Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. As cliche as it sounds, you can’t be afraid of making mistakes. This was particularly useful when it came to formulation development, as we learned how to perfect the SoaPen from our experimentation efforts. It is beneficial to keep organized records of your experimentation to identify areas for improvement.
As part of my series about young people who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amanat Anand.
Amanat Anand is an industrial designer and the co-founder of SoaPen Inc. Originally from New Delhi, India she graduated from the Parsons School of Design in New York with a BFA in Product Design. She has previously worked for ASH NYC as a furniture designer, and is a listmaker on Forbes 30 under 30.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit how you grew up?
I was born in New Delhi, India to very supportive and progressive parents. From a young age, they instilled the entrepreneurial spirit in me as I watched them pursue their own entrepreneurial endeavors. I grew up wanting to study architecture, however, that quickly changed when I discovered industrial design in college. The go-getter spirit that my parents instilled in me allowed me to pursue college in the states, and I immigrated to the United States to go to school. I have now been here for the last 10 years pursuing my dreams. Aside from my entrepreneurial aspirations, I enjoy roller blading, rock climbing, running, and biking. This has helped me maintain a work-life balance; it’s important to maintain hobbies that you are passionate about, even in the midst of new challenges, such as creating a startup!
Is there a particular book or organization that made a significant impact on you growing up? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I have grown to appreciate reading more as an adult than as a kid. When I was younger, I amassed a collection of “coffee table books”, ranging from architecture books to design magazines. Many of the impactful books I’ve read were by Zaha Hadid. Her books resonated with me because of her optimistic, aspirational words. She is a woman architect in a predominantly male-dominated industry, sharing a story of perseverance and strength. Her works are also very inspirational to me because her work was extremely innovative for its time.
How do you define “Making A Difference”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Making a difference can take on a lot of different meanings, and it’s respective to your own purpose. I see “making a difference” as impacting lives in a purposeful and delightful manner. We channeled our purpose through SoaPen in two key ways. We wanted to create long-lasting habit change among young kids. When making lasting, meaningful habits in young kids, simplicity is key. We have visited many low-income schools, and it can be hard to teach the importance of proper hand washing technique in a setting that might not have access to key resources. We also wanted to make hand washing a habit that can be viewed as fun, and create fun moments between parents and their kids. SoaPen introduces hand washing in a fun, easy to understand manner, making it less of a chore and more of a fun experience. This can help instill the proper hand washing technique in young kids by teaching children to associate hand washing with creative experiences.
Ok super. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. You are currently leading an organization that aims to make a social impact. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change in our world today?
Hand washing with soap is a golden rule of prevention and our first line of defense in combating the spread of infectious illnesses. Spending 20–40 seconds on proper hand washing can reduce the chance of getting infectious diseases by over 50%.
At SoaPen, our mission is to make proper hand washing fun and accessible to kids all over the world. SoaPen is a colored soap filled pen that kids can draw with on their hands. Kids are encouraged to draw all over their hands and in removing the traces of the drawing under water, they thoroughly wash their hands for 20–40 seconds.
For every 3 SoaPens sold in the US, we donate 1 to a low income community in my home country, India.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
Growing up in New Delhi, India, I knew that lack of proper hygiene is a big problem for a lot of people but I didn’t fully realize the scope of the problem worldwide till 2016 when the UNICEF Wearables for Good Challenge highlighted a scary statistic- over 1.5 million children under the age of 5 die due to infectious diseases and more than 50% of these illnesses can be prevented by the simple act of washing hands with soap.
At the time, I’d just graduated from the Industrial Design program at the Parsons School of Design. My friends and I were missing the creative environment of design school and came together to brainstorm on the UNICEF Challenge. We wanted to come at the problem from a product perspective and also turn hand washing into a fun experience for kis. That’s how we came up with the concept of SoaPen- a fun soap kids can draw with. To our big surprise, we went on to win the UNICEF Wearables for Good Challenge for the concept of SoaPen and used the prize money to start research and development to make it a reality. We launched SoaPen in 2018 and since been featured on Real Simple, Money Magazine and Now This among other publications.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest it. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?
After growing up in New Delhi, India and moving to the United States, I realized that I had to seize opportunities that I likely would not have had at home. Having access to these newfound opportunities in the United States made living thousands of miles away from home all the more worth it. When we applied for the UNICEF competition, I had no idea that it would lead to the birth of Shubham and my start up, SoaPen, and completely change our lives. Winning the UNICEF competition came to us as a surprise, and gave us the courage to pursue our product. Not only were we drawn in by the external interest in our product, but we were intrigued by the prospect of creating a social impact with our product.
Many young people don’t know the steps to take to start a new organization. But you did. What are some of the things or steps you took to get your project started?
We were a team of industrial designers and had no idea how to make soap. None of us had a chemical engineering background but we were really passionate about making SoaPen a reality.
One of the first steps we took was to reach out to industry experts for advice on how to make our concept a reality. The hardest part was finding the right partners to work with on research, development and production. We spoke to countless manufacturers across the U.S. and landed on a partner who really believed in our mission after seeking recommendations from mentors.
We always put the user first and carried out multiple sessions where we tested SoaPen with kids to get their feedback and improve the product. After landing on an MVP, we ran a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to conduct our first large production run.
That was a big lesson for me- being vulnerable and speaking up about our idea to friends and family and asking them to back us in making it a reality.
Like every bootstrapped company, we had little to no marketing budget when we finally launched our product on Amazon. The first couple of months were really tough but we continued to try different channels and were lucky enough to get some earned media which brought our product to national and global attention.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
This journey has made me a more optimistic person, which I did not expect considering the challenges and bumps in the road that come along with establishing a new venture. I didn’t realize the abundance of opportunities that I would have in the United States. I was a recipient of the Toyota Mother of Invention (MOI) award in 2019, which came along with a grant of $50,000. This was completely unexpected, as we had no idea that this award included a grant. This opened up even more doors for Shubham and I, as SoaPen was featured in Real Simple magazine after we were introduced to an editor after receiving Toyota MOI recognition.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?
Our crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter was open to backers worldwide and we had a friend who worked at Facebook that pledged their monthly ad credit to help us spread the word. We decided to target The Netherlands (one of the most giving nations in the world) with ads to our crowdfunding campaign not realizing that SoaPen directly translates to STD-pen in Dutch. So for a couple of hours, we were targeting STD-pen for kids in the Netherlands. A kind Dutch follower who ended up backing our campaign informed us that a soap pen would instead be ZeePen in Dutch…lesson learned.
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
The community of mentors, believers, fellow entrepreneurs and cheerleaders is the reason we’ve come so far. From manufacturing to ecommerce, we’ve reached out to experts for help throughout our journey which has been pivotal in shaping the direction our business has taken.
Early on, we had a really hard time picking the right contract manufacturers to work with. Either their minimum quantity orders were too high or they weren’t interested in working with a small and new business like ours. On a chance meeting with our accountant, he connected us to the CEO of a big consumer goods company who for no other reason than believing in our mission, connected us to their manufacturing partners, put in a good word and even helped us negotiate order quantities- playing a pivotal role in furthering our business.
Without saying specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
One of the most interesting use cases for SoaPen that we did not expect was its effectiveness in teaching kids with special needs how to wash their hands properly. We discovered this after approaching the Reece School on the upper west side in NY to see if they’d be interested in a hand washing awareness campaign at their school. Once we started seeing SoaPen in use, we realized it’s so much better than typical soap because drawing with SoaPen on their hands is a sensory experience for kids! SoaPen really impacted a lot of students positively that day and we’ve since partnered with the school in many different ways.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
- As a society: recognise that poor hygiene and hand-washing habits represent issues/failings at the institutional level
- Politicians: support legislation that enables access to clean and safe drinking water to all socio-economic backgrounds
- As a community: Create a conversation around good hygiene habits with kids early
Fantastic. Here is the main question of the interview. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each).
1) The value of having a community.
- I tend to be more introverted, but having a supportive community means I have people who lift me up during hard times. It’s also great having people to benchmark yourself against.
2) Surround yourself with the best in the industry.
- Mentors will come and go as the landscape of your venture changes, but mentors are important assets to any team. The lessons you can learn from your mentors’ experiences are indispensable.
3) Keep a close eye on your finances.
- Even if your background in finance is limited, it is important to understand the financial health of your venture. This instilled a newfound confidence in me, as I understood the health of my company from a financial standpoint and could make informed insights and decisions.
4) Connect with other entrepreneurs.
- You can learn a lot from the entrepreneurial mindsets and experiences of others starting their own ventures, as no one’s experience is the same.
5) Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.
- As cliche as it sounds, you can’t be afraid of making mistakes. This was particularly useful when it came to formulation development, as we learned how to perfect the SoaPen from our experimentation efforts. It is beneficial to keep organized records of your experimentation to identify areas for improvement.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Seeing kids being impacted positively through something I created is one of the best feelings in the world. Consider making that positive impact around you to create strong community bonds and bring your own unique perspective to problems around you.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
There are many people who I would jump at the opportunity to have a meal with. Recently, I have been very interested in meeting with the founders or co-CEOs of Harry’s Inc, Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield. Their journey has inspired me, and I would be curious to know what drives them as entrepreneurs. No entrepreneurs’ experience is linear, and every entrepreneur experiences their journey in a different way. The world sees what entrepreneurs make public to the world, essentially giving us a “highlight reel” of their experiences. Harry’s Inc is challenging some large consumer product companies, such as Unilever, in a contemporary way. I would love the opportunity to gain insights from them about maintaining a competitive edge in an ever changing business and consumer landscape.
How can our readers follow you online?
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Young Change Makers: Why and How Amanat Anand of SoaPen Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.