Entrepreneurship in sustainable toilet paper; these two young entrepreneurs are doing it, roll by roll

Published in de Volkskrant on October 9, 2022. Written by Liam van de Ven. Photos taken by and property of Raymond Rutting. Also available at https://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/ondernemen-in-duurzaam-wc-papier-deze-twee-jonge-ondernemers-doen-het-rol-voor-rol~bc039ae4/

The 24-year-old students Leroy Ranglek and Joseph Nickisch wanted to bring a product to market together. But what? It became bamboo toilet paper; a solution for the emissions and environmental damage associated with paper production.

Joseph Nickisch, co-owner of Bamboi, demonstrates the strength of the paper.

Image Raymond Rutting / de Volkskrant

On a sunny day in April 2021, a colossal container truck drives onto a storage yard in Hoofddorp. A group of students stands watching with open mouths, faced with the Herculean task of unloading. It's more than 50,000 rolls of toilet paper, packed in boxes of 9 kilos each. It's the first delivery, straight from China, for the startup Bamboi of students Leroy Ranglek and Joseph Nickisch (both 24).

Dutch customs also comes to check, but quickly gives up on inspecting every box. Half of it has to go into some garage storage units, the other half to Nickisch's student house. 'The attic there could only support five hundred kilos, and we ended up putting over five thousand kilos of rolls there.'

More than a year later, they laugh about it, but they haven't forgotten the nightmare of that time. 'And we only paid our friends who came to help twenty euros, while we ended up working for more than six hours.'

Old trees

According to Ranglek and Nickisch, bamboo is a solution for the emissions and environmental damage associated with paper production. Cutting down thirty-year-old trees for toilet paper that is only used once is a crime, they believe. Bamboo, on the other hand, can be fully grown within three months.

Moreover, Ranglek explains: bamboo grows best when it's regularly cut. When a bamboo forest is well maintained, it absorbs much more CO2 than a forest of trees. The cut bamboo can be made into a pulp that is very suitable for making paper. A win-win situation, for the environment and for the two toilet paper sellers.

Nickisch and Ranglek became friends in their first year of high school in Amsterdam. Between them, they've had more than a dozen side jobs and small businesses, from street sales to hospitality. They once set up a small e-commerce platform, long before bamboo paper was on their radar. That the two would start a business together was a given. The question was only in what.

Leroy Ranglek came up with the idea to bring bamboo toilet paper to market.

Image Raymond Rutting / de Volkskrant

Ranglek came up with the idea to bring bamboo toilet paper to market. 'I wanted to sell something that everyone uses. A friend's father had his own garbage bag business, and from there I thought through until I arrived at toilet paper. So I looked up: is toilet paper actually sustainable? It turned out not to be at all, because so many trees are cut down for it. Now I'm from Thailand myself, where bamboo is widely used, and I wondered: why don't we make that toilet paper from bamboo?' The idea then ended up on the shelf. Because, as the founders say, 'who's going to start a toilet paper company as a young guy?'

After two years, the duo decides to move forward; the idea is too good to let go. They write a draft for a business plan. Nickisch, who studies International Business Administration, handles communication, customer contacts, and the brand. Ranglek, a Mechanical Engineering student, knows how to get a product made on the other side of the world.

They ordered dozens of prototypes from as many different producers, until they finally arrived at a product that met all requirements. Softness, strength, weight and, a crucial point for the entrepreneurs, made entirely of bamboo. From core to wrapper, there's not a gram of regular paper in a Bamboi roll.

Minor in entrepreneurship

Meanwhile, they followed the minor in entrepreneurship at the HvA. 'We used that minor to turn the first draft into a functional business plan,' says Nickisch. When that was in place, with their teachers looking on, they applied for a social credit of 50 thousand euros. They only received half of it. Nickisch: 'Because we're young, they didn't have enough confidence.' From their own savings, they scraped together another 10 thousand euros, just enough to order that first gigantic shipment.

Sales began from their own webshop and through platforms like bol.com. 'The biggest challenge was managing our inventory. Because we had to work with a smaller budget, we didn't have enough room to order a second shipment, while sales were going through the roof.'

About six months after sales began, Ranglek was a guest on a radio broadcast on NPO4, after which thirty orders came in on one morning. 'If that had continued, we would have sold out at once and wouldn't have been able to deliver anymore. We would have gone under due to our own success,' says Ranglek.

The most exciting moments for Bamboi are over. While the two finish their studies, they are more than full-time busy expanding their business. Within the startup world, they are a breath of fresh air among all the fast-paced tech entrepreneurs. They win prize after prize for their entrepreneurship. And the fact that they're not paying themselves yet? 'We don't care about that,' says Ranglek. 'In a year, we'll probably be able to pay ourselves a salary, but for now that's not so important. We both intend to roll out this company and tackle the paper industry, that's the vision.' Order our bamboo toilet paper.