Ep. 176 - Fungi-Filled Diapers: How Plastic-Eating Fungi May Change Child-Rearing
SHOW NOTES
If you’ve ever changed a diaper, you might’ve wondered what happens to it after it goes in the trash. The answer, unfortunately, is that it’ll sit in a landfill for hundreds of years—certainly longer than the baby who briefly wore it will live. In fact, every diaper you wore when you were a baby is still sitting around, at best in a landfill, or perhaps even in the ocean. And did you know the average American baby goes through 6,000 diapers before learning to use a toilet?
But what if fungi could change that?
In this episode, I sit down with serial entrepreneur Miki Agrawal, the founder of Thinx (yes, the period underwear company), Tushy (yes, the bidet company), and now HIRO Technologies—a company using plastic-eating fungi to help disposable diapers return to the earth.
Miki, who some have dubbed the “Queen of pee, poop, and periods,” (I think they should shorten it to the “Queen of Secretions”) shares how an opportune moment with her toddler and a children’s book about fungi inspired her to launch HIRO. Her company’s first product—HIRO Diapers—uses a packet of dormant, culinary-grade fungi that awaken when exposed to moisture and begin breaking down the diaper’s plastic components, dramatically reducing its landfill lifespan from centuries to under a year, after which it simply becomes dirt.
We talk about everything from the science of fungal degradation to the challenges of biotech entrepreneurship, from raising millions for an unconventional idea to why she believes reconnecting with nature is the ultimate form of innovation.
Whether you’re a parent, a sustainability enthusiast, or just fascinated by the intersection of biology and business, this conversation will make you rethink what “waste” really means.
DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE
It was the children’s book Pacha’s Pajamas that implanted the idea in Miki’s mind about plastic-eating fungi.
You can buy HIRO Diapers here.
You can see HIRO’s original kickstarter, including video pitch, here.
Miki recommends checking out the UN Millenium Goals for ideas of companies to create.
Reuters discusses HIRO’s launch and technology.
Miki also started Thinkx (period underwear) and Tushy (bidets).
MORE ABOUT Miki Agrawal
Miki Agrawal is the creative force behind acclaimed social enterprises TUSHY (the modern bidet brand), THINX (period-proof underwear), and WILD (NYC’s first gluten-free pizza concept), collectively valued at over $250 million. Miki is the author of best-selling books "DO COOL SH*T" and "DISRUPT-HER”.
Her latest company HIRO is a revolutionary nature-based start-up harnessing ancient technology - fungi - to help solve the global plastic crisis. Their first product is a baby diaper that returns to the earth with the help of friendly fungi. (They chose diapers to launch with because they’re the #1 household plastic waste item that takes 400+ years to decompose in a landfill - and each baby uses ~6,000 diapers in their lifetime. Wild, right?) HIRO Diapers starts returning to the earth with the help of fungi - and they’re soft, safe, high-performing and ready to change the game.
Recognized as one of Fast Company's "Most Creative People," a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum, and named one of INC's "Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs," Miki brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the stage as a keynote speaker. Her authentic talks have been validated by audiences at MindValley, EO, and Capitalism.com, who have voted for her as the #1 best speaker among hundreds of speakers.
TRANSCRIPT
Greetings friend and welcome to episode 176 of the Business for Good podcast. If you've been listening to this show for some time, you know that I am a fungi fanatic and I have often wondered why we don't see more efforts to commercialize plastic eating fungi to do something about all of the plastic waste that we are generating. Well, no longer will I wonder and no longer will I lament that no one is doing this since this show's guest is now doing it. If you've ever changed a diaper,
you might have wondered what happens to it after it goes into the trash. The answer, unfortunately, is that it will sit in a landfill for hundreds of years, certainly longer than the baby who briefly wore it will live. In fact, every diaper that you, yes, you wore when you were a baby is still sitting around at best in a landfill or perhaps even in the ocean. And did you know that the average American baby goes through 6,000 diapers before learning to use a toilet? But what if fungi could change all of that? In this episode,
I sit down with Hiro entrepreneur, Miki Agrawal, the founder of Thinks, yes, the period underwear company, Tushy, yes, the bidet company, and now Hero Technologies, a company using plastic-eating fungi to help disposable diapers return to the earth. Mickey, who some have dubbed the queen of pee, poop, and periods, or maybe I think they should just shorten it to the queen of secretions, shares how an opportune moment with her toddler and a children's book about fungi inspired her to launch Hero.
Her company's first product, Hero Diapers, that's H-I-R-O, diapers, uses a packet of dormant, culinary-grade fungi that awaken when exposed to moisture and begin breaking down the diaper's plastic components, dramatically reducing its landfill lifespan from centuries to under a single year, after which it simply becomes dirt. We talk about everything, from the science of fungal degradation to the challenges of biotech entrepreneurship,
from raising millions for an unconventional idea to why she believes reconnecting with nature is the ultimate form of innovation. Whether you are a parent, a sustainability enthusiast, or just fascinated by the intersection of biology and business, this conversation will make you rethink what waste really means.
Paul Shapiro
Mickey, welcome to the Business for Good podcast.
Miki
Thank you. It's happy to be here, Paul, with you.
Paul Shapiro
I am told that you are described, sometimes even self-described, as the queen of all things pee, poop, and periods. so Why?
Miki
yeah Well, um I've been over the last, you know, almost two decades now in that that space, like really looking at personal hygiene space and how we can innovate in it and provide, you know, products that are better for people and better for the planet. And so my first kind of big project was the first period proof underwear that has helped millions of women period better by just providing an underwear that's leak proof absorbent and just helps a woman not like have to go through so many pads tampons that are bleached full of process and up in landfills for hundreds of years. And so as a result, we've helped divert hundreds of millions of tampons, pads, applicators from landfills.
Miki
um And so, yeah, my whole mission statement is elevating people on the planet. so Then I started Tushy, the bidet company that um that I still own. And it's um literally cleaning the butts of the American people, and including yours, Paul.
Miki
01:13.98
Paul Shapiro
Yes, ah that is true.
Miki
it
Paul Shapiro
I will note that my my wife and I are are customers of yours.
Miki
That's right. and And as a result, we've helped also save over 10 million trees from getting flushed down the toilet. We have funded re-soiling and reforestry projects all over South America. We have funded the build-out of you know, toilets for over 60,000 families in India. Like we really care about this, again, this co-elevation of people and planet. And then my most recent project, which is what one of things that you and i share deep, ah um you know, stoke on is um fungi and how do we harness fungi to solve some of the greatest world challenges? i mean, fungi have been here for, you know, billions of years, one of the first beings on earth and um has been breaking down the carbon backbone of trees for hundreds of millions of years.
Miki
And turns out the carbon backbone of plastic is very similar to the carbon backbone of trees because plastic comes from fossil fuels.
Paul Shapiro
Thank you.
Miki
Fossil fuels come from dead trees and animals. Therefore, if fungi can break down trees, they can also break down plastic. And so we spent the last four and a half years really bringing like the ocean's 11th of micro-remediation PhDs, chemistry PhDs, biology PhDs, like all the top of the pops within the space of micro remediation and um top diaper engineers from PNG. And we created the first product under Hero, which was the name of our company, we named that for my son, who inspired the idea.
Miki
And um the first product is a baby diaper that um the first and only unbleached diaper, and it comes with these little fungi pouches that you drop in before but you dispose of the diaper.
Paul Shapiro
Thank you.
Miki
As you change a soil diaper off the baby, you drop this little pouch and you close you throw in the trash. In a couple of weeks, the fungi will wake up, fertilized by the baby's poop or pee, and then will start to grow. And our vision is for it to be landfill bi-degradable in under 12 months instead of 400 to 500 years that the diaper takes to break down.
Miki
And the reason why we chose diapers because it's the number one household plastic waste item and the number three waste item in landfill. stop right there. But that's why. but
Paul Shapiro
ah Okay, so you have done a number of of cool things and in for and you know all types of personal hygiene. What, Mickey, was the seed, or maybe should say, what was the spore of this?
Paul Shapiro
And I'll note that your use of the term deep ah deep stoke was the first time I've ever heard stoke used that way. But I do have deep stoke when it comes to all things fungi.
Miki
That's it.
Paul Shapiro
And we'll even note, for keen listeners of this show, you'll note that in past episodes, numerous times, I have... wondered why is it that we know that there is fungi eating, but or excuse me, plastic eating fungi.
Paul Shapiro
And we hear all the time about academics all over the world using it to break down fungi, or using fungi to break down plastics in labs. But there are no commercially ah endeavored companies that are actually doing this. And so I was so stoked to use the term, that about what you're doing at Hero, that I'm really excited to be talking with you about this. But what was the spore of the idea for you, Mickey? like You had already had success in these other realms, right?
Paul Shapiro
you you know most Most people who start companies, their their companies fail and they don't go on to do other endeavors in the entrepreneurial world.
Miki
Yeah.
Paul Shapiro
You have been a serial entrepreneur entrepreneur starting multiple companies now that have done well. Why do this? like What happened that you thought, oh, yeah, actually, I think I want to make diapers?
Miki
that can go back, that can return to the earth with fungi. um Yeah. I mean, I had a, I had a kid and in having a kid, I was going through 20 diapers a day and I was just like, holy cow.
Miki
Like I looked it up and discovered that.
Paul Shapiro
Or more like holy holy crap, yeah.
Miki
Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Shapiro
yeah
Miki
And I, and I, and I discovered that every single baby goes through up to 6,000 diapers that take four to 500 years to break down. And like I said, diapers, the number one household plastic waste item, number three waste item in a landfill, the very first disposable diaper is still in a landfill somewhere, which means all of your diapers are in a landfill. Everyone listening, all of your diapers are still in a landfill somewhere.
Miki
And it's crazy. And the number of diapers, you can visualize it, that end up in a landfill every single year globally could circle the earth 1500 times and every year, like that's how many diapers that end up in landfills. It's just a crazy number.
Miki
And it's one of the, you know, again, the the one of the big landfill percentages is for plastic waste is diapers. And so we started with diapers and and how the spark of the idea came was actually the reason why I named it hero H I R O was named after my son, hero who inspired the idea. So the idea basically started when, um,
Miki
I started taking Fridays as I call thinking days where I don't take any calls or meetings on Fridays. I kind of use them as a day to allow for creative ideas to download and and just read and and not just be in reactive mode to like emails and calls and meetings and just have a full day. It's not a day off.
06:10.60
Miki
It's a day to of receptivity to the universe, to nature, to the fungi and to allow for ideas to come through. And on a particular Friday, i was,
06:22.00
Miki
um staring at the window, looking at a tree. And I was just like, oh my God, wait a minute. Breast milk is considered liquid gold because it's so nutrient rich. Then therefore baby poop must be fertilizer gold.
06:35.53
Miki
And I was just like, and right now we're wrapping billions of pounds of this mama juju fed fertilizer in plastic and throwing in the trash and not harnessing it for good. Meanwhile, we're using cow poop and pig poop to fertilize our own food.
06:49.64
Miki
And yet we're not using our own baby's golden poop to fertilize anything or to help with anything. like could And I was like, wait, if the baby poops in the diaper, could the baby poop help fertilize something to grow and eat the diaper potentially?
07:06.31
Miki
And I didn't know what the answer was. I was like, what could break down plastic fertilized by baby poop? When I was asking myself what could break down plastic, my son, Hero, comes running into my room at two years old,
07:17.36
Miki
points to a book in my nightstand while saying Pachamama, which means Mother Earth. And I look and I pull out this book and I open it and it says certain fungi can break down plastic.
07:30.95
Paul Shapiro
Wow, a children's book.
07:32.54
Miki
Yes, literally, as I was like, what could break down plastic? My son, Hero, comes running into my room, points to book, and it says fungi can break down plastic.
07:43.66
Miki
It was like the most divine...
Paul Shapiro
Wow.
Miki
universe nature winking at us, you know, moment where it was just, it was a divine intervention moment that you couldn't, you just can't make up. And I was just like, oh my God, duh, fungi. forgot. It was 2019 back then. And, you know, a few articles had come out, but it wasn't like a whole thing like it is today as much as it was back then, or it was it wasn't back then. yeah You know, Yale researchers discovered fungi growing in landfills and I'd read some of those studies, but then I got, when when my son pointed the book and I got this eureka moment, I just dove deep into fungi and discovered, yeah, there, you know, all the different, there's been papers over 20 years about fungi that can break down plastic, but no one had really taken it out of a lab into the real use case, into the real world, like you'd said.
08:33.54
Miki
And so from there is when, you know, I really put together the Oceans 11 team of PhDs in like, micro-remediation, mycology, biology, chemistry, like all these top people.
08:45.20
Miki
Plus I brought in diaper engineer from P&G and we created, like I said, the first diaper that's like unbleached and really soft.
08:48.34
Paul Shapiro
All right.
08:53.59
Miki
And we partnered with local cotton farmers. It's the only one that doesn't have like white, which is bleach. You don't have your babysitting bleach. And it comes to these little pouches and inside you can see kind of like the sleeping fungi on the inside that will wake up and grow once it gets to a landfill. This is our 1.0.
09:13.69
Miki
Our next iterations are going to be better and better and better and better. And this is but the first commercial version ever in history, which is really cool.
09:21.41
Paul Shapiro
um And so the packet that comes with the little with the little fungi, do you put that in before the baby has used the diaper or after?
09:31.05
Miki
No, no, no, no. After, after. So you're taking off the soil diaper.
09:32.60
Paul Shapiro
Okay.
09:33.73
Miki
You take the soil diaper off the baby and you just drop this little, the whole pouch in, whether it's a pure or poopy diaper, you just take the whole pouch. You don't open it. just whole thing in and you close it and you throw in the trash. That's It's uninspired.
09:43.26
Paul Shapiro
And the fun and the fungi can and the fungi are happy to consume either pee or poop.
09:48.47
Miki
Yes. It just needs moisture and surface area.
09:49.54
Paul Shapiro
Oh, yeah.
09:51.84
Miki
Yeah.
09:51.86
Paul Shapiro
Okay. because Because they're really consuming the plastic. not And so, okay.
09:54.91
Miki
Yeah. And ours are the best because we use 50%, actually 50% less plastic. So it has lots of wood pulp and cotton in it, which the fungi prefer, and then it'll start to break the rest of it down. So it has less, less plastic. Our diapers have 50% less plastic and the fungi prefer to eat the more organic stuff, which is why we didn't bleach it either. Cause fungi don't want bleach either.
10:18.37
Miki
No one wants bleach, it turns out.
10:19.36
Paul Shapiro
to Yeah.
10:20.43
Miki
And so we are, again, partnering with them and they're culinary grade, non-toxic. They're safer than the diaper itself. People are like, are they safe? They're safe. They're culinary grade. they're It's like in our bodies, we have a microbiome and and in addition to a microbiome, you know that.
10:37.23
Miki
um So like, as you know, in the world of myco, there's like shiitake, reishi, chaga. There's like all the types of delicious, beneficial fungi for humans. This is one of those.
10:47.52
Miki
This is a beneficial fungi.
10:49.84
Miki
That's really, really good. That's not non-toxic.
10:53.00
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, cool. So let me just break down a few things here. um So first, it was the first time I've ever heard the term diaper engineer. you So there's a diaper engineer from Procter & Gamble. I'd love to know what he or she studied in in their life to become a diaper engineer.
11:05.65
Miki
Yeah.
11:06.25
Paul Shapiro
um And ah second, you you mentioned a a microbiome, and um' I'm glad you specified that you're not mispronouncing a microbiome, which is just all of the microbial life.
11:16.49
Paul Shapiro
There's it literally a microbiome, a fungi biome,
11:18.00
Miki
program inside of us.
11:19.54
Paul Shapiro
ah both it both in and on us at all times. Like we're breathing in, fun every time we inhale, we're breathing in fungi.
11:22.70
Miki
That's right.
11:25.67
Paul Shapiro
Every time ah we, you know, scratch your skin, you're scratching fungi off of you. And in your intestines, you've got your own mycobiome, which is very important and critical to your own life.
11:30.61
Miki
Yep.
11:33.76
Miki
Right.
11:37.46
Paul Shapiro
And so fungi, yeah, there are some of them who are are quite bad for us, but we would die without them. And so it's it's really, it's a it's a particularly helpful kingdom that is far older than
11:43.96
Miki
That's right.
11:49.65
Paul Shapiro
than we are for sure as homo sapiens. Now, let me ask you, Mickey, because you talked about bringing like Ocean's 11 team, you got the diaper engineers from Procter & Gamble. How are you funding all this? Had you raised capital at this point? who Like you were bringing in, I presume people don't leave PNG g to work for equity only, right? So how are you actually paying all these people to develop the first Myco diaper?
12:11.59
Miki
yeah um we i Yeah, I raised money from friends and and you know investors who and who had invested in um my previous two companies and all of my friends who want to invest in in this project because they really believe what we're doing and they really believe in, yeah, in this in in in the cause and they believe in me. ive you know And I've built two nine-figure businesses and um you know they feel safe with the capital. you know like The first time they're like, oh, did she get lucky?
12:44.10
Miki
And then when You know, I built a second like one and now they're like, okay, I'm in. and they And the idea works, you know?
12:50.73
Paul Shapiro
yeah
12:53.97
Paul Shapiro
um Yeah, you know, I always think about the role that luck plays because, as I mentioned earlier, nearly all startups fail. And so when somebody succeeds, it may be because they did a great job, but it also may just be that things went their way.
13:04.98
Paul Shapiro
They were you know not connected to something that they that they did.
13:06.45
Miki
Exactly.
13:08.46
Paul Shapiro
But when you have a serial entrepreneur who's successful more than once, you start thinking, well, you know, it's like if Tom Brady wins the Super Bowl with the Patriots, then he goes to the Bucks and he wins there also. You think, well,
13:19.32
Paul Shapiro
You know, maybe it's Brady. You know, maybe it's Brady.
13:21.19
Miki
yeah
13:22.32
Paul Shapiro
Maybe it's not just the weather.
13:22.81
Miki
i'm not saying I'm not saying it's me.
13:23.64
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
13:24.21
Miki
i' not I'm not saying it's me.
13:24.38
Paul Shapiro
this
13:25.57
Miki
I'm saying it's like timing, there's luck, there's team, of course. like i you know I feel like i I'm good at you know attracting a good team, really strong team, creative team, and they're all Swiss Army Knives.
13:36.40
Miki
I call Swiss Army Knives. They're very able to do many, many different pieces. So it's not like you have to hire each person to do one task.
13:40.85
Paul Shapiro
him
13:43.31
Miki
like We're able to really, really diversify with few with fewer people. um
13:48.55
Paul Shapiro
Mm-hmm. I...
13:49.53
Miki
Yeah, this one's the hardest one because it's biotech.
13:49.86
Paul Shapiro
i
13:51.61
Miki
It's definitely not just consumer product. It's definitely a whole separate thing. So I to raise the most amount of money for this project.
13:58.06
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, this is like one of the more interesting things that I think is when people think about fungi. They think it's like some just like a natural like warehouse where you're just growing mushrooms in trays of fertilizer.
14:04.78
Miki
Yeah. yeah
14:08.16
Paul Shapiro
And, ah you know, it is oftentimes quite different from that. Right. Like fungi is a very broad kingdom. And we're talking generally about deep biotech using bioreactors and so on.
14:18.76
Paul Shapiro
ah which has a very high capex, a very high capex.
14:20.69
Miki
Yes.
14:21.28
Paul Shapiro
So the amount of money you need, is as you mentioned, is is pretty extraordinary. But I noticed that you did a Kickstarter, Mickey, and you know you were trying to raise like thirty k You end up raising 50K. Frankly, that it's cool that you exceeded your goal, but it seems like not that much money.
14:33.28
Miki
and know.
14:34.46
Paul Shapiro
Okay.
14:34.73
Miki
I know. We've weve raised we've raised over $7 million dollars to date.
14:35.48
Paul Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
14:37.65
Miki
That was really for community.
14:37.82
Paul Shapiro
okay
14:39.60
Miki
That was for, to build the community and people just didn't know it and to start to like, just support.
14:42.69
Paul Shapiro
who
14:43.71
Miki
And we barely put any time into it. It was just more like making a video, having some community learn about it, having
14:50.38
Paul Shapiro
Okay.
14:50.53
Miki
you know, like several hundred people like supports. now we have a starting point. Like all my businesses have had a Kickstarter. My first one, I did $60,000 on Kickstarter. Like, you know, they all kind of start.
15:02.00
Miki
I just kind of tuned into that, that sharing of a story, building the community. And then that's how it spreads in mycelial network.
15:09.08
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
15:09.93
Miki
Yeah.
15:10.04
Paul Shapiro
ah Nice. All right. So how long did it take for Ocean's Eleven team to come up with this? Right. So you talk about raising four and a half years.
15:14.80
Miki
Four and a half years.
15:17.31
Paul Shapiro
you have a four and a half year period of R&D where there's it's totally pre-revenue, which I imagine must have been for somebody like you who's customer just selling CPG products that you're getting produced in some factory somewhere.
15:19.63
Miki
Yeah.
15:29.48
Paul Shapiro
a very different experience. Right. So what was that like spending four and a half years watching these really smart people presumably struggling to create this first product?
15:39.40
Miki
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think it, it's um both, both things and Tushy. I mean, things, it took me four years to develop the underwear and, um and Tushy.
15:48.37
Paul Shapiro
Okay. okay
15:49.24
Miki
Yeah. Tushy also took, took a while to really get the bidet product right. It seem like it would, but we do have the best bidet attachment in the world right now. No question. And, um and it took, it did take years to get it right. It just always takes years. And so, you know, I, I, i While I'm a CPG person, this one, I was i was the most like fish out of water. I'm ah literally like, thanks to chat GPT. Like anytime the scientists talk, I'm like putting it in chat. Talk to me like a 12 year old. Like, you know, like, you know, can you please translate what these, this, what they're saying to a 12 year old.
16:22.49
Miki
And so this way can understand a lot of the terms they're saying, but I've, I've learned a lot over the last four and a half years around fungi, the fungal kingdom, the process to make it like how, how we're, you know, tuning into scaling the production, which is why it's so fascinating that you and i are meeting right in this moment this is how the goddess works in such mysterious ways. Cause we're in this like process right now of like, okay, like we need to tune in into scaling our fungi and, um, and we, we need that.
16:48.19
Miki
We need that strategy on, on how to do that. We have our first micro refinery or mini version in our, in Austin. which we can, yeah, which we can, I'm happy to bring you to and you can see it and see our production, but it's like very like, you know, early days vibes.
16:53.72
Paul Shapiro
Oh, cool.
17:00.99
Miki
And so it's a very early days wet wet warehouse style. And so it'll be really nice for you to come to us and then for us to come to you and be like, wow, that's where we're going.
17:04.79
Paul Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
17:08.19
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
17:08.96
Miki
Okay.
17:09.24
Paul Shapiro
Well, I'll tell you the first, uh, the first iteration of the better me co we were in a mechanics garage and we were growing, we are growing, uh, mycelium inside of like beer kegs.
17:23.73
Paul Shapiro
And we were going to Walmart and buying four pound bags of sugar and dumping them in And we had a handheld drill that we used to mix the sugar up in the tank. Uh, and you know, it was like,
17:34.77
Miki
how long how long how long have you How long ago was this?
17:38.34
Paul Shapiro
I started the company in 2018. And so that's what were doing for like, you know, until 20.
17:41.19
Miki
Oh, wow.
17:43.38
Paul Shapiro
And in 2019, we ended up ah moving into the facility that we're in now, which is a 13,000 square foot facility that we the but built into a built into an actual like fermentation facility with real fermentation equipment.
17:51.48
Miki
Oh, wow. That's a big jump.
17:59.42
Miki
So you moved into a place that already had fermentation equipment?
17:59.61
Paul Shapiro
But at first,
18:02.89
Paul Shapiro
Oh, no no, no, no, not at all. It was actually a bounce house for children. So it was, we needed, know, we needed tall ceilings and this bounce house, sadly for them, they went out of business.
18:13.88
Paul Shapiro
And so they took all their, I'm from the East Coast, so we call them moon bounces. I think people in other parts of the country call them like bounce castles or bounce houses, but yeah.
18:21.03
Miki
yeah yeah, of course.
18:22.33
Paul Shapiro
yeah So people that business went out, ah they went under, they took all their moon bounces out and we moved in and then we built like a 10 meter,
18:31.08
Miki
How did you fund it
18:33.43
Paul Shapiro
ah We had raised the same way that you did from friends, family and fools. So we were basically growing fungi and growing a network of people who are really interested in what we were doing.
18:37.61
Miki
Wow.
18:47.03
Paul Shapiro
And at that time, We had raised, it was like just under $10 million dollars in a seed round or what I call it a spore round. And at that time, that was enough to get us to build our own factory.
19:00.62
Paul Shapiro
And since then, we've raised about four times that much to really grow and do do what we need to do.
19:03.39
Miki
wow
19:06.37
Paul Shapiro
um But even that, you know,
19:07.26
Miki
And like but i see that did you guys see traction, like, or you as you raised the money, you you were like, okay, in order for us to get to this number, revenue-wise, we have to scale our production to get here. And so investors, right, like.
19:20.07
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, a lot of it had to do with technology milestones. And and so it was about patents proving that customers liked it demonstrating that the tech worked as we scaled it up, right?
19:31.59
Paul Shapiro
This is like a real valley of death where people can do things in in the lab, but can't actually make it work at a bigger scale.
19:31.94
Miki
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
19:37.43
Paul Shapiro
and So that was the, you know, I think a big, a big part of it for us, for sure. um But I'm, you know, I don't mind talking about my own company, but I'm far more interested in yours because of of how cool and novel what you're doing is, Mickey, and ah ah I'd love to talk more about what we're doing some other time.
19:50.02
Miki
yeah
19:57.12
Paul Shapiro
But
19:57.17
Miki
Yeah.
19:58.88
Paul Shapiro
I do like, ah you know, I wanted to ask you about the technology specifically because I'm thinking like it, you know you spray or you you sprinkle rather the fungi onto the diaper. The moisture in the excrement causes the fungi to essentially wake up.
20:13.08
Paul Shapiro
They start eating the plastic and the wood pulp.
20:13.22
Miki
Wake up.
20:15.81
Paul Shapiro
And then what is turned into like a soil inside of the landfill in an anaerobic environment. So what type of fungi are these that don't need oxygen in order to to live?
20:25.89
Miki
She's surprisingly fungi don't need oxygen. ah Many fungi don't need oxygen. We looked at hundreds of thousands of strains there. We actually notated 600. We we've, you know, um, documented over 600 strains that can break down plastic.
20:41.23
Miki
Um, and you know, the, you know, one of the enzymes that get released from, um the fungi, when it breaks down plastic, it's lacase, it's an enzyme called lacase. And, um and it can be released both in aerobic and anaerobic settings. And yeah, we're, we're, we're, um and, and, and, you know, in, in certain types of enzymes can be released in under certain, certain conditions. So lacase, I actually, um let me let me take that back. I'm not positive. That one is both anaerobic and aerobic, but.
21:11.39
Miki
I know that, of course, fungi have been able to exist in outer space. They can literally eat up you know the poison of you know like radiation. And so they can they can they can sir thrive in pretty much any any condition.
21:20.52
Paul Shapiro
yeah who And so
21:27.15
Miki
And so even underground, obviously, open air is you know more you know oxygen and is it works works better and faster. um But no matter what, it is an exponentially better to have it than not have it.
21:40.79
Miki
Right. Instead of having it break down in four to five hundred years, it'll break down in a fraction of that time. you know, we're going for a biodegradable under 12 months as a claim.
21:51.77
Miki
um And that's, you know, again, instead of it being compostable, diapers are not composted. No one compost diapers. And so the actual proper usage is in a landfill. Will it biodegrade in a landfill?
22:04.43
Miki
And if it biodegrades 80 percent, it's considered landfill biodegradable.
22:09.68
Paul Shapiro
And so it biodegrades into what soil?
22:12.39
Miki
Into soil and mycelium.
22:12.44
Paul Shapiro
Like what action? Yeah.
22:14.39
Miki
So fungi, basically, as you know, when they basically throw up the enzymes, they spoil it, then they end up dying. And so when they die, they turn back into soil and mycelium.
22:25.00
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
22:26.00
Miki
But then they sporulate. So our vision is that before these fungi, once it breaks down the diaper first, it'll start to break down other plastics around it. Like its children, its offspring will sporulate and start to break down plastics around in the landfill.
22:39.81
Miki
Like that's the ultimate vision and dream.
22:42.60
Paul Shapiro
Yeah. and So I wonder, is there a pathway to utilizing this type of technology to divert them from the landfill in the first place? Right. Like, is there a pathway to doing this where you could actually put diapers into industrial compost or is just in the way that, you know, you can put certain types of, you know single use forks and plates and all that into industrial composting facilities now?
23:05.82
Miki
But the thing is compost again, you're you're not like the whole composting diapers thing is just like, people aren't going to put it in their backyards. People aren't actually going you're not allowed to comp like put it in your, your municipal composter.
23:20.94
Miki
So it has to be done by like a diaper company. So for example, this one diaper company that's been that's, they call themselves a bamboo diaper, but bamboos, basically bamboo diapers are just viscose. It's like basically plastic. It's just a greenwash version of it. And they they don't actually work well.
23:34.48
Miki
um But they have, you know, as an example, a composting pickup program in one city. And so they're basically calling themselves compostable diaper. But it's just it's not the practical global solution.
23:47.73
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
23:48.47
Miki
It's just not it's there's no one's.
23:49.81
Paul Shapiro
yeah
23:50.36
Miki
it it ends up in a landfill or mismanaged or in a river or in an ocean or like it's not going into a composting facility like 99.9999999% of these diapers.
24:01.31
Miki
So that's just a total greenwash term that we don't support or subscribe to because it's not what's gonna actually solve the problem, right?
24:08.67
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, interesting. All right. So you're talking about the problem that you're seeking to solve, Mickey. And of course, I am aligned with you on that. Many listeners of the show will be as well.
24:19.88
Paul Shapiro
But as we all know, diapers are you know one small part of the plastic problem.
24:23.70
Miki
Right.
24:25.03
Paul Shapiro
And so how do you see Hero addressing this? Like it's diapers first, or there are there other products next?
24:29.64
Miki
Yeah.
24:30.38
Paul Shapiro
Is Hero going to become a platform supplier of plastic eating fungi to other brands beyond diapers?
24:33.52
Miki
Yes. Yes.
24:35.23
Paul Shapiro
so you like how Like, you know, you're not going to replace Huggies, right?
24:36.70
Miki
Yes, yes, yes.
24:38.35
Paul Shapiro
So is Huggies going to be buying this from buying the fungi from you?
24:42.36
Miki
Yeah, and so, I mean, 75% of the plastics that are found in diapers are literally like soft, like 75% sorry, um sorry The plastics found in diapers comprise of 75% of all soft plastics on the planet.
24:59.82
Miki
And so if you can tackle diapers, you can actually tackle tackle most soft plastics. And so we are starting with the hardest one yet is diapers. And then we're going to go to the different different layers. like we already reached We already got reached out to by a plastic pouch manufacturer.
25:15.33
Miki
They make pouch many. And so like, well, can we do like a little tab that after the baby's done or but after the pouch is drank, they could just take this tab and stick it in the thing and then throw it in the trash. So there's like some kind of end of life for this.
25:26.81
Miki
And it's like, we have a mono polymer of just PET or a mono polymer for just, um you know, polypropylene, you know, polypropylene, polyethylene. Like there's, there's now these, po these manufacturers are making just single material products, which will be a lot easier for us to develop the proper fungi. That'll break that down versus like a multiple, like layered product, like a diaper that has 70, like that has multiple layers that you have to figure out how to do all the different parts versus a monopolymer.
25:58.31
Paul Shapiro
cool.
25:59.76
Miki
And so, yeah.
25:59.97
Paul Shapiro
What about
26:00.32
Miki
So, but so, so yes, the answer is yes, we want, we are going to go after menstrual pads, adult diapers, doggy wee wee pads, trash bags, everything soft plastic and, and licensing our technology, give ah selling our technology to all plastic manufacturers for their end of life.
26:17.37
Miki
There is no end of life solution for plastics and zero, like nothing like on a large scale.
26:20.36
Paul Shapiro
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you, i have regularly lamented this about my own dog because I use basically two plastic bags a day with him. Right. And so, you know, you're talking like over, you know, like over 700 bags per year.
26:36.45
Miki
And imagine you put a little, little fungi pouch in there, in the poop, and your dog's poop in the bag, you throw in the trash.
26:40.80
Paul Shapiro
Right.
26:41.61
Miki
It'll, it will be great.
26:42.21
Paul Shapiro
Yeah. What, yeah, what I would prefer is a bag that came somehow like lined with the fungi, because I don't want to have to to do that.
26:43.17
Miki
Blind. That's next. That's next.
26:50.30
Paul Shapiro
Like that's too disgusting to me.
26:50.88
Miki
That's next.
26:51.70
Paul Shapiro
But yes, I would, I would like to, i would like to do that.
26:53.89
Miki
That's next.
26:54.93
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, I would definitely do that.
26:55.52
Miki
That's. Yeah.
26:56.85
Paul Shapiro
So that then raises the the question, Mickey, about cost. So I presume this is more expensive than conventional diapers at this point. What is the price? People can buy these from you now. So what's the price for them to get a bundle of micro diapers?
27:09.69
Miki
Surprisingly, we are actually cheaper than the luxury diaper that everyone's buying right now.
27:13.77
Paul Shapiro
Oh, okay.
27:13.93
Miki
And that's 50% more plastic, bleach, whatever. Ours is $99 a month for our diapers, our wipes, and our fungi all together, our mycelium, our little pouches, all of it together is $99 a month, which is like is really like not expensive for for for compared to like
27:25.62
Paul Shapiro
and
27:30.47
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
27:31.64
Miki
You know, compared to the luxury diapers that are just diapers are $99 a month. You add the wipes and then ours is called with our technology as well.
27:38.18
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, wow. And how many diapers does that get you?
27:43.66
Miki
On our website, it depends on on if you're newborn, as you grow, get older, the baby, you use fewer diapers per month. So it's like perfectly, yeah, it's perfectly sized, like the number of diapers that comes with the same price throughout.
27:50.19
Paul Shapiro
Oh, so interesting.
27:54.55
Paul Shapiro
Okay.
27:56.24
Miki
and then um And then we're eventually gonna embed our technology directly into the file into the diaper. And what's really exciting is that we ran our very first pilot run with our manufacturer to put our technology embedded in the core, in the deep, deep core, which will never, first of all, it's safer. Like I said, it's culinary grade. It's non-toxic. It's safer than the plastic of the diapers currently are.
28:19.76
Miki
So we've embedded in the core of the diaper and we did it successfully. We were able to just mix it with one of the parts of the the inner core material of the diaper. So there's not even a single piece of machinery or equipment needed to include our technology, embed our technology in the diaper manufacturing.
28:38.42
Miki
So that is going to be
28:38.79
Paul Shapiro
That's cool. And yeah, and and I want to stress when you're talking about culinary grade, you're talking about culinary grade fungi, right?
28:40.01
Miki
Yeah.
28:45.57
Paul Shapiro
You're not like, we gotta say yeah, right.
28:45.69
Miki
Yeah. Culinary grade but good
28:47.42
Paul Shapiro
Because wait when you said it earlier, for a second, I thought culinary grade diaper. And I just thought, i know that's not what she means. But now I get what you're saying.
28:53.85
Miki
Culinary grade fungi.
28:54.10
Paul Shapiro
Okay.
28:54.89
Miki
Yeah. So they're, they're edible they're edible.
28:55.51
Paul Shapiro
Yeah. Cool.
28:56.65
Miki
Don't eat them. They're like non-toxic. They're safe. They're like I said, the point is like, so that parents and people can feel like, oh, this isn't, this is like, you know, he said, it's like the probiotic for the diaper, you know?
28:58.66
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
29:06.25
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
29:06.98
Miki
So it's a good one.
29:07.12
Paul Shapiro
Yeah. Hey, that's, yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah.
29:09.57
Miki
Yeah.
29:09.92
Paul Shapiro
That's awesome, Mickey.
29:11.26
Miki
Yeah.
29:11.39
Paul Shapiro
um As I mentioned earlier, I have been lamenting why there isn't a company like yours for some time. so I'm grateful that you're doing what you're doing. I would imagine that somebody who has had the number of entrepreneurial endeavors that you have probably thinks about lots of companies, especially if you're doing whole day of just thinking, you're probably thinking some Fridays in your life,
29:31.63
Paul Shapiro
about companies that you wish existed and that maybe you would do if you had the time, but obviously you're now making diapers, so you don't have the time to do that. What do you hope somebody else, maybe somebody listening to the show will do? What should they do if they want to go out and try to make some good in the world?
29:47.10
Miki
Yeah. I mean, I always like, you know, people always ask me, like, I have like this energy inside of me. I'm going to start something, but I don't know what to put my energy towards. You know, I'm always like, don't start another t-shirt company. I'm like, don't start another clothing brand.
30:00.66
Miki
um But i would say, you know, like look to the millennial development goals just to see like, what are the major global problems? Like people don't realize it's like, you can solve a major world problem. For example, mosquitoes, right? Mosquitoes is a huge, malaria was a huge problem.
30:14.45
Miki
So this one entrepreneur in, um in Africa started a a literally a mosquito bug net company. Now he's a billionaire. And he just solved this problem, this malaria problem by being one of the first to really kind of distribute um you know malaria bug nets for beds. And so like there's so many problems that are that the world has that you can that that you can literally go to the millennial development goals and see like what are all the major things.
30:39.87
Miki
i you know One of the things that I'm you know consistently thinking about is, you know, global warming. And so as a result, like one of the things that my dad and I, my dad is an inventor as well. And he um and I were talking a lot about um what would it be like if every single car or home had a way to like vacuum clean the CO2 from the air and basically split the carbon and the oxygen atoms where the oxygen go back into the air and the carbon would turn into gas to gas the car or gas the home or
31:12.28
Miki
whatever, that there is some mechanism that's a very hard thing to do to break a carbon oxygen chain. But if there's enough sun energy, there's now like so much solar, there there ah there's enough surface area of energy that can potentially be able to do that on a large scale. And so like, that's as an example, or I was tuning into, you know, the energy and more like, you know, besides hydrogen solving the hydrogen thing, I was thinking like,
31:38.33
Miki
how does one, like when when you look at trees, you're like, wow, like I wonder how energy goes from the roots and nutrients all the way to the tippity top of the trees.
31:49.68
Miki
Like there are a thousand feet in the air. How does the, how does it get there without like some kind of a mechanism, right? And same thing in our own bodies. Like how does the blood flow from our heart all the way to our toes and all the way back? And I read this book on the heart and and in our circulation sort of system.
32:09.69
Paul Shapiro
What's the book on?
32:10.92
Miki
um
32:11.11
Paul Shapiro
What's the book on?
32:11.78
Miki
really as As I was talking, I was like, fuck, just don't remember. It's been a while.
32:14.40
Paul Shapiro
ah
32:15.06
Miki
But i'll so I'll send it, i'll let you know. But what the the thesis of the book was that there's like,
32:22.99
Miki
like your, your, your veins are hydrophobic and the blood is hydrophilic, which means that there's a natural friction. Like there's a natural energy friction that happens when something is like repelling and what it's like a positive and negative, right? It creates natural friction, right? When something's hydrophobic and something's hydrophilic, it creates momentum and friction.
32:47.17
Miki
And so that's how trees do it. That's how the veins, it's basically hydrophobic tubes and hydrophilic fluid. So it's able to create the the friction to bring the the the water up the trees. And same thing in our blood system as well. It's like, that's how it can, the heart's not strong enough all the way to get the very tips and bring it back, but it's the hydrophobic, hydrophilic tubes.
33:08.12
Miki
So I was like, oh, what if we can take giant industrial size hydrophobic tubes and put them in hydrophilic like fluids and see if it'll create natural energy.
33:21.51
Miki
And then energy is just free and it's just naturally made through this, this, this, the way trees and our bodies work. But we no one's really done that before. So stuff like that, where I'm just tuning in, thinking about like,
33:34.28
Miki
big, big problems that that that you can use our own nature, nature inspired design, like how do you tune into nature, right?
33:36.50
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, cool.
33:43.19
Miki
So um
33:44.57
Paul Shapiro
Yeah, and I often think about this you're talking about basically sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere. And of course, we have to get to a point where we aren't emitting so much CO2 and methane and so on.
33:59.17
Paul Shapiro
But even if we stopped all emissions today, we would still have to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Like there's already too much, even if we stopped all emissions today. So somebody needs to get on this, right? And it's the same thing with it's like the same thing with plastic.
34:08.34
Miki
For sure. Right.
34:10.52
Paul Shapiro
Right. like Even if we stopped making non biodegradable plastic, there's so much plastic already on Earth.
34:16.49
Miki
Yeah.
34:16.75
Paul Shapiro
As you pointed out, you know, everyone listening, your diapers that you wore decades ago are still sitting there. Right. They're still sitting there in a diaper in the landfill.
34:22.13
Miki
Yeah. four hundred yeah
34:24.87
Paul Shapiro
And. You know, we need something to biodegrade all this plastic. Like we need some way to do it. um And so I'm really bullish on these types of technologies that can either remove CO2 or remove plastic or other types of problems that that we've created.
34:39.12
Miki
For sure. Yeah. And so, I mean, that's the, this is the moment for us to all come together and tune into nature. and i think that's part of it. It's like the greatest technologist of our time is sitting outside of our windows, literally just taking in carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, all this stuff. And transforming it into oxygen for us to breathe. And we're disrespectfully chopping them down to wipe our asses with them. That's how out of tune we are with the nature in the natural world.
35:09.30
Miki
And the ancient decomposers, fungi have been doing this for a billion. Like, we just have to remember our interconnectedness with nature. And it's just all going to come back online. And I went to the Amazon rainforest during, you know, couple years ago during Year's.
35:19.90
Paul Shapiro
so
35:24.20
Miki
entering 2024 and I spent a week and a half, like 12 days with the Sapra Nation tribes to people and the Achuar Nation tribes people and they've never been to the modern world.
35:35.39
Miki
They literally live in the middle of the 88 million acres of sacred headwaters, Amazon rainforests and they literally are just like living in perfect harmony with nature. like People got like bug bites and suns, whatever, and stomach aches. And these little, these people would just run of the forest, grab some herbs and some, some leaves and some things. They'd come back and they, and then you drink it. And within the hour, you're back to healed even better.
35:59.05
Miki
Or they'd put on your, put these leaves on your skin and all the sunburn within
36:00.37
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
36:03.01
Miki
And you're just like, this is it crazy that we've lost this level of interconnectedness with the healing properties of nature for what? For money, for power, for some bullshit, you know, like stuff where it's like all the answers have been there for billions of years. tune We just have completely disconnected ourselves to it.
36:25.46
Miki
So that's part of what I'm excited about doing with Hero is to like reconnect our mothers, reconnect our parents, reconnect people to the planet.
36:26.10
Paul Shapiro
yeah
36:33.03
Miki
Yeah.
36:34.18
Paul Shapiro
Amen. Amen. So Mickey, finally, ah you have offered some cool resources. I'd love to know what the book was. First, the children's book that you read that mentioned plastic eating fungi, but also any other resources that you have really enjoyed or benefited from.
36:43.32
Miki
Yeah.
36:49.79
Paul Shapiro
It could be relating to fungi or to Hero or anything else during entrepreneurship that might benefit somebody else who really admires what you've accomplished in your life so far and wants to try to emulate some of what you've done.
37:03.20
Miki
Yeah. Um, I, well, the book that I, that that i read that my son pointed to was called Pacho's pajamas. And it's actually like a children, it's like a young, it's like a 12 year old. It's written for 12 year olds. Let's just say it was given to me at a conference and it just somehow miraculously ended up being in my bedroom nightstand. I don't even know how it got there, but that's how the miracle of the universe works.
37:26.33
Miki
um And i would say resources like, you know, are are just again, like giving yourself in a so spin enough spaciousness.
37:36.65
Miki
I think people don't give themselves any space anymore because the answers, you know, as corny and as platitude-y as it sounds are within, like you actually have the answers. It's just,
37:49.14
Miki
People are so, again, disconnected and bogged down by that this thing and that thing and this in this advertising, this Instagram and this email and this text and this person telling me in this and this where you just have no more connection to your center and then to like center touching the earth.
38:05.52
Miki
And so like, how do you just like recenter on a weekly basis? I started to to cut my meetings. to mostly 15 minutes so that I have less meeting times. And they're just like, you know like what is what are we talking about? like Let's get through it and then and then let's be efficient let's you know and then and and let's tune back in. And I think the more attuned we are to ourselves, to each other, to the planet, the the easier this this will be. and um I'm, yeah, like we've been at this for four and a half years, nearly five, and we're at this interesting inflection point going from R&D into commercialization, into really growth.
38:44.91
Miki
And it's a new frontier moment again that we're that, as you know, it's like going from R&D to commercialization to to actually now in market product is a whole new different ballgame.
39:00.21
Miki
and And we're, again, we're educating everyday people on mycelium, fungi, diapers, how it goes together.
39:00.26
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
39:06.95
Miki
People are like, fungi, diapers, is it safe? Yes, it's so it's safer than the diaper. Like, you know, people are still, we're we're testing mycelium and mushroom and like, you know, and like the technical term is is mycelium or fungi, but like mushroom is softer.
39:12.39
Paul Shapiro
Yeah.
39:21.03
Miki
like we're still we're still playing, you know, with what makes what what makes people feel good about it all.
39:26.48
Paul Shapiro
right Yeah, yeah, there is like a bit of a, there can be at least in our world a bit of a tension sometimes between what feels good and what's also accurate.
39:37.21
Paul Shapiro
Like there was a company that got in some trouble because they were calling their mycelium, they were calling it mushroom root, which it was not, it wasn't a a mushroom at all.
39:43.93
Miki
I was mycelium, exactly.
39:44.17
Paul Shapiro
It was sort from, yeah, and they, yeah.
39:45.81
Miki
So mycelium or fun pie. Well, you can say mycelium or fun pie. And so we're, I know, from a legal perspective, people are just, yeah.
39:49.28
Paul Shapiro
Yeah. yeah Yeah.
39:51.88
Miki
So we're tuning in to the right words.
39:52.33
Paul Shapiro
Yeah. yeah yeah
39:55.61
Paul Shapiro
yeah
39:55.99
Miki
Yeah.
39:56.32
Paul Shapiro
yeah yeah Well, very, very, very cool, Mickey. I'm so glad that you're doing what what you're doing. And I want to congratulate you, not only on the success you've had, but also on starting this new company.
40:06.44
Paul Shapiro
And I hope a lot of people switch from conventional diapers to Myco diapers. And I'll be looking forward to rooting.
40:11.65
Miki
Hero Diapers, H-I-R-O diapers.com. Hero, H-I-R-O.
40:14.98
Paul Shapiro
Oh, oh, oh, here.
40:15.47
Miki
They're called Hero Diapers, Hero Diapers.com.
40:16.23
Paul Shapiro
Are they not called mycodipers? Is that, were they ever called mycodipers?
40:21.23
Miki
Hero Diapers.
40:21.67
Paul Shapiro
Okay. Okay, good. Thank you for the correction.
40:23.89
Miki
Yeah.
40:24.29
Paul Shapiro
All right. all right.
40:24.99
Miki
Yes.
40:25.09
Paul Shapiro
So people can check that out. And of course, we'll link to that in the show notes for this episode at businessforgoodpodcast.com. And Mickey, thanks so much for all you're doing. And as a fellow fungi fanatic, I am rooting for you hard.
40:35.44
Miki
Thank you so much. Likewise.