🧼 Case Study: How Used Soap Can Save Lives
Millions of bars of soap are wasted each and every day. Here's how one man saw this as an opportunity to save lives.
A few days back we covered a case study on strategic thinking.
A lot of you appreciated the piece (here's the link, if you haven't read it yet).
So, we decided to make a sequel, highlighting how founders and entrepreneurs come up with business ideas.
Today, we'll be looking at the story of a man named Shawn Seipler and the 'Clean the World Organization'.Â
So, let's dive right in.
The Problem Statement 🤔
What's the first thing you do when you check out of a hotel?
Much like Ross from 'Friends', you try to make the most of your money and steal hotel toiletries.
Shampoo, lotions, conditioners, all travel back home with you.Â
But what happens to that bar of soap you may have used once to wash your hands?
It stays behind because it is usually gross and wet.
And precisely because of that, hotels don't reuse these bars.
So, what happens to them?
They go to landfills.
And these are not just a few random bars of soap going to waste.
Over 440 billion pounds of unused soap and other amenities from hotels all over the world go to landfills each year.
This wastage of soap is the problem that Seipler identified back in 2008 while he was traveling.
How did he realise this?
Simple, he asked questions (a very important quality for an entrepreneur).
The Plan 💡
Seipler realised that hotels were not only spending money on buying these soaps but also on collecting and discarding them every day.
He decided to solve this issue by getting all of their half-used soap.
But what could be the demand for this half-used soap?
You see, to run a business or a startup, you need to not only sort your supply and your inventory but also the demand.
Would you be willing to buy potentially used hotel soap no matter how much it was sterilised and perfectly safe to use?
Probably not, right.
But despite regular customers' reluctance to use these soaps, there was a huge demand for them.
Almost 1 million people die every year from hygiene-related diseases because of the lack of access to soap and other cleaning amenities.
Looks like a great match. But how will Seipler make money?Â
After all, the people who need the soap can't afford to pay for it.
Simple, get money from the hotels.
Wait, but why would they pay?
See, the hotels were already spending money to transport the used soaps to the landfills.
Now, they could give the same amount of money and get the prestigious tag of being "sustainable" as they won't be causing pollution.
It was a win-win for all.
That's why over 8,000 hotels with 1.4 million rooms have tied up with Clean the World.
Insane, right?
And after collecting, sanitizing, resizing, and packaging, Clean the World gives these soaps to the Red Cross and other similar charitable organizations.
The result? A 60% reduction in deaths of children from hygiene-related diseases.
Not just that, the company has saved 23 million pounds of plastic and soap from going to landfills.
And it is not just soap that the company deals in. In case you are the kind of guest that leaves behind other hotel toiletries, it even recycles those.
The Takeaway âš¡
Entrepreneurs or people with an entrepreneurial spirit are always looking for problems to solve. And where most people see problems, they find an opportunity.
That's exactly what Seipler did. And his one random thought has now not only saved the environment but also the lives of thousands of people.
In A Line: Curiosity may have killed the cat but some curiosity on a young entrepreneur’s part has stopped millions of pounds of soap from going to landfills and saved thousands of lives.
Quick Question: Do you know any similar stories where one person’s curiosity has changed the world? Let us know in the comments.
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