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A number of years back, I was working with NASA to consider technology options for recycling water on the space station. One option was using breathable materials to separate water from waste, which NASA could then reuse for space agriculture. When trying to get rid of wastewater, I immediately appreciated that breathable materials could simplify that by doing the equivalent of evaporating water (i.e., subtracting the water out of the waste, instead of most wastewater treatment options, which removes waste from the water) but without actually boiling off the water (which costs a lot of energy). As a low-energy option to separate molecular water from waste, it occurred to me that this solution not only could be used in space, but also held possibilities for better sanitation for places here on Earth without water treatment or reliable power.

A few years later, I had my first baby and we moved from New York to Boston. Because I didn’t have a job that came with me, my career took a complete nose-dive off a cliff. To reboot myself, I tried working with various startups in the Boston area, but I wasn’t making a lot of progress. So I decided to start my own, launching change:WATER Labs to work on this concept of pulling water out of waste and returning it back in its purest form. Was it obvious that this was what I should work on? No, but it was literally the only idea I had at the time!

Our iThrone is a drop-in, waterless, no-flush toilet that needs no sewer hookup. It contains a bag made of evaporative membranes that sucks the water out of human waste and returns it to the air as molecular water, the purest form of water. Since 95 percent of what comes out of us is water, the waste essentially shrinks and mostly disappears. The dry concentrated biomass that’s left can either be disposed of or converted to energy or fertilizer.

When I started, all I had was an idea. I didn’t have technology, money, a team, or a place to experiment. Early on, I was asked to give a quick pitch of my idea in front of television cameras, and what came out was a disaster. I realized that if I couldn’t tell the story in a way that ignited interest, it didn’t matter how great my idea was, I should just pack up and go home. That’s when I came up with “shrink wrap for crap,” a visual and entertaining way to explain our solution. Once I was able to articulate the idea that way, I started to attract team members and seed funding, and we went from concept to development to product, and then validation in the field.

Initially, I wasn’t sure if we would use this solution to target clean drinking water or sanitation. My decision to focus on sanitation came from seeing the massive human displacement in my home region of the Middle East—from Iraq, Yemen, Syria—and learning about how utterly devastating it is for displaced people to live without access to toilets. I learned from talking to workers in refugee camps how a lack of safe sanitation deprived people of privacy, dignity, safety and cleanliness. This is especially treacherous for women and girls. Just to perform a basic human function, females have to go in public, exposing themselves in a way they don’t want to. This leads to sanitation-related gender-based violence (GBV), where they are susceptible to sexual assault on a daily basis whenever they have to answer Nature’s call.

Access to safe toilets also means access to education, especially for girls. Fifty percent of schools in the world do not have proper toilet facilities. To make it through a full day of school without using the toilet, female students are not eating or drinking, and they’re getting infections from holding their urge. When they start menstruating, they miss a week of school every month and fall behind. At some point, they are so far behind that they drop out. More than 20 percent of girls drop out for lack of toilet facilities at school.

I think a lot of women professionals deal with impostor syndrome. We take every criticism to heart. For me, I initially questioned “What right do I have to think I’m the one to solve this problem?” Eventually, I came to see that because I was the only one out here doing this, I was, by default, the expert. When I started, did I know that it was going to work? No, but this is legitimately an ambitious thing we’re doing. Nobody starting something new knows for certain that it’s going to work. I don’t have to apologize for going after something ambitious and not having all the answers upfront. Once I got over my imposter syndrome, I was able to move forward more boldly and confidently.

For women founders, when someone is questioning your abilities, very likely the root of that comes from your being a female. Don’t bother to invest in that conversation. I’m not saying that everything we do is wonderful and every idea we have is great; we must always question things to make sure we are course-correcting. But when you have an ambitious vision, you need to be surrounded by champions. Find your champions.

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The first and foundational company in the Wachira Group is Wachira Wines. I am Kenyan American, born and raised in Kenya, and I couldn’t find a wine that complemented the food my mother made for our Sunday dinners. I thought I’ll craft a wine for her and that’s how it started. Wachira Wines combined my fascination with the science of winemaking, because I have a science background, and not being able to find a wine that complemented Kenyan cuisine.

The first wines we crafted were a chardonnay, a cabernet, and a muscat. We tested them on family and friends around the dinner table, but they did not quite make the mark and never made it to market. I then found a Bay Area winemaker who took me under his wing. I was fascinated by the science of winemaking, but he taught me the art of winemaking.

Wachira Wines was a passion project, but every subsequent business venture under the Wachira Group was driven by a need in the market. For example, it was challenging for me, an immigrant Black woman, to break into the wine industry and get my products on shelves. I discovered that other makers like me, people of color and especially women, were having the same problem. We needed our own ecosystem. So the second company I founded under the Wachira Group was SOKO Distributors. It is the first company licensed in the state of California to distribute minority-produced wine, beer, and liquor.

The third company under Wachira Group, and also part of our ecosystem, is a brick-and-mortar retail outlet called Karibu. It means “welcome” in Swahili. It was my COVID baby! I opened it at 1419 Park Street, Alameda, California, in 2021. Karibu invites other makers, especially minority small-batch crafters of wine and beer, to come and serve their products to customers. Not only that, it’s also a retail outlet for their products.

I arrived in the U.S. as a twenty-three-year-old. Like everybody else, I came here for a better life. In Kenya, everyone I grew up around looked like me. Some were educated, driven, and formidable. My mother, for example, was a nurse practitioner, my grandmothers were nurse practitioners, nurse midwifes. I also grew up around the poor, the sick, and the hungry, and they, too, looked like me. So I never considered myself less than or incapable. I had the confidence to go after something that fascinated me and was challenging. Then, being new to the U.S. and having to redefine myself gave me a toolset that allows me to be nimble, to reinvent, to pivot.

Ensuring I have enough funding for inventory to meet demand. Learning countries’ different regulatory requirements. Protecting my intellectual property. Not being fully connected to trade commissions and trade missions, which can feel a little bit exclusionary.

Another is establishing relationships in countries where I want to sell my products. My primary destination has always been Kenya, because our wines are crafted to pair with Kenyan food. Not having boots on the ground in Kenya, the challenge was finding a singular distribution partner in the country that has partnerships with multiple retail outlets. Plus, the sociopolitical fluidity of Kenya, with different regimes, adds a crease in the plan. Our goal, however, is to ship product to Kenya in time for the 2024 holiday season. The Middle East is another destination we are exploring, and also China / Asia, which would be a great market just based on quantity.

My primary advice is to fully understand your industry. You have to do your homework, especially in the beverage space. There’s a difference between the crafting of your beverage and the business of your beverage. You have to know the regulatory aspects, the import costs, how long your products will sit in the water before they reach their destination. For an alcoholic beverage, the integrity of the product once it lands at the destination is a key issue. You must maintain some level of insurance over your product.

It’s a beautiful thing to take your brand global, because greater exposure and product recognition can translate into economies of scale and much better profit margins. There’s tremendous risk, of course, but there’s also tremendous opportunity.

Be prepared for circumstances that you don’t understand and look for help. Organizations like Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global provide a lot of help to entrepreneurs. Also, don’t measure yourself against others who have been in international trade for a while. Trust yourself enough to handle your specific situation and go forward, because until you get started, you don’t know what you can accomplish.