“The fabric feels cottony and soft, and is latex-, lotion- and fragrance-free to prevent rashes,” she said.
Venkateish also thought about absorbency. “A lot of products in the market just tell you how absorbent they are based on the number of drops they have – for example, six-drop absorbency or seven-drop absorbency. That can be confusing to consumers,” she said.
For this reason, she recently revamped Aire’s packaging to indicate clearly how much urine the diaper can hold – more than one litre, or three to four urine voids. The new packaging will be on shelves this month.
Though Aire users are predominantly seniors over the age of 65, some are in their thirties and forties, including postpartum women, and people with special needs, muscular disease and other illnesses.
A conversation with a woman with multiple sclerosis drove home the importance of clear messaging and reliability.
“She told me that five years ago, she went to work wearing an adult diaper and had an accident. It leaked into her chair and clothes. She had to go to the bathroom and dry her clothes under the hair dryer. She was utterly humiliated.
“Since then, she goes out wearing a sanitary pad inside an adult pull-up, then wears another pull-up diaper over it, wears jeans on top of that, and then sits in a wheelchair and puts her purse on her lap so that if anything happens, it won’t be that obvious.
“That made me realise how much responsibility you have with such products and how important it is to live up to your promise,” Venkateish said.
SENIORS ARE NOT STEREOTYPES
Since its launch in June 2023, Aire has sold tens of thousands of diapers, by Venkateish’s estimate. The brand is currently available at Fairprice, Prime Supermarket, Redmart, selected pharmacies and grocery stores, and on the brand’s website.
In March this year, it received US$500,000 (S$655,700) in seed funding from a consumer venture capitalist. In May, she expanded her one-woman team to a team of four.
“One of the biggest challenges as a solo founder is having that sort of conviction to compete against MNCs with billions of dollars of topline sales,” she said.
