In the Tiger Toilets team we are finding that being in this year’s TBC Accelerator Cohort is already making a difference to the way we think, to what we do, and to what our business looks like. “We” is the leadership team of TBF Environmental Solutions,  Ajeet Oak, Mangesh Gupte, and Walter Gibson. Ajeet and Walter have worked together since the early days when the Tiger Toilet was just an idea, and have steered it through field testing, early business prototyping and now new company formation. Mangesh joined the team last year and is bringing fresh eyes to our product work and partnership developments.

We are all learning such a lot along the way. Since we joined the Accelerator everything seems to have been intensified, and it has brought us new energy and focus. It feels like we are being – willingly – knocked into shape. Our mentors in Lixil ( Jin Montesano,Daigo Ishiyama and Sibylle Goettgens) are working closely with us on our product and how to market it. Getting the perspectives of senior executives of a hugely successful corporation on where we are and what we should focus on next is really valuable. These have already changed our plans and made an impact on our day to day work. Likewise our weekly calls with our TBC coach Venu have been fascinating – every time there is a great discussion about a key element of our business and bit by bit we have got our thinking, logic and plans clearer.

So what are the results so far? We are on track with our plans. The product team have been working incredibly hard and already have a concept for what we are calling our standard model – the next generation Tiger Toilet that we hope will take us on the next step to scale.  There is little glamour in such work – every day they have been loading prototypes with the “real thing” and flushing them with water to study how they are performing. But it’s paying off .

So our thanks to everyone who is making this possible , and we are looking forward to the next few months.