Health condition births business idea

Being a woman entails navigating a multitude of challenges and discomforts often associated with womanhood. 

For Ms Honest Fortunate Kansiime, the chief executive officer, at Mapalo Investment, what started as a solution to her autistic child’s sanitary issues has become a fully booming business.

Kansiime says long before she had her six-year-old daughter Mapalo, she had an idea of innovating a period pant. However, she did not realise just how precious that idea was.

Since Mapalo entered this world, most of her time was dedicated to looking after her, as she was born with autism. Autistic children often take longer to adjust. 

She started thinking critically about her future and how Mapalo’s life will be as a teenager when she starts having her monthly periods. Any extra time for Kansiime was typically spent thinking about sanitary ware her daughter would wear comfortably and not spot.

“It took me two years, from the time when I first drew the pad on paper, to this final product (Mapalo pant pad) you see on the market, it is like the seventh. I kept seeking advice on what to add to make the product much better,” Kansiime says.

Mapalo Pants provide comfortable underwear and peace of mind during menstrual flow or accidents for girls and women. The feminine hygiene product is now big business. 
She says Mapalo pants are made of breathable cotton in and out. It is s a French knicker. So, when a lady sleeps in it she is not worried about spotting because it is long enough and comfortable.

A pack of three period pants costs Shs5,000.
“Mapalo is a special needs girl, which is the reason why I named this panty pad Mapalo. For a special needs girl staying neat during her period, this is a whole different story,” Kansiime says.

Kansiime notes that just training a special needs girl how to wear a knicker is hard. 
“Time quickly flies and I will have to teach her how to use a pad,” Kansiime notes. 

Mapalo goes to a special needs school. While there, Kansiime says she observed how girls were suffering, especially those who are not neurotypical, girls with cerebral palsy, down syndrome, and autism when it came to that time of the month.

Even training them how to sit well is a challenge. So, a disposable knicker which is like a pad, comes in very handy for them, because they have been trained and gotten used to wearing a knicker daily.

So they can wear a period pant with ease as you are not introducing something foreign to them. 

However, she says most special needs girls find it challenging to sit in one place.

“If they are not climbing, they are doing this or that. This rigorous movement for someone wearing an ordinary pad, it can loosen its wings ending up tilting to one side making them feel uneasy.

First customer
On November 27, 2023, the pant pad hit the market. 
While offloading the feminine product at the sales outlet in Bukoto, a city suburb, Kansiime describes how she got the first customer. 

“The man looked at what we were selling, and liked the product. He bought two packets for his wife, at Shs10,000,” Kansiime, who bags  Shs9.4 million in profit per month, says.

Kansiime says to her surprise this panty pad has gained usability that she never envisaged.
She says women who have given birth, sick people with cannulas on their hands, people who are traveling, pilgrims are all using it, instead of piling dirty underwear until they return home.

Manufacturing process
 But to produce this prototype of pad, a specific machine is needed and it was not in Uganda.
So Kansiime took flights to Europe and Asia in the quest for a company that could craft specialised machinery to produce this pad.

Investment
In terms of the cost of producing a period pant, Kansiime has invested quite a lot, summing up to over Shs1  billion, in setting up this company and she is still investing.
She is toying with the idea of innovating a maternity pant, similar to this period pant, but with more cotton among other things.

At the start just when she thought the product was ready for the market, she kept going back to just to incorporate what women advised.

 Kansiime who employs 21 young women has partnered with some hospitals that are asking for a neonate diaper, which is lighter with more cotton, similar to the Mapalo pads, but for the premature babies.

Furthermore, she says, there is actually a lot to be done, that she didn’t envisage. But she is doing great ever since her innovation hit the market.

For now, Kansiime says so far so good, as Mapalo Investment can pay salaries and the running costs, they can afford as a company.

Noting that she got a loan from Letshego and they can finance that from the sale of the period pants. She has also broadened her clientele to include supermarkets where orders are growing. 

Since this feminine product took time to make a breakthrough, Kansiime says, they did not have money for a product launch. Armed with bags containing cartons of these pant pads, she employed a team of women to seek out potential customers. 

She asked them to interest supermarkets, pharmacies, churches, shops, and people’s homes among other places showing off the Mapalo pant pad.

To ride on the growth in online business, she asked her employees to post the product on their WhatsApp status and share it with friends. 
“That is how our product managed to penetrate the market,” she notes.
Currently, the big supermarkets in the country, order between four to 10 cartons per order, according to Kansiime, and it does not take beyond two weeks before they put in another order.
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