--- title: "Wonder Women" headline: "Wonder Women — co-founding Pakistan’s FemTech startup and closing P&G" description: "Ali Ahmed co-founded Wonder Women, Pakistan’s FemTech startup: Asani vending machines, 75,000+ transactions, a P&G partnership, and the HEC seed fund." canonical_url: https://alioahmed.com/work/wonder-women type: case-study role: "Co-Founder & Head of Product" date_label: "May 2022 – October 2024" status: concluded date_modified: 2026-08-09 author: name: "Ali Ahmed" url: https://alioahmed.com/ orcid: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4265-3295 key_figures: - "29 Machines Installed" - "75,000+ Transactions Completed" - "24 Locations" - "USD 35K HEC Seed Grant Won" - "21+ National Media Features" - "P&G Strategic Partner" entities: - name: "Wonder Women" type: Organization url: https://alioahmed.com/work/wonder-women same_as: - https://x.com/WonderWomenpk - name: "Always (Procter & Gamble)" type: Organization url: https://us.pg.com same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procter_%26_Gamble - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q212405 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_(brand) - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3500302 - name: "Engro Corporation" type: Organization url: https://www.engro.com same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engro_Corporation - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5378747 - name: "The Aga Khan University Hospital" type: Organization url: https://hospitals.aku.edu same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aga_Khan_University_Hospital,_Karachi - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4690948 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aga_Khan_University - name: "NETSOL Technologies" type: Organization url: https://netsoltech.com same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetSol_Technologies - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q85788296 - name: "Sapphire Textile Mills" type: Organization url: https://www.sapphiretextiles.com.pk same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire_(group) - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15983520 - name: "Sapphire Retail" type: Organization url: https://pk.sapphireonline.pk same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire_Retail - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48729570 - name: "Devsinc" type: Organization url: https://devsinc.com person_same_as: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alioahmed/ - https://github.com/alioahmed - https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4265-3295 - https://x.com/Alioahmed_ - https://about.me/alioahmed - https://dev.to/alioahmed - https://medium.com/@alioahmed - https://hashnode.com/@alioahmed - https://substack.com/@alioahmed - https://huggingface.co/alioahmed - https://bsky.app/profile/alioahmed.bsky.social - https://mastodon.social/@alioahmed - https://www.kaggle.com/alioahmed - https://www.producthunt.com/@alioahmed - https://www.patreon.com/cw/alioahmed - https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/202106301-ali-ahmed - https://fueler.io/alioahmed - https://gitlab.com/alioahmed - https://linktr.ee/alioahmed - https://topmate.io/alioahmed related: - https://alioahmed.com/work/startup-ecosystem - https://alioahmed.com/work/bijli-bachao full_corpus: https://alioahmed.com/llms-full.txt site_index: https://alioahmed.com/llms.txt --- # Wonder Women > I co-founded Wonder Women to solve one of Pakistan’s biggest yet least discussed healthcare challenges — menstrual hygiene accessibility. From hardware engineering and software development to manufacturing, fundraising, and partnerships — I led the end-to-end execution of Asani. **Canonical URL:** https://alioahmed.com/work/wonder-women **Role:** Co-Founder & Head of Product — May 2022 – October 2024 **Summary:** Ali Ahmed co-founded Wonder Women, Pakistan’s FemTech startup: Asani vending machines, 75,000+ transactions, a P&G partnership, and the HEC seed fund. ## Key figures - **29** — Machines Installed - **75,000+** — Transactions Completed - **24** — Locations - **USD 35K** — HEC Seed Grant Won - **21+** — National Media Features - **P&G** — Strategic Partner Asani — “ease” in Urdu — is Pakistan’s first locally-assembled wall-mounted sanitary-napkin vending machine, and the product brand under Wonder Women: four dispensing rows holding 56 pads, installed in female restrooms at universities, offices, and hospitals, taking cash, a 4-digit employee PIN, or app payment. Built at roughly one-tenth the cost of imported alternatives, and installed within about two weeks of a partner saying yes. The company grew out of the Takhleeq Business Incubator at the University of Central Punjab, Lahore, after a campus period-emergency in 2019 sparked the concept. Ali joined as Co-Founder & Head of Product in May 2022 and owned the product end-to-end — hardware design and manufacturing oversight, the mobile app and multi-tenant partner portal, enterprise sales, pricing, brand communications, and grant proposals. In a country where one in three girls drops out of school on reaching puberty, the mission carried the product: access, dignity, and a stigma dismantled one restroom at a time. ### What Ali built as Head of Product - **Asani — the vending machine** — Pakistan’s first locally-assembled wall-mounted sanitary-napkin vending machine, manufactured at the Takhleeq incubator in Lahore. - Four rows, 56-pad capacity; accepts cash (Rs 20 / 50 / 100), employee PIN, or app payment over Bluetooth. - Roughly one-tenth the cost of imported alternatives. - Confirmation to installation in about two weeks. - **Asani Mini — the second tier** — A lower-cost machine Ali designed in late 2023 for institutions that didn’t need cash acceptance or employee codes — three rows, digital payments only. Two product tiers for two market segments. - **ASANI mobile app** — Pakistan’s first holistic health-tech platform for menstrual health — and the mission written in code. - Signing up gave every new user free credit — literally a free first pad. - The Emergency Pad button gifted PKR 50 of credit from the company’s own account, once a month, so no woman was ever stranded in an emergency. - Bank-transfer top-ups, Bluetooth auto-detection of nearby machines, and a map of every Asani location. - **The partner portal & operations engine** — A real-time, multi-tenant dashboard behind an end-to-end inventory chain — warehouse to campus ambassador to machine shelf to customer — with every movement logged. - Live cash counts per machine before every collection. - Low-stock alerts by SMS and email to the campus ambassador. - Partners slice usage by day, week, machine, or product, and export reports. - **The campus-ambassador program** — Students employed as location-linked field reps with their own dispensing and maintenance codes — restocking machines, running awareness sessions, and acting as the face of Wonder Women on campus. On-campus jobs, and a community educated on menstrual hygiene. - **The PCOS platform** — Pakistan’s first PCOS self-assessment tool — a personalised risk score in under three minutes — plus a moderated clinical community that reached 700 members in two months, and three structured care programs: Periods Asani, Weight Loss Asani, and Lifestyle Asani. - Image: Asani wall-mounted sanitary-pad vending machine by Wonder Women — "We make period products accessible" — Asani — the wall-mounted machine: product window, cash acceptor, and the three-step how-to on the fascia. - Image: Always Asani co-branded sanitary-pad vending machine — Wonder Women × Procter & Gamble partnership — The #AlwaysAsani machine — the Always (P&G) co-branded edition, stocked with Always products for the campus deployments. - Image: Asani brand logo — Urdu calligraphy wordmark of Wonder Women’s vending-machine brand — Asani — the product brand under Wonder Women. “Ease,” in Urdu. ### Built in Pakistan — why the cost held The one-tenth-of-imports price was not a subsidy — it was a production system, and it was validated before it scaled: the February 2021 pilot at FCCU signed up 30 users in two weeks while COVID kept campus attendance near 40%. - Roughly 65% of components produced locally — sheet metal and acrylic fabricated by Lahore vendors, local electronics — with 35% imported (cash acceptors, motors, PCBs) on a two-month lead time and a five-machine buffer always on hand. - A machine took one skilled week to assemble, with two resources on the line and capacity for ten machines a week at the Takhleeq incubator. - Inventory supply partnerships with Always and Butterfly at subsidized rates. - A four-phase deployment SOP — discovery, deployment, operations, reporting — with per-institution SLAs. ### The signature deal: closing Procter & Gamble In July 2022, Ali closed the #AlwaysAsani partnership with Procter & Gamble — a multinational FMCG giant partnering with a Pakistani FemTech startup. A young co-founder negotiating exclusivity carve-outs across the table from a multinational is the moment the operator instinct shows: the landmark deal closed, with the company’s upside preserved. The delivery obsession showed elsewhere too: when a machine at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi developed a manufacturing fault, Ali flew Lahore to Karachi with the replacement part and fixed it on-site. ### Inside the P&G deal - P&G covered 53% of the upfront machine cost — PKR 170,000 per unit — with a 70-machine pipeline planned over six months. - Six months rent-free, then PKR 15,000 per machine per month from month seven. - The 12-month exclusivity was negotiated down to a partial-exclusivity carve-out: Wonder Women stayed free to pursue other corporate clients, while Always co-branding was preserved for educational institutions. - Campaign machines deployed across LUMS, GCU, University of Lahore, and UCP. ### The enterprise sales engine The corporate book was built by hand: 49+ companies pursued through 72+ personalized proposals and follow-ups to 70+ named contacts — every pricing model customized to the client. - An Employee Facilitation Program let organizations give female employees free monthly pads against their employee IDs, billed on actual usage. - At Sapphire’s Sheikhupura factory, Ali ran a menstrual-health awareness session with a gynecologist panel — for the female factory workers, not the head office. - Three sales-model moves accelerated closes: operational charges waived on the ownership model, a 30-day free trial, and delivery cut from 30 days to 3. - Pipeline beyond the closes: a 15-machine proposal to Jazz, a 20-machine co-branding proposal to Packages Limited, a pilot proposal to Coca-Cola Içecek, Martin Dow, and a 100-machine-per-year partnership attempted with Hayat Kimya’s Molped. - Image: Molped Asani co-branded sanitary-pad vending machine design — Wonder Women × Hayat Kimya, the attempted 100-machine partnership — The Molped co-branded machine Ali designed for the attempted 100-machine-per-year partnership with Hayat Kimya. The deal never closed — the design shows how far it went. - Image: Wonder Women awareness sessions — student workshops on campuses, corporate menstrual-health talks, and a deployed Asani machine — The awareness engine: student sessions across campuses, corporate workshops, and menstrual-health talks with clinical speakers — demand creation for a product whose biggest barrier was stigma. ### Deployments & partners Twenty-nine machines ran across 24 locations — eight rental deployments, ten machines owned outright by four buyers, and eleven university placements. The demand was measured, not assumed: 90% of surveyed university women said they needed on-campus menstrual-hygiene support, and a single high-traffic location dispensed 700 pads a month. - Universities: LUMS, UCP, FAST-NUCES, FCCU, GCU, University of Lahore, BNU, NCA, and more — with outreach partners from CMH Lahore Medical College to Fatima Jinnah Women University. - Aga Khan University Hospital — six machines, the largest single deployment. - Corporate floors: Engro, Sapphire (three sites), NETSOL, Devsinc, Arbisoft, Superior University, and The Learning Hub Gujranwala. ### On campus and beyond The install and outreach base ran from Pakistan’s top universities to school systems and medical colleges: LUMS — Lahore University of Management Sciences · FAST-NUCES — National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences · GCU Lahore — Government College University · Forman Christian College University · University of Central Punjab · The University of Lahore · University of Home Economics Lahore · LACAS — Lahore College of Arts and Sciences · LGS — Lahore Grammar School · Fatima Jinnah Medical University, Lahore · CMH Lahore Medical College · Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Medical & Dental College, Lahore · FMH College of Medicine & Dentistry · Avicenna Medical College - Image: Viral student tweet showing an installed Asani sanitary-pad vending machine — 4,300 likes — “So our university installed these vending machines which is quite thoughtful of them.” — a student’s unprompted post, March 2022: 4,300 likes and 525 reposts. The kind of proof no press release can buy. ### Diplomatic recognition > "I’ve had my own challenges in Pakistan finding feminine-hygiene products when I really need them. So glad to see initiatives like @WonderWomenpk — critically important. Period!" > — Wendy Gilmour — Canadian High Commissioner to Pakistan (2018–2022). Posted on Menstrual Hygiene Day, 28 May 2022, while she was serving as High Commissioner — weeks after the US Consulate General Lahore shared its own feature of the startup. ### The journey, year by year - May 2019 — a campus period emergency sparks the Asani concept at UCP. - February 2021 — first pilot at Forman Christian College University: 30 users in two weeks, mid-COVID. - March 2022 — public pilot launches at UCP Lahore; first national press follows on ProPakistani. - May 2022 — Ali joins as Co-Founder & Head of Product; Wonder Women Private Limited is formally registered the same year. - July 2022 — the #AlwaysAsani campaign launches with Procter & Gamble. - November 2022 — the HEC Innovator Seed Fund is won: USD 35,000, one of 15 winners from 186 applicants. - Late 2023 — the pivot: from hardware-only to hardware plus digital health, focused on PCOS; the Asani Mini ships as the lower-cost second product tier. - October 2024 — Ali’s tenure concludes. ### Recognition Six national and international recognitions across the company’s journey — the 2021 wins earned before Ali joined, the 2022 wins landed during the build — plus 21+ national media features: - HEC Innovator Seed Fund — USD 35,000; 186 applied, 26 pitched, 15 won, at a ceremony attended by the HEC Chairman and the Acting World Bank Country Director (2022). - Entrepreneurship World Cup — 1st place in Pakistan, and among the Top 100 Global Startups (2021). - Falling Walls Lab — Pakistan Winner, 1st place (2021). - Bahria Innovation Challenge — 1st place (2022); SheLovesTech — Regional Competition Winner; Pakistan StartUp Cup 2021, TiE Islamabad chapter — Regional Finalist. - Covered by ProPakistani, The Express Tribune, Pakistan Today, Daily Pakistan, FuchsiaMagazine, and more — plus television segments and social recognition from the US Consulate Lahore. Falling Walls Lab — Pakistan Winner 2021 · Entrepreneurship World Cup — 1st Place Pakistan, Top 100 Global 2021 · Pakistan StartUp Cup 2021 — Regional Finalist, TiE Islamabad · SheLovesTech — Regional Competition Winner ### The problem Asani attacked - **1 in 3** — girls drops out of school on reaching puberty - **79%** — of Pakistani women struggle to manage periods hygienically - **44%** — lack basic menstrual-hygiene facilities at home or work - **28%** — miss work during periods (UNICEF) ### The pivot: hardware to digital health The pivot came from the field. Deploying machines across campuses and workplaces meant hundreds of conversations with the women using them, and the same theme kept surfacing: women’s healthcare in Pakistan was broken — no awareness of what their bodies were going through, days-long waits for appointments, no health history, delayed treatment. In late 2023 the company expanded into digital health, starting with PCOS — which affects an estimated 52% of Pakistani women against 10–20% globally, with 70% of cases undiagnosed. Ali shipped Pakistan’s first PCOS self-assessment tool — a personalised risk score in under three minutes — and built the care layer around it: a support community that reached 700 members within two months, moderated by PCOS experts, and a clinical team of certified gynecologists, nutritionists, care managers, and a habit coach behind three structured programs. The roadmap ran from PCOS to infertility, maternal, and menopause care — the full spectrum of women’s health. His tenure concluded in October 2024. The company’s own closing line is the one worth keeping: “Together, we’re not just giving access — we’re giving dignity.” ### Inside the PCOS self-assessment tool - Image: Wonder Women PCOS self-assessment tool — landing screen: "Test your PCOS risk score" — “Test your PCOS risk score — making women health accessible.” The front door. - Image: PCOS assessment step — menstrual-cycle frequency question with five illustrated options — Clinical intake, in plain language: cycle-frequency screening. - Image: PCOS assessment step — body-shape question with five illustrated body types — Clinical questions translated into choices any user can answer. - Image: PCOS assessment — optional lifestyle risk-assessment step — The lifestyle module: an optional deeper assessment for a fuller report. - Image: PCOS assessment result screen — separate clinical and lifestyle risk-score gauges — The output: separate clinical and lifestyle risk scores, with a score guide. ## FAQ ### What was Ali Ahmed’s role at Wonder Women? Co-Founder & Head of Product, May 2022 to October 2024. He owned the product end-to-end — the Asani hardware, the mobile app and partner portal, enterprise sales, and grant fundraising. ### Who co-founded Wonder Women? Public credit belongs to two people: Ayesha Haroon, whose 2019 campus period-emergency sparked the Asani concept, and Ali Ahmed, who joined as Co-Founder & Head of Product in May 2022. The company grew out of the Takhleeq Business Incubator at the University of Central Punjab, Lahore. ### What did Ali Ahmed actually build at Wonder Women? An ecosystem, not a single product: the Asani and Asani Mini vending machines, the mobile app with its Emergency Pad feature, the multi-tenant partner portal and its warehouse-to-machine inventory chain, the campus-ambassador program, an enterprise sales campaign spanning 49+ companies, the grant and investor materials, and Pakistan’s first PCOS self-assessment tool with its 700-member community. ### How much revenue did Wonder Women generate? PKR 3.7 million in its first twelve months from a standing start — across four models: machine rentals, outright sales, corporate facilitation, and campaign partnerships like #AlwaysAsani. ### Which UN Sustainable Development Goals did Ali Ahmed’s work at Wonder Women advance? Four. SDG 3 — Good Health and Well-Being, through Asani’s menstrual-health access and the PCOS self-assessment and care platform. SDG 4 — Quality Education, by keeping girls in school in a country where one in three drops out on reaching puberty. SDG 5 — Gender Equality, the core mission: menstrual equity, dignity, and dismantled stigma. And SDG 6 — Clean Water and Sanitation, whose target 6.2 explicitly covers menstrual hygiene management. ### What recognition did Wonder Women win? The HEC Innovator Seed Fund (USD 35,000 — 1 of 15 from 186 applicants, 2022), 1st place at the Entrepreneurship World Cup Pakistan and a Top 100 Global Startups placing (2021), the Falling Walls Lab Pakistan win (2021), 1st place at the Bahria Innovation Challenge (2022), a SheLovesTech regional win, and a Pakistan StartUp Cup 2021 (TiE Islamabad) regional-finalist placing — plus 21+ national media features and supportive public posts from the US Consulate General Lahore and Canada’s then-High Commissioner to Pakistan. ### How did Wonder Women partner with Procter & Gamble? Ali closed a partnership with Always, the Procter & Gamble menstrual-care brand, which launched as the #AlwaysAsani campaign in July 2022. Co-branded Asani machines ran across four Lahore campuses — LUMS, Government College University, the University of Lahore, and the University of Central Punjab — under Always Pakistan’s own line: “Access to hassle-free menstrual hygiene products is the right of every woman.” Commercial terms remain confidential. ### What is Asani? Asani is Pakistan’s first locally assembled wall-mounted sanitary-napkin vending machine, built by Wonder Women to put period products within reach inside female restrooms. The original unit holds 56 pads across four dispensing rows and accepts cash (Rs 20, 50 or 100), a 4-digit employee PIN, or app payment over Bluetooth. Asani Mini, launched in late 2023, is the smaller second tier — three rows, digital payments only. ### How did Wonder Women build a vending machine in Pakistan at a tenth of the cost of imports? By localising the bill of materials. Roughly 65% of components were produced in Pakistan — sheet metal and acrylic fabricated by Lahore vendors, plus local electronics — with about 35% imported (cash acceptors, motors, PCBs) on a two-month lead time against a five-machine buffer. Assembly ran at the Takhleeq Business Incubator: one skilled week per machine, two resources on the line, capacity for ten a week. A partner who said yes was installed within roughly two weeks. ### How did Wonder Women sell Asani to universities and corporates? By hand, at volume. The corporate book covered 49+ companies pursued through 72+ personalised proposals and follow-ups to 70+ named contacts. To shorten closes, Ali waived operational charges on the ownership model, introduced a 30-day free trial, and cut delivery from 30 days to 3. Revenue came from four models: machine rentals, outright sales, corporate facilitation, and campaign partnerships. ### Where were Asani machines deployed in Pakistan? Twenty-nine machines across 24 locations in Lahore, Karachi, Sheikhupura and Gujranwala — eight rental deployments, ten machines owned outright by four buyers, and eleven university placements. Aga Khan University Hospital was the largest single deployment at six machines. Campuses included LUMS, FAST-NUCES, Forman Christian College, GCU, the University of Lahore, BNU and the National College of Arts; corporate floors included Engro, Sapphire, NETSOL and Devsinc. ### Why did Wonder Women expand from hardware into digital health? Because the hardware exposed a larger problem. PCOS affects an estimated 52% of Pakistani women against 10–20% globally, roughly 70% of cases go undiagnosed, and 38% of infertility cases are attributed to it. In late 2023 Ali led the pivot to a digital-health platform: Pakistan’s first PCOS self-assessment tool, returning a personalised risk score in under three minutes, backed by a moderated clinical community that reached 700 members in two months and three structured care programs — Periods Asani, Weight Loss Asani and Lifestyle Asani. ### What software did Wonder Women run behind the machines? Two systems Ali owned end-to-end. The ASANI mobile app handled Bluetooth Low Energy payments and carried an Emergency Pad feature that gifted PKR 50 of credit once a month, so nobody was stranded by an empty wallet. Behind it sat a multi-tenant partner portal running the warehouse-to-machine inventory chain, refill and maintenance operations, and per-institution usage reporting — plus a campus-ambassador program with separate dispensing and maintenance codes tied to locations rather than individual machines. ### What is Ali Ahmed known for as a founder? Building and commercialising hardware in a market that mostly imports it. At Wonder Women he co-founded and ran product for Pakistan’s first locally assembled sanitary-napkin vending machine, took it from pre-revenue to PKR 3.7 million in twelve months, closed a national partnership with Procter & Gamble’s Always brand, won the HEC Innovator Seed Fund against 186 applicants, and pivoted the company into digital health. He works today as an AI Solutions Engineer, applying the same end-to-end execution to AI products. --- Rendered from the structured content at https://alioahmed.com/work/wonder-women. Facts trace to the canonical bio; render, don't reword.