Taboo topics make for good business: Thinx, Tushy, Daybreaker | Miki and Radha Agrawal

Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://ift.tt/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink Radha: Often people will write me an email, like a young person will write me an email like, “Hey, can we get together for coffee?” And then I won’t respond just to see if they’ll write me again. Because there’s something in that! Like I would write my mentors probably 20 times until I got a response. Miki Agrawal: I showed up, like a stalker. Radha Agrawal: Yeah. We find out like— this one guy I wanted to get in touch with, I called his landline like 20 times, he wouldn’t pick up, and then I found out where he was speaking in New York City and then I went there, and I was just, like afterwards I was like, “Hey what’s up?” And he became the head researcher of one of my big projects! And so I think the resilience and never giving up, persistence is something that sports has taught us, and I think that we can all be so sort of timid at times to continue reaching out again. Like my best friend Max, when I first started hanging out with him he was 22 at the time and I was 32 – he’s our best friend. Okay. Sorry. Our best friend Max, he was 22 and we were 32, and we met him on a vacation and when he came back to New York he would just text me all the time he would say “Hey want to hang out?” And I was like, “No I don’t want to hang out with a 22 year old kid, no thanks.” But then he just kept texting me over and over again and be like, “Hey I’m in the neighborhood!” Miki Agrawal: And just kept showing up— first person at the party, last person to leave. Radha Agrawal: Yeah. And he would show up all the time. And then finally he came to one of our parties and we realized how smart and thoughtful and interesting he was, and he’s now our best friend. So I think that perseverance is something that we aren’t often taught and it just—keep going up. And especially as women we’re so empathetic that in some ways our empathy becomes our fuel for fear.