Miki Agrawal is a social entrepreneur who uses creativity and innovation to challenge the status quo, and change culture. She is relentlessly dedicated to creating sustainable impact, and disrupting the shame surrounding topics – and industries – that have been deemed taboo by many people. She is the founder of several acclaimed social enterprises: Wild, Thinx, Icon and Tushy (collectively valued at over $200 million) – and also the author of the #1 best-selling books, Do Cool Shit and Disrupt-Her.
Team Tony:
You went from working in the finance industry, to playing professional soccer, to plunging headfirst into entrepreneurship by opening your first business – a pizzeria – just a couple years out of college. What was your mindset like at the time?
Miki Agrawal:
For me, 9/11 happened right after I graduated from college and was working right across the street from the World Trade Center Towers. Seven hundred people in my girlfriend’s office died on that day, and two people in my office died –but it was the first (and only!) day in my life that I slept through my alarm clock, and luckily, I missed the whole thing. My girlfriend went down to get coffee, which is how she missed it too. It was a surreal experience that changed my whole outlook on life. I was reminded that the mystery of life is that you never know when it’s going to end –and that the time was absolutely NOW to make every single moment count!
It woke me up to my truth of wanting to do something creative, entrepreneurial and one that solved real-world problems. This propelled me to start my first alternative restaurant concept (called Slice and was rebranded to Wild), the first gluten-free, farm-to-table pizza concept that supported local and organic foods. And then a few years later, I co-founded and built THINX, the period-proof underwear concept, and most recently, I created the modern bidet brand TUSHY. I never would have imagined to have created brands that are now valued at over $200 million. It’s been a wild ride to say the least.
Team Tony:
Once you decided to do something entrepreneurial, and you had your first idea for, what were the first steps you took to get it started?
Miki Agrawal:
Since I was still young and had a lot of student loan debt, I had to figure out how I was going to take the leap from a cushy, safe finance job to an unstable entrepreneurial not-sure-when-I’ll-get-a-paycheck-next job. So I decided to widen the circle, and involved people who I considered to be brilliant. I reached out to the smartest people I knew and invited them to a “Meeting of the Minds Dinner Party” and made sure each person knew that they were hand picked for being one of the smartest people I knew. I borrowed my friend’s fancy loft, bought food for everyone, and made sure that everyone who was invited knew that they were going to meet other really cool, smart people that they didn’t previously know. Part of the invitation said that we were also going to brainstorm my idea for my new business. So it was a WIN-WIN. Almost all 20 people who I invited showed up. It was a WIN for them because they got to come to a fun, free dinner, meet other cool smart people, in a cool space. It was a WIN for me because I got to brainstorm my business idea with them. The first “Meeting of the Minds I had was supposed to be two hours but lasted over seven, because people were so excited to brainstorm.The energy was palpable! I hashed out my business idea, concept, name, SO MUCH of it in just one meeting. The key thing was to invite people from every walk of life (architect, designer, creative, marketer, finance person, real estate person, musician, consultant, etc.) because ALL of their perspectives were different.
