The New American Dream
Role:
Creator
Producer

gDiaper - Pilot 6
Jason and Kim Graham-Nye
Oregon, USA
written by Kristin King-Ries

There are companies that call themselves ‘family friendly’, and then there’s gDiaper.
For them, family friendly doesn’t end with a generous maternity leave. gDiaper is a
family centered business. It all started when Kim Graham-Nye got pregnant. She and
her husband Jason read in the paper that disposable diapers took 500 years to break
down in a landfill. They didn’t want to leave that kind of trash for their kids, so
they looked around for an alternative. They lived in drought-stricken Australia at
the time, so cotton diapers weren’t a good alternative. At a baby expo they came
across a flushable diaper lining with reusable outer pants—like the old rubber pants
but breathable, washable, and made without plastic. They took a stack home and from
that moment on, they were sold. The diapers were made by a tiny company in Tasmania
and sustained by word of mouth—no ads, no website. Kim and Jason were able to buy the
rights to produce flushable diapers everywhere in the world except for Australia and
New Zealand.  They wanted to bring their values, a triple bottom line of people, planet, product, to the world of business, and the flushable seemed like the perfect product.
True to their goal, their office has what they call the village for the children of
employees who aren’t school age, with three full time teachers on site. The village is
located on a different floor from the offices, but Kim said sometimes she hears the
pitter patter of little feet coming in for a hug.

Before they started this company, both Kim and Jason had other careers. Jason is
fluent in Japanese and had been a stock broker in Japan. He moved to Australia to teach
at university. Kim worked on HIV issues in Africa for five years. She took a job in
Australia in telecom to fund new volunteer projects. They met in Sydney. Jason
surprised her on their first date with a romantic getaway, and after that they began
to try to outdo each other in the romance department. Their friends encouraged them to
write a book, which they did. “Great Dates: a Romantic Guide to Sydney.” They got so
many calls for advice they began a sideline as event planners. But when they were ready
to have children, they wanted to start a business that provided a more steady income.

Traditional lenders wanted Kim and Jason to abandon their family centered business
plan, so they went to individual ‘angel’ investors who get risk but higher returns.
They refused to budge on the Village concept. Kim found their first big investor
through a chance meeting at a park. Kim’s son had on a cute pair of gDiaper outer
pants and so did this other baby. The woman asked Kim where she’d gotten her diapers
and the two of them started comparing notes. When the other mom learned that Kim owned
the rights to the technology and wanted to go global with the flushable diaper concept,
she said words every start-up business person longs to hear. ‘You should meet my
husband. He’s an investor.’ Another of their angel investors is a mother of 8 as well
as a veteran of the high tech industry and a seasoned, intelligent investor. The woman
nursed her babies in board meetings for 21 years. Kim’s second child was five weeks
old at the time of their first meeting, and she told Kim to bring the baby into the
room to nurse. This set the tone for the Board of Directors.

gDiaper is doing well. They’ve added compostable diapers and tossable diapers to the flushable. Half of their business is online. Moms and dads are busy and tired, and
with gDiaper they can set up auto ship to have their diapers delivered on a regular
basis almost anywhere on the planet. Any parent that’s discovered the disposable on
their child that now weighs thirty pounds and smells like a bleu cheese was the last
diaper in the box can appreciate that concept.

One of the challenges in starting the business that surprised Kim was how hard it has
been to find vendors and suppliers. It’s an ongoing sales pitch, she says. Scale is a
problem. Manufacturers don’t want to work with you unless you have lots of volume like conventional diaper manufacturers. She was chasing them as opposed to them chasing her.
It took a year and a half to find a pad manufacturer who’d meet with them. Almost a
deal breaker.

A marketing director recently told Kim his rule of thumb is: never invest in a company
that needs education. Nobody wants to read a booklet or even a page of instructions.
But Kim disagrees. gDiaper is one of those companies that depends on educating
consumers because their product is new and different. So they are trying to redefine convenience for people. They use everything from the box, the instructions, to online
videos as a way to educate their consumers. They believe once moms and dads understand gDiaper’s product and their philosophy, they’ll be sold.