Empowering skincare with Ahana Banerjee, Founder at Clear (YC W21)

Welcome to the 3rd edition of CheckPod, our weekly newsletter brought to you by Fitcheck. Here; we will engage with industry pioneers, startup founders, venture capitalists, and corporate executives in discussions about innovation, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and much more.

At?Fitcheck, our goal is to build a superapp for sustainable fashion. We empower fashion resellers with social media-like features for promoting their products. Resellers can earn points by reducing carbon emissions, which are redeemable for cultural activities or donations to NGOs. We're backed by?Draper University,??Tü ?ekirdek,?Esade, and?Microsoft for Startups.

In this edition, we're pleased to introduce Ahana Banerjee , the founder and CEO of Clear , a unique skincare app. Ahana’s path began with a Physics degree at Imperial College London and spanned diverse internships before transitioning to the startup space. Personal experiences combined with learnings from Y Combinator resulted in Clear. Discover Ahana's compelling entrepreneurial journey and the story behind Clear in this episode.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

My name is Ahana. I'm the founder & CEO of Clear . I've been running the company for about 2.5 years now. Prior to this, I was pursuing my physics degree at 英国帝国理工学院 . When I started that, I really thought I'd become a physicist. I tried a bunch of different career paths during university. I did internships in software engineering, investment banking, and also in early stage startups, that's kind of where I found my passion. Ultimately, I was very lucky to have Y Combinator invest in my company while I was still a student.

What’s Clear?

Clear is a skincare app. I’ve suffered a lot over the years with my skin and not knowing which products to use, not knowing if they’re working and I’ve really bad cystic acne.

It was always very frustrating that I had to build my own trackers for this.

So, I have spreadsheets with all the different things I've tried, with my progress pictures linked, and updates on how my skin was doing.

I thought to myself; we have diet tracking apps, period tracking apps, exercise tracking apps. Why isn't there a good skincare tracking app?

That was also part of the reason why I wanted to build it and actually tie together the two sides of tracking the routine and using that tracking data to find other people with similar skin types and concerns.

I can then look at their tracking data, see what's worked for them, and that underpins our recommendation algorithm. We take all these data points and use them to make recommendations based on what's actually worked for someone with skin like yours.

How has your Physics degree influenced your entrepreneurship journey?

Interestingly, as I mentioned earlier; I'm not sure I would have discovered entrepreneurship if I hadn't pursued my Physics degree and enjoyed it so much.

I think it was the fact that I didn't enjoy my degree, which ultimately led me to try lots of different things and figure out what I wanted to do & how I could use my skills positively.

On a practical note, I'm incredibly grateful for the skills that I learned on the degree.

The biggest one being learning how to code.

So, I think learning that on the degree was really valuable because it now means as a founder, when it came to building my own app I could do it.

I really like the fact that I can still be involved in the development process alongside our other engineers now.

Another aspect of physics is that it's a great subject in terms of stimulating curiosity.

I'm not using math and equations to solve a problem; I'm using user interviews and iterating. But there's still the process of looking at the data, looking at the metrics, conducting an interview, figuring out what's going wrong, and then iterating.

I think the last point is on resilience because the degree was hard, to be very honest.

So, in the same way that I pushed through those three and a half years of my Physics degree, I push through every day as a founder now.

How has Quill contributed to your journey with Clear?

Quill was the company that I first started working on in the summer of 2020. That's when I learned a whole lot about startups.

All I knew is that I wanted to solve problems and use technology to do so.

I was also at the time under the impression that B2B is the best way of building a company. You know, it's easier to sell to companies than it is to individuals; which I'm not sure is even true.

However, I think one or two VC talks that I sat in said that. Then I was like; okay, I guess I've got to build a B2B company.

So, the thing that I disliked most about my banking internships was the fact that I spent all day taking notes. I thought if I could automate this process, that would be nice, and there's no clear market leader.

So I had this idea, I didn't do any kind of market validation & I just thought: "Yep, I've experienced the problem. I don't like taking meeting minutes. I'm gonna jump into building a solution for this and then I'm gonna figure out how to sell it, and figure out what the product should really be."

What happened is; on one side, the product wasn't very good. And in terms of selling it, I realized that I didn't know who I was selling it to.

Once I identified that I wanted to sell to product managers at various tech companies, I realized I didn't know any, and it'd be really hard to do that.

So, I think I learned a lot about the notion of playing to your strengths and leaning into something that you do know well, and also the importance of iterating & not just building a product, crossing your fingers, and hoping for the best, and then wondering why nobody wants it afterwards.

That really guided my decision making with Clear. Before a single line of code was written, I spent three months basically doing upfront due diligence, doing in-depth user interviews, understanding the market, understanding exactly who I'm building this for, and it was certainly the right approach to go.

Lots of lessons came out of it. Ultimately, I applied to Y Combinator with Quill. That's what got my foot in the door. I did my first interview with YC with Quill, and they came back to me saying, "We like you, but we don't like your idea. So we want to talk to you again in a week. Come up with something better."

During that week, I took all these lessons; and as I said, I wasn't super keen on Quill, not because it's a bad idea, but because I wasn't the right person to build it.

So, I really thought about what I could build better than your average software engineer. And then Clear was born. The rest is history.

What inspired the idea behind Clear?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I am very much on my own skincare journey. I've had acne pretty much since I was 12.

It's tough; physically, emotionally, and mentally. Skin issues are one of those things where it's still a bit taboo to talk about.

Because of the emotional side, I spent many years on various online communities on Reddit, on Facebook; following every skincare influencer on social media, trying to learn as much as I could, and finding solutions.

This journey also helped me realize that the community drives the answers. Now, two years in, when community is ubiquitous and everyone is talking about building a community for XYZ, starting to build Clear wasn't the obvious thing to do from an outside perspective.

But from someone who has spent pretty much every day of the last 10 years on these online communities, it was the obvious play. Yes, people like recommendations. Yes, people will see a doctor.

However; ultimately, people want to do their own research, people want to find and connect with others who've shared experiences, and I knew that from day one.

So, building a tool with the tracking feature that is also built into a community was always quite central to what we wanted to achieve.

How was YC?

My YC experience was incredible. In the most literal sense, it's the reason that I'm able to build this company at this stage of my career.

If it wasn't for YC, I would have probably finished my degree and been doing my grad job right now, which is not to say it's a bad path, but YC is an accelerator, and it truly has accelerated my career by about 10 years.

The program is great in terms of the advice they give you; it's a very structured learning program.

The community is another thing. Being a part of that ecosystem and recognizing as a founder, it can be a lonely journey. It's not an easy journey; and having a support system of founders, peers who understand what you're going through, is incredibly valuable.

I feel so fortunate that by doing YC, I've had that essentially since day one of my journey as a founder.

Could you share key takeaways from your YC experience?

The first thing is the mantra of "talk to users and write code." It's that focus on iterating and letting your users guide what you're building.

I think the second thing is that being a good person gets you a long way.

When I first went into YC, I wasn't sure what to expect.

I had seen The Social Network, and I was under the impression that founders are kind of aggressive. But I was astonished, not only at how successful a lot of the people there were but also at what good people they are.

A lot of them are driven by the desire for impact and change, eager to use their education and skills for positive ends. They're generous with their time and ready to help others, something I truly admire in the YC founders.

I'd love to embody this spirit in my own day-to-day actions, supporting the upcoming generation of YC participants or prospective founders.

Another key takeaway is just that it’s never easy.

Knowing how to ask questions, being open about vulnerabilities, and staying calm in tough times are critical. There's always a positive way out, even on the worst days. This perspective has greatly helped me.

They share many stories of their most successful companies having been incredibly broken in the early days, but their diligent, quick, and iterative approach pulled them through.

Who or what inspires you the most?

I would say it's my dad. He's had a successful career without attending a top-tier university. Witnessing his progress from our family's humble beginnings to his achievements today has greatly influenced my own work ethic. His positive attitude even in adverse situations is truly inspirational.

This ability to remain positive and confident, even in tough times, has helped me remain grounded and not take the ups and downs of startup life too personally.

How do you incorporate sustainability in your daily life?

I think there are sort of two ways of looking at sustainability.

One is sort of like the practical climate kind of stuff, you know, just being generally conscious.

The other side is like, how do you sustainably function as a human being? How do you make sure that you can keep contributing and working in a way that's sustainable? I think about both quite a bit.

On the latter point, how do I live a sustainable lifestyle? I think I try to have as much balance as I possibly can.

This means that I work sincerely, and I get all my work done, but I also have my non-negotiables in life. My health and my family are like the two most important things outside of my work. Also, being aware of what isn't as high priority, there is some sacrifice that comes with a job like this.

For example, hanging out with friends, a lot of people in their early 20s, this is the time to party. Sadly, that hasn't happened as much. Or you know, my music, see my guitars in the back.

But I think just knowing that, like; yes, I've sacrificed that, but I'm also okay to sacrifice that, and knowing what I wouldn't be okay to sacrifice.

I wouldn't be okay to work myself into a bad health condition or neglect the most important relationships in my life for the sake of a job. That's not something I'm prepared to do.

On the more tangible sustainability point, simple things like limiting travel. I don't drive, I don't do any of that. I love remote working, our team is fully remote.

Even from a company perspective, we want people to make better choices. We don't want people buying products, wasting money and product; it's also really bad for the environment, the amount of packaging in the industry.

So, if you're buying better products that you actually use, there's a lot less waste generated.

Sustainability impacts all of us in many ways. For me, I kind of see it in these two different ways; here is like the practical stuff with what I'm achieving with the company. The company goals, and the culture that we have; but also from a personal level of how I can run myself as a person sustainably.

What are you listening or watching to these days?

I've been listening a lot to the Stephen Bartlett Diary of a CEO podcast.

More recently, as I mentioned with my own skin; I've been trying lots of different things. I work with a nutritionist actually, to try and improve my gut health and hence my skin.

I watched a podcast recently, and it's terrible that I've forgotten her name; but it's all about fasting as a woman and how the female body works, the benefits of fasting, health benefits, but also mental benefits. And that's kind of got me back into these podcasts.

Normally, I don't really listen to too many podcasts, I'm more of a music kind of person.

Quote that you love?

I don't know if it's an exact quote, but it's more of a notion or a statement, is that failure and rejection are signs that you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.

I think that's more of a lesson that I've learned consistently after being rejected from just about everything you can imagine.

Realizing that without putting yourself out there, trying & failing, you're never going to grow and learn.

That's a choice, you don't have to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation, but you often learn a lot from them. If you don't want to learn, that's fine; you're entitled to make that decision.

But for me, I do want to learn as much as I can from this stage of my life. To do that, I need to push myself, and that's a choice.