Ahana Banerjee, Founder @ Clear

Welcome back to another episode of The Grad Guide. Today is a very special day. Joined by my co-host Marleen and Ahana. Ahana is the founder of Clear and she's been through YC, she studied at Imperial, she's been on a crazy founder journey running Forbes 30 Under 30, and we're very lucky to have you on.

Thank you, Peter, it's such a pleasure to be here with you both.

Well, I just want to start off, um, with getting a little bit of context and understanding of your journey up till now. So maybe starting at Imperial and your decision to actually study physics. And then everything from there.

Yeah, well, I think my decision to study physics was, uh, it was a little bit before Imperial. Um, so for me growing up, I spent most of my childhood in the UK, um, in Cheshire, and then at the age of 14 I moved to New Delhi, India, which was a big transition, you know, going from Cheshire to New Delhi. But also being a person of Indian origin but not necessarily brought up in the most culturally Indian way kind of added a whole other layer to that transition, and then at the age of 16, moved to Singapore. And again, I went to an international school, met people from all around the world. It was an incredible experience. But I think for me, it was in particular those, those 2 years in Delhi and that stark contrast that I experienced that made me very aware of just how lucky I was to have a lot of things. I have an incredibly supportive family. When I was in the UK, I went to a state school, and when I moved abroad, I went to international schools. And seeing seeing the level of privilege in these schools, seeing how great the education was, I think I felt a deep sense of responsibility to do something with this education in particular and give back. And I think in those years, I always felt that technology and innovation was the biggest enabler, and that's how you kind of empower people and lift people out of bad circumstances. And so I thought, well, if I want to innovate, the best way to do that is through science. And for me, physics was kind of the answer. And what I loved about physics was just how you could explain the world around you and just really fundamentally understand how the world works. And then of course the applications, you can use it to create great things that help people. So from about the age of 14, in that move to Delhi, was sort of when I had that, you know, I want to study physics mindset. So for the rest of my sort of high school education, I geared that around physics and, you know, chose subjects accordingly. So then when it came to uni, um, I got into Imperial to study physics. I was delighted, you know, I was on track to achieve my goal of becoming a physicist. Um, but pretty much from the first term of my first year, it wasn't quite what I expected it to be. And I took it sort of quite badly in a way, because a lot of people, I think, when they go to uni, it's sort of like, oh, I was good at this subject and I just kind of picked it to study. I really felt like I'd done a lot of the thinking and deep diving personally about like, what's meaningful to me? What do I want to, you know, how do I want to contribute? And so to suddenly have this realization that what I thought I wanted, how I thought I could be useful, is not— like, what am I going to do? And it was again that like weight of that responsibility. I've been given so much in life, how am I going to give back if it's not through physics? Um, and so that's really what led me to just trying to figure out, well, if it's not physics, what is it? And I rampantly started applying to internships, and at the time I knew nothing about anything, so I would just apply to every kind of firm. I didn't know what an investment bank was, I didn't really know what it meant to be a software engineer, um, but I was just applying to everything. And I think I was fortunate in London to be at a London uni where culturally that's kind of the done thing. People are applying for spring week, summer internships, and graduate schemes. So I applied to lots of different firms, and in the first year of uni, I got very lucky and I got a software engineering internship at Morgan Stanley, which taught me what is it to be a software engineer and what is an investment bank. And then from there, I ended up doing more internships in different fields, and of course, happy to, to jump into it. But after trying lots of different things, I stumbled across entrepreneurship. That was the first job that I did that I truly loved. That was also the first job that I did where I could really directly see the impact of my work. And from that point, it was kind of a no-brainer that I would try and find a way to pursue that career.

Yeah, before we get into the entrepreneurship journey, I'm sure there's a lot of people wondering exactly what Clear is and does. So if you could give a quick explanation about your company.

Yeah, of course. So, so at Clear, our goal is really to help consumers figure out if their skincare products are working and what to even use in the first place. Um, and we do this with a free app, uh, which is very similar to a period tracker or a diet tracker or a skincare tracker. So you log the products you're using, any medications you're on, and you take progress selfies. We then analyze the data, so the ingredients in those products, how often you use them, the combination of products, and the changes in your skin along with other parameters. So if you have acne, you know, rosacea, what your skin concerns are, what your skin types are and what your skin tones are, because that also matters. We take in all of these parameters and use it to make unbiased recommendations for consumers. And the way that we make money is on the brand side. And now, what I'm going to say scares a lot of people, but we sell the data. And the reason that I, I lead with that is because consumers should want this to happen, because the whole problem with the skincare industry is that because there has been a huge data gap, no innovation happens. And you need data to innovate. And what this means is, for years, brands have just been pushing products into the market with no idea if they're doing anything and resorting to marketing tactics. And I have suffered with my skin pretty much my whole life. And I, you know, would build spreadsheets, you know, tracking what I'm using, what's worked. I would have Google folders with my photos. Also moving countries, there was no communication between different doctors. So on the sort of what is working for me side, there was already that problem. But on the product discovery side of how do I know what to use, I would turn to Reddit, to Facebook groups. I'd go into a shop, feel overwhelmed, have no idea what to buy. And, you know, if the brands don't know if their products are effective, how is the consumer meant to know if the products are effective? And so our mission is really to help the consumer first and foremost. But the consumer can only be helped if the brands can actually innovate, which is why it's very much aligned with our mission to work with the cosmetic chemists and the R&D teams at the beauty brands to actually supply them with the product efficacy data so that they can improve formulations and in turn help the consumer. So we don't do ads, no brand can pay us to recommend a product. So, but, you know, I see Clear as an integral part of the actual product development process in the beauty industry to actually make products better for people.

So yeah, with Clear, I think you've really found something that has a lot of meaning for you and that you think you can contribute towards something. But back at uni, like when you were doing physics or these other internships, like what about entrepreneurship was it that you discovered that you knew like that was really for you compared to like physics and maybe more traditional paths like investment banking or software development?

There were 3 things. The first was from doing all of these different internships, I started to learn about my own values and what was important to me. And what I realized, the thing that I valued most from this stage of my career, my early 20s, was learning. More than work-life balance, more than salary, more than who I worked with, more than where I worked with, or where I worked, it was how much can I learn and how quickly can I learn. And what I love about entrepreneurship is that you are constantly learning. You're learning about things you didn't even expect to learn about. And because I knew that was the most important thing for me, When I did my first job in a startup, I couldn't get over how much I was learning, and I loved that. The second thing comes back to that impact point. There aren't that many jobs, and especially when you compare to a large organization, a large investment bank, a large tech company, of course you impact millions of lives, no doubt, you know, because just because of the sheer scale. And there are many ways to have an impact. A startup is certainly not the only way. But I think that satisfaction of directly seeing your impact and seeing that I can use my education, my skills to build something and see how it has helped someone else is incredible. And, you know, the first startup that I worked in was actually in the student graduate recruitment space, and I was a student at the time. I knew how hard it is to get an internship, to get a graduate job, and I was building a platform that basically helped students with that. So you connected, or we connected, students with graduate employers. And I came into the company because I was at a London uni, had access to lots of students, I could code, so I built the platform. And because of my own career pursuits, I had the connections with the early careers recruiters at all these big companies. And I still remember that feeling of that first person that I had brought onto the platform that I had built, getting a job at a company that I'd brought on, and seeing how happy they were and how relieved they were, and realizing that I had a hand to play in their happiness was such a rewarding feeling. So I think the second reason was definitely that rewarding nature and the impact that you see on people's lives. And the third is I've always been a generalist in my skill set. So although I love maths and physics, which is why I studied it— well, I don't love it so much now, but I did at the time— I also loved a lot of other things. And in high school, I did the IB program, which is much more holistic. You do more subjects. And yes, I did high-level maths and physics. I also did high-level English literature. I was really into philosophy. I enjoyed my languages. And I felt that with a lot of the other careers that I tried, they very much favored specialists or, you know, very, a very high level in one specific area. But I've always seen myself as kind of good enough at everything. I'm not the best at anything, and I'll be the first to admit that, but I can do everything to a good enough standard. And again, it comes down to that learning. I love learning about lots of different things. And this was the first time that I was doing a job where Some days I was writing code, some days I'm pitching investors, some days I'm throwing events in London, getting students to sign up, some days I'm talking to lawyers, making sure we're GDPR compliant. You know, there's so many different parts to the job, and I love that I get to learn about so many different things. And I think there's very few career choices that give you that kind of breadth in, in your day-to-day.

I think if I could propose maybe one more thing from something you said earlier, that might be why you fell in love with entrepreneurship. Let's see, we were talking just beforehand about, uh, you being 24 and being listed amongst some illustrious names on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and me sort of being like, wow, that's amazing, like, how do you even sort of get to that point by that age? But you were saying you were conscious of your career and the impact you want to have at 14. You know, that's a sort of a heavy burden to carry for, for that long, you know. To always be thinking. Like, when I was 14, I don't know what I was doing, you know, I couldn't tell you what I was doing. I definitely wasn't thinking about how I could have an impact on the world through physics. But I mean, I think I've found, you know, since really trying to dive into careers and find out what's right for me, is that entrepreneurship at this age gives me, like you said, the fastest learning curves. It gives me the opportunity to network with different amazing brains and And I guess you just came to that realisation very quickly, like you weren't content with what physics was offering you in terms of being able to give back quickly as well. So it's really cool that you've actually ended up solving a problem that's close to home as well.

Yeah.

And yeah, I want to ask you about, you know, the difference maybe in that startup you're working for, which, yeah, you probably would have been passionate about, but versus something that's been with you your whole life You know, it's not so much a nice to have, it's a must for you. So how's that motivation?

Yeah, you know, I think that there's often a question in entrepreneurship about like, do you have to be passionate about what you're working on? And I would actually say no, you don't have to. And the reason for that is different things drive different people. As I've shared, impact is very important to me. I would say my investors probably wouldn't want to hear this, more so than money. And that therefore it's extremely important to me that I pick a problem to solve that I care about. However, there is also another side to this, that because I'm so deeply invested personally in the problem, I also have a slight competitive edge when it comes to solving it. Because as compared to your average software engineer, I can also have in-depth conversations about skincare. I fundamentally understand the issues. I have a network of dermatologists through my own skin issues. All of these are competitive advantages when it comes down to it. So I can do all of the coding that a software engineer can, but I can also— I have the domain knowledge through my own struggles. So I think for me, it keeps me incredibly motivated to see the impact my own company has had on my life. I actually had a kind of an episode in December where I had a massive flare-up and maybe I can share pictures with you. I don't know if you can put it on the screen, but it's rather unsightly, so you might want to trigger warning. But I had the worst breakout of my life and it was awful. I'd just gone to India for a family wedding. I hadn't seen these relatives in years and they were asking my mum, they were like, what's wrong with her? And it was really— it was terrible and it was so painful. And I went to the dermatologist in India. Fortunately, I was able to see one straight away, but I was, you know, 1,000 miles away from my dermatologist in the UK. And it was a weekend, like I didn't know what to do. And at first she said, oh, it's a contact dermatitis. You like rubbed your face or you put something on it and it's flared up. I said, no, I have not. I can— I promise you, I have not put anything new on my face. I haven't rubbed it. It's developed naturally over this time. And she's like, what do you mean it's developed like over time? Because I have clear— I was taking pictures as it was developing. And she said, okay, fair enough. That doesn't look like contact dermatitis, but I think you're still using an ingredient in your products that's probably sensitising and you've developed an allergy. And I said, I am not using any products that are sensitising. And she said, I don't— well, I don't know what you're using. I said, don't worry, I can show you. And then being, you know, in India, she didn't recognise the products. They weren't available in India. So she said, well, I don't know. I said, again, don't worry, we've got the ingredients list on the app. You can check yourself. She did. And then she said, okay. Fair enough, there isn't anything in these products that could have caused this. Are you like, could it be anything else? And I said, well, I started taking new medication recently. And then she said, okay, how long have you been taking it? And again, I track every single thing on my app, how much, how like the dosage, all of, all of those details. And so then she came to the prognosis that the most likely cause is a side effect to this medication, which was completely different from what she said at the start of that appointment without the context. And in the end, she prescribed me an antibiotic in the end, and it cleared up within a week. And it was like a miraculous transformation. But that wouldn't have happened unless I had come prepared to that doctor's appointment. And my mum was in the appointment with me and she was being a proud mum. She was like, it's her app, it's her app. The dermatologist didn't realize. She thought I was like using the app. She was like, yeah, yeah, it's good. But like, here's the the diagnosis. So, so just seeing in my own situation how having everything ready led to the correct diagnosis, which led to the correct medication, and then it cleared up. And I was having the same conversation with a friend a couple of weeks later, and she was telling me she went through something very, very similar where she had this crazy flare-up out of nowhere and she didn't have everything ready. The dermatologist could not therefore prescribe the correct medication and she had to deal with this for months and it was the most painful thing she's gone through. She couldn't leave the house. It was really debilitating for her. And just to hear stories like this, and then on the flip side, to hear testimonials from our users, or sometimes they'll just reach out or just say things unprompted, that's— it means the most to me, especially having gone through these issues myself. But, you know, coming back to the original question, for me, it's deeply personal. It's deeply rewarding. And I feel that my personal experiences actually make me the right founder to be solving this problem. I have the founder market fit. But I do think, you know, there's a lot of problems in the world. You don't necessarily have to have experienced them. It helps, but you know, you don't have to. And I think it's always just a question of, are you the right person to be solving this problem? And having experienced it isn't a prerequisite. Maybe you have a great network in this area, or maybe you have great resources that will allow you to innovate a lot in a given area. So, there's different factors that go into it, but I know that for me, especially given how hard being a founder is, it comes with its challenges every day, it keeps me very motivated that I love the company that I've built and that I'm continuing to build.

Yeah, I think even if you make this point, like, it doesn't really matter if you personally experience a problem, I think there is like, a definite fact that it makes for a good story, right? You can kind of say, oh, I've struggled with this like my whole life, and even now you can recite like very specific examples where you struggle with that, and then even use your app to kind of help you not being gaslighted by your doctor, just saying like, oh look, um, I'm not using any products that have harmful chemicals or something. So I wonder, like, you know, when you were at university and you were deciding to build Clear, and then you got into Y Combinator really quickly, like Do you believe that your connection to that problem, or just the way that you told that story, helped you with that? Like, what do you think at such a young age, you just got out of university, don't really have a lot of experience, like, how did you convince, you know, people at the most competitive accelerators to believe in your solution as well?

Mhm. Well, Clear was a 4-day-old idea when Y Combinator invested, and so I'm actually going to say that It wasn't the idea. Um, my journey with Y Combinator is a wild one. Um, so I, as I mentioned, you know, I did this job in the graduate recruitment space, absolutely loved the job, but I didn't— and you know, that for me, that was the turning point if I want to be an entrepreneur. And I think I was— I just turned 20 at that time, um, and I had already done internships in investment banking, consulting, and in software engineering. And so, of all of the things I tried, I was like, "This is my passion," but I didn't see myself starting my career with that specific company, with that specific team. And for me, the barrier was actually funding. I had proven to myself by doing that first startup job at the age of 20 that I could actually build a company, and I had that confidence, but that was a family-funded business. I wasn't in a position where I could go to my parents and get them to fund, um, an idea of mine. And so I thought, well, how does one get money? And I didn't know anyone that had raised funding externally, you know, as a student. So my plan was to take the graduate job that paid me the most money, save up for a couple of years, and then start my company later down the line. Um, and so that was actually my plan. So I secured my graduate jobs. I ended up— of all the things the sort of traditional routes that I did, I thought sort of the finance ones were the most interesting and would give me the most money and the best exit opportunities. So I sort of went down that route. I did my summer internship in 2020 at UBS in their investment banking division, but I actually continued applying for graduate jobs. And there's a reason that I'm sharing this. So I continued applying for jobs even though I'd secured a graduate job, And I ended up getting another offer from a private equity firm, and it was a great offer, and I probably would have taken it over the UBS offer. But what happened was COVID hit when I was in my fourth year of uni, and I had one more year to go. I'd secured these two great graduate jobs, so, you know, things were good. Parents were happy, I was happy that everything was going to plan. But because I'd quit the previous startup job, because my clubs and societies were cancelled due to COVID, I just had a lot more free time. and I thought to myself, if one day I want to start a company, why not start working on an idea now? And I— it doesn't matter, like, I've got absolutely nothing to lose. I'll still graduate, take my job, and start again properly a bit further down the line. And so the very first thing I did is I went to, like, a Zoom webinar from some, like, random VC. And at the time, I didn't know what VC stood for. The only exposure to investors I'd had was watching, like, a couple of episodes of Dragon's Den growing up. And so the worst. And so I met this. Well, I say I met— it was, it was a Zoom webinar and it was like a weird power dynamic. Let me explain. So he went by an initial, not a name, and he insisted that everyone in the audience had their cameras on while he had his off. It just made for a very weird dynamic and he was quite um, how do I say this politely, very, uh, certain in some of his statements without that much backing. But at this point, this is 100% of my exposure to investors, so I'm taking everything he says as gospel. The first piece of advice he gave is, if you want to be a founder, build a solution to a problem you've experienced. So that point I touched on earlier, his advice was quite clear on that, and I don't think that's bad advice by any means. The second thing was build B2B SaaS, because anything consumer is hard. So also harder to get investment, which again, I see where he's coming from. So then in my head I said, okay, let me stay away from anything consumer. And then third, which was very rogue and out of the blue, but he was talking about being a woman for probably the two women in the audience. And what he said was basically like, stay away from like lifestyle, beauty, wellness. Like don't do anything that's going to pigeonhole you further. Like it's going to be hard enough, don't give anyone any reasons to make your life harder. Which, again, I didn't know any better. I didn't know anything about this ecosystem. So I was like, okay, cool, not beauty, sure, fair enough. Um, and so I thought, okay, well, what's B2B SaaS? What's a problem I've experienced? And what's not beautiful? And so I brainstormed 100 ideas, and I came up with an idea that was not clear, obviously. Um, I came up with a meeting notes automation tool. So the idea was, well, the problem was I hated taking meeting notes, so the solution was an AI tool that transcribed and summarized your meeting notes. And so that was what I started working on, and that company was called Quill. And a week into working on Quill, again, I knew nothing about funding opportunities, so I literally Googled, like, how to get money for early-stage startup. And of course, Y Combinator is one of the first hits. Now, my approach to everything in life always has been and continues to be apply for everything and get rejected from most things. And I think, you know, I'm so numb to rejection, but I saw the success that came from it. As a student, I would apply, you know, I was talking about the spring weeks and the summers and the grad jobs. Yes, I secured them. What you didn't see is like I must have done 200 applications every single round. So I got 199 rejections or ghosts. One acceptance, but it's the one acceptance that matters and what unlocks the opportunities. And if I don't apply, I have a 0% acceptance rate. So I was already very accustomed to being rejected, failing at things. I didn't mind. And so I took that same approach when it came to funding opportunities, and I just started telling every random Google form for the first 5 pages of Google what I was building. And at the time, as I said, I knew very, very little about the investor landscape. I didn't actually know what Y Combinator was, I hadn't heard of it, but on their website it was one of the more legitimate-looking websites that I submitted my details to, and I recognized some of the companies that they had invested in. So I, I applied to Y Combinator when Quill was at the idea stage. So Quill was about a week old, and at that stage, of course, I'm really not expecting it to work out, but, you know, just putting myself out there. 2 months go by, still don't hear from them. At this point, I've been rejected from most, including, I think Imperial had like a £50 grant to do user interviews, I'd been rejected from that with Quill, so things weren't looking very good. And so, completely forgot about my Y Combinator application, and then I hear back from them 2 months later saying that I have an interview. So, I was already quite taken aback by that, that was the furthest I'd progressed with any of these funding opportunities I'd applied for. Um, and so then I spoke to a couple of alumni, like, tried to figure out, you know, what is it that they're looking for. And the biggest takeaway that I got from alumni was traction. You just need to show that you can get things done. Um, and at this time, I had not got much done in the way of progress. I had basically written a research thesis on the technology that I would use, but I hadn't written a single line of code, hadn't talked to a single potential customer. So changed up the strategy, just delved into writing code and talking to users, which is really the YC mantra. Um, and by the time the interview came around, I had a working sort of alpha version, and I had 5 unpaid pilot customers. However, there were some problems with this business. The first was the product itself. Um, so the problem was, I mentioned there's a transcription part to it and a summarization part, to summarizing the notes. The transcription engine was trained on an American-speaking dataset, which meant that in my accent, it didn't work. So I would be messaging these strangers on LinkedIn trying to sell them this product. I'd get on the Zoom call and I'd say, "Hi, Mohana, it's nice to meet you. I've got this tool called Quill I wanna show you. So we're just gonna press start and then we're just gonna talk totally normally and it's gonna like transcribe all of our notes and the summary's gonna appear here and then you just press stop at the end of it and you're gonna get like a perfect." And I had to do this. For it to work correctly during my demos. And I was therefore terrified because these demos often didn't go well because these people were like, what is wrong with this random girl on LinkedIn? And two, I was like, do I just pretend to be American from the start? Do I just say I went to international schools? Like, I don't know what to do. What if YC ask for a demo? Like, I was truly terrified. And I was also like, this can't be how real companies are built. Like, this just feels too silly. The second thing was, coming back to that impact point, for me, that is important. And Quill also taught me how important that is to me. I had no passion about meeting notes. It really didn't get me going. And I just thought, you know, am I the right person to build this? Like, what's stopping Google? What's stopping Amazon or Microsoft from— they have larger, better datasets, engineers that are trained in natural language processing. I've done intro to machine learning. Like, I am not— the most technically qualified to be building this either. But I was in too deep, and Y Combinator had accepted me for interview on the basis of my Quill application. So I just thought, they have liked the idea at least, let me just present to them what I have. And in fairness, you know, it had taken me 2 months to go from idea to a working product with some initial traction, which is decent progress. So the YC interviews are 10 minutes long, And there's normally 3 to 4 interviewers. It's quickfire, they interrupt you, they interrupt each other. It's a very terrifying experience. And because it was all COVID, it was done in Pacific time all over Zoom. Normally they fly you out to San Francisco to do these interviews. So I get on the Zoom call and it goes for 10 minutes, speeds by, and you have to be available for the 6 hours following the interview in case they have any follow-up questions or want to talk to you again. So my interview was at 10 PM, I had to be around till 4 in case of a second interview. I also knew that if you're successful, you get a phone call, and if you're unsuccessful, you get an email. So I'm again, not expecting it to actually work out, but there's a teeny tiny part of you that's hoping, right? So I'm clutching my phone, like praying that it rings, and about an hour goes by, and the first like, whoosh, like email notification comes through, and my heart sinks. I'm like, it's fine, I knew it was too good to be true anyway, like, and I check the email, and it's not a rejection. The question is, what is integrated master's? Like, how old are you? Are you an undergrad, a postgrad? Like, do you have a degree? Like, what's— who are you? So then I was so scared, I just remember being terrified of them. So I went on Wikipedia, I like wrote them a whole article on MSci versus MSc and like how it varies in the UK and the US. I gave way more information than they needed about what an integrated master's is. So I sent it, then another hour goes by. And then another email comes through, and every time the email's coming through, my heart's sinking. And comes through, and again, it's not a rejection, it's like one cryptic line of, "How married are you to this idea?" And so my brain again, I'm like massively overthinking everything, stressed as hell. And I had spoken to, um, an alumni, or well, a couple of alumni when preparing for the interview, and one of the younger alumni had actually told me that in the young YC founders or young founders in general, you need to be coachable and adaptable and be able to pivot and move with the markets. So it's seen as a good thing if you're actually able to see if something's not working and change it. However, I'd also spoken to another alumni who had said that they sometimes will ask really mean trick questions to see how, like, firm you are and how much conviction you have, to try and throw you off. So I'm like, which is it? Like, what do I say? Um, and ultimately I went with the truthful answer, which was, I think it's a problem that needs solving and doesn't have a great solution to yet. But if I am not the best person to build that solution, then I'm opening to pivot, open to pivoting. So sent that back, another 2 hours go by, by this point it's around 4 in the morning, and I am unbelievably stressed. And I get this long email back from them, and the crux of it is, is they were like, look, we like you, you've made a fair amount of progress in quite a short amount of time on this Quill idea, 'But we don't like your idea, so we want to talk to you again in a week. Come up with something better.' So then I had a week to build a new company, and, uh, you know, I— it was actually only 4 days between the 2 interviews with the scheduling, and it was also my last week of term because I was still a student at this point. So I had all of my master's thesis deadlines. My second interview was the 18th of December, um, 2020, and I timeboxed every single hour of that next week. I had like my brainstorming time, I had time like I'll build a landing page, from this time to this time I will do user interviews. And I didn't know what the idea was, just to be clear, I didn't have like clear already thought out and scoped out, you know, I'd picked Quill to work on, I was still studying, like I hadn't, I didn't have a backup company. So I just thought to myself, what have I learned from the two startups I've worked in, the student graduate recruitment one and this meeting notes one, what are the lessons? And I just thought, okay, I still think it's a good idea to build a solution to a problem I've experienced. So what problems have I experienced? But the second one, and what was especially missing from Quill, is, and why am I the right person to build that solution? And so I did my brainstorm, and that really was, in that hour, is where I landed on what is now Clear. But it was this problem of, I don't know which products to use. And I was, I sort of had Em like the devil in like one side being like, don't do beauty, lifestyle. But I was like, but it's a problem. It's a huge market and there's comparatively little technical innovation, which is why consumers like me get hurt. I'm just gonna go for it. And in those 4 days, I made more progress on what is now Clear than I did in the prior 4 months of working on Quill. I did, um, I built a landing page, I got over 300 signups, I did over 60 in-depth customer discovery interviews with skincare enthusiasts from Reddit groups and Facebook. Reddit threads and Facebook groups, and I built like a prototype. I even did 4 user demos the night of the interview. So I moved very quickly with Clear, and I know this is a very long answer to your simple question of why do you think YC invested, but the whole point is that I then went into my second interview, and it ends very abruptly. The interviewer leaves, and then she emails me 2 minutes later, and again, email comes through, heart sinks, but she says, are you still on the Zoom? Can I join? And the conversation was very different. She just said, you know, you tell me what you want to talk about. And I said, well, I've made some more progress on Quill, just— and I just did that to show that I could keep things moving. But I've actually come up with this new skincare app idea that I'm actually a lot more— I have a lot more conviction in, and I want to talk about that first. So we did. Then she leaves the Zoom, then she comes back, and she comes back and she's like, so yeah, I just spoke to my colleague. The batch starts in 2 weeks. Incorporate a company in the US, open a bank account, leave your degree. "See you then. Do you have any questions?" So I was dazed, confused. My first question was actually, "Are you sure?" And my second question was, "So do I do the meeting notes thing or the skincare thing?" And she was like, "Well, it's your company. Figure it out." And I think that last sentence is crucial because they weren't investing in the idea. What they were investing in is the founder who has proven that they can move quickly with changing circumstances and get things done. And so, all that to say, I think when building a company, that's the most important thing. Ideas are cheap, anyone can come up with a good idea. The difficulty is actually in the execution. And I have to, like, I can only assume that's what they invested in, because at that point, there wasn't much to show for the actual idea or the company.

Yeah, I love that story. It's, uh, It's very, very, very inspiring. And, um, I think one thing I found really interesting there, um, and my sort of journey into entrepreneurship, is sometimes you feel like you've got not enough time, and sometimes you feel like you've got all the time in the world. And like, it's really hard to give yourself that structure, or like that feeling like you might get from an exam, like you're backing up against the wall like that. You're so locked into a project. And it seems like those 4 days of almost like— you'd call it deep work work, really, where you were like fully immersed in the problem, has now set you up for, you know, a longevity of some working on something you're truly passionate about. And, and I think, I, I wonder how, um, actually YC cultivated your, your work ethic as a founder, um, because you're working, operating as a student, which is very different schedule in a day, different tasks. And I think for me and young founders, I think, yeah, we could really use some advice on that.

You know, I think that for all the things that I didn't like about my degree, which I didn't like at the time but I'm grateful for, is I actually had a very, like, disciplined schedule at uni because my degree was so hard, frankly. Like, I was— I struggled very much academically during uni, and I had no choice but to study round the clock. And so I have already, like, I've always been quite self-motivated, self-disciplined, and able to like put, put discipline in place and have a routine even if no one is telling me to. Um, and so I think it was that, like, I had that same intensity when I applied to YC as I did when YC started. And the most companies, those 3 months are the most intense period of your life, or so YC say they should be. But for me, this was actually my first ever full-time job. Like, I've now, you know, I ended up dropping out of my master's. And coming back to the point I made earlier, actually, about getting those two graduate jobs, the reason I shared that was because, as I said, YC, one of the things was I had to leave my degree, which is also not a trivial decision to make, just to like leave your degree with nothing in your fourth year as well. I was half, I just had just six months left. So what ended up happening was I had done an optional bachelor's thesis in my third year, and not because I'm like a visionary or whatever, it's because I wanted to get out of doing some extra maths exams. So there was like a thesis option or maths exams, and I picked thesis. So I had fulfilled the requirements to graduate with a bachelor's degree, but because I had these two competing graduate job offers, I was able to negotiate with both of them and get two-year deferrals. On both of them. So what it meant is that I could actually leave my degree, still get a bachelor's, which is what I needed for my graduate jobs, and have 2 years to try the company. And if the company fails, I still have my— what was actually my plan A in place. I just take my graduate job, work for a couple of years, start down the line. The other thing is all of my professional experiences were in quite intense environments, so my banking hours were absolutely ridiculous. But again, what that taught me was how to work very long hours and how to stay professional at all times. You know, I was doing these YC interviews, these communications at like 2 in the morning, 4 in the morning. And for a lot of people, just that in itself is like enough to shake someone. But I had just done my, you know, investment banking summer internship where I was having to work and be professional in the middle of the night. And I think that again, that discipline and that approach, you know, for me, working means working hard. There is no other way that I have worked before. And so I think the fact that my first full-time job out of uni was Y Combinator, which is one of the most intense environments, set that as the precedent for me. And so I have tried as much as I can to maintain that cadence and maintain that intensity in my work. And I think, you know, I'm really proud of the work we've done. We're a relatively small team. A lot of people don't realize it's just two of us. And for a long time, it was just me writing all of the code, doing all of the fundraising, the business development. But I think one big advantage you have as a young founder is that you don't really have any other responsibilities outside of your work, and you can just outwork someone that has a family or has kids or has, you know, people that are dependent on them. And I'm very lucky not to have that. So I can actually just put everything I have into my work. And it helps that I love what I do. Again, there's many challenges, there've been many, you know, both ups but also downs. But even in the worst times, I've always just asked myself, would I rather have picked the alternative? If I'm like constantly, you know, fundraising was probably the worst part of my journey as a founder. But even in the worst times of fundraising where I've sacrificed my physical health, my mental health, all of this, which I wouldn't recommend, and it's also something I'm working on and trying to gain a better balance, which is a different topic. But I just ask myself, would I have rather I picked, for me, what was the easier option? Not to say taking a banking job is easy by any means, but for me, you know, this traditionally safer option. And my answer is always no. And I love what I do. I love not just that I get to be a founder, but I get to build Clear, which is like the company of my dreams. It's so personal to me, um, that like that also keeps me disciplined. And as I said, there are so many different tasks, so if I guess get like sick of coding for hours, there is still a plethora of other work that I can do. And, and that's what I love. Some days I'm making TikToks, some days I'm writing code, some days I'm talking to people.

And my final question to you, you've been an amazing guest, and I, I know you earlier on the episode you mentioned when you were, when you were much younger, that you always thought you were going to be a physician. And yeah, you might have had a certain idea of what a successful career would look like then. Obviously, fast forward, having been through a lot of different industries and your founder journey, how has that definition of success in your career changed and what is it now?

That's a great question and something I've thought a lot about recently. And I'm going to give you the most cliché answer that where I'm at now with it is success is in the journey. And the reason I say that is because the goalposts of success keep moving. When I was a student at school, getting into Imperial to study physics was my definition of success. Then when I was at Imperial and was applying to internships, then getting my Morgan Stanley spring week was success. Then converting the spring week into the summer was the success, and then getting the grad offer after that was the success. And so with every success, career milestone, the goalpost has moved. And if I attach my happiness to my career successes, I will by definition never be happy because the goalpost is constantly moving. Again, then at one point success was starting a company, then success was getting into YC, then when I was in YC it was like actually building the company, then once I built the company it was success was raising money, then success was making the right hires, then success is securing the right partnerships. So when I look at myself today, by my definition of success 5 years ago, I'm incredibly successful, sure. But do I wake up every day and I get out of bed and go, gosh, I'm such a success, like I'm so successful? Of course not. There are so many milestones that I am still focused on and need to achieve. And so I think what success means to me now, having had this realization that it's not actually about the milestones, is it actually is about the day to day. And for me, it's living true to my values. And I'm very clear on what those are. For me, there are three. The most important thing in my life is my closest relationships, my family relationships, my relationship with my partner. That's one thing I will never and have never sacrificed, even in the most pressing of work times. I'm not willing to sacrifice those. The second, which is a new one as of the past year or so, is my health. Because I was sacrificing my health for my company. I wasn't sleeping. We're fully remote, which means I would be often working till the middle of the night. I can actually work and stay focused for long periods of time, so I would take advantage of that, and I wouldn't leave my desk. I would not move a muscle. I wouldn't eat proper meals, and it really impacted my health. And I saw the effects, and I thought, if I'm not here to build this company, then, you know, what's the point in working like this? So now my second priority is my health and my third is my work. And so it's not to say that now I don't care about my work. My work is still extremely important to me. But the reason that I've defined these three is because it also helps me realize what is a nice to have and what can I actually go without in life. And I have a lot of interests and hobbies. I used to play in a rock band at uni. I used to play on the League of Legends team at Imperial, so I had a lot of interests. And I enjoyed these things. Obviously, I like hanging out with friends, I like socializing, but I've come to realize I can live without it. And in an ideal world, I would have everything, but the reality is some sacrifices need to be made. And I've realized I can't sacrifice my family, I can't sacrifice my health, and I can't sacrifice my work. I can sacrifice my socializing time, I can sacrifice my music career, I can sacrifice my League of Legends playing. And so for me, it's actually living true to those 3 values. At the end of every day, have I called my mum? Like, have I spoken to my family, made time for them? Have I done something physical? Have I gone on a run? Have I lifted some weights? You know, and I genuinely enjoy that. Um, and have I had a good day at work? Like, have I achieved what I set out to achieve? And for me, if on a day-by-day basis I feel like I have lived true to what I said I would do, then for me that's what success looks like now.

Love it. Marlene, thanks very much for co-hosting. Thanks very much for coming on. Really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to chat with you both. Great.