Thinks's period panties...

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Within three months, you're totally paid up for the whole year.

• 27:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  She also promotes the environmental upside of clothing that gets reworn versus menstrual products that get thrown away.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  20 billion plastic tampon applicators, pads and menstrual products end up in a landfill every single year.

• 28:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, we should say that environmental math... It's often a bit trickier than that. Just think about any of the reusable versus disposable products you've heard about. Cloth diapers versus plastic, ceramic coffee mug versus a paper or a plastic cup. Most claims that advocate for the reusable items don't factor in their environmental costs, especially the laundering costs, all the energy it takes to heat the hot water for the dishwasher or washing machine, the water itself, gallon upon gallon of it, a runoff channel for the dirty soapy water. So when you examine what's called a lifecycle energy assessment for reusable versus disposable, it's often not at all clear that disposable is worse, or at least much worse.

• 28:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  We asked Agarwal about this argument. She didn't show much interest.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  I mean, when you wear a pair of underwear that lasts you two years versus the, you know, you're going through an average of 15, 20 tampons a cycle times a year. That's 20 times 12, it's 240 tampon applicators that end up in a landfill. That's way more than a pair of underwear, like by a country mile.

• 29:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  In any case, Agarwal sees herself as a disruptor of a practice and an industry long in need of disruption, and one disruption led to another.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  You know, the three Ps, periods, pee and poop.

• 29:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Next came pee.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  People kept asking us, can we use this product for more than just periods? Like, you know, for like light bladder leakage? And so we developed Icon as sort of a sister brand to Thinks, which is our pee-proof underwear. And the idea is, is that it offers a very simple solution for women who have light bladder leakage or stress urinary incontinence. Right now, you know, it's a $6.9 billion incontinence category where Depends and Poise diaper products exist, which make women feel like shit. I mean, you pop out two babies and you might have a little bit of bladder issues and, you know, and now you're considered ashamed again by that, by perpetuating the human species. It's just absurd. And so we developed a very simple product that has completely different technology to Thinks.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  It's specifically made for urine, for light bladder leakage. We have, you know, our first product holds 25 milliliters of urine. We're doing a 15, 75 milliliter hold next. They're odorless, they're fast drying, they're moisture wicking, they're leak proof, they have leak proof seams, they're seamless. So we believe that Icon in itself could be a billion dollar business.

• 30:29Stephen J. Dubner?

  And then there's the third component of Agarwal's Taboo Triumvirate. It's a product called Tushy.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Which is a simple bidet product that, you know, our bidet attachment is $69. It literally attaches to any standard American toilet, turns any toilet into a bidet in less than 10 minutes without any electrical or plumbing. And it literally is the most transformational thing you can put in your bathroom. Why is our butt the only part of our body we clean with paper? If a bird poops in your face, would you take a piece of paper and wipe it with paper? Or would you wash it?

• 30:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  Again, the impetus for Tushy came from Agarwal's own brand of feminist thinking.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Which is, again, out of a need because women were like, how do I keep my vagina clean? How do I keep myself clean during my periods? And we're like, well, you know, especially when you get UTIs and hemorrhoids and things like that, when you think about the way we go to the bathroom and poop, that literally hasn't changed since 1890. And so we basically were like, no, this is ridiculous. How is toilet paper that was invented in 1890 still the thing that we use to wipe our asses when we know that it doesn't really work? Not to mention it's completely unsustainable. It hurts sewage systems between toilet paper wet wipe blockages. So it's just, I mean, it's astronomically terrible.

• 31:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Why do you think Americans have been so anti-bidet?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Because English hate the French and the French invented the bidet. This Frenchman invented the bidet, number one. I'm serious. And number two, number two, it's because during World War II, when Americans went to Europe to fight World War II, you know, the American soldiers would go to French brothels and they would see bidets in French brothels. And then they associated bidets with French brothels. And when they came back, they were like, we weren't in brothels. Ew, gross. We think that's terrible. Meanwhile, they were, and then they associated, they were like, oh, it's dirty. And so everyone then, they created this thing that bidets are dirty. Meanwhile, it's actually 1,000 times cleaner than using paper and literally smearing poop up your butt and sitting on fecal matter all day long. That's literally what you're doing.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  And, um, and it's been cost prohibitive to get all these like very expensive Japanese toilets. People live in rentals, they don't want to spend. Our product is $69. You know, you can check it out at helotushy.com. Do not go to tushy.com. It is a porn site.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  And that cookie will, that cookie will follow you around for a long time.

• 32:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  I want to ask you a series of kind of lightning round, frequently asked questions.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 32:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  If you had a time machine, when would you travel to? Can go forward or backwards? And why? And what would you do there?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  I would probably go back to the agricultural revolution. When, you know, men went from hunting and gathering to becoming sedentary farmers. At which point, when they're sedentary, they started to want more power because they spent all their energy and testosterone in the field trying to get food. And now food was growing no problem. And so they want to now regain power from, because the women back in the day were actually the ones passing down wisdom from generation to generation. It used to be a matrilineal era when the women's namesake was being passed down instead of the man's namesake, but then it all changed. So I would probably go back to the agricultural revolution and really understand when that switch happened.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  I'd be just curious to see when it went from women being sort of the dominant wisdom voice to the men and understand what can be done there.

• 33:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's such an interesting answer. What's one thing you've spent too much money on but don't regret?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  I think travel. I go on like two trips a year and it's just the best, best money I'll ever spend is traveling.

• 34:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  What's one thing you own that you probably should throw away but never will?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  My Cornell soccer jacket.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  My boyfriend, my partner keeps saying like, can we just move? And he's like, can we, I was like, absolutely not.

• 34:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  What is something that you believe to be true for a long time till you found out that you were wrong?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a really good one. That, I mean, I didn't realize that there were a billion obese people in addition to a billion hungry people on the planet. That was a crazy alarming thing to find out and know.

• 34:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, that is a mind blower, isn't it? That, I mean, for all of human civilization, we had one problem and then it, in a blink of an eye, really is the opposite problem. All right. And what is the best possible future discovery or invention?

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Future discovery or invention?

• 35:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  The best possible, however you want to define that. Maybe it's for, you know, what you think is the best, or maybe it's something that benefits humankind most of all, whatever it is.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  I think it's, it's a vacuum cleaner for polluted air.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  I think like being able to create a thing that can just like swallow up all this air pollution and turn it into clean air, oxygen.

• 35:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  That was serial entrepreneur Mickey Agrewall, running toward the taboos that everyone else is running away from. Next time on Freakonomics Radio, Chuck E. Cheese is famous as a gathering place for families with kids. It's also infamous as a place where fights break out.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  No! Chuck E. Cheese action!

• 35:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  What's going on when a fight breaks out at a family restaurant? Is it a pizza problem, an alcohol problem? Or, here's another theory, a pricing problem? That's next time on Freakonomics Radio.

• 36:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Shelley Lewis. Our staff also includes Greg Rosalsky, Christopher Wirth, Stephanie Tam, Merritt Jacob, Eliza Lambert, Alison Hockenberry, Emma Morgenstern, Harry Huggins, and Brian Gutierrez. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should also check out our archive at Freakonomics.com, where you can stream or download every episode we've ever made, or you can read the transcripts and find links to the underlying research. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, or via email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

• 37:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by EverPure. Is the value of AI not living up to the promise? The problem is probably your data, not your AI models. When it's scattered across different systems, getting your data AI-ready is a challenge. You keep your AI waiting and everything slows down. EverPure unifies your data so you can see it, understand it, and control it all from one simple place and get it AI-ready fast. Unlock the true value of your AI at everpuredata.com. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Ozempic. Innovation happens through rethinking what's possible, and when it comes to GLP-1s, Ozempic pill does just that.

• 37:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Learn more about Ozempic semaglutide tablets, 4 and 9 milligrams, by calling 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view the medication guide and ask your doctor what's possible with FDA-approved Ozempic pill. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern Company. The world and its energy needs are always changing. Southern Company's commitment to meeting this demand stays the same. That's because Southern Company believes energy is more than a utility, it's what powers possibilities. So they are looking ahead and investing $80 billion in infrastructure upgrades and are committed to fueling growth in ways that benefit all customers so that reliable

• 38:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  and affordable energy is accessible for generations to come. Go to southerncompany.com to learn more. Southern Company, building the future of energy.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Is there a right time to sell a stock? Are you taking the right risks with your portfolio? Financial decisions can be tricky, and often your own cognitive and emotional biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help. Join host Mark Reapy as he offers practical solutions to help overcome the cognitive and emotional biases that may affect your investing decisions. Listen at schwab.com/financialdecoder.