HBR On Strategy · Harvard Business Review

Bringing Innovation to an Underserved Market

·27 min·1 clip

Thinx raised $65,000 on Kickstarter after a subway ad was pulled and turned into free press.

1. HBR On Strategy focuses on Thinx and the problem of bringing innovation to an underserved feminine-care market. 2. Host Brian Kenney speaks with Harvard Business School professor Rembrandt Koning, who wrote the case "Thinx, Inc., Breaking Barriers in Feminine Care." 3. The episode asks how taboo, diversity, and channel strategy shape whether period underwear can scale beyond a niche. 4. Koning says menstruation taboos raised switching costs, limited advertising, and made it hard for consumers to compare tampons and pads. 5. He notes that television ads for these products did not appear until the 1970s, which slowed awareness of new options. 6. He also links market structure to who runs firms and who funds them, pointing to male-dominated consumer-goods leadership and venture capital. 7. Koning says the global feminine-hygiene market is about $35 billion and that major players such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Kimberly-Clark dominate it. 8. He describes the category as highly concentrated, with shelf placement at Target, Walmart, and CVS often mattering more than price competition. 9. Koning recalls an older retail norm in which women bought pads in the 19th century without saying the product name. 10. He says Thinx founder Miki Agrawal used Kickstarter in 2013, raised $65,000, and used the money for a prototype and manufacturing support in Sri Lanka. 11. He says the MTA pulled Thinx subway ads, which helped generate far more free publicity in newspapers and online than the paid campaign itself. 12. Koning also cites Selfridges in London, where the store would not let Thinx use the word "period" in the display. 13. Maria Molland enters as CEO after the founder's departure and, according to Koning, inherits a company with loyal customers but weak internal process. 14. He says Molland worked at eBay and Yahoo and came from Harvard Business School with experience in consumer tech and women's health. 15. Koning says she found Thinx had no maternity leave policy, a detail he uses to show how purpose can crowd out basic operational discipline. 16. He says Molland built metrics, hired talent, and paused growth for a year or two before trying to scale again. 17. Koning describes two customer personas, Alana and Diane, and says the company needed to speak beyond a Brooklyn, direct-to-consumer audience. 18. The interview moves at a case-discussion pace, with Brian Kenney prompting examples and Koning answering with concrete market history, numbers, and product details. 19. Listeners interested in consumer strategy, women’s health, and retail innovation will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a quick celebrity business story with little market detail may skip it.

As heard by us

A taboo became an edge, and the harder question was how to scale it.

Thinx's rise reads like a case study in how a taboo can become an edge. Rembrandt Koning and Brian Kenney track the brand's early provocations, from the awkward classroom setup to the Selfridges display that could not say period and still landed in the London press.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

When you want a case study on taboo becoming market leverage in a real company.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from HBR On Strategy