You know you're innovative when you find yourself more or less alone in a global industry worth over US$12 billion - with a product no one else has thought of.
Even more than that, imagine being a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) alone in a global industry growing at seven per cent a year, with a unique product relevant to more than 520 million people - a product that also makes compelling environmental sense.
That's exactly where Confitex co-developers Dr Mark Davey and Frantisek Riha-Scott find themselves as they seek to take their incontinence lingerie business to a $100 million global company in the next five years.
Often called "the silent epidemic", incontinence - also known as slippage or leakage when sufferers involuntarily pass a small amount of urine - is a hugely common condition. One in three women and one in 10 men globally experience it, many of the latter prostate cancer patients, but it is rarely mentioned.
Some studies show 70 per cent of people affected won't even discuss the matter with their doctor; others estimate about half of all women in the US are affected, especially after childbirth.
"It's taboo; people don't talk about it and therefore it doesn't exist," says Davey. "It's like depression or other medical conditions people don't want to talk about because there's some perceived social stigma. But, like depression, people are starting to talk about incontinence; it's more widely acknowledged now."
Confitex may have played a role in that. Their watershed appearance at New Zealand Fashion Week in 2015, with models sporting sexy lingerie that tackled incontinence, went global; Davey says sufferers in many parts of the world noted Confitex incontinence underwear is washable and fashionable and not remorselessly utilitarian and disposable, like adult diapers or pads.
Disposable diapers not only take up to 500 years to biodegrade, they make up as much as 15 per cent of all landfill waste globally.
Washable and re-useable underwear not only keeps about 1500 pads per person per year out of landfills, according to Davey, it is far cheaper. The annual cost of pads for moderate incontinence sufferers can be up to US $2000 a year versus the cost of several pairs of Confitex underwear.
Confitex's story has come to light with the release of the 2017 Suncorp New Zealand Business Success Index which, among other things, looks at innovation and how New Zealand businesses feel about risk - how they see themselves evolving over the next five years after making their first, innovative steps.
The research shows about half of SMEs (representing 97 per cent of New Zealand businesses) believe risk can push a business to improve and grow and that, if no risks are taken, a business will not realise its potential - a theme echoed by Cecilia Robinson, co-founder of My Food Bag, who said at the launch of the Suncorp index: "Innovation is super-important; it's at the heart of what we do, as is managing the risk that comes with innovation."
Suncorp's executive general manager of claims, Jimmy Higgins, says New Zealand businesses are some of the most innovative in the world: "I think there is good opportunity here to test ideas, concepts and products and then to take them out of New Zealand, and take a calculated risk."
Like many innovations, Confitex's products sprang from another idea. Davey and Riha-Scott were both alpine ski racers. They had fastened onto the fact there were no 'high-performance' sports underwear for such athletes: "Briefs and boxers were pretty much the norm."
After conversations with friends and family their course was diverted into high-performance underwear of a different sort.
Their major competition comes from multi-national giants Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson - though they make disposables only.
"Our product is so different and our advantage is also that we are so nimble," says Davey. "We can sell to channels they can't and we move faster than them; they are giant vertically integrated multi-nationals who, in some cases, own everything from the forests to the finished product. So it is a typical David-and-Goliath, New Zealand underdog story."
Not so underdog these days. Confitex's direct distribution model has seen them gain attention in the big UK market (about 30 per cent of their revenue) and grow their presence in the US.
The underwear involves three layers of textile technology woven together with high-end fashion design. Moisture is transferred away from the body, absorbed in a middle layer, with the outermost a breathable waterproof layer. The underwear is machine washable and odour-free, so "you can wear them all day, every day, and don't have to change, like you do with pads or diapers".
As a SME with staff growing from 4 to 13 in recent months, Davey says New Zealand's economy would be improved if the country backed its start-ups as it does its sports teams. He also maintains more access to capital is needed for high-growth export companies.
"The two go hand-in-hand, really," he says. "We need to embrace start-ups the way we do our sporting successes. We'd be richer as a culture and an economy if we focused more on the great things start-ups are doing on the world stage."
A by-product of that would be more capital investment attracted to such companies: "Kiwis are great at innovation but we have only comparatively shallow capital pools. We are not very good at commercialising our innovations - often because the capital isn't there.
"That's why the game plan for a lot of such companies is to sell early or raise capital offshore - because they don't have the capital or backing here in NZ it takes to realise their global opportunity.
"Much of Kiwis' investment philosophy is aimed towards buying a first or second home - because that's safe. But if we changed that kind of thinking and invested more in our start-ups and SMEs, long-term we would be helping New Zealand's success much more."
For more information go to suncorp.co.nz/from-risk-to-reward.html
Watch: How important is innovation in a business?