Recently, social entrepreneur Miki Agrawal sat down with Dan Murray, host of the Secret Leaders podcast, to discuss the origins of her business, what she’s learned, and how she’s become a prolific leader. Miki Agrawal is the Founder of TUSHY, a bidet company aiming to bring bidets to every American bathroom. In addition to this company, Agrawal previously launched Wild, and Thinx. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Miki Agrawal is the best-selling author behind “Do Cool Sh*t” and “Disrupt-Her”, and is often touted for her public speaking skills.
Read on for highlights from their conversation:
Learning Lessons
Dan Murray: I want to know what your biggest learning is on your journey?
Miki Agrawal: I think the biggest learning is higher slow, fire fast, that’s one of the biggest ones, really take time into getting to know the people that we work with and make sure that we have people at different levels so that they can learn from each other. And that there there’s no one major group, it’s beautifully diverse age-wise, experience-wise, obviously race, gender. Tushy is diverse in every possible way. And we’re just one of that. I think that diversity is actually huge. I know it sounds like, “Ah,” but it’s, it’s not.
One of the things that I learned is that conscious businesses outperform major in the S&P 500 Dow Jones by up to 13 times if you actually are thinking about the stakeholder models, where every stakeholder wins, not just shareholders, employees, customers suppliers, the environment, it’s a win, win, win, win, win model. And that model actually proves to have financially exponentially better results.
Miki Agrawal On The Best Advice She’s Gotten
Dan Murray: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? And the second part of that is what is your best piece of advice for any aspiring entrepreneurs looking to follow in your footsteps?
Miki Agrawal: I’ll start with a latter. The best piece of advice that I can give any entrepreneur, anybody who is interested in this journey is to really show up for your friends, truly, and not be like, “Sorry, sorry, my company, busy, I can’t do it, I can’t make it. I’m too important. I can’t.” Because at the end of the day, you’re going to go through ups and downs and you’re going to go through shit, and to have a solid community of friends there with you along the journey, through the highs and through the lows to hold your hand, is the most critical thing, because otherwise, you’re just on this lonely journey. And I think where I was able to really go through the valleys of my last company in that really challenging time was having my whole community hold me so beautifully through that time, because I show up for my friends so hardcore. I go to everything, even if I’m busy as fuck, I’m there for their events, I’m there for their things, I’m there for their parties, for their things, and to support the shit out of them. And I prioritize that, because there’s nothing more important than deep friendship through anything.
On The Importance of Friendship
Miki Agrawal: Your businesses will come and go, but your friendships are what really hold our hearts and hold our spirits and hold our souls when we… It’s not like I’m doing it, I’m helping you so you can help me, it’s by genuinely wanting to show up for your friends. It’s just the love, it just goes around. For me, when I went through my crazy, crazy of hardcore time in my last company, I probably had not one day for a year, where I didn’t have a friend come over with food with like… I was pregnant and post-pregnant, and I was with a baby during the hardest time and it was crazy.
One time I had friend with a huge boombox, 20 friends came during the height of the storm of the crazy shit I went through. 20 friends came barging through my door with a huge boombox surrounding me, dancing around me just to lift up, just to be like, “Fuck that. Fuck them, fuck that. You’re good. We’re going to keep moving forward together.” There’s no amount of money that can change that.
Dan Murray: It’s been amazing, Miki. Thank you so much for all your time. It’s been awesome to chat.
Miki Agrawal: Yeah, same, same. I’m excited for you and your journey as well. It sounds exciting and I love what you’re doing. It’s important.
For more, listen to the Miki Agrawal podcast episodes on Apple podcasts.