Germaine Kepler had too many flaws. But the one that irked her the most was her need for conformity. Moreover, her family depended on this very trait of hers for their business to run seamlessly.

Having taken over the family business from her retired father nine years ago, she now spear-headed the operations department of their company. Her younger sister Alex, the one accustomed to going against the grain, and also the bossier between the two of them, was naturally suited for the position of CEO.

Growing up in an industrialized part of the country where only a few families dwelled meant that everyone knew everyone else’s business. This would not have bothered Germaine were it not for the type of business her father ran. Alex and her were perpetually teased especially by the boys in high school who lacked maturity. She tried hard to ignore their taunts and upped her dress sense to fit in with the cool crowd as much as she possibly could in the hope that they would stop. Alex on the other hand grew up unperturbed by the teasing. This was easy for her though since she was the prettier sister and attracted the right kind of attention no matter what she wore.

Twenty eight years later, Germaine now a forty two year old woman who had long become desensitized to taunts and teasing and who no longer needed to keep up with the latest fashions, was starting to realize that the family business was no longer congruent to her newly acquired values. Having become more aware of the long-lasting global impacts of climate change, she tried to do her part by adopting the use of bamboo straws and going cold turkey on drinking water from plastic bottles. The sanitary napkins that their business produced was by no means environmentally friendly with the amount of plastic that was required.

It was an uncharacteristically warm winter’s day that got the ball rolling. As Germaine was watching the last of her homemade almond milk trickle from the funnel into a bottle, an idea started formulating in her mind. What if....what if we replaced our production of sanitary napkins with flexible funnels that could be reused? Would it be too avant-garde for society? In fact, would she herself even use one? She pitched her idea to Alex that evening over mulled wine and her normally unconventional sister just stared at her asking if she had gone off her rockers. The next day however, Alex being Alex, who always needed to be the maverick of the family, agreed to building up a prototype of Germaine’s idea.

By the following summer, with the help of their product development and marketing teams, the newly revamped family business, now manufacturing menstrual cups, soared with profits almost doubling. Germaine had managed to integrate her environmental values with her business and couldn’t be any happier.

And that, was how the Kepler sisters went from rags to riches.