Not My First Guess Founding the first female urinal with Amber Probyn, Founder of Peequal
What is a female urinal and why does it matter?
Ever walked past a massive queue for the ladies, while the queue for the mens is non-existent and wondered why? Ever wondered what the solution is?
Women have to urinate more often and on average for longer than men. Plus, we have more reason to visit the loo (typically we take on more care duties for children or adults who need assistance, plus menstruation ). Our toilets also take up more space, so we tend to have fewer places to go, because venues focus on equal square footage of toilets, not equal access to facilities.
Enter Peequal, whose founders Amber and Hazel were fed up with having to choose whether to visit the bathroom or get food in intervals and at festivals.
So far, they’ve raised £250k for their innovative take on a women’s urinal which has already been rolled out at festivals like Glastonbury and Wilderness Festival, and saw international demand before they even had a working prototype. Investors include Tom Blomfield, founder of Monzo.
In this episode we cover:
- The power of cardboard prototypes and watching how customers use urinals (without being arrested)
- Why Glastonbury made the perfect early evangelists venue
- How constructive conflict can be the key to happy co-founding
- Heart in mouth moments from pitch decks missteps to manufacture mess-ups
- Getting on BBC’s front-page and drumming up international demand with a prototype that didn’t work, and they were almost too embarrassed to show
- Fundraising tips
- Plus much more!
Links:
- Checkout Peequal here
- Follow Peequal on instagram here or Twitter here
- Read Invisible Women here
- Get data on how investors view your decks with Docsend
- Seed legals explains ASAs here
- Founder catalyst offers free ASA here
- Convertible notes explained here