Letter #16: Balls In The Air

Note: I've been writing quarterly letters to our friends and supporters at Without? (by Ashaya) since we started up. This is the 16th letter, the earlier ones are here.

Dear Friend of Without,

One morning, I received this WhatsApp message from one of our optimisers, Sita (a pseudonym):

“Good morning Sir. I want to talk to you and Suraj sir. Please tell me when you have time.”

First, I got a bit annoyed that she used “sir” twice – we have a no-sir-madam policy at our lab, and try as we might, we can only fleetingly impose this.

Second, I got curious – I hadn’t received a message like this from one of our lady-optimisers before.

Sita is a daughter-in-law of former waste-pickers.

Her husband struggled with alcoholism. He worked with us briefly last year but lost his job because he either kept coming to work drunk?or just didn’t show up.

A few months after he was terminated, we heard a tragic story.

Apparently, he was drunk one morning, got in a fight with his wife Sita, beat her up, felt guilty about it and then took his life.

Sita was left widowed with two kids and an already-widowed mother-in-law.

We reached out to her earlier this year with a job opportunity, and in March 2024, she started working with us part-time.

Suraj, our rockstar head of manufacturing, was impressed with Sita’s work, and we quickly converted her into a full-time colleague.

She can read and write and is good with her smartphone, so Suraj started training her on doing data entry on his laptop. Now she is leading inventory, quality control and dispatch, all the while becoming more fluent with Microsoft Office and Windows.

So, when I got that “I-want-to-talk-to-you” message from her, I was properly curious.

She and Suraj came into my office, and Sita, shy by nature, took a bit to get going.

“What’s up,” I asked.

“Sir, I am not happy about something,” she said.

“Okay.” ?I was getting a little worried now.

“Sir, some of the other optimizers, they say they will take a 10-minute break to go do something and don’t come back for 2 hours. Now that Suraj sir has put me in charge of inventory and QC, I find it difficult to keep discipline. I propose putting in a system where every time they take a break, they have to make an entry – time in, time out and where they went.”

And my jaw dropped.

Here’s Sita showing true leadership – isolating issues on the ground, offering solutions and ensuring that her bosses are aligned – leadership that some so-called “MBAs” also struggle to find.

I responded, trying to temper my elation, “Yes sure, sounds good, but can you please stop calling us ‘sir’?”

The last three months have whistled by, and I feel like all quarter long, I’ve been trying to whistle while juggling many balls in the air that just don’t seem to land.

And I can’t actually juggle or whistle, much to my father’s disappointment.

It’s the boring, bureaucratic stuff that’s crippling.

We are in the middle of closing our complex fundraise, while trying to tie down paperwork, leases and licenses for our new pilot plant which just seems to find reasons to move slowly. We’ve won a massive grant to help upgrade our work and just signed a proof-of-value agreement with a large OEM, but all that brings along with it more paperwork, reports, testing and compliance. Our team is multiplying and resetting which means more paperwork, more training, more difficult conversations. It took us two full months to replace heaters on one of our machines because the heaters-guy kept screwing around with us. In the middle of fulfilling the biggest order we have ever received, our lens cutter stopped working and our injection moulding machine kept getting clogged. And all this happened simultaneously, sometimes on the same day when we’re already understaffed and overworked.

You’re a founder Anish, stop complaining.

Yes yes, you’re right.

And honestly, when I zoom out and talk about all this aloud, I have to feel grateful – these are good problems to have for an early-stage start-up that’s trying to reimagine everything.

One of the most overwhelming things you feel as a founder is when your colleagues work harder than you despite you telling them to go home and rest.

We received this order for 400 sunglasses + 2100 coasters that needed to be delivered in 8 days, in time for Diwali. This is a gargantuan task for even the biggest manufacturers.

Our manufacturing team worked day and night and weekends – literally – to get this order out in time. Last weekend, the whole team including our scientists and accountants and sales folks showed up to help the manufacturing team get this over the line.

Some folks on our manufacturing team refused to sleep and refused to listen when I kept saying, go home, get rest.

The order reached where it was supposed to, pretty much in time. And I wept, overwhelmed that I was not alone in this lonely journey.

If you want a better understanding of the problem we are working on, Business Insider recently did a holistic piece on it, and on how we are trying to tackle it. It’s complex, uncertain and will take a while.

This month, we also spent time on panels and stages at GITEX Impact in Dubai, Volvo’s Sustainability Day in Bangalore and H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award launch event in Mumbai. Nothing we do is controversial, so these events are largely validating and help spread the word, while teetering on the cusp of being worth our time (or not).

Strategically, we are finally unveiling our true colours. Our new website brings to attention our longer-term game, at least from a business perspective – B2B(2C). We want to partner with brands around the world to increase their sustainability without compromising on quality.

In that, we are a material science company for sustainable products that don’t suck. And guess what? We are flexibly integrated so we can even manufacture final products or components for you if you’d like.

And amidst all that, we also blow-moulded the world's first recycled shampoo bottle from post-consumer multi-layered plastic waste that includes things like shampoo sachets. We did this at 90% recycled content, which is pretty dang good.

Meanwhile, our D2C sandbox continues. In fact, we’ve launched a bunch of simple products recently – keychains, planter pots, candle holders, buttons and plectrums. And because you’ve read up to here, here’s a 20% discount code for you: WITHOUTFF20.

In team news, there has been some moving and shaking. After three and half years with us, Dr Jitendra has moved on to pursue his interests in battery recycling. Jitu has played an important role in shaping our work so it's sad to see him go, but he will continue to serve on our board as an advisor. We wouldn’t be where we are today without him, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.

We have hired a new Growth Director and a Senior Polymer Engineer, grown our support team with a couple of fresh additions, and have also added a couple more optimizers to the mix as we stand ~25 people strong.

We are also currently looking to hire 2 growth managers (1-3 years of experience) and a research analyst (fresher) - if you know anyone who might be interested, please do send them our way.

When it comes to recruiting, here’s some heartbreaking data for you.

Over the past few years, we have given 4 full-time competitive job offers to fresh women graduates from outside of Maharashtra (primarily from the South of India). And all of them have rejected us (or given up) because their parents felt “uncomfortable” sending them away.

That’s 4 out of 4.

One of them tried really hard – she fought with her parents, came down to Pune, tried working with us for 2 months and gave up.

The most ironic part of all this is that their parents feel like they are looking out for their daughters, even if their daughters want something different, something they don’t understand.

Meanwhile, we are pushing our “uneducated”, degreeless women optimizers to take on more responsibility, even for roles that are typically for men.

And what do they say when we push them?

“Sir, can you please give us jeans? It’s hard to do some of that work in sarees and salwar kameezes.”

So, we gave them jeans, and then scolded them for calling us “sir”.

Humbled,

Anish

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